Nothing But the Third

● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY

Started by Casia May 27, 2014, 01:14 PM 10 posts View original ↗

Casia

#1 May 27, 2014, 01:14 PM Source

After many months of working on this, I am finally proud to be able to introduce to you my second original game: Nothing But the Third. After the fairly successful launch of Casia, I decided to take on a new project. The end result has little in common with Casia, instead being a completely separate and original game with its own story and game type.

DOWNLOADhttp://rpgmaker.net/games/6379/
No RTP required
Download link updated: 8.8.2014
Features:

- About 2 hours of gameplay
- An interesting city with multiple districts to explore
- A captivating story with an underlying moral
- 4 characters with different personalities and loads of abilities
- Challening battles

World Setting

The game is set in a city called Ridoso, the entire game taking place within its borders. There are four basic districts, each very different from each other. There is also a fifth district, which serves as the central of the entire metropolis. The city has been a peaceful and wealthy one so far, but a menace is introduced that threatens the entire populace.

Story Synopsis

Immene, the main protagonist, gets infected by a mysterious intoxicating virus along with the rest of her city. Only her two closest friends, Amelie and Ted, have been spared from its effects - and it is them who manage to find an antidote and cure the city. Though this would normally be a cause for celebration, Immene feels deeply troubled by this. Amelie and Ted seem to grow closer every day, and it is this fact that allowed them both to share the immunity to the virus. Immene is becoming a third wheel and is afraid of losing Amelie to Ted.

Even as Immene begins developing dark thought towards Ted, a great conspiracy is set into motion in the city. A powerful entity has arrived and brought the magical Essence Orbs with him. Two politicians, Samis and Tario, plan to use treachery to win the people of Ridoso on their side and seize power. And then there is the secret of the virus, hanging over the people like a blanket of doom...

Screenshots

Spoiler

Characters

Protagonists

Immene
The main protagonist, Immene is a troubled young woman whose only wish is to be closer with Amelie than she is with Ted. She is angered by her new position as the "third wheel" in the three-way relationship and slowly grows desperate to patch up her relationship with Amelie. Meanwhile, a dangeorus virus is corrupting her sense of reason, making her negative emotions that much more apparent.

Amelie
Amelie is a smart law student who is close friends with both Immene and Ted. She used to be Immene's best friend, but has recently began to spend more time with Ted, which deeply troubles Immene. Amelie would want to be a good listener and conflict solver, but her skills at that need improvement.

Ted
Ted is a medical student who spends much time with Amelie and Immene... but much more with Amelie. He is resourceful and has a logical mind, but lacks skills at empathy and understanding and believes his way to always be the best way.

Dereck
A young and likeable inventor, Dereck is friends with Immene, Amelie and Ted, but does not spend as much time with them as they do with each other. Dereck is respected for his kindness and patience, as well as his great skill with technology and chemistry.

Antagonists

Rafazu
A dark entity of unknown origin, who plots against the world with the power of the Essence Orbs. Manipulative and mysterious, his true intentions remain to be discovered.

Samis and Tario
Fellow politicians and co-conspirators, Samis and Tario plot to seize power in Ridoso by unfair means and have made an alliance with Rafazu to achieve this goal. Skilled fighters, Samis and Tario are formidable opponents.
Please let me know what you think of the game by posting in this topic. Also, report any bugs or problems here as well. Enjoy the game! :)
Cadh20000

#2 May 27, 2014, 02:04 PM Source

Sounds good!
Just one bit of advice, having to do with the post's format instead with of the game. After the Characters section you have the closing tag to a spoiler, but no opening tag to it anywhere. You might want to either add the one or remove the other because right now it looks a little odd.
Casia

#3 May 27, 2014, 02:59 PM Source

Haha thanks for pointing that out. :) Fixed it.
Casia

#4 Jun 15, 2014, 07:32 PM Source

New version uploaded, with some bug fixes!
shadowchampion1

#5 Jun 19, 2014, 12:28 AM Source

Hi there cassia i am actually a new member to forums and plan on working on my own game however am trying out others to get a feel for it. i like what i have played so far of it but unless i am doing something wrong i think i may have found a bug. it is in the clothes shop that upon inspecting the plaque in the back loads the screen shot but it will not close. Saving at that point also makes it to were it keeps the shot if reloaded. just thought i would let you know as a heads up. But as of this time i like alot of what ive seen particularly the person who sells the sweeper that part actually made me laugh.
Casia

#6 Jun 19, 2014, 05:23 AM Source

Thanks for pointing that out! I found a really easy way to fix it and will upload a new patched version sometime soon. Glad to hear you've enjoyed it so far. :)
shadowchampion1

#7 Jun 19, 2014, 02:24 PM Source

Lol so i am not sure if you meant this to be intentional but your strength tablets also in Japanese. Thought i would let you know about that.
Casia

#8 Jun 19, 2014, 03:32 PM Source

Haha definitely not intentional, thanks for the shout-out. :p
Amanda Jackson

#9 Jul 1, 2014, 05:30 PM Source

Awesome! You rock sister :rock-right:
Zevia

#10 Nov 16, 2014, 02:15 PM Source

I finally got around to doing a LP of Nothing But The Third - you can find the video over at this thread. http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/25194-zevias-lets-play/

Review below:

Review

Spoiler
I had tried out Casia's other game, Casia, in a previous Let's Play, and it didn't quite draw me in. While it had some interesting concepts to it - going open world is certainly ambitious for an RPG Maker game - ultimately the lack of direction and issues with the combat caused me to be unable to get too far into it.

Casia suggested I try out a more "traditional" - which I take to mean "linear" - RPG called Nothing But The Third. I read a bit about the game in the forum thread for it, and I found the idea of the whole game taking place within various districts of a city good. Most RPGs are pretty world-spanning, so keeping the location relatively small is different in an interesting way. It also suggested that the plot would probably be intricate without being too convoluted.

The game starts out with the whole town basically being drugged into party-mode. I actually made jokes about everyone being high, but that's the actual term used in the game - everyone gets high for three days and parties, with a couple of exceptions. The two exceptions don't know why they're immune to the mind-altering fog, but they and their friend (the third wheel of the group, hence the name, "Nothing But The Third") decide to try and find out. As the investigation begins, they also discover that monsters have attacked one of the districts of the town, so clearly something dangerous is afoot.

As with Casia, I unfortunately didn't get too terribly far into the game because the combat is a bit repetitive and feels very unbalanced. Almost every enemy you encounter is far beyond your level of power and you don't start with any means of acquiring equipment, money, or skills to try and deal with them. You do start with 4 skills for each character, which is great, but they're unfortunately tied to the default TP system, which effectively means the only time you get to use them is if your character is taking so much damage that they're about to die, anyway. As a result, pretty much every battle tends to just be an attack-spamming mash fest where the enemies clearly have the advantage thanks to poisons (which you don't really have the ability to remove at that stage in the game), stuns, magical attacks, much higher health pools, and multiple attacks in a turn.

Almost every battle I encountered was an immediate game over until I happened to stumble across what I assume is the "correct" area I was supposed to go to for the story, but even the easiest enemies (rats and spiders) were capable of reducing my party to pathetically weakened states with a single attack. The first boss I encountered was so incredibly powerful compared to what I was, that even if I had more money to stock up on supplies, I would never have beaten him. I didn't even find a location to upgrade my equipment to do more damage - and leveling up didn't seem to provide me with any new skills.

I must admit, I really don't have a whole lot to say about the game - I didn't get much time to really explore or interact with much before I was punished severely for doing either. As with Casia, it seems like something that would've required a lot of grinding that I just don't have the time or the motivation to invest in.