Silver Town (Final Version)

I have some Scythuz tracks I've been listening too which I can replace that with from his dungeon pack.  

I believe that is the effect of the empowered skeleton's auto attack or cloud kill.  Cloud kill is a hefty poison which will do percentage damage.  

My Advice is to burn down his minions, and then the empowered minions.  That will lift his immortal state, and he will be able to die.  I wanted a challenging boss fight with a caster that couldn't be defeated unless the last minion standing was taken down to shift strategy a bit.  

If you check the journal it will have instructions to visit Cassandra at the well with the crown.  She'll give you something that will lead you to suspect Nidale of wrong doing, and then use to open a locked chest once Emmet's curiosity is satisfied.    

Ah thank you.  That makes all the work involved into it's remapping worth it.  Hearing that it was the least favorite area motivated me to work on it more.

Wolfe has Crippling Strike set to crit unlike the other abilities.  His natural crit chance is high, as I intended people to auto attack with him often.

Before it was Valiant Strike that was overdoing damage.  I'll have to make some adjustments and set Crippling Strike to no longer crit for the huge numbers and give Valiant Strike to a higher base.  Possibly rename it Vigilante Strike as well.  Assassin's Edge was designed for lower encounters, so I'll have to scale it up to respond to agility and lower the cost.

I really appreciate you taking a look at my game considering you're working on finishing up your own and it being a commercial project.  I am glad you've enjoyed the time spent!  

I'm still working out a few things for Restaff, and a surprise for Masteb2611.  Should people enjoy my work, I may open up a workshop for dialogue/concept, which is something that sadly gets neglected in the dev process. 

Ah, now it all makes sense. I didn't realise at first that resurrected skeletons were stronger. I just thought the liche kept reviving his minions repeatedly. Maybe to have the empowered skeletons to be a slightly different colour. I noticed now that they're slightly more yellowish than the originals, but I didn't notice it until you mentioned it.

I tried the battle a few more times, now in a more controlled fashion, making sure to keep only one empowered skellie at a time, but wow, they are powerful. I'm still dying, so I might grind up a level and try again.

I've checked out the secret cutscenes. That was a cool insight on the backstory, though the flashback cutscene looked a bit confusing. Was Heathcliff's sprite supposed to be all the way there at the top, facing away from everyone? Oh, also I am not entirely sure where to find the silver chest.

A workshop for dialogue and concepts? Interesting. I'll take a look at it when it's up.

Perhaps having a glowing aura effect around them to distinguish them?  

The silver chest is to the right of the throne.  Once you have it the undead knight in the caverns will give you the key to the store room.

Hmm what was confusing?  That they were attacking, or their dialogue?

Heathcliff does loose interest in the others and the dead bodies when the demon comes along.

Yup, one of the most underrated resources for RPGs and Adventure games, as people tend to directly write into the editor improvisation style.   

I've also seen that characters themselves tend to not be established or defined with their limited face sets or RTP character's sprites.  So people using the editor take a sprite and feel their work is done from that moment on, and the game suffers for it.

Yeah, glowing aura can work.

I've just completed the game. Awesome work there. I've beaten that liche boss by casting dispell first to remove his reflective aura and then I cast Meteo 2-3 times and that did it.

I think the encounters in the flame puzzle room are kind of annoying as they distract you whilst you're walking around trying to solve the puzzle.

The dragon and her eggs was interesting. Do you end up fighting her if you don't bring her the eggs? Oh and the legs boss fight was hilarious.

I like the idea of multiple endings. I saw the quest journal said the ending I was doing was a good ending, though I wasn't sure if that was what I got in the end since I didn't use the humility virtue in the final fight. Would something change if I do? What other endings are there?

Love the dialogue from Dalph in the inn at the end. That was pretty funny.

Just a few more typos I've spotted:

 - 'Congradulations' to 'Congratulations' in the 'Good Ending' journal entry.

 - 'If you should loose (should be 'lose')' when speaking to Lamia in the clock.

 - 'She may have constructed the crsis herself ('crsis' I assume should be 'crisis')' in the dialogue with the grave avatar.

I tend to usually write dialogue straight into the editor too. I find it easier to feel myself in the character's shoes when I've got the scene open in front of me. A blank piece of paper or a blank page in MSWord just looks too scary and kills motivation for me. But I agree about the emotion facesets being very useful to convey the emotion. It's quite offputting to have a character talk about something sad whilst their avatar shows them smiling. Lol.

Dead Avatar gives 0 cares.  I see what you mean, I thought I had picked out his neutral face.  I'll be changing that next update when the intro art and scenes are added.

I took out the multiple endings for this build, but the bad ending is in the game without the trigger active.  Had it been active and you'd gone back to Nidale without finishing Cassandra's side quest and meeting the dead Avatar you would have executed Nidale on the spot, and slaughtered the entire town's human population.  Shade would have fled with teleport to the nearby Mageocracy of Stormville and sought help.  Willard would have revealed himself as the demon's bastard child and had the cliche laugh.  Since Willard's Demon Sprite wasn't finished in time for this build I just kept the one ending.

Thank you.  I know you've finished numerous games yourself, so to hear this sort of feedback from you is extremely encouraging.  

I prefer not placing text into the editor for the simple reason of I have to stop my train of thought while writing in order to set dialogue windows and use script commands to show name tags etc.  This slows down my writing process and makes it feel like fluid when someone is trying to say a line or feel the whole scene.  Someone opened up a discussion on dialogue recently and I think Mrs Little Fish had pretty much the best idea of dialogue in that she understood relationships and how actors play off of each other's strengths and weaknesses when they talk.

And they are "actors" for a reason, they deliver the lines and preform actions.  It's major asset for RPG and Adventure gaming.  We don't have the luxury of voice acting, and the spoken word has tone behind it where the text doesn't.

The dragon was the one who cleaned up afterwards and just took everything of value.  I put her in just to have a break in the dreary atmosphere of the dungeon and break up the empty cavern, and give the player a sense of reward/feel good quest.  I never intended for the dragon to be fought. Most dragons don't bother talking if they want to attack someone.

Understood about the flame puzzle.  I'll see about disabling fights in that small portion of the map.

Oh good, I wanted to make sure that people didn't power on through directly with meteo.  If Shade is too impatient it's her undoing.

It's wonderful to see you enjoyed the complete game!  Now for some polish, and a few more pieces of art and I can call it a wrap by December 15th or so.

Oh, I didn't mean that in regard to the avatar in the game. When I said the word 'avatar', I meant the faces of characters in RM games in general. Some games don't bother to change them and use one and the same face for all of the character's emotions, which doesn't fit in some instances.

That's a pretty grim bad ending. I wonder what would push Emmet to slaughter the entire town. Might have to try out all the endings once the game's final build is done.

Very true. What I do to make that aspect of game-making easier is I simply copy the character's previous text box, paste it at the end of the event's contents and edit it as needed. That way the name tag and their face remains and you don't have to add them for each new text box you do. The only time you might need to tweak those is if you're changing the character's face to a different emotion.

I very much agree in regard to their lines needing to convey all the emotion that we're hoping the player to know about. Whenever I write any line of dialogue, I usually look at two things.

 First of all, is it even needed? I noticed that some RM games get carried away and have characters talk on and on about nothing in particular and their conversation goes in circles and repeats itself. The shorter and more concise it is, the better. Everything that's needed has to be said in as few words as possible.

 The second thing is placing yourself in the character's shoes and asking whether the intended line is something this character is likely to say or not, and if yes, then how would they say it? Things like adding pauses in speech can greatly enhance the overall feel of the dialogue (so long as these pauses are in reasonable quantity).

Yeah. The very first time I fought the liche, I tried Meteo and had it bounce back. It's good this way and makes dispell ability very useful. It's also good that this ability has a fairly big TP cost, otherwise it would've been too easy. It was only halfway into the battle I realised I could try this method and it worked.

You're welcome, man. Was this your first RM game? Because if it is, then it's pretty great for a first game.

I just startet playing the game since I heard the story is now finished, I'm still at the beginning, lighthouse and all, but I already like it. :) I was surprised about a little scene in the inn where Emmet and Willard were talking before they've gone to sleep. It was a really nice detail. I also liked the cellar under the lighthouse, nice light effects and mapping!

I still have yet to finish a project of mine, so I know how long it can take. Congratulations on finishing it!

Thank you!  I am very happy you're enjoying yourself.  The little details are the most fun to make =3  Just wait until you finish the light house, it lights up on the world map and animates!  Just wait till you get to the Undead castle, those are my favorite maps.

This is indeed my first project.  Thanks!  I really do appreciate it coming from a seasoned vet like yourself.

A quick update for those interested, as I received some questions.

The game is indeed well beyond the concept phase, though I am currently on 50+ hours a week at work.  I don't think I'll have time to put the polish on to move from Alpha to Beta until the 800 hours or so of needed progress at the new job is fulfilled.  Right now they are behind and this is a big opportunity for me to get hired perm.  I apologize for not getting the character sprites posted this time around on Restaff, so I made sure to get some modern resources done.

I have a variety of more in the works, and I'm compiling all the behaviors and down sprites for Granny to share as she has asked for them.

Right now that intro and the two cut scenes, along with one more of Nidale is something I wanna finish before end of the year.  I'll get to the last of the dialogue errors, and hopefully this pass around when I have time I'll have gotten them all.  At that moment on final release and the RMN launch, Silver Town will be unencrypted for new users to delve and examine and be a tool to learn as I intended to do so from it's inception.  It means a lot to have a functioning easy to follow game when you are learning the editor, and Crysalsis was the game that really helped me the most by looking at how things were done.

Right now the menu for the new project is done, and Venka did a lovely job with it.  I'll be starting a thread for it just as soon as work dies down in December.

You'll find Issac in the Restaff release as a DS sprite to accompany the Alma one I did.  I may get to Ezikiel next as I finish up editing Emmet and Shade.  If all goes well, I may have a quick RM side game.



Here are some four directional DS chests in the works, and I'll have plenty of recolors as well.

Looks very good. I like it a lot :)

A nice game with an imaginative world!

Beautifully made maps with a lot of edited tiles, sprites and faces!

A lot of tongue-in-cheek humour.

I really love those funny pop-up texts and party banter.

References to Dungeon and Dragons & Ultima series.

Battles become easier towards the end.

Evil Dalph (!) cameo!

Issues :

Bugs :

This game was really enjoyable and really funny despite the dark undertones.

P.S. I'm going to abduct that mushroom too! ^^

@Susan Thank you!  Very good catches.  I've fixed a few things already including Crippling Strike being available from the menu.  I really appreciate the heads up on the bugs and issues.  I've just started to go back over Alkorri and Masteb's grammar corrections to see what I missed before along with your feedback.  Much appreciated.  Once the holiday is over I'll be in a better position to post the final unencrypted version.  

The pass ability errors stars meant to be Xs- should be good in the last version.

Right now I am still on schedule for December 15th despite the car accident.  By January 15th I'll be posting the next game concept.

EDIT: AH!  It isn't a loop, it's a repeated message for all 4 conditionals.  I'll merely leave one message at the end of the event rather than at the end of each conditional.  That will fix the riddle issue.

I've taken out the victory aftermath shut off switch that caused so many crashes for people.  The game is once again XP windows friendly.  My apologies.

Stair trap can only be triggered once now.  I figured people wouldn't try tripping it a second time after learning their lesson with two alternate routes up and down before freeing the druids.  

Okay that chest was a duplicate of an event I didn't want the player to open while facing down and up.  Now I see why it wouldn't open.  Conditional of facing down has been removed.

I've compacted the three chests into one to give three antidotes instead. 

Excellent catch at backtracking after the Lackey boss battle.  Fixed now.

Currently at 92.8 Megs compressed.

Masteb I've confirmed you were correct and took into account your latest grammatical feedback again, it is fixed now for the three areas in your last post.  I've also backtracked and updated the Dragon boss with your corrections as well.  Thank you for that!  also I've addressed the impassable tiles- as they were left overs to activate skills for people with previous saves.  They are no longer necessary and removed.  I've also fixed Ivan's last portrait disappearing, good catch there.  I didn't use a full emotion sheet for him as he is a major npc and not a character.  

Scythuz's 'Sophisticated Man' has replaced the Dues Ex track which is very good since that song file even compressed was huge.  

I never intended for people to reenter the sewers, so I have removed the item icons.  The items are still there, just not marked.  The robes in the tomb will still have their icon since it is not apparent.  

Dalph that invisible event in Emmet's house is gone.  It was a left over from a previous version.  

Heya guys.  Along with some slight story changes and making the Avatar's conversation now required, I have a few things to show off.  I really found that new players were confused about how the story tied together at the end, and without Willard's new portrait and sprite for the final confrontation people didn't walk away with the complete experience.

Please keep in mind I did a huge submission for the Restaff this month, which I hope you all will enjoy.  I focused on DS materials which seem to be a rather popular pick.

Willard's Spoiler Portrait is nearly done for his Spoiler Scene.

 
Shade's Ds sprite got a make over with her hair and dress:   I've got a flying, bouncing, jumping, and swimming template in the works and will be using her as the example character.

Nidale's Spoiler for the supposed next game got a concept:

We're on track for December 15th still, despite all the craziness these last few weeks have seen.  I may be making a dialogue and concept thread in the near future as we discussed earlier, so if you have suggestions or pet peeves on RM games about bad dialogue and the like please send me a message in PM.

Saturday/Sunday's Update will see the final change log.

Oh it's been quite a week.  While I wrestle to wrap things up a few things happened.

First I apparently won the sci fi game pitch contest: http://blog.rpgmakerweb.com/announcements/sci-fi-pitch-contest-winners/

I'm currently working with an artist on some things to start a thread for the game, and a demo is already in the works.

Secondly check out this fantastic portait of Shade by NH97:



Their thread is here, and you should really consider taking a look at more of their work: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/34100-nh97s-workshop/page-4#entry342785

They did a magnificent job!

I'm a bit behind due to my job pushing me for more overtime, so I need to change the date from December 15th to January 2nd for final release.  This will give me more time to produce some art and clarify the remaining content, and maybe add in some scenes with wolf to have him get his voice during an INN scene as well.

I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you, as you made Silver Town into something much bigger than I ever expected it to be.  Thanks to that, I am working on a sequel idea and gained approval for a parody in the ARUM world.

Behold!



This piece was commissioned to Sai and she did a fantastic job.  I'm working out the application with Indrah's sub forum as soon as I get a moment.  Indrah has already threatened me with bodily harm if I abuse her babies, which is kind of like approval almost.  

Ten hour work days are wearing me down, but the money is good.

I hope you all enjoyed the resources on restaff. 

Oh, you won the contest? That's great, congratulations!  :)   Was your pitch about your actual game? Hope you have a project thread up soon.

That portrait of Shade is awesome. Good job to NH97.

I like that front cover of ST sequel too. Hehe, it looks like a spoof of FF8 front cover. :D I am not too familiar with Arum universe, but I am sure the game will turn out well and will provide a lot of laughs. Also looking forward to seeing the thread for that sci-fi game.

The final version is now available on the OP.  The game is unencrpyted so you can see how everything is done.  If you use the Universal Damage or Libra Scripts you must credit Mundy and Palladinthug.  Please feel free to share this project with people new to the editor so they can learn.  These scripts will be included in the February Restaff with complete instructions in the comments.  You may not use Shade's dialogue in them other than for testing purposes.

If you use the portraits designed for this project, you must credit Palladinthug as well as any tile set edits or specific tiles created for this project as well.

I am currently asking a mod to move this thread to complete games.

Once again thank you for all the support.  Without you Silver Town would have never evolved and grown.  I've become a better game dev because of this community, and I am grateful for it.  My first game came out decent =3

Awesome work on completing the game, man! I didn't know you did scripts.

Congratulations, palladinthug ! Way to go ~

Congratulations.  Having tried the demos a couple of times I'm looking forward to playing the final version.

And I think you do yourself a disservice.  You say that 

Based on my previous experience it is way more than just decent, and I imagine that with the final polishing it will be even better.  You have done very well.