Violet's Tale

               Violet's Tale is my first completed project. While I was working on another project my ten year old daughter came in and watched and said she wanted to play  "my game. " My first thoughts were "too hard," "too long," "too much combat." So I decided to make a game for her and this is the result. Violet's tale is purposefully aimed at pre-teen girls. The game took my daughter 3 1/2 hours to finish. I intentionally wanted to make a game short enough for my daughter to finish since other computer games she has started she has never completed. Each character starts with 2 skills and ends with 3 or 5 depending on their class. Again, I wanted there to be choices, but an easy learning curve and time to experiment with powers (characters end the game at level 7), All combats are scripted. There is absolutely no random grinding in the game. I wanted the game never to get boring because combat repeats itself ad infinitum or makes up 90% of the gameplay. Violet's Tale is a classic turn based role playing game. I'd say exploration, combat, and dialogue/text are probably roughly equal in terms of game time. I wanted for there to be meaningful choices. At two points the player must choose an extra party member and are stuck with them throughout the game. Regardless of whom the player chooses, they'll end up with a balanced party of two sisters (who focus on magical powers) and two animals (who are the game's warriors.) Also at certain junctions the player must decide what to do with some quest items. There is no right or wrong choice, but there are different results. As a caveat, I'd like to say I'm not a talented artist, musician, or scripter, but its my love for rpgs and my lifelong joy of running pen & paper rpgs and playing computer games which led me to buy Rpg Maker VxAce and eventually to make this game. My daughter enjoyed the game, so I thought I'd post it here for anyone else who'd like to try it out (either for themselves or a daughter, niece, et.).

               The village of Greenfield is threatened by bandits and the village elder sends his granddaughter to find Violet the Druid, an experienced and well known member of the Sisterhood of Steel, an organization of female adventurers dedicated to helping those in need. Violet travels first to enlist help and then to free the village. On her way she encounters other dangers and people in need of help.

*This game feature's Yanfly Core Engine and Battle System.

* Most of the graphics are courtesy of Pioneer Valley Games.

* This game also features Amaranth's Simple Mouse System. Playing the game mouse only is somewhat cumbersome, but using a combination of the mouse and arrow keys works pretty well.

*I bought and included alot of music in this game from Zonderland, Joe Streudler, Kain Vinosec, Jacob Bind, Kairi Sawyer and Pioneer Valley Games.

Looks freaking awesome! gonna give it a go

Great! I hope you enjoy it!

Looks unique! I think I'm gonna try it out B)

Cool! I hope you enjoy it.

really beautiful gonna give it a go right now!

is hiting ESC the only way to remove letters when you're naming the dog and other characters?

No. You can also use the right mouse button. I hope you enjoy the game!

I like the idea of it being aimed at a younger age group and making it so much smaller. You see all these games on peoples shelves (or in the hard drives) these days and none of them are ever completed. Now that can be debated for hours, but some of the best memories I have are from the later parts of video games. So keep up the good work!

Thanks. My daughter had started many of the games I was playing: Wizardry 8, Drakensang:The Dark Eye, Sacred 2, and Might & Magic X. She also started a Nancy Drew Adventure game she bought. But those games only kept her attention span for a few hours. This was the first game she finished. Now she has started Knights of the Old Republic and is about 8 hours into it. I think actually playing and finishing a game was a good experience for her. I'm working on something a little bigger now, but am still trying to keep grinding and repetitive experiences to a minimum.

I had a friend in high school who did a research paper on a subject rather similar to that, but in adults as well. It was pretty much about people never finishing games, books, or TV shows and everything that entails.  So as an aspiring game maker myself I think you helped me figure out something very important that's been bothering me. Quality over quantity. Thank you, haha.

Its interesting, as I've now funded a lot of kickstarters and early access games and been active in a lot of their forums. There are two kinds of gamers in these forums. There are many like us who want quality over quantity. But there are some in the other camp, who absolutely dislike short games and who want to invest 50+ hours in a game. I'm not sure if financial reasons play a factor or if they want to fall in love with a game and try out everything that can be done in the game. These people tend to want a big game with a lot of options.

I agree with you 100% there, and while I do enjoy the lengths games can span to these days, if the world isn't rich enough, if the content can't hold my attention...than what is the point? It seems they choose the lengthy games over the shorter ones simply because it calculates better, like you said financially. But that of course is just a guess. And either way both types of games and gamers have their place in the world I believe, but few are willing to attempt the quality over quantity aspect since it has a less guarantee of success and that is a shame...

Very cute, i like the way your characters pop out 3D-like i'll give it a go now <3

The beautiful graphics are from PVP Games High Fantasy Packs (1 & 2) and the battle interface is Yanfly's so I can claim no credit for them. I hope you enjoy the game.