^ Agreed.

I am really impressed with what you got. Though it's going to be a rather difficult ride if the demo was the 'easy' version. I was a wondering a bit if we were even going to make it without dying. But then again, we stopped grinding and avoided fights so we could get it done in a timely manner. So I dunno. Either way, keep up the awesome work. I'm highly looking forward to this.

keep the battle difficulty to a minimum. ive played a lot of games that punished me for playing and its no fun. at the very least you need to include a cheat feature for people who want to play your game but who dont want to endure all the battles. this way you can keep your game the way you want it but allow a greater audience to play it. a few 9999 def armors and some 9999 double attack weapons work nicely.

I have to also echo the difficulty level that was brought up. I thought the demo difficulty was perfect! Not too easy but not too hard. If that's the easier mode I'd be scared to see the final version.

It was totally surprising to see the game at such a high level of quality. A few misspellings here and there, but very well done.

Thanks for all the positive comments. It really give me modivation to keep at it.

You guys make it sound like I'm gonna make it like Demon's Souls. It seems the popular opinion is to keep the difficulty as is. I haven't even started work on the battles in the final game. The battles in the demo were more of a test. Most RPGM1 games have lower stats as Lantis commented on. I wanted to see if I could balance it okay with higher overall stats. I personally find having higher HP and attack damage more visually appealing. Judging from your reactions its a decent formula. I'll try to maintain this level of difficulty.

Hearing you opinions about the battles is probably the most helpful thing to come from the demo. I've never been the greatest at balancing and it's the part I like doing least. It's nice knowing I'm on the right track. It was also nice seeing the buff/debuff spells being used. I tried to keep them in mind when I was balancing. I hate in games where they are usless.

Crafting doesn't play as big of a deal as you made it out to seem. You can just get better weapons/armor a bit earlier then normal if you do it. The reason I even added it was to give battles a bit more incentive. I want them to feel like your always being rewarded and not just fighting things for the sake of it. And they can be sold for decent gold. I don't know if it actually feels that way or not, but it's hard to do anything too exciting with RPGM1's battle system.

i had forgotten of the higher hp. in my game ive done the same thing and given everyone far much more hp then normal games. i also find it more visually appealing to give more hp. this does make for some interesting balancing issues.

giving items for everything is a good formula to use but be careful you arnt dumping assloads of items on your player. no one wants to sift through a billion items to find the one item they need. keep what you use to a minimum basic almost generic spread and you should be fine (this is what i saw through the demo so you should be ok).

If you really don't want to endure any battles, you're playing the wrong genre. And adding uber-equipment will just make the game feel broken.

Like Lantis said, I think part of the difficulty at Magcon came from the fact that they eventually started skipping battles. Granted, that first boss was a little tricky, even having fought battles along the way, but it's not like it's the first boss of the game.

ill endure them, but after 10 years of playing with the same mechanic i believe you aught to let the player decide how they want to play your game. for those who want to stick to a true rpg experience they can level up and not acquire the cheats. for those who want to play the story they can do so without much obstruction. ultimately its the player playing your game that should make the decision, as its them who are going to decide if your game is worth their time or if they should pass it up. many games already have two games, one with battles and ones without.

If you are that worried about it, just make it the way YOU want and just not password protect it so the player can go in there and edit stats.

I'm happy with how the difficulty is. If you decide to skip past battles it might be a bit harder, but doable. If you decide to ultilize the crafting and battle a healthy amount of the smaller baddies along the way it won't be bad. Also, I think the MagCon group leveled a couple times before equipping gambits. Having that boost in STR for those 2 levels(It might have only been once)makes a bit of a difference. Regardless, I'm a LONG way from having to worry about balance. That's one of the last things I do.

Update:

The last few days have been extremely productive. I made Mt. Fernos, which is probably my biggest map yet. It was challenging using the volcano esque graphics. I don't really like the top part of the graphic, but I managed to make it work and I'm really happy with the results. Right now most of it is still just the basic layout. I need to go in and work all of the small details.

As far as the scenario side goes, I made 4 cutscenes. Two are pretty minor, but one is a boss encounter that took a few hours to make it work right. I still need to add a good amount of text to the end of the scene. The other ones help flesh out the characters and mythology of the world. I'm trying to ease the player into some of the themes that the plot will be focusing on. I admit that is one of my problems. I throw too much info or new terms/places at the player at once. I also did a very basc puzzle.

So yeah, things are going good. I can't believe how much progress I've made the last week. Hopefully I can ride this wave of modivation for a while before I burn out again.

Huh, unless you changed the battle system from when I previously played it, I thought parts of it were kinda easy. Granted, I did battle every enemy for 3/4 of the demo, but I thought for the most part the difficulty was fine. I definitely think you're on the right track with giving players items after every battle. The player should be rewarded for every enemy they battle, otherwise, it's going to feel like work, imho.

It's nice to see all the updates being made. Hopefully you can finish the game by year's end (at least, that's what I'm hoping).

I appreciate the imput. It's good to see you're still interested in VoC. Sadly I highly doubt it will be finished by years end.

Update:

I've gotten a LOT more work done. I finished all of the dialogue for the NPC's in Galhum. I also went and added a crap ton of little details. I ran into a bit of a roadblock with the Party menu. After the memory card swap some of the warpings need to be switched around. I got frusterated and stopped! Mainly because I might need to cut some stuff. I switch the cards as soon as you walk into the Delco Mine. Right now I have it so you can go all the way back to Hawkston. All of the chest can be opened again and a bunch of other crap, so I stopped working on that. I might cut the ability to go back depending on memory constrints. I'm pretty sure I'll have more then enough though.

I decided to make Zaltero. I went in with little direction and it ended up being the best map I have ever made with RPGM1. I'm extremely happy with it. I've placed a bunch of placeholder stuff like NPC's, chests, ect... It's looking good. Now I have several huge scenes that take place in the town to plan out. I'll be working on that the next few days. I'll keep ya posted.


I know these updates are kinda half assed and hardly go into detail, but I would rather be working on the game then typing updates.

Update

I have made a great deal of progress since the last update. I made 2 MASSIVE cutscenes. Both took 5 plus hours to lay out. I had to make them different then I envisioned due to maker limitations, but I'm still super happy with the way they turned out. I also made a couple small scenes with nothing drastic happening, just character development.

I also did some work in the dungeon editor. I made the Fire Pillar shrine. It's not very big, but it still took some time. I started fresh like 6 times on it before I settled on the design.

I finished all of the crafting events in the last 2 towns. I also worked out the party menu issues I was having. Both things are running smoothly now.

I made 3 puzzles. Nothing too hard. It's a billion times harder to work them out in your head and build them properly then it is to solve in game.

All of the NPC text has been finished.

I added a crap ton of interactive events and most of the treasure events. Some are still placeholders.

More or a less scenario card 2 is done. I've reached the spot I planned on switching, but I'm looking at 25000 extra memory. I originally planned on making the shrines have no enemies, but with the extra space I'm going to fiddle around with some things. I might make it larger and add encounters. I'm for sure going to add a boss fight to it.

That's still gonna leave me with a bunch of extra memory. I might make the next area and move where I switch cards. The third card was gonna start with a cutscene, but I might be able to have the scenes at the end of card 2. I'm gonna have to do some testing.

The only other thing I need to work out on card 2 is the battle drops. Right now it's all place holder stuff. I'll guess I still need to change around some of the enemy combinations that you encounter.

I've also been putting off changing my progress bar in my sig. It's closer to 20%.

Don't you know it? You get a good idea for a puzzle... and half way figure out how to build it in your head. But once you get knee deep in pages and switches, you realize it's always a good deal more complicated. It's kind of funny how making a puzzle is more of a puzzle than solving said puzzle.

I was wondering how much the progress bar has progressed in you signature. Glad it's around 20%. I remember for the longest time it was a paltry 1%. At least we're seeing some real progress now. By the looks of things, it seems that you have planned a 20+ hour game. If you can fill them hours with good story and gameplay content, then you might have one of the best RPG Maker 1 games around.

If I was making the game, it'd try to have a good cut-scene at the end of each card, and then maybe followed by a brief cut-scene at the beginning of the next card. The reason for this is that you don't want to have the player being bogged down with too many cut-scenes. By having a good cut-scene at the end of the card, and only having a brief one at the beginning of the second card, you can keep the game moving. You could do the opposite to add suspense, which might actually work better depending on what you're doing. The bottom line is that you want to hit the "sweet spot" by having enough cut-scenes to develop the story, and enough to develop the characters, but not so many as for the player to say "C'mon! I just want to play the stupid game!" Well, at least that's what I think.

I could also be talking outta my ass, too.

Thanks man. I appreciate the vote of confidance. No pressure or anything. Just kidding. It wouldn't be fun or rewarding if I wasn't pushing myself to make the best game I can. It's crazy to think I finally have a substancial amount done. There's still a massive mountain of work ahead.


It's funny that you bring this up It's something that has come up the last couple of weeks. The game is very story heavy. It feels like There might be too many cutscenes, but at the same time I skip a lot of the battles and things when I'm working on them. Like you said, there is a "sweet spot" that I'm trying to find. Even if it does end up being cutscene heavy I'm doing what I can to make sure they are high quality. I want the player to look forward to them.

The problem is gameplay between the scenes. I don't want to bog the player down with that either. Especially with RPGM 1 battles. Most things you can do with the system have been done a million times. It's a real balancing act.

If I remember right there was a discussion between Lantis and Erika about ending cards with a bang. On one side you can consider them like PSX disks. Most games tried to end disks with something interesting. On the other side you have to swap cards to cope with the maker limitation. It doesn't really matter where you have to swap them. The story continues regardless.

I'm on the side of not really worrying about where it is. I just don't want to switch cards in the middle of an important section of gameplay. I'd rather switch it before or after if I can. I don't think it's a huge issue, just something I'll have to figure out and plan right.

@Lantis:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has that problem.

I couldn't agree more. At least if there are a lot of them, you do kinda want to make the player look forward to them. I think you are definitely are on the right track with making them high quality. Some of the stuff you've done in some of them were pretty cool.



I think the key thing here is to create interesting gameplay, and not just battles to break up the story. What you did in mirage of destiny was amazing. You filled that demo with excellent puzzles and it never felt like work. The sneaking part in the mansion was easily the highlight of the demo, imho. If you can create gameplay that's as interesting as that, then I'm positive you will be well on your way to creating an excellent game.

By the way, do you want me to playtest anything for you since you are nearing the end of card 2? It might be easier to review the game in sections as opposed to everything at once so it's easier to make corrections. Besides, if you'd do it this way, I'm pretty sure it'd have a positive impact on future game creating.

Oh, and if you do let me playtest it, I won't have Dead Space 2 to distract me this time.

Well, I'll never turn away a helping hand. It might be a week or so before I send you the file though. I want to figure out the end of the card first. I'm going to start making the next section to see if it will fit on card 2. If not it will be easy enough to copy it all to the third one.

It will be a fairly rough draft. I won't have any of the battles balanced. Like I said, that's the last thing I'm gonna work on. The dialogue won't be finalized either. I went through and edited it all after I completed the first card. Working on it all in one go like that seemed to be pretty effective so that's what I'll do with card 2 as well.

I'll do all of the final touches like that on the card after you give it a playthrough. Having your opinions will give me a good idea what to change and how to improve. Having your help has really benefited the game.

It's funny you bring up Dead Space 2. My buddies coming home next weekend and we decided we'd rage to it until our eyes bleed.

That's fine, maybe I'll catch up on some Mass Effect 2 in the meantime.

Have fun with Dead Space 2!

Update:

I finished making the Lydia Prison in the dungeon editor. It ended up taking way more memory then I was hoping, but I can't argue with the results. The outside area of it alone took almost 2000 system space.

I also went ahead and made the cutscenes I was planning for the start of the 3rd card. It's kind of a long sequence of scenes strung together, but it's the best placement for them.

I'm not sure if I'll have enough space to finish the dungeon though. I have 13000 memory left, but I plan on having several puzzles, which kills space fast. Plus, I'm thinking there will be a few smaller scenes throughout the prison.

I'm probably going to have to switch cards at the end of the cutscene sequences if I run out of space. It's kind of a headache to plan and the only way I'll know for sure is to just make it.

Unfortunetly I'm starting to burn out again. I've completed a full card in less then a month. That's a crazy amount for me. Hopefully I can find agood modivation boost somewhere.

@Navane:

Hopefully I'll have the card to you in a couple days. It will depend on how much of a pain the puzzles I'm planning are to make.

Sweet, I'm looking forward to it. Maybe you can take a break while you're waiting for me to finish playing your "demo".