Over 150 downloads!

So, when observing the fact that I am not a big name studio with lots of money to spend on advertising, I would say over 150 downloads (153 to as of 5 minutes ago) across the couple sites where the game is available is a decent success.

Thank you to all who provided feedback and reported the (surpringly few!) bugs. Most of the reviews in general were pretty positive, with the only minor quirks being the aforementioned couple of bugs, and a groan or two from some of the goatse talk (haha).

As far as the game progress is concerned, I really haven't gotten much of a chance to work on it at all thanks to working midnights (which destroys any semblance of a life one may have), classes (which take up a lot of my free time with homework), and my (lack of) social life. Having a girlfriend is a full time job in itself some... times... oops, hi Alice! <3

In addition to all these things, I just upgraded to Windows 7, so now I get to reinstall all my apps and all that other wonderful stuff. Not having all my programs readily available when I did catch some free time was also a put off. I'll be a normal human being again here for at least a short while, however, so progress can begin again! Look for progress related updates soon!

PS. Which minigame would people like to see more? Some sort of racing/betting game, Blackjack, or a 1 on 1 arena style minigame? Let me know in the comments section!

New demo, and the winner of the title screen vote!

The winner!

Congratulations to Alice for winning the title screen contest! In second place was Alice, and finding last place in the votes was Alice. (Yes, she made all three.) The final tally across all sites polled including the blog was:

Sword: 16
Mimic: 31
Dragon/Knight: 52
Total Votes: 99

Almost 100 votes! But almost only counts in OVERUSED ANALOGIES.

So, along with the closing of the poll is the arrival of the new demo and a list of thanks:

Alice Kada - Various graphics, the title screen, testing, moral support.
Alex Dickerson - card graphics, testing.
Yanfly - Various scripts.
Aindra - A few graphics (faceset and dice, most notably).

Also, I would like to thank the folks at the rpgmakervx.net forums for their input and scripting help whenever I'm stuck with a particular bit of code.

There are a few graphics used from different resource compilations posted on sites and forums all over the place. If I forgot to mention you, let me know.

So what are you waiting for? Get over to the download page and give it a run! For those of you playing with a keyboard, use the main download. For those using a gamepad, the "gamepad" download has optimized controls with those in mind.

If you found the game to bring even the slightest smile, or add a small glimmer to a dull day, show some love by clicking an ad! It'll only take a moment, I promise, and it will help generate the small amount of revenue needed to convince beta testers to do their thing, bringing about a higher quality game!

New title screen, new minigame, new demo.

Working midnights sucks. I'm sure midnight shifts were invented by terrorists to make those of us who work them easier to explode. That, and the shift is a pretty effective life killer. However, I've still found time to work on the game some, so let's get to that!

First off, you will notice on the side bar there is a poll option. I'm going to be taking a poll on what the new title screen of the game should be. There are three options, and the first will be the main title screen while the second will be used in some other fashion. The title screens are as follows:

In the poll they will be listed in the order you see here, but just to avoid any confusion, the top one will be called Sword, the middle Mimic (which is that treasure chest monster you see in the middle, for those who may be unaware of what a mimic is), and Dragon/Knight. I will be running this poll here, in addition to a few forums and I'll take the total votes from each and tally them together to determine the winner. The poll will close on the 21st.

Onto the next subject - minigames!

I just can't seem to resist the temptation of making small minigames. While they are a lot of work, I think the life they add to games increases the overall value, setting some games apart from others. With that said, what's the new minigame?

Dice!

It's just a simple little minigame you can play against this shady character to earn that small amount of extra gold you may need for that one great weapon. The basic way it works is if your roll is higher than the man's, you can either take your 2 to 1 winnings, or use the value of that roll to play higher or lower. As it sounds, you guess whether or not the next roll will be higher or lower relative to your previous score. You win, you win big. You lose, you lose your previous winnings that round in addition to the gambling fee. A simple game, but fun enough. Even more so when you win and can afford that shiny new weapon!

Onto the final topic, a new demo.

Yes, that's right, a new demo. As much as I wish it were a full game release, there's still a long way to go for that. However, due to the amount of feedback I've gotten from the previous demo, in addition to the balancing issues, I feel that the game really could use a new demo to showcase the progress made, in addition to show what to expect from the final product in terms of balance, character personalities (quite often depending on who you're using in your party and when, they'll have 2 cents to add... sometimes 3), and the new soundtrack.

Your old saves will unfortunately be incompatible with the new demo, so you will have to start over. This is for the better, however, as there are new things to explore, updates to old content, and the game is just more fun now. The new demo will be out after the winner of the title screen battle is chosen, so look forward to more after the 21st! ... of April.

Easy Type demo released!

Just a quickie.

I've uploaded an easy type version of the game for those of you having trouble staying alive in the normal version. Monsters will be much easier now, but you should still watch out for those guarding treasures! They will still be a challenge.

Easy type demo can be found on the links to the right or here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5SN8698Y

Easy Type version and more.

So, while myself and quite a few others have played the game through and have only seen the above screen a couple times, I've had quite a bit of feedback regarding the difficulty level of the game. Some people say it's just right, others are saying it's way too hard. The game is difficult in the early going, but that's because your party are a bunch of brand new adventurers. One comment left by a person on RMN pretty much sums up what I think the issue is here:

"You should probably warn people that your game is hard though. I've been babied in so many games now, I've totally forgotten how to play properly. I died something like 10 times just because a bunch of slimes beat me up. Then I actually started using skillz and it all worked out."

Unfortunately, a lot of players don't seem to want to take it upon themselves to sharpen their gaming skills, instead just wanting an easier game. So, request and you shall receive! I'll be putting up a separate demo of the game labeled easy type. While I personally think that such a mode detracts from the game as a whole, I'm just the developer, not a player! So the more options people have, the more likely they are to play the game, and the more people that enjoy the game, the happier I'll be.

In other news, I'm currently creating a small minigame that can be played in one of the towns you can reach after gaining access to your rowboat.

War! (With a graphical twist.)


It works pretty much just like the real life card game of War, but rather than collect all the cards and add them to your deck, you just play in a best of 7 series. It also has a neat graphical overlay that real life War does not, and depending on how much you wager to play, you can win some pretty neat stuff!

Update - Naming Contest:

I've received some pretty good submissions for names, and so far the front runner is Reminiscence as not only does it sound like a good title for a game, it works to define the type of game this is as well. There's still 5 more days to submit entries, and I'll be taking them until then, so if you come up with something good (even if you've already submitted something), let me know!

Quick news: A demo!

I've decided to release a demo on 09/22/09, for www.rpgmaker.net's "Release Something!" event. The demo will be about an hour or two long, depending on your play style, and your saved games will transfer over to the full version.

In other progress related news, I've gotten more maps fleshed out that belong to the main quest, and a couple maps of side content completed. Mapping is a very long, very tedious process in general so there's not much to update that won't spoil parts of the game. I can tell you, however, that I've gotten the teleport shrines that transport the player between continents working (these are needed to get around before the player has access to a ship).