rmvxace Rune Life Demo [Review by Dante]

[Radiant Arin 412]

www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/7766-rune-life-demo-beta-poll/

 

Okay, here we go. Finally.

 

Stupid lighting effects making my PC lag...**mumble mumble mumble**

 

Anyways, the first that I noticed was all of the MP3s that are used in the game, while I was extracting it. This might be a contributor to the massive file size; making those MP3s into OGGs will considerably lower the amount of space for your project, by as much as 50%. So that's something to take into consideration. Minding that, the music itself is pretty good. Though there are some nitpicks which I will get into later.

 

So, I started off down this incredibly long cliched road of rigorous crap because that's how all RPGs start out. I decided to go with a male paladin because I KNEW right off that you would be paired up with a female adventurer (it always happens, and guess what?), and women love sexy paladins.

 

Ahem. Anyways...

 

This would be one of those times where I had a real enjoyment about being a bitch in video games, like the time I played through that Persona remake (the name slips me at the moment). But I digress.

 

The starting fight could definitely use some sprucing. At first, I thought it was a fight that you had to purposely lose, because I kept on bashing up the demon thing without making any sort of significant progress, so I was just like, whatevs. But then I won and it was like, what...?

 

Okay, so, that guy standing right next to the portal is NOT a creeper.

 

So now I'm in the "realm of the living". And who comes to greet me? It's SC Mia (Side Character for gits and shiggles). I think 6 letters is a little short for naming your characters; I wanted to name her Guineveraveve. So I just went with the first name that came into my head (I went with the default name for the MC), Mia.

 

And that's how that happened.

 

So now I'm meandering in town at late night. I imagined that there would be, you know, guards patrolling the street at this time and hour, considering that's when all of the suspicious activity goes down.

 

So now it's time to hunt this adventurer, but first, MINDLESS TUTORIALS! Yeah, seriously, I think everyone knows the basic functions of what beds do and what an Inn is.

 

Crafting system looks neat. Too bad I didn't get a chance to use it.

 

Every time you enter a shop or another area in the village, a new song plays. I don't really think that's necessary. If the shop BGM is the same as the shop BGM, it might cut down on unnecessary space, considering a lot of people are raging at the file size.

 

So I just wanted to get this out of the way because, believe it or not, I have a life and a review to write, so I'm going through, picking up maps, picking up chicks at the bar, walking through maids......wait, what? Walking through maids? Yeah...so, apparently, in the Inn, there's a maid...that you can walk through.

 

Every time you transfer into a new map, I noticed that, if the house has a torch or an NPC, the screen will fade in with the torch lit, but then it will disappear and the NPC will appear. Just for that split-second, though, the map is blank and the torches are lit.

 

So cool. World Maps. The bane of my existence. It actually looks well put together, especially considering RPG logic where there's a snowy foothill just two seconds away from a lively green forest.

 

Combat is kind of blehh. The interesting thing, though, and what I would like to request, is the pop-up concerning TP Gain. It may actually be a nice little add-on for my game (provided it works with YANFLY, which it probably won't (and that's me being optimistic)). So, I'm wandering around, right, and I see this little "Wishing Circle". Yeah, I'm not sure what the whole deal with that is. Is it a random luck game, or are all of the options just "not my lucky day"? Anyways, after that, and I'm not sure if this is just a random encounter or a forced encounter, but I got into a fight with this "Golden Rabbit"....

 

No. What are you doing? Stahp. Stahp using Sleep Pollen. STAHP. Stahp doing no damage and wake me up, dammit.

 

So then I got to the Traveler's crossing and that's where I stopped my playthrough. Checked out all the shops, looked at all the crafting recipes, talked to everyone, fell victim to an incredibly stupid joke about this only being the Demo, big whoop.

 

If this review had a title, it would be Sexy Paladin Party.

 

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: Pretty good, but not spectacular. The plot is cliched to death and the joke about the Demo at the end was just disappointing. Music was really well put together, except for the parts where you are transferring to shops. The character customization, I can already tell, is going to be one of the redeeming features of this game.

 

RATING: A solid 3/5.

 

WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS GAME TO SOMEONE ELSE:  Not really. The large file size might be intimidating to some people, and when they finally do download it, it isn't what they expected.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Arin

[jobwaggon 5]

Alright, I warned you about it might run slow with the lighting effects.

 

And if you could offer a site where I could find a converter for MP3 to OGG I would happily change them, believe it or not, I'm not making the file huge for shits and giggles.

 

And as for the first battle, you didn't kill him quickly because Paladins excel at defense rather than offense, but I'm thinking of changing up what level you start at, rather than 1 maybe 3 or 5? I'll have to test it out.

 

The starter town is a small town, they don't have many guards, but I suppose I'll try to put some guard in, probably not patrolling though, I tried that once and the LAG was INSANE.

 

And the tutorials are unnecessary because not EVERYONE automatically knows what everything does. I have people who aren't that great at RPGs or haven't really played them before, and they said when they played this that they would like to see some helpful hints, so they may be annoying to you, but to some people they are helpful.

 

Yea, sorry about the maid at the Inn, I'll go fix that, once I figure out WTF I did in the first place XD.

 

And yea. sorry about the flickering NPCs and torches, that's part of my system for making sure thay the right NPCs show up where they are supposed to be during the day.

 

It's called a snow line, it's a real thing. there really are places where the forest stops and snow starts. I'm sorry if it bothers you, I really couldn't find a tileset that had a smooth transition from not snowy to snowy.

 

The battle pop-ups is a system made by Jet, and I think it is comparable with Yanfly, but you should check the script page first, it's on this site actually. And I made the golden rabbit as a little bit of a troll hehe, I wanted to show the importance of SAVING YOUR GAME FREQUENTLY! XD and I kinda just wanted to make a rabbit that could shoot lightening, but did I do too much? I'll power him down a little if you think that's a good idea.

 

And it's not a joke, it's the DEMO I had to make it stop somewhere, and I didn't just want you walking against the Exit saying "Why can't I leave?" (yes, there are some people that would do that. I happen to know a few of them, unfortunately...)

 

And also, my plot is Cliched? Ok, I'll admit yes, it is, but it's only the DEMO the entire plot has yet to be made. And the SC Mia is based on my best friend in real life, so I'm sorry if it's 'typical' but I really do have a girl best friend (PS she's not your love interest FYI but there will be a quest later on to get your character married XD)

 

Also, your sig said that you would curse a little, and you did say you'd be a bit bitchy, but geez, I didn't realize you were so negative, I mean, you could at least give constructive criticism, rather and just dumping all over my game, no offense intended I like that you reviewed my game, but it felt like it was just one big complaint/bug report (BTW I will be fixing some of those bugs, and trying to convert all my MP3s as I type this. )

[+ Titanhex 284]

That is HARDLY dumping on your game. Infact it's a fairly positive review.

 

"3/5 Your game isn't complete shit" is an unlockable achievement in RPG Maker.

 

Infact this is much better than someone saying "8/10 Game was good. Would bang."

 

Hell just be GLAD someone played your game and gave more than a paragraph on it.

 

Also yes, your plot is probably cliche. 80% of plots are cliche. No matter how far in your SUPER MEGA CHOCOLATEY FUDGE COATED PLOT TWIST comes in your game is probably cliche. And your twist is probably cliche too.

The only thing that counts is that you tell it in a way that freshens it up and makes people feel like they can build a rapport with it. You know even when LoZ first came out it was cliche. Old wizard helps young boy rescue princess/love interest from evil animal-like demon while said hero collects artifacts to strengthen himself via various trials and caves around the world. Like no mythology in the past was based on that premise.

 

Also I typed ogg converter into google and got a result. Life is hard.

 

BTW to fix the NPC problems try running the bit in a parallel process instead of autorun. Parallel processes run before the map loads.

 

To strengthen your tutorial split the info between a beginner's tutorial for first time RPG Players and a Need-To-Know-To-Play tutorial that plays after. Infact, if you have need-to-know stuff that complicates the RPG genre for veteran RPG Players than you probably shouldn't market to new players. Know your audience. Seriously. Know them.

 

Also just because the archetypical anything is established doesn't mean it's set in stone. You can change up the dynamics of any class and once again, make them fresh.

 

Honestly I wouldn't be railing into you so hard if you hadn't taken up an automatically defensive position on a review you've asked for.

Edited February 18, 2013 by Titanhex

[jobwaggon 5]

3/5=60/100=failing grade to a high school student.

 

I did find a nice OGG converter, took a while to find a good one though, most of them only let you do one song at a time, I found one that let me do mass conversions~

 

My NPCs are on Parallel processes, so I'm not sure what the problem could be.

 

I set up the classes so that each class has it's own strengths and weaknesses.So, please, explain to me what you mean by 'fresh' because I made my class system a certain way, and I'm not too keen on changing it up, considering how long it took me to make each one unique.

 

And of course I got defensive, are you saying if someone pointed out the bad things in your game, without saying much about the good points, that you wouldn't get defensive and try to explain to people that your game isn't just a boring some same-old-same-old-run-of-the-mill RPG, that happens to have a bunch of glitches because it's still being built and polished?

 

PS: I am glad that she/he took the time to write a review, it was very nice of her. However it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to try to defend my work.

Edited February 18, 2013 by jobwaggon

[+ Titanhex 284]

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/12497-review-spirit-spark/

 

Not that Ocedic focused on the negative, he reviewed positives as well, but my game is far more polished and unique than your own.
Do you see me taking a defensive stand or do you see me acknowledging my flaws?

 

3/5=60/100=failing grade to a high school student.

 

You're a damn highschool student trying to do what people go to college for just to work on a SINGLE AREA of this broad and all-encompassing enigma that is game development. If I jumped into a Financial Analyst Executive position at Google I would probably get a failing grade too.  Seriously, what the hell did you expect? "GOOD WORK SHIGERU MIYAMOTO! 10/10!" Have you played some of the really good RPG Maker games out there? And you think you deserve a 4/5?

 

Not to make great game design seem like an unreachable goal for an individual, it's not. Case in point the RPG Maker designers who made the games that are actually awesome. It just takes more than you're giving it credit for.

 

Fresh would be not going the D&D or jRPG route with the class system and instead giving them their own unique spin in line with your game. Or even allowing each hero class to stand on it's own. Balance and design are intricate and tricky things. I'm not here to walk you through those difficulties. If being a Paladin is an obvious issue at the start of your game you should fix it though, perhaps by allowing them abilities to stand on their own, like a holy offensive spell or damaging shield skill. I actually had to learn these lessons via trial and error myself.

 

Your priority should always be the design of the game.

 

Anyways:

 

I am glad that she/he took the time to write a review, it was very nice of her. However it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to try to defend my work.

 

When you ask people to review your game and write a review, then defend yourself when they do it... I mean... c'mon... You're just asking people to play your game so you can dismiss their comments when they say the game is lacking.  That's like me running out into the street asking "Am I sexy?" and then getting mad when someone tells me I'm not. (Mad cause they're lying)

 

By defending yourself you've proven you're only fishing for compliments.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Titanhex

[amerk 1,122]

When it comes to reviews, grading scales are different than school. Average games to me are typically 2.5/5 or 5/10, meaning just that. The game was average. There was nothing terribly wrong with it, but nothing terribly great either. And that's how most people start their reviews, at a 5/10 scale, and then either up it or lower it depending on the quality and issues.

 

Most RM games are lucky to get 3/5 (6/10), which generally means the game was above average (even slightly).