Tainted v.0.2.3

[Atleast6char 16]

Greetings everyone! Thank you for visiting my page! Everything you need to know about Tainted is below.
If you have any questions or concerns, leave a comment. If you'd like to report a bug or typo you found, send me a PM.

 

Genres: Fantasy, RPG, Drama, Mystery
Themes: Futility, Realistic Relations, and Loss of Family.
Approx. Demo Time: 50~80 minutes. Varies on exploration.
Game Progress: Database and Scripts almost done. Many more maps and events to be done.
Features: Over 300 passive skills, Dynamic Lighting, Random Loot, and Full Facial Expressions during cutscenes.

 

You play as the main character, Vernik, whom has been hunted down like a dog for several years, and without
ever really knowing why. One day, he encounters a woman who requires his help. Without food, he is forced to exchange
his services for this basic survival need. Brought out from hiding, it was only a short while before his pursuers
found and confronted Vernik and his female companion. Things quickly get out of hand as foreign people are thrown
into Vernik's personal affairs, but getting involved with Vernik may have been the best thing to happen to him, because
in numbers, he can seek the truth behind his torment... But will the answers be anything they would expect?

Corpses dismembering themselves, and these pieces acting to protect Vernik. People and their families turning into
grotesque monsters of massive proportions. A curse embedded into the history of their homeland, Ceres. All these
things somehow tie into Vernik and the position he finds himself in this very day.

 

Vernik: (Vur-nik)
A man who is riddled with misfortune. Bizarrely well spoken for someone who is as pessimistic as he.
Polite when the occasion calls for it, stern when it is needed. Vernik is very good at simple manipulation.

Crelia: (Ker-L-E-ah)
Crelia is a rather eccentric woman, whom enjoys dressing up like a proper lady, yet enjoys adventuring
like a ruthless vagabond. Free spirited and will always throw in her own opinion, even when it isn't welcomed.

Felicity: (Fuh-liss-it-E)
A long time friend of Crelia's, and as such has become protective of her, like an older sister. Very
strong willed and will not hesitate to point out something suspicious or wrong about someone.

Keith: (Kee-th)
Keith has spent his whole life with his family, in a small village, living off the natural life that is

abundant there. He loses both his parents and village, and blames Rezlin for his father's death.

Matilda: (Ma-till-dah)
Matilda is a very enigmatic person, although she is generally very positive and infinitely loyal

to Rezlin. She has earned the title "Lady of Faith" because she can hear the voice of god.

King Dougray XI: (Doo-grr-eh)
He is the ruler of Ceres and holds his throne at the capital called Dougray. He has a very warm

and kind personality. King Dougray is known for his intuition usually being spot on.

General Hyatt Gauss: (Hi-yeaht Gaw-ss)
Recognized as one of the 3 great powers that sustains Ceres, along with King Dougray and Rezlin.

He is known to frequently disagree with Rezlin. Hyatt also has a younger brother named Chrosten.

Theodoric Rezlin: (Thee-o-dur-ik Rehz-lin)
The man who is solely responsible for all of Vernik's anguish. Rezlin is incredibly two-faced and is a master

of manipulation. He doesn't seem to care the slightest that Vernik sees his true colors. His motives are unclear.

 

 

 

A battle with a boss that will be available in v 0.3. Uses Yanfly's Ace Battle System.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7BdgCyZy7g
This boss will be in later builds of the game, but will be vastly stronger.
Version 0.3 will feature Flanking damage bonus for both you and enemies to use. More on that when v 0.3 is released.

Version: 0.2.3

For people who do own RPG Maker VX Ace (No RTP data included)
Size: 88 MB

http://www.mediafire.com/download/dy8z1ztzh88q1d2/Tainted_v.0.2.3[No_RTP].zip
For people who do not own RPG Maker VX Ace
Size: 277 MB

http://www.mediafire.com/download/n9opuz9o71t29gv/Tainted_v.0.2.3[RTP].zip

Everything in v 0.2.3 has been polished for v 0.3. I will resume a proper B&F list when v 0.3 is released.

Graphics:

 

Cradle of Cyanide
Division Heaven's Archeia Nessiah
Closet
Rainbow Jello
syrus ultima
First Seed Material
Aerendyll
Kotori-chan
casper667

Music:

 

Newgrounds Artist - brumy929
Newgrounds Artist - TheDoomrider(Frank Johansen)
Newgrounds Artist - Reagen-Lionel
Newgrounds Artist - DesoloZ
Newgrounds Artist - SBB
Newgrounds Artist - TheAmateurAnimator
Newgrounds Artist - F4LL0UT
Newgrounds Artist - wyldfyre1
Newgrounds Artist - Maverlyn
Newgrounds Artist - HalcyonicFalconX
Newgrounds Artist -hektikmusic
Newgrounds Artist -ObsidianSnow

Scripts:

Yanfly
Neonblack
Molegato
Khas Arcthunder
Glasses

Cameos:

• Arisa, from: Project Arisa, by: lithkas
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=e23c1a5570e9da25&id=E23C1A5570E9DA25!2761 (Not available at given time)

• Vent McGraves, from: Wandering Brawler, by: richter_h

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4840/
•Rutherford Behemoth, from: Where are the Heroes?, by: InvariableZ

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/user/42796-invariablez/ (Game is available in Spanish)
• Agatha Rau Wallace, from: Fool's Gold, by: Milton Monday

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/user/3788-milton-monday/ (No page for game yet)

Any criticism, praise or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Edited February 23, 2015 by Atleast6char

[Atleast6char 16]

~UPDATE~

Content added/changed:
• Bug involving the Encyclopedia has been corrected.
• Encyclopedia has been slightly changed, and is now finished.
• New Title Screen, new Game Over screen.
• A cutscene had minor changes done to it.
• Assassin has been nerfed slightly.
• Hit Rate and Evasion has been slightly reworked.
• Modified damage of some Skills and a Special Attack.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Atleast6char

[Atleast6char 16]

~UPDATE~

Content added/changed:
• More content. Approximately added another 30 minutes worth of story and game-play.

• Easter Egg/Cameo appearances of other game characters added (see credits above).
• 2 more Filth Events added.
• New normal battle theme.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Atleast6char

[Milton Monday 63]

It looks like I'm the first to comment. I played through the demo yesterday, and...

 

For the most part, I liked it.  The characters seem fairly three dimensional and likable (I particularly like Felicity for some reason), the writing is strong, and the plot seems to be going in interesting directions.  There are some bits that could use more polish (Using the numeral 2 instead of spelling out the word "two" for instance.) but as far as story goes this game is pretty darn solid already.  I won't comment on mapping, since anything I say would be the pot calling the kettle black.

 

There are a few gameplay related things I didn't really like, though;

 

1) Why is dashing disabled in dungeons, and only in dungeons?  The slower walking speed gets irksome quickly.

 

2) The first boss literally comes out of nowhere, which is normally fine (RPG logic dictates that there must be a boss at the end of a dungeon.) except that I can't save first.  Don't get me wrong, I creamed the sucker, but the intro is fairly long, as is the dungeon that follows.  Moving the save point by the recovery statues might be a good idea, as well as pointing them out with a gab or something.  I didn't realize those statues did anything until the forest, where they were conspicuous.  They fit in right in with the decor of the Oubliette so I assumed they were there for pretty. 

 

3) Magic seems pretty underwhelming.  Crelia's physical attacks often did nearly as much damage as her spells, and she's the mage!.  I ended up beating bosses to death with basic attacks and healing with tonics and brews, using magic only for the occasional buff, and Mend for light, post-battle patching up (it's too inefficient for emergency battle use, though).  To be fair, this is early in the game, and magic probably gets better later on, but so far as the demo goes, Crelia's kind of a load because of this.

 

4) Not entirely gameplay related, but most of the doors in Dougray don't work.  I assume this is because they're not finished yet, but I thought I'd let you know, just in case.

 

Still, these are relatively minor issues, and if they're the worst you have, you're doing a good job.  Plus, hey, one of my characters is in there, so it must be great!

 

(One last note, with Ags in there you should credit First Seed Material and Aerendyll under graphics; I did make her sprite, but I used Aerendyll's template and several bits from the stock FSM sprites. Credit where credit's due.) 

[Atleast6char 16]

Thank you for taking the time to play Tainted! And I greatly appreciate the feedback. I am aware that the game will require much polish before I make a full release, and believe me, I plan to comb through the whole game to make sure I that every nook and cranny is checked. I will also bare in mind some of your qualms and consider changing somethings and debate how I should go about it. I definitely agree with Crelia's magic though (there is a small reason for it, since later in the, one of Crelia's classes makes her close combat skills very reliable). I will end up changing the scaling of spells for sure.

I think I'll end up making all the statues have some sort of glowing effect, or forcing the player to stop and look at the first one to realize that they are more than decor. Lastly, I updated the credit section of this page to include your contribution's contributions (contribution-ception).

Edited August 6, 2014 by Atleast6char

[Ultim 4]

Ok...Now downloading...

[Anderson88 26]

Okay, so I played the demo and here are some thoughts...

 

Tainted Notes.

- When opening or closing the menu, there is a slight freeze before you can move the cursor or walk.

- In battle, it's a little bit difficult to see whose turn it is (for people who forget what they did two seconds ago like me) because the faces cover the highlight box thingy.
- Hit rate is too low. Missing too much. Especially magic, the 4 MP spells shouldn't miss at all.
- Magic isn't cost effective except against slimes for Crelia. Vernik damages slimes enough with Attack. Also, Crelia's attack is way too strong for a mage. I think you should make her spells do at least twice the damage, and maybe make her Siphon cost only 30 TP. She barely ever gets enough TP to use it.
- The Frost Spirit thing is huge. I think most players wouldn't be able to tell if you're supposed to be able to defeat it. It might help if Crelia could use fire magic, as that might tap into a bit of psychology and make players think, "hey, a weak spot" while fighting it.
   While I'm at it, a good way to balance out character stats could work out like this: Vernik's attacks do 100 damage at a 95% accuracy, Crelia's do 40 damage at an 85% accuracy, and Felicity's attacks do 85 damage at a 98% accuracy. Right now, Crelia's attacks are as strong as Felicity's, and no one has to use any spells (except for Distract, which is handy).

- While I like your idea of having agility and luck have greater effects, I think that making slow characters have lower hit rates isn't the best idea because when they already are not as reliable due to turn order, they furthermore have a lower hit rate. Just speculation, but when Vernik goes last and misses it's a little disappointing.
- Critical hits make a really big difference. In this game it's kind of like a war of attrition... getting hit with a critical will force you to spend your resources. And you miss more than you hit criticals, so... um... I might suggest making criticals just 2x damage or 1.5x.

- If you're supposed to be able to equip the Assassin's Teeth "shield", apparently you can't >_<

- I think it's a common misconception that if you want to make a game difficult, it has to be from the get-go. I had to escape from a few battles in the desert before the first town because I was getting poisoned and the three antidotes couldn't keep up. Also, it would be a good idea to give the player more of the revive items... having only one means that if someone dies you're running away from battles for the rest of the dungeon. The difficulty is nice though.

-Dougray's Inn. If you choose the green bed at the top right, you get stuck on the bottom right of the bed when you wake up. I haven't checked the other ones.

- Shops... equipment is cheap, and consumables are way too expensive. Gold is scarce.

- Thick Plate in Dougray's shop... its stats are all better than the bronze chainmail, but it's the same price.
-About equipment stats, they really don't do much...

-Arena battles were too easy!

Noticed a couple dialogue errors
"Yes, lets" in the inn.
"This man is the one who defeated before!" in the desert with assassins.
"Did that actually happened?" in the inn
"There is miles of ocean seprating us" -when talking to the man in Dougray who tells you about the war in the other countries.

 

  That crack in the wall at the Oubliette... I'm assuming the door there will say stuff after you've acquired the pustule thing. I haven't gone back to check and I dunno if I can.

 

^Well that was kind of messy, but I hope these notes help out. And I second all of Milton Monday's points. 

 

Here's an idea. Instead of making the statues one-time-uses, you could maybe put stones in dungeons that you could pick up to reactivate a statue for one more use.

[Atleast6char 16]

Okay, so I played the demo and here are some thoughts...

 

Tainted Notes.

- When opening or closing the menu, there is a slight freeze before you can move the cursor or walk.

There isn't too much I can do about that right now. And as far is I've seen, it only happens on one or 2 maps and some older computers.

 

- In battle, it's a little bit difficult to see whose turn it is (for people who forget what they did two seconds ago like me) because the faces cover the highlight box thingy.

This conflict occurred when I installed a new window set. I'm seeing if I can edit yanfly's battle system to fix this, since I don't want to change the window. I hope to fix this problem soon.

 

- Hit rate is too low. Missing too much. Especially magic, the 4 MP spells shouldn't miss at all.

I am currently waiting to release 0.2.4 with rescaled weapon accuracy (and power). Also, there is a reason that even this cheap spell can and does miss. It has to do with certain elements. It'll be explained later in the game, and can be worked around, not to worry. It will have to be accepted at the beginning of the game for what it is though. Crelia's spells will be improved in 0.2.4, if only slightly though.

 

- Magic isn't cost effective except against slimes for Crelia. Vernik damages slimes enough with Attack. Also, Crelia's attack is way too strong for a mage. I think you should make her spells do at least twice the damage, and maybe make her Siphon cost only 30 TP. She barely ever gets enough TP to use it.

v.0.2.4 has everyone's MP improved. Also, some enemy stats have been altered. Crelia is a battle mage class. Though her defense sucks, her attack is quiet decent. When she ranks up later in the game, the player has the choice to build her physical attributes, allowing for better survival, and a effectively not get screwed over when silenced, or just make her a pure mage and do what mages do.

 

- The Frost Spirit thing is huge. I think most players wouldn't be able to tell if you're supposed to be able to defeat it. It might help if Crelia could use fire magic, as that might tap into a bit of psychology and make players think, "hey, a weak spot" while fighting it.

Bosses are usually going to look marginally more impressive than normal foes. I also give the player a bit of respect. I actually don't expect 100% of people who play this game to beat the first boss on their first try. I do have a save point right before, so the penalty is minuscule, and by no means does the boss have a difficult strategy to over come. You also inflict nearly the same damage on the boss as you do to the normal enemies in the dungeon. He only looks menacing, which is what I was going for.

 

   While I'm at it, a good way to balance out character stats could work out like this: Vernik's attacks do 100 damage at a 95% accuracy, Crelia's do 40 damage at an 85% accuracy, and Felicity's attacks do 85 damage at a 98% accuracy. Right now, Crelia's attacks are as strong as Felicity's, and no one has to use any spells (except for Distract, which is handy).

The new weapon scaling will be fixing this, though not with these exact numbers. It should be noted that I want players to pay close attention to their attack vs. their hit. Later in the game, these choice will become constant with weapons. This hits 200 damage more, but I'm 7% more likely to miss. This is where agility ties into the game nicely. If I wear lighter armor, and risk taking more damage, at least I get an extra 2% evasion and 4% hit, because my agility is higher. I also might strike before my enemy as well now, too.

 

- While I like your idea of having agility and luck have greater effects, I think that making slow characters have lower hit rates isn't the best idea because when they already are not as reliable due to turn order, they furthermore have a lower hit rate. Just speculation, but when Vernik goes last and misses it's a little disappointing.

Vernik's hit rate is nearly 90%, I think you got unlucky with your misses, and yes, missing does suck. Vernik going last can be remedied in many ways, and isn't terrible to being with, when he can stomach almost any damage. Still, buying gloves increases his normal attack priority(armor skill), if you unequip his heavy plate, his agility increases, and when you get Assassin's Teeth, his agility increases. Lastly, I'm hoping to implement a system that makes it so party members who attack at nearly the same moment, because of their agility, will actually attack at the same time, and get a small damage boost. However, there was an exploit. Even at the downside of having everyone go last, if everyone was going last, the damage bonus got huge, and easily made up for the damage taken. So, by having lower agility, it also effects you stats. You can have everyone still go last, but by making the conscious decision to lower everyone's agility, everyone's hit and evasion rates is much lower than it could potentially be.

 

- Critical hits make a really big difference. In this game it's kind of like a war of attrition... getting hit with a critical will force you to spend your resources. And you miss more than you hit criticals, so... um... I might suggest making criticals just 2x damage or 1.5x.

Critical hits do x2 damage already. This is literally the first thing I changed before I even made my first map. I even checked the script again and it's still set to x2.

 

- If you're supposed to be able to equip the Assassin's Teeth "shield", apparently you can't >_<

You can't wear a shield and a shieldEX at the same time. Unequip your shield first. There is a reason way it has it's own equipment slot. The game will be remember how much you used these special type of shields (hint hint).

 

- I think it's a common misconception that if you want to make a game difficult, it has to be from the get-go. I had to escape from a few battles in the desert before the first town because I was getting poisoned and the three antidotes couldn't keep up. Also, it would be a good idea to give the player more of the revive items... having only one means that if someone dies you're running away from battles for the rest of the dungeon. The difficulty is nice though.

I've been debating making more revival items readily available at the beginning of the game. I'd have to greatly edit the price for them though. I had the idea that if the player was confident enough, as well as skilled, they could sell the Fallen Angel feather they start with for easy money and lots of equipment. This may have to change though.

 

-Dougray's Inn. If you choose the green bed at the top right, you get stuck on the bottom right of the bed when you wake up. I haven't checked the other ones.

Thank you for telling me this, I will be fixing this in v.0.2.4

 

- Shops... equipment is cheap, and consumables are way too expensive. Gold is scarce.

I had the intention of making gold something you get mostly by selling found resources, or drops that you don't use. Humanoid enemies drop more gold btw. Consumables are a bit pricey to start, but this is only for the first town, since you will have more money upon reaching Dougray (the consumables will be much cheaper than the equipment here). You find a lot of consumables if you look for them. I think I have some tonics on every map with wild encounters. If not, than most of them do.

 

- Thick Plate in Dougray's shop... its stats are all better than the bronze chainmail, but it's the same price.

Think plate, along with all heavy armors, lower agility by a percentage when worn. Also, it's magic evasion is much worse.

 

-About equipment stats, they really don't do much...

This won't be changed until a much later build. The armor impacts will be greater when I have more content in the game to worry about (all the armors in Dougray will be quite a bit stronger when I have the next area designed. Also, the Hyatt combatants will be slightly strengthened to matched this. The demo is avoiding this right now, only because I don't have the next area planned, and also, I didn't want the player to have to go back and grind to get more money, so they could have optimal gear for the Hyatt tournament. By lowering their stats a bit, and also making the armor less impactful, I've lessened the need to buy them to win. Just trust me, if you will. I've run this by several people who believe that for now, as a demo, I should leave it this way.

 

-Arena battles were too easy!

Before mentioned reason~ And congratz!

 

Noticed a couple dialogue errors

"Yes, lets" in the inn.

"This man is the one who defeated before!" in the desert with assassins.

"Did that actually happened?" in the inn

"There is miles of ocean seprating us" -when talking to the man in Dougray who tells you about the war in the other countries.

Thanks for quoting these. Makes it much easier to fix these errors.

 

  That crack in the wall at the Oubliette... I'm assuming the door there will say stuff after you've acquired the pustule thing. I haven't gone back to check and I dunno if I can.

It changes what it says if you have Felicity with you You can go back anytime.

 

^Well that was kind of messy, but I hope these notes help out. And I second all of Milton Monday's points.

 

Here's an idea. Instead of making the statues one-time-uses, you could maybe put stones in dungeons that you could pick up to reactivate a statue for one more use.

Later in the game, you get an item that allows you to recharge statue uses for a cheap fee. First use is always free. You get this item fairly early in the game (less than 3 hours in. Maybe just over 2). The reason for this is for anti-grinding first thing in the game. I wanted players to keep moving at the beginning, just for a little while, so they could at least swallow some of the story.

Edited August 10, 2014 by Atleast6char