Ad Lucem

[KainLightsworn 63]

@Whiona- Thanks much for your compliment on the forest map! I'm quite happy with how that one's turned out. And I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the demo once you've completed it!

 

I have a bit of unfortunate news: the battle formation script idea had to be tossed out because it was causing conflicts with switching out the party's leader. As that's a mechanic I'm particularly fond of, I'm more willing to take the loss of formations than that. So, away it goes.

 

But in better news: the pressure sensitivity on my tablet seems to be working in Krita, so I will soon be able to contribute more artwork to this topic and to the game overall. I may well post some artwork of figures that are important in the game's lore, but don't really get a huge story focus. So look forward to that. ^^

[KainLightsworn 63]

Hello again! Bumping the thread with some more important update information- the maps for the next part of the game have been completed, and work on the enemies has begun! I'm going to have some fun with balancing these foes, but it's something I look forward to greatly.

 

Below are a few more samples of maps from the next area of the game. Hope you enjoy!

 

 

The remnants of a wartorn flashback that will welcome you when gameplay post-first-demo resumes.

 

This place just might be mildly plot important, given it's the inner sanctum in which the Sacred Chalice rests.

 

And here we have the basic overlook of a sidequest dungeon. In this room will rest a switch/mirror/light puzzle.

 

 

[Whiona 310]

Okay, I’m finally done playing this thing! Here are my thoughts.

 

I had a lot of fun with this!! What I like most about Ad Lucem is the amount of customization in it. You have original art and music, of course, but it doesn’t stop there – timed button presses, the dueling system, relationship points, an overhead message system, a day-and-night system…even picking flowers! There are so many little things that distinguish this demo from others, and they don’t feel arbitrarily chosen. The dialogue and maps are also really well-done. However, this demo did sometimes have some awkward eventing. It also had a good amount of bugs, which drew me out of the experience and sometimes even forced me to reset the game. If you can iron those issues out, then this project will really be able to shine!

 

Writing

 

This game has strong writing overall. I don’t recall spotting any spelling or grammar errors, nor did many sentences jump out at me as sounding awkward. While there isn’t too much of a plot yet, that’s understandable given that the demo only includes one quest. The opening movie had some cool lore in it, and it didn't go on for so long that it got tiring. That being said, it wouldn’t hurt to give the beginning a bit more of a hook. You did have that dark knight encounter in the woods to establish a sense of trouble arising, but maybe try hinting at more of what's to come.

 

Gregory in particular was great – I ended up liking him a lot! (You can tell because I reset a few times when I lost his approval LOL.) The part at the beginning where Eachann didn’t really listen to his rant made me laugh. Then I explored the dungeon and saw his reaction to the dead criminal…wow. That was harsh. I thought that line was awesome – it really gave me a sense of his character. I love it when I’m rewarded with extra character insight by going out of my way to explore. I also found myself surprised by some of the things that made him gain or lose approval, like saying how you felt about growing up. I wasn’t expecting him to like the answer where I said that I missed childhood sometimes. That added some extra nuance to him. Anyway, 10/10 would be lectured by again.

 

Eachann wasn’t quite as interesting as Gregory to me, but I still liked him and he’s a good character. I figure he’s intended to sound a little bit more neutral in conversation because the player moulds his personality to some extent. I did sometimes feel like he spoke a bit too formally and maturely for someone who’s meant to be a young and inexperienced squire, though. Was that intentional, or no? If it’s because Gregory has drilled formality into him, maybe you could show him slipping up a few times and getting told off for it.

 

One really lovely part was the event with Eachann’s family in Chegarne. That was so cute and it made me feel more attached to him. I really enjoyed exploring that city and talking to people in general. Another nice scene was right at the beginning when the player gets quizzed on the opening movie. It was a nice way to work in lore in an interactive manner.

 

What’s also great is the amount of lore and worldbuilding that can be found if you take the time to read books and talk to people. You get a sense that this world is so much larger than just the plot of the game, which really makes it feel alive. The only disappointment that I had in this department was the presence of crosses. (This sort of crosses over into mapping, but I’ll address it here because it’s relevant.) Unless I missed something, they don’t seem to hold any significance in Bastianism, which is why I thought it was strange that they could be found inside of churches. It also unfortunately makes Bastianism seem like Christianity with the serial numbers filed off, which is a shame given how much effort you’ve put into developing it. I get that many tilesets come with crosses, but I still think that their presence is detrimental from a worldbuilding perspective.

 

A nitpicky thing: "as you will" sounded a bit weird as Gregory's response to Eachann not needing another tutorial fight. Maybe he could say "as you wish" instead?

 

 

Graphics

 

First off, kudos for making your own custom art – I love seeing original artwork in games. I thought that Gregory and Eachann’s faces were well-done, and you have a nice colouring style! I'm a fan of that painterly look. I especially like Gregory (again, haha), though I don’t think it would hurt to give his hair a bit more contrast between the highlights and shadows. I already told you my suggestions for Victoria and Letitia’s faces over PM, so I won’t bother writing them out again. What I will repeat is that I love Letitia’s colour scheme, because holy crap, it’s so cute.

 

The artwork in the opening movie had some anatomical errors. The main things I noticed were that people’s faces sometimes looked too thin, and the placement of shoulders could be a bit off. My best advice to you would be to use references of similar poses. Also, in the CG of Eachann holding the necklace, the first three fingers and palm are well-done, but the pinky and thumb could be adjusted. Making the same pose with my own hand, I can see that my pinky finger is shorter on both the top and the bottom than Eachann’s is in the CG. His thumb doesn’t bend at quite the right angle, either.

 

While the windowskin didn't jump out at me as being amazing, what’s important is that it’s easy on the eyes and readable. The opacity could maaaybe be turned up a smidgen, but it still works just fine as-is. I love the font you chose! It looks great.

 

It would be nice to see fewer RTP NPCs, considering how customized the rest of the game is, but that’s a nitpicky thing. I get that not everyone wants to generate random villagers. Still, it might give your game that extra bit of oomph in the uniqueness department, so it’s something to consider if you feel that you have the time.

 

 

Mapping

 

The maps are looking good! The fact that you have plenty of non-RTP tiles goes a long way to help the areas look distinct from other projects. You did a great job with the castle layout; I grew used to it quickly, considering it's such a large building, and then it was easy to find my way around. The forest looks really nice, and so does Chegarne! I love the tiles you’ve used in both areas.

 

I felt like some areas in the castle could use a little more detail, particularly the room where Gregory and Eachann duel. The world map didn’t leave much of an impression on me either way, but I guess the player doesn’t spend much time there anyway. It did what it needed to do.

 

 

Sound

 

I was really excited to play a game with custom music and I wasn’t disappointed. You totally captured that old-school RPG feel with the music, but it still sounds distinct from other games. The boss theme was awesome, the world map music was calming and pretty, and the Chegarne music absolutely captured the mood of a quiet, friendly village.

 

I did think that the regular battle music could have gone on for longer before looping, considering how many times you hear it. It got to be a bit repetitive after a while.

 

The first four bars of the title screen music sound quite a bit like Can’t Help Falling in Love, which I’m assuming was unintentional. The rest of the song is totally different, so I doubt anybody would get on your case about it, but the similarity struck me every time I opened the game. You may want to consider shuffling the melody around a bit because it’s such a well-known song.

 

The voice acting is great – I really enjoyed it. You’ve recruited some talented folks. My only suggestion would be to turn the volume down a bit on Gregory’s “Fall back, everyone!†line.

 

It was a bit disappointing that default RPG Maker menu sounds were used; they stuck out a lot among all the other custom sounds. I am also really not a fan of the default wind sound effect that VX Ace comes with. I wanted to listen to the pretty world map and forest music, but I had to turn the volume down at times because I find that BGS to be so grating, which made me sad. I guess this is another personal preference thing, but I figured I might as well mention it because ARGH I have an irrational hatred for that wind.

 

 

Combat

 

At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the timed button presses. I can now conclusively say that I love them. Chalk it up to me being a rhythm game fan, I guess. I did feel like they were pretty tricky to land sometimes, but I also wouldn’t want them to be too easy – when you do land them, they make your attacks hit hard. To improve on this, I’d make it clearer where the boundaries of a good press start and end (it was sometimes hard to tell with that box), or make the effects of good/bad presses less pronounced. I would prefer to see the former, but it’s up to you.

 

The on-map encounters were nicely done. I didn’t feel like there were too many or too few, or that the enemies moved too quickly or slowly. The first boss gave me trouble on my first go (and then caused some really weird glitches on my second go, as I’ll outline later), but I wouldn’t say that he was too difficult at all; I just wasn’t landing enough timed presses or using my skills effectively. The healing items were somewhat lackluster considering how much damage some enemies can do, and the only decent ones cost a pretty penny. I never got stuck because of this, though.

 

One sort of awkward thing was how the characters floated above the ground in battle:

 

 

I also found it a bit weird how you could only use up and down to scroll through the combat wheel. My immediate instinct was to use left and right. I don’t know if that’s a limitation of your script, though.

 

I love the victory screen! It was super cool how it showed the characters’ faces when they levelled up.

 

 

Eventing, Scripts, and Misc.

 

This, apart from the bugs, is the department where I felt that things could be improved the most. I’ll start with the positives, though, because there were a few things that I really liked! (Also, I’m switching to bullet points because I’m getting lazy, whoops.)

• LOVE LOVE LOVE the day/night system. Gosh, those moonlit castle hallways were super pretty. It was a bit difficult to see in the dead of night, though – try making it not quite so dark.
• Being able to pick the flowers was such a nice touch.
• The duelling system is a neat feature and worked well. I never encountered any problems with it. The match against Gregory was easy, but I figure that was intentional since it’s meant to be a tutorial.
• I really liked the overhead messaging system. There were a couple of instances where text jutted out of the box, though. The first one was at the beginning of the game: “Correct. It is said ... to us in this realm.†In this line, the word “remaining†extends out of the text box. I recall there being another one in Chegarne, but I forgot to write down the exact line, sorry.
• I like the smooth camera. It wouldn't hurt to turn up the speed a notch, but it's still fine as-is.
• The sleeping knight in the dining hall turned toward me when I talked to him, which seemed strange, considering he's...asleep. Lock his direction.
• The title screen is quite laggy, and for some reason I had to press z twice to continue.
• The transitions between fast and slow snow were choppy.
• I like how the books displayed as scrolling text on the screen, but I think the text could be slowed down a touch. I occasionally struggled to read it all in time.
• It was a bit weird how I could only interact with the bed in the castle using Gregory. If someone wanted to keep Eachann in front, it would be annoying to constantly switch back and forth.
• Appearing/disappearing lighting and weather effects were delayed when I entered and left areas.
• There were a couple of occasions where characters would teleport a few tiles away. This happened when Gregory joined the party after the duel, and when I first approached the blacksmith to get the quest to make Eachann’s sword. I figure this is probably happening because you’re turning followers on/off and then making an event appear/disappear without moving the character in question. To make this not look so awkward, I’d recommend either briefly fading the screen out while you shuffle things around, or finding a script that allows you to set follower move routes.

 

 

 

Bugs

 

First, the major one: I got this incredibly strange series of glitches in my first playthrough that made the game unwinnable. I’m not sure what caused the issue, but it seemed to start with me using that revival thing I got from completing the sidequest. Here’s what happened:

 

First boss battle, Eachann dies. Time to use my revival item! Except he doesn’t actually revive – his ghost just appears on the screen, still at 0 HP. After that, I decide to just keep going with Gregory alone. I get the boss to 0 HP but he doesn’t die. He just stops attacking me, but I can keep attacking him. I figure, okay, better reset and not use that revival salve. My last save was outside of the forest, so I try to enter and…the game crashes. I open it again. It crashes again. I figure either the revive corrupted my file somehow or Eachann is haunting it, and re-download the game to start anew. (I guess I could have tried starting a new file first, but then if that didn’t work I’d have to restart a third time, so I just went straight to re-downloading.) I didn’t try reviving the second time around and had no issues.

 

If it wasn’t the revive, perhaps another possible cause for this was the fact that I had Gregory in the first slot of my party, not Eachann. I’m guessing that may have caused an issue because I encountered another bug resulting from this – in the cutscene before the dark knight battle, there were two Gregories! I figure this is because it’s assumed that the player has Eachann in front and then you just made a Gregory event for the cutscene. So yeah, just remember to change the player graphic to Eachann for that cutscene, and make sure there’s nothing in there that’s reliant on the player having him in their first slot.

 

When I stood on the castle and pressed 'z', it opened up a dialogue to ask me if I want to enter. If I said No, then the dialogue box would immediately pop back up again. I had no choice but to enter the castle and then re-exit. I later tried entering the Tower of the Sacred Chalice, just out of curiosity. Saying Yes and No both pulled up the dialogue asking if I wanted to enter again, trapping me in an endless loop. I had to reset the game.

 

I encountered a lot of errors with the weather system. After heading outside for the first time, it would continue to snow randomly inside of the castle. Also, the wind sound effects continued during the tutorial battle with Gregory.

 

When I re-entered the forest on my way back from Chegarne, I wasn’t taken to the spot near the dark knight battle. Instead, I was transported to this weird upper-left corner of the woods, behind a river that I had no way of crossing. I figured that all I could do was re-exit the woods from the spot where I came in…which took me back to the side of the world map with the castle on it. I guess I was able to go where I needed to go in the end, but it was still really strange.

 

Also, a couple of pictures of smaller glitches I encountered:

 

 

The saleslady’s choice window sometimes cut off like this.

 

 

Spider Maid, Spider Maid…

 

Finally, there were a few flowers which didn’t disappear after I picked them.

 

 

Whew! That should just about do it. I really hope this feedback is helpful to you! Great work so far, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this project goes in the future!! I’m totally in for the long haul.

 

Also, I hope you don't mind fanart, because I drew the tiny grouch.

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Whiona

[KainLightsworn 63]

Ahhhhh so glad to hear back from you on this! Glad you took your time and I apologize for the game-crashing thingy that happened. I think I know the source of it, which I'll explain below. I'm glad you've found the writing enjoyable and persisted beyond the weird bugs. (Some of these effers have proven remarkably hard to squish. A problem I hope to remedy.) And more customization to come as we proceed! I'll be drawing some more artwork/redrawing some assets in a new but similar style soon, so there's that to come. Now, for a point by point response, I shall have to go into spoiler land.

 

Writing

 

Excellent! Glad the lore dump at the beginning wasn't too tiring or too much exposition in one go. But yes, I agree, a little bit more trouble on the winds would be a good idea. I've been thinking of expanding some NPC dialogues in order to get a few more hints at something going awry.

 

Hahaha! I'm glad Gregory is that one character whose approval ratings you like to mind. We all have that character in games that allow for it. (Mine tended to be Zevran in DAO.) That part at the beginning will be even more hilarious if/when fully voiced because I intend on having his VA do his full rant and ramble, even after the text has rendered down into blah blah blah. 'Harsh' is Gregory's middle name. Gregory 'Harsh' Marion. lol It's his thing. Ahhh so glad you took the time to notice the differing approval ratings of the options with the family/neighborhood chats. Just out of curiosity, which options did you pick pre-and-post boss fight?

 

MM. Eachann is intended to be a bit more formal for sort of the same reason as another character later on. Considering he admires figures of knighthood, he tends to speak like the knights he's read about in storybooks. And they were very formal, regardless of origins. I should have him be a bit more casual in dealing with his family and perhaps Victoria as well.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed that moment! It's a rare treat in RPGs, I feel, when one gets to actually SEE the main character's family and connect with them. ...and it's NOT a cheap trick to emotionally build connections for people/a place that is going to be wrecked later. And yes, I figured that would be the best way to kill two birds with one stone, introduce varying dialogues, approval, AND the lore in one fell swoop.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed all the lore and worldbuilding books- though I definitely agree, the crosses are a bit out of place. I haven't used them in any subsequent maps/dungeons, so I think I just forgot to fix them on that map. I'll be sure to tidy that up before next release.

 

(See I thought about that but then that was going to tie in to later relationship building and I thought that would be far too Princess Bride-ish to use that phrase. Even though it is much more natural.)

 

 

Graphics

 

Thank you! I'm not the most experienced artist, so this was definitely an exercise in slow improvement. I'm glad you enjoy the coloring style. And I'll keep the bit with Gregory's hair color in mind. Currently fixing Victoria and Letitia's portraits. And at some point, I want to re-do the opening title drawings, if only to get them functioning a bit more smoothly. The thing with Eachann's hand will be a minor adjustment, (thank you SAI line tool!) so I should be able to fix that pretty swiftly.

 

I'll pump up the opacity some. The Windowskin was one of those generated ones with Woratana's old VX skin generator, so it's not the most incredible thing ever, but it suited the atmosphere. I had no end of trouble getting the right font,  you have no idea. I've changed it at least three times or more to find the right one.

 

Planning on making more NPCs for other areas of the game, so I'll probably go back and ditch some of the default ones once I do that later on. That likely won't be until the NEXT next release, once I've completed the third leg of the game.

 

 

Mapping

 

Excellent! The castle was one of my favorite places to design- as well as the most in-depth map in the game to that point. (Though I think the Tower of the Sacred Chalice may well have that beaten now.) And yeah, that room does need a little more visual oomph. I think I was thinking in terms of practicality. A sparring/training room wouldn't have all that much in the way.

 

The World Map is a BIT of a placeholder atm because what I REALLY want to do is to design an actual MAP map thing and use eventing to navigate it/add some hours/minutes for transit and such to really create the feeling of a large world in a small space. But as my cartography skills are crap, that's a pipe dream at the moment.

 

 

Sound

 

Chegarne is probably one of my favorite town themes thus far- if only because it matches in laziness what it does in prettiness. Transpose the opening theme up a bit and work with the arrangement, and there you go. Makes it fit with the theme.

 

I've been thinking about maybe extending the main battle music or adding some more interest to it, but I'm not quite sure how at the moment. I agree it probably needs a little longer length or a better hook, but it will take me some time to think of how to fix it.

 

So many people have noticed that and it's hilarious to me. Completely unintentional and I can never unhear it now. But I kind of like it the way it is because when I think about the pairing option, having hints of that song in the opening makes me smile.

 

Mixing shall forever be my bane, so thank you for noticing this screw-up. I'll fix it in-system. 

 

I've been thinking of doing my own custom sounds, or at least ALTERING some of the default RPG Maker ones. At least for BGS and Menus. They've broken my immersion as well and it's quite annoying. I'll see what I can do.

 

 

Combat

 

Ahhh, good! Glad the button presses started working for you. I think what I might need to do is make the opacity a bit brighter and maybe re-design the hit box/ring. I was going for ornate so a really tech or game-looking one wouldn't clash with the aesthetic but yeah. And yep, that's why I hesitate to make the button presses too easy- I like the sense of reward that comes with getting a perfect strike and REALLY hurting the enemies, or seeing what could have been a devastating attack turn into a manageable one, or even pittance, depending.

 

I do feel like I should bump the healing items a bit because it makes the difficulty a bit artificially inflated for them to do so little. I think the mains initially had lower HP stats and then I buffed them and never fixed the items.

 

I think to fix that graphical error I just need to expand the Battlebacks. And yeah, that IS weird. That might be a script thing. Really not sure. I'll look into it.

 

 

Eventing/Scripts/Misc.

 

I'll switch with you because wow this is way longer than I expected lol.

 

*I've heard that bit of feedback before and noticed it myself- definitely going to work to fix it. But I'm glad the time system works so smoothly!

*Well, I figure if you're going to have a crafting system, might as well make the work for it available.

*Thanks! Very proud of how that turned out, considering that was handled purely through events, with the only script commands being to check direction and closeness.

*I've spotted a couple of those errors too- when I catch them, I'll correct them.

*Just locked the sprite's direction. That was a silly issue to still have at this point.

*I've run into this bug as well. Not sure why. I scripted the title scene myself, and would hate to have to lose it, but it may be less laggy with a title screen script.

*Gotcha. That should be a simple fix once I dive into the eventing. It does that for rain in later months too, and I need to make it smoother.

*I was worried about making the books scroll too slow, but now I know I have the opposite issue. I'll fix that. ^^

*AH! The bed thing is actually intentional! If you find which one of the cots on the floor is Eachann's, you can sleep in it with him in the lead. It was intended to be a 'only the owner of this bed can sleep in it' thing.

*Probably going to do a slight fadeout to reduce instances of teleporting.

 

 

Bugs

 

Okay so I figured out what happened with the Revival bug. The item was set to fix the status but not restore HP. ...whoops. 

 

Also I thought I HAD coded the event to count for both possibilities but I must have missed that. I'll have to fix that on going back in. That very well could have been the cause of the crash.

 

As for the boss being at 0HP and not dying, that was an element to the fight that I completely forgot I had added. It was intended to be a moment of him going absolutely berserk for a few turns and Eachann and Gregory freaking out because 'holy crap this thing isn't dying why won't it die'. ...buuuut I forgot the attending cutscene, ergo the seeming glitch. 

 

The World Map was still a bit glitchy because I didn't go in and get Exit Event Processing for all the 'No' options, so that was completely on me for not paying attention.

 

I'm gonna put up a thread about the blasted weather system because I've been getting annoyed with those glitches. I feel like I've done everything right to fix them, and nope. It's probably a simple solution than I'm going to feel dumb for not thinking of.

 

The map-teleporting-association IS something I need to fix for the forest, and that is a fault I am going to remedy ASAP. That was some early beta version weirdness left over from months ago that I suppose I'd forgotten needed fixing.

 

Huh. That might be a result of where on the map it is, or just not using the default message system. I'll try a fix where I switch to the default before the Show Choices option for the Shop.

 

PFFFFFFFT okay that was just plain silly event placement on my part. It's hilarious but it does need fixing.

 

I'll go through and check the self-switches and also be sure none of those events have flower tiles UNDER them as well.

 

 

Your feedback is absolutely wonderful and I appreciate every ounce of it! I'm glad to see you in for the long haul- because it's gonna be a LONG long haul. Especially to get this next part done and polished, just wow. 

 

And EEEEEEE fanart of the small grouch! Thank you so much! I love seeing fanart of my peeps! *saves it to hard drive to stare it for a long time* Thank you so much, this is great! <3

[Whiona 310]

I'm so glad to hear that my feedback was helpful to you, and that you like the fanart! ^^ No worries about the bugs - they just happen, and it's a playtester's job to catch them, right? I'll just respond to points where you've provided explanations for things or asked for my input.

 

Oh man, I can't wait to see that "blah blah blah" scene fully voice-acted. Pre-boss fight...in my first playthrough I just asked the guy what he was doing. Second time around I tried arresting him. Post-boss fight...I'm not actually sure what choice you're referring to, sorry. I may have forgotten. Ahh, okay, that would explain Eachann's formality. As long as there's an explanation for it, then it's totally fine.

 

That's true that a room designed for sparring would probably be pretty bare - I didn't take that into consideration. Still, maybe a couple of weapons stacked in one corner wouldn't hurt. It's not like the player spends all that long there anyway, though, so it's not a huge deal. It would be very cool to see an actual map! I get that it would also be difficult, though.

 

Oh, if you actually like the song similarity, then you could go ahead and keep it! I didn't actually have a problem with it - it was more that I thought you might like to know it was quite similar.

 

Redesigning the box and ring wouldn't be a bad idea. You could probably figure out a way to make them look fancy and medieval while still being a bit simpler.

 

As for the bed thing, I would just throw in an explanation of that, because I didn't figure it out on my own. I actually did try interacting with one of the cots and it did nothing, so I didn't bother with the rest. I get that you want the player to discover things on their own, but I think that areas which serve an inn-type function are important enough that they ought to be pointed out. (You could leave the flowers as a surprise, though!)

 

The weird thing about the world map glitching after the series of bugs was that I had no issues with entering the forest before then, and I reloaded the save from before said glitches ever started. It was like the game still knew... o_o

[PowerBurger 49]

Say, Whiona, should I give this one a try? Seems like you liked it. 

[KainLightsworn 63]

Allow me to ninja before Whiona gets in here with their response:

 

I'm squishing another few bugs, so if they answer in the affirmative, I'd hold off until I've had a chance to get those niggling issues fixed. It shouldn't take me too terribly long. Reworking enemy AI and a few items, the UI for the button presses, and a few other things. I can easily have those fixed within the next 24-48 hours.

 

Speaking as the dev, of course, I'd highly recommend giving it a chance if you enjoy this sort of RPG setting or games in which player choice can have an impact upon the story, as well as games with an original score, but I'll leave it to Whiona to answer you properly.

[PowerBurger 49]

Sure thing! I'll give it a try when you've updated it, please message me when you do so. 

[Whiona 310]

Say, Whiona, should I give this one a try? Seems like you liked it. 

 

Definitely!! I think this demo has a lot of neat stuff going for it, as I mentioned in the intro of my review. Do wait for those bug squishes, though.

[PowerBurger 49]

Sounds good! Can't wait to see for myself, maybe it can give us a few ideas for Legacy. 

[KainLightsworn 63]

All righty, so I've got the enemy AI all set and I BELIEVE I have squished most if not all of the bugs Whiona was running into earlier, except the Battleback weirdness. Anything potentially game-breaking should have been squished in this last run.

 

The new download link can be found here:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5szb3zutcdjo59r/Ad+Lucem.exe

[PowerBurger 49]

Awesome! I'll start it shortly, though I'm not sure when I'll finish. I'm going in completely blind, other than what I've skimmed of the OP. 

Edited April 10, 2016 by PowerBurger

[PowerBurger 49]

Alright, I gave it a shot! Here's what I think of Ad Lucem:

 

It has some seriously great potential!

 

I didn't get to play as much as I'd like to because of a game-crashing error with the Fanatic boss. I'm assuming it's battle-event related; It showed "Dark Knight Fanatic appeared!" and then crashed immediately afterward. Aside from that and other minor bugs, such as it snowing in the throne room from time to time, the game functions well! 

 

Your mapping makes me envious, good god. We'd get such a larger crowd if we were better with our mapping, and kudos to you for making yours so seamless and immersive. 

 

The artwork isn't amazing by any means, but it's unique, which makes it infinitely better than 99% of RPG Maker games out there! I also loved how much effort you put into the voice acting, the voiceovers weren't that bad and I thoroughly enjoyed them!

 

You have an actual opening sequence, and it was actually pretty well done I should say!

 

The battle system is very interesting, it reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles as well as the Super Mario RPG games. I skipped the tutorial, so naturally I found the battles difficult at first, so good on you for that! I will say though, having your characters be a tenth the size of a spider is interesting to watch, haha.

 

The writing is actually very well done! You've clearly put a lot of thought into it! I didn't find humor in it as much as Whiona did, however I enjoyed it all the same.

 

The soundtrack from what I heard so far isn't all too catchy, however it's extremely fitting and adds to the immersion! Not bad.

 

That's all I can really say for now, as I haven't been able to play as much as Whiona did due to that bug. As soon as it's fixed, I'm more than willing to play more!

[KainLightsworn 63]

@PowerBurger: Oh my goodness, I went through the coding for the enemies and yep, you were right. It was an error in the battle scripting. A very, VERY silly typo in my AI for the boss.

 

So, having fixed that, here's a new download link. Hope you can finish the demo now. I'm very glad you enjoyed and saw potential in what you played already!

 

EDIT: OKAY so now that I'm no longer wiping sleep from my eyes and cursing my early work shift, here is my actual response to your review:

 

First of all, thank you very much for giving it a chance, and I'm glad you think the project has some great potential!

 

I believe in the newest demo I've fixed the game-crashing bug with the boss fight, though you might need to restart the game from square one in order for it to register. Archeia's AI tends to do that in my playtesting when I nudge something in it. As far as the snowing in the throne room goes, I am getting really annoyed with the persistence of that particular bug. I'll be making a thread about it to see what I can do to fix it, and if it can't be fixed, it's script time for it.

 

I'm glad you liked the mapping, and I'd be glad to give you a few pointers involved with it, since the tutorials are mostly where I've gleaned what I've learned.

 

I consider myself lucky to have such a talented voice cast, and I'm glad those two actors in particular returned to this project all the way from its original incarnation in VX. (Please don't try to find that version, it's horrid. Like, seriously bad.) And as for the artwork, drawing has never been my strong suit, but I am trying to improve it, ergo my dedication to using more original work. I hope through the sheer act of drawing things for the game, I'll get more practice and thus improve my artwork.

 

Again, all I have to say to that is thanks! I've implemented a means of skipping it in case you're restarting due to a bug. I just need to make up a small HUD image or something showing how to skip it. (I had to implement that for the sake of my own sanity. Proud as I am of my own work, for the number of times I've had to clean restart to check if one tiny bug was squished, that cutscene becomes grating after the hundredth time lol)

 

Mm, yeah, the scaling is bizarre because RPG Maker's default battlers are massive in comparison to the characters. But I feel like if I shrunk the battlers down, the battle field would seem massive with a ton of dead space. I might have to try something with the battlers a bit more to-scale and see how I like it. (Either that or find a way to get some larger battlers in the game. A pipe dream of mine is to use animated battlers, but the only ones available are Holder's, and the sprite editing it would take to get those to match my cast? Yeesh. Also one of the later characters uses a whip and I haven't seen any battlers that work with that motion.)

 

Thanks for the compliments on the writing! Humor is a tricky subjective fiend, but I'm glad you found enjoyment in it. I've had a long time to work through these characters and how they tick in certain environments.

 

I'm glad the soundtrack serves its purpose, even if it isn't incredibly memorable at the moment. I'm a newbie composer so I suppose the tunes coming out a bit bland for people's tastes is to be expected. This game is also an exercise in me putting my composer hat on and using my music major for a thing, so I do a lot of experiments in my pieces for this game.

 

As I said above, the bug SHOULD be fixed now. I had something indicating 'hp greater than' in the same condition code as something else indicating 'hp less than', ergo the barfing up of an error. That was really silly of me to miss. ^^" I look forward to hearing your thoughts when you've been able to play through more!

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8dps5gcrn3o2yx9/Ad%20Lucem.exe?dl=0

Edited April 15, 2016 by KainLightsworn

[KainLightsworn 63]

Hello there folks! So, I've been hard at work on a lot of changes to the overall game. Let's start running down the list!

 

1) A new title screen, courtesy of Moghunter's Scene_Title_A script!

 

2) Fully animated battle sprites and a new battle HUD!

 

3) New, more consistent face art across HUDs and menus!

 

4) Enemy AI in the battles!

5) Slightly slower battle log messages, so it's easier to keep up with!

6) Edited battlers for the next boss fights!

7) Resized sprites so they match the scaling of the characters!

8) Yanfly's Gab Window for party chats that aren't connected to the campgrounds or main plot!

 

AND in honor of most of these new features having been added into the game already, I have what will be, barring some major bugs, the final demo version of the Tutorial Area. So, without further ado, here's the updated demo. I hope you all enjoy!

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/zd311jrpy8p0j66/Ad_Lucem.exe

Edited April 28, 2016 by KainLightsworn

[PowerBurger 49]

Am I late? Sorry if I'm late, haha! I've been meaning to report back sooner, as I played a few days ago with TheMisterLuigi watching, but I... forgot. 

 

Anyway, I once again didn't make it past the first boss, for a variety of reasons. I'll explain those along with whatever else I found below:

 

1. In the introduction of the "Duel" system, I tried running away only to have the error message pop up. It told me I lost, except that apparently I hadn't lost yet, as I was still able to duel.

 

2. This is just a minor eventing problem. When you speak with the Blacksmith while you're adjacent to him, Marion will teleport to the wrong spot.

 

3. Was snowing in the castle intended? It's still happening.

 

4.  I cannot enter the Luxley village and the village to the south. When I try entering the Luxley village, the prompt asking me if I want to enter loops endlessly. The game just crashes immediately upon attempting to enter the south village.

 

Regarding the first boss:

 

1. When he's below half, he spams his potion nonstop. Unless I grind, it's impossible to defeat him at level 1, which brings me to the next point.

 

2. Are there any inns or similar services available at this point in the game? If there are, I don't know where they might be. As you can see, without an Inn, grinding is impossible.

 

That does it for now. Did you patch any of these in the update, by any chance? Sorry again for being so late, haha.

[KainLightsworn 63]

@PowerBurger: Oh, it's all right! I hope TheMisterLuigi found some enjoyment in what he was observing.

 

The Duel system bug was due to a really silly mixup of a switch being turned off and a variable being controlled in the wrong order. It should be fixed now in the new demo.

 

I've tried to fix it so the blacksmith will only initiate the proper cutscene when you're in front of him now, so the oddly-placed Gregory should be fixed.

 

It was not intentional, but I do believe I have FINALLY fixed it via the addition of Moghunter's Weather EX system.

 

That bug was due to those areas not being set up yet. The events taking you there and the actual towns themselves are dummied out right now. I've completely changed how the overworld was getting its info now so that should be fixed.

 

The boss is meant to be challenging, but certainly not impossible. It could be I hadn't adjusted his health properly. It should be fixed now. He also shouldn't be spamming his potion attack anymore, but code is a tricky beast, hah.

 

As to your question about the inn, there IS actually a place you can go back and rest! Back in the barracks of Castle Angelorum, you can rest in the bed of your party leader to recover your status and health. I've added in a brief event to make that a bit more obvious in the latest patch.

 

All that said, mediafire has finally decided to function for me, so the absolute LATEST patch of Ad Lucem can be found here:

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/zd311jrpy8p0j66/Ad_Lucem.exe

[KainLightsworn 63]

HEY GUYS~

 

So, about a month later, I have some updates to share with all of you. Progress has been a bit slow due to me becoming utter Undertale trash and letting myself get distracted, but it is still moving. Slowly.

 

SO! First of all, here we have the second major 'drawn cutscene' in Ad Lucem. It's a prelim version, but the final will come as soon as my voice actors can get all their battle lines in to me. 

 

 

Second! I've been reorchestrating some of the music for the second part, as I wasn't too fond of some of the initial sounds of them, so that's been a time-consuming process.

 

Thirdly, all the enemies and bosses have been programmed, AI and all, and have been playtested a bit. I'll have to see how they function in context before I really declare them balanced, though.

 

Fourthly, five of the six main party members now officially have their voice actors confirmed! I'm awaiting battle lines from three of the four featured in the next part of the game, as there are lots of new dialogue bits to add. I'm switching from Moghunter's Battle Cry script to DP3's Actor Voices script in order to make the battles more dynamic and fun, as well as illustrate more character personality.

 

Fifth, I've redrawn all the artwork for the opening cutscene so it looks a lot better than it did previously. I'll be posting a new YouTube video showing a comparison/contrast thing in order to really demonstrate that.

 

Sixth, all the Lighting Maps for the next part of the game have been completed, so every last ounce of mood lighting is in place.

 

And finally, I'm screwing around a bit in OpenToonz, trying to do some animation. We shall see how that turns out. So far, it's being glitchy with my tablet, but responds well enough to the mouse, so I'll try mouse-drawing a brief anim to see how well I can get the program to work. Failing that, I'll stick with what I've been doing so far.

 

AND! I am going to try with all my might to have the next part of the game done by July 31st, 2016. So look forward to seeing more content in addition to what we already have. And who knows~? It might be up sooner. Depends on how long it takes me to code some of the events.

[KainLightsworn 63]

All right, it's been long enough: time to drop off an update!

 

First of all, I've uploaded a preview of two of the boss fights from the next area, as well as a preview of the new party members!

 

Secondly, I've been working on an emotion bust set for each of the four current party members. You can see the results below:

 

And thirdly, I've been implementing a new relationship/bio window. With all that done, it's time to REALLY get started with the coding and eventing of the next part of the game! The next part is currently still scheduled for release on July 31st!

[Whiona 310]

Nice work! I'm excited to try out the next segment of the game!

[PowerBurger 49]

Oooh, not bad! If you need anymore playtesting, feel free to message me!

 

@Whiona

 

Hey there! How have things been going for you recently?

[Whiona 310]

I would offer to playtest as well, but I'm scrambling to get my game jam project done in time, so unfortunately I don't know if I'd be able to finish the new segment game before you intend to release it. Good luck with it, though! I'll definitely be playing it upon release!

 

@PowerBurger: I'm doing alright, thanks! I don't want to get too off-topic, so I'll send you a longer reply over PM in a second.

[KainLightsworn 63]

Hey guys! So sorry things have been silent here.

 

Just a heads up- I've recently been employed at a new job, so while I'm adjusting to that, my game dev time has been a bit limited, compared to what it was. Additionally, this past weekend, when I would have posted Ad Lucem's next demo, I had a friend whom I haven't seen in seven months come up for the weekend. It was a really good time, and a sorely needed break from the game dev process.

 

I've meant to drop off in here and tell you all a new update date for the next demo before now, but I was slow to get on it. SO. HERE IT IS.

 

AD LUCEM'S NEXT DEMO RELEASE WILL BE ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 15TH!

 

That should give me plenty of time to take care of all the towns, the new campgrounds system, the story events and mayhaps even some drawings for a drawn cutscene to foreshadow the next segment of the game at the tail end of the currently completed amount.

 

Thank you all so much for your enthusiasm, your feedback, and your patience. I know this project can move at what seems to be a glacial pace at times, so the fact that you are all so willing to stick with me means a lot.

[Radiant Arin 412]

Hey, so since you asked me to play your game, I made a short video:

 

 

Here are my thoughts so far:

 

--The game has a semi-decent story, though it takes a long time for any of the players to actually do anything. I don't want to have to sift through ten minutes of characters talking to each other, just let me get to the game already.

 

--Not having the character's portraits or at least a namebox telling us who they are makes following which characters are which very confusing.

 

--The skill descriptions are very unusual. If there are no hints as to what they do, then why bother making skills in the first place? For example, I don't know what Cheer does. Does it restore HP? Does it increase a parameter? All it gives is a very vague text at an ability which may or may not be a waste of a turn or WP.

 

-- The world lore is very interesting. Also, the actual cutscene at the beginning of the game was nice, albeit a little quiet. Might want to do some tweaking on the overall volume of the cutscene. I had to boost the volume all the way up to 500% so that you all could hear what was going on. But anyways, props to you on that!

 

--Auto-scrolling text is bad. When Gregory was escorting you down the hall, it was all I could think of when I saw the massive amounts of auto-scrolling text.

 

--The dueling mechanic is neat, albeit a bit barebones. Just maneuver around your opponent and hit them until they give up. It doesn't have really hold much interest with me, personally. If this was expanded upon, like having an actual fight where you have to also parry your opponent's attacks, then it would be a bit more enjoyable.

 

--The combat is too slow and dull. I don't know if it's the animations or what, but the fights are incredibly slow-paced, even for me.

 

--The block/attack mechanic is great and all, but if the combat by itself is hard without the use of the mechanic, then you probably need to take a look at your game's balance. The player should feel rewarded that they managed to block an attack, or land a perfect hit, instead of saying "oh, I just took 2 damage instead of 3".

 

--The obvious bug with the southern village needs to be fixed.

 

Overall, impressive plot and backstory and aesthetic and whatnot, but needs polish.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Ari Ari

[KainLightsworn 63]

Hey thanks so much for giving the game a chance!

 

I totally understand that the beginning is a bit slow-paced. I've been trying to think of ways to cut down on the time it takes in order to get the plot moving a bit faster.

 

The name confusion is duly noted. I'll have to add in some more information in the floating text boxes.

 

The dueling system was something I tried eventing from scratch, so that's part of the reason why it's a bit barebones. I would love to add more features, but at the moment, I'm at a loss for how.

 

I've gotten other reviews suggesting the combat is a bit slow as well. In the next demo release, I've been working to try to tighten things up a bit more. Part of that was removing the battle camera as that was one of THE biggest lag culprits.

 

Some of the fights against other monsters do a good job of showing the difference between a successful strike and a failed one. The boss of the first area has been known to be a combat noob killer for that reason. I might ought to consider buffing the slimes back to their original strength from the very first version to make them a bigger threat.

 

Yeah that was a dumb bug that persisted through multiple releases of that area. I have finally squished it in the version on which I'm currently working.

 

Also I've fixed the skill description issue. The text walls were utter runons and clipped offscreen so I've replaced them with the much more useful basic description of what the skill does.

 

Now, as to some of the things you commented on in video:

-The glitch with Eachann not facing the right way has been fixed by preventing an approach from behind with the blacksmith.

 

-The NPCs will also say different things if talked to multiple times, though part of that is RNG with the variables.

 

-There are more healing items available but to get them requires some poking around. I've rewritten some dialogue to make those locations more transparent in the release I'm trying to finish now. (Also the actual healer character doesn't come in until the part I'm working on now.)

 

-I should give the maids in the throne room at least ONE dialogue, come to think of it...

 

-Also perhaps part of what makes the opening exchange drag on a bit is a lack of visual interest or idea that your choices are actually affecting something? Perhaps a variable value popup script might be of use to better show how Gregory's Quiz Game does a thing.

 

-Also the reason why damage caps are so low vs the Slimes. More transparency would be helpful in explaining why the damage output is limited compared to vs other foes.

 

-Overall I could stand to be more transparent in general with the game mechanics. I've tried to walk the tightrope between Fi and no help at all and have definitely been more to the latter than was my intent. Whoops.

 

So again, thanks much for taking the time to give the game a look. I'm glad you see some potential in it even if it is pretty rough at the moment, heh.