rmvxa Breathwind: Return of the Dragons (E0 v2.3 Released)

[+ Novem 344]

I dropped Userbars in the bottom of the post, if anyone is so inclined, why don't you support this project and drop em in your signature?

 

Added a Features Section to the Main Post.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Niko Jose DelValle

[Syndicate 20]

Very interesting. Personally, I couldn't care less about the mapping, the story and gameplay will no doubt be enough. It's only really an issue if the mapping is outright wrong (in terms of having like half a tree on top of a volcano or something), but I think you're too smart for mistakes like that haha.

 

Keep it up buddy

[+ Novem 344]

Thanks Syndicate, we're on the eve of Episode 0's release,

 

Just one more map to get done,

 

Oh yea, and then one final bugtest... addition of tutorials... just some general small stuff.

 

Syrus said he was almost done editing the final map. I hope to have it out by tomorrow.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Niko Jose DelValle

[Syndicate 20]

Epic! Looking forward to it

[+ Novem 344]

Thanks, I can't wait for you to see it. I'm doing voice-overs for all of the Codex entries and am overall just in the getting everything ready for release.

[+ Novem 344]

It's time. The Fall is here, and the stage is set for Adam's Adventure.

 

Play through Breathwind: Return of the Dragons Episode 0: Death of Honor

 

v1.0

http://www.mediafire...g766uocc48fi6cy

 

The game is broken. Hold on while I attempt to fix the problem.

 

Fixed it, I Unencrypted the files to prevent the issue.

 

Note that The Dragons Awakening, a resource I created specifically for this game, is not free for use. I unencrypted so you can play, but DO NOT distribute The Dragons Awakening in your own games.

 

v1.1

http://www.mediafire.com/?n5hbzsastm5fcx1

Edited May 9, 2012 by Niko Jose DelValle

[Syndicate 20]

Awesome playing now.

 

Notes While Playing:

 

 

Not sure if you want the clock shown during the intro, but you should be able to use a switch to turn it off and then start it during the game. If this is intentional though, then cool, don't see why not. Kind of distracts me from the text though.

 

Intro is quite cool, like the music so far too.

 

First thing I done was view the journal and check out the voiceovers, very well done. They're a lot more interesting than just reading it, stick with that concept. I think there's a slight error in the Magic, you say "him or her" but the text just says "him". Who cares though right?

 

Liking the tests with the spirits, the roses are red thing was funny.

 

I look forward to the final egg, the celestial force is quite a cool character. But the battle lasted quite long for what seemed like attack and then heal.

 

Now that I'm at the end, I wonder what the clock is for. Personally, I'd just disable it until it's actually needed for the game as it's basically just telling me that I go from A to B in x amount of minutes

 

Anyway, cool series, story is epic, I'll play the next one!

 

 

[+ Novem 344]

Thanks for the Feedback Syndicate! In fact, I'm not sure how to start the clock turned off. I'm going to ask Vlue and I'll make sure it starts off in the next version.

 

Yup, I composed the intro piece myself.

 

Yea, I decided it should be "him or her" while I was recording. Version 1.2 will have more entries and voiceovers, I'm glad you think I'm doing them well,

I'm actually changing the entry to say "him or her" in 1.2 as well.

 

I thought the concepts of the trials were cool, and I needed some way to show that the other Riders were dead without you know... bodies, since I don't have the resources for it.

 

I will attempt to shorten up the battle in the next version. There's still some balancing that needs to be done. I'll turn down his health a little bit and give him a weakness to something.

 

The clocks purpose was explained in the Tutorial,

 

I'll make sure to keep it up,

[Syndicate 20]

Great ^^ Thanks for all that.

 

PS. Dragons rule!

[+ Novem 344]

Dragons do rule,

 

Goodnight.

[amerk 1,122]

Please keep the comments about the game. Idle chit chat should be saved for PM's.

[Harmill 5]

I've played through the demo, and here's my thoughts:

 

-> The intro is all text, which makes it a bit boring. Instead of a black screen with a long bit of exposition shoved at us, why not have the intro text show over the events they talk about? Visuals will make this more attractive, otherwise I feel there needs to be a better way to introduce the game. Black screens with text is one of the worst methods in my opinion.

 

-> I'm not going to criticize the quality of the mapping, as that's already been well-covered. However, I am going to say that the design of the first area/dungeon is extremely boring and repetitive. As an extremely linear path, there is very little thought that takes place in the player's mind as they traverse it. It's just mindlessly pressing the right or up keys when needed. Once you get into the volcano, it gets even worse. Now we have a maze with random paths that lead to dead ends or treasure chests with pointless rewards. After I opened up the third or fourth chest, I no longer had any desire to try and get the rest of the treasure chests because I was certain I wasn't going to get anything other than more Notes, which I received a lot more from battles alone.

 

Making the dungeons a little more engaging is crucial to keeping the player interested in the game. Even if the story is really awesome, the player is still going to weigh whether 'enduring' it through a horribly linear or winding maze-like dungeon is worth it to uncover the next piece of the story. Let's say your demo had 2 more dungeons to go through after the one present in the demo. If they were just like that first dungeon, I wouldn't really want to continue playing.

 

I realize this first dungeon is sort of a prologue to the main story, and that leveling your characters isn't important at this point as they're only temporary. But that doesn't mean the battles need to just be 'Attack' only battles. Every single random battle is easily one by just attacking normally with no need to use any skills/spells. So if traversing the dungeons is boring, now we have to prolong our trip through the dungeon by pointless battles that once again, provoke no thought out of the player.

 

-> The ending of the demo was actually pretty cool, though. I agree with what was already said about the final fight: it's too long for something that's just Attack - Attack - Attack - Heal - rinse repeat. If that's all that's required to beat him, don't give him so much health. It leads to a boring fight, and if I'm not engaged in the story, I'd actually rather quit the game than finish whittling down his health. It took me over 5 minutes of mindlessly attacking and healing. Nearly infinite MP so I had no concern over whether I was going to be able to afford the heal spells.

 

But the cut scene itself was pretty well put together. The music really added to the scene, and although I didn't really know Meathran or Oslo yet, or even cared about them, their speech and rally of the other dragon riders actually sounded like it could have been a good final boss cut scene.

 

Overall, I think it's obvious that your focus is on the storytelling aspect of the game. While that's good and all, I really think you also need to put more effort into making the gameplay engaging and fun for the player. The trials in the dungeon are a good way to break up flow and add something different, so definitely do more things like that in future dungeons.

 

I look forward to trying the next demo when it gets released.

[+ Novem 344]

The Intro and Music is to effect. I find it more effecting and surmising then images can be. Besides, it's just a brief catch-up on current events. The true prelude to the game is Meathran and Oslo's adventure.

 

The mapping is tons better then it was previously. Anyways, I will say yet again, I focus on FUNCTIONAL maps not GOOD LOOKING ones. You pretty much explained to yourself why it was so direct. I am mostly going to try something completely different with each dungeon, so bear with me. The money needs balancing, you'll be getting fixes to how much money means what in the next version. Your not going to notice much of a difference though until the next Episode, which brings in shops in addition to I'm guessing about three or more dungeons and about 4 to 5 hours of new gameplay. It's going to take much longer to develop then Episode 0, that's for sure. But I have already gotten started and I am making progress. My first dungeon was more static for story reasons. It's meant to represent the Celestial Force's type of thought. Direct and to the point.

 

Anyways, my objective in the next version is combat balancing. I've already implemented several fixes.

-Dropped Attack Stat on All Classes

-Dropped Mana stat on All Classes

-Increased Mana consumption of spells

 

I'm also going to be implementing the following.

-Updated Codex

-Stronger Monsters

-Severely Dropped Health on both versions of the Celestial Force

 

Since I'm going to be doing something a little different with each dungeon, and the original dungeon has a story purpose to the layout, I am unfortunately not going to be altering it. But don't worry, you'll find future dungeons more to your taste hopefully.

 

I am indeed focusing more on the storytelling aspect of my game, but I am still trying to make the rest of the game a solid experience. Just remember this is my first version, and you guys are essentially beta testing things that will alter the future course of the games gameplay. I need to add more items/weapons/skills to the database and work on their balancing.

 

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming everyone.

[+ Novem 344]

Released v1.2: http://www.mediafire.com/?kbpv2rk6b16udv9

 

The myriad of fixes can be found on the main page.

 

I know I promised a fully updated Codex for this version, but I decided you guys would want the fixes to combat before that. You'll see a full overhaul of the Codex in the next version.

[+ Novem 344]

I'm looking for another mapper to assist me. There's a ton of it to be done before I can release Episode 1, and I need a good mapper so I can get it done.

 

If you think you can help me out, message me so I can tell you what I need.

[Uresk 0]

Hi, I played your demo and here is my opinion about it.

 

I liked the dragons and the story. (I didn't read Eragorn)

The bond between dragon and rider is a good idea and can be explored for deep character development.

Episode 0 is a good setting for a big adventure. I just didn't like the Celestial Force. All it says is "I'm a god of darkness. I'll destroy this world because I can."

Other than that, the final scene is quite appealing.

 

 

Sometimes, the first dialogue didn't feel very natural as characters were repeating too much information that they should both know.

 

John says "Well, as you know, three months ago was the Star Shower. They come every 100 years, but something was out of the ordinary in this one."

The information should be more subtly hidden. I would have written :

"As every 100 years, there was a Star Shower three months ago. Though this one was odd..."

as it seems more casual

 

Overall, dialogue can be improved by:

- Splitting lines in more message boxes

- adding pauses in the speech (\. and \| commands)

- duos instead of duo's (and some other mistakes)

 

 

The maps are too big and bland. The player has to walk a lot for no reason and since battles are scarce and the map repetitive, it gets boring.

 

The battles in the volcano are quite unbalanced as every enemy group is easily defeatable (which makes sense because Meathran and Oslo are good fighters) yet some battles award tons of experience (like the werewolves). And all I had to do was hit Attack to win, and sometimes heal. None of the bosses looked different from the usual battles, only longer.

[+ Novem 344]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

You'll find out more about The Celestial Force later, he didn't really get a bunch of character development in the beginning.

 

btw, "As every 100 years, there was a Star Shower three months ago. Though this one was odd..." is grammatically incorrect in the beginning. Sorry, I'm a grammar nazi. Anyways, I was trying to be more clear about it to the player. I'll try not to make it so obvious in the future, lol

 

I'll try and split them more, and thanks for those commands, I didn't know about those.

 

I'll try and rat out those grammar errors, they're pretty easy to miss in a game as dialogue heavy as mine.

 

Like I said, I'm absolutely no mapper. As you can see in my main post, I'm trying to recruit a mapper since the one I was using to repair my maps was already gone.

 

It was intentionally easy an unbalanced btw, remember that this functions pretty much as a tutorial level. It's more about difficulty curve then anything, you can expect it to get more difficult once the main game kicks off. Balancing is kind of a hard touchy issue, I'm not exactly sure how to make them more interesting. Some tips would be great!

[INDOJIN 70]

I started playing your game, here are my thoughts.

 

>Meathran could look more manly. Smaller eyes and a different countour can help.

>Battle music is rather quiet compared to the overworld music. Turning the volume up and down seemed repetitive.

>Had a hard time in the volcano maze. Could give players a better sense of direction(rocks in the lava? something along the lines of that.)

>I love how much effort you are putting into the codex system. Never expected it to be voiced.

>The font used in the opening slides seemed somewhat 'futuristic', it doesn't help with the theme of the game.

Edited May 18, 2012 by Manjith Murali

[Supersyeed 0]

I don't really like it..hopefully Episode 1 will be better. 5/10

[amerk 1,122]

Okay, Supersyeed, I've read up on some of your posts, and just saying you don't like it, or providing a score without giving a reason behind it, can be viewed as spam.

 

Please read up on the rules before posting anything further:

 

http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/2170-completed-games-demos-forum-rules/

[+ Novem 344]

Yes Super, if you would be so kind, please elaborate on what I can do better. Throwing numbers around without an opinion doesn't help anyone.

 

Oh, and in response to your feedback Manjith...

 

1. Well, uh, not sure what to tell you about that. Guess you'll just have to deal with it, lol. Besides, I don't remember the exact Character Generator pieces I used to change his appearance. Wish you could import stuff into that generator...

 

2. Really? I'll amplify the Battle Music and make it louder for you then. Hopefully I can avoid substantial clipping.

 

3. I'll definitely try and add some landmarks. The dungeon is a bit bland.

 

4. Yup, the fiction is the biggest part of this game. Have to make sure it's solid. Voice is just icing on the cake for those who like listening. I work really hard on making sure the delivery is perfect, so it takes a while to voice the entries. There are some massive ones coming your way in the next version to, going to be really hard to voice.

 

5. Well, it's not something I designed. I think it looks perfect, it's really just a difference of opinion.

Edited May 18, 2012 by Niko Jose DelValle

[Harmill 5]

For your voice overs in the codex, I don't think it's necessary for you to actually say "Refer to mallium", etc, in the entries. The text is there so the player knows that there is an entire entry for that particular term, and I feel that it sort of breaks the voice over's flow when you have to keep saying "refer to". To put it simply, skip the 'refer to' lines for the voice overs, but keep them as text.

[+ Novem 344]

Thanks for the tip Harmill, I was feeling the same thing. It sounds kind of stupid. I'll exclude them in all further voice overs, and remove them from the current ones.

[Ignasis 3]

I noticed in the beginning you put I and Oslo, it should be Oslo and I. From what I played of it you do, I admit grudgingly, have a decent story. I say that because IMO stories based off, or extremely similar to other stories aren't that great.

I lost interest after wandering aimlessly through the heart of the volcano for about 5 min. your maps could use a little direction. In the map before that, you have a lot of unused space, such as islands with nothing on them.. If your going to put a place like that give the player a reward no matter how small for wandering off the beaten path, since wandering around means more random encounters.

[+ Novem 344]

You'll see better use of that space in the next version. I added quite a few landmarks and rewards both in the maze and outside.

 

I've added about 40 entries to the Codex and I still need a few more before I release the final version of Episode 0. The reason it's not already done is because I've been doing quite a bit of work on Episode 1. I'm still working on the Overworld map for it. Breathwind is going to be an open-world game, with secrets and sidequests to find.