Pirate Rush

[Galv 1,387]

I didn't make any adjustments that should affect the crash issue, but the latest would be good (you might stand a better chance at beating the boss... haha)

[Lasci 1]

So I just played through the entirety of this and I have to say that while I may be new to the RPG Maker community, this is probably one of my best gaming experiences within it thus far. I didn't have too many issues with the lack of healing, to be absolutely honest. The only part where things got hairy was just before the ruins, at which point I was out of healing supplies and a bit dangerously low on health. This was, however, before I ended up realizing the way that death worked in this game. I'm admittedly not entirely sure how much I like it. I suppose it's great for those of us who might recklessly refuse to save very often, but I can see how it can potentially lead to a myriad of issues when it comes to supplies. I know I purposely just loaded up my save prior to beating the mini-boss after dying to the main one rather than actually suffer through the fight with as little supplies as I had after dying. I think there might need to be a different set of conditions for death. Maybe script it so that the player starts with the same supplies he had prior to the battle? That seems like it would give the player too much leeway and allow them to save most of their healing supplies by breezing through plot battles if they're persistent enough to die, regain their stats, and dodge the random encounters the next time through. Just a few thoughts, though.

 

I like the combo system, but I think it should be a little bit fleshed out. As it stands, I think it feels fluid and appropriate only because of how great your animated sprites fit in with your SBS -- and that's great, but there's definitely room for improvement. A couple of ideas include a) making it so that the player can customize the order in which their combos appear, which will allow for better strategic positioning or making it so that if the player presses A at the right moment, he does an extra 20% or so damage (i.e. something akin to Squall's gunblade in FFVIII). The current system really just encourages players to mash the ever living hell out of the A button rather than think about what they 're doing, unfortunately.

 

Two other things I wanted to point out:

 

• The "Learning" preview screen shows the characters' Special skills. Is there any way to show the potential skills for the player to learn instead? This felt a bit jarring to me.

 

• When you save the game, your save doesn't seem to be confirmed other than seeing your save count go up. I'd make it so that the game exits you out of the save menu and gives a "Game Saved!" message or something of the sort.

 

• I know that this is going to produce more work, but I figured I'd mention it anyways: in the buildings, if you go to the edge of the screen the sprite rests on some of the black part, which can seem a little bit odd. I'd push out the border

past

the last tile that you want the player to go to, so that there's a little overhang and it doesn't seem as if the sprite is sitting outside the border of the area. Hopefully this isn't too confusing. I can take a screenshot if need be.

 

• Maybe give Alpha a (very?) small chance to resurrect Vex once he's been taken out a la Lunar: EB's Lucia? Once Vex dies, it's pretty much game over and the player has to sit there watching him get slowly pummeled.

 

I haven't tried the fishing system yet, but the combat was a whole lot of fun. The dialogue was strong, even if I wanted to see a bit more of Vex's backstory and motivations past "Arrrrh! I'm a pirate that can be a good guy!"

 

I think you might have asked earlier in this topic what skills we ended up going with. I decided to choose Heroic Strike as my first one, which was a huge mistake seeing as I was just short of getting it before the mini-boss. Big waste of time. I think that the ideal here was to pick up Flurry to deal with all random encounters before moving on towards Heroic Strike. The reason I took Heroic Strike, though, was because of the sustainability -- I figure I could save a lot of potions if I constantly used it to keep myself healed up. That didn't end up being the case with the main boss, though.

 

Boss strategy ahead, putting it in spoilers:

 

 

On my last try, through what I can only assume to be remarkable luck, I spammed Hurricane whenever I was able (which ended up being twice), each time hoping for a stun and getting it alongside at least three or four solid criticals between Vex and Alpha. I'm not sure if this was necessarily the intended strategy. I thought it was more pertinent to heal myself up with Heroic Strike after destroying the Jade (you can do it with a full Furry combo in one turn) because the boss would just resurrect his allies the next turn because I'd taken out more than one of them, but a stunned boss with the weakness effect added was a lot more effective than the alternative. I was just lucky enough to get both stuns on him. I assume the strategy was just to destroy the Jade Shard connection and focus on the creature afterwards. Most other strategies seemed a bit lackluster; getting rid of the healing didn't seem to do enough to make a difference and the poison was such a consistent thing that I just lived with it and healed Alpha as needed. Out of curiosity, was there something that I was missing? I was looking for an attack pattern in the boss's double-strike move that did a boatload of damage to Vex, but I stopped bothering after the two lucky stuns and four lucky crits ended up winning me the battle. Curious to know what the intended strategy was.

 

 

One last suggestion/nitpick: the boss should never resummon his allies before the player gets a full turn to attack him, unless the entire group is taken out in one turn. That, or the boss should take damage for each ally he revives. Otherwise I almost feel as if there's going to be way too much tedium involved in defeating him, at least without a bit of luck. I only won on my fourth or fifth try, to be honest. Also, the three party heal items were almost essential to victory. Definitely keep those in.

 

Otherwise, phenomenal job. Looking forward to future updates. The graphics look absolutely gorgeous, I have to say. Are they mostly consisted of pulled apart battlebacks?

Edited June 28, 2012 by Lasci

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks for the comments Lasci!

 

You make some good points about the death system.

My goal here was for the player to keep all the experience/LP they earned instead of getting a 'game over' and having to load a game and basically waste the 15 minutes of play time before they died. I guess if you load the game to get back your items, you're choosing to keep your items rather than keep your EXP/LP. The fact you don't get back all the items you used is definitely a punishment for dying in the first place. The enemies are made to be dodgeable but I do see what you are saying there. I'll have to have a think about that one.

 

I like the combo system, but I think it should be a little bit fleshed out. As it stands, I think it feels fluid and appropriate only because of how great your animated sprites fit in with your SBS -- and that's great, but there's definitely room for improvement. A couple of ideas include a) making it so that the player can customize the order in which their combos appear, which will allow for better strategic positioning or making it so that if the player presses A at the right moment, he does an extra 20% or so damage (i.e. something akin to Squall's gunblade in FFVIII). The current system really just encourages players to mash the ever living hell out of the A button rather than think about what they 're doing, unfortunately.

 

I'm not a scripter, but I am learning slowly so hopefully one day I can make some of those good ideas ideas happen (I would love for the 'press A at the right moment' thing, but I don't have the scripting ability to do that currently)

I see what you are saying about it just being button mash A, but hopefully you will feel different once you start learning more skills. A lot of skills Vex can learn add to that combo (Attack, Defense, Special). So later in the game (when it's made haha) he will have options that will change for each combo step instead of mashing A (that's the plan for that one anyway).

 

 

Two other things I wanted to point out:

• The "Learning" preview screen shows the characters' Special skills. Is there any way to show the potential skills for the player to learn instead? This felt a bit jarring to me.

• When you save the game, your save doesn't seem to be confirmed other than seeing your save count go up. I'd make it so that the game exits you out of the save menu and gives a "Game Saved!" message or something of the sort.

 

Very good ideas here, too. Currently that's how the scripts I am using work, but what you say would definitely improve them.

Edit: Managed to change the 'learning' preview to not show any skills in the preview. It's better than showing the wrong skills, thanks for the idea.

 

 

• I know that this is going to produce more work, but I figured I'd mention it anyways: in the buildings, if you go to the edge of the screen the sprite rests on some of the black part, which can seem a little bit odd. I'd push out the border

past

the last tile that you want the player to go to, so that there's a little overhang and it doesn't seem as if the sprite is sitting outside the border of the area. Hopefully this isn't too confusing. I can take a screenshot if need be.

 

I believe I know what you mean here. I actually did that on purpose trying to make it a little "artistic" haha.

 

• Maybe give Alpha a (very?) small chance to resurrect Vex once he's been taken out a la Lunar: EB's Lucia? Once Vex dies, it's pretty much game over and the player has to sit there watching him get slowly pummeled.

 

This is a good idea and actually already planned. I haven't given alpha any skills yet. I've been putting him off trying to work out a problem I have with his 'auto action' setup not wanting to use different skills haha

 

 

Curious to know what the intended strategy was.

 

For the boss, I think he may still be too hard. He does have a trick but I think I need to make it clear perhaps. The trick to him is:

 

Destroying the vines on the Jade Razor weaken the boss. He does a lot less damage and takes a lot more damage while weakened. He has a high chance to revive his pets every 3 turns (if you destroy it and it revives the pets next turn, you've gotten unlucky). If you keep your full rage bar until the turn he uses revive and then use hurricane special (which destroys both his pets and the vines on the razor), then it gives 3 full turns of attacking in relative safety. The next few turns are spent making sure the vines stay destroyed. Keeping him weakened is the main thing - he can hurt a lot if you don't. I do like your idea on the boss hurting himself to revive his pets, though! (EDIT: Flash powder is also effective. Blinding the boss for 3-4 turns can save you from taking more damage).

 

 

 

Otherwise, phenomenal job. Looking forward to future updates. The graphics look absolutely gorgeous, I have to say. Are they mostly consisted of pulled apart battlebacks?

 

Yep. Mainly RPGMaker XP battlebacks and some from Ace mixed in.

 

Thank you for your input, much appreciated!

Edited June 28, 2012 by Galv

[Lasci 1]

Ah, two more things that I forgot to mention in my original post:

 

First off, I think the two merchants are a bit excessive. You could probably just do with the one by the camp because it's possible that the one at the ruins would come too late and it isn't too difficult to traverse the forest once you know the trick anyways.

 

Also, Heroic Strike's damage isn't increased by the main boss's weakened state. Major bummer when I figured that out. I don't know if the damage type is different or something, but I'd definitely try to amend that. Let me know what (if anything) you end up doing to the boss and I'll try running through it again.

[Galv 1,387]

I've had a few different opinions about the need for merchants - I'm not sure what you mean by "It's possible the one at the ruins would come too late"?

 

I'll Check Heroic Strike's formula, but it should do increased damage (seeing as weakened reduces MDF and DEF to 0). I'll check it out, thanks for letting me know!

[Lasci 1]

I've had a few different opinions about the need for merchants - I'm not sure what you mean by "It's possible the one at the ruins would come too late"?

 

Oh, sorry. I mean to say that if you reduce the number of merchants to one, you'd have to get rid of either the one at the camp or the one at the ruins. I feel like the one at the camp feels a bit more essential than the one at the ruins, because if the player has to wait until the ruins to buy gear, then I feel like they're really going to be hurting for items.

 

I'll Check Heroic Strike's formula, but it should do increased damage (seeing as weakened reduces MDF and DEF to 0). I'll check it out, thanks for letting me know!

 

Maybe I'm imagining things, but it seemed to do a pretty consistent ~300 damage whether the creature was weakened or not.

[Galv 1,387]

Maybe I'm imagining things, but it seemed to do a pretty consistent ~300 damage whether the creature was weakened or not.

I do have variance on skills, so I think you were just getting similar damage based off of that.

 

 

Some updates that I've done based on input I have received from you guys (NOT included in the download - yet) EDIT: Now included.

Script fixes:

- Once you save, it takes you back out to the map (no longer sitting there wondering if you saved or not)

- When cursor is over the 'Learning' button, it no longer shows inappropriate skills in the preview window (instead shows nothing)

- Alpha no longer displays +50LP on level up when he doesn't use LP.

 

Gameplay:

- Awards didn't do anything before other than... bragging rights, I guess? heh... Now they give LP to everyone when you get one! And also made getting an award more obvious:

 

 

- Finally worked out Alpha's bugs (who knew that the "auto" feature doesn't use any skills that don't directly heal HP or damage HP...finally worked that out haha) At level 2 he now gets an ability to rescue (revive) party members.

 

Also added reflection of clouds in the water on the ship maps which I think make them look a lot better. I think I spend too much time trying to perfect it rather than build the story... haha. But I have started on Act 2 !

 

</procrastination update>

Edited July 3, 2012 by Galv

[Matt Beer 33]

All good updates! Nothing wrong with perfecting things. It's what separates the amazing games from the decent ones. I think you're game is one worth perfecting.

 

I too noticed hero slash or rush or what ever it was called, only did the same amount of damage as the area of effect one. I thought that was intentional seeing as how it healed your character as well. I hit for roughly 300 with it every time.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to modify your scripts to fit and tweak your needs. very useful skill to have.

 

I would definately like to see more skill use out of alpha. It was never clear to me whether he was using skills at all.

 

good luck on part 2 man

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks Matt.

I do actually agree that the Hero's Slash attack didn't do enough damage. It's damage wasn't much more than his AOE Hurricane. I buffed it up to do more damage now.

 

Also, I'm excited to have finally got to the point in the story where I could introduce Striek! And Aryll, but Striek is much more exciting haha

 

EDIT: Original Image was updated

Edited July 1, 2012 by Galv

[∑-sigma- 16]

Are his eyes closed or is he a zombie?

If the former, I'd suggest erasing some of the edges of his eyes so they aren't completely closed.(Closed as in line-art closed.)

Love his hair though.

 

This game really does take my breath away, excellent job.

[Galv 1,387]

Ah, thanks for the advice. I was worried about that - yes they are meant to be closed. I shall remedy that

 

Hmm, how does this look? Didn't realise how fiddly eyes look when they are closed.

Edited July 1, 2012 by Galv

[Paddy 77]

This seems really interesting so far. Your characters all seem pretty neat, and I love the battle and fishing demonstrations you've put on youtube. Your maps are also really awesome! It makes me want to be able to do a lot more, but I'm still in the process of trying to get comfortable with using the standard mapping for Ace. xD But yeah, I will get round to checking out yer demo real soon. I'm actually quite looking forwards to see what it has in store for me.

 

Please don't change Vex's look, though... if you haven't done so already! I really like the fact that his appearance is somewhat Mickey-ish... But that's just me being a huge Mickey Mouse fan. Having said that, though, I actually think all your character battlers seem quite influenced by Kingdom Hearts. Not that it's a bad thing!

 

One thing, though... Pirate speak! In reality, pirates never spoke like "Arrrgh! Ahoy there me mateys!" and whatnot. That just became the standardised portrayal of pirates since Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in the 1950's Treasure Island.

 

...I just thought that might be an interesting piece of information since this game is all about pirates and all.

 

You can read more here!

 

EDIT: Ooh! I also think you should read up on pirate superstitions and politics if you hadn't done so already. I'm sure you'd be surprised and interested by what you'll come across.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Paddy

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks for the comments and tips

 

I'm definitely not basing this game off what pirates did (or said) in past reality. Reality is boring! Haha.

The pirates in my fantasy setting are based off of the more popular (and comedic) portrayal that most of us know and love. Real pirates partook in far more gruesome activities that have no place in my game.

 

My goal is for Pirate Rush to be light-hearted, fun and fantastic... full of magic and monsters.

[+ Novem 344]

So your thinking Pirates of the Carribean style.

 

As a side-note, Jack Sparrow showing up in this game would be hilarious, hahaha

[Garrett 6]

Why don't you add Victor's Pixel movement script to your game? It would make moving through the world a lot more fluid. Other then that it is an excellent game so far.

Edited July 4, 2012 by kijiru

[Galv 1,387]

I couldn't quite get a pixel script to be nice. They didn't work with a bunch of other scripts I was doing and also the way I am doing the maps, the angled walls would be weird - getting stuck on invisible jagged edges. Plus, lots more work. I've already spent possibly over 200 hours on this haha.

 

But, for those who are interested... I've uploaded my recent game changes.

 

New V5 now includes:

- Teaser battle with Striek

- Mia also joins the party

- new town mostly finished

- a bunch of character development and story.

 

For those who played the previous version, I added a save for you right before the boss. Yes, you'll have to beat him again, haha.

[Dark_Alex 0]

I tried to download the V5 but it says that the file has been blocked and it doesn't let me download it

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks for letting me know... trying to work out what's up with the file hosting.

[rayhaku 0]

I just can't figure out how you do your mapping... It's too brilliant...

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks

All the maps are entirely in photoshop. I don't use tilesets to draw much at all. In fact, only the water on the ship maps are using the tileset water. Behind-the-scenes of the maps is very boring

Using Yami's overlay mapping script I have a bunch of layers to play with to make the maps look like they do.

 

Latest download of my game is now available again (see first post) for any interested

 

[eshra 53]

The demo was awesome, I just wish it was longer

 

Look at this >> http://www.touchofdeathforums.com/smf2/index.php/topic,81547.0.html

 

ROFL...

[Galv 1,387]

Oh cool, my game is that liked people are trying to call it their own? I would take that as a compliment if it wasn't such a stupid thing to do. Thanks for the comment and letting me know

[rayhaku 0]

The demo was awesome, I just wish it was longer

 

Look at this >> http://www.touchofde...ic,81547.0.html

 

ROFL...

 

lol fail troll is fail. Your game really is that good Galv, you should feel honored. This is why I'd have things like â„¢ and a whole bunch of other intimidations lying around in my game.

[Galv 1,387]

Thanks Ryhaku - although most of the resources used aren't mine, I don't think I should be putting TM's anywhere. I'm not worried about it.

 

I did a quick "behind the scenes" look at one of my latest maps in Pirate Rush because people were asking how I was doing them.

For people's interest:

 

Best to view it in youtube and set to fullscreen 1080p else it's hard to see anything.

 

Also added a quickie sped-up map making recording.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Galv

[Hororo 3]

whoa! that's some sick mapping and photoshop skills dude! im jealous lol

 

can't wait till you finish your game i bet it's gonna be cool especially how you do the maps