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---FEATURED GAME JULY 2010 UPDATE---
Thanks to everyone who enjoyed Tiamat Sacrament and helped make it featured game for July 2010. The game practically hatched from the crucible of RMN, so it means a lot to have it recognized by those who watched it grow in development.
_______________________________________________________________________________

As Max McGee once advised I point out, "THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS GAME IS A DRAGON."

Here is the system2c file that some people have reported is missing from the RTP-free download (just drop image into your RTP/system2 folder): http://rpgmaker.net/users/Drakonais/locker/system2c.png

IMPORTANT NOTE: The version linked to the "Download Now" button is only for people with Rm2k3 and the RTP installed on their computer. If you don't have RM2k3 RTP, there is a version in the downloads section that includes the necessary files.

ALSO IMPORTANT: If you downloaded v 1.0 and have run into a bug (like the notorious movement speed slowdown after certain events in Draslin) chances are it's fixed in the newer version. To get the fix:
1.) Find your save file in the Tiamat Sacrament project folder and move it to your desktop
2.) Download version 1.1 (either with RTP or without, depending on your needs) and install it
3.) Move your save file from your desktop into the new project folder and load up your game

COMPLETE RELEASE

Flash Teaser: http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/4181/locker/DragonFlash.swf

The Tiamat Sacrament currently is 100% complete, with about 20 or more hours of gameplay. Some sections, like the stealth missions and Vulcan Cannon dodging, are now skippable for those who are experiencing extreme lag in those parts. I've had several bug testers crunch through the entire game and it should be smooth sailing, but let me know by PM if you run into any trouble and I'll be quick to fix it.

SKILL ACQUISITION

Each character has a unique way of learning and utilizing their skills, from Blue Magic-style skill acquisition to element combo breath attacks that take multiple turns to build up.

1.) Az'uar, the dragon and main character, has 35 different possible class evolutions. Each class brings with it a different and unique skill and its own set of weaknesses and strengths. Additionally, having a Soul Gem equipped in battle adds automatically to unique variables that eventually impart skills of their own. Think Magicite from FFVI. This is on top of the breath techniques he can use by inhaling up to three Runes at a time.

2.) Xandra, the scholar and artist, can learn skills by observing enemies use them in battle. She can acquire over 40 different skills in this fashion, with each serving a special purpose and scaling to her intelligence as she levels up. She comes in handy as support for the two fighting characters, but can deal elemental damage and status effects as well.

3.) Kelburn, the Saphirite lieutenant, can wield two Rune Blades at once. While each Rune Blade comes with its unique skill while equipped, the characteristics of two Rune Blades equipped simultaneously blend together and create a new and even more powerful skill (e.g. a poison blade and a double-attack blade create an even more powerful poison skill). Furthermore, when Az'uar inhales, Kelburn temporarily learns Rune Blade skills that typically focus Az'uar's breath into a targeted attack (e.g. a heal all spell becomes a heal one ally spell that's much more effective).

Every skill employed by enemies in battle is obtainable and can used by one the party's three heroes under the right conditions.

GAMEPLAY

The game is heavily story-driven with plenty of puzzles along the way. I've retooled the battles so that they are challenging but don't drag out or slow down game progress. I've made a point to design the game so no one should have to grind. I'm not saying you can't grind for extra levels, but if you use the right tactic, you won't have to mill around fighting random encounters to succeed. Hopefully, with 35 different dragon evolutions and a bunch of optional quests with extra skills and items to be found, the player will be able to customize their gameplay experience.

Each of the three characters have an ability set that depends heavily on the abilities of teammates. This system makes for strategic use of attacks, items, buffs, and specials. I hope you enjoy the game and leave any feedback you might have.

Latest Blog

Second Death and Steam Greenlight

Hey there, RMN! If you enjoyed Tiamat Sacrament, please consider supporting my new project Second Death on Steam Greenlight. It would mean a lot to me if you could take a moment to lend a vote and help get the game Greenlit!

Check out the dev blog on the Second Death page. Thanks!
  • Completed
  • Drakonais
  • RPG Tsukuru 2003
  • RPG
  • 07/14/2009 06:20 AM
  • 07/20/2022 12:40 PM
  • 06/19/2010
  • 368224
  • 78
  • 7033

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Posts

Poison + no way to heal it =
10 gold antidote at the shop? Do you mean before you get to town? This was never a problem in testing, but I'll end it after battle if this is a serious issue.
Yeah, but you can't die from it. Just let it wear off and then heal yourself. Or go heal yourself in Jardan's house. I only hit like 1 or 2 spiders before I got to town anyway.
The issue is that I don't know how far the town is. So if I'm walking around bump into a spider and get poisoned, the only thing I can do is go back and rest since trying to reach town could result in a game over trying to keep myself healed from gradual damage so I don't end up in a fight with next to no HP. Plus since this is Rm2k3 poison its best to run from every fight which makes encounters even more tedious. And if I have to go back to heal I might as well F12 and reload since that's quicker than walking back to the hut and trying again.

Just remove the spider's poison attack or have a chest that gives two antidotes or so on the path to the hut would be my suggestion instead of making poison end after battles.
Maybe find antidotes in Jardan's house? Or dropped by the first guy you kill?
Added chest with antidote for the next release. Don't want initial poisoning to frustrate players too much.
Poison at the start of the game is bad in RM2k3, since it is so freakin' devastating. Even the rest of the game, Poison can be game-breaking.

By the way, you can change the main thumbnail image for your gamepage by going to Manage games > (This game) > Images > EDIT and checking the Set as Main Screenshot and saving.
Did you hit the same issue, kentona? I changed the precondition for the poison attack to an event in town so there's no way you're going to get poisoned before you at least make it to Draslin. It's an important learnable skill, so it needs to stay, doesn't need to hit right away though.
I just talking in generalities.
The poison wasn't that bad for me, but I didn't really face it early on.

However, there is alot more in this game to be frustrated about:
A) Runes are way to hard to collect. Even if you DO manage to get an enemy's health down below 10% without killing it, Xandra tends to "miss" with her Rune-attack-thing MULTIPLE TIMES. I've literally drained her MP down to zero from half-full trying to get an air rune off a stupid little bat. My suggestion: Don't make it miss.
B) Xandra is an all-around useless character. None of her skills you learn are of any good use (if you can learn them, that is... using Observe and "not figuring it out" is bullshit, in my opinion). The first boss doesn't seem susceptible to poison OR blind, and even if he was, the poison is weak as hell and the blind wouldn't do much against his breath attacks. So I had her Goblin Punch-ing the whole time, chipping away at his health little by little forever, until I had to go through the pain of 'focus'ing her MP up, because all of her already-useless skills cost MP to use. She just sucks.
C) Getting the breath knocked out of you is stupid. It consumes a rune (which, might I remind you, are frustrating beyond all reason to collect) and it is a complete fluke when it happens. It's almost not worth it to use runes, because it takes up two turns and there's no guarantee that it'll work when you inhale it.
D) Why can't I use items in battle? This is probably my biggest gripe. I bought a whole shit-load of consumables only to find out I can't use them in battle. Does no good for status effects that you want to cure in-battle, and definitely does NO GOOD on the first boss with half-a-billion HP. So when I'm out of runes, mana, and dwindling on HP, the only thing I can do is use some basic attacks. Horrible.

This game has a whole grip of awesome ideas, and despite my criticisms I still am enjoying it. But honestly... Observe should not have a chance to "not figure out" skills, inhaling should not be able to be cancelled, and you should ALWAYS be able to gain a rune from an enemy if his HP is as low as it needs to be. Either review how they work or make some sort of balancing adjustments. These mechanics make the game way too tedious for mine or anyone else's tastes.

Keep at it though, I do like this game.
Also, let me use items in battle. At least give me that. FFS, that is easily the most annoying aspect of this game.
Oh, and the option to run from the random encounters would be nice, and feels necessary. Battles move way too slowly (mostly due to Xandra not being worth a single shit) for me to put up with having to fight every single pair of bats and/or slimes I encounter.
I played through the intro of Darksteel which looks interesting, I would've liked to see the sweet attacks I queued up against the first boss actually hit (or even try and fail) instead of him just interrupting us instantly and ending the battle. Plot looks interesting, but I'm bogged down with work so I can't play until tonight/tomorrow morning. I will have more complete suggestions then.

About Tiamat, all of your recommended changes are things that get better as the game goes along. Az'uar is less likely to get his breath knocked out, observe is more likely to work, Xandra can seal enemies at higher HP percentages with a higher rate of success (100% with the best equipment). Adding all of these benefits at the beginning feels like I'd be taking the joy out of gradual improvement, but obviously I want to make it rewarding enough so players don't quit trying. Knowing that all of these things get easier eventually, do you still think I should make everything 100% effective?

The only accommodation I could think to make without losing this aspect is instead of making observe a random chance, change it to every time an ability is witnessed, it adds to a variable. Once the number is high enough, the skill is learned. Would this be more acceptable?

Also, all characters have an escape ability. It's the last option on the list of commands. And Xandra CAN use items in battle, it's pretty much her saving grace until you learn better skills like Quickness and Burst Rage.
I realized that all the abilities you couldn't find need to be scrolled to when choosing fight/powers/focus, etc. One of RM2k3's many design flaws is that this isn't obvious. Damn.
Okay, yeah. I'm not as familiar with RM2k3 as I should be. So the item thing is me just being retarded.

But honestly, acquiring runes and learning abilities is way too difficult. It shouldn't take four or five tries to get a rune on the slimes in the forest when I'm level 9, and I can't learn the First Aid / Stun Slam abilities before the two guards run out of MP from casting them over and over. It's far too frustrating, and seeing how having a good deal of runes at your disposal seems necessary for bosses (I barely beat the first boss with a supply of 5 air runes, 2 water runes, and a fire rune (the earth runes didn't do much to him so wasn't worth having anyway)), and seeing how having abilities for Xandra makes her useful at all.

It's no fun having to drag around a completely or near-useless character, or set of characters. I realize it gets better, but why make it so utterly frustrating right at the start? Shouldn't it get harder as the game goes on?

I'm still playing though! This game has alot of cool ideas... and I give you grief about alot of these systems, but the game is still fun to play, albeit frustrating.
Just so we're clear, the only thing I really think you should change is remove the chance to fail on Observe and Rune Seal.
Oh, and give Xandra something useful at the start. Like, a 'Fight' command.
Removing the chance to fail on observe and rune seal makes both of them kind of stupid. I agree that rune seal should be easier, but if it's 100% right off the bat, it's kind of silly, especially because it only takes 1 mp in the beginning. Especially because you evolve after only using 25 of them (which adds a strong attack that doesn't require runes). It makes sense to build up to making it better. Maybe 40 or 50% at most, later 100%. And if you just have Xandra use poison, it's not very hard to get an enemy to low health. Really, just poison them, use Az'uar's regen and then focus to get back mp and you're set. Also, just buy better pens for Xandra and it'll only be 15/20% health.

As far as observe goes, there would be no point in having it at all if it was 100%. I kind of like the idea about adding to a variable, except that maybe you won't learn stun slam in the guard battle (but you will certainly learn first aid if you run into enough bandits).

And I have played through the first 2 temples without using any health/status healing or mp replenishing items (i like to save money), so it's not really that bad if you monitor your health/mp (regen, etc.).

A good ability for Xandra to have in the beginning would be something that prevents Az'uar from getting his breath knocked out. And it should still cost mp so the player would have to use some kind of strategy. There's no point in playing games if they're too easy.
errol, it sounds like you might not have RM2k3 RTP, so I included a new download (still pending) that uses RM2k3's terrible gamedisk format. It's got RTP in there, so you should be able to load it fine.

narcodis, I was thinking on what you said about Rune Seal difficulty and decided you're probably right, it's a task enough to get an enemy down to that level without having to slave away using Rune Seal until it hits. So how does a 50% chance sound to start? Right now it's at about 20% to start, so there would be a major improvement.

For Observe though, I can't in good conscience make it an instant learn ability. Some skills aren't meant to be learned the first time you see them. Did you like the gradual learning idea?

It would take a lot of battle-event editing, but I could probably incorporate a skill for Xandra that prevented Az'uar from getting his breath knocked out, like musicfreak suggests. That seems a tactical way to make it more dependable.

I've made my first comments about Darksteel, but I'm posting them to your game page so I don't hog all the glory here.