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Miscellaneous

Inglorious Glory

Most people have probably noticed by now, but Avarice is back on RMN after a brief hiatus.

It's been over a year since this game was completed, but it is still very much a product of its very short development cycle. There are a number of graphical glitches throughout the game, the occasional typo (my typing skills are the stuff of legends) and certainly still some balance issues. I would have liked to have fixed some of these issues, but no longer have access to RMVX. I had never used VX before this project, so, due to the two week development cycle of the Game Chill Competition, I did all of my work for this using only the 30 day VX trial! So unfortunately these issues are likely to remain.

Though the game is kind of old news around here, Avarice still manages to get bursts of activity from time to time. It was mentioned in last year's Hyper magazine article, and both YDS and Deckiller have done a "Let's Try" for the game. YDS' videos are unfortunately no longer available, but Deckiller's can be viewed here.

Miscellaneous

Indie Review

A fellow by the name of Zhou Xuanming has reviewed Avarice on a blog called Indie Review.

It's a very short review, more of a summary (spoiler-free) than anything else, but I appreciate the effort, and I thought I'd link the review to anyone interested in reading it.

http://indiereview.tk/index.cgi/reviews/Avarice-Review.html

The blog also reviews a variety of other amateur/indie games of various genres. Anyone curious about such things might want to swing by. It's a noble endeavor that I support. We reviewers have to stick together, you know!

Miscellaneous

Avarice on TVTropes

Avarice now has its very own page on TVTropes.org!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Game/Avarice

This page was created by Fool, who also created pages for many other games on this site, including
Dhux's Scar and Visions and Voices . Many thanks to him! I encourage all of you to check it out!

Warning: The page is full of a lot of spoilers, so if you haven't played the game, beware!
Second Warning: TVTropes itself is a huge timesink so venture onto the site at your own peril. You have been warned.

Miscellaneous

Post-Development Reflections

It seems to be a bit of a trend lately for a developer to discuss their development process a while after completing a game, once they have gotten some distance from the project and had time to reflect on it. So, why not? Far be it from me to assume anyone is actually interested in this, I am writing this mostly for myself, but I will put it out there on the off chance someone is bored.

Avarice was definitely a very new kind of experience for me. I had never completed a project before, much less with a two week deadline, when Anaryu approached me about collaborating for the Winter Game contest. Naturally, I dismissed this as temporary insanity, but he was insistent. We tossed a few ideas around, one of which happened to fit quite nicely with Game Chill's theme once it was revealed, and thus Avarice was born.

The development cycle definitely had its highs and lows. Anaryu was frequently busy with work and his family, there was Christmas to think about, and I, of course, had no real idea what the hell I was doing. Fortunately, Team Anamei had done these contests a dozen times in the past and they were seasoned pros at it, and I had confidence they knew what they were doing. Were it not for Anaryu's reassurance that everything was right on schedule, I'd surely have lost my nerve on the project.

As for the finished product, I have some mixed feelings about it. I really feel like Anaryu deserves a ton of the credit for really making...well, almost everything in the entire game. At a time when the site was aflame with arguments about the weaknesses of RPG Maker-based Action Battle Systems, he actually made a game that featured one that really worked quite brilliantly. When the game first came out there were definite balance issues, but I feel most of those had mostly been addressed. People still have a few concerns with it, and I am generally willing to agree with some of them. Many felt the bosses were not quite epic enough, and I do not disagree (though I think the Waterfall Ruin Boss is pretty cool).

Others had issue with the difficulty. Some found it much too easy, others found it extremely hard. I think this is to be expected in a system like this, where the player's skill level is a huge factor. Better players will obviously have a much easier time with the game than others. The game's difficulty was more or less built around making the game accessible to everyone. An unfortunate side effect to this might be that the game offers little challenge to more skilled players. The difficulty setting is there, however, for those looking for more (or less!) challenge.

As for the writing, I was really not quite satisfied with it. There were many things I intended to include that were cut for lack of time. A few side quests were cut because we did not have time to give them the attention they needed. Calian, the Imperial officer found in the town, was intended to have a much larger role. Lexi, one of the main characters, was sorely lacking in development, more or less overshadowed by Vandeli, who has a much more prominent role in the game's main narrative. Many people seemed to like Vandeli, but I don't think it was because my writing was great. The writing relies mostly on sarcasm, commonly cited as a sign of weak writing. The dialogue is void of subtlety and grace. The humor is mostly to deflect the reader away from other weaknesses. The plot, when you strip everything else away from it, is pretty lifeless and cliché. Had I had more time to work on this project, and especially if the project had been longer, I'd likely have approached things much differently. But I do not recommend anyone take any lessons on writing from this game.

Finally, a few words about the setting. The world of Arvera is a world I created a long time ago for another project. Upon seeing the theme I decided it was an ideal world to set this game in. The world was originally envisioned as Steampunk, although I do not feel that the small part of the world seen in Avarice accurately reflects that label. But several people have commented on the level of detail seen in the world, which I appreciate. Avarice is just one of the stories taking place in the world. It is possible I will revisit this setting in future projects, but that relies on the presumption that I ever actually finish anything again.

As of now, many people have enjoyed the game, we even have a few nicely written reviews (thanks Drakonais and Nessiah!). We have gotten little in the way of true critical feedback, which is important to me as a developer, but as long as people continue play and be entertained by the game, that is the most important thing to me. I am very thankful to every single person who plays and enjoys the game, and I hope players will continue to be able to enjoy it in the future.

Regards,
Solitayre

Miscellaneous

A few words of thanks

Avarice is the winner of Game Chill Competition 2009!

We are very humbled by this honor. I want to let everyone know how grateful I am for anyone who has played and enjoyed this game, and how much it means to me.

I also want to take a moment to personally thank Anaryu and Krisanna for taking a chance on me and allowing me to be on their team. I had never completed a project before this, but they were willing to give me the opportunity to prove myself and I am incredibly grateful for that. Though Anaryu probably won't admit it, he probably did upwards of 80% of the work on the project, including not only the engine but a majority of the map areas, and pretty much the entire database, somehow balancing it with work, his family, and the holidays and still finding time to repair my shoddy attempts at code which were held together mostly by wishful thinking. More than anyone, this victory belongs to him.

I'd also like to thank our beta testers, Ayla and Tyler, as well as RMN's own Silviera, for their valuable assistance in the eleventh hour. They managed to find several important and serious bugs mere moments before the entry was due! We are very grateful for their assistance. We also owe a debt to the many composers of Newgrounds who composed the music which was used in this project. Finally, a special thanks to Nessiah for her thoughtful artwork.

As a final thank you to everyone who helped make this game a success, we'd like to share a little bit of a bonus to our players; concept art of Avarice's two lead characters, Lexi and Vandeli, by Krisanna.

A thank you all from the bottom of my heart and hope many people will continue to enjoy this game into the future.

Regards,
Solitayre

Alexis Concept Art


Vandeli Concept Art

Miscellaneous

Fan Art by Nessiah!

Nessiah has drawn fan art of Vandeli, one of the protagonists of Avarice! I am profoundly touched and humbled by this gesture. Everyone join us in extolling how awesome she is.

Miscellaneous

Gameplay Videos!

Anaryu has posted two videos showcasing Avarice's gameplay!

The videos demonstrate many of the capabilities of your two characters, as well as giving some hints for making the most of your various abilities and finding creative and amusing ways to destroy your enemies. Creativity and experimentation can help make the game that much more enjoyable.

Personally, I think he has more fun playing the game than anyone else!



Miscellaneous

Next Day Balance?

One thing I didn't really get to do was play the game through as the time got close to finished. Beta testers were a blessing this time around, but there is always that shadow of fear looming over your shoulders that screams "You're screweeeedd~" as you rush something out the door that you haven't gotten to play fully yourself.

Reports from the beta testers and some of the players after got me into playing and then digging, and I found I had a mistake in my damage calculations!

Sadly due to the way I was calculating it, faster attacks with lower damage gained the same damage scale per shot as larger attacks did, so while your 100 damage attack might do 140 damage in the end-game, your early attacks that did 4-6, were doing 44-46.

Yikes.

So I did some twiddling and got the numbers to work the way I WANTED them to work; the way the guns, spells, items, etc, were balanced to work.

Threw the calcs in and started testing again. Worked like a charm. Who knew I was 10 lines of code away from having it balanced the way I wanted? Ah well, such is life.

Anyway, after play testing it through a few times, tweaking some monster drops and chests, costs on guns and loot, etc, I was perfectly happy with how it worked.

So in the Downloads section you'll find 4 downloads now, the Game Chill releases are specifically marked as such, and will remain as they are for ETERNITY.

However, the "Standard" versions are now updated with the original balance I envisioned, so if you're NOT a Game Chill judge, please download those!
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