• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS
Leviathan is a monster-training turn-based RPG inspired by Pokemon Nuzlocke with permanent death and randomized roguelike elements.
The game has 4 areas and 27 monsters, and was created for the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest.

note: The contest version of this game requires the RPG Maker VX RTP

We'll certainly be fixing bugs and combining the RTP when the contest is over.

Art and design: Missile http://www.jgmissile.com
Music and sound: m4uesviecr https://soundcloud.com/jasminecoopermusic


Latest Blog

Updates 7/6/2014

Hey all, made some changes/updates to the game based on some feedback so far.

- 6 miniboss fights with 3 per run

- New room layouts, and a new room type

- Difficulty adjustments

- Increased MP

- Added random MP restorations to caves

- Added more shop locations and item types

- Poison now does damage on the overworld

- Antidotes cure all status conditions

- Certain items have been buffed

- Subtle sound effect added to confirmations

(spoiler)

- Game now restarts after "primary" ending, allowing you to keep your monster and resetting all maps


Main download link has been replaced with the new version
  • Completed
  • missile
  • RPG Maker VX
  • RPG
  • 07/01/2014 01:31 AM
  • 09/18/2023 04:10 PM
  • 06/30/2014
  • 30806
  • 17
  • 449

Posts

Pages: 1
This looks gorgeous! And a roguelike, too? Count me in.
A real striking visual style! And in made in VX! I repeat the above statement, rogulikes are up my alley! Definitely giving this one a shot, and good luck in the contest!
Welp, that turned out to be a bit disappointing. Review will be up soon
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
author=Kylaila
Welp, that turned out to be a bit disappointing. Review will be up soon


That's a shame I was about to give this a go, anything game breaking or is it just something that didn't work for you?
Oh, the dropbox account the game is on has been disabled for 'too much traffic'... :s
It's not bad per se, but it falls off very quickly during the hour you play. The aesthetics are the best about it, unfortunately.

Roguelike elements included, it is not really a roguelike, nor are there many battle strategies (even if there is a relatively huge a cast of monster-friends). It's more about survival long-term on low resources making it generally slow-paced.
The only possible game-braking issue is that you can still sell some items that give you way too much gold, which defeats the survival purpose.
The endings have little impact as well, so there is little reward for surviving I suppose (but they seem to be still under work anyhow)

It's not that bad overall, but not that good, either. I'm struggling as to whether I can recommend it, but if that sits alright with you, give it a go.


author=Eurovision1968
Oh, the dropbox account the game is on has been disabled for 'too much traffic'... :s

Yeah, perhaps changing sources / updating? The download-button-counter is off as well
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
Thanks for the information Kylaila, the aesthetics are what draws the eye but if the major selling point, the roguelike elements aren't actually there or aren't implemented successfully then that is a disappointment. I've already downloaded it so I may give it a quick look before the 7th, but I've got quite a few in my queue to go through so I'll drop it down a little.

author=Kylaila
It's not bad per se, but it falls off very quickly during the hour you play. The aesthetics are the best about it, unfortunately.

Roguelike elements included, it is not really a roguelike, nor are there many battle strategies (even if there is a relatively huge a cast of monster-friends). It's more about survival long-term on low resources making it generally slow-paced.
The only possible game-braking issue is that you can still sell some items that give you way too much gold, which defeats the survival purpose.
The endings have little impact as well, so there is little reward for surviving I suppose (but they seem to be still under work anyhow)

It's not that bad overall, but not that good, either. I'm struggling as to whether I can recommend it, but if that sits alright with you, give it a go.


author=Eurovision1968
Oh, the dropbox account the game is on has been disabled for 'too much traffic'... :s

Yeah, perhaps changing sources / updating? The download-button-counter is off as well
Thanks, and good catch; missed the item selling. Replaced the download link with a non-contest version with some fixes.
It's certainly meant to focus on survival, in the style of Pokemon Nuzlocke.
I actually didn't notice you could sell the stat-increasing items; their benefits weren't that good, so I would have easily traded them for way more attack or defense. I think this game was a neat little experiment for me that didn't quite work out in the end, but there were some gameplay decisions that I found pretty appropriate for the game. Here are my thoughts:

-The art and music worked together to form a cohesive experience.
-The little filter you put on the rtp animations was a smart way to get more out of them.
-I would have liked some more auditory feedback for menu navigation. I can understand not wanting to interrupt the mood, but, sometimes, because of the delay when navigating the menu, I wasn't sure if I had hit cancel or not. It wasn't too problematic, but I think you could add subtle sound effects there without spoiling the atmosphere.
-The world seemed really huge because of your small character size, which was another nice touch.
-I liked how the mechanics centered around survival. The lack of healing spots was smart, as was the small amount of gold and focus on being whittled down instead of having interesting battles. I'm not sure how I feel about mana pools being limited; it discouraged using abilities, which made battles pretty boring. I think I would have preferred mp pools that regenerated after battles and more resilient enemies to compensate.
-The game was missing a clear directive for the player. I realize now that you have to resurrect some kind of fallen something--I assume it's a monster friend, but the review made it seem like it was something more important than that. Regardless, the player needs a stronger drive to move forward, and it's something that should be reinforced throughout the game. If it is a dead friend, then there could be an emotional core there that would be easy to draw upon. However, since the story wasn't well conveyed to me (and since I killed Leviathan and got the "walk around until you die" ending and saved over my file before realize this), I don't really know what you were going for. The little cut scenes regarding man's inevitable destruction at their own hands is a theme that's been done so often that it was hard for me to connect with, and it certainly didn't provide a clear motivation for the main character.
-You really need to stick the ending, too. I'm not sure if the subject matter is important to you or not, which is a big problem because 1) If it's not, it should be, and 2) If it is, you should make me feel that importance. The right ending could have turned the experience around for me if I felt the weight of what I'd just been through.

Overall, there were some smart mechanics and aesthetics here, but the mp management made battles too much about resource preservation and not about strategy, which made the game become a bit of a chore around the halfway point. The absence of an emotional core made the game hard to connect with early on, so the story didn't offer much intrigue, which is a shame since the world is inherently interesting.
author=Housekeeping
Thanks, definitely agree on mana - and some spoilers on the end,

The idea with the Leviathan fight was to force the player to lose everything (didn't intend for him to be beaten so easily though, defeating him is more of an easter egg), then decide who they wanted to revive based on their journey. The idea being that most people would forget that they even had a "Fallen" member, and would revive one of the monsters they started liking. It's continued with reviving the Fallen also giving the player a "bad end."
Another goal was to be able to replay the game with the revived monster, but also had to be cut for time.
I see, figured as much with the boss, but that's the thought behind the rest.

It really does collide with the opening cinematic, though .. so that is completely obsolete after all? Oh well
When i download it's in Notepad does anyone know how to fix this?
This game looks really lovely. The title screen is pretty stunning.
Pages: 1