RELEASE SOMETHING! DAY IX: SOMETHING ABOUT CATS: DISCUSSION THREAD

One download for Venaitura II? That's terrible.

Anywhoo, I'm going to try a few of these out in due time. I have to recover from Hellion. =O

Oh! Speaking of which, there's some extra content for download, isn't there? Oh ho ho.

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post=115009
There is no next time. p_q

there has to be D:

what else would motivate me to produce games :I

If we NEED RS!Day to get us to make games, there's something terribly, horribly wrong in this community. What about events like Game Chill? Can't we just make games to make games?

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post=115044

post=115009
There is no next time. p_q

there has to be D:

what else would motivate me to produce games :I

If we NEED RS!Day to get us to make games, there's something terribly, horribly wrong in this community. What about events like Game Chill? Can't we just make games to make games?

It certainly doesn't hurt to have these things every once in a while.

Is there a reason this isn't being done anymore?

For the record, Release Something isn't completely going away, we're just going to try out a new format for it next year. It will be an experiement for everyone so try to bear with us!

Shinan
The thing about that is if you click the buttons in the GUI with the left mouse button I tend to automatically think that "the magic of the left mouse button" was transferred to what I just clicked on the GUI. (so when I left click on the brush symbol in a paint program I expect that left-clicking on the canvas will use the brush) It's sort of personal conditioning.

One that could be better since I had already stripped it down to Look, Use and Talk. You could easily combine use and talk and then do what later adventure games did which is: right click to look, left click to walk and double left click to interact. (and only have the inventory there at the bottom, or alternatively on a different screen)

Fair enough, my suggestion with context sensitive actions would work better by dropping the 'click action to perform' menu and limiting the number of ways you can interact with an object (although there tends to only be one, two if you count 'look' on anything of consequence). I think your interface suggestion could work too. Are you working on another adventure-style game that uses that or is it just an idea?

from GreatRedSpirit
Maybe I like trying to kill stuff with the peashooter too much

Yeah, upgrades make everything significantly easier. But I'm still gonna nerf Scyther anyway. Waaay too fast.

Glad you are being informative, but if this thread turns more into a discussion of "whats happening with Release Something" it would be a disservice to people who submitted a game for the event. I hope more people discuss the games again.

from Bandito
Hey Halibabica I'm kind of lost. I've beaten the first boss and I don't know where to go, help please!

You have to backtrack to the door with the fire symbol that you couldn't open before. Behind it is a tower switch that turns green when activated. That will open up the Air Zone.

I don't have much free time this week, but I want to play some of the releases and leave my thoughts. I'll do my best~

All right, I downloaded what I could, and here's what I thought of a bunch of these games.

Ethereal Dreams - I like the style. The diagonal movement is a refreshing break from the usual tile-based stuff. I know it's only a tech demo and that the graphics aren't quite refined yet, but I thought the walk animations looked pretty good. The only thing that bothered me was that their heads don't move. Even bobbing up and down a little bit would help, because they just looked too static compared to the movements of their bodies. I also liked that events changed depending on who was leading the group, but you may want to keep cutscenes shorter than what you had here, especially if they aren't relevant to the plot. They just talked ON and ON about nothing, and with each character having their own lengthy conversation, you fit a short novel worth of words into one event. Other than that, so far, so good!

Akropolis - Well, I don't speak the language the game was made in, but it was interesting to explore. I was reminded heavily of Lexico, one of the oldest games in RMN's database. There wasn't a whole lot to do, but the graphics are nice and I was intrigued to look around the facility. The game has good ambience, but it needs more...how you say...uh, game in it. I'm sure there's much more to it than this demo shows. Good work so far!

Exodus Scrapbook - Nice compilation here! Your project may never have seen completion, but at least you were able to salvage the highlights. Some parts were better than others, but seeing how it's all part of a cancelled project anyway, there's not much point in critiquing.

Final Paradise - Bandito, I think you have a long way to go. The game was playable, but had some issues in its presentation. The way the dialogue and story are presented feels very hurried and unnatural, and even immature at times. I liked how you handled the characters' basic attack animations, but the battles weren't at all interesting. It didn't help that you fought the same character you couldn't beat twice during the introduction. That's the sort of thing you should spread out. It really hurt the pacing of the story because the player doesn't know why Rachel's so important yet. The little snippets you get out of her while you're beating her up just don't cut it. I think you'd do well to redecide where/when this story should start, and try revealing this information at a different, longer pace. The mapping was too wide open and square-edged, though the marsh before Cales was a bit better. It was often hard to tell where the map exits were, and several of the houses in town were vague and undefined. The whole thing badly needs a reexamining. I didn't find any bugs, but it needs a lot more than basic functionality to be fun to play. Hope this helps you out!

Tina of the Stars - Pac-Man meets Bomberman, eh? It's a nice, simple concept. I was okay with the slow walk speed, but there were some things I thought could be a little better. After all the stars are collected, it seemed kinda pointless having to go around and punch all the monsters. Sure, that's how you remove them, but the power-up mode never wears off, so there's no challenge left to the stage except to punch everything, which has its own weird RM* hit detection issues. A speed increase for power-up mode would've been nice, or maybe a projectile attack. A time limit on the mode would work, too. As it is, it feels too much like an afterthought at the end of the stage. Otherwise, I liked it! It has retro arcade nostalgia accompanied by pretty newer-age graphics.

Dragon Kingdoms V - I've seen a few of the other Dragon Kingdoms games, and you're possibly more dedicated to your series than I am to mine, VideoWizard. There's not much to see in this short, short demo, but I did enjoy stomping around as your giant character, William. There were a few things I could walk through that I shouldn't, but other than that...good job. It's hard to say much about something so short! I hope this project goes well for you!

Druman - Well, there's a lot I could say, but it appears you're new to RPG Maker. You might want to use this as a practice project to figure out the engine and what it can do before you make something more serious. As it is now, it needs a lot of work in many areas. I will note that the dialogue flowed fairly well, although you tend to have run-on sentences. Also, I was put off by all the swearing; it comes off very amateur and doesn't make the game, funny, edgy, or whatever. So, my overall advice, clean up your dialogue, take the game more seriously, and keep practicing. Everybody's gotta start somewhere!

Sweet Home: The Second Coming - While this would normally reek of all the horrible shoddiness one would expect from an RM* game, I was actually rather amused by its total lack of seriousness. I liked how you handled the face graphics and character sprites. Using real pictures badly transformed into sprites was actually interesting. It added to the game's ridiculous approach to everything. The editor's notes and such really helped keep the fourth wall broken and avoid such pitfalls as the dysfunctional caterpillar system. I shouldn't be saying so much positive stuff about a game as bad as this, but I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I didn't know how unfinished everything was. If you can keep up that level of satire in the real version and fix up all the crappy events and stuff, it could work in the same vein as games like Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden (though don't expect it to get anywhere near as popular).

Re Quest - GAH! Instantaneous screen transitions HURT! I literally cringed the first time I moved from one map to another. Anyway, this seems like it's in its very early phases. The mapping was pretty nice, and I fought the zombie mission, but there didn't appear to be any way to hurt him (what looked like my attack did nothing to him). The fight reminded me of my own project, but it still needs some work. Mission 4 crashed the game, so I can't comment on much else.

The Assassination of Michael Gower - I love games like this. Sometimes they drive me nuts, but I have so much fun finding widgets and where they're needed. But this one has me stumped! I can only seem to get the ending where he fails to shoot the mayor. I can't figure out how to dispose of the letter, and the business card is a total mystery to me. Anyway, the game has a really simple style, but it's consistent, so it works. I couldn't find anything to complain about, to be honest. Good work! I have to figure out how to beat this correctly!

Better late than never, right? I'm not submitting them as reviews; though. Not enough substance.