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STORY:

Legends tell of an ancient empress named Elexorien, a mysterious character whose story is lost in the dark ages.
The only thing known about her is that, at her death, she had herself buried with all her immense riches in an inaccessible tomb full of traps.

Many have searched for it without success or have never returned to tell it, but you, almost by chance, have come to the entrance of that mausoleum that time has forgotten.
Her riches are at hand, will you be able to make them your own or will you have a solitary death in the bowels of the earth to keep the ancient empress company?


GAME MECHANICS:

The game focuses heavily on the claustrophobic atmosphere of the maze and on identification with the protagonist. Expect QTE to survive traps, a lot of exploration and some riddles to solve.

Being a tribute to the old Dungeon Crawlers, it will be better for you to arm yourself with squared paper and pen, they will be useful, especially in the final part... hint hint...

NOTES:
This game was made in 2015 for a Labyrinth Contest, so it's a relatively short project that I created in about 3 weeks.
As usual, I wanted to try something different than the standards of RPGMaker 2003, creating an engine to have a first person dungeon crawler.

A few years has passed since then, and today I have finally decided to correct a few things, add a more personal touch and, above all, translate it into English, with the help of my friend OldPat, whom I thank very much.




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  • Completed
  • Testament
  • RPG Maker 2003
  • Adventure Puzzle
  • 05/02/2019 06:56 PM
  • 06/09/2019 11:28 PM
  • N/A
  • 19977
  • 8
  • 327

Posts

Pages: 1
OldPat
OrudoPatto, kisama!
5107
Finally in here too!
This is another pretty impressive display of what can be done with the tool.

Another good game from good ol' Test! :)
Yeah!

After a little further test, in a few days I'll submit the game for the download.

Stay tuna!
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
What is this game? Looks incredible. Love how you've broken out of the constraints of the maker. I'm really interested to see what it's like. Subbed.
Oh! So this was that labyrinth contest game that you were talking about in that Pocket Quest review I did some time back. Huh…


Well…I’m not the biggest fan of dungeon crawlers in the world...but since you made it and I really enjoyed your last game, I’m going to give this is a try whenever it comes out! I think it’s only fair.
Yes, it is.
Made it in 2015, now slightly refreshed.
Obviously VEERY different from Pocket Quest. I like to experiment XD
Download available!!!111!!

I hope no bug or grammar error survived, but in case... you know what to do.

Enjoy!
OldPat
OrudoPatto, kisama!
5107
author=Testament
I hope no bug or grammar error survived, but in case... you know what to do.


Beat the crap out of the translator!

Ehrm.

DOWNLOAD IT!
Very interesting game and concept :) Testament wins again! <3
On the later part. First riddle, get. Took a bit more than an hour.
And stupid auto-messages telling me I saw this area before when I have not. And I know it!!!

And I am stuck at the riddle. I am positive I got all areas covered.
I found two moons - one crescent, one falling, a sun, a star and an E.
And somehow this makes for 8 tiles?! WOOT. Oh, 9. I mean light versus dark is an obvious one to look at geographically, but it doesn't work - using the map definitely doesn't work. But I am stuck. Hard stuck. I got the glyph words too but I can't make that into black white can I.
Why not make it into 5 tiles, eh? I bet it's a silly anti-brute-force thing : /


The clues don't help me one bit so I am only left with brute force : /
Please help?

Edit: Ok, one ten more try tries. So the middle one counts too. I have more of an idea, but not much. And my hunch is off. Welp...
Well Protagonist-kun, thinking outside the box won't help me when I have no idea what's even inside the box.
Thanks Protag-kun for making brute force impossible/a pita with your endlessly long helpful narration.

I give up! I would love to hear the answer to this riddle though so that I can finally finish the game.

(as for the game, it's really impressive responsive and nice, so I like that. Other than that? It's just not using all the pros of dungeon crawling, and I love dungeon crawling. This is made for people who don't like the battle-centered ones, and I happen to like those. Neat atmosphere and layout for the most part, just I guess you need to like that one riddle that's there. I don't.. <.> sadness. And even then, you need an hour to get there. Drawing maps is nice n all, but more a utility, not a feature)
I know, I know, many people struggle at the end riddle.

Let's see...

Forcing the player drawing the map is part of the solution. You have reference, some of them are on the floor so that they can be seen from above too...

There's something in this last part of the map, other than symbols, that you can't find anywhere before.


Hope this help.

I'm glad the game is responsive and that you like the atmosphere.
Unfortunately I'm not fond of the battling genre, or to put it better, I've tryed to do something different and the time limit contest prevent me to add a bs.
That's exactly what I found out too, I drew a map - it just doesn't provide any answers (if you don't want it spoiled is a pm ok?).

Ramble:

I understand you'd like me as a player to get it - and you know the answer and don't wanna spoil it, but I do not get it. I just want to pass, and maybe understand the riddle at this point - I do not yet. It's like giving me an 8 letter word to fill in and telling me I can get there because there's vowels in it (maybe without even specifying the language of the word). I don't mind being tasked to do it myself, but I need additional information if I am ever supposed to be able to solve it.

There is no start and end - I guessed it could have to do with dark and light being represented by moon and sun, but all such combinations are not doing anything. Would a moon need two dark tiles or one? Would one moon have one and the other two for their different descriptions? Is a star light or dark? And then only one light tile? Which one, if so? And what is the E supposed to do? Also, there's also stars and moons on the thing that differ from the layout on the map with north-orientation - are they just decoration or not, and if so what in the world would that even mean? I don't know. I don't, and most importantly, I don't even care all that much. I really don't. I don't find most riddles fun. I don't even find them interesting. I respect those who do, but I am not one of them. Once, I had a puzzle box in front of me that my sibling's husband had solved earlier, and I had seen his enthusiasm for the thing - I didn't have it, not one bit. After using it as a fidgeting tool and trying it, I delighted myself in reading the instructions in Japanese instead, and that brought me the greatest joy and excitement. Instructions in foreign language > Puzzle box.I really liked the atmosphere and story-foreshadowing though and I would so love to finish it carrying that mood, but I will have to wait another while.

(also, I don't think finding something in a maze is a special thing to miss - if you don't scout out everything, you'll easily lose your way. But that's me. I found everything, 'cause I mapped everything out and double checked. And I realize this post is super long with the edit now, and English is not your preferred language, so you probably just wanted to make sure, but here we are, anyway : D It's just something I have seen a couple of devs do before. Like, not wanting to provide any detail for fear of spoiling the experience. Well, that, and thinking I didn't get the simple mechanic and pointing at the simple thing, when it was a different thing I was struggling with. It sucks when it happens.)


And nothing to worry about, haha, just a preference. You did an amazing job for the time frame. The sounds (except maybe the dodge one) are on-point, too.
Worry not! XD
English is not my preferred language for writing/speaking, but I've no problem reading it.

I fully undestand your point of view, I'm the one that came out with such a complex/incomprehensible riddle that in MY MIND was clear (obviously), but aside for few others a complete abyss of darknes.

Here's the solution, it can be useful for others adventurers:

well... there's no solution!11!!... Just kidding.

The stone with the removable tiles is a representation of the labyrinth's last section. A sort of simplified map with no corridors, eroded by time.
There are some symbols on it, star, moons, sun, the "E", you can find them on your exploration and that's the motive why they're on the floor too (except for the "E", that stands for "Elexorien", just to be clear, not for EAST as many had suggested), so one must align correctly the map that he/she had drawn using them as a reference points. You'll find that is upside down.

Now, the labyrinth has every square of it used for corridors, there's no empty space in the map, EXCEPT for this last section where there are parts of it that cannot be visited. Empty spaces between the walls. 2x2 square spaces.

So, with the map correctly aligned you must remove the tiles corrisponding to these empty spaces. The little 1x1 tile represent the central point of the intersection that obvioulsy is passable and the tile must not removed.


Hope you can enjoy the ending ^^
I see, so that's the idea. That's very obscure, and I will say impractical for the people drawing maps. I mean the last part felt very different layout wise, but ugh, to go back and redraw everything. I will see when I feel like doing that.. lol.. thanks though, that gives one the ability to do it!
And glad reading's fine.

I will say hand-drawn maps are not 100% accurate if you want to draw them fast. That explains one gripe I had though - the biggest gripe I had with this game - it is VERY unusual for dungeoncrawlers to have corridors separated by a wall WITHOUT a tile of wall between them. Seriously, those in-between walls are paper thin and ridiculous LOL. Those were the only areas that were REALLY impractical to navigate and orientate yourself with, too. (you can see if corridors are further ahead, but not if it's the tile next to you, if I remember that feeling right.. in any case, that's what I found problematic).
Likewise, I added a space for myself on my maps simply so I could survive - also, I was getting tired. The last bits were the messiest for me, simply because I wanted to end the game fast, and there were no details I needed to keep track of. Also because that's where drawing it in a way that's useful to read, rather than 100% accurate can get a bit annoying - I had more paper ready to transition, though.
I drew maps while playing, I am left-handed so I even drew maps while avoiding traps lol. I say, this riddle is do-able if you had an auto-mapping feature (even without the symbols) or had a map ready. A hand-drawn one will be less useful for this, ESPECIALLY because you drew the labyrinth without any spaces. That's poison to readability if you had to draw one by yourself - at least for peeps like me! I will take utility over perfection ANY DAY. Maybe some other people were out there who could do it.

I think that's the biggest problem people have figuring out this riddle. The riddle doesn't require you to have a map, it requires a perfect layout - when the REASON you were encouraged to draw a map was ORIENTATION! You didn't need perfect tiling to orientate yourself and the game only tells you to orientate yourself. That's a problem.
Everything before this kind of didn't challenge you, either, and there was no suggested drawing system - and the most commonly seen one across at least all DS games is different. Think SMT Strange Journey, Etrian Odyssey, The Dark Spire..
If you had a clear system this riddle would be much easier to solve and much more intuitive. I would assume the majority of players will skip perfection, because it's hard to follow a big block - that's why there's paper games made out of ones that are big blocks, like this one : D (for example, in Etrian Odyssey, the picture linked way above, you still need to input them, but the system guarantees accurate drawings.). What I want to say is - the riddle isn't bad by itself. In fact, it is really clever. The environment the player is in though, that isn't a good place to start from in this case, because it relies on unspoken rules, and chance.

This is the map I drew, btw. I have all the detailed information provided noted down, as well as a full layout. I never got lost using it. (I even added all Ivy locations).
It's also absolutely and utterly useless for the riddle at hand. This has nothing to do with whether you drew a map or not. : D Only vaguely.


*sighs* Welp! That sounds more like work and less like game, but I will get back to it me thinks, with grid-paper, after I have done the bulk of work in front of me LOL. <.> back to the drawing boards. If you want to save me with a private message, I wouldn't say no, hah!

Holy shit XD
I lost myself the moment I see your map.

Ok, ok, it was intended to use a grid paper, one step, one square, one step, one square. Simple enough.

This treasure is well protected after all XD. You probably are one of the many that find dead in the labyrinth's corridors.
In fact this is a Labyrinth, not a Dungeon and I'm not too fond of the idea to use an entire tile in the map for a wall. But I'll take this into consideration the next time I'll design a dungeon map.

I'll send you the map of the last section.
author=Testament
Holy shit XD
I lost myself the moment I see your map.

Ok, ok, it was intended to use a grid paper, one step, one square, one step, one square. Simple enough.

This treasure is well protected after all XD. You probably are one of the many that find dead in the labyrinth's corridors.
In fact this is a Labyrinth, not a Dungeon and I'm not too fond of the idea to use an entire tile in the map for a wall. But I'll take this into consideration the next time I'll design a dungeon map.

I'll send you the map of the last section.

I did not get lost inside the labyrinth, I will have you know!
Assuming I'll just die there, tztz, just rude. (also, I don't OWN loose grid paper at the moment, I do have a notebook or two that use it, though - which are fairly small). There's a reason I made the map this way, it's because I'm the only one using it ;) I also remember the basic layout for myself too, additionally. *shrugs* I didn't make it to be read by others and this is the result. Haha.

With all the warnings, I'd just have grabbed the gems and walked back out through the front door :D


And yup, definitely your choice! Just something to be aware of. If nothing else, it can help you tell people it's a closely-knit one. Like for me, I can work with either - I just need to know which it is before I get on drawing.

Thank you for the help, though. That'll save me a lot of backtracking (and some legendary treasure called grid paper lol)

Edit: Aaand I finished it! Not surprised, but that's a nice ending to everything. May write a review if you don't mind.
Lol, the legendary grid paper.

I'd have escaped with the gems too, but as you can see there are reasons...

I'll be glad to have a review, with all the pros and cons you've found.
Thanks to Kylaila, fixed 2 typos.
Reuploaded the fixed version of the game!
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