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In Beyond the Labyrinth you play a lowly nobody who comes to the small town of Elmicia to start a guild. In the mines on the outskirts of town, a most curious discovery has been found--a forest. Naturally, everyone is curious about this, and as a result, everyone rushes to be the first to discover its secrets.

Beyond the Labyrinth has a deep character creation process that lets you control everything about your characters. The battles are intense and satisfying, and in the labyrinth, there are plenty of secrets and treasures to discover.

The NPCs give a small breather in exploring, with each NPC having a distinct personality. As in Atelier Iris 3, certain NPCs will have quest series that as you complete them, they reveal more about themselves, further giving the game more depth.

Note: Demo updated to version 1.1!

Changes include:
Polished things up.
Slightly reworked guild processes.
More explanation.
Slightly easier difficulty.
More rewards.
Fixed odd save bug concerning caterpillar script.

Hopefully it addresses everyone's concerns fully. :)

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  • Production
  • xbrokensin
  • RPG Maker VX
  • RPG
  • 03/13/2010 01:03 AM
  • 12/16/2019 07:22 AM
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Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Upload the game to the site! RMN is a reliable host for projects; you don't need a lame mediafire upload.

Also, considering this is virtually Etrian Odyssey, I have downloaded it.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Okay, so, I just tried it for a few minutes and then quit. First off, work on your grammar; almost every text box is messed up in syntax/spelling/etc. Second, when you recruit a member, you're not really told what is going on at all - a naming box with my guild's name in it popped up, and then I had to pick-and-choose classes until I found a not-as-cool one that happened to be available. Grey out ones not available yet.

Basically, it just feels really sloppy right now. Work on presentation, grammar and maybe even making it not quite 100% Etrian Odyssey.
I'll give it a twirl and see what I think. I saw the name Etrian Odyssey thrown in and was instantly intrigued.
"Okay, so, I just tried it for a few minutes and then quit. First off, work on your grammar; almost every text box is messed up in syntax/spelling/etc."

I find that funny since he is pretty much the dialogue writer for my game, Essence XD
Craze, while I agree with some of your points, I have to wonder what you mean by the grammar being sloppy? Like, could you give me a few examples so I know?

Second of all, okay, I can admit things could be explained better and classes could be greyed out... but I also have to admit that its not rocket science.

But is that all? Did you not even get past the opening before you completely wrote the game off? And already its NOT Etrian Odyssey...

*sigh*

In EO, the town wasn't developed at all, and you can see that I've kind of gone out of my way to make it for more alive. I tried to make NPC's more important.
Righto..

First off I have to say It is not bad at all. Overall until the part where I just got but raped by lack of money and dead party I'd clocked up around 45 minutes in my save. Even though I found I had to play it all in one playthrough due to the glitch noted bellow.

Replaying it a couple of times I found that the mages were useless to pick at the start. They would almost certainly be picked off within at least the 1st attacks from the enemy and in the end I just made a team of Warriors so I could go further.

Once my team starting killing things and getting to grips with the gargantuan amount of skill customization (which if messed up at the start will pretty much cripple your party).

My first playthrough I for some reason thought it'd be smart to just work on base stats and not the masteries in which case I was stuck with weak attacks and Mages with no spells. More of my own fault but at the same time could use some tiny small guidance to give the player a rolling start and not die and instantly quit like the others did.

After I finished the Guild Test I took on the side quests for the mining and the kill 5 troops mission. First off the guard giving the player money and items in the dungeon was a good idea but unnatural in the sense that I automatically then left the dungeon to go back to the store. It could possibly make more sense if someone in the Guild Office gave you the items then casually pointed out the directions to the items shop as even buying the axe at the start made a profound difference on my party's ability to kill the monsters without being wiped out. This is just personal preference it's just I'm not sure many others would turn back and try and improve the character's equipment when they are already in the dungeon.

The Quests were easy to understand and really intuitive especially how you trigger the quests by making the conversation rather than talking to them and the quest giver automatically knowing why you're there.

Also don't ask me why but it took me bloody aaages to discover the priest in the church revived your party and instead I kept pestering the women in the grave yard. And checking if the potions were available to revive them instead.

The mining quest was in itself was a rewarding quest. Although it'd be nice if the EXP was a tad more generous as still the monsters on the first floor could beat me if I missed 1 or 2 moves. Still more loot would be nice everywhere as it keeps the player engaged and gives them a glimmer of hope to improve by buying awesome new gear. Add more chests, more random hidden loot!

The Menus and interfaces were amazingly well done. A bit daunting in terms of the multiple menus and switches and choices. Like Craze said although I found it alright it might need a slight amount of guidance when making a party. Obviously as an Etrian Odyssey player I assumed I'd make a party until I fill up the spaces but other players might not know that.

The design of the main hub town is nice but unnecessarily big. If I was constantly going to a from the Labyrinth to the store it'd be a pain to haul myself aaaaalll the way up the map every time. Take an example of games like Diablo's Base Camp or even Craze's Geondun Base Town. The map is compact enough to have everything you want at a quick and easy distance.

Mapping could use some work in a lot of places. Interiors are fine but the actual design for the Labyrinth was just sort of uninspired. a lot of trees on grass. I'd mix up the visuals at least a bit, use a mack tile for Tile E and use the assortment of trees just to add variety and also variety in the terrain level.


Okay so a few mistakes I found so you can fix em up:
Rune says 'are you an Adventure?'

In the abandoned building with the cloth door you can walk up the bookcase in the middle of the room.

Saves did not work at all for me. Loading a game from any of my saves which I'd left the game to come back to later came up with an error for the caterpillar script (Script '* New Caterpillar' line 159: NoMethodError occurred)

And that pretty much wraps it up. I wish I could play more and see exactly where you got up to but I basically got to a point where I was getting my arse handed to me with little money to do anything about it but I enjoyed it as I love these sort of games. You've got the engine set out great, you just need to polish it and make it a bit less steep in terms of difficulty to start otherwise you will get alot of players simply leaving becuase they can't be arsed...

Unless you really are trying to be like Etrian Odyssey. In which case that game gets cripplingly hard.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
xbrokensin: The grammar is just sloppy. Play through the first part of the game again and see if you don't notice lots of little things. You even posted a screenshot with a typo.

And yes, I quit. I was a little frustrated that the recruit/guild system was thrust on me with little explanation of how to use it - like, I wasn't even able to pick my gender before being able to input a name - something that, uh, is heavily based on gender. I had no idea what was going on, or how I was supposed to know what I wanted to name the person (assuming that I was naming the person - which was confusing since my guild name popped up in the box).

So, yeah, I stopped playing. Patch and polish it up and maybe I'll give it another go.
The game handles itself almost too much like Etrian Odyssey. I understood the naming as in Etrian Odyssey you put the name in then choose the portrait. But players who have never played it will wonder why it's that way round and what order the creation process goes.
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
I found a really annoying bug:

If you close (not quit to title screen) the game and try continuing from a saved game, you'll get the following message:

Script "New Caterpillar" line 159: NoMethod Error occurred.

undefined method '' for nil:NilClass

and the game crashes.

I've been able to get around that by starting a new game, going through the process in the guild HQ, quitting to Title screen and finally continuing my saved game from there. Although that sometimes brings another issue: sometimes the lead character will appear by him/herself in the church or the other members will not be behind as they should but offset by a few steps. Once you leave the church the caterpillar line appears as it should ... perhaps you need to look into this.

I'll give you more feedback once I've played it a bit more ...
Yeah, that caterpillar script seems to be very incompatible with my game... but don't worry, I've fixed it. Soon I will update version 1.1 of the demo which will hopefully fix any issues anyone has with this game.

But, I'll admit now, I'm not perfect.
Okay, there we go! Demo's finally up and I've included all the changes made. :]
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
Ok. I'll download this new version and give you the feedback based upon that, then ...
I finished playing it finishing all the quests to the best it let me and even peeking into the 2nd floor and running away from the wisps.

One problem with the quests was that after completing the Mining 101 Quest and receiving the Armour the Quest log still told me to return the 2 ores to the shop keeper.

The other quests are fine however I was caught totally off guard by the battle after rescuing the dog. It just sucked to be doing well and then thinking i'll just find the dog and return back with the path I've made and instead i was thrown into a boss fight with a half dead party. It would be more suited to have a single quest for eliminating the slime king as my party was still in in the LV 2s and they got destroyed in 3 moves. I'd be better to let the player prepare and anticipate a boss battle or better yet let the player take the dog quest at a level cap of at least level 3.

The interfaces and menus are much better with the latest fixes. One problem I occurred however was pressing the Cancel button when inputting a name for a new party member's name came up with an error in the script code.

Everything is much smoother starting off, the extra loot and items helped a lot for the first quest. And I finished all the quests in around 1 hour with my main guy at lvl 5 and the other 3 on lvl 4.

I was even able to take out a black wisp for some reason which I believe should be a lot more rewarding.
I like the changes you've made, and that you had this version up so quickly is amazing.

The begining is now much more player friendly, I only knew what to do in the first version because I have played Eterian Oddyssy. The three quests you have are quite good, I like that you show different aspects of the game in the variety of the quest early on. Though you should tell the player that selling things to the item shop owner will enable them to access higher level equipment. (Even though you can't actualy equip that higher level equipment in this demo - oh darn I spent ages geting money and then couldn't spend it on anything equipable.)

I especialy liked that we could now see what classes are availabe to make your party from now. That was a very good change and it has left me wondering if (like the ronin and the hexcaster) others will become available during the course of the game or if when the full game is released you will start out with all of them.
It's be clever if you were made to work and unlock later classes in quests giving you a incentive to keep playing so you can get a new Class which ironically will make the player keep playing to level that new character up.
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
I finished playing the demo and noticed the changes you made to address all the comments made for the earlier demo. Regarding the caterpillar issue, you definitely fixed it! I did notice you fixing some of the text, although some of the spelling, typing and grammar issues still remain ... The other important change you made was adding more text to explain things in the guild HQ. You can probably add two important details: the save crystal in the church (although that's already covered by the priest) and the bartender's rumors as sources of information (I know that he mentions that selling things to the shopkeeper can result in new things being available for sale at this shop). Also, it was good that you change the recruitment process by choosing class first then name, since if chose a lady or guy, you would make a better name choice.

One problem was that you also added to the guild lady giving the items and telling them to assign points to boost attributes or get skills, which was previously done by the guard at the entrance of the mine. This is confusing, since the guard appears at the guild out of nowhere to say these things. Might as well have the lady of the guild take care of that.

Another thing that I'm not quite sure but you should check if it is an issue is when you talk to the guard to get the patrol quest, killing the wisps didn't get counted until I talked to him again (the count of monsters defeat didn't appear after defeating them as in the trial quest).

Regarding the point assignment system, it would be nice that if you chose something that unlocks something else you would be told before rather than after, given that points are scarce.

Regarding the quests, they aren't too difficult once you figured out what to do. I expected the mining quest to be a little bit more challenging, but basically its a matter of luck and you can even finish it without fighting. That fighting was involved in rescuing Toby was not a surprise to me, although I thought the king slime was just about double the strength and HP as the ordinary slimes, which made it manageable if you had attack skills available.

I was also able to get the treasures guarded by the black wisps avoiding fighting them. After completing the third quest, I found my characters quite strong for the monsters at the first level of the mine, but not quite ready for the second one. I thought the feature of changing colors of the wisps depending on your level is pretty nice. Also, I did notice that the price of the inn went up as my team's level went up, which is fair, since at first I could fight two to three wisps without using it. At the end, I could probably fight about 6 of the 1st floor ones. Another nice feature is the switching of the characters at the shop when buying equipment. Usually most RPGs try to show how the item in question will affect the character but can only show +/- for one attribute, while in your case you show the total effect of equipping (if possible) that item.

I agree that the town could be a bit more compact since it has a lot of open space and you have to walk quite a bit to get to places. I can envision having at least one of each type of member for the guild and have them teamed with at least one healer.

That's all the feedback I can provide for now, I look forward to finding out what the issue is with a certain house in town in your next demo or better yet complete game!
@thedjt

Well, for the dog quest, at first I was planning on having the dog follow you--but if he was touched by a wisp (or YOU were), he would run back to where he was hiding at first.

While this sounds good, I figured everyone else would just be annoyed by it. And since I didn't just want an "in and out, get the dog, leave" type of quest, I threw in the mini-boss so that there's... SOMETHING.

The cancel in Name inputting is new. I'll look into that.

Well black wisps aren't unbeatable. They're kind of like mini-bosses for the most part, and yeah, I will try to make them more rewarding.

Thanks for all the feedback. :D

@Kerilithia

Glad the changes helped, and I give a couple clues here and there that lets people know its possible... (or at least I tried to). The higher level equipment SHOULD be equipable... but I guess I screwed something up in the class database.

As for class unlocking... I've been thinking about that, and its a toss up between having to unlock better classes and just having them all available from the get go. I'm not sure which would be better overall... I MIGHT go with unlocking, though.

@edchuy

Yeap, lol, I tried. The text... GAH. This will be a very text heavy game (as are most RPGs) so I'm sure there will probably be quite a few errors I overlook. I'm pretty much doing this on my own, so yeah. >_>

I think its a good idea about more info on the Church and Bar... unless you explore them on your own, you might just miss them.

The guard was actually not supposed to be there at all. He was the overlooked results of a shoddy copy/paste job. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, btw.

Hmm... I'll look into the patrol quest. :]

As for point assignment... Well, I guess that's an option. That's kind of what the requirements are for off to the right side of the Skill Learn menu, but if people think it would help, I'm willing to change it.

I'm not sure how I could make the mining quest more challenging unless I pulled a Pokemon and have it so wisps can like... hide inside the rocks. And I agree about the Slime King... I wanted to make him a more "unique" monster, but my brain didn't want to cooperate.

Thanks for all the feedback! My mapper said she'd give it a go to "spiffy up" all of the maps, but we'll have to see.

It will probably be a while before this is complete! Luckily, I have the "groundwork" laid out, so its only a matter of adding in more content and tightening things up.

:D
Well you better get that MAPPER to get to work asap. I think she needs some help in an opening, too. So you should get to work on that too ;)
The caterpillar script has been fixed, but I still encounter a game crashing bug. Whenever I have one character hit by a status effect he/she is already inflicted with, the game goes poof. This is especially problematic with the spiders on floor 2 who has a high accuracy multi target web attack. If two of them fires their web, I'm almost certain to have the game crashing.

Other than that, the game is fun. Class balance could have been better though. Low defense classes are a liability and Crusaders are overpowered. A four Crusaders party is like playing on easy mode.
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