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Announcement
10,000+ downloads and the idea generator
Yeah its that time again. 10,000+ downloads for this game. Totally not worth your downloads, trust me.
But what is worth your time.... I made idea generators :-)
http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/9060/
And an article on designing your first game.
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/574/
But what is worth your time.... I made idea generators :-)
http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/9060/
And an article on designing your first game.
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/574/
Announcement
9,000+ downloads and another year later
Thank you all for downloading and playing it. Since I've gone onto other things, I am thinking about giving out the source so someone else can add to it and it can live on after me.
Progress Report
Almost 8,000 downloads and 40 subscribers
Sure that number is nothing compared to some of the other games, but this game has long outlived me. I will die and people will still download this game and beat it. Anyway, I have been getting the itch to continue making the game, but I'm sure I've said that dozens of times when I still haven't finished my other game DungeonQuest.
I did continue it... but I painted myself into a corner when you go to an ice world and help demons. Even parts where you need to divide your party into 2 groups of 3. The feel of the ice planet sucked though so that part is stuck in limbo. I even made a sequil of it where I made the mistake of having open areas and hundreds of on screen enemies that made it slow and sluggish.
From mapping for other people, and just randomly mapping, I have dozens of towns and other maps just laying around and I remember how it only took a month to make this entire game while it has taken several months to make other games that I feel less fond about.
Maybe I should just start copying and pasting into this game. Maybe I should just keep it going piece by piece like the Winchester House. Since there is no real story, I could just keep it going on and on. No one that has written me seems to mind there is no story.
The bottom line though is I want to continue it for the people who play and subscribe and randomly write me questions on what to do and where to go. The fact that people still play this blows my mind.
Thank you downloaders and players :-)
Here's something else. 2 dungeons in 4 hours takes 4 minutes to run through with no enemies >>
I did continue it... but I painted myself into a corner when you go to an ice world and help demons. Even parts where you need to divide your party into 2 groups of 3. The feel of the ice planet sucked though so that part is stuck in limbo. I even made a sequil of it where I made the mistake of having open areas and hundreds of on screen enemies that made it slow and sluggish.
From mapping for other people, and just randomly mapping, I have dozens of towns and other maps just laying around and I remember how it only took a month to make this entire game while it has taken several months to make other games that I feel less fond about.
Maybe I should just start copying and pasting into this game. Maybe I should just keep it going piece by piece like the Winchester House. Since there is no real story, I could just keep it going on and on. No one that has written me seems to mind there is no story.
The bottom line though is I want to continue it for the people who play and subscribe and randomly write me questions on what to do and where to go. The fact that people still play this blows my mind.
Thank you downloaders and players :-)
Here's something else. 2 dungeons in 4 hours takes 4 minutes to run through with no enemies >>
Miscellaneous
6,000+ downloads
Celebrating 6,000 downloads of this crappy game :-) The last 1,000 took 5 months, but the fans pushed the game to this point! I have no idea why or how the game got this many people downloading it. The youtube videos don't have that many hits to get 6,000 and there are only 27 subscribers... so here's to unbalanced numbers!
Miscellaneous
5,000 downloads!
Hurray! I never thought it was possible! Thank you all for playing and special thanks to those who beat the game. Thanks to RMN for hosting it and thanks to Youtube for getting me more downloads. Thanks to Craze for donating a map or two. Thanks to Clyde and Edchuy for reviewing it.
Miscellaneous
V2I is up and its a blip on the radar
Very small update that fixes an error where you can get stuck in a certain cave if you go in after you've defeated it. No big deal, but I thought I'd blog about it.
Miscellaneous
Epiquest 2: the Sequil
I have had time recently to get back to RPGing. I've probably got an hour of game content. I painted myself into a corner with Epiquest 1 and continuing it was a chore when it should have been fun to make. Epiquest 2 starts from scratch (except the scripts) and incorporates all of what made the last game fun and a lot of new things that will make the game more accessible. So far this is what I have.
1 town
1 village
12 classes
1 swamp
1 pond
1 desert
30 weapons
45 armors
The NPCs have personalities and react to you accordingly. Shop keepers will sell for higher and lower based on your party and how the NPCs react to that party. In other words, people that like cute and fuzzy things will not like hunters. People that study lore will react better to pilgrims, greys and mages. Men that love lusty women will react better to mistresses.
It is very similar to Epiquest. However, it will be more accessible. You will pick your party before the first mission. So if you fail, its your own fault, not the challenge of the game. However, you will need to find people to join your party. So far there are 11 additional people to add to your party with 11 classes. Some are easily found in towns, while others are out on their own. You will still have 4 active members in your party with reserve members. The leveling up for both party members and enemies has been tweaked and it is more enjoyable and more understandable, because there are no decimals this time around.
Epiquest 2 will still use the chase enemies way of fighting battles where you can see them on the overhead map. They will react differently to you. Some enemies will run away from you on the map while others will charge toward you, but most will just randomly move. At night, the enemies are more challenging. Not like Castlevania 2, but more like gushers, snappers and cardinals will be wolves and squeakers at night.
The areas are less compact so you will be able to sneak past enemies. That was a big complaint about the last game, because players just plowed into the enemies without thinking to avoid them. Now you can literally sneak by them all. I might add some mini boss characters in there to make things interesting. The enemies also drop specific items that can either be sold or used to shake things up.
Enemy battles have strategies. Avian enemies are in the air, so it requires either a weapon that can shoot them down or a jump attack. Like the last game, certain enemies are immune to weapons and need magic to defeat them. The enemy troops have been randomized and diversified with an improved system. As an example, with most usual RPG games, you would get 3 spiders always. With this game, it will always have 2 spiders + a randomly generated enemy that fits those 2 spiders.
Another interesting enemy feature is the mage enemies have specific elements assigned to them. So even though you see a mage, that mage will have a specialty that is not stated in the name. Enemies will level up as you do like the last game. Enemies are still as smart as they were in the last game with attack patterns, although I have kept in mind all of the comments that people said about the last game to ease up on the sleep spells.
There is now a crime system. Break into or steal from houses and guards will notice. They will chase you down when they spot you just like the last game. When you are captured, you will either have to pay a fine or be arrested, which punishes your stats.
Weather patterns and time are both back. Actually everything is back. Orbs are back. Learning skills from equipment is back. Learning skills from using skills is back, even if there are not that many skills yet. There will be bows & arrows, slings & rocks, throwing daggers & stars.
Right now it has been a slog for the past 2 weeks to get the class, enemy, skill, weapon and armor balancing implemented. It was my choice to start from scratch (except the scripts) and I think it was the right choice. Once that is done, more maps will come quickly.
To top that off, there are already 2 guest mappers for the 2nd area of the game.
1 town
1 village
12 classes
1 swamp
1 pond
1 desert
30 weapons
45 armors
The NPCs have personalities and react to you accordingly. Shop keepers will sell for higher and lower based on your party and how the NPCs react to that party. In other words, people that like cute and fuzzy things will not like hunters. People that study lore will react better to pilgrims, greys and mages. Men that love lusty women will react better to mistresses.
It is very similar to Epiquest. However, it will be more accessible. You will pick your party before the first mission. So if you fail, its your own fault, not the challenge of the game. However, you will need to find people to join your party. So far there are 11 additional people to add to your party with 11 classes. Some are easily found in towns, while others are out on their own. You will still have 4 active members in your party with reserve members. The leveling up for both party members and enemies has been tweaked and it is more enjoyable and more understandable, because there are no decimals this time around.
Epiquest 2 will still use the chase enemies way of fighting battles where you can see them on the overhead map. They will react differently to you. Some enemies will run away from you on the map while others will charge toward you, but most will just randomly move. At night, the enemies are more challenging. Not like Castlevania 2, but more like gushers, snappers and cardinals will be wolves and squeakers at night.
The areas are less compact so you will be able to sneak past enemies. That was a big complaint about the last game, because players just plowed into the enemies without thinking to avoid them. Now you can literally sneak by them all. I might add some mini boss characters in there to make things interesting. The enemies also drop specific items that can either be sold or used to shake things up.
Enemy battles have strategies. Avian enemies are in the air, so it requires either a weapon that can shoot them down or a jump attack. Like the last game, certain enemies are immune to weapons and need magic to defeat them. The enemy troops have been randomized and diversified with an improved system. As an example, with most usual RPG games, you would get 3 spiders always. With this game, it will always have 2 spiders + a randomly generated enemy that fits those 2 spiders.
Another interesting enemy feature is the mage enemies have specific elements assigned to them. So even though you see a mage, that mage will have a specialty that is not stated in the name. Enemies will level up as you do like the last game. Enemies are still as smart as they were in the last game with attack patterns, although I have kept in mind all of the comments that people said about the last game to ease up on the sleep spells.
There is now a crime system. Break into or steal from houses and guards will notice. They will chase you down when they spot you just like the last game. When you are captured, you will either have to pay a fine or be arrested, which punishes your stats.
Weather patterns and time are both back. Actually everything is back. Orbs are back. Learning skills from equipment is back. Learning skills from using skills is back, even if there are not that many skills yet. There will be bows & arrows, slings & rocks, throwing daggers & stars.
Right now it has been a slog for the past 2 weeks to get the class, enemy, skill, weapon and armor balancing implemented. It was my choice to start from scratch (except the scripts) and I think it was the right choice. Once that is done, more maps will come quickly.
To top that off, there are already 2 guest mappers for the 2nd area of the game.
Miscellaneous
45,000 views, 2,900 downloads
Well its been another month since I started counting and in the month another near 1,000 downloads and 13,000 more page views? This can't be right. I only get a few comments here and there. Of course Russian websites gave my game crazy good reviews and there are Youtube videos and my game itself points here directly. Hmmm...
What could it be? Oh I know, the up front challenge that weeds out players from the start. Maybe the fact that I still support bug fixes after all of this time and all of these complaints. The fact that you can change your party, once you get it.
Maybe its the fact the game has a mini game to run from, avoid or plow through monsters in the overhead map. Beats me. One day, once work slows down for more than a day I might add to it. I do have a lot of new maps for the addition to the game. A new world, new gameplay mechanics that have you switching between parties. Lots of fun stuff.
What could it be? Oh I know, the up front challenge that weeds out players from the start. Maybe the fact that I still support bug fixes after all of this time and all of these complaints. The fact that you can change your party, once you get it.
Maybe its the fact the game has a mini game to run from, avoid or plow through monsters in the overhead map. Beats me. One day, once work slows down for more than a day I might add to it. I do have a lot of new maps for the addition to the game. A new world, new gameplay mechanics that have you switching between parties. Lots of fun stuff.
Miscellaneous
Zeldaish Side Project
I notice that Epiquests gains and loses subscribers.
Anyway, Epiquest is still officially done. I've done a lot of work to extend it past the finishing point, but I think with people not being able to complete the first dungeon, its pretty pointless to extend the game past where it ends. So I've gone onto a similar yet different project. This is a very Zeldaish game and no it will not have any Zelda sprites.
There has been a lot of feedback about Epiquest having too many battles. I've done plenty of tweaks to stop people from complaining. However, I've taken other positive feedback, like increase room size. While I can't do that in Epiquest, I can do that for the new game "Zeldaish."
I've plotted out the entire game. 8 "palaces," each with a different element and item. Each item found in the palace will help you not only defeat certain enemies, but complete puzzles within. Oh as well as get to the next game area. Things like the Pegasus Boots that will enable you to run (big deal) and a stop watch to temporarily slow down time so you can get past enemies. A lantern that will damage or frighten enemies as well as help with puzzles and seeing in the map itself.
Speaking of getting past enemies, I've got 16 different kinds of map enemies with different traits. In Epiquest, there was really only one kind of map enemy. The dark ghosts that would mostly randomly float around. In this game there will be:
- Slimes (that run from you when you're close)
- Ghosts (that float randomly and can sense when you're near)
- Jumping Skeletons
- Orcs (that chase you when they see you and don't stop)
And so on.
There are big rooms in each palace to evade, chase or flee from enemies. Some enemies chase when they see you, others sense you. Each palace room is a screen like Zelda 1, only more detailed than your average RPG Maker room that fills up a screen. I'm done with about 6 of the 8 palaces.
Like Epiquest, when you get touched by an enemy, it will open up a battle and there will be specific ways to take out each enemy. Like with bats, you need to use a jump attack ability or an upward thrust. Boss characters will also have weak points, mostly the head, but going for certain parts of a boss will have lesser chance of actually hitting the boss. Sometimes it creates side effects too.
I'm also making this game a little backward from normal traditions. I'm making the palaces first, then the other battle areas (caves / forest / canyons / shrines) to get to the palaces. Then the towns and finally the overworld. That would probably end up making more sense. Only the palaces are done in screens like Zelda, perhaps the other areas will be as well, strictly because there is more room to manuver around and avoid enemies on the map.
Finally, like Epiquest, you will get to pick your party right at the start, because that's what makes a good game. Making a character at the start. Sims, Tony Hawk, Dragon Quest... we all love picking stuff. Party members will have skills that help with puzzles too.
Anyway, Epiquest is still officially done. I've done a lot of work to extend it past the finishing point, but I think with people not being able to complete the first dungeon, its pretty pointless to extend the game past where it ends. So I've gone onto a similar yet different project. This is a very Zeldaish game and no it will not have any Zelda sprites.
There has been a lot of feedback about Epiquest having too many battles. I've done plenty of tweaks to stop people from complaining. However, I've taken other positive feedback, like increase room size. While I can't do that in Epiquest, I can do that for the new game "Zeldaish."
I've plotted out the entire game. 8 "palaces," each with a different element and item. Each item found in the palace will help you not only defeat certain enemies, but complete puzzles within. Oh as well as get to the next game area. Things like the Pegasus Boots that will enable you to run (big deal) and a stop watch to temporarily slow down time so you can get past enemies. A lantern that will damage or frighten enemies as well as help with puzzles and seeing in the map itself.
Speaking of getting past enemies, I've got 16 different kinds of map enemies with different traits. In Epiquest, there was really only one kind of map enemy. The dark ghosts that would mostly randomly float around. In this game there will be:
- Slimes (that run from you when you're close)
- Ghosts (that float randomly and can sense when you're near)
- Jumping Skeletons
- Orcs (that chase you when they see you and don't stop)
And so on.
There are big rooms in each palace to evade, chase or flee from enemies. Some enemies chase when they see you, others sense you. Each palace room is a screen like Zelda 1, only more detailed than your average RPG Maker room that fills up a screen. I'm done with about 6 of the 8 palaces.
Like Epiquest, when you get touched by an enemy, it will open up a battle and there will be specific ways to take out each enemy. Like with bats, you need to use a jump attack ability or an upward thrust. Boss characters will also have weak points, mostly the head, but going for certain parts of a boss will have lesser chance of actually hitting the boss. Sometimes it creates side effects too.
I'm also making this game a little backward from normal traditions. I'm making the palaces first, then the other battle areas (caves / forest / canyons / shrines) to get to the palaces. Then the towns and finally the overworld. That would probably end up making more sense. Only the palaces are done in screens like Zelda, perhaps the other areas will be as well, strictly because there is more room to manuver around and avoid enemies on the map.
Finally, like Epiquest, you will get to pick your party right at the start, because that's what makes a good game. Making a character at the start. Sims, Tony Hawk, Dragon Quest... we all love picking stuff. Party members will have skills that help with puzzles too.
Miscellaneous
V2H is up and Russia loves Epiquest
First the update V2H that should make the game flow smoother and be more enjoyable to the players.
ADDED in V2H ---
- After a battle, you now have 1 second of invulnerability / immunity to average enemies. You can plow through them without having to fight them. There is a note telling you too.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Lullaby is less effective. Most enemies that use it now use it slightly less.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Wind Spirits now attack more. Peaches have slightly more attack power. Guardian Angels have less starting MP.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Notebook transparency.
ADDED in V2H ---
- If you've already put out the fires at the first tower and exit the tower, you can select to visit the top or start at the bottom.
ADDED in V2H ---
- In the first tower, enemies are blocked by invisible walls to prevent bottlenecking.
Now for Russia. After getting 3,000 page views and 100 downloads in a single day, I did some Googling like someone suggested. I found a few Russian sites with Epiquest on it. Here is the most knowledgeable site and what it had to say.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://small-games.info/%3Fgo%3Dgame%26c%3D3%26i%3D4105&ei=rrRJTI_KA9CMnQf_hJHjDQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CD8Q7gEwBzgK&prev=/search%3Fq%3Depiquest%2Brpg%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us
Their description of my game: The name of the game speaks for itself - an epic RPG adventure party in the best traditions of the genre. A sea of opportunities, an excellent plot and design of the world, coupled with a nice graphics, balanced gameplay. All together - and there EpiQuest.
- Excellent plot??? Rusians love my game! :-)
I also noticed: If you found a new version of the game EpiQuest, or to crack it, patch, levelpak, mod, userbar, or want to add your size - please use this button.
The website says: The game received very high marks from critics and won several prizes Misao Award - the largest competition of games on engine RPG Maker
- I don't even think my game has been in a Misao.
ADDED in V2H ---
- After a battle, you now have 1 second of invulnerability / immunity to average enemies. You can plow through them without having to fight them. There is a note telling you too.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Lullaby is less effective. Most enemies that use it now use it slightly less.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Wind Spirits now attack more. Peaches have slightly more attack power. Guardian Angels have less starting MP.
TWEAKED in V2H ---
- Notebook transparency.
ADDED in V2H ---
- If you've already put out the fires at the first tower and exit the tower, you can select to visit the top or start at the bottom.
ADDED in V2H ---
- In the first tower, enemies are blocked by invisible walls to prevent bottlenecking.
Now for Russia. After getting 3,000 page views and 100 downloads in a single day, I did some Googling like someone suggested. I found a few Russian sites with Epiquest on it. Here is the most knowledgeable site and what it had to say.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://small-games.info/%3Fgo%3Dgame%26c%3D3%26i%3D4105&ei=rrRJTI_KA9CMnQf_hJHjDQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CD8Q7gEwBzgK&prev=/search%3Fq%3Depiquest%2Brpg%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us
Their description of my game: The name of the game speaks for itself - an epic RPG adventure party in the best traditions of the genre. A sea of opportunities, an excellent plot and design of the world, coupled with a nice graphics, balanced gameplay. All together - and there EpiQuest.
- Excellent plot??? Rusians love my game! :-)
I also noticed: If you found a new version of the game EpiQuest, or to crack it, patch, levelpak, mod, userbar, or want to add your size - please use this button.
The website says: The game received very high marks from critics and won several prizes Misao Award - the largest competition of games on engine RPG Maker
- I don't even think my game has been in a Misao.