Hey guys! I have been thinking about updating the game again, with more major changes this time (thus making it v.2.0). Most people seem to think the game is too hard so I wanted to tone down the difficulty, primarily by lowering encounter rates and changing item prices/gold drops. I also think I want to boost the defense power of armors because I have heard from players they dont make much difference, but that is something that would require testing for balance, something I really dont have alot of time with right now. So would anyone be interested in a new Bloodsphere with those changes? Or interested in testing this stuff to make sure I dont make the game too easy with my balances?

This fixes several more glitches including a game breaking one. I'm 90% sure old saves will work on this version so if you are stuck due to a glitch download it and copy your saves over and it should work.

After countless delays, memory wipes, rescripting and alterations, I have finally managed to finish my RPG Maker game! I personally am shocked that this day even came. Bloodsphere is my first RPG Maker game and it’s an “RTP Adventure!” with an epic plot and tons of gameplay! Yeah literally every project with those traits is dead in the water after their second demo. Instead of constantly starting over or giving up to make a new game, I trudged along because I really wanted to finish the game. I was considering having a closed beta before I uploaded the final version, but after seeing just how unreliable 99.9% of beta testers are in the rpg maker world I decided it would be better to just release it as is, and if there glitches and issues down the road I can fix them and upload newer versions. I have tested the shit out of the game by myself and with friends so I’m confident there won’t be any more glitches.

Well it has been a long and interesting road. I’ve learned _alot_ about RPG Maker working on this game. When I first started it a long ass time ago, my plan was to make an epic 20+ hour long RPG. When it comes to commercial games, I tend to prefer the long ass campaigns like Dragon Age to the 5 hour crap in the Call of Duty games, so I took this philosophy to RPG Maker. Only to find out late in production most people seem to prefer shorter RPG Maker games x_x. I will definitely not making my next game this long, but as long as some people play it to completion I guess my work wasn’t in vain.

What’s next for Alex898? With classes starting up again I want to take a break from RPG Maker for a little while. Maybe play some other peoples games and get inspiration, stuff like that. I have planned my next game a bit and I’m gonna use all the knowledge I got making Bloodsphere (and from people critiquing it) to make my next game really freaking great. That means custom graphics, non-random battles (I have already evented them the way I like so this is a guarantee), nonlinear game play, choice-driven plot, more character customization and a much wider variety of weapons and armors.

But what’s next for Bloodsphere you may ask? I can really take a second Bloodsphere game in either direction: A prequel or a sequel. I was thinking if I did return to Bloodsphere to do a game that does both: Basically it would be a two chapter game, chapter 1 would have you play as Karoes 20 years ago (the point of this chapter to further flesh out his character development and just what drove him to madness) and a sequel chapter that took place 30 years after Bloodsphere’s end which I won’t share any details in an effort to not spoil Bloodsphere’s plot for you :P. This is all just a ‘maybe’ right now cuz I do want to try something different and more original with my next RPG Maker game, but down the road there might be a little bit more Bloodsphere if people who beat the game decide they won’t even more plot exposition :-)

As for why the download link isn’t working right now, it still says it’s pending on the game management panel but once that’s done it will be up for you enjoyment. You may also notice the download is like 40mb or something big like that. That download includes the RTP files with it so people without them can play it. There is also another download without the RTP files for those of you that have them.

So without further adieu:
BLOODSPHERE: THE BEST COMPLETED RPG MAKER XP GAME RELEASED SO FAR IN 2011

The biggest criticism of the game seems to be the opening is too long and boring, and I have to kind of agree. Since I am almost done with the game, now is the time to completely rehaul the prologue chapter so it is more streamlined and not boring for people. I have come up with a few ideas for approaches but for those of you that have played the demo or beta, what do you think is the best approach?

1. Cut out the first few scenes and instead have a scrolling dialogue explaining what happened/setting up the narrative. IE. A dialogue explaining that a mysterious man showed up in Reins the same night a wounded soldier returned home and their pathes would cross etc. Obviously it would be more detailed and better than that :P

2. Make it more interactive. I was thinking about actaully making the prologue longer, but making it interactive and having the player do more in it. You walk around more, and I was even thinking about including a sequence before Lucian gets injured where he is a higher level and you control him and Zane and fight a few Balkian soldiers while raiding a camp. This would obviously make the intro much longer, but I feel it can add more character development and make the intro less boring.

3. Keep the intro style the same (mostly cutscenes with a few brief interactive sequences) and just reform the pacing of it. My biggest complaint as the designer is that I don't like the pacing of the intro, I feel like it moves too fast and I don't like the music choices I picked for the scenes. This option would pretty much have me start from scratch to design a new intro sequence with better pacing, but not add more interactive sequences or a scrolling font to streamline it.


I'm wondering what you all think is the best approach to take to rehauling the intro sequence to the game?

I also made a few changes to chapter 1 already:
- Lucian now starts out at level 1 with the Eye Poke skill. This way he doesn't start out completely lacking skills (which seems to be a big peeve of the community). I'm considering giving him an additional new skill but in regards to the full skill list I have already made in the database there isn't really any skill I can come up with that wouldn't be redundant later on.
- Updated the Ephilon Road mapping as well as the mapping of the first couple of towns so they look better.

I have finished the database and the game itself (mapping and eventing) up to the end of chapter 18! So close to being done I can almost taste it! In honor of my achievement, my computer decided to break! Before you (as in the 3 people actually anticipating this lol) start freaking out, I have extensively backed up my files with Bloodsphere so I didn't lose any progress with my game. Due to my bad priorities however I failed to back up a term paper for one of my classes that I was almost done with... so yeah today is a sad day in that regard... The combination of broken PC plus having to rewrite a term paper are gonna delay when I finish the final version of Bloodsphere. I was anticipating it being finished in October but now November or even December seem the most likely options.