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A powerful earthquake within a range of mountains near the border of two nations has unearthed an ancient mystery. A tower emerges from the destruction, seemingly untouched as the earth around it crumbled. The Academy, a powerful organization of the Northlands, wishes to know its secrets. A team has been selected to investigate this tower and unlock the secrets that lie within.

  • Two main characters to choose from! Either choose the spearman Gerald, or his sister Brenda, the paladin.

  • Explore the Ancient Tower's 30+ maze-like floors while fighting monsters and collecting treasure along the way.

  • Charge into battle or sneak past enemies that are visible on the map. Random enemies, not random encounters!

  • Engage in classic 2D turn based combat using powerful techniques and other abilities like alchemy.

  • Navigate past deadly traps such as ground spikes and falling floors.

  • Discover the secrets of the Tower with collectible items and secret areas to explore.

  • Help the expedition's camp flourish! Invest in modest shops so they grow from stalls, to tents to full buildings!


Playable Characters:

  • Gerald: An agile warrior that uses the spear as a weapon. He is a recently graduated student of the Academy that got assigned to this mission due to his exceptional performance. He uses ice skills as well as shouts to improve ally stats.

  • Brenda: A sturdy swordswoman skilled with the sword and shield style of combat. She is a year older than her brother Gerald. During the year since her graduation she has gone on many missions and completed them beyond the Academy's expectations. She wields her faith as both a shield to heal and defend her allies as well as a weapon to smite evil. She uses water skills to heal enemies and strike her foes.

  • Harvey: A blacksmith from the nation of Midland. He wields a warhammer and specializes in fire attacks and roars to lower enemy stats. He is from the Midland expedition and is assigned to help with the Northland expedition.

  • Reynard: A student of the Academy who specializes in History and Alchemy. He wields a whip as his weapon of choice while also using Alchemy to destroy his foes. He is assigned to this expedition due to his exceptional performance in exams and knowledge of history, both famous and obscure. He uses Alchemy to attack with a variety of elements.

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  • Production
  • Commercial
  • ReynardFrost
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 12/04/2012 11:53 PM
  • 04/26/2018 10:25 AM
  • N/A
  • 39484
  • 9
  • 0

Posts

Pages: first 123 next last


You deleted the image so I'm posting this here. You said you only use other sprites as a reference and not to copy and that even the RTP is the same. The top is the RTP, which is clearly different. On the left is the Dragon Quest 4 babble slime. On the right is your slime. Below them is your sprite directly overlaid onto the babble, and then the battle directly overlaying your slime. In the center is the exact shape being used by both sprites. That's not a reference--it's a copy.

If you can't even make a slime without copying existing work, I shudder to think of what your more complex monsters will look like.
Besides, is not cool to delete images, man. I thought you valued feedback, but now the feedback you got is in the trash... =/
Ronove
More like Misao Stealing Prince
2867
You're going commercial? I hope you replace the Lufia II rips you copied then too! I know they aren't exact copies of as the slime, but they are REALLY close for being references. I liked your battlers you had before actually, I'm not sure why you changed them.

Which, adding to that after giving it more thought: I liked them better because I didn't go "hey it's Lufia!" when I saw them (or insert a different game with Lufia). So to change up something to make it look like another game is a bit eehhh worthy. Better go with what you made before than an obvious too-close-reference-to-call.

<Edit: relooked at Lufia sprites and checked them toward yours>
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
Game pages should have a minimum of three in-game screenshots. Please add one to replace the one that was deleted. Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback. Please check out the updated slime and let me know what you think. :)

Don't worry Ronove, the player battlers are placeholders. I plan on redrawing them as I improve at doing pixel art (I'm fairly new at this whole art thing, only been doing so since June).
author=Jude
You deleted the image so I'm posting this here. You said you only use other sprites as a reference and not to copy and that even the RTP is the same. The top is the RTP, which is clearly different. On the left is the Dragon Quest 4 babble slime. On the right is your slime. Below them is your sprite directly overlaid onto the babble, and then the battle directly overlaying your slime. In the center is the exact shape being used by both sprites. That's not a reference--it's a copy.

If you can't even make a slime without copying existing work, I shudder to think of what your more complex monsters will look like.

idk why you're getting so worked up about this? it's really not a huge thing. it's a slime. with your mindset i can easily look at anything anyone made and go it's a rip. for example, your avatar looks A LOT LIKE FINAL FANTASY VI BECAUSE IT'S 16-BIT!!!!!!!!

it seems like you're bordering butthurt for really no reason
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
6309
author=Kilim
author=Jude
You deleted the image so I'm posting this here. You said you only use other sprites as a reference and not to copy and that even the RTP is the same. The top is the RTP, which is clearly different. On the left is the Dragon Quest 4 babble slime. On the right is your slime. Below them is your sprite directly overlaid onto the babble, and then the battle directly overlaying your slime. In the center is the exact shape being used by both sprites. That's not a reference--it's a copy.

If you can't even make a slime without copying existing work, I shudder to think of what your more complex monsters will look like.
idk why you're getting so worked up about this? it's really not a huge thing. it's a slime. with your mindset i can easily look at anything anyone made and go it's a rip. for example, your avatar looks A LOT LIKE FINAL FANTASY VI BECAUSE IT'S 16-BIT!!!!!!!!

it seems like you're bordering butthurt for really no reason

Yeah, so when some random new guy shows up in your chat to show off some character art, don't focus and flame over the fact that the sprite in the background wallpaper doesn't match up, and then claim the person is butthurt (instead of ignoring y'all).
Stress the little things, or don't worry about it. Your choice. I made mine. :P
The issue, Kilim, is that as a game that is going to be sold and distributed out in the public, we're looking out for Reynard by pointing out the things that could get him potentially sued.
Even something as small as a slime graphic - which belongs to super-giants in the game industry - is enough, especially when you consider that some games that weren't even made commercial have been shut down by companies because they used rips. (Check out Chrono Trigger: Crimson Shadows for example)
That this is a to-be-commercial game means it has stricter rules to abide by or there could be graver consequences. It's not a free game, hence it cannot, legally, use rips of any type, even if they are edits.

And that is something I appreciate, and I'm definitely going to be more critical and redraw everything that I got lazy on. Kilim is a buddy and trying to stand up for me, which I appreciate. Don't get me wrong, you folks make valid points, and I'm glad to have it pointed out.
author=Liberty
The issue, Kilim, is that as a game that is going to be sold and distributed out in the public, we're looking out for Reynard by pointing out the things that could get him potentially sued.
Even something as small as a slime graphic - which belongs to super-giants in the game industry - is enough, especially when you consider that some games that weren't even made commercial have been shut down by companies because they used rips. (Check out Chrono Trigger: Crimson Shadows for example)
That this is a to-be-commercial game means it has stricter rules to abide by or there could be graver consequences. It's not a free game, hence it cannot, legally, use rips of any type, even if they are edits.

yeah i get that. im also making a commercial game in the same vein as Reynard, but there's a huge difference between looking like a game and being an actual rip..

Crimson Shadows was C&D'ed because it took an existing base, Chrono Trigger, and used everything that game had to offer. It's not really a good example imo

One or two similarities isn't a big deal at all. In fact, Reynard is striving for the antiquity era of gaming, in which the art style has already been established. If he wants his game to capture the same aesthetics of that era, then it will look like a number of games. That's inevitable. I speak from personal experience as well, since I'm going for 16-bit on my commercial project (an already established aesthetic), and others have pointed out how it looks similar to a number of games, FFVI, Terranigma and Chrono Trigger to name a few.

tl;dr no matter what he does you can pick it apart for looking like another game.

If his game resembles an already released game entirely, or he used rips, then a company would take action. But for a simple similarity? Not one bit. Unless someone here is a lawyer specializing in such instances can prove me otherwise!
Legality issues aside, I don't think it's at all a bad thing to point out things that could be improved as, while making a slime with the same outline as a babble is unlikely to lead to a C&D or being sued, such things will be picked up on and a commercial game can receive a good chunk of negative criticism or even be ripped to shreds because of it (ex: I know a game called Black Sun gets a good bit of negative feedback for having sprites which look and animate a bit too close to those of Metal Slug despite otherwise being a decent enough product). Not to mention, it's good to encourage people to develop their own style anyway and moving away from copying outlines is an important step.

That being said, Jude's original post, while much-needed and wonderfully thorough, was decidedly worded far too harshly, especially at the end.

The game looks nice in general so far though to me and seems to have a neat 'Genesis RPG' vibe going on in its aesthetics and color palette which I always enjoy seeing (though I do agree with Liberty that the blue used in the menus should be tuned down a bit, especially if you are actually going for a Genesis look since games on that system tend to look 'washed out').
Ronove
More like Misao Stealing Prince
2867
If you even look at one game for the DS called Black Sigil (I think?), even if the developers did not use rips from Chrono Trigger or the like (or at least that's what they said), they got a lot of backlash because they were VERY SIMILAR. It's not a good thing if people look at your game and go "hey, this looks just like x game" and then look at everything else in your game, whether deserved or not, with a critical eye and that destroys their image of your game. You don't want that to happen to your game. Learning about it now is better than learning about it later when it's harder to change things around for whatever reason.

In short though, being reminiscent of something and then looking like a rip off of something is completely different. The slime and lufia battlers get closer to a rip off than I think you'd want for a commercial game. You want nostalgia of games long past, not rip offs. I think this game is headed in the right direction for nostalgia territory, but it doesn't hurt if people point out what looks more like a rip off than a homage and clearly Reynard knows how to take that in stride rather than you do, Kilim. I think he can defend his own game profile without you white knighting him.
author=Ronove
In short though, being reminiscent of something and then looking like a rip off of something is completely different. The slime and lufia battlers get closer to a rip off than I think you'd want for a commercial game. You want nostalgia of games long past, not rip offs. I think this game is headed in the right direction for nostalgia territory, but it doesn't hurt if people point out what looks more like a rip off than a homage and clearly Reynard knows how to take that in stride rather than you do, Kilim. I think he can defend his own game profile without you white knighting him.


it's not white knighting??? thanks though :^)

the thing is, I do agree on some aspects, like the Lufia battlers, but the thing is, and I established this before, there will be similarities regardless. that could be because of the graphics or actual person giving the criticism. as in, person A can look at this game and notice a small similarity, while person B can do what Jade did. all in the eyes of the beholder or what have you.

the only reason i CARE is because my game is, like his, trying to capture a previously defined aesthetic, so once in a while ill get the same shit he does from close friends, and although it's a joke once in a while, i can clearly see the frustration that reynard has. so that's that!
TFT
WHOA wow wow. two tails? that is a sexy idea...
445
author=xcvcx
idk why you're getting so worked up about this? it's really not a huge thing. it's a slime.

It is. Commercial tabbed projects should get slammed if there is a valid reason for it.
Ronove
More like Misao Stealing Prince
2867
author=Kilim
the only reason i CARE is because my game is, like his, trying to capture a previously defined aesthetic, so once in a while ill get the same shit he does from close friends, and although it's a joke once in a while, i can clearly see the frustration that reynard has. so that's that!

But you can capture a previously defined aesthetic without going into almost rip-off territory. I'm making a game reminiscent of an old-school game boy game and I have yet to find a person who has told me "hey that looks like game x!". All I've heard is hey that looks old school! You should be going for the old school comment because it's a collection of feelings, not just one certain game you are referencing from. What you should do when doing old school games in my mind is make it your own. Don't make it look like other old school games if you can, so that people go "hey that looks old school!" and because it doesn't look like specific previous old school games, that will be replaced with "hey that looks like ruins of rydos!" as your name gets out there because that's what it is: not a lufia rip off or a final fantasy rip off, but YOUR game. Even if you go for an old school game, you want YOUR touch to shine through, not the references.
author=Seeric
The game looks nice in general so far though to me and seems to have a neat 'Genesis RPG' vibe going on in its aesthetics and color palette which I always enjoy seeing (though I do agree with Liberty that the blue used in the menus should be tuned down a bit, especially if you are actually going for a Genesis look since games on that system tend to look 'washed out').

On that regard, It's nice when people try to pay homage to a certain game era, but I wish it were done in a more outside-the-box fashion. I mean, yeah, "Nostalgia" we get it. But your game doesn't have to follow that era's limitations to the 't'. If it does you're probably not thinking on our own, you're not thinking what's best for YOUR game, you're just copying stuff...

Out of the top of my head, all I can think of are Ocean's games (and general pixel-art), he often uses its own color palette and has his unique way to sprite things, while still capturing a nice 8, 16 bits era feeling to his work.

Edit: Yeah, what Ronove said. xP
author=TFT
author=xcvcx
idk why you're getting so worked up about this? it's really not a huge thing. it's a slime.
It is. Commercial tabbed projects should get slammed if there is a valid reason for it.

the only difference between a commercial game and freeware game is the commercial game costs money to play. they're still both games. i look at one the same way i look at other.

author=Ronove
author=Kilim
the only reason i CARE is because my game is, like his, trying to capture a previously defined aesthetic, so once in a while ill get the same shit he does from close friends, and although it's a joke once in a while, i can clearly see the frustration that reynard has. so that's that!
But you can capture a previously defined aesthetic without going into almost rip-off territory. I'm making a game reminiscent of an old-school game boy game and I have yet to find a person who has told me "hey that looks like game x!". All I've heard is hey that looks old school! You should be going for the old school comment because it's a collection of feelings, not just one certain game you are referencing from. What you should do when doing old school games in my mind is make it your own. Don't make it look like other old school games if you can, so that people go "hey that looks old school!" and because it doesn't look like specific previous old school games, that will be replaced with "hey that looks like ruins of rydos!" as your name gets out there because that's what it is: not a lufia rip off or a final fantasy rip off, but YOUR game. Even if you go for an old school game, you want YOUR touch to shine through, not the references.

yeah dude and i AGREE with this sentiment completely. although to be honest, in the example you gave...how many famous 'timeless classics' we're on the game boy when compared to the SNES. if you showed me your game i'd probably say that it looks unique and great because i haven't really played anything on a game boy ever since my mom brought me Pokemon Crystal for 60 dollars and deemed that too expensive for a portable console and took it away ;_;

I will say one thing however; one small detail that looks like another game doesn't mean that people will scream "rips" off the bat. once in a while, you will have a comparable object in your game that people will think looks eerily similar to 'x'. i think the problem here is the lack of diverse screenshots which leads most of you to believe that his game just uses this style for everything. and i had the same thing. i had one tile in my game look like an ff6 tile, and for a good 2 months everyone was going on and on about how im going to get sued by Square. town was finished and it looks fine.

honestly though this has turned into a conversation of VIDEO GAME SEMANTICS when it should be about Reynard's game so I'll leave it at that.
author=Ronove
author=Kilim
the only reason i CARE is because my game is, like his, trying to capture a previously defined aesthetic, so once in a while ill get the same shit he does from close friends, and although it's a joke once in a while, i can clearly see the frustration that reynard has. so that's that!
But you can capture a previously defined aesthetic without going into almost rip-off territory. I'm making a game reminiscent of an old-school game boy game and I have yet to find a person who has told me "hey that looks like game x!". All I've heard is hey that looks old school! You should be going for the old school comment because it's a collection of feelings, not just one certain game you are referencing from. What you should do when doing old school games in my mind is make it your own. Don't make it look like other old school games if you can, so that people go "hey that looks old school!" and because it doesn't look like specific previous old school games, that will be replaced with "hey that looks like ruins of rydos!" as your name gets out there because that's what it is: not a lufia rip off or a final fantasy rip off, but YOUR game. Even if you go for an old school game, you want YOUR touch to shine through, not the references.
I agree with Ronove, though it isn't a black mark in my book. Nevertheless, I look forward to this game. :)
author=alterego
On that regard, It's nice when people try to pay homage to a certain game era, but I wish it were done in a more outside-the-box fashion. I mean, yeah, "Nostalgia" we get it. But your game doesn't have to follow that era's limitations to the 't'. If it does you're probably not thinking on our own, you're not thinking what's best for YOUR game, you're just copying stuff...


What I'm trying to do is give myself those limitations and see how far I can push them to make something fun. An exercise in simple game design to let folks know that a game doesn't need to be a huge elaborate feature-fest with high end graphics in order to be fun.

It has been pointed out to me though that I've been going about this without actually adhering to any limitations (aside from using the palette) so I'm going to try to draw something different that actually follows the limitations and see how it pans out. As Ronove has said, I want to try to capture the feel of old school games without being a blatant rip off. My major sin here (due to my inexperience with spriting) was that I relied too heavily on what I was using for a reference. This crutch ended up tripping me up in the long run. Fortunately, the game is still in development so I can just draw new assets with what I've learned (and will hopefully continue to learn).

I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback (be it harsh or friendly :) ) and I hope to hear more of it. I got a little defensive at first, but honestly the sentiment behind even the harshest of feedback was, "Don't be lazy, make a good game. You can do better than that." which is what I tell people all the time. Time to follow everyone's and my own advice.

So, thanks again!
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
author=TFT
author=xcvcx
idk why you're getting so worked up about this? it's really not a huge thing. it's a slime.
It is. Commercial tabbed projects should get slammed if there is a valid reason for it.

For once we agree, TFT. Those of us who take great measures to avoid any of these issues (measures involving paying people license fees, thoroughly documenting everything) and see someone else get away with taking a cavalier attitude toward copyright - it is rather infuriating.

author=alterego
On that regard, It's nice when people try to pay homage to a certain game era, but I wish it were done in a more outside-the-box fashion. I mean, yeah, "Nostalgia" we get it. But your game doesn't have to follow that era's limitations to the 't'. If it does you're probably not thinking on our own, you're not thinking what's best for YOUR game, you're just copying stuff...

Going even further with the "nostalgia" idea - please commercial devs, can we get over the nostalgia? It's like getting blood from a turnip at this point. Make something original, that's what people actually want. ;)
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