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About the game
FADE is a direct sequel to my first game, BETA. The story picks up shortly after the ending event from the first game, and continues to build on the established main characters from the first game, as well as introduce new characters later on in the game. It is not required to have played the first game, though.
FADE stands for Fun, Adventure, Danger and Excitement. These are the 4 key-words that are the basis of my game.
  • Fun - The most important aspect of my game. It's supposed to be fun, and funny as well.
  • Adventure - The game revolves around the player going on an adventure. To explore places, and to meet people within the game world.
  • Danger - There will be villains. There will be treacherous locations. There will be challenges for the player to overcome.
  • Excitement - The game must offer enough variety in action, fun, story, everything to keep the player interested.


Planned features: - (subject to change)
  • A fun story, with lighthearted dialogue
  • Several different characters to join your party over the course of the game
  • A simple, yet deep, turn-based combat system
  • Equipment changing the looks of your character sprites and facesets
  • Several dungeons to explore
  • A variety of out-of-combat minigames, challenges and puzzles
  • Signposts readable from any direction!


Even though FADE is a sequel, it is absolutely not required to have played BETA in order to enjoy, or to understand what's going on in the game.
For those who have played the first game, there'll be an option before the game starts to fill in the actions and choices you have made in the first game. Those choices will carry over to stuff that happens in the second game. Example: If you got to befriend Eldin in the first game, she will be your friend in this game.



Plot & Main characters
PLOT

After helping the people in Beta town, Roth was rewarded with a huge airship, made by the scientist. Together with his li'l bro, Thieme, and his best buddy, Rage, the three of them have set out on an adventure! Not long after departing, they pick up Eldin, a friendly girl from Beta Town. She has lived most of her life in her parent's house, and has always dreamed of going on an adventure.

Suddenly, the Prince of Darkness appears! He doesn't appreciate the group of adventurers flying around that close to his home, and launches an attack on the party and the airship. The chaos summoned by the Prince of Darkness causes heavy damage to the airship, forcing it into making a crash landing. It is there where the real adventure starts... (dun dun dun!)

ROTH - THE THUNDERGOD

Roth is the game's main character. He's the leader of the Battler trio, and a pretty relaxed guy with a witty attitude most of the time. In battle, Roth controls the powers of lightning and electricity to shock his foes.

THIEME - THE KINGPIN

Thieme is Roth's younger brother. He likes to sleep, a lot. Besides sleeping, Thieme is interested in exploring the unknown, learning new things, and meeting people from other parts of the world. In battle, Thieme uses the power of earth to do his bidding.

RAGE - THE DRAGOON

Best buddy of both Roth and Thieme. Rage is a cool guy, a hothead, and has a heart of gold. He likes to act all big and bad, but everyone knows he has a soft side too, specifically for women. In battle, Rage likes to turn up the heat, using fire and flames.

ELDIN - THE LADY

Having lived most of her life inside her parent's house, Eldin has always dreamed of going on an adventure. Her time has finally come to do so. Eldin is a friendly person, with a positive outlook on life. In battle, Eldin wields the powers of light to smite her foes and to protect her friends.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS

The Prince of Darkness lives in the Castle of Darkness, located in the Shadepeak Mountains. It is there where he plots his next evil plan. Some of the things he dislikes are RPG Adventurers, people who mispronounce his real name, and finding hairs in his soup.



The current demo for the game is around 3-4 hours long.

Credits
As the game is still in development, and subject to change, a complete list of credits will be added once the game is completely finished.

Plugins:
  • Cherry
  • Cerberus
  • Dragonheartman
  • PepsiOtaku

Latest Blog

Rage's Skillset


Aura of Fury: Grants targeted ally Attack+ for x full turns and cures Sleep. Restores 2 MP to Rage.
0MP
A powerful Aura that is especially effective on allies with the ability to attack more than once per turn. The question here is, do you spend a turn buffing up an ally's Attack for several turns, or forget about it and just bash in the enemy's face with your axe?

Burn: Deals moderate Fire damage to target foe and has a chance to inflict Burn.
12MP
Slightly less effective than the elemental versions of his friends' Skills, due to Rage's low Mystic stat, but the chance to inflict Burn still makes it a strong choice.

Magical Flame: Restores some of Rage's MP and cures Poison.
6MP
The same as Eldin's Mystical Light Skill, and essential if you plan on keeping Rage to continuously cast Spells.

Wildfire: Deals more damage to all foes when there are more foes on the battlefield, up to a maximum of 5.
15MP
Arguably the strongest multi-target spell in the main party's skillset. Should obviously be used on a field full of enemies.

Heat to Health: Doubles Rage's HP for x turns.
8MP
Rage already has the highest base HP of the main party, but clearly that's not enough for him. Doubling his health is Rage's way to survive powerful attack striking his face. Note: When sacrificing HP, the amount gets taken off by counting from Rage's base HP value, not his doubled value from Heat to Health.

Dragon Grinder: Strikes the target foe with the power of Dragons.
18MP
Simple and to the point. Rage has no need for fancy effects on his ultimate attack. Just hit the enemy with all your might and hope they die from it. Great to use as a finishing move.

For The Greater Good: Healls all allies. Cuts Rage's HP by 20%.
12MP
Rage's way to contribute to the party in a meaningful way that doesn't involve bashing in the faces of enemies. His allies will be healed for a decent amount, but Rage himself will lose 20% HP, and can potentially down him if you aren't careful. But it's all for the greater good!

No Pain No Gain: Cuts Rage's HP in half. Boosts Attack and Mystic by a huge amount for x turns. Can be cast only once per battle.
12MP
A mighty power-up that does inflict serious damage onto Rage himself, this Skill shouldn't be used without some pre-planning. The effect only lasts for several turns, so make sure to get the most out of it!

Fists of Fury: Fists of fire and flames. Can be cast only once per battle.
12MP
Rage's second Elite Skill, making you choose between this or No Pain No Gain. Much like Thieme's Blackrock Cannon Skill, this replaces the equipped weapon with a more powerful option. In Rage's case this makes his fists burn with flames of fury, making his regular attacks stronger than ever.

Rage is built to dish out large amounts of damage, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing he can do. Applying Fury buffs might arguably be even better than attacking himself in some cases, and with For the Greater Good, he can even assist Eldin in keeping the party alive. While his Elite Skills are both geared towards offensive play, one is for a big short term bursts, the other is better for long, drawn out fights.
Rage's weakness is the ability to keep himself alive. His HP is high, but he'll burn through it quickly with his mediocre Defences and when sacrificing HP for the greater good.
  • Hiatus
  • Milennin
  • RPG Tsukuru 2003
  • Adventure RPG
  • 03/08/2013 03:21 PM
  • 03/22/2024 03:30 PM
  • 01/01/2025
  • 137665
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Posts

Oh that? That's the internal code of the game.

(If full party cannot move, and the condition does not have a time limit or %, it results in gameover BECAUSE the condition cannot resolve itself. After 100 or so turns even 1% is likely to resolve, as is something that has a set turn limit)

If you somehow got it to do otherwise, it would literally freeze your turn system, since you have to be able to move at some point, otherwise you have monster ending their turns, followed by moving into your turn phase, which is skipped BUT the monster can't begin another phase either. You'd have to either add that if the entire party can't move you change any required variables as if they all moved already, or gameover it. Btw, this is fine. Final Fantasy considers it a battle end condition, and rightly so. If the entire party can't battle, there's no way you can win, therefore, you lost.

You could have two immobilize skills, one that immobilizes the party at 1% recovery (this gives enough turns that the party is actually skipped for the most part, and monsters can do their turns) or after a nonzero number of turns (0 is infinite, not actually 0) called something like Stop. And one for monsters called Paralyze that is 0 turns and 0% healing. These two are mutually exclusive, so monsters can't get Stop and heroes can't get Paralyze.

Hey, lol I'm so sorry that I sent you the same PM like 3 or 4 times. I sent it at work and my work pc sucks. It started bugging out and was refreshing itself a bunch of times, my bad.
Hey man, did you get my feedback I sent you in the PM?
author=Jparker1984
Hey man, did you get my feedback I sent you in the PM?


Yeah, sorry. I was away for a few days, but I'm back now. I read your PM and you provided some useful information and feedback. Check my reply to it.
I'm liking the new game stuff. Seems to run more smoothly too.
Thanks, did you make it to the end of the demo?
Not yet. Lost in the forest. I went to the blind guy's house and beat the monsters, now I'm not sure where next.
It seems like that part may not be clear enough to players, as you aren't the first one to get confused on where to go next. In the blind guy's backyard where you beat the rock slimes, there's a light spot on the ground indicating the fence gate where you need to go through to proceed to the volcano. I'll have to work on making that more obvious.
Killing fire slimes in the fire dragon battle should help out somehow (maybe 1 hp recovery per slime or explosion damage to the boss). I found this battle annoying because the party was low on health from figuring out the puzzle.

Also, how did you program attacks based on monster party? I've been wanting to do this.
author=bulmabriefs144
Killing fire slimes in the fire dragon battle should help out somehow (maybe 1 hp recovery per slime or explosion damage to the boss). I found this battle annoying because the party was low on health from figuring out the puzzle.

Also, how did you program attacks based on monster party? I've been wanting to do this.

I'm pretty sure that unless you're severely overlevelled the battle is almost impossible to win if you don't kill the fire slimes as they power up Burning Wave (which does AoE damage depending on the amount of slimes alive) and also heal the boss in phase 2. It's about finding the right balance between keeping pressure onto the boss and keeping his field clean while being able to stay alive.
Also there is a shortcut back to the blind guy's house from the crater you can take before you fight the serpent to fully restore your party at the dining table as well as take a bunch of Fire Grapes with you.
But you did manage to beat him?

For those skills you have to create multiples of the same skill and give them different damage values. Run a common event every turn that tracks down how many monsters are currently alive, removes every version of the skill on the character and then adds the one version corresponding to the amount of monsters alive.
The only weakness with this system is that it doesn't update after a move has been used, so if there are 3 monsters alive, then a character kills one of them, the next character still has the skill active that deals for 3 monsters (it takes one next character turn to update). I'm pretty sure that's impossible to fix in RM2K3 since events can only be run before a character moves.
I did not manage to beat him. I managed to get to the armor break without trouble, and got within like 1/4 of kill, then everyone started dying because I had like no fruit left.

Hopefully when the new 2k3 airs, some of this stuff will suddenly start opening up.
Yeah, he heavily ramps up his damage output once he enters phase 2, at which point you either need to attempt to rush him down or find a quick and effective way of taking down the slimes every turn while putting the pressure on. I'll give a hint: Roth's Aura of Magic is extremely useful in this fight. As the regen buff grants 1MP every turn a character/monster moves, you can quickly refill a character's MP bar with the amount of slimes that show up every boss turn. If your party is at least level 6 you should have all the tools to beat this boss.
I think Roth and Eldin died in late phase 1, so I was trying to (1) stay alive and (2) trying to charge up for multiatks to nuke hit the dragon and slimes at once.

Got pretty close considering I pretty much broke strategy, but then comet hit the big guy, and Thieme had like 0 mp and got killed by that wind.
And the Game Over screen scenario wasn't triggering properly? In Tyranos' playthrough that got posted recently he got a black screen freeze, did the same happen to you?
Yup, it freezes. Considering how few revival items you have, strongly suggest changing the KO condition from Persists to Ends. Trust me, the game is still hard.

A few problems here.

First off, the puzzle always seems to take too long and I get hit by too many fireballs reducing pretty much everyone to 1 hp. I wind up having to eat about 3 of my remaining grapes. Some sort of "Let's take a breather. (Y/N)" deal before facing the boss would be helpful. Maybe more exp/items if you opt to say no.

Second, the strategy is wrong, btw. I missed the dialogue the first time because I wasn't paying attention. I actually got farther by ignoring it. The problem is that your party is juggling healing, attacking the slimes on by one (the boss should be enemy 5, because if I attack slime 1 rather than moving to slime 2 with the claw attack, it goes straight to the dragon killing my chances of thinning the herd), and attacking the monster. Usually this is useless however, because the summons new ones too quickly and there doesn't seem to be much point to attacking the slimes anyway. They don't have any attacks to speak of, and regardless of how many slimes, the boss monster summons the comet anyway. Essentially, the strategy seems to be wrong because wasting time with the slimes increases the likelihood of death. Seriously, I was focused on the slimes, and barely even managed to break his shell.

Change Meteor Crash from No Precondition to Monsters Present 4-6 and yes, there will be a legitimate purpose behind killing slimes. Also, slow the summoning down! I was level 8 for everyone, and I still couldn't keep up with the summoning. Especially while trying to keep people healthy.
The freezing should be fixed in the next version, putting your party back in front of the boss with slightly higher HP and MP than it was before the previous try.

By the puzzle you mean the punching fireballs? All you need to do is bodyblock incoming fireballs by standing in front of them to avoid any, or at least most damage (as is said in the text before it starts). Then hit SPACE when the Fireball is right in Rage's face while he's glowing (admittedly, timing can be tricky).

You don't have to challenge the boss right away after finishing the fireball punching part. If you stand on the big platform you should see a rock in the lava to your right which you can jump on. Follow the path of platforms to find the shortcut back to the start of the dungeon. Walk back to the farmer's house and rest the party at the dining table (and take the grapes). Then you can take the shortcut back to the boss to fight him at full health with 5 Fire Grapes in inventory.
This is hinted at if you go Game Over against the boss, but unfortunately it's bugged in the current version. :(

There is a legitimate purpose behind killing slimes. You won't be able to brute-force him by trying to rush him down and ignoring the slimes once he enters phase 2, as the AoE from Burning Wave and the heal from the slimes will quickly become too much for your party to handle. The Meteors are there to prevent you to slowly turtle him down.
The easy strategy to beating him is to get into this rotation:
-Roth spends most turns casting Aura of Magic on Thieme and Rage as they need all the MP they can get. Between that he can use Restorative Recharge to keep himself alive or Spark for a bit of damage.
-Eldin spends most turns casting Aura of Health or Mystical Light + Glimmering Ray (after field wipe). Glimmering Ray hits like a nuke with only 1 enemy alive.
-Thieme and Rage take turns wiping the field clean with Stalagmite and Wild Fire. Powered by Aura of Magic they should not be running out of MP if they stick to this plan.
I have a video of the boss fight uploaded on my Youtube, if I remember correctly it was done using a level 8 party:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzjXOLKiqRc&hd=1

Anyway, good luck if you try it again, and let me know if you make it with that strategy. Also, if you do continue, I'll wish you even more good luck on the part that comes after beating the serpent. :)
Have I mentioned my timing is completely horrible? I jump wrong and it hits behind Rage.

You should still switch the Meteor thing from No Procondition to Monsters Present 5-6. The fact that the monster uses it regardless of whether you have slimes there or not means you have to rush him. I got wiped out trying to do exactly the right thing because the dragon double hit me with meteor while I was busy killing the slimes. It should only be doing that if you are doing the wrong thing.
Like I said, I don't want the player to be able to turtle him down. Using the strategy posted above, he'd never get the chance to even use his Meteor and he'd be a total cakewalk. Taking out the slimes is the key to victory in this fight, but it doesn't guarantee you the victory. The boss on his own is powerful enough to be a serious threat to your party, the slimes supporting him just make him even more dangerous; that's how you need to see it.
But I'll consider toning him down if I get more comments about the difficulty of this fight (need more testers honestly), it's just that the several other people I've seen play through my game all took him down on first try.
But if enough people have problems on a boss on multiple retries I'll definitely make it easier. I've already done so with the first Shade Gazer mini-boss in the past, and the next demo version will bring a slight nerf to Firaea's damage output (so, congrats to anyone beating her before that time).

I've just re-challenged the serpent in a level 6 party, starting at low HP and MP and no consumables and was still able to beat it. Eldin did die somewhere mid-battle, but I still managed to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7c1SzKm7Fg
I don't want it easier, the challenge was good. I just want it clear from the battle that you need to wipe the slimes. You can say that, but if the battle flow leads you in the opposite direction, it's pretty much frustration. Stopping the slimes should stop the meteors. Stopping the slimes should also stop the healing (which I actually didn't notice).

I had it set on that, and still lost because I wasn't managing the characters right.

The battle flow doesn't lead in the opposite direction for wiping the slimes. If you watched the videos in my previous two posts you can see how many times I killed the slimes, and I'll tell you that I wouldn't have been able to beat the boss had I chosen to ignore them. I don't know what else to say about this.

So, how many tries have you given this boss fight? Have you gone back to fully heal the party? Because if you quit after the first try (don't blame you if you did since the Game Over was bugged) then I don't know how serious I should take this. If you did try multiple times even after reading my posts here, I'd very much like to see you make a video of the boss fight and post it so I can see what problem you're having.
Also, I don't mind if a player goes Game Over once or twice on a boss fight before being able to beat him. The difficulty of the bosses is intended to be high enough to be able to wipe a player party if they were poorly prepared or if they don't play well enough. I'll consider nerfing a boss if the majority of people I've seen playing through are having serious problems beating it.