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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
Milennin
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
- 138676
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CloseSo played the new content of your demo, and I have to say that you have done an amazing job! Kudos to you!
First off, I think your mapping is really nice! It's noticable that you have taken some time with the maps, and they are presented really well. The function of the map is also really nice, but I would lie if I didn't say that it was a bit confusing at times (I had a hard time finding where to go, especially to reach the 'tree' boss), and I'm not sure if the enemies keep spawning, but I had a lot of fighting before I found the place. It's not really that much of an issue anyway, since exploring is really rewarding (Thinking about the Feather, and the cloak which was a nice reward for a bit of exploring, and the treasure with the bunny boss and the puzzle of course).
I'm also a bit unsure about the enemies hiding in the trees, since there is no way to avoid them. It's just my opinion though, but I happen to get a bit frustrated when I'm forced to go into battle. Same could be said for the actual speed of all the enemies, since It's really hard to avoid them. It might have been because
I got a bit lost for a while though, and the addition of having enemies attacking me all the time could be a factor in that.
The battles however are totally amazing! (Actually up to the point where I got a bit jealous haha, I'm sorry but I couldn't help it! xD) Having enemies that are priorities in battles are really fun (the faeries), even though I think they are a bit overpowered, and I happened to die from them several times at the start.
The sort of 'debuff' that they keep attaching to you, pretty much 1 or 2 shoted Eldin once they released it. The lack of animation for the damage was a bit confusing too at first, I was more like 'Uhm ok how did she die?'
before I realized that it didn't just heal the fearies, but also dealt damage to my party. However I don't think you should do any changes to them (more than add a clearer animation for the damage recieved when they release
the attachments). After some trial and error I managed to build up a more reasonable strategy with the skills, and using the berries way more efficiently. After that it was way easier to come out alive, which I like!
I also enjoyed how you implemented the berries, mainly the stack limit of 5. By doing that I felt like it encouraged even more exploration, and led me to find the more 'hidden' items if you can call them that (The ressurection feather, and the cloak etc).
The slimes.. oh the slimes! Absolutely brilliant. First of all it took me a while (maybe 3 to 4 turns) to understand that they changed which type of action it would block. Maybe I'm just slow but that's really what happened. I also found it very satisfying to be able to change the type of action it would block, by damaging it.
That way you could sort of regen the correct amount of mana needed for a skill, to make a sort of 'combo' to take it down in a single turn. That way It felt like you could build up a small strategy to take them down as efficient as possible. Same goes for the birds with the berries, and I really enjoyed to set up my priorites on what to kill first etc. Very nice!
Something that I didn't like however is that you only had 1 single feather at the start (2 if you found the treasure) since if I managed to die (especially from the faeries) I had no way to revive my other party member. And since I really needed that member for the boss fights, and didn't have the possibility to escape from the battle, I just let the other character die as well. Then I found out that if you reload from the checkpoint, the other character is still dead. Which ended up with having to quit to the main menu and reload the saved game again. However I do like the 'reload from checkpoint' choice, but I found it kind of weird that the
checkpoint saved after the sort of 'game over'.
The reason why I was a bit frustrated with not being able to escape once or twice from the battles as well (before I found the cloak item) might have been cause I constantly run into enemies, and they were pretty much impossible to avoid. Even though, it wasn't that much of a deal since I really enjoyed the fights, but I
couldn't help but to feel a bit frustrated during some of the fights.
So once I finally found out how to get to the 'trent boss' I more or less hit a wall. I died several times from that boss haha, even though I did fight a lot and got some levels. However, I think it was my lack of understanding the fight at the get-go and also my instant failure of selecting the wrong target. A funny thing about that though is that I didn't realize that I was targeting the trent (which had the skill type block absorbed from the slimes) and somehow it let me to believe that the fight was designed in a specific way. I then realized that
this was not the case (and it actually inspired me to design a boss around this lol).
When I found out that the boss wasn't designed as I thought it was, I killed it pretty easy (even though I still died once before that). I do think that the boss could be nerfed just a tiny bit, since it would be pretty
difficult to beat it without the skills that 'hit more depending on how many enemies that are preset' (I'm sorry I forgot the name of them). To add on that, I think those skills are really cool as well! But without them, I think the enemies would spawn in a faster rate than you can kill them (especially if you don't find the weapon for Roth, and the longer the fight progresses).
Oh! Before I forget, I think I found a potential bug as well. I'm not sure if this is intended, but if one of your characters die and the other one is inflicted by the 'paralyze' effect, it will count as a game over.
Onto the cutscenes, I think they were well done (especially when the party decides to camp around that fireplace) Like I have said before, the humour is spot on and it really feels like a sequel to BETA. Rage is still my favourite!
Another thing that I thought was really cool is the Manual book, I'm not sure if that's what it was called but still. I have been trying to add a similar book into my game, but I have no idea how you managed to do that! I think I
have a way to make it possible for my game, but I'm not sure how to add all those tabs for it. So if you feel like sharing, I would be really grateful! I also think that the design on it was really, really nice! Especially the different pictures when hovering over a new tab, like the skill picture and what not.
As a conclusion I think that the new content is very polished, and the strongest part about it is the battle system for sure (and the awesome design on the bosses and enemies). In my own opinion though, there are some points that could be improved, as I listed above, but more than that I think you have everything spot-on!
I'm looking forward to the new content, and will follow you with extreme excitement!
As a final note I want to apologize for any confusing sentences, and all the (...) that I keep doing for some darn reason (It's a habit that I have developed recently... omg really? did it again!)
I think FADE is a game that deserves a lot more attention, especially if you have played BETA. But even as a standalone game, I think It's totally spot on!
Sincerely
~Dark.
First off, I think your mapping is really nice! It's noticable that you have taken some time with the maps, and they are presented really well. The function of the map is also really nice, but I would lie if I didn't say that it was a bit confusing at times (I had a hard time finding where to go, especially to reach the 'tree' boss), and I'm not sure if the enemies keep spawning, but I had a lot of fighting before I found the place. It's not really that much of an issue anyway, since exploring is really rewarding (Thinking about the Feather, and the cloak which was a nice reward for a bit of exploring, and the treasure with the bunny boss and the puzzle of course).
I'm also a bit unsure about the enemies hiding in the trees, since there is no way to avoid them. It's just my opinion though, but I happen to get a bit frustrated when I'm forced to go into battle. Same could be said for the actual speed of all the enemies, since It's really hard to avoid them. It might have been because
I got a bit lost for a while though, and the addition of having enemies attacking me all the time could be a factor in that.
The battles however are totally amazing! (Actually up to the point where I got a bit jealous haha, I'm sorry but I couldn't help it! xD) Having enemies that are priorities in battles are really fun (the faeries), even though I think they are a bit overpowered, and I happened to die from them several times at the start.
The sort of 'debuff' that they keep attaching to you, pretty much 1 or 2 shoted Eldin once they released it. The lack of animation for the damage was a bit confusing too at first, I was more like 'Uhm ok how did she die?'
before I realized that it didn't just heal the fearies, but also dealt damage to my party. However I don't think you should do any changes to them (more than add a clearer animation for the damage recieved when they release
the attachments). After some trial and error I managed to build up a more reasonable strategy with the skills, and using the berries way more efficiently. After that it was way easier to come out alive, which I like!
I also enjoyed how you implemented the berries, mainly the stack limit of 5. By doing that I felt like it encouraged even more exploration, and led me to find the more 'hidden' items if you can call them that (The ressurection feather, and the cloak etc).
The slimes.. oh the slimes! Absolutely brilliant. First of all it took me a while (maybe 3 to 4 turns) to understand that they changed which type of action it would block. Maybe I'm just slow but that's really what happened. I also found it very satisfying to be able to change the type of action it would block, by damaging it.
That way you could sort of regen the correct amount of mana needed for a skill, to make a sort of 'combo' to take it down in a single turn. That way It felt like you could build up a small strategy to take them down as efficient as possible. Same goes for the birds with the berries, and I really enjoyed to set up my priorites on what to kill first etc. Very nice!
Something that I didn't like however is that you only had 1 single feather at the start (2 if you found the treasure) since if I managed to die (especially from the faeries) I had no way to revive my other party member. And since I really needed that member for the boss fights, and didn't have the possibility to escape from the battle, I just let the other character die as well. Then I found out that if you reload from the checkpoint, the other character is still dead. Which ended up with having to quit to the main menu and reload the saved game again. However I do like the 'reload from checkpoint' choice, but I found it kind of weird that the
checkpoint saved after the sort of 'game over'.
The reason why I was a bit frustrated with not being able to escape once or twice from the battles as well (before I found the cloak item) might have been cause I constantly run into enemies, and they were pretty much impossible to avoid. Even though, it wasn't that much of a deal since I really enjoyed the fights, but I
couldn't help but to feel a bit frustrated during some of the fights.
So once I finally found out how to get to the 'trent boss' I more or less hit a wall. I died several times from that boss haha, even though I did fight a lot and got some levels. However, I think it was my lack of understanding the fight at the get-go and also my instant failure of selecting the wrong target. A funny thing about that though is that I didn't realize that I was targeting the trent (which had the skill type block absorbed from the slimes) and somehow it let me to believe that the fight was designed in a specific way. I then realized that
this was not the case (and it actually inspired me to design a boss around this lol).
When I found out that the boss wasn't designed as I thought it was, I killed it pretty easy (even though I still died once before that). I do think that the boss could be nerfed just a tiny bit, since it would be pretty
difficult to beat it without the skills that 'hit more depending on how many enemies that are preset' (I'm sorry I forgot the name of them). To add on that, I think those skills are really cool as well! But without them, I think the enemies would spawn in a faster rate than you can kill them (especially if you don't find the weapon for Roth, and the longer the fight progresses).
Oh! Before I forget, I think I found a potential bug as well. I'm not sure if this is intended, but if one of your characters die and the other one is inflicted by the 'paralyze' effect, it will count as a game over.
Onto the cutscenes, I think they were well done (especially when the party decides to camp around that fireplace) Like I have said before, the humour is spot on and it really feels like a sequel to BETA. Rage is still my favourite!
Another thing that I thought was really cool is the Manual book, I'm not sure if that's what it was called but still. I have been trying to add a similar book into my game, but I have no idea how you managed to do that! I think I
have a way to make it possible for my game, but I'm not sure how to add all those tabs for it. So if you feel like sharing, I would be really grateful! I also think that the design on it was really, really nice! Especially the different pictures when hovering over a new tab, like the skill picture and what not.
As a conclusion I think that the new content is very polished, and the strongest part about it is the battle system for sure (and the awesome design on the bosses and enemies). In my own opinion though, there are some points that could be improved, as I listed above, but more than that I think you have everything spot-on!
I'm looking forward to the new content, and will follow you with extreme excitement!
As a final note I want to apologize for any confusing sentences, and all the (...) that I keep doing for some darn reason (It's a habit that I have developed recently... omg really? did it again!)
I think FADE is a game that deserves a lot more attention, especially if you have played BETA. But even as a standalone game, I think It's totally spot on!
Sincerely
~Dark.
I just finished chapter 2 (yay, uploaded).
...God, the ending to this chapter is dark. I think I'm getting the hang of horror writing.
Chapter 1 has two endings, depending on whether you give the herb as is, or convert it to a potion.
...God, the ending to this chapter is dark. I think I'm getting the hang of horror writing.
Chapter 1 has two endings, depending on whether you give the herb as is, or convert it to a potion.
Milennin
2060
author=bulmabriefs144
Which one? I now have a second, Tales From The Reaper, which is sort of (fake) horror genre. I'm hoping to get the 2 of 7 episode done soon (we go on vacation tomorrow). It's sort of mini-games rather than full-length.
Yeah, I'll probably with Tales From the Reaper then. That sounds pretty cool.
author=Milennin
I make them switch over to the 2nd page permanently after their activation, which is a blank Action Key event (that should be okay?)
And yeah, that boss intro will be added to the Tree battle, and a lesser version of that to mini-bosses.
Anyway, I really should get to trying out your game, especially since you've just helped me with my game, which I appreciate a lot.
I dunno either.
Cool, I love that intro.
Which one? I now have a second, Tales From The Reaper, which is sort of (fake) horror genre. I'm hoping to get the 2 of 7 episode done soon (we go on vacation tomorrow). It's sort of mini-games rather than full-length.
And yea, Oracle of Tao is kinda hard to adjust to (really super-long and I have a strange sense of humor). You'll have to save and grind during the early game for a bit. That said, if you can get past the initial difficulty, it has pretty fast grind.
author=Milennin
Sweet, I'll check on it and try out the new demo tonight then, and leave my thoughts on it on your game page. It's been ages since I last played it.
That sounds really sweet! If you decide to try it out, could you please answer 'No' on the first event quest (With the federicum branch and the healing salve)? and share what you think about the outcome? I'm not sure if It's too much, and especially that early in the game!
Will make sure to try out yours too! :)
Milennin
2060
Sweet, I'll check on it and try out the new demo tonight then, and leave my thoughts on it on your game page. It's been ages since I last played it.
author=Milenninauthor=Dark_MetamorphosisYes, I have added a complete new area after the intro part to the current demo. I have more areas done, but I'll release those in a future update (few weeks from now if I had to make a guess). If you decide to give it a try again, let me know what you think of it. Always enjoyed reading your feedback, it's very useful to me.
Wow, It's been a while since I played this! Have you released anything beyond the first demo yet? :) If so, I'm so ready to download it again!
How is your game coming along? I haven't heard anything from you in ages.
I'll certainly try it out and give you some feedback again! Can't wait!
I recently uploaded my game here on rpgmaker.net, and I'm still working on it even though It's been some downtime on it. I have polished up my features and added new content to it. I recently uploaded a new demo (version 0.4) with my features properly added, and a lot of updates. I'm planning to release the full demo version the next time around, and I have 3 new areas that is done currently (after the end of the demo) :)
Milennin
2060
author=Dark_Metamorphosis
Wow, It's been a while since I played this! Have you released anything beyond the first demo yet? :) If so, I'm so ready to download it again!
Yes, I have added a complete new area after the intro part to the current demo. I have more areas done, but I'll release those in a future update (few weeks from now if I had to make a guess). If you decide to give it a try again, let me know what you think of it. Always enjoyed reading your feedback, it's very useful to me.
How is your game coming along? I haven't heard anything from you in ages.
Wow, It's been a while since I played this! Have you released anything beyond the first demo yet? :) If so, I'm so ready to download it again!
Milennin
2060
I make them switch over to the 2nd page permanently after their activation, which is a blank Action Key event (that should be okay?)
And yeah, that boss intro will be added to the Tree battle, and a lesser version of that to mini-bosses.
Anyway, I really should get to trying out your game, especially since you've just helped me with my game, which I appreciate a lot.
And yeah, that boss intro will be added to the Tree battle, and a lesser version of that to mini-bosses.
Anyway, I really should get to trying out your game, especially since you've just helped me with my game, which I appreciate a lot.
Another thing you can do with events is permanently switch them off. Once you have the thing done, switch them on then parallel/auto Erase Event. If ever you had doubt in your mind that the event might possibly be still running, now it's not.
Anyway, I'd have to take a look at it after next update. Looks good so far. You gonna have that strobe Boss Battle thing for the tree? That was awesome.
Anyway, I'd have to take a look at it after next update. Looks good so far. You gonna have that strobe Boss Battle thing for the tree? That was awesome.
Milennin
2060
Okay, I changed both notifications to auto-start events now, so hopefully it'll be better from now on.
I tried it without all three, then adding each back, one by one. It chose that time not to lag in any serious way.
Milennin
2060
By an FPS drop during battles I meant only meant the first seconds when a battle is initiated. Although even at 40 FPS it still runs smooth enough for me to not be bothered by it.
I can see if I can change the Level 4 and Berry notifications to auto-starts, since either of them only needs to get checked right after a battle anyway.
How did your tests go by the way? What exactly did you remove during the test if you did one?
I can see if I can change the Level 4 and Berry notifications to auto-starts, since either of them only needs to get checked right after a battle anyway.
How did your tests go by the way? What exactly did you remove during the test if you did one?
That's weird... I didn't get any lag in battle. It was wandering the map that was choppy.
I'm gonna test without them.
There's one possibility that could be happening. If you say it slows stuff down during battle, maybe occasionally, stuff sort clogs up, so to speak. Try having some after-battle thing shut stuff off.
The only other thing I can think is cutting down specifically on the Berry code by doing it internally. It's rather hefty, as is the Level 4 Notification.
I'm gonna test without them.
There's one possibility that could be happening. If you say it slows stuff down during battle, maybe occasionally, stuff sort clogs up, so to speak. Try having some after-battle thing shut stuff off.
The only other thing I can think is cutting down specifically on the Berry code by doing it internally. It's rather hefty, as is the Level 4 Notification.
Milennin
2060
Yeah, I just did another round of tile cleaning on the forest map, and have been able to get rid of most of the overhead tiles now. I think the total amount of events on the map now has easily been cut in half, maybe even more than that. Wish there was an event counter...
I'm not going to change anything about the current map size, as the goal for my game is to give that sense of being in a whole world instead of travelling from square to square (much like a Pokémon game). I do realise the forest map is quite large... I plan on making any future maps smaller than this one from now on (also to save time on mapping).
I doubt the few extra parallel processes are causing trouble on this map. I just checked, and there are only 3. Both of which get de-activated at a certain point, most likely early on during your time on that map (one at reaching level 4, the other when getting low on HP). The third parallel process is the Shade Cloak, which is only active by activating an item.
The menu ON/OFF thing is an auto-start event on both pages, not a parallel process. It activates only when opening and leaving the Menu. A common event wouldn't work very well, since it does different things, depending on what map you're on (and in some cases also different events on the same map).
The FPS on Fraps does show ingame FPS. It shows a drop to the 40s during the start of a battle... probably due to loading all the combat data. Any way, the main FPS drop seems to occur during the campfire event. Maybe it's the glow effect that's going on during that scene.
I'm not going to change anything about the current map size, as the goal for my game is to give that sense of being in a whole world instead of travelling from square to square (much like a Pokémon game). I do realise the forest map is quite large... I plan on making any future maps smaller than this one from now on (also to save time on mapping).
I doubt the few extra parallel processes are causing trouble on this map. I just checked, and there are only 3. Both of which get de-activated at a certain point, most likely early on during your time on that map (one at reaching level 4, the other when getting low on HP). The third parallel process is the Shade Cloak, which is only active by activating an item.
The menu ON/OFF thing is an auto-start event on both pages, not a parallel process. It activates only when opening and leaving the Menu. A common event wouldn't work very well, since it does different things, depending on what map you're on (and in some cases also different events on the same map).
The FPS on Fraps does show ingame FPS. It shows a drop to the 40s during the start of a battle... probably due to loading all the combat data. Any way, the main FPS drop seems to occur during the campfire event. Maybe it's the glow effect that's going on during that scene.
I think I arrived on the problem.
At least a third of your events are dedicated to overhead tiling. This makes a ton of tiles that shouldn't be there, if you can tile edit better (for example, when a plane crashes, it clears all brush near it, so those trees should actually cap instead of extending one more time. Then, there's also the size of the map. You could probably split out the map into four sections if you made smooth transitions and lined stuff up.
The ship area being one. Dropping down from the ship, the main wandering area being the second. The hidden areas (like Captain Nuts), and some of the other stuff being a third. The boss tree, campfire and shadow boss areas being the last. If you split it, areas will receive less strain from parallel events.
Which brings me to our final issue. I saw what appeared to be the parallel/auto events in the corner. They're universally done locally with code. There are two problems with this. One, it's cycling events over and over several times per second (Open Menu ON/OFF is a good example), and more importantly, they're doing so locally. I have a ton of non-very-common common events, as I figured out something. When I put stuff directly on a map, it does the loading on the map, which means while the screen is being refreshed, it's pooling resources trying to handle events. On the other hand, replacing all these with just the name of "common" event, and End Event Processing, like so:
Call: OpenMenuToggle
End Event Processing
Pretty much this cancels out lag. I think it's because the computer in question does the process separately, and not as part of the local processes, like handling monsters. I'm not sure, but I do know that cutting that stuff out and into a common event not only made for a generally easier edit, since I could across the board change stuff, but except for stuff like parallax events (which doesn't seem faster regardless of what I do), was generally much faster. So, common events should solve the lag problem.
I can't check FPS (also, that might be the FPS of the video recorder, not of the game). But I know it was more or less okay during the opening ship events, got slightly choppy midway through the forest wander, was okay during the tree battle, and right about the point where we faced the big shadow again, and the towels getting laid down, etc, things slowed to such a crawl that even text was choppy.
At least a third of your events are dedicated to overhead tiling. This makes a ton of tiles that shouldn't be there, if you can tile edit better (for example, when a plane crashes, it clears all brush near it, so those trees should actually cap instead of extending one more time. Then, there's also the size of the map. You could probably split out the map into four sections if you made smooth transitions and lined stuff up.
The ship area being one. Dropping down from the ship, the main wandering area being the second. The hidden areas (like Captain Nuts), and some of the other stuff being a third. The boss tree, campfire and shadow boss areas being the last. If you split it, areas will receive less strain from parallel events.
Which brings me to our final issue. I saw what appeared to be the parallel/auto events in the corner. They're universally done locally with code. There are two problems with this. One, it's cycling events over and over several times per second (Open Menu ON/OFF is a good example), and more importantly, they're doing so locally. I have a ton of non-very-common common events, as I figured out something. When I put stuff directly on a map, it does the loading on the map, which means while the screen is being refreshed, it's pooling resources trying to handle events. On the other hand, replacing all these with just the name of "common" event, and End Event Processing, like so:
Call: OpenMenuToggle
End Event Processing
Pretty much this cancels out lag. I think it's because the computer in question does the process separately, and not as part of the local processes, like handling monsters. I'm not sure, but I do know that cutting that stuff out and into a common event not only made for a generally easier edit, since I could across the board change stuff, but except for stuff like parallax events (which doesn't seem faster regardless of what I do), was generally much faster. So, common events should solve the lag problem.
I can't check FPS (also, that might be the FPS of the video recorder, not of the game). But I know it was more or less okay during the opening ship events, got slightly choppy midway through the forest wander, was okay during the tree battle, and right about the point where we faced the big shadow again, and the towels getting laid down, etc, things slowed to such a crawl that even text was choppy.
Milennin
2060
It could be possible by merging some common multiple layer tile combinations into 1 tile, but I'm already at my limits of what I can place on the chipset file's secondary layer. I think I could fit in 2 more tiles, though, that could probably remove at least ~50 events. If you've had a look at the map, you've seen there's also a ton of events used on the monster agro system, and a whole bunch around the 2 slopes.
edit: I've just had a look at the map, and replaced a fair amount of graphics events with tiles now. I think I can move a few more tiles from secondary to primary layer to probably shave off another 40-50 or so graphics event (coming to a total of ~100-150 less events on the map). I have no idea how much of an impact it would actually make on computers that experience lag in the area.
I've another map right after the forest with a large amount of events, too (around 650 total), I'll work on minimising the numbers on there as well, so hopefully you get a better experience on there once I update the demo.
By the way, is there a way you could perhaps check your FPS while you're playing? I just used Fraps with FPS overlay in my game, and it runs at a steady 60FPS in every area.
This helped me a lot, because it made me realise how many objects I could simply move to the primary layer without affecting the quality or functionality of the map and frees up a lot of space on the secondary layer (which seems to fill up really fast for me).
Glad you're liking it. Yeah, the current demo ends at the campfire at the end of the forest map. I'll have a new demo up some time (would be ~1 month at the earliest I'd guess) which will introduce a few new zones + dungeon.
edit: I've just had a look at the map, and replaced a fair amount of graphics events with tiles now. I think I can move a few more tiles from secondary to primary layer to probably shave off another 40-50 or so graphics event (coming to a total of ~100-150 less events on the map). I have no idea how much of an impact it would actually make on computers that experience lag in the area.
I've another map right after the forest with a large amount of events, too (around 650 total), I'll work on minimising the numbers on there as well, so hopefully you get a better experience on there once I update the demo.
By the way, is there a way you could perhaps check your FPS while you're playing? I just used Fraps with FPS overlay in my game, and it runs at a steady 60FPS in every area.
This helped me a lot, because it made me realise how many objects I could simply move to the primary layer without affecting the quality or functionality of the map and frees up a lot of space on the secondary layer (which seems to fill up really fast for me).
Glad you're liking it. Yeah, the current demo ends at the campfire at the end of the forest map. I'll have a new demo up some time (would be ~1 month at the earliest I'd guess) which will introduce a few new zones + dungeon.
Uhhhh, yea that could be an issue.
I have only one comparable event, a puzzle modeled after that Zelda puzzle where you have to only touch each floor tile once (9:06). That's almost as many tiles, since it's the big room version. And yes it does become choppy. Any you can merge/trim?
Well, I'll look at the page myself later and see if anything can be simplified for slower computers. Also, I'm liking your game so far. This the latest demo?
I'm watching Columbo right now.
I have only one comparable event, a puzzle modeled after that Zelda puzzle where you have to only touch each floor tile once (9:06). That's almost as many tiles, since it's the big room version. And yes it does become choppy. Any you can merge/trim?
Well, I'll look at the page myself later and see if anything can be simplified for slower computers. Also, I'm liking your game so far. This the latest demo?
I'm watching Columbo right now.
