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"RM VENTURE" ONE WEEK CONTEST GAME, FEBRUARY 2014!
WON A "BADGE OF BEAUTY" FOR AESTHETICS IN THE CONTEST!
WON A "BADGE OF TALES" FOR STORYTELLING IN THE CONTEST!
...::: What People Are Saying :::...
"The RTP characters never looked so good. This was my most anticipated entry just because of this." - Little Wing Guy
"The fact that character dialogue existed for any combination of characters you chose, in scenes regularly repeated throughout the dungeon experience, created personal moments that were actually quite a nice touch." - CashmereCat
"Engalia: The Wager is an intense dungeon crawler/survival RPG that I think hardcore gamers should try. Though minimalist, the story and the growth of the characters is also nice. Whether or not Engalia was designed to be a survival RPG... I say try the game if you like survival games, dungeon crawlers, or RPGs." - Jtrev23
...::: Storyline and Setting :::...
Engalia, a nation steeped in ancient lore that's dotted with uncountable ruins from civilisations passed. Flanked to the north by uninhabitable, snow-covered tundra, and to the south by arid deserts that only disparate, savage tribes call home, Engalia is the largest kindgom of man known in the modern era. Ruled by a fair and courteous Queen, and having been at peace for more than a generation, Engalia's recent prosperity has lead to an influx of skilled sellswords and adventurers willing to plunge into the depths of caves, caverns and ruins that were all but ignored during past times of war.
This story begins in the southern town of Neodym, where after a few too many meads a sellsword named Zack is challenged by his good friend Burns to find a historic treasure horde supposedly lost when the "legendary explorers" Alex and Brian entered the nearby Neodymous Cave and never came out. Using any combination of thirteen other adventurers that he sees fit to accompany him, Zack must retrieve the lost treasure without meeting the same dark end as those who have gone seeking it before him. What he doesn't know is that the evil protecting this treasure is far more devious than he and his sellsword friend imagine!
...::: Gameplay, Features and Comments :::...
Engalia: The Wager is a short RPG originally made in only a week as part of the RM Venture event, before being patched up slightly after the contest was over. The total development time was approximately 2-3 weeks. It features a traditional active-time battle system, a handful of (hopefully) intelligent puzzle sequences, and some (what I think are) beautifully designed dungeons... or as many of these things as I could make in such a short time!
WON A "BADGE OF BEAUTY" FOR AESTHETICS IN THE CONTEST!
WON A "BADGE OF TALES" FOR STORYTELLING IN THE CONTEST!
...::: What People Are Saying :::...
"The RTP characters never looked so good. This was my most anticipated entry just because of this." - Little Wing Guy
"The fact that character dialogue existed for any combination of characters you chose, in scenes regularly repeated throughout the dungeon experience, created personal moments that were actually quite a nice touch." - CashmereCat
"Engalia: The Wager is an intense dungeon crawler/survival RPG that I think hardcore gamers should try. Though minimalist, the story and the growth of the characters is also nice. Whether or not Engalia was designed to be a survival RPG... I say try the game if you like survival games, dungeon crawlers, or RPGs." - Jtrev23
...::: Storyline and Setting :::...
Engalia, a nation steeped in ancient lore that's dotted with uncountable ruins from civilisations passed. Flanked to the north by uninhabitable, snow-covered tundra, and to the south by arid deserts that only disparate, savage tribes call home, Engalia is the largest kindgom of man known in the modern era. Ruled by a fair and courteous Queen, and having been at peace for more than a generation, Engalia's recent prosperity has lead to an influx of skilled sellswords and adventurers willing to plunge into the depths of caves, caverns and ruins that were all but ignored during past times of war.
This story begins in the southern town of Neodym, where after a few too many meads a sellsword named Zack is challenged by his good friend Burns to find a historic treasure horde supposedly lost when the "legendary explorers" Alex and Brian entered the nearby Neodymous Cave and never came out. Using any combination of thirteen other adventurers that he sees fit to accompany him, Zack must retrieve the lost treasure without meeting the same dark end as those who have gone seeking it before him. What he doesn't know is that the evil protecting this treasure is far more devious than he and his sellsword friend imagine!
...::: Gameplay, Features and Comments :::...
Engalia: The Wager is a short RPG originally made in only a week as part of the RM Venture event, before being patched up slightly after the contest was over. The total development time was approximately 2-3 weeks. It features a traditional active-time battle system, a handful of (hopefully) intelligent puzzle sequences, and some (what I think are) beautifully designed dungeons... or as many of these things as I could make in such a short time!
Latest Blog
I'm Really Dumb
Sated
I realised that I'd accidentally allowed a couple of buggy lava tiles into the latest version of the game, which would result in the player getting completely stuck if touched in the wrong way. Those should have been fixed in the patch I just uploaded. Lemme know if I didn't catch them all!
:)
To make this blog a little less boring, here are some new images resulting from the important part of my recent update. The maps are now less square and the "outside" parts of the cave are darker. I've done this in order to add some extra realism and depth to the mapping:
:)
To make this blog a little less boring, here are some new images resulting from the important part of my recent update. The maps are now less square and the "outside" parts of the cave are darker. I've done this in order to add some extra realism and depth to the mapping:
- Completed
- Sated
RPG Maker 2003- RPG
- 02/11/2014 10:59 PM
- 08/20/2016 06:32 AM
- 10/18/2015
- 54309
- 19
- 567
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Roy
293
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CloseGod I hate those gauges especially when they take forever to fill. Does the attack option having parenthesis around it mean you can escape? Sometimes you click left or right for example to get to escape and was thinking the parenthesis was indicating this, but it doesnt seem to be the case. It would help.
For folk like myself, I hate when while trying to decide my options the battle rages real time.
Did I miss an equip option or does the character automatically change if its a better weapon or such? I won a POISON SWORD (or was it a dagger)but couldnt equip it or even see what characters were using.
I see off to the right in the cave a circle...I hope this a heal place or something.
Other than this, so far its surely worth playing. I like the list of possible recruits!
How long a game is this on an average please?
For folk like myself, I hate when while trying to decide my options the battle rages real time.
Did I miss an equip option or does the character automatically change if its a better weapon or such? I won a POISON SWORD (or was it a dagger)but couldnt equip it or even see what characters were using.
I see off to the right in the cave a circle...I hope this a heal place or something.
Other than this, so far its surely worth playing. I like the list of possible recruits!
How long a game is this on an average please?
author=Roy
God I hate those gauges especially when they take forever to fill. Does the attack option having parenthesis around it mean you can escape? Sometimes you click left or right for example to get to escape and was thinking the parenthesis was indicating this, but it doesnt seem to be the case. It would help.
For folk like myself, I hate when while trying to decide my options the battle rages real time.
Did I miss an equip option or does the character automatically change if its a better weapon or such? I won a POISON SWORD (or was it a dagger)but couldnt equip it or even see what characters were using.
I see off to the right in the cave a circle...I hope this a heal place or something.
Other than this, so far its surely worth playing. I like the list of possible recruits!
How long a game is this on an average please?
The ATB gauges shouldn't take that long to fill. I felt they were pretty reasonable during testing, but I'll look into making them faster if possible.
There is no escape option. Because the game is only short, you're not able to level up your characters, which means that you'd be able to constantly run from battles without penalty were an escape option present.
I considered allowing people to switch between "Active" and "Wait", but my testing made the game feel too easy with "Wait" selected. It comes down to familiarity with the characters, and that will build over time.
It shouldn't be possible for you to win equipment since I didn't implement any additional equipment; that's something I'd like to do in the future, but isn't something that is present at the moment. I'll check into that. Could you check your item list to make sure you have an item called that?
There are no "healing spots", but defeating each boss will restore your HP/MP and there are a lot of chests in this game to get healing items from (unless you're horribly unlucky with the random item generation). If enough people find the game too difficult, then I will change this; although I fear this might be a "it depends on which party you pick" kind of thing since I ran all my testing with at least one of the healing classes in my party.
My playthroughs indicate ~1 hour. Given that the contest stipulated an hour, I hope that ends up being the case >_<
EDIT:
I'm glad you think that it's worth playing in its current state. There are a slew of things that I'd like to add once contest judging is up, along with any suggestions made by people who play, so please keep commenting if you find anything else :3
Roy
293
I guess those ATB guages arent so bad...probably my anticipation in watching for the pot to boil maybe.
Offhand I dont recollect which things I won except to see them flash across the top of the screen . I will look again when playing.
I think yiure right, some of my issues are just plain old bad luck. Who knows, upon a replay I might not even get hit!
I dont create games so didnt know the time constraints you guys were placed under.
I know it is much appreciated when given the amount of time the maker thinks his/her game is.
Thanks for replying...looking forward to whatever else you do with it in future!
Offhand I dont recollect which things I won except to see them flash across the top of the screen . I will look again when playing.
I think yiure right, some of my issues are just plain old bad luck. Who knows, upon a replay I might not even get hit!
I dont create games so didnt know the time constraints you guys were placed under.
I know it is much appreciated when given the amount of time the maker thinks his/her game is.
Thanks for replying...looking forward to whatever else you do with it in future!
author=Roy
I guess those ATB guages arent so bad...probably my anticipation in watching for the pot to boil maybe.
Offhand I dont recollect which things I won except to see them flash across the top of the screen . I will look again when playing.
I think yiure right, some of my issues are just plain old bad luck. Who knows, upon a replay I might not even get hit!
I dont create games so didnt know the time constraints you guys were placed under.
I know it is much appreciated when given the amount of time the maker thinks his/her game is.
Thanks for replying...looking forward to whatever else you do with it in future!
I doubt that all your issues are bad luck; I had a very limited time to test this game given that the contest only ran for a week, so I didn't have anywhere near enough time to test how all the different combinations of heroes would fare. The balancing I did was based on parties containing healing-classes (because I wouldn't personally play a game like this without a healing class), so if you didn't take a healing-class then the game may well be too difficult and that may well mean that I need to tweak things. The chests are randomly generated in terms of the items they give out, but they should give out a decent amount of potions; that could have had an effect, but it's unlikely to be the root of all problems.
I mean, I'm aware that there will be problems because of the limited testing I was able to do in order to meet the contest deadline, so I'm happy when people bring them up because I'll be able to fix them once I start updating the game. I'm waiting for the contest judging to be over before updating the game, that's all :)
So, uh, I had lots of trouble with this game... First of all, let me get out of the way that the retro-ish, chibi style you gave the character was pretty cute. The dialogue, for what little I could see of it (the intro), was of great quality. And the option to create your own party had the potential to be lots of fun. Sadly, things didn't go well from there.
The slow ATB bar is an issue. Maybe not so much for the casual gamer, but I'd say that any regular rm2k3 player has exhausted its patience for it. Luckily this can be easily fixed with a number of DynRpg maker plug-ins.
Back and Pincer attacks against the player are just not cool, man. Specially not in a game with balance issues like this one (more on that latter). It was a serious disadvantage to get caught in one of those, and they're way too frequent too! Long story short, you had me save-scuming in order to get an encounter with the odds stacked on my favor.
Maybe this is a matter of tastes, but I resent the lack of "progression" in a rpg. I want to see my characters grow in some way. But with the lack of levels, equipment, or new skills, the novelty of creating your own party soon vanishes, and fights become pointless. I did read that you're planning on including equipment in future releases, so, that's a good start.
But the REAL issue was the balance. Characters would often miss or deal pitiful damage, even with skills. How is it possible for Zack to deal around 300 damage with a skill like "Uppercut" which supposedly deals 200% damage, when his normal attack (if it lands) can deal around 1k? My secondary character, a Monk, was useless. He would deal 0 damage, and was as frail as the other characters so it's high HP just goes like water. My Summoner dealt decent damage (around 500 to all). But with just 30 MP that was merely enough to last two-three battles. This was specially true for my Healer. With the cost of healing skills at 10 MP, it was barely enough to offset the damage my party could take in any single battle -- And MP can be a problem unless you save-scum the chests for Ethers, or use 'recharge' a lot.
At the end, the game became an endurance test and I couldn't get past the Skeleton King. I may try again later with another party (Any suggestions?) to see if things fare any better, but I think I'll wait until you release an updated to give it another try.
The slow ATB bar is an issue. Maybe not so much for the casual gamer, but I'd say that any regular rm2k3 player has exhausted its patience for it. Luckily this can be easily fixed with a number of DynRpg maker plug-ins.
Back and Pincer attacks against the player are just not cool, man. Specially not in a game with balance issues like this one (more on that latter). It was a serious disadvantage to get caught in one of those, and they're way too frequent too! Long story short, you had me save-scuming in order to get an encounter with the odds stacked on my favor.
Maybe this is a matter of tastes, but I resent the lack of "progression" in a rpg. I want to see my characters grow in some way. But with the lack of levels, equipment, or new skills, the novelty of creating your own party soon vanishes, and fights become pointless. I did read that you're planning on including equipment in future releases, so, that's a good start.
But the REAL issue was the balance. Characters would often miss or deal pitiful damage, even with skills. How is it possible for Zack to deal around 300 damage with a skill like "Uppercut" which supposedly deals 200% damage, when his normal attack (if it lands) can deal around 1k? My secondary character, a Monk, was useless. He would deal 0 damage, and was as frail as the other characters so it's high HP just goes like water. My Summoner dealt decent damage (around 500 to all). But with just 30 MP that was merely enough to last two-three battles. This was specially true for my Healer. With the cost of healing skills at 10 MP, it was barely enough to offset the damage my party could take in any single battle -- And MP can be a problem unless you save-scum the chests for Ethers, or use 'recharge' a lot.
At the end, the game became an endurance test and I couldn't get past the Skeleton King. I may try again later with another party (Any suggestions?) to see if things fare any better, but I think I'll wait until you release an updated to give it another try.
I will tone down or remove the use of back-attacks by enemies.
I'm already aware of the issue with the damage dealt by classes with only "one star" in their attack stat that are required to use physical attacks (such as the Monk and Thief). I simply forgot to readjust their attack stat after changing the values I was using to represent each "star" in a given attribute, which wasn't something I noticed during testing because the only playthrough I did was with mage characters (who don't usually use their physical attack). This change has already been made; I'm holding back on updating the download because I want to continue getting more opinions on the current build.
The problem with Zack's "Uppercut" damage is a strange one, and having had a look it seems to be because I set the properties of the character's weapons incorrectly. Instead of having the relevant "Blunt", "Sharp", "Ranged" etc. damage-type set, they're all set as "Non-Elemental". This is a problem because of the way I've balanced magic/physical properties, as it results in normal attacks doing more damage than they should and also in normal attacks improperly ignoring enemy resistances. For example, if you were fighting an enemy resistant to "Blunt" damage, that would negate the damage dealt by Zack's "Uppercut" and should negate the damage dealt by Zack's normal attack; but it wouldn't have negated the normal attack damage because I'd set the bloody weapon damage up incorrectly! I've made the relevant fixes now :)
You're kinda supposed to use "recharge" a lot. I suppose I could give the characters more MP to make things easier. I found the Healer to be very powerful, so I made her skills weaker and more costly; I could revert that as well if it seems like she isn't as imba as I thought her to be.
Overall, this is what happens when you don't have enough time to test properly :(
EDIT:
You also mentioned progression/equipment etc. I do want to add an element of this to the game, but the short nature of the game makes it difficult to do so in a proper manner. Although I want to do it, it might not be realistic given the short, linear nature of the game.
I'm already aware of the issue with the damage dealt by classes with only "one star" in their attack stat that are required to use physical attacks (such as the Monk and Thief). I simply forgot to readjust their attack stat after changing the values I was using to represent each "star" in a given attribute, which wasn't something I noticed during testing because the only playthrough I did was with mage characters (who don't usually use their physical attack). This change has already been made; I'm holding back on updating the download because I want to continue getting more opinions on the current build.
The problem with Zack's "Uppercut" damage is a strange one, and having had a look it seems to be because I set the properties of the character's weapons incorrectly. Instead of having the relevant "Blunt", "Sharp", "Ranged" etc. damage-type set, they're all set as "Non-Elemental". This is a problem because of the way I've balanced magic/physical properties, as it results in normal attacks doing more damage than they should and also in normal attacks improperly ignoring enemy resistances. For example, if you were fighting an enemy resistant to "Blunt" damage, that would negate the damage dealt by Zack's "Uppercut" and should negate the damage dealt by Zack's normal attack; but it wouldn't have negated the normal attack damage because I'd set the bloody weapon damage up incorrectly! I've made the relevant fixes now :)
You're kinda supposed to use "recharge" a lot. I suppose I could give the characters more MP to make things easier. I found the Healer to be very powerful, so I made her skills weaker and more costly; I could revert that as well if it seems like she isn't as imba as I thought her to be.
Overall, this is what happens when you don't have enough time to test properly :(
EDIT:
You also mentioned progression/equipment etc. I do want to add an element of this to the game, but the short nature of the game makes it difficult to do so in a proper manner. Although I want to do it, it might not be realistic given the short, linear nature of the game.
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