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First Wyrm Warriors Demo Launch!

  • unity
  • 04/17/2014 08:48 PM
  • 5134 views
The first demo of Wyrm Warriors has arrived! After working on this for a few months, I've gotten enough for a playable portion for you all to test out! Normally, I like to release demos that have a bit more content to them, but given that this is a community project, I wanted the game to be available to everyone every step of the way.

You'll probably notice that the difficultly is a bit on the easy side for this demo. I generally like to ease the player into the game with an easy first section before ramping it up considerably as the game goes along. However, if the general consensus is that its way too easy, I'll do some tweaking and see if I can't give it a bit more bite.

Please let me know what you think! This is all about building a world for the thirty characters we made to inhabit, so I want it to live up to that, even if only a small portion of the world is available in this demo. There may be lingering bugs, inconsistencies, and other problems, too (hopefully not too many, I tested it a good bit), so let me know if you find any of those.

A big thanks to Craze, who came up with the game and the framework, and got people excited enough to make thirty freaking characters! And a big thanks to all the contributors; it's your excitement that gives me the drive to work on this project! Enjoy!

Posts

Pages: 1
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Typos:
Anna's Regrowth spell says it heals the user, but it actually is targetable.

Suggestions:
The random-movement enemies are absurdly easy to avoid. This is a bigger deal in the optional dungeon than the mandatory one. I would have them move in set patterns, so that they block the paths. And then also make it so you get in a fight if you get within 2 tiles of them, instead of only if they move toward you when you're one tile away. This will make them harder to dodge, but still possible.

If you're gonna have the heal crystal, make it only usable once. I would just get rid of it, though. It's unnecessary since you have regenerating items.

...Do these enemies respawn? That seems sort of awful. I would make them all be one-time-only fights, so that the XP is more meaningful.

The starting max MP is really low. These characters can cast their spells about 4 times total, in a dungeon with 10-15 battles that each take about 3 rounds. I wanna be able to cast spells.


Comments:
The battle difficulty is fine, really. Maybe have multiple difficulty settings if you're worried about it. But if you do this, you should always start out by designing and testing on the hardest difficulty, and then scaling the game down for the easier modes, instead of the other way around.

I like the way you handled items in chests a lot.

How does IP work? Or how is it going to work?
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Niiiiice I'm going to try this out.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
So, I switched party members mid-battle on a lark. The option was disabled for the rest of the fight. Or, at least, the next round, since I didn't check after that. Either way, I'm guessing this isn't supposed to happen?

Side note: I think I was randomly hit by the counter-attack error that you mentioned in the Developer's Pyramid.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=LockeZ
Typos:
Anna's Regrowth spell says it heals the user, but it actually is targetable.


Whoops! It was originally user-targeted, but I remade it when I noticed that Kathleen had the only healing spell (at least until Jolanta reached level 5).

author=LockeZ
Suggestions:
The random-movement enemies are absurdly easy to avoid. This is a bigger deal in the optional dungeon than the mandatory one. I would have them move in set patterns, so that they block the paths. And then also make it so you get in a fight if you get within 2 tiles of them, instead of only if they move toward you when you're one tile away. This will make them harder to dodge, but still possible.


The Curse Dungeon baddies (tinted red) hunt you down, but I noticed in some games like Deckiller's first chapter of Radiant Chain, that in certain areas the enemies just wander and don't really seek you out. So I modeled the Optional baddies after that, since they don't give (much) EXP but drop loot, where you could engage them or skip most of them over. It's pretty hit-or-miss, I suppose, and I probably made them too easy to avoid, as yeah, you can pretty much go through the whole optional dungeon and avoid them all.

author=LockeZ
If you're gonna have the heal crystal, make it only usable once. I would just get rid of it, though. It's unnecessary since you have regenerating items.


I thought it wouldn't be so bad as it just restores HP and status, and not MP. It gives you a hint that something nasty's ahead, too. I could make it one-use tho, yeah.

author=LockeZ
...Do these enemies respawn? That seems sort of awful. I would make them all be one-time-only fights, so that the XP is more meaningful.


Only the Optional Dungeon baddies respawn, in case you need to farm something or pick up Blue Magic you missed. In the Cursed Dungeon, the only enemies that respawn are ones that you ran from. If you kill one, it should be gone for good, unless I've screwed something up.

author=LockeZ
The starting max MP is really low. These characters can cast their spells about 4 times total, in a dungeon with 10-15 battles that each take about 3 rounds. I wanna be able to cast spells.


Yeah, that's true. I'll up the starting MP. I still want people to sweat and wanna use the MP-restoring items, but the characters still need more MP-ammo. Though once you get enough warriors, you'll be able to switch out low-MP characters for fresh ones.

author=LockeZ
Comments:
The battle difficulty is fine, really. Maybe have multiple difficulty settings if you're worried about it. But if you do this, you should always start out by designing and testing on the hardest difficulty, and then scaling the game down for the easier modes, instead of the other way around.


Since I haven't set it up for a difficulty system, I'm tempted to not bother. If there's a big demand, I might change my mind ^^;;

author=LockeZ
I like the way you handled items in chests a lot.

How does IP work? Or how is it going to work?


Thanks! As for IP, it compares the most IP you could have versus the amount you have with your remaining items when you destroy a curse orb, and gives you Craze Medallions based on how you did.

author=Marrend
So, I switched party members mid-battle on a lark. The option was disabled for the rest of the fight. Or, at least, the next round, since I didn't check after that. Either way, I'm guessing this isn't supposed to happen?

Side note: I think I was randomly hit by the counter-attack error that you mentioned in the Developer's Pyramid.


I'll check out the character switching. I never used it more than once per battle. And yeah, the counter-attack blue magic crash still completely baffles me.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Yeah, I noticed that the Optional Dungeon monsters re-spawned, and didn't hand out EXP, but gave all the Markerscore.

What? Markerscore is totally the monetary unit of this game!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Being able to go back and get blue magic you missed is a legit reason to have the optional dungeon baddies respawn.

I felt like I had most of my items left at the end - the only items I used were to heal myself before the two bosses, plus I think I used two revive items. But I got no IP rewards at all. Does extra IP carry over to the next dungeon?
Welp time to start a Zero Exp run. I'll leave feedback once I'm done with the demo.


Edit: Played the demo, now here's my comments

-Developer Pyramid is great. Needs more cats methinks.
-Curse Gates look real cool, but they don't quite fit the VX Ace RTP style.
-Default confirm/select stuff sound is ear wrenching.
-Title music doesn't quite fit.
-Kathleen is appropriately pathetic. I love her already.
-Running away is annoyingly random. I'm sure there's a script somewhere to fix that.
-Enemies can still get you when you're opening a chest. That's a little unfair.


Pretty good for a very early demo.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=LockeZ
Being able to go back and get blue magic you missed is a legit reason to have the optional dungeon baddies respawn.

I felt like I had most of my items left at the end - the only items I used were to heal myself before the two bosses, plus I think I used two revive items. But I got no IP rewards at all. Does extra IP carry over to the next dungeon?

That's odd. I must have messed something up. You were supposed to get Craze Medallions when you destroy the Curse Orb at the end of the first Curse dungeon, and it seemed to work when I did it. Did it give you an IP total when you destroyed the orb? I'll double-check and see if I missed something.

author=Arandomgamemaker
Welp time to start a Zero Exp run. I'll leave feedback once I'm done with the demo.

Yay! Thanks!
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
EDIT: Oh crap, I figured it out. You're supposed to break the orb to be able to progress, and that's when you get the items. But the switch where the door opens is on already, so that's parts' skipped. Give me a second; I'll fix and reupload! What an oversight >.<;;;
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
What I'm noticing about the Orb is that I swear that I actually losing out on EXP. I'm not 100% sure about this, but the one character that was in my party constantly (one guess who that was) was level 5 with maybe a quarter of the way to 6? I could be estimating things incorrectly. Anyway, after the Orb was purified, the level was set, thus resetting the amount of EXP I needed to go up.

Call me crazy, but this seems lame?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
The Orb doesn't lower the level. Before destroying the orb, the EXP is capped at level 5. You shouldn't be gaining EXP past level five. On the status screen, it should say MAX LEVEL when you reach five and not be rewarding that character with EXP.

If you're at level 5 before destroying the orb, and you're still getting EXP towards level 6, something's wrong.

EDIT: In further testing, it looks like even if you hit max level, the extra EXP that pushed you past Max Level will still show up on your character. You still cannot reach the next level and any further battles should not be giving you EXP, so it's more of a graphical error than anything. I will add it to the list of bugs.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=Marrend
So, I switched party members mid-battle on a lark. The option was disabled for the rest of the fight. Or, at least, the next round, since I didn't check after that. Either way, I'm guessing this isn't supposed to happen?

I think I might have found something. Under ">>Party Command" (YEA::Command_Party)...

COMMAND_TEXT   = "Party"    # Text used for the command.
PARTY_COOLDOWN = 2          # Turns that must pass between each change.
SHOW_SWITCH    = 0          # If switch is on, show command. 0 to disable.
ENABLE_SWITCH  = 0          # If switch is on, enable command. 0 to disable.

...makes me think putting a 0 or 1 in PARTY_COOLDOWN will probably do what we want?


*Edit: Is this even the right thread for this kind of stuff anymore?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Good catch! That'll do what we want! Thanks a lot, Marrend! :D

author=Marrend
*Edit: Is this even the right thread for this kind of stuff anymore?


There really isn't a "right" or "wrong" place, so this is good as any. I'm just happy that I'm getting all this great feedback and criticism.
Putting a 1 will have it so that you can only switch once per turn. 0 will allow you to do it as many times as you want. Either is a viable option.

So I recorded my initial play through so far (the newest version) and so far it's neat but... suffered a random crash in battle. It's recorded so you'll be able to see what led up to it. I'm considering just recording me playing the game when each new version comes out and handing those over. It's a lot easier when it comes to on-spot feedback (like with grammar or spelling errors) and the like.

I might make a media page where I just keep adding the videos when they're done.

So far I've enjoyed what I played. I'll probably record more on this version tomorrow (still in the cursed dungeon. Actually, just got in. ;p ) It's fun and cute and just gives me warm fuzzies. ^.^ You're all doing a good job so far, especially you, unity.

One thing I'd really like to suggest, though, is that you keep the bug events up to date and instead of out-right deleting the dev room when done, make it optional after-credit content. It's always fun to get a look into the minds of the creators of a game and dev rooms are neat additions to games. I liked a lot that bugs were represented by sprites and I vote we keep that in. Maybe a seven levels of hell thing, with multiple levels of the pyramid leading from small bugs to the hellish ones?

But yeah, so far, neato~ ^.^)b
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I've put a 0 there, so you'll be able to switch out as much as possible!

Liberty, thanks so much for the feedback. You've been a major inspiration for me, so I'm so glad that you're playing this, and doubly glad that you're recording video! This is so exciting! Thank you so much!

I've been unable to determine the cause of the crashes. I've only suffered through one of them, and it said the Blue Magic script was the culprit. Code is unfortunately where I'm at my weakest as most of it goes over my head, so I'm not sure how to fix the problem.

author=Liberty
One thing I'd really like to suggest, though, is that you keep the bug events up to date and instead of out-right deleting the dev room when done, make it optional after-credit content. It's always fun to get a look into the minds of the creators of a game and dev rooms are neat additions to games. I liked a lot that bugs were represented by sprites and I vote we keep that in. Maybe a seven levels of hell thing, with multiple levels of the pyramid leading from small bugs to the hellish ones?


That's a great idea! It'll show our ups and downs during development. Perhaps I should make a "Reformed Bugs" subsection to show fixed bugs, rather than just deleting them as they get fixed, to show how far we've come.

There are still a few aspects of the demo I want to improve, as the character's Max MP is still too low and the IP system for rewarding players is still a bit of a mess. I'm almost done (like a few minutes away) from having an improved version up that helps with these things. If you like (and it's not too much trouble) I can upload it in a minute and you can move your save files over for the next recording. If not, that's fine, I just don't want you to get less rewards for breaking the first curse orb just because I didn't have it fixed right yet ^^;;

Again, thanks very much!
That's fine by me~ I've gotta wait for the rendering of this video before I can do anything on the computer anyway, so... XD (Take your time, it'll be a while... at least an hour since the video is about that long. I tend to be a bit completionistic with games. ^.^; )

I do like the idea of a reformed bugs room, too. ^.^
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Okay, I got the fixed one up as the main download now, so it should work! ^_^

Thanks! :D
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