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VERSION 1.3.3
(Current version in development: 1.3.3)

Annabelle finds a strange visitor in her room, bearing some bad news: Beasts are destroying a world under her bed. If Annabelle does not defeat them, they will do the same to Earth. She has two choices: Risk death, or be helpless against it when it comes.

As she fights her way through the four biomes of the “Domi” she will meet four survivors. She needs their help, and they need hers. Your choices will decide their fates.

Adventure, puzzles, turn-based battling, multiple endings. Custom and unique graphics and music. Your actions and dialogue choices decide the fates of the characters you meet.

Sample Soundtrack:
https://soundcloud.com/caitikoi/sets/qui-domi-sample-audio

(Background image by dragol)

Latest Blog

4 Years Later

The Kickstarter failed, backers were refunded, and Qui Domi has gone into a state of indefinite hiatus. However some interest has come back to it from my current audience in other fandoms. I'm releasing the current full copy of the game, including the alpha carnival world. There are unfinished assets, incomplete game mechanics, but, you are free to test it out.

Keep in mind there are a few hours of gameplay before that, as the carnival is the 4th world, there are three others to traverse. I hope you enjoy!
  • Hiatus
  • Koi
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Adventure Puzzle RPG
  • 02/28/2015 11:32 PM
  • 06/14/2023 06:14 AM
  • N/A
  • 204269
  • 138
  • 133

Posts

You could just remove leveling all together. It doesn't really seem necessary in your game. You could have the progression of the players health/strength in items, as it's unlikely that most players will walk past a chest without opening it.
author=Pancaek
You could just remove leveling all together. It doesn't really seem necessary in your game. You could have the progression of the players health/strength in items, as it's unlikely that most players will walk past a chest without opening it.


But then that removes the point of battling at all.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
It also encourages escaping to hoard items too, doesn't it? I don't like that idea on its own.
author=Koi
But then that removes the point of battling at all.


Personally, when I played your game, I tried to avoid battling as much as possible. For me it was just an obstacle to get around, like spikes you have to jump over in mario. I'm not sure if other players feel the same, but that's just my opinion.



author=unity
It also encourages escaping to hoard items too, doesn't it? I don't like that idea on its own.


Players are going to hoard items no matter what. Leveling has nothing to do with it.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Oh, I just got an idea! What if the big boss monsters drop some sort of item that permanently boosts your stats? That way you can still have stronger enemies to face later on while not throwing an artificial wall at the player.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
I think grinding should be available at all times. There should always be a way out.
I put in free-roaming monsters for a couple of reasons. One, so that you can run from them to go heal up and get prepared if you're in a bind. Two, I absolutely hate random encounters. And three, just to give you a chance to escape if you want to, but it's not intended for players to completely disregard them.

Also, another factor to consider is that if you don't fight, you can't save the game. Monsters are the only way to get candy wrappers. I did this on purpose.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Pancaek
author=unity
It also encourages escaping to hoard items too, doesn't it? I don't like that idea on its own.
Players are going to hoard items no matter what. Leveling has nothing to do with it.


Yes, but there's no interesting gameplay choices if fighting and not fighting have the same outcome. There shouldn't be battles at all if the best strategy is just "run away because the battle's not gonna benefit me anyways."

But the battles do in fact play a strong part in the game. The power of the battles in this game is that they are tense and make the player feel desperate. This can be a tough line to walk for a game developer, because players who try something different like Corfaisus might end up getting punished for it.

On the one hand, this might be an issue worth addressing, as you could certainly make things easier on players. However, I feel like that part of Qui Domi is the dark relentlessness of the battles, as it adds to the feeling of the game. If the issue could be fixed in a way that still favors the game's flavor, then all the better. But I don't think removing rewards is in any way a step in the right direction.

I'm not coming up immediately with a good quick-fix, but I think taking Corfaisus' idea and still keeping traditional leveling might be interesting. Say if you have raising levels only raise most stats by 1 per level, except for HP, which is raised more, which would be a cool reward for enduring battles. The boss either drops an item that raises your stats considerably or the main character just absorbs it and gets stat boosts, perhaps. If you plan this right, you could have the game winnable even if the player doesn't level much, and the HP bonus for winning fights just means that players will have earned more leeway to make mistakes.

Now, ultimately, I personally don't have a problem if you decide not to change a thing. I think that most people understand that you have to level up to survive, and I'm not against an RPG that's a little brutal in that department. But, if you want to make your game a little more friendly to the average player, there are ways to do it.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Koi
I put in free-roaming monsters for a couple of reasons. One, so that you can run from them to go heal up and get prepared if you're in a bind. Two, I absolutely hate random encounters. And three, just to give you a chance to escape if you want to, but it's not intended for players to completely disregard them.

Also, another factor to consider is that if you don't fight, you can't save the game. Monsters are the only way to get candy wrappers. I did this on purpose.

You'd be surprised how few chests I really felt were needed to keep myself safe, and how few times I felt encouraged to use candy without immediately using the wrapper. If I was really hurting, I'd just hold off and use a band-aid.

And I think you should disable the monster's ability to reengage you after a battle for a few seconds. If you escape, you'll just immediately hit the same encounter over and over again until you cave in and fight it.

author=unity
The power of the battles in this game is that they are tense and make the player feel desperate.

I never really felt like the battles was tense. If anything they just dragged because the pencil only does 10 damage and all early enemies have 100 HP and sometimes appear in groups of two, meaning you'll be poking them forever with your single attacking character, hence why the jacks are so useful and why I wouldn't want to waste them on the same enemies over and over again when they might be useful later, like against a boss or something.

Then you get to the second region with the prickly grass at Lv.2 and run into an encounter with two bees that deal 20 damage per hit and the only thing that heals more than that is your one dino band-aid that heals for 50. Fighting them is pointless because the jacks don't work and you only do like 6 damage to them (assuming you even hit), while they beat the living bejesus out of you. And as I said before, escaping is fruitless because they'll just continue to force you into an encounter the second you're out.

Made me yearn for the days when I was pushing rocks with my boot buddy.

The whole time I was playing it, I was just hoping that the author doesn't take the easy way out and make Mr. Snuggles the Lord of Destruction with a "shocking" revelation in the late game.

"I lured you into my trap like so many before. Ha ha ha!"

I did, however, feel like a big part of this game was giving up childhood things like teddy bears.
author=Koi
I put in free-roaming monsters for a couple of reasons. One, so that you can run from them to go heal up and get prepared if you're in a bind. Two, I absolutely hate random encounters. And three, just to give you a chance to escape if you want to, but it's not intended for players to completely disregard them.

Also, another factor to consider is that if you don't fight, you can't save the game. Monsters are the only way to get candy wrappers. I did this on purpose.


I'm not trying to tell you how to make your game or anything, but giving the player an option and then saying that they're not suppose to choose that option at certain points without any indication, is kind of bad game design. If you give the player an option to not battle if they don't want to, that's great. But if you give them that option, and then say they're not playing the game right when they choose that option more often than not, then what's the point of it anyways?

As a game designer, you can't tell people they're not playing by the games rules. (Unless they're hacking.) The rules of the game are what you allow the player to do an not do. If they can do it in the game, they're playing by the games rules. You can't try and force people into a specific play style and expect them to be fine with that.

That's just one kids opinion though. Whatever you want to do with your game is cool. It's your game, and no one knows it better than you.
author=Corfaisus
And I think you should disable the monster's ability to reengage you after a battle for a few seconds. If you escape, you'll just immediately hit the same encounter over and over again until you cave in and fight it.

You are not the first person to suggest this, and I actually would like to put it in! But I don't know how. If you can tell me how to implement this, then I will definitely do it.

author=Corfaisus
Then you get to the second region with the prickly grass at Lv.2 and run into an encounter with two bees that deal 20 damage per hit and the only thing that heals more than that is your one dino band-aid that heals for 50. Fighting them is pointless because the jacks don't work and you only do like 6 damage to them (assuming you even hit), while they beat the living bejesus out of you.

I haven't played those battles in a while so I just went into the database to battle test. The bouncey balls hit about 24-26, pencil around 12, spinning tops 53-55, and the bees hit with a 19-21 with their buzz, and 16-18 with their sting. This is all at level 3.
Again, I work very hard to try to balance the difficulty curve but after every playtester I've seen I expect that the player will be at least level 3 by the time they reach biome 2.

Something I think I should do is make the monsters drop more EXP, that way it'd be easier to level up and wouldn't require a lot of grinding.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Pancaek
author=Koi
I put in free-roaming monsters for a couple of reasons. One, so that you can run from them to go heal up and get prepared if you're in a bind. Two, I absolutely hate random encounters. And three, just to give you a chance to escape if you want to, but it's not intended for players to completely disregard them.

Also, another factor to consider is that if you don't fight, you can't save the game. Monsters are the only way to get candy wrappers. I did this on purpose.
I'm not trying to tell you how to make your game or anything, but giving the player an option and then saying that they're not suppose to choose that option at certain points without any indication, is kind of bad game design. If you give the player an option to not battle if they don't want to, that's great. But if you give them that option, and then say they're not playing the game right when they choose that option more often than not, then what's the point of it anyways?

As a game designer, you can't tell people they're not playing by the games rules. (Unless they're hacking.) The rules of the game are what you allow the player to do an not do. If they can do it in the game, they're playing by the games rules. You can't try and force people into a specific play style and expect them to be fine with that.

While I get where you are coming from, there are plenty of problems with that statement. If people are employing a poor strategy that is getting them killed, then, yes, even though that's something the game allowed them to do, that doesn't mean it has equal weight as a "correct" way to play the game. In a particular game, it can indeed be "wrong" to, say, turtle and stay on the defensive, even though the game allows it, for example.

The escape command exists to allow the player to get out of battles when they aren't going well. That does not mean a developer is obligated to make running away from every single encounter a valid game strategy. They could, certainly, and come up with a different and possibly interesting alternative kind of game, but if they don't, then they are in no ways guilty of "bad game design."

You can say "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty. It's my personal preference" and that's fine. Start saying "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty, because otherwise that's bad game design" and you are both speaking nonsense and trying to push your own preferences above the developers. If you don't want to have to fight battles then perhaps an combat-centered RPG isn't for you.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=unity
If you don't want to have to fight battles then perhaps an combat-centered RPG isn't for you.

Well, to be fair, "adventure puzzle" doesn't really scream combat-centered RPG.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=Koi
author=Corfaisus
And I think you should disable the monster's ability to reengage you after a battle for a few seconds. If you escape, you'll just immediately hit the same encounter over and over again until you cave in and fight it.
You are not the first person to suggest this, and I actually would like to put it in! But I don't know how. If you can tell me how to implement this, then I will definitely do it.

The way I do it is to use the Erase Event command after the Battle Processing command. That way, the event will be erased from the map (until it's revisited) regardless of whither or not the player wins the fight, or runs. I'm not sure how viable this tactic is for this game, though, as I've not played it.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Corfaisus
author=unity
If you don't want to have to fight battles then perhaps an combat-centered RPG isn't for you.
Well, to be fair, "adventure puzzle" doesn't really scream combat-centered RPG.

Okay, good point. Though I don't see why you can't have an adventure puzzle RPG that's also serious about the combat aspect, but yeah, players will probably want to know about that going in to the game. Perhaps that's an issue with tagging. Is there a "Combat" tag or do you think "Action" would work?

It's still very uncool in my opinion to throw around the phrase "bad game design" like Pancaek is doing. The way Qui Domi works may not be optimal for everyone, but telling the developer that not letting them avoid every encounter with no penalty is bad game design is really missing the point and not helpful.

Having no save points for fifteen hours is bad game design. Having to actually fight battles in RPGs is really, really not bad game design. If the battles aren't fun or aren't working, then they can be tweaked. Some games do in fact work better without battles at all. But having battles and asking that they be completely inconsequential is another thing altogether. It's an idea that could work (especially if its an optional setting for people who want to just enjoy the story) but to say that not having it is bad game design is more than a bit of a stretch.

tl;dr: unity takes people using the phrase "bad game design" way too seriously XD;
author=Marrend
The way I do it is to use the Erase Event command after the Battle Processing command. That way, the event will be erased from the map (until it's revisited) regardless of whither or not the player wins the fight, or runs. I'm not sure how viable this tactic is for this game, though, as I've not played it.

Yeah, that wouldn't work for this game :/ The monsters roam about the map so if you escape, they're supposed to still be there.

author=unity
Okay, good point. Though I don't see why you can't have an adventure puzzle RPG that's also serious about the combat aspect, but yeah, players will probably want to know about that going in to the game. Perhaps that's an issue with tagging. Is there a "Combat" tag or do you think "Action" would work?

This IS a really good point. There's no combat tag, and the only tags I think that could work would be "action" or "RPG." Which one should I use...?

author=unity
tl;dr: unity takes people using the phrase "bad game design" way too seriously XD;

I don't think you take it too seriously, since "game design" is literally the #1 job of a game dev.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Yeah, that wouldn't work for this game :/ The monsters roam about the map so if you escape, they're supposed to still be there.

I've got a system in my current project where, if you run away from monsters, they will back up one space, wait a set amount of time, then resume chasing you. If that's what you're looking for, let me know and I'll be happy to show you how I did it. You can edit the process to not chase the player if you want.

This IS a really good point. There's no combat tag, and the only tags I think that could work would be "action" or "RPG." Which one should I use...?

An action game's core revolves around some sort of physical challenge, like quick reflexes or hand/eye coordination. Since that's not the core of this game (based on what I've read, I've yet to play it myself even though I want to), then the action tag wouldn't work. If this is an adventure RPG, then I'd recommend using the RPG tag.
author=Red_Nova
Yeah, that wouldn't work for this game :/ The monsters roam about the map so if you escape, they're supposed to still be there.
I've got a system in my current project where, if you run away from monsters, they will back up one space, wait a set amount of time, then resume chasing you. If that's what you're looking for, let me know and I'll be happy to show you how I did it. You can edit the process to not chase the player if you want.

This IS a really good point. There's no combat tag, and the only tags I think that could work would be "action" or "RPG." Which one should I use...?


An action game's core revolves around some sort of physical challenge, like quick reflexes or hand/eye coordination. Since that's not the core of this game (based on what I've read, I've yet to play it myself even though I want to), then the action tag wouldn't work. If this is an adventure RPG, then I'd recommend using the RPG tag.


Okay, thank you! :} And yes please, could you PM me?
author=unity
While I get where you are coming from, there are plenty of problems with that statement. If people are employing a poor strategy that is getting them killed, then, yes, even though that's something the game allowed them to do, that doesn't mean it has equal weight as a "correct" way to play the game. In a particular game, it can indeed be "wrong" to, say, turtle and stay on the defensive, even though the game allows it, for example.

The escape command exists to allow the player to get out of battles when they aren't going well. That does not mean a developer is obligated to make running away from every single encounter a valid game strategy. They could, certainly, and come up with a different and possibly interesting alternative kind of game, but if they don't, then they are in no ways guilty of "bad game design."

You can say "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty. It's my personal preference" and that's fine. Start saying "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty, because otherwise that's bad game design" and you are both speaking nonsense and trying to push your own preferences above the developers. If you don't want to have to fight battles then perhaps an combat-centered RPG isn't for you.


Koi stated that they made the monsters free roaming, and not random encounters, so you could get away from them if you want to. The 'escape' option is a completely different story, as you often can't escape from monsters, and you can't choose when you hit a random encounter anyways. In the free roaming monster system, the player is encouraged to try and avoid monsters if they don't feel like fighting them. Simply saying "yeah you can run from them if you want but you're not suppose to all the time" doesn't make any sense. How is the player suppose to know when they are and aren't suppose to avoid a monster? What's the point of avoiding monsters in the first place if you're not suppose to be able to do that?
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Pancaek
author=unity
While I get where you are coming from, there are plenty of problems with that statement. If people are employing a poor strategy that is getting them killed, then, yes, even though that's something the game allowed them to do, that doesn't mean it has equal weight as a "correct" way to play the game. In a particular game, it can indeed be "wrong" to, say, turtle and stay on the defensive, even though the game allows it, for example.

The escape command exists to allow the player to get out of battles when they aren't going well. That does not mean a developer is obligated to make running away from every single encounter a valid game strategy. They could, certainly, and come up with a different and possibly interesting alternative kind of game, but if they don't, then they are in no ways guilty of "bad game design."

You can say "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty. It's my personal preference" and that's fine. Start saying "I'd like a game that allows me to avoid battles with no penalty, because otherwise that's bad game design" and you are both speaking nonsense and trying to push your own preferences above the developers. If you don't want to have to fight battles then perhaps an combat-centered RPG isn't for you.
Koi stated that they made the monsters free roaming, and not random encounters, so you could get away from them if you want to. The 'escape' option is a completely different story, as you often can't escape from monsters, and you can't choose when you hit a random encounter anyways. In the free roaming monster system, the player is encouraged to try and avoid monsters if they don't feel like fighting them. Simply saying "yeah you can run from them if you want but you're not suppose to all the time" doesn't make any sense. How is the player suppose to know when they are and aren't suppose to avoid a monster? What's the point of avoiding monsters in the first place if you're not suppose to be able to do that?


Touch encounters are nothing new in RPGs. Raising your level to be able to take on higher level enemies is also pretty common sense in RPGs. Whether you do it by walking around until a random encounter shows up or by engaging monsters you can see on the map, it's mostly the same.

If you touch a monster and take damage, that should tell you "don't touch monsters." If you touch a monster, are taken to a separate screen where you can fight them, and then get rewards like EXP and items for doing so, then it should be clear that the developer put them in for a reason and that maybe, just maybe, avoiding all of them might have consequences.

If you don't like that, that's fine. But to call it bad game design is irresponsible. An entire genre has been built on that foundation. And you may not like that genre. But a lot of us do and are trying to make games a certain way.