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River of Stars (Demo)

Introduction

River of Stars is a traditional RPG with branching story lines that is being developed by pianotm and FangStiltzskin using RPG Maker VX Ace. Though the current demo only covers a bit of the background information about the main characters.

Story

The current story build is in need of some reworking in my opinion. The biggest issues pops up in the school when Uiyi is discussing her past with her students. The game then transitions from a mere exposition dump to a short segment where you control her and her brother. The problem is that we already know that Uiyi gets captured and is separated from her brother at the very start of the game. So playing through this area feels like a bit of a pointless chore since the outcome is already known to the player.

Another slight issue I have with the game is that you can steal your brother's equipment during this flashback. This wouldn't be an issue if it was just as powerful as Uiyi's starting equipment, but it is actually a step or two above what she starts with. This in turn makes the battles with the rats running around town rather monotonous afterwards since Uiyi can simply one shot them.

Gameplay

The game utilizes turn-based combat with touch encounters which is fine by me. I'll openly admit that I'm a turn-based fan boy and see nothing wrong with utilizing turn-based combat. On the other hand I do question the usefulness of the gun for our male lead. Along with his gun he can utilize hand to hand combat techniques such as body slams and kicks in order to defeat his opponents and those techniques are just as potent as unloading a bullet into your enemy. I mean why should I spend money on bullets when I could simply punch and kick the enemy into submission at zero cost. It's even weirder when you consider the fact that you can potentially stun an enemy by hitting it with a body slam so you have even less reason to utilize a firearm.

Graphics

The mapping feels a bit rough at the moment. While the mapping in the flashbacks is good the starting town in Arizona is a mixed bag. The large size of the town can make navigating it a bit of a pain. And considering the game ends with you needing to go to a location that isn't accessible yet to my knowledge I can only imagine that the town will get bigger and even more annoying to navigate until you figure out where everything is in relation to something else. In all honesty I'd suggest giving the player the ability to call up a map from the menu in order to make navigating the town a lot easier. At least if my guess on the current direction of the size of the town is correct.

Conclusion

The demo for River of Stars leaves me with rather mixed feelings. On one hand I like some of the ideas on display and feel like the game has some serious potential if the game does feature multiple branching paths. On the other hand the mapping feels a bit rough around the edges for the starting town and the current setup for the story feels like it is giving the player information and then pointless rehashing it in a way that is rather boring to play through.

Though considering this comment by pianotm:

author=pianotm
I have a lot of problems with that scene, too. If I were writing a book, this never would have been explained by one of the characters; it would have been discussed in background narration. In fact, the very reason I made Uiyi a teacher was because in my mind that particular role made the exposition partially forgivable.


I can't say that the development team isn't aware of the current issues with the story, and I'm positive that they will figure out a better method of presenting this scene to the player.

Posts

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pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
About the town: it's a trailer park with a few permanent buildings, so it's essentially going to be on a grid. It's already got a store where you can buy basically anything you need. For the first branching story arc, we have the police station. It has a clinic for a story arc for Uiyi. Basically, the town is only going to be as big as it needs to be. A map is an excellent idea I hadn't thought of. Yeah, I'll do that. If I don't ultimately decide to make a custom menu, I'll tie it to a key stroke. I had worried a little about navigation considering the size of the individual maps and the fact that my transfers follow the streets. Also, I've been working back and forth trying to make the maps look better. I'm wondering about just taking all of the grass out entirely and just making it cacti and palms like Death Valley.

Combat: The rats; I'm working on a balance between not-too-weak and not-too-strong. I don't want them to feel like a threat, but I don't want them to bore the player. Their only real purpose is to add gameplay. They're basically a miniquest. Speaking of which, FangStiltzkin has fixed it so the player doesn't have to give Paul the rat tails one at a time. Gun versus hand-to-hand mechanics are still under adjustment. I've weakened hand-to-hand, removed the bodyslam entirely, but haven't actually improved gun performance. The way it is in the current demo, Jack starts out with the 380 (you, if your LP is anything to go on, have the old demo that starts with the 38SP.), which is a fairly weak gun. The second he gets the 38SP, he can one-shot the rats.

BTW, I just noticed that cheat with Uiyi taking Byinpe's weapons. Oops! Already have a command in place to remove them from her inventory at the end of the flashback, which I am changing based on your advice. The purpose of the flashback wasn't actually to show them getting captured, but to show Byinpe acting as a protector for his little sister. I have no desire to be redundant. So instead of being captured at this point, they'll escape. I don't want a scene where Uiyi begs Byinpe to go on without her, but maybe a minor aside where she insists on keeping on for her brother's sake. I've also weakened Byinpe considerably, and have weakened the monsters, though not nearly as much. They're a bit more challenging because of how much I've reduced Byinpe, but not too hard. I've changed the respawn on the flashback also. In all maps, now only half of the hunters respawn after being beaten and in a few cases, the ones on the main path don't respawn.

About the info dump in the school: I've removed it almost (not entirely) completely. The flashback comes at the beginning of the conversation, not the end, and after the flashback, instead of the deplorable exposition fairy, it's a q & a with Uiyi answering questions about her world, but not really giving any personal information. Some of it is random, some of it is pertinent, you really don't learn much, but it feels a lot more natural for what would happen between a teacher and students.

Your LP and CashmereCat's and Nhubi's observations on the Release Something thread have really helped a lot and now this review is going to be just as useful. Thank you so much.
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