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Judge's Personal Picks Recipient for IGMC 2015:
http://blog.gamedevfort.com/igmc-judges-personal-picks/


In foregone ruins there stirs an ancient evil. Sealed long ago, by those now referred to as legend, to prevent future pain and suffering by its hand. Years passed. Then decades. Centuries. Millenia. For ages this dark force plotted and watched and waited for the perfect moment to return. For when its old enemies were no more. For when the land and its people were ripe for the taking again. That time is now. And so the evil rises once more. Little by little. Bit by bit. Bone by bone. As its power grows the kingdom is doomed to destruction. None in this world may stop him. Save for one.




Summary:
Embark on an epic adventure against your wishes and travel the world of Elvesheem to defeat an ancient evil before it grows to power and destroys all you hold dear.

Features:
-Two to five hour quest time to test your mettle as you fight across the continent of Elvesheem.
-Original art gives a hand-painted look to a world full of expressive characters and brings it to life.
-Comedic storyline following one of the most unlucky fellows ever as his situation goes from bad to worse.
-Five different endings to see and experience as the days and circumstances work against the player.
-Fast-paced shopkeeping minigame to financially reward those with quick reaction and precision.
-Unconventional battles where the player must find a way to succeed against monsters when their skill lies in simple moneyhandling.
-Doomsday clock continually displays various details players must keep track of to avoid (or intentionally cause) one of the "bad" endings.
-Dungeons to explore to help unravel the truth and get much needed experience.
-Autosave confirms player will have to live with their actions and consequences.

Characters:
-The Player: Choose a name for your champion as you embark on a quest to help save the kingdom and provide only the best goods for your customers!
-Jezebel: The player's wife. She will wait for you to finish all of this "hero" nonsense. But you had best keep her happy.
-Eliza: The player's daughter. Waits for the player at home with Jezebel. Makes a mean pouty face.
-Rocks & Pebs: Two members of the Queen's Guard that run the local armory.
-Danvers: Runs the local bazaar in Forlourne with cheap supplies and helps upgrade the player's shop.
-Mendi: The healer working at the Forlourne infirmary. Will always patch the player up but you'd best not take advantage of her kindness.
-Osari: The Elven arcanist. One of the last of his kind. Will restore relics and impart Elven history upon curious travelers.
-Viper: Leader of the criminal underground in Forlourne that will provide loans to the player when times get tough. Always a smile on here face.
-Lucious: Prophet and royal advisor to the kingdom of Forlourne. His visions have never failed him or the queen during his tenure.
-Gwendolyn: Her Highness and leader of all of Elvesheem. Lets her advisors do most of the talking for her.
-Sebastian: Neighbor and best friend to the player in their small town of Everdeen. Helps train the player if they so wish.
-York: Young street rat that will help the player when times get too tough. Lost his family on their journey to safety.

You may also get the RTP-free file under the "downloads" tab up top if you'd prefer to save on some hard-drive space.

Controls:
Arrow keys:
Move cursor/player around.

Shift key or 'A' button with Joystick:
Run while moving. (Shopkeeping minigame and dungeons)

Enter/Z on keyboard or 'C' button with Joystick:
Select option choice. (Navigation, dungeons and world map)
Confirm. (Navigation, dungeons and world map)
Pick up/put down shop box. (Shopkeeping minigame only)
Shoo away customer if no box equipped. (Shopkeeping minigame only)
Sell to customer if box equipped. (Shopkeeping minigame only)

Escape/X on keyboard or 'B' button with Joystick:
Open and close menu. (Navigation, dungeons and world map)
Cancel choice (Navigation, dungeons and world map)
Open customer cheatsheet to see which one wants what. (Shopkeeping minigame only)

Latest Blog

Bug Fix and a Very Positive Review *Update Your Downloads*

Short blog post addressing two things:

1) There were a few reports of players coming across a rather nasty bug. Sometimes when the player dies they...stay in the infirmary until time runs out on one of the endings. Whoops! It doesn't seem to happen often as I never came across it when playtesting but this cannot be allowed to stand! The new downloads SHOULD alleviate the problem. However, if you come across this issue and you downloaded after this blog post went up please contact me and let me know! Bugs are no good.

2) Someone at gamerbolt is reviewing and playing IGMC games and came across my game Half-Off Hero! Turns out he was rather fond of it and gave it a 52/70 (62/70 without the 10 point bug deduction) and called it "nearly perfect". :D Which is awesome to hear! You can check it out at the link below:
http://www.gamerbolt.com/igmc-2015-half-off-hero-grist-of-flies/

Tags

Posts

Pages: 1
DomedVortex
2029
08/09/2015 02:19 AM
This artwork has succeeded in gaining my interest! I'll have to give this game a try.
dinkledaberry
1378
08/09/2015 08:42 AM
author=DomedVortex
This artwork has succeeded in gaining my interest! I'll have to give this game a try.


Sweet! Let me know what you think when you get around to trying the game! We worked hard on it and I plan on coming back to development at a later date to make improvements. Only had so much time during the IGMC after all so I had to make a lot of changes. But I'm always looking for feedback. The game itself can be quite the challenge.
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
08/10/2015 09:48 PM
Random thoughts
Show
cute art

cant save after the intro. now that's just horrible!

hmm a visual novel,some what tempted to drop this but i should give it a shot.

the shop seems to need work. its costs 100 for a sword which seems to not be very strong compared to the others.
gear balancing! :D

Danvers upgrade shop option is endless? should only be buyable once or have a limit

how do you do the shop w/o the cheat sheet? seriously try to remember what each sprite likes to buy???

hiding is pointless when traveling...it never works!

most likely going to drop this the wifes % thing is a huge turn off

max level is 10 :D

the main villain is un-killable lol...the irony :D makes a lot of sense tho


General Dropped 1h 45M
Show
honestly this game is not my thing so i dropped it. it could use improvements in a few areas but what i disliked about it was the amount of management you have to do.and things like that end up being stressful for me anyway, rather then fun.
also only having one save slot (naturally anyway) was unpleasant.

the bright side of this is the awesome artwork of course,the style of traveling and some degree of choice which can end badly for you. but at least its still a option.
also want to add this was one of the rare games which the developer knows how to write in english! theres almost no grammar issues! that alone is amazing!


Overall
If your the type that likes taking lots of things into consideration. then i recommend trying this. if you like more simple rpgs i would not recommend this.
dinkledaberry
1378
08/10/2015 10:15 PM
Thanks for the feedback shayoko!
I'm probably going to end up taking this game off "completed" status since I had run out of time on the contest and there's still so much I want to fix, change and incorporate.
Addressing a few of your concerns:
Show
Weapons each have their own skill you can use in battle so I tried to keep them all around the same strength but it still needs balancing.
Danvers can upgrade your shop to 9 total customer placemats and 9 total boxes. Though I wouldn't recommend bringing that many customers in yet.
The customers and the items they're interested in are color coded. :) Pay attention to their outfits and you'll get the hang of it.
Hiding is a random chance depending on the enemy. It is possible, but also kind of intentional to have it so hard to do. I was planning to incorporate a more stat-based system at a later date.
It IS possible to kill Vaectus ultimately. Just not in the conventional way. :)

I plan on making quite a few changes down the line. A lot of the design choices were intentional to try to reinforce the narrative but I can definitely make things easier and more clear. Hopefully I can make things more user-friendly without sacrificing what I was going for. :)

DomedVortex
2029
08/20/2015 01:45 AM
author=dinkledaberry
author=DomedVortex
This artwork has succeeded in gaining my interest! I'll have to give this game a try.
Sweet! Let me know what you think when you get around to trying the game! We worked hard on it and I plan on coming back to development at a later date to make improvements. Only had so much time during the IGMC after all so I had to make a lot of changes. But I'm always looking for feedback. The game itself can be quite the challenge.


I've enjoyed the game so far! The visuals were effective, and the audio (Is it custom-made as well?) was nice to listen to. It is indeed hard, but that's what I liked; it made me choose my actions carefully, and I wanted to work hard to turn the merchant into a proper hero. It felt so satisfying to make noticeable progress in terms of strength. I will admit, however, that despite the autosaving, I tended to close out of the game whenever I lost a battle, and that happened more times than I could count, to be honest... (Maybe you can punish my kind of behavior by having the game autosave right when a battle starts)

My first playthrough was unfortunately cut short; I closed the game in Coastridge (probably when an autosave was going on), and I lost the file! I fully intend on playing more, though. The story and characters have kept my interest, so I want to see all of the endings. Great job!
dinkledaberry
1378
08/20/2015 07:59 PM
author=DomedVortex
I've enjoyed the game so far! The visuals were effective, and the audio (Is it custom-made as well?) was nice to listen to. It is indeed hard, but that's what I liked; it made me choose my actions carefully, and I wanted to work hard to turn the merchant into a proper hero. It felt so satisfying to make noticeable progress in terms of strength. I will admit, however, that despite the autosaving, I tended to close out of the game whenever I lost a battle, and that happened more times than I could count, to be honest... (Maybe you can punish my kind of behavior by having the game autosave right when a battle starts)

My first playthrough was unfortunately cut short; I closed the game in Coastridge (probably when an autosave was going on), and I lost the file! I fully intend on playing more, though. The story and characters have kept my interest, so I want to see all of the endings. Great job!


Woo! Thanks for the kind words DomedVortex. The audio is all from the RPGMaker DS resource pack. I've never used music that was made exclusively for one of my projects but it's something I'm interested in doing in the future. I'm glad you enjoyed the difficulty, story and visuals so much! Sorry you lost your progress. F12 and the autosave script I use don't get along too much.

I plan on adding a lot to this game to try to offset some of the issues but it's great to hear someone enjoying my work! Hope you can see all the endings one day! I actually plan on adding a few as well.
barefoot_indie
0
04/01/2016 02:20 AM
Reminds me of the old saying "You can make some of the people happy some of the time, but you can't keep all of the people happy all of time."

I just started my fifth game. Each time I get a little closer, but I am no where near being strong enough to defeat the boss. I got smart and saved a copy of the save file externally, 10 minutes into the game, so I don't have to go through all the dialogue again this time. The Autosave is both a blessing and a curse.

If the developer ever releases an update, A 'quick start' option (that skips the opening dialogues) would be much appreciated. Also there is still a bug, where the game gets stuck if you die and go to the infirmary just before you run out of time on a loan or the doomsday clock.
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