• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS
Unbridled fury, innocent optimism, intentional concealment, peaceful comfort. Whatever the reason, there is always a purpose for concealing truth. To find this truth, one must break apart these damaging fallacies. This is, of course, assuming the truth is something you wish to attain in the first place. There are reasons people willingly ignore truth, after all.

A party of four are bound together in a strange twist of fate and must depend on each other in order to survive the harsh wilderness of the Under, a world beneath the soil. As their journey progresses, however, they begin to see hints of a deeper web of lies and conspiracies that spell trouble on a scale much larger than themselves.

It's best to ignore those hints. Your tale is nothing more than a simple journey to escape the Under. Beware of blundering into matters you do not understand.


Through Dark and Liar's Soul is a game made in two weeks for the RMN Swap event. The initial half was developed by Liberty, while the second half was completed by Red_Nova.

Latest Blog

Through the Dark

Here you go, everyone! Through Dark and Liar's Soul is complete!

Deadlines are great, aren't they? They really force you to pick and choose what's important to the project since you don't have time to add in everything you want. I spent the first two days with Liberty's half just playing through it and picking apart story/lore/gameplay elements to see what I could use and expand on. To my excitement (and dismay), there was a lot to building blocks. I planned out a pretty elaborate plot with lots and lots of dialogue, but there just wasn't enough time to implement it all and do it justice. Sure, I could've just copied/pasted it into the game, but then I wouldn't be doing it justice. As such, I had to cut out about 30% of the planned stuff and rewrite other elements to plug the resulting plot holes in order to make more time for gameplay and stuff.

I console myself every night that it's better to cut content than to arbitrarily pad it out. Like Antoine de Saint Exupéry said, "...perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."

... Not trying to imply that this game is perfect. Far from it, in fact. But you know what I mean.

Dammit, Liberty. You made more work for me by being too good at this. I cannot believe that was an actual sentence that I just wrote.

Overall though, I hope Liberty likes where I've taken the game, and I hope YOU like playing it! There are five endings to this game, and I'm really interested in hearing which ending you got first. And, of course, let me know of any bugs you find!

Thanks for playing!

*dies*
  • Completed
  • Red_Nova
    Liberty
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 03/15/2016 09:06 PM
  • 11/02/2016 05:57 PM
  • 03/20/2016
  • 48829
  • 17
  • 326

Tags

Posts

Pages: first prev 12 last
Liberty
RTP Princess
24266
03/20/2016 03:08 PM
They can't. The script straight up stops them from it. If you mean the number in the map settings, that's different to what I mean. That's the number that is randomised and added to the base step amount. So the formula is currently: 15 steps + randomised number of map average + randomised number of map average

There will not be a chance of getting an encounter before 15 steps with this formula. (The default formula has it set as 1 + random NOMA + RNOMA, which is why 1-step battles are always possible with the default.)
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/20/2016 03:24 PM
Yeah, I was talking about the number in the map settings. Well, that clears it up! Since I didn't know what you were talking about until just now, I can safely say that I didn't change it!

I see you edited the script itself instead of overwriting the function at the bottom of the script list. That's why I was trying to find it for ten minutes with no luck.

Do you want me to mess with it? I personally didn't find the encounter rate too high or low. The issues, from what I'm reading, lie more with the battles themselves, which I'm currently working on.
Liberty
RTP Princess
24266
03/20/2016 03:26 PM
You shouldn't be editing stuff in that I was talking about since that's kinda backseat driving... >.<;
We can work on my side of things after the event is over (and give it a good ol' polishing up~) For now, if your side has stuff you want to mess with, go right ahead~
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/20/2016 03:30 PM
Oh yeah. Contest rules. Right. I totally knew that. Just checking to see if... you know... YOU remembered! Right, that's it!
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/20/2016 05:20 PM
Download has been updated to version 1.2! Here are the big changes:

-Luge now starts with Venom Arrow instead of Stone Arrow, and Venom Arrow now prevents counterattacks for a few turns.

- New skills for Nima and Kaei, and they now learn one new skill every level up to a certain point.

- Most enemies (in my half) have boosted defenses and counterattack ratings to require use of these new abilities.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
03/20/2016 08:18 PM
author=Liberty
Boss probably isn't going to change because I very much like the idea of a team coming together to fight a boss and to have that you need to be feel suitably threatened else it just wouldn't work as well, imo. I will probably add a line about using items, though, so that people know healing items are there for use.

It kind of already feels threatening by being a big, spooky blob of freakiness that appears at the very start of the game? The problem is that it's not really a good way to warm your player up to the game, since it introduces an element of luck-based difficulty as unity stated. The update that I have yet to play might fix that, though.

author=Liberty
Sorry, I like talking and dialogue so... that's more stylistic than anything. Characters interacting is where it's at, imo. Granted, I've yet to see what Red did with the end parts of the game, but for my areas I like me some gabbing.

I never said I hated talking and dialogue, what I was criticising was more along the lines of it overstaying its welcome.

To better describe how I felt about it, think of it like a really inept speaker going through a great build-up and backstory just to say explain that a grocery store ran out of carrots, so he needed to use red onions instead for tonight's salad dinner. It's like, get to the point, you know?

I'll give the new download a shot.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/20/2016 09:29 PM
Thanks for giving it another chance, Ratty!
shayoko
We do not condone harassing other members by PM.
515
03/27/2016 11:11 PM
random thoughts
Show
what does fresh even mean when talking about water?

Luge tried to keep his story a secret but with the power of the status screen! :D

luge...is so stupid...what does he mean why didn't you tell me?! :/ there is so much wrong with that
i don't even...

kai is so loveable :D

poor kai!
sadly it seems were lacking the answer to why he killed luge parents.
and where the secret is


Thoughts 1H+
a battle oriented game with little story.
best part of the experience was the mapping. the atmosphere in the cave was nice.
The plot had potential if the battles were replaced with more of it to give it more depth and value.
overall i didn't like it.
Liberty
RTP Princess
24266
03/28/2016 03:49 AM
Fresh water is drinkable water. You can't just expect to go up to a water source and drink from it without there being a chance of getting sick, after all, especially when it comes to underground water sources. You can die from doing that!

There are apparently more than one ending, so maybe you'd find out more about the story if you get them all (I think there's three?) I, uh, haven't finished playing it yet (saving it for streaming) so I've no idea where the plot went after my point. XD
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/28/2016 11:44 AM
There are, in fact, five endings, depending on what you do when (or even if) you piece the truth together.
argh
792
03/28/2016 08:41 PM
There are a heckuva lot of bugs still in this version. Luge's class is listed as "Wanderer DEBUG", he has an MP bar that he never seems to use, and a lot of text messages run off the screen. The water-gathering prompt also says you have 2 empty bottles left even if you only have 1. And sometimes characters get multiple actions per round, seemingly at random?

I got the "rebuilding the bond" ending. Felt pretty abrupt? I think I read all the notes (5), but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do to to get the other endings. It seems like there's still a lot of mysteries I don't know.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/28/2016 09:12 PM
Whoops. Looks like I've got some quick fixings to do. Thanks for letting me know, especially about the class error. Since Luge learns skills by finding them in the wild, I had to make a class with all the skills so I don't, ironically, accidentally release a game with him having every arrow.

I can't seem to replicate your empty bottle issue. Did you happen to cook something before filling up your bottles?

Having multiple rounds isn't a bug. Kaei has an innate chance to gain a second action, and the Regeneration state also gain a 20% chance to act twice.

As for the ending, here's a hint: just reading the notes isn't enough. Compare what you've read to what you've seen/heard in cutscenes, and you'll have an idea of what you need to do.
argh
792
03/29/2016 12:12 PM
I can't seem to replicate your empty bottle issue. Did you happen to cook something before filling up your bottles?

Yes.

And ah, I see the other endings now. I can definitely see that you had to cut and streamline things, but I have to say I don't agree with your assessment that it worked; I felt very much like I only got to see a small sliver of a much larger thing, with a lot of important information just out of my reach. That's to be expected with this short event, but... I dunno, I guess I was kinda expecting more. In particular, I don't really see any reason to execute the offending party other than Arle's stated backstory, but since I don't have a very good idea of that or its importance to him, it's hard for me to assess how to make a good choice.

Show

It also seems like Nima didn't think her plan through at all, unless the darklings have some way to survive without growing food? No sun means the planet is a closed system, everything is going to starve. The darklings would only get a taste of equality before they all died. They also don't seem to mind being stuck in the Under, so I'm not sure why it's such a big deal to let them roam free.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
03/29/2016 02:04 PM
Oh, I see the problem with the mismatch glass bottle now! It was checking the amount of WATER in your inventory, not empty bottles. I fixed one instance, but I didn't see the copy/pasted messages depending on which direction you were facing. Thanks for pointing those out!

The download has been updated to version 1.4 with the fix. Thank you so much for reporting this!

As for the overall story, yeah, I'll agree that there was a lot of info that wasn't conveyed. If you didn't see any reason to kill the offending party, then you had the option of letting them go. Near the end of the game, Arle's morals and stance on the situation is left up to the player, not Arle himself.

If Liberty's cool with it, then some time after the contest I'd like to work on an expanded version.
John_Titor
0
11/02/2016 05:57 PM
I NOMINATE YOU!
YEAR OFF LIGE!
YEAR OF THE DAY!
WIN THE INTERNET!
Pages: first prev 12 last