Everything Turns Gray

Never asked questions. Or if you prefer, newly anticipated questions.

In other words, A README.

HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION:
Does this demo include the RMVX RTP?

ANSWER: No it doesn't, due to size constraints, RMVX is unable to compress files larger than 128 MB without making an un-extractable mess out of them. The extra MB for the RTP would have put me over the top.

You may download the RMVX RTP for free here:

http://tkool.jp/products/rpgvx/eng/download.html

Downloading it once will allow you to play all RPG Maker VX games.

HQ: This game is really hard! I'm ANNNNNNGRRRRYYYY!
A: Pay careful attention to your fatigue; save often; run away from battles when you can, look everywhere for food and water, get to town as soon as you can, get party members as soon as you can, if you can't find food or water, use the inn, did I mention watch your fatigue bar?

HQ: Are those the full credits?
(Or, I didn't get credit for my so and so, and I'm ANNGRRY!)

A: No, those are the opening credits. Several people are omitted. I will include a full credit list with the full release. The opening credits sequence

HQ: Do you know about any existing bugs?
A: Since I have extensively playtested and polished the game for the last four months, bugs fall into few categories; minor things that I didn't know how to fix or didn't think were worth it (for example, I can't make the enemy skill "Mug" not refer to the in-game currency as Gold, no matter what I try) and, more worryingly, major bugs I am unaware of because they were CREATED BY RECENT FIXES? Don't you hate when that happens? Please let me know about the latter. Alas, after all of my play testing and polishing, I was in a hurry to cut down size, so I apologize in advance in case the game crashes because of missing music files! (Curse you RMVX, on so many levels, I'm annnnngrrrrryyyy!)

HQ: Why is your taste in music so bad? I'm ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGRRRRRRRY!
A: You're right, needs more Coheed and Cambria; no, seriously, I blame genetics. No, seriously, seriously, you know you can turn the Battle Radio off if you want, right?

A check-list, still in progress, of the beta results and the changes made or not made based on them. My responses/notes are in brackets.

1. By the time the main intro was over I started out the game fatigued. I died of hunger while leveling up and spending my points. I also took a total of about 70 damage one time leveling up outside. You should make the game pause the decay functions in menus and while making choices it throws the player off and leaves them little time to make a choice.

{The game already does this. If it is not working, I do not know why. (The code for the exhaustion counter requires a switch to be on that is turned off by the level up function and not turned back on until level up is over.) No one else reported this problem.}


2. If you move too much to the right on the world map after accepting Chester's quest you cannot move back into the row containing the poison lake to complete the quest. He says something about not wanting to gallavant around anywhere before visiting his folks.

{I think I may have fixed this and made sure you can't get past chester's limits and hence lock yourself out of the quest. I will test it myself to make sure.}


3. Skill ,Scramble 1, is usable outside combat. Uses 1 TP and does nothing. Not sure if this is meant to be an out of combat move but if so it does nothing.

{Fixed. Now usuable only in battle.}

4. Burnt out Plaza net cafe. The chest to the left of the map is restored after you set the bomb. Loot it before planting the bomb and then after you plant and leave the bomb to explode the chest is re-lootable.

{Fixed. Chest and computr are now GONE ENTIRELY the second time around, blown up by the bomb.}

5. Again a reference to bug 1. I keep dying talking to people after they are finished talking I get the you die text and the gameover screen. This hidden stamina system needs to not deplete when you are talking to people or in menus. It's a buzzkill when you really get into the game to die from starvation even though you have food and water in your inventory. I was buying some food and I died again. Which makes no sense because my party is not fatigued.

{I think this is more related to other issues than anything else. The inclusion of a fatigue bar (see other items) should help A LOT.}


6. Had to restart the game because your stamina system had an error and I can now only move 6 spaces before dying. Unfortuneatly there is nowhere I can go within those steps. I try to rest and wake up recieving the message "You are fatigued" and die. I try to move away and I get the same message and die right after. I had good stuff too.

{I have made it so that you cannot lower your fatigue below -15. As a result, it should be impossible to get into a situation where resting once or twice won't restore you to at least positive numbers.}

Reese next to calendar only talks to you if you are facing up/right for some reason.

{Fixed.}


Level up NEVER activates straight away and could probably do with a little more information on the screen. Isn't there a script that can do something like this without it being message-box based..?

{Probably, but I prefer to use my own eventing to someone else's scripts. This stays how it is for now.}

Why does the main character get damaged when another team member is "tagged in" to do technology rolls etc. Surely the person doing the hacking should get shocked..?

{Will consider applying this in the future. Right now, it's not a high priority.}


The chest at the back of the plaza is walkable on after being opened.

{Fixed}

A visible counter for fatigue would be useful.

{Amen to that.}

Getting a fatigue bar is my number one priority at this point.

Everytime when getting a fatigued message I died straight away, in the demo I remember this just halfing stats or something similar and at least giving you a chance to rest yourself. This happens no matter how much food/water I have available; my save-file causes fatigue-based death after a certain amount of time no matter if I rest/use the inn.

{This is the core issue here. I think this is happening because I put no 'bottom' on fatigue. You can get your fatigue so low that you would need to rest 6-7 times to even live. I'm trying to put a floor on negative fatigue, at -15. That way when resting once you will at least get back to exhausted, rather than dead.}

The crafting says need/owned instead of the more obvious owned/need. Like 3/5 usually means 3 out of 5 not 5 out of 3.

{The Japanese are to blame because they read from right to left. I don't really know enough about Ruby to tinker with an otherwise excellent synthesis script for something so relatively minor.}

Waiting around for bombs to be set wastes time and therefore wastes food/water. Being able to choose the fuse yourself would be better.

{I would do this if I knew how.}

Cleared! messages appear everytime, regardless of if the area has been cleared before.

{I think I have fixed this where it occurs.}

The following is the new, refined track list for the Battle Radio feature of the upcoming demo.

The goals for this list included the following:

A. Represent a fair a some of the more respectable and catchy punk/pop punk/punk rock/punk influenced songs of the last ten years, as well as some older classics. Influence of quote unquote 'emo' music was to be kept to a minimum; in the past it's been something of a signature of my projects, and more importantly, seems inappropriate for EtG.
B. All songs need to be 'fight worthy'- i.e. loud, fast paced, somewhat raucous, and they need to have kick-ass intros which people can enjoy listening to over and over.
C. That said, all songs need to be melodic enough to serve as battle music in a RPG sound track. That's why
D. Thematic relevance to the game- whether lyrical or musical- is a big plus but obviously not essential.

With all that said, here is the battle radio track list:

1. Pennywise - "The Western World"
2. Dead Kennedys - "California Uber Alles"
3. Shiny Toy Guns - "Ghost Town"
4. Rage Against The Machine "Ashes In The Fall"
5. Clutch - "The Mob Goes Wild"
6. Dropkick Murphys - "The State of Massachusetts"
7. My Chemical Romance - "Bury Me In Black"
8. Agent Orange - "Everything Turns Gray" (Hey, that's the same as the name of the game. Coincidence? I think not!)
9. Shiny Toy Guns - "Ricochet"
10. AFI - "Half Empty Bottle"
11. The Offspring - "Come Out And Play"
12. Rise Against - "Reeducation Through Labor"
13. The Offspring - "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid"

(Bonus Track) - The Suicide Machines' cover of "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I I Feel Fine)" {If I can find it!}

What do you think, sirs?

As for distribution, here's the plan right now...

I'm going to make one BIG version that includes the RMVX RTP and all the Battle Radio songs and call that the "definitive version" and make one LITTLE version which has battle radio disabled and does not include the RTP.

Thoughts on that?