DE'S PROFILE

author=PsychoFreaX

author=DE
Wait, wait, wait... you have to POISON YOURSELF so that you automatically wake up from a sleep spell? This is the dumbest idea for a spell combo I've ever heard.

I don't know how it sounds dumb. The strategy is effective, not obvious and the player is given enough hints from the gameplay mechanics to figure it out. I thought that was the criteria for good strategy.

It's dumb because it's illogical, it's counter-intuitive, and it makes no sense - try taking a lethal poison and a sleeping pill at the same time, let's see if you'll magically wake up when the poison starts to take effect in time to take an antidote.

author=DE
This whole concept of a boss healing himself so much sucks. No boss EVER should heal himself, it's a virtual middle finger to the player and his efforts to kill the boss. "HAHAHA you've spent 5 minutes chipping away at the giganto beast, but now it's going to recover half its health and you'll have to do it all over again!". FUN! (not!).

Hey and what about when the player keeps healing themselves to full health which is a virtual middle finger to the boss and his efforts to kill the player. Bosses are people too. Anyway I find that I actually need to give a lot of bosses healing abilities so they won't be too vulnerable to percentage based attacks. Other than this boss though. Healing is quite nerfed in my game.

Because the game is played by the player, not the digital construct that is an RPG boss? And the player needs to win to advance the plot and thus enjoy the game? Reason enough for you?

The player needs to heal because the PCs usually have less than 1/10 of a boss's HP each, and the player cannot afford to lose a character, as it results in greatly diminished damage output and survivability, and eventually a game over screen. Monsters are not people (dumbass), they are obstacles for the player to overcome, and they don't care if they're shot, immolated, decapitated, disintegrated, or erased from existence - they're just sprites with number attached. Furthermore, if a boss losess 99% of its HP chances are it will not only NOT be any less dangerous, but more.

If you want the boss to beat the player to a bloody pulp then make it cast a mass instant death spell in the first turn, I bet your game will be wildly popular.

If you're worrying about percentage-based attacks then a) don't give them to the player, b) make the boss invulnerable to them.

author=DE
If you want to make a boss fight longer (and for what reason I do not know, but let's say this is what you want) simply increase his HP and don't torture the player with this recovery bullshit.

What if I don't want the boss fight to last longer for everyone? Just people who don't know what to do.

A *good* boss battle is one where a player who does not know what to do LOSES THE GAME, not is punished by wasting his time staring at the screen feeling bored at this stupid game. A player who knows what to do simply wins.

I don't do Facebook, so... :)

VP is my favorite RPG for the PSX, but its emulation on ePSXe sucks big time. The game freezes very often when there is voiced dialogue, the only remedy I found was to change the sound plugin to ePSXe SPU core and pray it doesn't freeze. Considering there are some looong and unskippable custcenes with tons of voiced dialogue in them... RAGE.

Oh, and don't play on Normal, play on Hard. I'm pretty sure it's not any more difficult apart from the new recruits all starting at level 1, but you have the EXP Orb to take care of that. Hard gives you additional dungeons and additional (powerful) loot, plus the Flame Jewels needed in the optional dungeon. Oh, and some extra characters.

OK, now you're overreacting. This is going to be a long post, so brace yourself...

It is my belief that PL is a good game with the potential to become great. Even though it might've seemed I disliked the game given how critical I was about some of its aspects, the sole fact that I spent so much time playing and talking about it means I think the game's worthwhile. It's a solid game, but if you spent more time on it it'd be awesome. There's one thing I don't understand, and understand at the same time. You had a good game before (the old demo) and instead of building upon that you scrapped and restarted it all. You wasted countless hours of your life and work for nothing. And don't give me the crap about being dissatisfied about the old version, people liked it. If you keep remaking your game because IT'S NOT PERFECT!! you'll never finish it and get frustrated. Stick with what you have and expand upon it; it's better to finish a game that COULD BE better, than not finish an AWESOME! game. Only by finishing projects do you actually learn anything (I sense a flame war incoming, but that's my view on it) and not only that, you build your PR and awareness of you as a designer. No one cares about the guy that had mockups of 10 killer games but no releases, people care about the guy that has 3 solid games under his belt. When he releases the fourth one, people will want to play it!

The coffin puzzle was OK, but gave no hint to how it's supposed to be solved, or that it is even a puzzle. I only got the hint AFTER solving it. I'd elaborate on this but I'm too tired from writing the rest of this comment, so maybe later :)

The characters suffered from too few lines that were about characterization. Most of the stuff they said was pure exposition: where do we go, what do we do, who is this guy... This CAN work (recall Valkyrie Profile), but your game is too traditional for it.

Finally, you mention you'd like to pickup pixelart and maybe even learn a new maker. Frankly, this is a road to nowhere. When I started pixeling it was either late 2003 or early 2004. After 7 years I'm finally confident I could make all the graphics for an RPG, and that's after making tilesets for two whole indie MMORPGs. The problem is... making graphics is only half the battle. I'd say even less than that. And this brings me to another issue - when you're free of the shackles that are the limited number and nature of premade assets, you realize you can make ANY GAME YOU WISH. In any setting, with any characters you can dream of, with lots, and lots of awesome effects... You start making a game, and a month later you change your mind, because, you know, this project leads to nowhere and there is another concept that's sooo much better. And then you scrap all the graphics you've made and start anew, because the old ones are incompatible with what you have now in mind. And after some time you change your mind again. And again. And again. And every time you do this you start from scratch. This is the sole reason I haven't been able to release anything after I switched to custom graphics. I have so many ideas about settings and graphic styles it makes it impossible to create a set that would be enough for a whole game.

BUT! As I've said graphics are just a fraction of the assets and work for a game. And they're the easier part. Once you switch to a maker with more power you'll face the same issue again - too many possibilities. This is precisely why there are no fully custom RPGs out there that are not either small projects or indie games (as in semi-commercial, with a budget). It's just too time-consuming and too motivation-consuming to create an RPG by yourself, especially with custom assets. The amount of graphics required alone is staggering compared to platformers. Amateur game designers churn out lots and lots of good action games. Why? Because they're easy to make, at least compared to RPGs. You need few resources, they're easy to draw, you need no plot or character interaction, the engine is easy compared to all the algorithms and balancing in an RPG... I could go on. To finish a custom game you need a shitload of motivation and a good work ethic, and judging by your history of releases you possess neither. And don't take it personally; I think you'll agree with me on this. Not that there are many people that made such games, maybe the Cave Story guy...

The bottom line is - if you're thinking about making a Phantom Legacy-like game with custom graphics, then stop. Stop immediately, unless you like being disappointed with yourself and your work. Bitter? Maybe, however I'd say realistic given the evidence in the game making world. I say keep doing what you've been doing and do it well. As for little feedback on PL, to change it you need to advertise the shit out of it EVERYWHERE. Posting it on just on RMN will generate very few comments. Why do you think Barkley and that Craze game and Space Funeral got popular? Because people talked about them on sites that have nothing to do with RM. You may loathe hype or marketing, but it's the only way to make your game popular and PLAYED. Oh, and just posting about it is not enough, you need to get people hooked with some clever marketing tricks. What tricks? I don't know, I don't hype :)

Wow, this is a long stream of consciousness, I hope I didn't come off as rambling. If you wish to talk about it more, feel free to send me a PM.

Sharing the pain.