ELDER71'S PROFILE

@Hasvers: (I've put some things in bold to make this beefy response easier to navigate).

A lot of the points you mention were overhauled in Version 15 (I think), issues such as the pacing and the brevity of the section with Aunt Neeve. Though I absolutely take your suggestion that these things needed working on, I've since had a go at addressing them in later updates.

There are also no more random encounters in the newest version and enemies appear on-screen before you fight them. I've also improved the usefulness of the minimap by marking enemies and entrances/exits on it.

As for the mechanics-
I haven't had any budget for custom mechanics scripts, but there are several planned for the finished game. I want each character's 'unique mechanic' refined as well as a 'formation' system included that will add an extra dimension of strategy. I'd also like to have a function that allows enemies and characters to attack at the same time if their turns coincide, hammering out some of the 'slowness' of waiting for each combatant to act. The present battle system is really a placeholder, though I know that doesn't excuse its current flaws.

As for story-
I can't say I'm not disappointed that you use the word 'tropes', but I'm not going to avoid the issue or deny your point at all (I don't do "buttsore"). It's probably a miscalculation on my part, but the demo doesn't show most of the originality of the game's world and story. There is a list of rpg cliches that I used as a guideline when putting the story together. I've often considered writing a point-by-point answer to that list to demonstrate how OMNIS is different - but, in the end, if originality doesn't shine through on its own merits, I'm happy to concede that there are things to work on.

I admit that this probably comes over as a flimsy excuse, but the demo is just a 'proof of concept', essentially, rather than being a completely accurate representation of what I have in mind for the finished deal. There are lots of ideas, but I didn't want to make the demo too crowded or overfull, so the narrative in its current form is fairly straightforward. Also, I was a one-man team for a huge chunk of the dev time, so I had to find ways of keeping the workload at a sane level. I read once that if you catch yourself making excuses for your game then it isn't finished, but that's exactly why I need KS's help.

(The ending (of the demo) is an area that sits in my mind as incomplete somehow, so thanks for the pointers, I'll be taking another look at it for the next update.)

In conclusion, I'm really glad you liked it; after so much work it always feels amazing to get positive feedback. I'm so, so impatient to get onto KS and start making the full game, precisely because I know that the demo, though I'm proud of it, only shows a slither of the project's ambitions. RPG Maker is a fantastic tool and I'm grateful to the makers of every free custom script I use, but at the same time the project very definitely needs a scripter all of its own (something I hope to get with KS funding).

If it's not too cheeky, I'd like to ask if you could try the latest version before writing a review because there's a huge difference between it and version 13 that I hope will answer several of your critiques.

Anyhow, sincere thanks for the thoughtful feedback. Hopefully we'll talk again soon :)

Your plea is taken on board with heart.

author=Corfaisus
I was pushing through all hunky-dory, then the game glitches on me and I can't battle to save my life. Sometimes my character doesn't even act, and other times, the two of them try to act at the same time and God only knows what happens (this was after Grunt died). I was kind of on the fence about this game, but after something like that happening, it's like my immersion is completely blown and I can't bring myself to go back.

Sorry about that, I've never heard of these glitches happening before.

Do you have Windows 8 by any chance?

Anyway, thanks for letting me know.

Thanks for the pointer. I may well go through the sprites/battlers and add a bit of colour and contrast to the main characters. I've grown so used to them that I overlook things that are otherwise obvious.

Where did the ropleplayinggamer.tv channel go?

I rely on long to-do lists. Without them, sometimes I've got so many things to work on that I feel overwhelmed by where to start and get hardly anything done at all.