RED_NOVA'S PROFILE

Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
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Prayer of the Faithless
On the brink of the apocalypse, two friends struggle to find what is worth saving

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*crawls out of the dirt* - I just released free resources on itch and idk where to say that. I'll say it here. Also hi.

Awesome looking portraits! Will raise aware on this in what little way I can.

Soul Sunder Review

Thanks so much for the review, addict! It's a great feeling to know that this game still gets attention every now and then!

Regarding the cartoonish faces: I did that to provide some counterbalance for all the heavy themes of survivor's guilt and depression to make the journey a little more bearable for the player. If it was all misery, all the time, I felt like the characters would be too flat and one note to be interesting to follow (see also: Zero's excitement over sweet treats and explosions).

I feel like I found a better tonal balance in the follow up, Prayer of the Faithless, with more emphasis on character banter than slapstick anime facial expressions, so this was still a great learning project for me.

Countering the Psychology of Touch Encounters

Having watched a few people play Prayer of the Faithless, a game with touch encounters where 90% of them chase the player once they come into sight, I haven't seen anyone try to avoid them. Since that game was fairly difficult with limited healing options (especially in the early game), I completely understand the innate instinct to run if an enemy was chasing you. So I countered that with a few things:

1) Add in optional (but difficult) mini bosses that offered high EXP and weapons you couldn't get anywhere else in the game, which encouraged players to fight more random battles to get strong enough. If players were strong enough to beat them, they usually were a high enough level to beat the bosses at the end of the level.

2) Place immobile enemies at choke points in the map that required players to defeat to proceed. They weren't stronger or weaker than normal encounters, but they do ensure that players didn't approach end bosses severely underleveled.

3) You start the first dungeon with a level 3 character and a level 16 character. As you fight enemies, some players may notice that the level 16 character earns much less exp than the level 3 character. This is to prevent excessive grinding and subtly inform players that they don't have to set aside grind time, which hopefully gets them to fight more enemies while on their way to the next objective.

4) The combat is complex enough with each character having a diverse skill set and approach to battle that some players may feel the need to fight more enemies just to understand how the mechanics work.

The winning formula could be some combination of the above points or maybe something else entirely, but again, I haven't seen many players run from encounters in my game.

it's kinda weird this site still exists right?

Weird is fun!

[RMMV] Best way of doing damage formulae??

It really depends on how you want to balance it. High damage numbers are fun, but low damage numbers are easier for the player to wrap their head around. I would run a couple of test battles with all enemies and allies at their stat caps and see how that feels to you. Then run more battles with enemies and allies at their starting stats and see how that feels. If either of them don't feel good to you, adjust either the stat caps or the damage formula itself.

If it helps, rather than thinking about the numbers themselves, try to think about the desired flow of battle. For instance, instead of asking, "how much damage should this attack do?" instead ask, "How many hits should this enemy take before dying?" and adjust your stats accordingly. If a perfectly optimized party did about 500 damage on average per round, it may make sense to set a normal enemy's HP to be about 400 to account for damage variance and a player's sub optimal party. Maybe 300 if you want battles to go by quicker.

A.I. Generation and RMN

author=JosephSeraph
But I don't think it's an age thing. People are gonna be passive aggressive and sarcastic when they're 90.


Can confirm. My 93 year old great aunt would often loudly ponder whether or not we were worth killing every time we told her she couldn't go out clubbing.

Don't worry, she was joking.

most of the time. I think.

It's -30°C where I live.

Well, tell the sun to quick slacking. It's got five billion more years before it retires, so it can't be taking breaks now!

Buildings!

Great stuff, all of this. I've been thinking about it all day and wondering how to translate this into my game. I'm taking the first few baby steps using the tiles I've already made and tried to focus more on silhouette:



I tried to use wooden beams and roof shingle extensions to stretch out beyond the borders so it doesn't look so much like a giant square. I'll do some diagonal tiles later.

Buildings!

Anyone know of any nice looking buildings made in RPG Maker? I'm trying to improve my building design to break away from my usual square block of tile process, but all the architecture I've looked up for reference/inspiration doesn't translate well into RPG Maker's perspective.

They can be homes, cathedrals, shacks, whatever. As long as they are buildings, I'd like to see them.

[RMMV] Reusing Assets

30 floors?! How long does it take you to clear the dungeon? Yeah, I'm gonna double down on my recommendation to block off half the dungeon on the first visit.

author=Xenomic
So yeah, that's where I'm having problems with in regards to this idea. I don't want it to be SEEN as lazy, but lore-wise it would make sense for both areas to be identical if they're the same place.


So... who is the target audience for this game? Will they understand why the dungeons are laid out exactly the same way? If the answer to that question is yes, then who cares if anyone else thinks it's lazy?


author=Xenomic
EDIT - On that note, any suggestions on how to theme each of the 5 floors for the Concepts? Nature might be the easiest one, and Civilization afterwards, but what's a good one for Time, Space, and Chaos?


I don't know what lore you're referring to, but you'll have to dig into that to find your answer here. Just off the top of my head, you can design an intricate series of rooms and then shuffle the transfer events for them around to fit Chaos, but I don't know anything about time or space.