DETHMETAL'S PROFILE

Blindmind - I enjoyed reading your choices and looking at the screenshots. I can really see those influences manifest themselves in many aspects of your gamemaking, from the mapping to the general tone. The way you incorporated all of those influences together is very interesting.



Unfortunately, my picks aren't very original. These are my biggest influences, nonetheless. I tried to pick games from which my current game, Exile's Journey, derives visible inspiration from.

Legion Saga series - I don't know what to say that hasn't been said. I first played these games in 2002 and they've stayed with me ever since.

Demon Legacy - This game is actually a big influence on Exile's Journey, namely for two things - its character-driven story, and the way Nightblade balanced the gameplay. I love the way that each battle in this game presents itself as an individual challenge. Dungeons aren't an endurance test in which you have to balance your resources, HP, and MP while fighting your way through relatively easy fights. Rather, each fight is tough and, by the end of the game, you can't possibly win by simply mashing the enter key. Luckily, you can usually heal yourself fully after each battle.

I've tried to incorporate many of Nightblade's ideas while implementing plenty of my own, as well.

The Way - I'm still unsure of how Lun was able to engross me so well into the story. I constantly wanted more. The various mysteries he presents intrigued me greatly. I styled portions of my game after The Way. I'm constantly trying to learn from this game on how to properly capture a player's attention and maintain it throughout.

A Blurred Line - This game has it all. Fun battles, great writing, an intriguing story, choices that change the way the game unfolds, tons of replay value, and more.

Eternal Star - A often overlooked and unfortunately underrated game. Eternal Star blew me away when I first played it back in 2003 or 2004. It has problems, but a lot of ambition and a ton of heart. It's been a great influence on me in regards to RPG Maker and you can see this in Exile's Journey.

Beloved Rapture - Blindmind inspired me to take one step further with my mapping. I first recall seeing some of his screenshots back in 2007 or 2008. Although my mapping style is a bit different, I like to think that it wouldn't be where it is today without Blindmind. One thing I learned from him is that color composition is often just as important at creating a good-looking map as the mapping itself.

Jay's Journey - This game's great characters and fun puzzle design certainly inspired me when I first played it back in 2002 and continues to inspire me to this very day. In fact, I started a playing through it again recently for the first time in a decade. I'd love to know what the developer is up to nowadays.

Dragon Destiny - Helped spark my love for gigantic, epic, and seamless maps.

Wow. This is amazing and exactly what I needed. So much easier than creating the windows in Photoshop and manually fixing the text so that it looks the same as the message boxes in the engine!

author=Faust
I know what you mean about old names too - like every time I see one, I get pangs of glee. The issue is, every time I search (over the past decade, anyway), there are fewer and fewer references to those people online - it's how I got here this morning, in fact!

If you remember anybody's email from back then, googling it in parenthesis is a great way to find their old forum posts, if any still exist, if you feel like creeping/reminiscing on long-lost internet friends. I often do this with the email I used back in 2002/2003 to find my own forum posts or user pages (and then quickly regret it when I actually read my cringe-inducing posts).

author=Cap_H
dethmetal, your work with palette is rad as always. I love how you can turn usually clashing colours in a melancholic harmony.
Btw, Is this rtp mixed with refmap and some custom re-colors? Or are they custom tiles? Or something else?

These resources are free-to-use and come from this website.

http://hi79.web.fc2.com/material/frame-material.html

However, I edited many of the tilesets myself (including the one used in the above screenshot.) I didn't really use any refmap - I love refmap, but there's so many games out there that already use those tiles brilliantly.

I often combine the resources from the Japanese website above with Theo tiles, which I used a lot in the early parts of my game. This helps my game feel a little more cohesive. It's tricky to get those two styles to work together, but through careful editing and color correcting via Photoshop, I make it happen.

author=kumada
This looks like everything I want in an old-school RPG. :D

Demo download when?

I don't plan on releasing a demo. I only have two more dungeons and a bunch of cutscenes to finish before the game is complete (as well as a lot of playtesting).