DRAKIYTH'S PROFILE

author=Everguard
Sarah? Helicopter? A scary bunch of people dressed in white lab coats lead by an even scarier person? Now I'm intruiged, I have to download version 0.2 now, can I just copy and paste my 0.1 save into this folder and keep playing?

0.2 is just a better 0.1. You'll have to wait for Chapter 1 to see this stuff I am showing you. Chapter 1 won't be out for a while. Also, Sarah is just the name I chose for the female protagonist for this teaser. Remember you create male/female character etc...

author=Dyhalto
Very small nitpick, probably not worth picking up on.
But the cliff walls could use more layers, just so it looks like disorganized rubble and not deep canyon. Unless canyon is what you're going for.

Yeah, I could probably work on the map of this cut-scene a bit more. Noted.

author=Atmaweapon
Presently, I am working on the game "Durance of Magic". This game is designed to be both unique and cliche enough to provide original world and story for effective immersion as well as that refreshing cup of nostalgia and remembrance to evoke whatever feelings drew us to the old RPG genre in the first place... A hard task to accomplish, indeed.

In my attempt to accomplish this, I have focused heavily on the flow of story, the storyline itself, character design, dialogue, and the world itself. As I neared the completion of the game's first chapter I sent out demos to my tester friends and then played through it myself. I also played through a couple highly praised games on this site to see "what I am up against", so to speak. The results were disheartening.

I was missing the hook, first of all, and the pizazz to boot. Features! Holy hell, I had forgotten the allure of the features. Even my dungeons were simply a walk-through-and-random-encounter mess. After a solid facepalm, I went back to my written notes to try and find my feature ideas. I began to implement my ideas and realized... Oh my god... by doing this I may have pushed back my completion deadline by as much as a third. Another palm to face jogged my mind enough to realize that I would have to cut down the features not only to save time, but to save immersion.

Some games are for story. Some games are for gameplay and features. Can they coexist? It is my concern that, given too many different things to do, a player can lose sight of the story and characters and get swept up in the this or that.

So my question is this:

Is it possible to have a -quality- game that is rich in both storyline and feature? Or is too much of one or the other a hindrance to each other? And what game can you think of that has married the two successfully?

P.S.
- sorry for the text wall.

(Game Play > Story) When I play an RPG I am not there to read a book. I am there to be immersed into my own choices and how I can change the world with MY character, not some character given to me and that's it. That's why I love Final Fantasy 1. I can actually create my own damn party in that with my own creations. Some people think it's awesome to use a million cut scenes and write a novel without having good battles, features or anything else to make it an actual game. I'm honestly not sure what people are thinking when they do this. That's not an RPG it's a Graphic Novel and needs to be put in that category.

Most of the final fantasy series was greatly successful because they had the right amount of story and game play. However, there was no personal choices in those games. Just follow the yellow brick road to the END. I wouldn't really call most JRPGs RPGs at all. They are more like Action Story Games. ASG. Some true RPGs as an example are: Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1/2/3, Morrowind/Oblivion, and most dungeons and dragons games and many others that let you actually make choices on how your character changes the world around them.

Not to go off topic with my thoughts on this stuff but my point is you have to give players choices through a good linear main story line with great game play to actually have a good RPG. People love to have awesome powers or classes to make them different on every play through. By the way, you can keep shit simple with menus and things as long as you make the game fun. Just because you see some flashy shit this chump puts in his game over here doesn't mean his game is actually good.

Think of all the horrible PS3/XBOX 360 games you have played. Graphics don't make a game fun. They only improve it a bit by having nice ones. If that game has anything that would piss a player off they would immediately start hating the game and sadly I have played shit just like that. Dragon Age 2 for an example. What a horrible piece of shit. (E.A. Ruined the fucking series. BioWare are a bunch of drones now.)

The only exception for JRPGs are alternate endings.

author=LivingEffigy
Great! Dloading now.

Please keep in mind there is no major changes from 0.1 to 0.2 besides some monster behavior and the such. Chapter 1 will be the new content update. This is 0.1 but a lot more polished with tons of bug fixes.

I wasn't happy about my first Aftermath game on 2k3. I know some people liked it but I knew I could of done a hell of a lot better for this type of game. My VX version is the saving grace for the series in my opinion. I'm glad I resurrected it into a much better project, because I have a strong like for post nuclear and sci-fi games.

I also had that game called crystal crazy which had a few fans, meh. Asiyla would of been pretty awesome but the game took too much out of me to finish. Even though I had a huge group of people helping with it too.

Life goes on. Game designing gets better with practice.

Have you tried Aftermath VX? Version 0.2 will be out sometime today, so it's a perfect time to check it out. 0.2 is much more polished then 0.1 and is close to being bug-less from what I have play tested and had tested by others. I fixed the caterpillar system, walk through walls and corrected some mutations to work as they should.

Give it a go if you want. Be warned that the game is kind of difficult so if you're up for a challenge Aftermath is for you.