DREADPIRATE'S PROFILE

DHM, looks good my man. I have a couple projects that are just concept tests in game maker and one of my biggest irritations is how I have to make maps (rooms, I think game maker calls them) it feels very slow compared to 2k3 engine mapping. I've had an idea, I have a little program in my 2k3 game folder that you open up, type the name of an existing map in 2k3 game folder and the program saves a bmp picture file of the map in pixel perfect hight & width. I wonder if you could import that picture into GM and use it for your rooms and then just place tree (or whatever) objects where ever you wanted them (Of course also deal with all the passability issues as well). Maybe that could work? I'm curious how do you handle mapping productively in GM?

Game looks like it's coming along good. Great work man. I'm envious of your talent dude. Great job. Now, as far as maintaining momentum on a project here's my routine:
- dabble on rpg maker 2k3 for 2 months straight.
- take a short 17 to 20 year break.
- dabble on rpg maker 2k3 again for a few months.
-jump head first into a project that's way too ambitious for my own good.
- lose my job due to a global pandemic resulting in an over abundance of time to develope the overly ambitious project.
- get another job bringing all game development to a screeching halt.
- hopefully after another decade or so come back around full circle.

I promise it works. If you follow this simple formula, you'll pump out a complete quality project at least once a century... God willing.

author=Giznads

author=dreadpirate
Hey giznads I gave this demo a rip. Really good job my man. The game looks great. Although I haven't completed the play through yet there was something I noticed, I only noticed it due to also using 8 directional movement in my project so I'm pretty aware of some of the obstacles I dealt with while eventing it within my own project. There are times during game play that I would walk up to something and press the action key, a message would pop up at the bottom of the screen, something like "just an old rusty pipe." now while the message is displayed the hero's movement is locked, you can't move up, down, left or right, however, before dismissing the message if the player presses both up and right lets say, the diagonal movement is still active and the player can still move around the screen in diagonal directions. I noticed it in multiple places so I just thought I'd give you a heads up. I am very impressed with your diagonal movement. It feels really good for tile based movement. I would like to know how you adjusted the player speed so well (dyn plugin perhaps, which one?) it's something I tried implementing but couldn't get just right. especially with the diagonal movement. Really great job man I can tell a lot of love went into it. All the hard work you've done over the years has paid off for sure. Cheers man.

edit: I just opened the game to finish the demo and I'm in the sewer, if I walk up to a piece of machinery it shows the message and I can't use any movement commands. If I walk up to a cocoon larva and press the action key, I get the message but my diagonal movement is still active. I just thought I'd give you an exact spot to check out.

Yo!
Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated!

I actually played Onyx Rift not too long ago! Loving what you're doing, VERY Secrt Of Mana! <3
Yeah, 8-way movement gets a little tricky. There's some spots in my game, where you can definitely keep moving diagonally while text is being read.
There IS HOWEVER a REALLY easy fix for that, I just didn't deem necessary enough to fix.
To solve this, create a common event, call it "Halt Hero" or whatever you wish, set it to "Auto Start" and tie it to a switch. No code actually has to go into the common event, just need the "auto-event" to stop everything for a moment while you're reading.
Next, when you create an event where you read dialogue, turn the switch you tied to that common event on before the message display, turn your 8-Way movement switch off, and then turn both the Auto Switch off and 8-way movement back on when the message is over. Boom, no 8-way movement during text.

I should probably go back through my game and add that to all the text, just for consistency's sake.

Thank you for bringing this up actually! It's now on my list of fixes.

cool, thanks for trying onix rift out man. It'll be some time before I get back to it unfortunately. Regarding the diagonal movement fix, what you described is exactly how it's handled in onix rift. I figured you'd just forgotten to turn the switch off and on during a few message events. Right on man, I'll be trying to finish your demo. I'm having trouble with the first pressure release valve password.

author=EgyLynx
what happeened`?

This is just a screen shot of the hero taking damage from a gemtop enemy. Don't worry, he'll be alright.

author=aquatorrent
Does the game end in the second dungeon?
- I can't go to Lunabel or Goblin Hideout (a wooden gate blocks it and it can't be removed with a fire spell)
- I can't enter Lege
- I can't enter the building in Old Forest

I thought this was more like Zelda. Turns out it's closer to Secrets of Mana. I like it.

Here's some feedback that I got when I played the game (put it in spoiler tag since there are a lot of them):

Show

- The extraction package looks intimidating with a lot of ??? text and strange symbols in it. I was hesitant to play it at first. It was also confusing since you need to copy and paste the Dyn folder and I even had to change the compatibility setting to Windows XP to get it to run.

- The "tutorial" that asks you to press a button on the flying scene might need to be improved. I was confused about which button to press for a while (I even thought about clicking that keyboard button with a mouse).

- I like how you make the mirror to reflect your sprite in the house.

- Idk how to attack enemies at first. Idk that you need to press Shift to open the options.

- Some parts of your body's sprite show up if you run diagonally behind any objects (trees, houses).

- I saw a sword near your house but I can't reach it since it's stuck behind a tree. The sword disappears later on though (probably after you got your sword).

Idk that I need to follow the dog to proceed after you reach your house.

- Instructions are unclear. Idk where the hydro plant was and idk where the conductor housing unit to put the core in was.

- Save points are too far. I have reached the first town but the only save points I saw were in the place where you spawned for the first time. I died after moving to Lege without a proper sword. Perhaps you need to block the access to this path before you cleared the second dungeon.

- My hoe said that it leveled to level 2, then 1 even though it's supposed to be level 3.

- It's weird to see that the gate (the one that you hit with your sword) buries you when it's opened.

- Skills are annoying. It can only cast whenever your red bar is full (despite that they don't take the full bar to cast) and you won't notice that they are available before the game suddenly asks you to cast it. I had to unequip the skills after I use them every time.

- Skills also need a certain distance to cast. This wasn't obvious enough.

- Empty chests are useless. Why enemies drop a chest with nothing in it?

- Why did I get damage from the blue enemies even though I already moved away from the attack animation?

- Mushroom's defeated animation takes too long. I didn't notice that they die before I slashed them with my sword once.

- The bird strangely has a weird hitbox. I hit it right below it but it didn't take any damage.

- Enemy skills seem like a cheap way to get instant damage, especially the birds (Fowl Birds? I forgot the name) since you'll always get 10-20 damage whenever you see them (it's almost impossible to backstab them and using skills are 50:50 chance since you need to be in the same distance as their skill range to cast, not to mention the full red bar limitation on casting). Also, they tend to fly away as birds that are almost impossible to hit that you won't get anything out of them.

- Sometimes chest will fall to an unreachable spot. It happened once when I killed one of the blue crystal enemies, but I forgot where.

- It's not obvious enough that you need to push the chest in the first dungeon to continue.
- It's not obvious enough that you can use the gloves in the second dungeon to continue.

- It's not obvious that you can climb vines.

- Second boss fight is so cheap with its sure-hit spells at the beginning. It becomes "spam attack and healing items until you win" instead of trying to figure out the enemy's attack patterns to kill the boss. The pattern is also easy to figure out since it only has 1 attack that you can dodge. IMO, the first boss fight is way better.

- Your sprite suddenly shows up even if you were hidden behind an object (bridge or tree) when you attack.

- Inn is useless since you get full heal two screens before it. Also, there are hardly any full heals in the game except in the first few areas. Items are too expensive to buy although luckily they often drop later on.

- You can go to Hydro Path from the world map after you exit the second dungeon but you can't go to the world map once you enter it unless if you go to Lege.

Typo:
- In prologue: "What ever you do, act quickly." should be "Whatever you do, act quickly."
- The cutscene after you follow the dog: "What are we supposed to do in the mean time?" should be "What are we supposed to do in the meantime?" (the wording in this cutscene might need to be improved too, especially with the lack of punctuation)
- After talking to the man that gives you Ore: "thanks alot, the town is in your debt." should be "Thanks a lot, the town is in your debt."
- When Jester comes in: "Did I over hear that my services are desired?" should be "Did I overhear that my services are desired?"
- When talking to the son in the cave: "I am a gonner." should be "I am a goner."
- Save description: "In persuit" should be "In pursuit"
- When talking to Mystic: "I cannot stand idely by and allow entities from another realm to enter our world a second time." should be "I cannot stand idly by and allow entities from another realm to enter our world a second time."
- After the previous dialogue: "I have embowd the Magic of Fire within this "Mystic Conch"." should be "I have embowed the Magic of Fire within this "Mystic Conch"."

Bug:
- There is a collision error on 1 tile after you exit the first dungeon (on the bird area IIRC, I forgot to screenshot)
- There are some bugs when your character becomes invisible or can pass through anything when I played but I couldn't seem to reproduce them. There is another one when the damage number that you received never disappears before you exit the area.

How you doing aquatorrent. Thanks a ton for giving the game a rip. I really appreciate the personal time you took to give me all the feed back on the game.
So it sounds like you played everything that I've got completed so far. I only have up to the old forest done. Lege isn't done which is why you couldn't enter it, and the goblin hide out is also not complete. I'm sorry for the incomplete state of all the areas, I posted everything I have in it's current state just so that all you fine people on rmn could play all current content as I am starting work again I won't have all the available development time that I would like to have.
- the extraction package I've only kept included just in case the folder labeled "Onix rift" doesn't play like it should, however I've been able to test it on a windows 10 computer and the Onix rift folder played great without needing to use extraction package. Did you try the game folder before going through that extraction hastle? (Sorry about that my man.)
- perhaps I could add pop up text at bottom screen with a small "press z button" explanation during intro bird scene.
- lol, I'm glad you liked the hero's mirror reflection haha.
- I've recently received a pm from a player expressing similar input about the button input confusion. I guess I remember playing games on snes and looking back I always remember playing around with the controller until I figured out the input commands on my own. I did not consider the fact that my game has a lot more available buttons to choose from being on a pc. To remedy this for now my next upload will include a "read me" txt document with a small explanation for players. It sounds like from the feed back I've been getting it's needed more than I anticipated. Forgive me, this is my first time posting a game so I'm pretty new to what might be helpful to players. Thanks for letting me know your confusion, you're not alone.
- the graphic issues when walking behind some trees, I have fixed this issue however on some of my older chipsets I have not updated yet. It will eventually get fixed, just not priority quite yet. Thanks for bringing it back to my attention though.
-the sword near the house will be fixed. Just some old test event, thank you for letting me know.
- I intend to add a dog howling sound effect that will give the player an audio cue that you should investigate what he's doing. I will bump it up on my priorities as you aren't the first to mention this. I think kaempfer and dragonheartman also mentioned this not being very obvious.
- I think I'll include a bit more direction as to where the hydro plant is via npc text ("the power plant is to the south east of town") and maybe some bouncing arrows to denote what the conductor housing unit is.
- I'm not opposed to adding more save points however, part of the features of the world map are the ability to save at anytime while on the world map. Maybe that wasn't obvious or still not enough save points while inside a dungeon. I'll remedy this.
- I've never noticed an issue with the hoe leveling up backwards. Thanks a bunch for letting me know, I'll have to investigate this one.
- I'll add a move hero command that slides the hero outside the door once it opens up. Thanks for letting me know that was bothersome.
- the skills work the way they do for a few different reasons. The short version is, the earlier skills cost less red and do less damage, the latter skills do more damage and cost more red. If the skill could be used without being completely full the game turns into everytime you hit the attack button you are prompted with the select enemy and combat would basically turn into a complete turn based game. This is good to know though, moving forward I will keep these comments in mind when making design choices. All of your notes are really appreciated. Thanks man.
- I agree about empty chests. An early design choice that hasn't found the exit door quite yet haha.
-so basically enemy skills and magic work the same as the heros skills and magic. They are completely stat based on whether or not they miss you. Thanks for mentioning this, I believe to swing this in the players favor I'm going to adjust so the hero can cast skills and spells from a greater distance than enemy's can to the player. Good on you aquatorrent. Thanks for this.
- unreachable chests will be addressed. Thanks, i have seen this as well.
- I have also noticed that the second boss fight is basically attack, heal, attack, heal. Thanks for your advice, I think I'm going to make his movement less randomized and alter the feather needle attack so that it's avoidable and also give him less mp so that he can only cast lightning a few times(maybe once he gets down to 100 hp or something). I'm glad you liked the first boss battle. I will keep this in mind when making future boss encounters.
- good old rpg maker 2k3. All of my hero attack animations are show picture commands. I can't control the draw priority so it always shows up above trees and houses and what not. I know man it's super lame and if I was any kind of real game developer I would have picked an appropriate engine to develope this game. Idk how to code and I just wanted to make the game that I always wanted to play myself when I would be scrolling through rmn games. Sorry I don't have a better answer for this one my man. I'm surprised it hadn't been brought up sooner lol.
-yeah, the hydro plant to lege to the world map bothered me as well. I will remedy this and figure out a better way to lay that portion out.

Regarding typos: thanks so much for making me aware of all these. I don't consider myself awful with Grammer but I also am usually corrected with spell check so I guess I need to pay more attention to my spelling. These will all be corrected, thanks.

Wow, I can't say thank you enough aquatorrent. The time you took to lay out your feed back is absolutely awesome. I really appreciate the effort man. Although I can't promise monumental changes will be made to the combat system you have definitely given me a ton to work on to improve this 2k3 mess haha. Thanks a bunch. I hope you'll play again when I have some of this stuff ironed out in the future. You da man. Cheers