GRAYBORDERS'S PROFILE

author=icovoc
Hey Grayborders, finished the demo and I like it quite a bit. Because this is a very early project I'm going to focus mostly on criticism, but I just want to say I think your goals are very relevant and important for rpgs as a genre--dropping cliches, remaking dumb systems, and (of course) the ambitious scale of the storytelling. Also the music and visuals were great (especially that tileset for the forest, and the battle sprites).

On the other hand, I think the maps were probably too big for their own good, and it might be better to try more intuitive layouts rather than big patches of blank space. Also, though I like what the combat system is attempting, it still feels really uneven (though not in the more obvious sense, since I like that the characters were actually at very different levels). The main thing is each character seemed to have multiple moves to do the same thing, but a lot of them weren't very useful, and I think it might be better to focus only on abilities that have a clear use. Also having so many copies of the same enemy in each dungeon makes the fights a little monotonous, and I'd say there should either be more variety or fewer fights. One other thing is the town at end glitches really bad--there's a missing chest image at the top, as well as a missing song in one of the houses, and each of them crashes the game.

"Realism" is always a very general principles in rpgs, but I think you do a good job moving in that direction and introducing new mechanics. There isn't a lot of story yet, but the glimpse of mana technology and the setting in general is fascinating.

Anyway though, I can't wait to see how this project shapes up. I'll definitely buy it whenever it's out; or if I have money I'll probably contribute to the Kickstarter. It's great to see a game that tries to do its own thing--even with the early mechanical problems at this stage, I think your general idea is interesting and fresh enough it makes the game really stand out.

Thanks for the feedback!

The scale of maps was intended, and I know it causes a bit of a problem, I wanted to keep it real and avoid the tunneling effect of natural environments. I`ll have to populate them a bit more that's for sure!

The Combat system is unbalanced atm, and I have to yet clean up some of the problems present, the main idea here was that every character have a very specific strength and weakness. Wile they share stuff like dots, or debuffs these wont be effective on all enemies. Basically plan is each enemy race will have a character who will take the front row and also makes another character really weak in that fight. Its still under a lot of balancing.

There will be more variation to fights, It just took a lot of time to make the battlers, especially the human ones, but there will be a tiny bit less fights with more variety basically.

The town was not bugged on any of my friends pc who tested... that's BAD.
I have to look into that now, thanks for noticing it!

Thank you very much for the kind words! There is a lot of work behind the story and setting, so those parts are not what worry me, the only challenge i see is balance, and to avoid exploiting :D

author=RADICALPEIN
Huge map..Will the Cities be spaced out?

Yes they are. all this is inhabited, even the desert is full of life(along the rivers)

This is the new and updated world map using an actually non RTP tileset, It uses Mountains i made myself from the ground up, I`ll share these later for the community, though they are rather large 4x4 to 8x8 tiles so not fit for everyone's use.

author=Liberty
I could get behind slogging through that map as long as there aren't random encounters. Hell, even losing your airship for a little while and having to hoof it for a little while would be great, putting the size of the world into perspective for the player. Imagine a day/night system where you have to rest during the night hours and there's random chances of events occuring on your journey (not monster attacks, for the most part, but hell, even having to hunt/keep track of rations/fill up at rivers for water... just giving the feel of actually having to travel. A lot of games don't bother with that kind of immersion - it doesn't have to be for the whole game, even just one part would do.

...I'd make plans to do so myself but most of my world maps tend to be condensed.)

Well that does happen in the second game, isolation and survival, the first game the airship is fully accessible. day and night cycle is in, and there are NO random encounters.

author=X-Tech
I like battles in this game. Cool Animations and a lot of gameplayfeel like in Alter Aila Genesis. I admire technical/battle executions in this project. This is why i am so interested.

Thank you Its just a collection of what I always wanted in a j-rpg, getting rid of the heal and potion abuse was one of my main goals.