HALIBABICA'S PROFILE

I'd be less inclined to believe this if I hadn't heard that the Mayans also predicted the date of their civilization's demise to the day...and were RIGHT. I haven't checked my sources on this, but if they could pinpoint the end of their way of life, then what are the chances they didn't pull it off for the rest of the world?

It would royally suck if the world ended in 2012, but there's not a whole lot to be done about it, either. Here's hoping all these signs of the apocalypse and prediction theories aren't correct...

...though wouldn't it be weird if the Mayans somehow predicted the Christian revelation? What would that have to say about religion?*

*pure speculation

Heh, I've always been halibabica, and always will be. My forum history basically started at GW, where I made the foolish mistake of posting my first game in my first post. That was back in '07. I came to RMN when I found a link to it somewhere on GW. At first, I just posted my games here and nothing else.

Then, earlier this year, I decided to get a little more active and started posting around on RMN. I still like GW, but there's way too much cynicism there, so I usually just lurk the topics I'm interested in. I like RMN more because it feels more laid-back and people aren't at each other's throats all the time.

So, long story short, I've always been called this, and I became active summer of this year, but joined here earlier than that.

author=Shinan link=topic=2157.msg42224#msg42224 date=1226078595
Then came the second best part of the game. The distinction between it and him. Where everyone else calls the creatures it and the main character calls them him. That was a neat touch.

I feel I should point out that I did this on purpose. It was meant to illustrate the gap between Tom and the rest of the town. The townspeople don't like Tom much, and don't share his philosophy about beasts. As such, they refer to his lost animal as "it." However, Tom cares a great deal about his beasts, so he refers to them properly. Sorry if that went over your head, but that's the point I was trying to get across.

author=Shinan link=topic=2157.msg42224#msg42224 date=1226078595
Then I was thrown into a forest without a whole lot of sense of direction or purpose and I walked around for a while meeting monsters that ran away faster than I did (I always put my battles to auto, because I don't really care for battles) and I walked. And I walked. And I walked. And I noticed I was in a featureless forest without any way of knowing where I was. So I did the ancient labyrinth trick of keeping to one wall at all times. And I walked. And I walked. And I walked.

I'm definitely going to nerf that forest maze in the full version.

author=Shinan link=topic=2157.msg42224#msg42224 date=1226078595
Then I quit and put the game in the pile of "worst crap ever."

:( Thanks for giving it a chance, at least.

Looks like I get to explain myself a little here...

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
The 'pre-game text' shouldn't exist. It asks if I meant to start a new game which I did because I selected 'Begin' on the title screen and if I didn't I'd hit F12/Rest to go back. The rest of it is a verbose way of saying something that shouldn't even be there. Yes I know the title of the game. I am interested in playing it and not the game telling me what it is about instead of showing me. I'd suggest cutting that all out and skipping straight to the fishing scene.

I include the pre-game text to avoid confusion with the Pokemon theme. Sometimes, when people make fangames of Pokemon, they emulate the commercial games and follow the same general premise. But, my game is just a normal RPG that features Pokemon. This is my way of letting the player know that this isn't anything like the Pokemon games they may be used to, although it's probably superfluous since I'm always explaining it in my game descriptions anyway. Oh, well, it's not THAT long...

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
The use of RTP starts off pretty bad. The map after the fishing scene with all the various areas closed off. Its big, uninteresting, and some crazy hybrid of a world map where you can see entire mountains and entrances to cave (upper corners) while other parts are strucutres in scale with the player (top-center temple, lower-left bridge). Is it a world map or a map of a zoomed in area? It uses the tiles of both and its confusing.

I can see why this might be confusing. The game world is scaled down to a normal level, even though I use graphics that would normally be reserved for world maps. You could imagine that world map forests would be thickets/bushes, and mountains simply impassable terrain, but I can understand how a person used to them being used another way might misunderstand.

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
The Forest has a similar problem. At the start its nothing but snow and trees. Compare it to the end of the forest where there's more than four unique objects being shown. Now compare it to the Ice Cave where there's different elevations. It looks like you improved with your mapping as you made the game but you didn't go back to improve the maps you originally made.

The house interiors have the same basic design: A huge room that fills up the map. The only difference is what is inside the one big room. Try different designs with the houses and remember that you don't need to make the house fill up the entire map.

The mapping sucks but the edits don't. The broken fence, Tom in bed, and the sleeping Harpy look pretty good.

There's a plot reason for the forest getting worse as it goes, and caves are set up much differently than the fields above them. There just isn't much surface-level elevation differences in that area. Filling the entire map with a house is no big deal for me, and some of these design problems stem from the fact that a lot of these maps are copies/edits from my first game (ie old maps = old level of experience). That's what happens when the same setting is used again...glad you like my edits, though.

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
At points there no direction or explanations at all. I had no idea what house was Toms until I stumbled upon it. Getting to the end of the ice dungeon was pretty much a fluke (I accidentially checked out the Ice Shards before fighting Link and I don't remember any clue that they weren't the same as the rest of the map: Untouchable graphics. If I didn't check the ice shards I probably wouldn't have found out how to advance to the next area. When the Day/Night counter showed up I thought I was on a time limit to find Kingpin (but I forgot that there was the Day/Night system so this is partially my fault).

You may have missed it, but the angel you met at the end of the ice cavern told you to meet her tomorrow. You needed to end the day and come back on the next one. As for the ice cavern puzzle, a maze without forks is a path. You figured it out just fine, and I imagine others would not be so troubled either.

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
Skillz. Please don't do this.

Too late, sorry. Although that falls right into the same problem Asa had with the name "Slade."

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
The "Select your Pokemon" system is clumsy. When you look at a pokemon it gives no information about that pokemon (although I'm not sure what there is to display. Maybe the pokemon name+level+stats. Skills would probably be too difficult due to how you can customize the pokemon). It doesn't say how many companions you can bring (Especially important for people with little to no experience with Rm2k games).

I've never tried to make a CMS before, and I don't really intend to because I think the current menu system works fine. If the player wants to check their beasts stats/skills/elements/whatever, they only need to pause and look at their group. It's easy to change who you've brought, and no penalty for switching, either. I even stop the timer in the character select screen, so I don't really see the problem beyond minor inconvenience.

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
The big things that made me stop were:
The music. I've heard the Rm2k RTP for a long time and after a couple years I can't stand most of it. Except any use of Field4. It even keeps playing that damn Town track when you leave town into the Ice Forest

The game felt like it ended after finishing the first dungeon but didn't say that it was done. The town was still telling me to rescue Kingpin and the temple to the north was still blocked off by a fallen column (I assume it was where I was supposed to go). At that point I lost interest in going any farther/listening to that damn Town track and called it the day.

Use of RTP is a matter of preference. It's grown on me, but it's reasonable that people who've heard it for years become disenchanted. I try to pick tracks that work well for the locales they play in, and overuse is of no concern to me. As for the lack of direction, I've seen games with far more linearity problems than mine. I already explained about how day/night/tomorrow affect the story progression. Oh, and I like Field4, too.

author=GreatRedSpirit link=topic=2157.msg42177#msg42177 date=1226041944
By the looks of the RMN page there's a lot of features that I didn't see so I'd guess the game is a fair bit longer than what I got to before quitting which is unfortunate because some of them seem pretty interesting.

I still have a ton of stuff to do before this game is finished, but the demo encompasses the first two dungeons of each story track (4 dungeons in all). It's too bad you quit because of the music and lack of direction...maybe just mute the SW Synth in your volume control and play your own music? Doesn't really matter.

Thanks for playing, I'm glad to get this feedback on it.

They're from two different (gaming) worlds, Azn. The similarities exist, but only in their respective contexts.