Relas: Chaos of the Realms - Arcanum inspired game made in RM VX Ace

[Broseph]

Alerting kaizoku in case you missed it. Also, I think The Brazilian Slaughter may be interested in this project.

 

[Broseph]

The Brazilian Slaughter Not really, art style is much closer to a faux top-down Arcanum. Gameplay is slightly weeaboo with modifications i.e. attribute distribution upon level up. Game is completely non-linear and no super derpy JRPG writing, either.

 

[Jaesun]

IIRC (and Surf Solar knows more about this) FOnline doesn't allow you to control your party NPC's in combat though.

 

[Broseph]

That's something of a deal breaker for the game I'm trying to make, if that's the case.

 

[Mother Russia]

That's something of a deal breaker for the game I'm trying to make, if that's the case.

Wow this looks like a great imrpovement Brospeh. I wanna play this...should I download the newer demo you provided back on the first page, or will you give us another link?

 

[Broseph]

The demo on the first page is the updated version from January. It has some bugs and maybe only ~45 minutes of content. I will upload a new demo with more quests and areas by the end of this month. Feel free to give it a shot though, I'm always looking for feedback.

JarlFrank Requesting final thread title change to "Relas: Chaos of the Realms - Arcanum inspired game made in RM VX Ace." I'm sticking with this title because it fits the story I'm writing perfectly.

 

[JarlFrank]

How about Chaos of the Relas Realms, it has a nice ring to it.

 

[Mother Russia]

Downloaded the demo already.

Now trying to download the 180mb RTF file but it got stuck at 10%. Will continue tomorrow. Will give opinions in a couple of days (work work work)

btw what made you switch to RPG Maker Ace? And how did you change the art assets so quickly? Did you use the ones already in the RPG Maker program or custom ones?

And any chance the combat could be switched to 3rd person like in Lunar, Grandia, FF? I've seen JewTube vids with combat like that. You just need to download free scripts out there on the interwebz for it. But again, that's your choice. I'm just making a personal suggestion

Keep the coming!

 

[Broseph]

I switched to Ace because it is MUCH less of a hassle to use than 2k. I also did not have to download an illegal translation of it so I can now technically sell this as a commercial game at some point. If I'm able to get permission from all of the people whose scripts I'm using then I probably will. I'm thinking I'll sell the finished game for around $10 or $15. The art assets were made by some people specifically for use in RPG Maker, called the High Fantasy Resource Pack. The whole engine plus the resources cost me about $90.

I COULD make the combat third person but because I've expanded the resolution from the engine's default to 640x480 that makes the script place the sprites in a weird place on the battlefield, if I figure out a way to do it I will consider it.

 

[tuluse]

I played the new demo for a bit.

I really enjoyed some of the writing, but mostly for the absurd aspects.

Spoiler

These two both made me laugh

I love the response here.

So now some (hopefully constructive) criticism. The very beginning is confusing, lacks context and a hook. You need to establish what the character's relationships are with one another. The classic JRPG way of doing this is show the PC's internal monolog so when a new character is introduced he would say something like "that's my annoying boss" to the player. I think maybe adding another scene before the first one you have would help. Maybe have a "quest" where you have to run an errand first. Let the person head into town, set a tone where their life is boring and people yell at them a lot. Then have the demon appear.

Also, there are times when you ask something and it costs money where you're not given a chance to say no after being told the price.

 

[Broseph]

Thanks, I already expanded the dialogue in the beginning a bit for the next version, which better explains the relationship between the PC and Lydia. I may take that errand idea and run with it as well.

As for the writing, a lot of it is supposed to be intentionally humorous, so I'm glad you caught onto that. It's not going to be a completely off-the-walls game but there are going to be some lighthearted moments. Hopefully I'm not too bad of a writer.

Also RE: the money thing, if you accept and you don't have enough money in that case it's functionally the same as refusing. I can see how that would be a bit confusing though, I'll change it.

 

[Broseph]

A map of the gameworld:

Spoiler

 

[Broseph]

tuluse Jaesun

I just uploaded a new version of the demo. I took some constructive criticism into mind and I also fixed a ton of bugs and added some new content. Also, if you'd play the new version I'd be interested in your thoughts Jaesun. http://rpgmaker.net/games/4034/downloads/4175/

 

[Broseph]

So I'm starting to get pretty deep into the details of the gameworld now. Right now, there are about four different quests that tie into the main subplot for the goblin city of Norvaik, which is that many guards and citizens are joining the Order of the Flame, a group of fanatics dedicated to worshiping Nahk'rah, a demigod and ascended servant of Ilgenar, Lord of Darkness. The innkeeper at the Lonely Elf Inn, Vaelyn, is looking for a mate and wants you to find him a lovely elven lady. There's a former pirate near the inn on the coast named Brian, and he will agree to join your party if you go to a cave near Norvaik and use a key on a locked door there and bring him back whatever loot you can find. In Norvaik, you find out the donation box of the Temple of Anumi had been stolen by a group of pirates a few days prior, and if you choose to pursue them you will find them holed up in the same cave Brian was telling you about. As it turns out, Brian was a former member of the pirates, but he decided to ditch them on the island and steal their ship when they wanted to take along an elven girl and take turns at raping her. Furthermore, the entrance to the Order of the Flame is behind the locked door in the cave, and the reason the pirates haven't been reported to the authorities is because they struck a deal with some of the guards who happened to be cultists. There's also a goblin in town named Liam who claims his family was killed by a demon, but nobody believes him. If you press the guards, you will find out that some of them are in with the Order and they are using scare tactics on the common folk to keep them from mentioning the demon. Liam is a fervent worshiper of Anumi and is a known enemy of the Order, and they sent a demon to kill his family while everyone else calls him insane.

So there are several ways of finding out about the Order:

1. Through the pirate captain's journal when retrieving the donation box
2. Accidentally, with the key from Brian
3. From one of the guards after being advised by Liam to question them

If you bring the journal to the priest at the Temple of Anumi, he'll also give you more information about the Order, and you can go to Brian if you have knowledge of the Order and immediately tell him what the key is for. He'll join you right away instead of sending you to the cave first.

I'm aiming for a lot of this complexity, with a lot of quests that tie into each other with multiple ways of obtaining important information. Also, almost every character will have a place in the gameworld and there will be very few filler NPCs.

A WIP screenshot of the Order of the Flame:

 

[tuluse]

I've been busy lately, but I should be able to give your most recent build a try this weekend.

 

[Broseph]

I've been busy lately, but I should be able to give your most recent build a try this weekend.

To be honest there isn't a whole lot changed, but if you could play through the improved intro and tell me how I did, I'd appreciate it.

 

[tuluse]

The intro 100x better now. I actually have some idea of who I am and what I'm doing in the world. Although the phrase "adopted progeny" is really awkward, I would change that.

I see you've added several new dialog options, which are nice, but don't work as well with jRPG dialog mechanics as they would with a dialog tree. I had to go through the conversation with Cuthbert 3 times because I kept missing options.

Price included in dialog is good.

I didn't notice before, but you have a dynamic night/day which is cool. Is there a way to advance time other than resting? I went to the Goblin town at night and now there's nothing to do, but I don't want to go back and have to pay for travel again.

I found a few problems with walking, here's two images where I can't walk on what looks like it should be walkable.

Spoiler

 

[Broseph]

The "adopted progeny" thing I was iffy on when I wrote it, I'll change it.

Yeah, day/night is dynamic and at night the shops close, people go away and lamp posts turn on. There's an Advance Time skill that the player character has as a wait function.

Re: the passability errors, thanks for pointing them out. When I imported these graphics I had to set the passability for every tile manually, so I'm bound to have made a few mistakes.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Downloading the demo and RTP now. Suffering from flu at home so might as well give this a try.

 

[GarfunkeL]

My mom is a hottie. Humm, either she hates me or she's not my mom.

If I click on Lydia while standing on the stairs, I get teleported back downstairs. At which point I have to walk off the stairs to get back up.

Argh, Poser portraits, it burns!

Ah, so she is my mother. Or atleast a step-mom. Why are her eyes glowing blue? Plus, typo:
"But you had better finish cleaning up there later or I'll have both of you." when you probably want "I'll have both of your hides" or "I'll whip both of your asses" or something like that.

Opening Journal before getting to Market gives me this error:

which then crashes the game.

 

[GarfunkeL]

New attempt! Oh, I'm on Win7 32-bit.

It's good that I can skip text. You should see if it's possible to skip the light show in the intro as well.

Trying a gun slinger now. Opening the journal in the room where you find Lydia works.

Gundy, your sword fell in the well? Man, I'm not sure if I want to have a clumsy oaf like that watching my back.

The food vendor is almost invisible. Lighten his coat or something.

I do like the music. Nice mix of foreboding and light-hearted.

It's annoying that I have to click on doors even though I use WASD to move. But I guess that's an engine limitation? Also annoying that you have to be right next to someone to talk to them. Oh, just realized that Space bar works instead of clicking.

Mouse cursor disappears during combat. Good thing arrow keys work.

Food items that I bought were not usable in combat, which left me with no way to heal Lydia while fighting the Tormentor. Meaning that she's dead or KO, though still participates in conversations, which is quite funny.

Hmm, sleeping doesn't bring Lydia back to life. This is hardcore! Especially since there's apparently no priests or temples in Southtown.

The walking speed is really slow. Good thing that Shift makes you run.

Good thing that you can run behind the houses in Southtown, since there are some spots where the NPCs can block your path. Also, locked houses in my JRPG? Shock and horror. You should probably reduce the number of shrubberies, bushes and trees in that place.

Lololololol, Bad Luck Brian! Bro, don't break the fourth wall, at least not for a lame Reddit meme like that.

Who built that fantastic bridge at Novaik if the goblins live in mud huts?

So goblins have a temple but resurrection costs 1,000 gp which you naturally don't have :D

The tents at Residents Quarter are bugged, when you enter them, it looks like you're walking on top of them.

Also, WTF would mud-hut goblins have fancy tents with electric light posts? Consistency, BRO, consistency. Either they are mud-hut dwelling, loin-cloth wearing simpletons or they are not. Looks and feels weird when you mix&match stuff like this.

Haha, pour blood to summon a demon? Okay little goblin, we'll help you. Oops, Lydia is still dead. Swordboy can help. Nope, Torturer killed him in two hits. Hero died in three. Nice!

Doh, forgot to save. Well, that ends my attempt two.

 

[Broseph]

Nice train of thought there, thanks. :D

A lot of the problems with graphical consistency like in Norvaik stem from the fact that I didn't make the graphics and I only have so much to work with. So, fancy tents it is. I'll remove the lamp posts though, those are a bit silly.

I had to disable mouse control because I expanded the resolution from the engine's default, which made the mouse control go haywire on the combat screen.

A lot of your other issues are simply engine related things. The temple prices in Norvaik are obscene and I haven't got around to fixing them yet, but I definitely will.

 

[tuluse]

You can press enter to open doors. I play primarily with arrow keys and enter. Occasionally reaching for the Esc key.

 

[Broseph]

This is one dungeon in the game that I'm working on, the Order of the Flame. Six maps, but the last one isn't done yet, thus the black space in the corner. Several puzzles, a healthy amount of combat, and some cool unique loot. Most of the dungeons will in the game will be at least this size, there will be some smaller ones too and hopefully at least one FUCKHUEG one.

Spoiler

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Nice mapping actually.