Aldestan's Escape (alpha/demo)

[Azren]

This has been moved to a new thread in Project Development, found here: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/39835-aldestan-beginning-of-a-destined-path-formerly-aldestans-escape-beta/

Aldestan's Escape (finished alpha)

(Contains brief suggestion of sexual themes.)
 

Aldestan and his brother-in-arms Mordam have been shipwrecked.  The only survivors, they find themselves in a desert, with only a scant few provisions.
 

 
In need of water, they search the nearby oasis, and discover a small group of bandits, who have abducted a young woman.  Revealing herself to be a priestess, the woman assists the two men in their fight, introducing herself as Lemire.  The bandits had attacked her town of Ossen, but found nothing of value, taking her with them instead.  Fearing for the town's safety, the three join together and travel to Ossen.
 
 

Spoiler

They are too late.
 

 
Discovering her parents' deaths to be particularly gruesome, Lemire retreats to her church, and begins reciting the funeral rites for her town.

With nowhere left to go, Lemire tells Aldestan and Mordam of a monastery across the nearby mountains...



Details:

This is a brief game, with minimal resources outside of the RTP; combat is simple, and there is no complicated micromanaging.  This is an alpha, and is now "complete."  The project exists primarily to home my skills with RGMVXA, and to establish characters and setting for later project(s).  I am most heavily seeking feedback regarding difficulty and balance, as well as issues with events, and suggestions or feedback on map design.

The game has 2 endings, with a simple branch determining which ending the player receives.  Each ending has its own final boss, in addition to story differences.

I hope for this to be a prequel to my Overly Ambitious Project Of DoomTM, and would greatly value any constructive criticism on my first project.

Thank you for looking this over, and thank you to all who have given feedback, support, and resources.

Credits for Non-RTP resources:

Battlers by Thalzon (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/49-thalzons-battlers-and-faces/)

Dark Entity Battler by myself

Sleeping Lemire sprite by Crazy_Leen

Injured Kasorma sprite and bloody tiles by myself

Evil Giggle sound effect by Ms Littlefish

Improved Water and Lighting Effects by BustedEd (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/25926-very-easy-improved-water-animation-tutorial/) and (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/19147-very-easy-lighting-effects-tutorial/

 

[Azren]

Bump

 

[cthulhusquid]

Downloading now, I'll give some feedback when I've had the chance to play it.

 

[Azren]

Downloading now, I'll give some feedback when I've had the chance to play it.

Thanks!

 

[Kes]

This represents my notes just from the first few minutes of the game.  I suspect that my comments here will apply to later parts as well.

Opening map

Should be no more than a quarter of its present size.  This is a tent, not a palace.  Look at the dimensions in relation to the size of the sleeping mats.  Each sleeping mat represents 6ft x 3ft.  Therefore your tent is approximately 60 ft wide and 60 ft deep.  Okay, rpg mapping is an abstraction, and dimensions are never literal, but the dissonance between actual size and probable size is too great to ignore.

A nice touch would be to have those 2 provisions bags as events, so that the player has to 'collect' them, at which point they vanish.  As it is, they just sit there and Aldeston says that he has collected them, which seems a bit silly when they are so very visible.

Dialogue, not bad, just one thing where Aldeston says "a couple provisions".  I know that in US English it is more common to use "a couple" on its own, instead of "a couple of", but that looks really odd.

Oasis

That pool of water is again too large.  A pool that large would have attracted some settlement, not just a traveler’s tent.  It would also be supporting more vegetation.  I would reduce the size of it and the map dramatically.

Opening battle

The woman heals them on the very first round, when no one has made a move yet, so no one needs it, and never again after that.  Seems a waste.

This took 12 turns to finish, using Mordam’s Strong Attack every round, lengthened by the need to use Aldeston to do almost nothing but heal as HP quickly got down to very low numbers.  This, imo, is far too long for the first encounter of the game, especially with no instruction to the player about what to do.  Okay, you may well say that if it’s only being released on this site no one needs to be told, but I think it is important in every game to plan it out for the widest demographic group possible, and to consider best practice at all stages.  This encounter was, again imo, unbalanced.  For so early in the game to have so many near death experiences is unfortunate.  It looks like you’ve used the default Bandit * 3 enemy troop, so these enemies have a lot of HP and stats.  Maybe you should adjust them in the data base.  Unless, of course, you intend this to be a fairly brutal game, in which case your description should make that clear.

Skills

Aldeston’s only skills are heal and cover.  Certainly in this battle cover was totally useless.  He could not afford to take 2 hits, and for him to use a turn to cast it, so he was neither hitting nor healing, was not an acceptable trade-off.  Should he start with that skill?  Might there not be a better one to begin with?

Perhaps the first thing to do is to revisit your maps now that you've had a bit more practice and dramatically reduce them in size, and also make them a bit more interesting.  Using RTP can produce very good maps if you use the tiles with care.

 

[cthulhusquid]

My thoughts:

1. Why is the walking animation playing for Aldestan when he is checking the bags in the intro?

2. Some of the tiles in Ossen have possibility errors, such as the cracks and soot inside the houses. I could walk straight up the wall.

3. In the caves and mountain top, I personally think the encounter rate is a bit high, and the stronger monster groups should be reduced to two per group.

4. First the Tremor stone was 3000g, but when I talk with the mysterious guy again it becomes 1500g? It also doesn't seem to do much damage, so I think either the price should be lowered or make it non-consumable.

5. I think you mean "defiling" instead of defying, when the wind spirit is talking about the mountain.

6. The first battle is the toughest out of all of them, which is kind of strange. The first turn healing is unnecessary as no one has taken their turn.

Otherwise, I liked it. I think that the story so far is interesting, and holds my attention. The dialogue is pretty good for the most part but feels a bit stilted in places, which could be easily fixed by using some commas instead of multiple short sentences. I also think this could be improved if you made custom classes, items and equipment, but for testing purposes the default stuff seems to do the job. I would be interested in playing the next part when you create it.

 

[Azren]

Thanks for the feedback, both of you.  I've worked on the map size for those two maps, and lowered the difficulty for the bandits.

As for cthulhusquid's notes, I've fixed some of these, having realized the problem after the fact.

1. the idea was to show that he was doing things with the supplies, but if it looks off, I can certainly work with that.

2. I discovered that problem myself during further self-testing, and I *think* I've fixed that problem.

3  I didn't increase the encounter rate, keeping it at approx. 30 steps, but I will definitely take the number reduction into consideration.  I can't remember If I already did, but I have made sure that the moles no longer have the tackle attack to knock you off balance; it was even ticking me off.

4. The Stone was originally supposed to cost 1500, but I realized that was a too cheap, considering how much cash I had by that point without grinding, so I set it to 3000.  Evidently, I didn't fix it entirely.

5. Whoops.

6. I've definitely reduced the difficulty for those three, as well as changing the circumstances under which Lemire heals the party.

I'm glad the story and dialogue are mostly working out.  I'll definitely look into checking the sentence length and such.  I'm concerned about trying to make new classes and equipment because of balance issues (although I'm comfortable with the attack items I've put in).  The Lemire has an improved stat (I can't remember whether it was P. Attack or P. Defense) on general principle, and I've replaced Aldestan's Cover ability with a Shoulder Charge (renamed the Tackle ability; I wanted to make it a Shield Bash, but I couldn't figure out how to make it a: Paladin Exclusive, and b: something that requires a shield).

Some questions I had:

1. How does Lemire's language seem?  Does it feel consistent?  I wanted to provide a feel for a different locale than Aldestan and Mordam are used to.

2. For the first boss, is the Wind Spirit's difficulty okay?  The Tremor Stone is meant to make it a bit easier, but I don't know if things are too easy/hard.

3. How was the Ghost encounter?

4. Am I making equipment upgrades too common?  Statistically speaking, the way I have things set, you should have 2-4 Adventurer's Garb, a Rune Robe, the Silver Hairpin, a Knight Shield, and a Halberd if you do everything.

Thanks again for the feedback, and I'll definitely keep updating this.

 

[Kes]

Are these changes now incorporated in the demo, or should I wait a bit before having another go?

 

[Azren]

They aren't incorporated yet.  I'll post when I've got an updated version.

Scratch that, it's up:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5d2o9em7bqaxcd/aldestan.exe?dl=0

Changes-

Some enemy drop rates modified (the birds weren't dropping their feathers worth a damn)

A typo or two fixed

Tremor Stone price changed to 1500G

Bandit encounter made significantly easier

Troop sizes reduced for many enemy types

Orcs removed from cave encounters

Aldestan's "Cover" ability changed to "Shoulder Charge."

A couple of map changes

Brief combat primer in the starting tent.

New map and second boss

I think that's everything.

 

[Azren]

Update (https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5d2o9em7bqaxcd/aldestan.exe?dl=0)

Changes from previous post:

-additional dungeon area/boss

-minor dialogue tweeks

-minor drop rate changes (feathers still weren't dropping)

-fixed minor error in combat primer

-tweaked difficulty for Sahagin enemy

-cave area after cliffs has slightly reduced encounter rate

-Mordam's sprites and portrait slightly altered to make him seem younger

Things I'm currently most concerned about:

-what things are too easy/hard/tedious?

-how is the map size?

-any glitches/scripting errors/etc. I've missed?

Any other feedback is still welcome, but those are the ones I'm most seeking feedback on.

Thanks!

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Map sizes seem fine to me, but they are very bare. Especially that oasis. Yes, this is a desert, but there's NOTHING on the map with the water, despite us seeing some vegetation (if I remember correctly?) on the world map. The dungeons too were very scarce in decoration. I think the fire tunnels were nicest on the eyes out of them all, with different floor tiles breaking up the monotone, but everything was pretty bland to look at. I've also jotted down a few glitches I noticed while playing, but we'll come back to that.

I found myself really enjoying this demo. It's nothing fancy, pretty vanilla, but battles seemed to be balanced pretty well, bosses actually required me to use skills and not just bash attack. I pretty much just mashed attack on the random encounters, but... I'm okay with that. (actually I'll admit I like that. o3o )The battles with the sprites didn't feel too short or too long and the encounter rate wasn't anything that made me want to scream, so yay! 

My only complaint about battles would be that Modram is largely... a deadweight. His strong attack misses pretty often I found, where he used to outdamage Aldestan, the Saint spell quickly changed that. I didn't get his AoE attack until just before the last boss in the demo (who I'm glad touched on the fact that we were killing off her pals *felt bad about it* ) so I didn't get to see how much that improved him in combat. Lemire's got lots of stuff to do, with buffing and healing, but Modram's just like "I hit, I miss, and nothing in between." Poor guy haha

Speaking of Lemire buffing, it seemed a bit pointless that she had a Special that DEF buffs the whole party, then learns a spell that DEF buffs only one party member. Her MP is better spent on healing, making that spell completely obsolete compared to the DEF buff taking TP that also does the entire party. Maybe switch that out for an ATK buff - I could see myself using that on Modram on turns where she isn't healing. (to make him hit heavier and maybe be useful. I am so sorry Modram.)

But this is quite nitpicky! Only because I found the combat to be quite nice and that's not usually an area I expect to see well rounded in an early demo for a learning project.

The same can be said with the writing! The writing in the game had little to no grammar or spelling errors. There was one place I saw a comma used where it shouldn't have been, which I forgot to write down :<, but other than that! I was quite surprised to see proper punctuation. What a blessing.

However, the proper punctuation wasn't enough to distract me from the fact that characterization was a bit dry. Especially for our two male protags - we know very little about them. Lemire we get to meet and learn a bit about as she introduces herself, but Aldestan and Mordam revealed nothing about themselves. At the first camp point, the three talked to one another like they had shared a bit of information about themselves - and they almost started to talk a bit more! but then it cut off to the black screen and sleep sound. I know... people rag on about long cutscenes, but at that point of the game, it would be nice to have a chance to hear the two guys talk about their home or selves a bit more.

Gimme reasons to CARE about getting these guys home. Right now, I want to help Lemire, but I honestly couldn't give much of a darn about saving the other two. Which is mean to say, but it's how I felt. Let me find reasons to like and care about them. :<

Overall, very nice work on this! You've certainly spent your time learning the program well and I wish you the best with this project and your future Overly Ambitious Project Of Doom[SIZE=10.5px]TM[/SIZE]

Good luck

**

Here's the glitches I caught:

 * First house down on the right - dead person inside needs direction fix on

 * Door pops over Lemire head when she's standing in front of her house before getting equipment

 * Passability/Mapping error:

Spoiler

Walls missing, player can get up on the ceiling

 

[Azren]

Map sizes seem fine to me, but they are very bare. Especially that oasis. Yes, this is a desert, but there's NOTHING on the map with the water, despite us seeing some vegetation (if I remember correctly?) on the world map. The dungeons too were very scarce in decoration. I think the fire tunnels were nicest on the eyes out of them all, with different floor tiles breaking up the monotone, but everything was pretty bland to look at. I've also jotted down a few glitches I noticed while playing, but we'll come back to that.

I found myself really enjoying this demo. It's nothing fancy, pretty vanilla, but battles seemed to be balanced pretty well, bosses actually required me to use skills and not just bash attack. I pretty much just mashed attack on the random encounters, but... I'm okay with that. (actually I'll admit I like that. o3o )The battles with the sprites didn't feel too short or too long and the encounter rate wasn't anything that made me want to scream, so yay! 

My only complaint about battles would be that Modram is largely... a deadweight. His strong attack misses pretty often I found, where he used to outdamage Aldestan, the Saint spell quickly changed that. I didn't get his AoE attack until just before the last boss in the demo (who I'm glad touched on the fact that we were killing off her pals *felt bad about it* ) so I didn't get to see how much that improved him in combat. Lemire's got lots of stuff to do, with buffing and healing, but Modram's just like "I hit, I miss, and nothing in between." Poor guy haha

Speaking of Lemire buffing, it seemed a bit pointless that she had a Special that DEF buffs the whole party, then learns a spell that DEF buffs only one party member. Her MP is better spent on healing, making that spell completely obsolete compared to the DEF buff taking TP that also does the entire party. Maybe switch that out for an ATK buff - I could see myself using that on Modram on turns where she isn't healing. (to make him hit heavier and maybe be useful. I am so sorry Modram.)

But this is quite nitpicky! Only because I found the combat to be quite nice and that's not usually an area I expect to see well rounded in an early demo for a learning project.

The same can be said with the writing! The writing in the game had little to no grammar or spelling errors. There was one place I saw a comma used where it shouldn't have been, which I forgot to write down :<, but other than that! I was quite surprised to see proper punctuation. What a blessing.

However, the proper punctuation wasn't enough to distract me from the fact that characterization was a bit dry. Especially for our two male protags - we know very little about them. Lemire we get to meet and learn a bit about as she introduces herself, but Aldestan and Mordam revealed nothing about themselves. At the first camp point, the three talked to one another like they had shared a bit of information about themselves - and they almost started to talk a bit more! but then it cut off to the black screen and sleep sound. I know... people rag on about long cutscenes, but at that point of the game, it would be nice to have a chance to hear the two guys talk about their home or selves a bit more.

Gimme reasons to CARE about getting these guys home. Right now, I want to help Lemire, but I honestly couldn't give much of a darn about saving the other two. Which is mean to say, but it's how I felt. Let me find reasons to like and care about them. :<

Overall, very nice work on this! You've certainly spent your time learning the program well and I wish you the best with this project and your future Overly Ambitious Project Of Doom[SIZE=10.5px]TM[/SIZE]

Good luck

**

Here's the glitches I caught:

 * First house down on the right - dead person inside needs direction fix on

 * Door pops over Lemire head when she's standing in front of her house before getting equipment

 * Passability/Mapping error:

Spoiler

Walls missing, player can get up on the ceiling

Thank you very much for the feedback!  I've wondered about Mordam's usability, and I really like your idea of switching out the single target DEF buff to a single target ATT buff.  I wanted to make "strong attack" something a bit more than "hit strong, no downsides," but I guess the TP cost is already enough of a downside?  Or I just made it *too* inaccurate...

I definitely appreciate the feedback about characterization; I didn't want the camping scene to drag on, and I don't want to feel like I'm forcing extra scenes where they don't belong, but looking back I can definitely see problems with the character development for those two.

Definitely looking to go back and add details for those maps, too.  I was focusing a lot on trying to keep caves from being a series of square rooms, and didn't put as much thought into some of the other aesthetics.

That tiling issue, though... *facepalm*  I could have sworn that I went over the entire damn map and didn't find any of those wall problems.  Some of that dungeon's corridors and rooms got redesigned sooooo many times...

Once again, thanks for the feedback!  I'll keep folks posted.

 

[bgillisp]

So I played through the demo today, here are my thoughts:

The game starts off well enough, you don't dump too much info on the player that they are never going to remember before things happen. I thought the tent scene was well done, though I did notice that the book turns into a stool if I click on it (make sure to check direction fix on for those sprites! That will prevent that problem). I'm guessing you shrunk down the size of the tent based on previous feedback as it looks much smaller now.

The world map does feel a little bare, but it is a desert, and little grows there. I wonder if it could be shrunk in size some? What size are you using for each tile on the world map? Is each tile 1 mile? 5 miles? 1/4 of a mile? You may want to set that early on, that way you don't end up with gigantic deserts of doom and teeny tiny towns...unless of course your game is in a desert.

I tried to enter the town before going to the oasis, and was told they needed water. Wouldn't a town have water? I'd think of another reason to make sure the party goes to the oasis first. Maybe it is the only way to the town? Maybe the road to town is blocked by a broken down wagon that only leaves after you go to the oasis? Just my thoughts.

I had little problem with the oasis size, deserts are pretty bare. However, the fact that water is present does mean more plant life should grow. Maybe something to consider for the future.

I did try entering and leaving the oasis, and noticed I could from about anywhere, so good job on catching all of the exits. However, I did notice I also spawn on the oasis when I leave, when I probably should spawn one tile off. I'd recommend making that change, as that way the player doesn't have to take one step then step backwards to re-enter the area.

The insides of the houses in the town felt a little empty, however, they did feel the right size inside based on your sizes on the map. Maybe you could put more destroyed tables and chairs? Or even some fires burning still that the party cannot pass through? Also, where is the kitchen? I don't think the bandits would steal all the countertops. So those are some things you could add in that might help with the size. Though, you could also shrink the houses down, I've shrunk most of my houses down to about 5 x5 for the living area, then maybe bedrooms on the side (if they could afford that. Some houses have bedrooms in the living room, I lived in such a place once!). Just some thoughts to help you out.

The caves...did you use the generator? I could tell, as they felt like generated maps. That is a good way to start out, though I'd try to touch it up some. One suggestion is play some other games and see what they do for dungeons, and go from there. I myself like to map out first the intended path, then add in the branches as needed.

When we hit the point to rest the room felt pretty empty and bare. I've been in some caves in Missouri that would fit that description, but it is rare. Some stalagmites maybe?

The lava caves were well done, maybe use whatever you did there and reapply it to the first set of caves? I did also manage to walk on one of the roofs, it seems you are missing one wall tile in one of the earlier parts of the caves.

The spirit battles. I felt like the first one drug on a while, and I was just spamming attack, hoping the silly thing would die someday. One suggestion to fix that would be to up the attack power of the spirit, but lower their HP. That way they are more of a threat, but it doesn't wear on the player as much. So, instead of all attacks doing 100 HP, and giving it enough HP to survive 30 rounds, you could do all attacks to 200 - 250 HP, and it has enough HP to survive 15 rounds. That way it is more dangerous, and the player has to use heal more often (and well) in order to survive. However, some players may then think it is too tough, so proceed with caution if you use this idea.

Also, I did notice I had to do 3 spirit battles with no chance to rest inbetween? If you take my idea to up the attack power and lower the HP you will need to add in rests, as by the third the party would be out of MP unless they got lucky with Magic Waters.

Overall, you do have a decent start with your game, hopefully this helps you to fix it up in places and improve it while you are building up skills for your Overly Ambitious Project of Doom (as you called it).

 

[Azren]

Thanks for the feedback!  There is actually a rest after the first spirit in the cave just east, before going down the ladder.

So I played through the demo today, here are my thoughts:

The game starts off well enough, you don't dump too much info on the player that they are never going to remember before things happen. I thought the tent scene was well done, though I did notice that the book turns into a stool if I click on it (make sure to check direction fix on for those sprites! That will prevent that problem). I'm guessing you shrunk down the size of the tent based on previous feedback as it looks much smaller now.

The world map does feel a little bare, but it is a desert, and little grows there. I wonder if it could be shrunk in size some? What size are you using for each tile on the world map? Is each tile 1 mile? 5 miles? 1/4 of a mile? You may want to set that early on, that way you don't end up with gigantic deserts of doom and teeny tiny towns...unless of course your game is in a desert.

I tried to enter the town before going to the oasis, and was told they needed water. Wouldn't a town have water? I'd think of another reason to make sure the party goes to the oasis first. Maybe it is the only way to the town? Maybe the road to town is blocked by a broken down wagon that only leaves after you go to the oasis? Just my thoughts.

I had little problem with the oasis size, deserts are pretty bare. However, the fact that water is present does mean more plant life should grow. Maybe something to consider for the future.

I did try entering and leaving the oasis, and noticed I could from about anywhere, so good job on catching all of the exits. However, I did notice I also spawn on the oasis when I leave, when I probably should spawn one tile off. I'd recommend making that change, as that way the player doesn't have to take one step then step backwards to re-enter the area.

The insides of the houses in the town felt a little empty, however, they did feel the right size inside based on your sizes on the map. Maybe you could put more destroyed tables and chairs? Or even some fires burning still that the party cannot pass through? Also, where is the kitchen? I don't think the bandits would steal all the countertops. So those are some things you could add in that might help with the size. Though, you could also shrink the houses down, I've shrunk most of my houses down to about 5 x5 for the living area, then maybe bedrooms on the side (if they could afford that. Some houses have bedrooms in the living room, I lived in such a place once!). Just some thoughts to help you out.

The caves...did you use the generator? I could tell, as they felt like generated maps. That is a good way to start out, though I'd try to touch it up some. One suggestion is play some other games and see what they do for dungeons, and go from there. I myself like to map out first the intended path, then add in the branches as needed.

When we hit the point to rest the room felt pretty empty and bare. I've been in some caves in Missouri that would fit that description, but it is rare. Some stalagmites maybe?

The lava caves were well done, maybe use whatever you did there and reapply it to the first set of caves? I did also manage to walk on one of the roofs, it seems you are missing one wall tile in one of the earlier parts of the caves.

The spirit battles. I felt like the first one drug on a while, and I was just spamming attack, hoping the silly thing would die someday. One suggestion to fix that would be to up the attack power of the spirit, but lower their HP. That way they are more of a threat, but it doesn't wear on the player as much. So, instead of all attacks doing 100 HP, and giving it enough HP to survive 30 rounds, you could do all attacks to 200 - 250 HP, and it has enough HP to survive 15 rounds. That way it is more dangerous, and the player has to use heal more often (and well) in order to survive. However, some players may then think it is too tough, so proceed with caution if you use this idea.

Also, I did notice I had to do 3 spirit battles with no chance to rest inbetween? If you take my idea to up the attack power and lower the HP you will need to add in rests, as by the third the party would be out of MP unless they got lucky with Magic Waters.

Overall, you do have a decent start with your game, hopefully this helps you to fix it up in places and improve it while you are building up skills for your Overly Ambitious Project of Doom (as you called it).

Yeah, I did use the generator for the caves, then went in and made the rooms less square.

Regarding the first spirit, I've placed the merchant on the same map offering the Tremor Stone for the explicit purpose of giving the player something to knock off a few hundred HP if they feel they are under-prepared for it.  Similarly with the accessory he sells right before the fire cave, so it's easier to deal with the monsters and boss, but not required.  It's kind of a balancing act I'm trying to do to let people with different playstyles have a couple of options.  It's definitely possible I'm not doing it right, but that was the idea.  At least on my personal run through (I realize it's not the best gauge of difficulty), I found that without running from battles and with getting all the chests, I had enough gold available to get the merchant's items in both cases.  The feather drops from the birds exist for the same reason; make the other spirits a bit easier if the player feels they are having a hard time.

All that said, I'm not dismissing the comments, and will look into your suggestions.  The main change I was thinking if I need to make the spirits less tedious is to lower the physical resist a bit (they have a fair amount, being spirits), and I might very well go for raising their attack a bit.

I'm definitely looking in to adding detail to the maps, and I'll be adding some trees to the oasis.

You're definitely right about trying to enter the town early.  It did feel forced to me, and I've been trying to think of ways to deal with it.  I've got some thoughts.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Just for reference:

I was able to afford the tremor stone without issue. For the Ice Amulets, I could only buy two. I ran away from mmm maybe 3 or 4 battles; I likely missed chests in the first area, but I think I found them all between the first sprite and the second.

 

[bgillisp]

Interesting, as I only had 710 G when the Ice Amulets came up, so I could afford 0. Didn't even see the Tremor Stones. Though I think I did miss a chest or two on the mountaintop and in the 2nd set of caves, so that might be why I was broke.

 

[Azren]

Wow, it's been a while since I did an update...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5d2o9em7bqaxcd/aldestan.exe?dl=0

Changes include, amongst other things:

-Some scenes to help develop Aldestan and Mordam as characters

-A new dungeon area, with a new boss

-Details have been added to most maps

-Scene added to give a better reason for visiting the oasis before the town than "we need water"

-Aldestan's Cover ability has been replaced with a Shoulder Bash (reduced damage, might stun the enemy)

One thing I wanted to ask people after my latest playtest today: the various bird enemies are supposed to drop feathers as attack items sometimes.  Is anybody getting them?  I didn't get a single one...

Unless something weird happens to my brain, there should only be one area left.

(and if I missed any direction fix issues, I'm going to throw my laptop out the window)

As always, I'm interested in any feedback folks might have.

 

[cthulhusquid]

I'll play the updated version tommorow, and post my feedback.

 

[cthulhusquid]

The updated version is miles beyond what I first played. I didn't receive any feathers from the bird enemies. The only real mistakes I noticed:

• The chest at the very top of the lava caves. It says it gives a "Gale Emerald" but actually gives a key item called "Inferno Ruby".
• When the fire spirit dies, it shows the water spirit's body instead.

 

[Azren]

The updated version is miles beyond what I first played. I didn't receive any feathers from the bird enemies. The only real mistakes I noticed:

• The chest at the very top of the lava caves. It says it gives a "Gale Emerald" but actually gives a key item called "Inferno Ruby".
• When the fire spirit dies, it shows the water spirit's body instead.

Okay, I got those two fixed.  It's too minor to actually update, but that part's done.  Glad that it's showing improvement!

I'm having a hard time doing the actual writing for the last part.  I've got a good idea where it's ultimately going, but stuff feels clunky so far.

edit: Okay, approaching the end; I've got one ending finished, and I'm close to the second.  Hopefully, I'll have the final alpha up soon!