Casia

[Casia]

Wonderful! I hope you like the game now that you can finally play it.

 

[GhostDev]

Wonderful! I hope you like the game now that you can finally play it.

Enjoying it so far. Sometimes getting a bit full of myself and dying, but I think I have discovered a bug. I went to the church to get healed for free and then went to the area where the inn is, and when I checked my heath I had 0. I thought it might be a glitch that would sort itself out, but as soon as I entered at battle, I died.

 

[Casia]

Have you remembered to eat as well? Being without eating and drinking will start to steal your health at some point, though it should warn you about it first because it makes your status "hungry" or "starving"... it might be a bug, after all. But you can solve it by eating at the pub and then healing again.

 

[GhostDev]

Have you remembered to eat as well? Being without eating and drinking will start to steal your health at some point, though it should warn you about it first because it makes your status "hungry" or "starving"... it might be a bug, after all. But you can solve it by eating at the pub and then healing again.

I think it maybe a bug because it dropped from over 800 to 0, but I will keep eating and see if that helps.

 

[AnakNiBerto]

Hello. I downloaded and played your game! I'm enjoying it a lot. But i got stuck on a pirate ship sequence. Where you get on a boat after giving a plank then got ambushed by the pirates.

I choose to surrender then when i got on a scene where Casia woke up on a prison, and managed to escaped. After I enter the next map I got stuck. I can't pass the hallway where there is a rubble blocking in a one tile and there is another tile without an object that I can't pass. There is also a dialogue you wrote where i'm not able to go back to the prison map. 

Was there something wrong? 

sorry for bad english.

 

[Casia]

Ah, there were some tileset errors with the pirate base. I fixed the parts where you couldn't move, it should be fine now. I updated the download. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I also twinkled a bit with the hunger script, not sure if it will solve the bug but it might. Scripts are not my specialty.

 

[AnakNiBerto]

Ah, there were some tileset errors with the pirate base. I fixed the parts where you couldn't move, it should be fine now. I updated the download. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I also twinkled a bit with the hunger script, not sure if it will solve the bug but it might. Scripts are not my specialty.

Yay! I will download this game again later!

 

[Deviantmango]

Been playing for a bit now and I feel the game has some problems.

-starts off way too slow, I was about to rage quit before I got my second party member

-hunger and thirst need some sort of meter so I can tell how bad it is rather than just sudenly causing damage

-everything blocks my path, a single flower may as well be a brick wall

-bandits aparently possess an interdimensional portal that they store my money in once they steal it

-Casia has no skills, she is level 12 both my party members have two skills now but she has none

-the ship moves so slowly and the ocean is so big, if your goal was to accuratly portray the tedium of a long sea voyage then you succeeded

Now in spite of these complaints I did have fun most of the time I played, but by the time I had spent 5 minuets of my life on that ship with no land in sight I had to quit.

 

[Casia]

First of all, thanks for giving the feedback.

starts off way too slow, I was about to rage quit before I got my second party member

You mean that the amount of exploration you can do in the beginning is too limited? I designed the game in a way that makes party members difficult to obtain. The attempt was to make each addition feel special - after all, there are so many possible members you can get to join. I know it can be a bit slow at first, though. How should I try to speed it up? Is the problem the scarciness of the team members or something else?

hunger and thirst need some sort of meter so I can tell how bad it is rather than just sudenly causing damage

There is supposed to be one. I have no idea why it's not working. I will have to consult the script geniuses of these forums.

everything blocks my path, a single flower may as well be a brick wall

Hmm, you are the second person already to mention passability as a problem. I never thought about it like that, haha. Most of the maps use a default passability code, so I didn't pay attention to that all that much. I simply assume Casia loves flowers and doesn't want to stampede them. In what places do you find this the most annoying?

bandits aparently possess an interdimensional portal that they store my money in once they steal it

Yeah, I guess they do. :/ But if the player always gets the money back after battle, wouldn't that make the whole stealing kind of pointless? Unless, of course, you escape.

Casia has no skills, she is level 12 both my party members have two skills now but she has none

Casia is different from others. She will gain no skills by leveling. You have to get her skills another way... yes, there is a way.

the ship moves so slowly and the ocean is so big, if your goal was to accuratly portray the tedium of a long sea voyage then you succeeded

That is what I tried to portray, so it's nice to know I succeeded in a way...

Yeah, I understand the boredom. There is a way to increase the speed of the ship in the game, that's why it starts off that slow. I think I already know how to make the situation more bearable... it will be up in the next updated version.

Thanks a lot for telling me how you felt about the game. I'll definitely look into the things you mentioned.

 

[Deviantmango]

Okay first point, the start of the game is it's weakest point by far in a number of ways. The difficulty of combat came as a bit of a shock, I had my sword and basic armor and went out to kill bees and just about died.  This itself isn't a problem just a shock, the problem is after the fight I get 2 xp and nothing else.  My first thought was I don't want to do that 12 more times to level up (my second thought was I should buy that helm).  When I did level up not much changed after all the work it felt like a rip off, I still needed 3 hits to kill most of the bees.  I couldn't go anywhere else and needed to level up a couple more times to get anything done.  This was made worse with the fact that Casia, as I said later in my first post, has no skills.  The battles were all just hit the attack button over and over again.  The beginning of this game is long and boring I would advise lowering the xp requierments for the first few levels, and maybe starting Casia off with a basic skill or letting her learn one in the first town to mix up the battles a bit. If you really wanted to put in the extra work, putting in a companion you can get in the first town would also help. Some mention of what a chunk of ore looks like would be nice, I thought I was looking at an ugly rock for a long time, and that shield could have sped things up a bit.

Hunger and thirst you're on top of, and I thank you for that.

Passability is a problem all over, many maps have a small rock, tuft of grass, or flower that Casia dosn't seems to understand can just be steped over.  I get that those are default settings, and that sucks, but it is a problem and it is all over the game.  The worst problem I would say is in towns when you have seagulls running around it makes it a challenge to get from one shop to the next especially in the first town.

The bandits and the vanishing gold is not that big a deal, but if you were inclined to take some advice on the matter I would recommend giving the bandits the option to escape.  Nobody wants to fight to the death for a few coins unless you happen to be an RPG portagonist, so I think it makes sense if they would take the money and run rather than try and kill you while taking the money they would get if they win mid fight.

On the matter of Casia and her lack of skills, I have talked to everyone I can find and nobody has so much as droped a hint on how to get them.  I am up to five party members now and have beaten a few bosses and still have nothing, it is starting to feel ridiculous.  I get letting the player find this stuff but the time has come when I have to say I think you hid this a little to well.

As for the ship, sometimes real isn't fun. This is one of those times.  Other RPGs handle the issuse by making more than one vehicle to handle multiple terrains.  I know you won't be able to do that for this game as that would be way more work than anybody would want to do on what was supposed to be done, but for the next one if you chose to make one.  As for this game, nothing makes me want to quit more than needing to get on that ship.

Once more I feel the need to say that I am having fun with the game.  These are problem, and they take away from the game, but it is worth playing.

 

[Casia]

Thank you for the advice. Hearing that the beginning is too long and bothersome, I will definitely do something about it to make it more enjoyable. It's not difficult to decrease the difficulty of the bees and maybe even add a skill Casia can learn in the town. I also thought about giving more weapon and armor options, since there are hardly any in Delta Town at the moment.

Passability is easy to change, and I will probably due that for the next updated version. I don't know about the pidgeons and seagulls, I will make less of them if they hinder gameplay.

The idea of the bandits is a very good one, I'll definitely do that. Thank you!

Casia's skills are not something an NPC tells you. They are very well-hidden secrets, as you said. They are related to the elemental rings, I can tell you that much... but I could also create a few skills for Casia to learn another way, since the others seem pretty difficult to find.

I already have an idea for the ship, but increasing the speed a bit won't be a problem.

I'm glad to hear that you are still able to enjoy the game, though.

 

[Deviantmango]

Cool, thanks

 

[Nirwanda]

WOW, just WOW, it's incredible that such an ambitious project actually delivers on its promises. With a similar approach to Romancing Saga or -to a lesser extent- Elder scrolls games, this is one HUGE adventure. It's quite praise worthy that this was done by just one person, so congrats, Casia, my hat's off for you.
Granted that the game has a lot of issues, both in writing and balancing, but the sheer effort and work put into is admirable and I recommend everyone to give this game the fair chance it deserves.
 
That aside I'd like to give some -hopefully- constructive feedback on my playthrough so far.
 

Spoiler

Bugs?:
-There is a quiksave item in Casia's drawers, despite its description claiming it to be "demo only".
-Multivitam juice cannot be consumed.
-Sometimes rain sfx plays without the rain actually appearing. (probably a scripting issue)
-In the bank minigame you have to polish all but one of the bars, same with the pig minigame(though in that one you get two freebies).
-The tutorial woman in the municipality repeats her line about buying snacks twice.
-When farming, if you choose some seeds and then cancel, the seeds will be lost.(probably a scripting issue, too). Also, the guy who explains you how to farm references "the script", which I assume was the default explanation in whatever farming script you used.
-Whenever you get a ring/seed of accuracy the in game text calls it "of dextality"
-In some forests with the leaves parallax (like the snake forest near hero city or the screen before the abandoned fortress)it's impossible to find your way around during night, specially when it's raining, because it turns so dark, please increase its transparency.
-If you surrender to the pirates that attack the ship you're on early on, some switch won't activate: their base will be empty and, once you get to the boss' room she will be just standing there, non interactable, not to mention that the flammable boxes will be invisible. By getting defeated by them you get the correct base(even though I could defeat them, I couldn't resist getting that sweet iron bow and plate). But the boss is still bugged: I assume she's supposed to chase you around the room, and attack if she catches you, but instead she just stands in place and only attacks you if you get close to her.
-The second ship, the one that sinks, has lots of passability issues, including one that lets you step into a teleport event that lands you on the abandoned fortress of all places(in the colored ghosts room).
-On the mines, after fighting Miriam, if you return to the save point and then re-enter the boss room, there'll be a weird game-stopping bug.
-In one of the later curves of the cart minigame, on the upper left corner of the room, the path you have to take is impossible to see due to the shadow overlay, you can only guess which is the correct direction to take. Also, I believe you should add some kind of reward for actually completing the minigame since it's so hard.
-In the abandoned fortress, the riddle of the second ghost on the upper path can't be answered. The answer is soul talisman, right? Well, there's not enough space in the name box to write that: it's one letter too long.
-In Casia's brother's town, when playing the bomber minigame, during the low stakes game I asked the woman to quit. The low stakes vases dissapeared, and the high stakes ones appeared instead, for some reason.
-When entering ice cave that leads to Puru once I got this message: "unable to find audio/bgs".
-On the freezing ice fields: the screen tint keeps gradually getting darker until you can't see anymore, I assume it has something to do with the weather effect. Anyway, it takes too long of staying on the screen for someone not OCD-ing to find everything to notice.
-Also, on the freezing fields, most chests have a wooden texture when closed, but once opened they turn blue.
-Ran into a Debug rock on the entrance to the radioactive mines.
-Sexy fire women won't engage you unless you press the action button, also their out of battle sprite is misaligned.
-Too many passability issues to name. Several mapping issues, too.

Requests:
-A quest journal. SERIOUSLY.
-A clearer hunger/thirst indicator (just having the characters say "I'm getting hungry/thirsty" would suffice). If you're gonna kill me for it, make damn sure I know when I'm in danger! My not noticing until it's too late might be related to resting/church "healing" the hungry status, but not resetting the death counter associated to it.
-More skill and equipment variety/customization options. IMHO, as the game stands now, you're kind of tactically limited. The game gets better skill-wise as more characters become available, but early on, it's a drag. Equipment remains dull, though.
-Out of party characters should get some exp. Bringing someone to a certain level of competence when they join at level 1 and I'm at 30 is NOT fun.

Questions:
-What's the point of the storage system?There seems to be no limit to how much you can carry. The money, I understand, you store it to prevent mugging, but the items....
-Does the lucky necklace do anything?
-What's up with Viviana's date? Two days have gone by and neither she nor bronze helmet guy seem to be returning...
-Where can I find good spears?I'm still stuck in iron....

Nitpicks/Other:
-It rains too often!
-The bomb minigame on Casia's brother town is a cash cow, in a couple of minutes I had more gold than I would ever need (around 5,000,000)
-Also exploitable: anything related to sharp/blink/etc stones. They're too powerful and shouldn't be sold in towns(Or they should be REALLY expensive). Another option would be giving enemies a way to dispel buffs. Blink is particularly nasty turning most battles into a cakewalk.
-Seriously what's up with Casia's brother living in whole different town, didn't he swore to protect her and to "grow strong together"?Was Casia living alone despite being underage?Also their dialogue is really dry, there are a hundred things he could have told her, yet they barely chat.
-The door that locks at sunrise on the tombstone on the road to hell. Egad!The first time I saw that blocked road, I thought that it had been locked because I opened the gate to hell(after all, Casia says something like "No turning back now") and decided to start the game from scratch, since The Beast was beyond my resources to defeat. Only later did I realize that it was locked because morning had already came. In my opinion, not only we should be informed about the reason it's locked, but we should also get the option to skip time until the next night. I mean, what can I do to pass time if I get stuck there at 6 am?
-In the ice fields there's a sign that says something like "for testing purpouses" and tells you how close you are to freezing. BTW, shouldn't we have some sort of indicator of how close we are to freezing?It's hard to tell your walking speed on areas without landmarks, which comprise most of it.
-I didn't notice the mailbox until halfway through the game. It wouldn't hurt to have a little pop up informing us about it at the start of the game.

 

[aurela]

I don't really like how hard it is to level, so I'm really not that far and suck in battles, but I enjoy playing.  Once I actually get farther or beat the game, I'll have more to say.

 

[Kaje]

I'm not sure if this is just on my end, but the screenshots aren't showing up in the thread. I'm just seeing "1.png," 2.png," etc.

As for the game itself, I only played a few minutes of it, but some things stuck out to me. First of all, comic sans; not the best font to use if you wanna be taken seriously. It looks unprofessional and has basically become the universal punchline of fonts. The other problem I had was that the antagonist doesn't seem to have a motivation other than "I'm evil." Is he so one-dimensionally evil that he doesn't even learn the names of his lieutenants and just refers to them as "Elf" and "Witch?" Why would they put up with that kind of disrespect?

Oh and I just remembered that bizarre google image search montage after the opening cutscene, what was that supposed to tell the player? I get the impression that you wanted to show off some environments from the game or something, but those images weren't even from the game.

 

[atoms]

I haven't played this but judging by the comments I strongly recommend you do give Casia a few starting skillsets. Usually, without the use of skills in combat the battles can come across as pretty lame for the player after they're used to the visuals. I recommend making sure skills have a purpose and a use in either every fight, or most of them. Especially in battles (and any mini-bosses).

The only exception would be if Casia can make use of items per turn (or have some game mechanic to prevent her simply mashing down attack) while the others characters are using skills.

 

[aurela]

Actually yeah I'm having trouble with Viviana too.  Thankfully I have a save of right before I talked to Brian, but she doesn't seem to be coming back.  And I've looked for her in town and in her hometown too in the desert.  I mean in my second save file it's been a week and she's not returned and I can't find her.  Is this a bug or do I have to progress in the story or something to get her back?

 

[Casia]

Wow, lots of feedback! Thank you for trying out the game!

I've taken into account all the feedback and just now updated the download link for a newer version with some of the bugs/other things fixed. I also included a preliminary version of a quest book and fixed some graphical issues here and there. I also took note of the feedback and added Casia two skills from the start, for example. I may later try and make the game more strategically challenging by adding different skills to the characters. I must say that Ace is much more versatile when it comes to battles and skills, but I still love XP...

Viviana elopes to a certain location after meeting his "boyfriend". If you want to know where she is hiding, check the spoiler.

Spoiler

She's in the Tarito City cafe with the guy. On talking to her there you can get her back to your party.

I'm working on the quest book and all the suggestions I got from you. I'm also working on a new, improved intro, cause it seems the pictures were kind of confusing and not related to the game itself. I'll also try to make the filesize of the game smaller by replacing some graphics and sounds with ones that take less disk space. It's all about making download times faster etc.

I take all feedback seriously, so don't hesitate to give some whenever you feel like it.

 

[aurela]

Awesome an update!  Okay I'll download it and play that version.  No wonder I couldn't find her though, I haven't been to that area specified yet haha.

 

[Enzoe]

Hello! I'm new and I would like to ask how to polish to gold/s in the game?

I've just download it and all in all it's nice. Thanks you.