Deceit x Justice (Demo now up!)

[Samven]

I figured it was about time for me to showcase my own game here; so here goes. I've been making Deceit x Justice, my third RPG Maker project, throughout most of my degree course I'm finally almost finished. So, since I have a nice, fat, two-hourish demo upcoming, I figured I'd give you all a look at what I've been working on as I get closer and closer towards release.

Demo

http://www.mediafire.com/?h8tt90tmln8mmwc

Do to the circumstances in which this upload was made, you may need RMVX's RTP first. See the second post for further details.

Story

Spoiler

All life on the world of Terfing possesses a soul known as a Fetch.It is from these spirits that their shepherds took their name. In time these guides, the Fetchers, learned how to use the spectres' power to control the world's natural forces and establish a great imperium.

Twenty years ago, that nation was overthrown by Balir: the Hero of the Hynes. In the aftermath of his victory, he established the Grand Aegis League to protect his people from the fearsome power of the surviving Fetchers.

Since then, Balir's League has expanded to maintain order across the world. While they are beloved by thousands as protectors of the powerless, there always insurgents who sympathise with the fallen Fetchers and secret plot to restore them to power.

Characters

Spoiler

Rash QuinnAge: 21 - Weapon: Sword

A spirited young man who dedicated himself to resisting the League six years ago. While he questions whether justice or revenge drives him, he maintains an upbeat and sociable personality and is easily motivated by the prospect of doing good.

Juna Bellacroix

Age: 26 - Weapon: Dual Pistols

A woman pursuing a rogue Fetcher named Rowan: a goal she pursues with a serious, often single-minded and sometimes hypocritical, determination. Despite her focused personality, she is unafraid of displaying her emotions around those she considers her allies.

Sion Refalse

Age: 40 - Weapon: Hand Axe

Sion is a well-connected rebel of many contradictions: none of which he is ashamed of. Although he rarely speak of his motives for taking Rash in six years ago, their similarly cheerful personalities and appreciation for beautiful women have created a strong bond between them.

Noah Grey

Age: 19 - Weapon: Spear

A young mercenary with an affinity for technology, Noah has been hired by a mysterious backer to assassinate Balir. While his personality is mature and efficient beyond his years, he tends to slip into more theatrical methods of getting his job done.

Ingrid Arthuria

Age: 18 - Weapon: Cannon

Blunt, crass, sarcastic, perverted and proud of it all: Ingrid is a haughty scientist researching the incredible power of the Fetchers. While she makes little secret of her opposition to Balir, she has an unusual habit of defending him from wild accusations.

Features

Spoiler

+ Skill Changing! By finding lost Fetches and equipping them, characters will be able to unlock new, stronger versions of their geas abilities.+ Blast Mode! By filling their Blast Gauges, characters can enter their own unique Blast Mode; such as Rash's power-increasing High Tide or Noah's enemy-halting Time Stop.

Screenshots

Spoiler

Credits

Spoiler

Story+ Scenario Writer: Samven (Seraphim Swordmaster)

+ Editor: ThePawt

Graphics

+ Character Design: Blacklisted, HeartlessMasquerade

+ Cut-In Images: MelynnxRose (Jaytheunseen1)

+ Logo/Title Screen: tree56uk

+ RTP: Enterbrain

+ Battler Sprites: Tales of Eternia, Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon series, self-made Tales edits

+ Window System: RPG Maker Times

Music

+ Original Soundtrack: TrulyStupidNewb (Morien)

+Sound Effect Files: Voice Acting Alliance, Tales of Vesperia

Scripts

+ Enterbrain

+ Woratana: Monster Book, Neo Save System 3, Skill from Equipment

+ Jens009: Critical Flash, Enemy HP Bars

+ Synthesize: Defend Regenerate

+ Syvakal: Menu Bars, Conditional Skills, Notes Field System

+ modern algebra: Integrated Reserve Party, Advanced Text System 2

+ DerVVulfman: Animated Battlers, Limit Break

+ Pacman: Battler Face HUD

+ DrDhoom: Skill Cooldown

+ KGC: Rate Damage, Battle Difficulty

+ Mr G W: Skill Features

+ Yanfly: YEM Core Fixes, Equipment Overhaul

If I have any unmentioned credits, it's human error on my part. If anyone is unmentioned, they shall be added as soon as I get their name.

 

[Samven]

*Phew* I've been gone a while. Anyway, it seems that I have a wee demo with which to bump this thread with! You can get it here if you're interested.

All feedback, findings, thoughts, likes, dislikes, and anything else you have to mention are very much appreciated.

STOP ALL THE PRESSES

Currently have reports that I have what's known as the "Really Big Game File Causes Extractor To Commit Suicide And Die" error... I don't know of a conventional way to fix this problem so, until I know what's causing it, I'm going to try with a cruder method - but at least it still gets it out there - by compressing the whole game file into a .rar file rather than by using the in-game extractor. As such, since I couldn't include it into the game file, you will probably need VX's RTP for this:

http://www.rpgmakerw...un-time-package

If anyone can tell me how to fix the compressor issue, I'd appreciate it as I had no idea this problem existed until now. Until then... hope you enjoy the game all the same, even if its upload method is a bit blunt force trauma.

Edit:

It's now up again:

http://www.mediafire.com/?xqlpfseuvt2c6g5

 

[.notsafety]

hey, I've played your demo for about 3 hours now and I'll be sure to give you plenty of feedback tomorrow.

I'm seriously too tired to say anything about it right now, haha

 

[Samven]

Thank you very much!

Well, I've officially uploaded a bugfix containing fixes to some of the more stand-out glitches. I'm still having trouble sorting the menu/healing one but this should be a step-up nonetheless. Enjoy! : )

http://www.mediafire.com/?49evpx7lpyaxrcq

 

[.notsafety]

boatload of spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't played this.

okay, I got up to the part after the fight against the Aion and I stopped a little bit after there. I will say that I did enjoy the demo, but there are a lot of bugs that you should iron out ASAP. I did grab your updated demo, but I only transferred my save from Ojin's Camp after returning from Magdan Ruins; forgive me if I mention any errors that you have already addressed and fixed.

to start, I really did like the intro with the ancient-esque paintings and whatnot. I thought it was a pretty neat way of telling the player about the historical events of your world. this brings me to my first issue: having Rash start off at level 1 makes the battles at the beginning area a little...too dependent on Heather. she basically 1-shots everything simply because she is level 2, while Rash is essentially a sitting duck whose turn serves little to no purpose at all. it's not that big of a deal since the second Rash levels up, he becomes just as good as Heather, but I will admit I screwed around and got my first game-over at the very beginning (monsters wouldn't stop attacking Rash qq).

a big-scale nuisance you should fix whenever you get the time is to make your map transfers move the player on a tile that ISN'T also a transfer event. it's not a big deal the first few times, but it gets annoying when you're being transported to a different side of the map than before and you end up walking the wrong way just to get teleported back to where you were before. having transfer events move the player one or two tiles away from another transfer pretty much fixes this.

minor bugs, typos, and petty complaints:

Spoiler

-after Rash's squabble with his parents and when he finishes talking to Heather below the pond, you might want to edit the event so it makes the screen scroll back down. you actually did this a few more times in events where you had the map scroll, such as after the battle with Vittore.-the chest to the right of the initial encounter with Liore gives you a Dragonium, but incorrectly displays the message.

-there are quite a few spriting bugs that occur during battles, but these are obvious enough that I know you are aware of them. most is just incorrect reversion to neutral/critical poses after using skills, and the hurt-pose sharing the same animation as the attack-pose (unless this is intentional).

-typo during the first scene with Heather/Sion where Rash says "Hey, you we know where..."

-might want to disable passability on the swords that Rowan summons lol, you can walk right through them and stuff

-impossible to reach chest in the cemetery.

-there are two wandering girls in the western part of Noldonia that only open up an empty message box with the name tag "Simon." in fact, the girl under her does the same thing...and then I got boxed inbetween them, and neither would move out the way. ffffffffffffffffffffffff--

speaking of this place, a few more NPCs I found here had the same message. this place in general is kinda buggy, tbh...

-impossible to reach chest in the cemetery.

-the Rowan/Afrit fight is going to make a lot of people RQ, lol. unless I had missed a strategy or something. I pretty much had Juna seal Rowan's geas with her normal attack, then cast Flame Wall on both the Ifrits to kill their damage output. Rash just kept them both healed, or attacked Rowan during spare turns. he poisoned him as well with one of the Venom Bombs or whatever. took me a few tries to get this fight to go smoothly, and I'm not sure how others will receive this fight since the Afrits respawn endlessly upon being killed.

-the tree to the top has a small mapping error @ Medina's tomb.

-I accidentally skipped this message too fast to be sure, but I think Ojin has a typo and says "she'd died," instead of "she died." another typo follows when Rash ends one of his sentences without punctuation.

-left a bracket off the "[nb]" when you try leaving Ojin's Camp after waking up from Rash's vision.

-Juna's sprite appears back at the inn if you leave and then re-enter it (during the scene where she walks off and goes to take a swim).

-there are quite a few passability errors concerning areas where you able to jump gaps. most of them allow you to jump on to normally impassable object. some notable examples:

-the tint in the Fountain place is particularly bright and makes the map a bit of a sore.

major issues that should be addressed and some larger-scale complaints:

Spoiler

**game breaking bug if you enter the upstairs room of Noldonia's pub: Sion appears out on the stairs facing the right and the game will freeze.**the lag in some maps such as Noldonia and Noldonia Foothill is practically unbearable. I suggest you try out Anaryu's Anti-Lag script or KGC's Lag Fix script to remedy this. the issue shows up on some other maps as well (mainly those with a bunch of events/random encounters).

**lol, the menu healing bug is godlike. you already know about it though, so I wish you luck in fixing it.

-there is some hardcore lag against boss fight with the 6 Cipher Soldiers. like, I had to force my way to make it through there. I don't know if it's just my laptop or what, but the battle menu had some of the most ridiculous delay I had ever seen. thankfully, animations played out smoothly, so I just went ahead and finished it up.

I did not complete your demo, btw. I got to the part after the Aion teleports you to that weird non-existence zone. got one game over because I bought a letter from a merchant and tried to use it lol. got another game over because I ran into an encounter after seeing Blue for the second time.

*edit: okay, I now feel like a complete derp since I just noticed you put save points in not one, but two spots in that place. major apologies; the first one (in the house) just slipped me completely, so I didn't even heal from 0 HP and thought I was supposed to be stuck with it. the other one before the hooded guys...the save point blended with the floor + screen tint, and I COMPLETELY missed it QQ

really sorry about that. I feel like a complete moron now. going to get back to finishing your demo later tomorrow or something if I'm not busy.

I hope you keep up the work on your project though, and I'll be looking forward to more updates.

 

[Samven]

Not a worry at all. The tint makes it hard to see in the void, which in hindsight I recognise as an oversight. I may throw a few "safe zones" where it's obviously... well, safe, for you be in there.

Anywhoo, I've gone to the liberty of getting the Anti-Lag script and fixing as many of these issues as I can. A solution to the battler sprites & heal/menubug is still eluding me, so I'm just gonna get help for those. Also going to completely revamp the Cipher Soldier battle. Couldn't find Rash's sentence without punctuation, though, but I'll keep looking. "She'd" just a contraction of she had we use here in Blightlyand, so that's the reason behind that. For the errors and whatnot, though, I've done my best to fix them up.

Thank you very much for all your time and effort in playtesting this. It's very much appreciated. A second pair of eyes is always good to have around. : )

Edit: Aaaand here's the new version. : D

http://www.mediafire.com/?8zm7nemo8f0byop

 

[.notsafety]

okay, finished it up! t'was a fun ride. I liked the writing and the story (especially the idea behind geas and stuff) for the most part. only thing that bothered me about the characters was how..."righteous" Rash would act from time to time, but you made it clear that that's just how thinks. definitely liked Ingrid and Sion the most though for their comedic value. I found it interesting to see how much Sion and Rash had bonded from when they first met each other during the earlier days.

the battle balance was fine apart from what I mentioned above, but I wouldn't stress over that without more input.

can't wait to see what comes next!

 

[RavenTDA]

Game breaks for me after the 6 years point and you take control of the party. I can't move at all unless that's supposed to be the end of the demo but I don't think so. Music still plays and all that but I can't move the character or access the menu. Is the download link in the first post the most recent? That's the one I downloaded.

 

[Samven]

Game breaks for me after the 6 years point and you take control of the party. I can't move at all unless that's supposed to be the end of the demo but I don't think so. Music still plays and all that but I can't move the character or access the menu. Is the download link in the first post the most recent? That's the one I downloaded.

It is the most recent but you're the only one who's ever reported that issue before. How unusual... I'll look into it and get back to you.

Edit: Seems it's the anti-lag script that's causing the issue. I've tested this scene with and without it and removing the script causes it to run perfectly. As such, I've removed it for now. Here's a new link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?h8tt90tmln8mmwc

In other news, I've tested two anti-lag scripts now and have found issue with both. I'll keep testing for ways to make a the anti-lag script work and, if I can't find any, I'll just redesign the bulkier areas. No biggie.