[Demo Available] Ghost Shards

[VegaKotes]

If the worst you end up with is Kyran throwing wind slashes into thin air then I think you'll do just fine.

He seems to get over them fairly quickly and moves in for close range combat.

 

[Milennin]

Since you were basically begging for attention for your game I guess I'll give the demo a try. I'll write down notes as I play:


-Sloooooooooooooooow download. Taking ages for a 41MB file.T__T


-I like original artwork. That's always nice to see in an RPG Maker game.


-Not too much a fan of voice acting. Not saying the voices are bad, I just like my RPGs with text only. Maybe consider putting an option at the start of the game or in the menu to turn voice acting on/off.


-It's a bit strange how the menu backgrounds are all black, except the Abilities menu which shows the map on the background.


-Entering a battle is kind of slow. Would be nice if you could somehow speed up the transition.


-After using one heal ability in combat my character won't do anything, no matter what I press.


-Oh my god, I have 2 Divine Mercy skills now? I think it bugged and replaced my damage skill? At least it lets me use basic attack again.


-I like the voices when winning a battle, has very much a Tales of game kind of feel to it.


-Not sure why some battles take place on a bridge, while none of the encounters on the first map are placed on a bridge.


-Just noticed that battles don't give EXP, nor do monsters drop items. That's not really motivating...


-Beat the slime boss and finished the demo.


Conclusion... artwork is nice. Voice acting is alright, but would like to see it being made optional. Choice is music is alright, nothing too outstanding, although I liked the battle victory song.


Gameplay-wise it felt a bit slow paced, the speed at which my character walks, no option to sprint, slow battle transitions etc. I don't know if it has to do with the game being made in XP? I can appreciate the work put into the custom battle system, feels very Tales of-like, but from what I've seen of it it lacks depth. It basically came down to spamming auto-attack and using the occasional healing skill that barely costs anything to cast. Enemies didn't put up much of a fight, and even the slime boss went down without much trouble. Battles not rewarding me with anything made them feel like a waste of time. I don't know if that's intentional, or if it's because you haven't put in a gear and levelling system in the game yet. Also, I couldn't find any treasure chests, or anything for that matter, by walking around and exploring a bit except for a path that was blocked by an event saying I shouldn't go there (but I'll admit I entered the cave before checking on that monster on the bridge on the 2nd map). But yeah, seriously consider adding rewards for the player for exploring your game and fighting your battles.


Story-wise I didn't get much of it. I'm not sure what my characters are doing, or supposed to be doing (except for something about stonesingers, whatever that may be), or where they are, and why they are there. I assume that gets explained later on in the game. Characters were alright, but they didn't seem to do much more than making comments at each other...


Maps were pretty good, but it bothered me a bit that I wasn't able to walk behind upper cliffs at all. But still, the mapping was fine.

 

[Clord]

I have been playing so many RPG Maker demos lately but whatever. I give this one try too. I tend to record them too of course.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thanks Clord!


@ Milennin


I wasn't begging for attention, I was just curious of how to attract people to topics I make.


Thanks for your review. We plan on actually re-hauling everything to make the demo way faster in general. Star has a lot of stuff on his plate for this game and will attempt to fix as much as possible. Since I'm not even sure if there's anything new people can mention that we haven't been told before, I'll probably not respond things fully to not repeat myself. Or contradict myself.


We won't be giving up on the game, thank the Heavens, so hopefully we can re-do some things to make it better based on all the feedback! :3

 

[Clord]

There is this trend where most good free RPG Maker games are just demo stage and most good completed games are commercial due the good free ones so rarely gets finished.


So I hope you manage and definitely don't give up.


I'm not saying that there is not plenty of good free ones too but you get the point.

 

[Mimironi]

I wasnt expecting the demo to be that short but I did like it.

(There's a Nom Nom behind us!)

• Voice acting is nice. Some people dont like voices though, so there should be an option to turn on/off.
• There's a blank menu for everything but the skills menu.
• The battle system was great, reminded me of the 'Tales of' series, but it was just a bit clunky/ slow feeling.
• Liking the custom stuff.

Im hoping that you guys continue this, cause I did like the demo!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Thank you for your kind words!


Hello all!


I wanted to update everyone on several things - and get opinions.


About the Demo:


Believe it or not the demo the was RUSHED. We wanted to put something PLAYABLE out there to show that we were really working on this game, and to get feedback. We weren't really getting much before, and it really made us sad-pandas.


A lot of people mentioned the same things when playing it - things Big Boss (Star) already knew. We realize that the menus/title screen looks like crap, because we never worked on them. Please note, that I did work on the menu recently to fix this issue. Someone mentioned the character's names - people were not originally supposed to see them. It was for us. But you guys asked for a menu, and we just left it enabled. During the flashback it would be disabled. o.o


The battle system is slow due to the events being used to control mostly everything. Star was working on porting the events to scripts, actually to make it run MUCH faster.


The Voice-Acting:


At first I personally was weary about this, but Star INSISTED we add it. He wanted this game to be similar to Star Ocean or the Tales of series. I cannot get a hold of Kyran's voice actor, so we may have to just be done away with it. D= We've been playing Secret of Mana, which has a very similar battle system to our game, and they had no voice acting and did just fine! So maybe we can just do away with it all.


I'd feel bad for the voice actors, though... Poor them.


A Tutorial and Issues:


We had many people state they were confused by the battle system. It makes sense! We just through you into it, etc. Star devised a tutorial to take place before the entire demo featuring a single character and all the features he planned on having.


The issues the header is referring to is the graphics. We NEED certain things that the RTP does not have - geysers, snow ruins, etc. So we thought, "hey, let's make our own!" Yeah, Star is having trouble with that. He almost wanted to give up. I would love to help him, but making graphics is hard for me!


Ending Thoughts:


To be honest, our motivation is kind of slim right now. We thought of just turning Ghost Shards into a comic instead, but even then we're scared to do that.


I don't want to this to turn into our last game, Celestial Sphere. We had put effort into that, so many scenes, the battle system, and just gave up. In truth, I miss that game. Sometimes I wish we could re-visit it and just be like... BAM.


LOOK AT OUR FIRST GAME:


The menu. IT HAD A MENU!

CUSTOM GRAPHICS.

Sprites I was working on!

 

[Milennin]

The Voice-Acting:


At first I personally was weary about this, but Star INSISTED we add it. He wanted this game to be similar to Star Ocean or the Tales of series. I cannot get a hold of Kyran's voice actor, so we may have to just be done away with it. D= We've been playing Secret of Mana, which has a very similar battle system to our game, and they had no voice acting and did just fine! So maybe we can just do away with it all.

It'd probably be best to get your voice actors once you've got all the dialogue done and it all in one go, so you don't have to put off your voice actors for months until the next game update and hope you can still contact them then.

Ending Thoughts:


To be honest, our motivation is kind of slim right now. We thought of just turning Ghost Shards into a comic instead, but even then we're scared to do that.


I don't want to this to turn into our last game, Celestial Sphere. We had put effort into that, so many scenes, the battle system, and just gave up. In truth, I miss that game. Sometimes I wish we could re-visit it and just be like... BAM.

Probably because the project is too ambitious with the complex combat system and the many custom sprites that have to be made for it. I'd definitely go for something smaller and more basic... just to get a game done. After finishing one game you'll have much more experience, and be better at judging how much more you want and can take on for the next project.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

You're right that the battle system is REALLY holding us back!


The Lead Developer (Big Boss) told me, though, that he probably won't make a game without an action-battle system. Unless I can convince other systems are fun, it probably won't happen!

 

[Milennin]

You're right that the battle system is REALLY holding us back!


The Lead Developer (Big Boss) told me, though, that he probably won't make a game without an action-battle system. Unless I can convince other systems are fun, it probably won't happen!

I'd say hold a poll under the development team about what to do with the combat system. There's no point in going for an action-battle system if it's holding back the development of the game. A finished game with more traditional combat is still better than an unfinished one with action combat.

 

[nio kasgami]

Hello Strawberries Is Nio :3! I tested your game and i really loved ! 

(The battle System) 

I really love the battle system how you builded it is really cool...but the transition is to slow! and the character can't run is make my little anoying for moving in the battle imagine...if one of you boss is a super monster who cast some Hyper fast beam ...i can dodge it xD!

Well i like also the voice in dialogue is make me like : WHAAA so cool! but.....HOW she make the voice Oo!?

Mapping are cool :3 

(Custom sprite : Really cool! i like the character and all! conttinue!)

Finally : the game are so powerfull or heavy to play on my old computer...my computer crash xD! 

For Finish I love your game continue with this is  begin to came a good game :3!

Signed little Nio x3

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Hai! Thanks for playing Nio! Sorry it took me forever to get back to you - though, I was waiting for the right things to say. Or something decent enough.

We've been discussing whether or not to keep making this as a game... We still don't know. I think we should make things easier, somehow, but other than that... I don't know. o.o

In other news, I'm writing the book version of the game during NaNoWriMo! It's actually book one of the Ghost Shards series - Stonesinger Aelina. Book two will take place about 20-30 years in the future, with the title Demonslayer Noko. Ooooo, a title pattern! There might be a book three (I think trilogy sounds way cooler than dualogy or that book with a sequel ).

Not only that, there are loads of potential for spinoffs and the like. ^^ So much fun!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

We have been dead for awhile, for which I apologize. We all do.

I have been writing the novel-version of Ghost Shards titled "The Stonesinger". I personally have had that urge to create an RPG lately, and what better than developing this game again?

I'm thinking a revival should happen, but in order for us to be successful, we need to not make things less complicated. We should minimize maps, do away with voice acting for now(since keeping the originals seems difficult), and perhaps have the battle system not require as much work.

Although I believe this would do is more good than harm, our fearless lead might disagree. I wish I could convince him, but mayhaps not.

This is what I hope to do, nevertheless, and maybe I can make *something* happen.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I hope I don't in trouble for a necropost, but here goes...

Hello random viewers.

We actually have started working again - big boss is even touching the battle system and scripts again. Yes, he's still sticking with action combat.

Speaking of battles... We are thinking of slightly changing things - maybe you can tell in the below image.

I hope the picture explains things well enough. The changes (apart from a new UI design), includes an extra character in battle, and what inside the pink circle. The decision to add another ally was pretty simple - we will have a total of 8 playable characters, so why not just have the "combat part" be half of that?

It makes sense to me!

As for the "charging ability bar" - it just means that when you, or an ally, is using a skill that takes a while to be used (such as magic) it will show up above user's status. It should be useful. If an ally is healing and you need to protect him or her, then you'll know what they're doing so you can. It's better than nothing knowing, right? XD

The next picture simply shows a different dialogue setup. Nothing too fancy, or new.

I hope I did okay with the message window; I'm not too good with graphic design. I felt the old way was too boring and took too much space. In this format, the portrait is moved to the right side, and is pushed down so it's not "in-your-face".

I'm hoping to do the menu and battle UIs like the message window, but only if it's good enough.

We're also thinking of players the option to choose between starting the game with two characters. Both of the characters are pretty important to the story, technically they would both be main protagonists either way.

Since certain events and characters have been changed and added as well, I just got the urge to maybe start the one side over the first since it allows us to start from scratch and have to re-do everything.

Oh! I'm terribly sorry for rambling too much! I think I need to set a blog-thing for this game, because even if it doesn't make it as a game, it will be made into something!

Have a cute sketch of Poppy!

Thanks for reading!

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

 

It hurts to see how this project has dropped to pretty much nothingness. Mine and Star's relationship was founded on game-making, so naturally I despise that we keep quitting before finishing even one.

 

My heart will always pursue making an RPG within its lifetime, for it has felt that way for over ten years. Even now, I try to make one almost begging Star to join me. I feel rather guilty creating something new, however. 

 

When I think of our Saturdays spent with friends work on different aspects of Ghost Shards, I get sad. Some of our friends, still talk of GS as if we haven't given up on it. Perhaps that's our fault for not being blunt. 

 

Will all this work, thought, and brainstorming go to waste? After what, three years?

 

 

Star and I still care very much for the story and world of Ghost Shards. Neither of us are skilled enough to make it into a comic, and I've always pictured it being a visual project, so I wouldn't want to write a book based off it.

 

Maybe this is truly the end of Ghost Shards. Perhaps Star and I continue to talk about it because we are still attached to it, not even sure ourselves what will happen to it.

 

For those who have helped us out, given us fan art, and supported us, I thank you.

 

 

[Shelby]

Hmm it has been a few years indeed. A positive attitude can make all the difference though, not just towards yourself but other people as well. This is a community after all, you could just get a new team and make yourself a new game.

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

Hello everyone! It's been a lo-o-o-ng time, hasn't it?

So this year our team participated in the IGMC with an entry taking place in the same universe as Ghost Shards. Perhaps amusingly, that month was the hardest we ever worked and in the end we were able to submit -something- on time. We were quite proud of ourselves.

What happens now?

We try to work on this game again, from scratch and in a new RPG Maker engine.

The past couple of months has been quite hectic however, with my boyfriend's job issues, redoing our floor, everyone being busy, etc. We did manage to sneak in a lesson about RPG Maker for the team (look here). My mother is visiting next week, so now we scramble with housework. We are going to try and start game development after all this is over, and I will attempt to be a better "PR Person".

For fun I’ve accumulated concepts of Stonesinger’s main character Aelina in the form of sketches, in-game portraits, and sprite styles – from oldest to newest. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!