RMVXA [DEMO] Collector (Open World Cyberpunk RPG)

[Ninjakillzu]

Oh, you had questions. Fighting those gangs at level 1 and 2 were challenging/difficult, I'd say. Required a good amount of saving and reloading. The rewards were good. I was using the Volya.

Unfortunately, I've hit a major bug in the version I'm playing (either .51 or .52). Was trying to finish some side quests, just got the disguises and keycard from that box in the main quest. Then, for some reason, the game reset a switch or something and thinks I'm at the start of the game. When I try to enter certain buildings, Gordon says he should go to the Kyuichi clinic before exploring. So I go into the Kyuichi clinic and, in the operation room, I'm stuck in there forever with an extra Derek clone.

Probably will have to hold off on playing your demos until a much later version (kind of burnt out replaying the start now), but I look forward to you making progress on this project!

Oh wow, I didn't know about that! I will fix that when I get off work.

You might not have to restart each version. I think it's only script, shop, and maybe certain event changes that warrant restarting. Instead, just copying saves over would probably work fine.

I'm not surprised you had trouble with those gangs. They range from level 2 to level 4. Definitely not something I intended to be beatable at level 1, but good for you that you managed to beat them so early!

How does the money amount you get from quests feel? Too much, too little, just right?

 

[ADMtn]

Felt fine to me. Haha. Depends how you balance the difficulty after all the gear upgrades, I suppose.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

@ADMtn Can you give me more information regarding the game breaking bug? I looked at the chest event that gives you the corporate IDs/uniforms, and it has nothing that would reset the switch that makes you think it's the start of the game. I have a feeling it could be a side quest. What were the ones you recently did up to that point? Also, do you remember the order that you did them?

 

[ADMtn]

I also gave the compensation to Ciara for Eddy. Will have to load the game and check later. See if I remember.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

@ADMtn So far I have tested a new game, only playing the story quests to just past where you had the bug. There were no issues, so it has to be a side quest or some broken interaction. I'll have to continue testing later after work.

 

[ADMtn]

Sorry, the only recent-ish save I have is right after finishing "A Missing Robot" and the bug was already triggered, so I can't go back and troubleshoot (unless I go back to a very old save). It's hard to figure out when this happened, but I know I did these things a little bit before I noticed the bug:

1. finished the objective "Deal with the debt situation" for "The Debt's Due" (but haven't been able to turn in the quest because of the bug);
2. found the third and fourth set of parts for "Ciara's Parts";
3. finished the objective "Find the safebox near the East District Metro" for "Part II, Rain and Rust" (can't go to the Deadman Inn to move onto the next part of this quest either, due to the bug requiring me to go to the clinic and become trapped); and
4. finished "A Missing Robot."

It's possible the bug was triggered before I even did the above. Including a screenshot of my quest log in case that could help with troubleshooting (but there are so many variables, I'm not sure how helpful it really is):

 

[Ninjakillzu]

@ADMtn I have tested all of the side quests you have completed, including going through the event pages, and have discovered nothing that would cause bugs. Unfortunately, I still don't have a clue what could've caused your bug. In the meantime, I'll keep looking and probably add a developer item for you to use that turns the switch back on. That way, you should be able to continue. Hopefully it works if you just copy your saves over. I am so thankful for your continued help!

 

[Ninjakillzu]

I finally added back the download link after implementing a way to counteract the game-breaking bug. It requires a new game to take effect.

 

[ADMtn]

Oh, so you figured it out! Nice. I know I said I wouldn't play from the start again, but I probably will. Hahaha. It's a good break from real work and making my own game. And it makes sense to see your work since I'm also making an open-world RM game (albeit fantasy and not cyberpunk).

 

[Ninjakillzu]

Oh, so you figured it out! Nice. I know I said I wouldn't play from the start again, but I probably will. Hahaha. It's a good break from real work and making my own game. And it makes sense to see your work since I'm also making an open-world RM game (albeit fantasy and not cyberpunk).

Well, I actually haven't found out what's causing the bug yet (this is the problem with open world games), but at least I know a way to stop it. I added an event that runs once every time you go into the East District map, which then turns on the switch you need to go into buildings after the start. The thing is, for that event to run, I needed to add another switch just after the first Dr. Madix talk that turns on and allows the event to run.

I haven't worked my game much in the past week, due to a lack in motivation. I'm trying to come up with locations to visit in the Northeast Corporate Center, since this is a part you will have to visit in the story. I may have to change gears and work on another area in the meantime.

 

[ADMtn]

Hope you're doing well.

You mentioned you have a lack of motivation, but I hope that has changed. I'll try to download the new version and move forward soon.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

Hope you're doing well.

You mentioned you have a lack of motivation, but I hope that has changed. I'll try to download the new version and move forward soon.

Thank you for your concern! I have been more motivated. I don't know if you've been keeping track of the screenshot thread, but I have been posting in there quite recently. I finished some building interiors in one of the new districts. I've also added in a system that has automatic "quest objective updated" popups instead of the way it worked before, where it opens the quest journal and it has to be closed every time it's updated. I'll probably update the version on here with that.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

V0.0.54 Change log.

-Added popups that state when your quest journal has a new objective, so that you won't have to close it after it opens every time.

-Adjusted the interior and exterior tint and fog.

-Adjusted floor colors in several interiors to not be as dark with the new interior tint.

-Added the "Style" skill into the game, but currently has no use in the demo. This will have role-play uses later in the full game.

- There is probably more I did, but I don't remember...

 

[Ninjakillzu]

V0.0.55 Change log.

-Revamped a lot of dialogue, and fixed some dialogue errors.

-Adjusted light source alignment so they are centered.

-Added some new tileset details.

-Added a combat log.

- Removed the hit calculation pop-ups during combat. Now, it will just display damage if you hit. The hit calculation is still explained in tutorial fight and the Encyclopedia.

-Revamped the tutorial fight.

 

[gabrieldiastche]

So hey man, here is my real opinion:

I really liked the game, for a "demo" you have a lot of content... It's open world but I didn't know sometimes where to go, this is a cool thing but when the characters walks like this and not every NPC has something interesting to say, it's a problem...

But I decided now to do a list of things I liked and things I don't liked:

Likes:
- Gameplay style
- Artstyle
- Choose a type of character in the start
- Simple language to understand the world
- A lot of side quests
- The main characters of your team and the group of your friends in the basement

Dislikes:
- Too "open world"
- NPCs that don't have anything to add to the world are useless
- The explanations are too much, maybe you should found a different way of doing. I loved the explanation in the battle, but there is a lot of things that it shows but not in the way the player wants

I know that it's a demo and I hope that you can keep with the things I liked and see the things that I disliked, I hope it helped somehow but in the end I really enjoyed your game and the world, I hope you can do it and end this project too because I think it would be an amazing work! ^^

 

[Ninjakillzu]

So hey man, here is my real opinion:

I really liked the game, for a "demo" you have a lot of content... It's open world but I didn't know sometimes where to go, this is a cool thing but when the characters walks like this and not every NPC has something interesting to say, it's a problem...

But I decided now to do a list of things I liked and things I don't liked:

Likes:
- Gameplay style
- Artstyle
- Choose a type of character in the start
- Simple language to understand the world
- A lot of side quests
- The main characters of your team and the group of your friends in the basement

Dislikes:
- Too "open world"
- NPCs that don't have anything to add to the world are useless
- The explanations are too much, maybe you should found a different way of doing. I loved the explanation in the battle, but there is a lot of things that it shows but not in the way the player wants

I know that it's a demo and I hope that you can keep with the things I liked and see the things that I disliked, I hope it helped somehow but in the end I really enjoyed your game and the world, I hope you can do it and end this project too because I think it would be an amazing work! ^^

Thank you for the feedback!

I can't defend the open world part, as I did intend it to feel "big". I love exploring and wandering around in other open world games like Fallout and Skyrim, so that naturally has carried over to my project.

Which NPCs where the ones that you feel were useless? Is it just that some people don't really talk about the game world?

I have heavily cut down on explanations in past versions. What parts were too much for you or didn't explain in the way that the player wants?

Also, how far did you get in the storyline?

 

[gabrieldiastche]

Thank you for the feedback!

I can't defend the open world part, as I did intend it to feel "big". I love exploring and wandering around in other open world games like Fallout and Skyrim, so that naturally has carried over to my project.

Which NPCs where the ones that you feel were useless? Is it just that some people don't really talk about the game world?

I have heavily cut down on explanations in past versions. What parts were too much for you or didn't explain in the way that the player wants?

Also, how far did you get in the storyline?

So, the problem isn't feeling big, the thing for me is having things to do with the NPCs, like some NPCs give you information and others don't. I think this is fine but the problem is the one that doesn't give anything new, I think they should at least give you a tip of a new quest or something like (NPC is looking for someone to deal with that). Like there is one soldier that only says "Back off.", so why is he there, you know?

So, when there are a lot of explanation you can do that by images too and it look more better to the player, at least I think.

So, I got the second character and then I started trying to look for other side quests, because in open world games I prefer to do the side quests than the main plot, I even got the quest to get Eddy

 

[ADMtn]

Seems like Gabriel is talking about NPCs who don't have dialogue which helps or directs the player toward a quest.

One consideration, obviously, is that you don't want your town/city to be empty. You need to have enough people out and about so the place feels more realized and alive. You don't want the place to look like a ghost town, so you can't simply get rid of the extra NPCs.

What Gabriel suggests is to make them give hints about quests. I think that could work, but I also think it might be weird if every NPC was basically gossiping about other people's problems. Then there's also the extra bit of work where you need to add another page or conditional branch of dialogue for these NPC events for when the quest they provide hints for has already been completed (at which point, those NPCs become NPCs who say nothing; unless they constantly update their hints like they're keeping up with gossip at all times, which would be too extreme in plausability of the in-game world as well as in implementation for an indie, solo designer).

Another solution is to make it so the player can't even interact with most of the NPCs (like, what weirdo is going up to everyone on the street and trying to engage in conversation?). Other games utilize a separate chatter/gab textbox for "useless" NPC dialogue (i.e., what the player characters overhear as they walk by). Could be worth looking into it.

I'll have to eventually figure this out for my open world game as well. So it's good to think about it.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

Looks like Studio Blue got around to playing my demo! I'll take their recommendations to heart and try to implement them.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

V0.0.55 Hotfix Change log.
This hotfix removes an exploit found by Studio Blue, and fixes a few other errors I noticed.