RMVXA [DEMO] Tale Of Vassya: A New Day - Massive Adventure RPG with 2 Stories

[kelarly]

TALE OF VASSYA: A NEW DAY



Introduction

Tale Of Vassya is a game being developed using RPG Maker VX Ace , and developed solely by me, Kelarly. This game has been in development on and off for about 6 years now, and it has finally reached the 85-90% complete mark. When I began, I knew this project would be an ambitious and extensive commitment, and if you know my previous work, I am one to complete a game, no matter what it takes. Once completed, the game will be totally free to play. I plan to finish it in Spring of 2021.

I have completed 6 RPG Maker Games in the past. The older games like the Castle Oblivions are more "amateur" than my later games, but check them out if you are interested.

Spoiler: My Older Games

Passage Of The Hollow Moon - RMVX
Feral Dreams 2 - RMVX
Feral Dreams - RMVX
Castle Oblivion: Foundation - RMVX Action Battle
Castle Oblivion 2 - RMVX
Castle Oblivion - RMVX
Dropbox link to all my games

About The Game

There is a short DEMO for the game at this link: Tale Of Vassya DEMO
With the RTP Player: DEMO with RTP​

• The World: Tale Of Vassya: A New Day (TOV) is an epic tale of wonder, family, loss, mystery, and adventure! The world of Vassya is full of a variety of cultures, biomes, and cities to explore. Vassya has a long history with a lot of lore to learn about, which is explained through the story, and the exploration, and the side content. The world includes a full world map that can be travelled by foot, by ship, and even by airship. Every inch of Vassya is created with a purpose, and hides interesting treasures and bits of lore.
• The Story: The story of TOV is told through two different perspectives. Our lead characters, Damian and Maxwell, each have their own unique story within the world of Vassya. Each of the two stories has a main story game time of around 15-20 hours (EACH!). The two characters travel through similar areas of the world, at different times and experience different events.
• Graphics: I am using some basic tilesets and the character and face generator for RMVX Ace. I know a lot of people dislike the default generators for VX Ace, but I like it, and it can look great if utilized well. The maps were created with care and purpose, and enemies appear within the maps to make them more lively. No random encounters in this game whatsoever. All credits to the creators of any graphics will be credited in the game.
• Combat System: I am using a simple side view battle system, with animated battlers. I am currently working on overhauling the battle system to make it better, so it may change soon. Encounters will happen when you interact with a freely roaming enemy in the field. Some enemies will attack you when they see you, some will be more passive, and require you to interact with it. There are hundreds of weapons and skills to master, with challenging bosses and secrets to find.
• Soundtrack: Most music used for this game comes from existing IPs, so the game will be completely free with no monetization because of that. I am too lazy to create my own music, and there's plenty of great music out there that fits my game perfectly.

Screens




Video Trailer



That's all I have for now. Stay tuned for more information and the eventual release of the full game.
SPRING 2021
​

 

[Timespiraled_RPG]

Glad to finally see you back in action! Can't wait to play and see more!

 

[Redeye]

Never thought I'd see the day. Holy crap, it's been years since you've last been active. This project definitely is ambitious considering you basically have to make two games in one. I guess 2020 does have some diamonds in the rough!

Feral Dreams and its sequel have always been some of my favorite games made with RPGM, so I definitely have high hopes for this one.

 

[1ManArmEStudios]

I think is definitely one of the best demo's I've play in 2020! I'm really looking forward to a full release of this!

 

[Milennin]

I'll play some of the demo, writing down critiques as I go (all of it purely my opinion):
-Lot of walking in that cutscene.
-Why no sprint?
-Everyone has the same 1 Skill?
-Why is our party not chasing Dmitry?
-Why the on-map cutscene of the goblin battle when you have the battle system?
-How did the guy who got defeated after 3 normal attacks from us slay everyone in the castle?
-That wall of text announcing the time skip needs to go. None of that needs to be told all at once.
-Can finally dash now, but no option for auto-dash?
-It would be good to place the player ahead to the teleport tile on a new map, so there's no need to step forward first if they want to go back to the previous map.
-That transition on West Street should be done before the teleport happens, so it happens seamlessly.
-I went to look for Berleo after that, but he's not in the pub...
-The meeting cutscene (this one, as well as the previous one) has far too much name-dropping.
-I'll leave it at that, at nearly 40 minutes in.

I'd have liked a lot more freedom to go and do things myself. Merely coming in range of my objective, locked me into a cutscene for some reason. And almost 40 minutes in, I've barely gotten any actual gameplay to do. The only few encounters were against enemies that died in 2-3 attacks, and the rest was walking from cutscene to next cutscene. It gave me the impression this game wants to be a book or a movie, and not a game for people to play.

Gameplay sections also felt disconnected from what was happening. Like, no dash when we were searching for the Dmitry guy making it look like we're just strolling around, instead of taking the job serious and actively chase him down. The supposed King-Slayer went down in 3 attacks in the combat encounter against him, and we're made to believe that same guy took down the entire royal guard and the king himself? He also escaped through a crevice in the wall after the beating we gave him, and none in the party had the idea to follow his escape route? That just seemed odd. The cutscene were the guy cuts down the goblin to show off his speed, why was that not an actual combat Skill - instead everyone in the party had the exact same 1 Skill.

Some of the cutscenes (most notably the two in the meeting room) had a ton of name-dropping, and just served as exposition dumps; it makes it difficult to follow what's going on because it blots out the most important pieces of information found in between the dialogues. A lot of these could be cut down and be given down in smaller pieces, and leave the details for the player to find out. None of the objects in the world are interactable, when those would be the perfect place to put that information for the players who want to know everything, while keeping the pace up for those who want to play.
Like the guy in a house reading a history book, let the player ask him questions about what exactly he's reading. This would make NPC's more interesting to interact with than just giving them one-liners.
For going into an open world game, I expected to get more exploration, but instead, all I really got were cutscenes.

I do think the mapping was quite fine. There were some oddities here and there, but the overall size and structure of things seemed good, and not too cramped or too large. Music choices were good too, and fit all of the scenes. The writing itself was fine, but it needs to convey more through gameplay, and less through words. There were some minor spelling errors and missing punctuation, but nothing too bad.

 

[kelarly]

I'll play some of the demo, writing down critiques as I go (all of it purely my opinion):
-Lot of walking in that cutscene.
-Why no sprint?
-Everyone has the same 1 Skill?
-Why is our party not chasing Dmitry?
-Why the on-map cutscene of the goblin battle when you have the battle system?
-How did the guy who got defeated after 3 normal attacks from us slay everyone in the castle?
-That wall of text announcing the time skip needs to go. None of that needs to be told all at once.
-Can finally dash now, but no option for auto-dash?
-It would be good to place the player ahead to the teleport tile on a new map, so there's no need to step forward first if they want to go back to the previous map.
-That transition on West Street should be done before the teleport happens, so it happens seamlessly.
-I went to look for Berleo after that, but he's not in the pub...
-The meeting cutscene (this one, as well as the previous one) has far too much name-dropping.
-I'll leave it at that, at nearly 40 minutes in.
etc,
etc,
etc,
etc.

Thanks for the extensive critique. I actually do appreciate it. I'll take into account everything you said.
My main goal is actually to tell the story through the game, while creating a huge world to explore.
Yes, there are a lot of things I will tweak with the opening stories. I understand they are slow, and are story focused. The difficulty could use some tweaking, but it is the very beginning of the game.
The game will have on-map encounters. It becomes way more normal once you leave the first city. There are forced battles like the goblins, and wild encounters. Keep playing the demo, there's a lot more to see.
I'm working on transitions, but they aren't super important to me, and I am lazy, so I don't think they are a very big deal.
Yes, I know the story begins with a lot of dialogue, and I believe the scene with the "wall of text" is important. It is explaining what happened in a two-year time skip after all.
I do have a lot more npcs with more lore dialogue now than I did when I made the demo. It will all be there.
All I can say is keep playing the demo. It really does open up a bit once you leave the first city.
Thanks again.

 

[Ninjakillzu]

This looks interesting. I'm always glad to see more open world games since I am developing one too, and it's good to see other perspectives on how to handle it.

 

[Milennin]

My main goal is actually to tell the story through the game, while creating a huge world to explore.

Yes, I know the story begins with a lot of dialogue, and I believe the scene with the "wall of text" is important. It is explaining what happened in a two-year time skip after all.

What I tried to say is that you can lower the exposition in the main cutscenes, and leave that information for people who explore. I went into a bunch of houses and talked to NPC's, both in the castle and in the city, but nobody I talked to told me anything of interest. All the stuff, like in the "wall of text" can easily be split into pieces and given as informative dialogue from various NPC's, so players learn about the story as they play and explore. And then have the "wall of text" be made into a single "2 years later..." line.
That would make talking to NPC's more meaningful, because you get to learn something by talking to them, and it'd improve the pacing during the main story, so players aren't stuck in a 30+ minute cutscene loop with practically no gameplay and no real exploration to do, to know what's happening.
Saying the "wall of text" is important, and then make it a wall of text is counter-productive, because people are less likely to read a wall of text than smaller pieces scattered around, and the people that do are less likely to remember the contents of the wall of text, because it's given to them all at once, rather than in smaller pieces when the information becomes relevant to them.
The moment a player goes like, "hey, what happened to this guy?" And is then given the information, that's when they'll remember it. Giving the information beforehand, amongst a bunch of other stuff, makes it easier they either miss it, or forget about it by the time they'd ask that question.

I'm working on transitions, but they aren't super important to me, and I am lazy, so I don't think they are a very big deal.

I'd agree the transitions aren't like high priority material, but it's kind of immersion breaking when you walk into an empty street, get a fade-out and then suddenly re-appear in a crowded street for the cutscene. It's nothing game-breaking or even worthy of complaining about, but at the same time, it'd be a very small fix to have these happen more seamlessly. But I can relate with being lazy, that also happens with me on certain aspects of game-making...

I do have a lot more npcs with more lore dialogue now than I did when I made the demo. It will all be there.
All I can say is keep playing the demo. It really does open up a bit once you leave the first city.

Alrighty, that'll be good. I think I'll be playing some more later today, or tomorrow.

 

[kelarly]

UPDATE:

I changed the topic name for this project to "Massive world RPG" from "Open world RPG". After some thought about what constitutes an "Open world RPG" and playing some other's game demos, I determined TOV isn't as open-world as people may be expecting. The game certainly opens up with a lot of freedom later in the game (especially once you have access to the ship), but it starts out somewhat restricted, and the demo takes place in the beginning of the game.
Sorry if I misled anyone.
The demo still offers a lot of freedom once you leave the first city. I recommend everyone enjoys the entire demo!

 

[Spermidine]

This game looks very promising. Since I've completed and enjoyed Feral Dreams 1 & 2 and Passage of the Hollow Moon, I'm strongly inclined to check this game out when its full version has been released.

I couldn't find anything related to one particular question, though: Will the two protagonists and their partys be united later in the game (like in "Treasure of the Rudras" or "Dragon Quest IV") or is this more of a "two games in one in the same world" kind of approach?

 

[kelarly]

This game looks very promising. Since I've completed and enjoyed Feral Dreams 1 & 2 and Passage of the Hollow Moon, I'm strongly inclined to check this game out when its full version has been released.

I couldn't find anything related to one particular question, though: Will the two protagonists and their partys be united later in the game (like in "Treasure of the Rudras" or "Dragon Quest IV") or is this more of a "two games in one in the same world" kind of approach?

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed my other games. This game is a "two games in one in the same world" type game. That's basically the best way to explain it. The two parties may share a few scenes in the game, but are mostly separate stories within the same world.

 

[Milennin]

I've been busy for a while, but playing some more today.
-The combat tutorial was actually pretty decent, clear enough to be informative, but also not too overbearing. But the lack of dash makes the amount of walking required annoying (going all the way to the other side to get the sword, and then backtracking the entire tutorial course).
-The sewer dungeon was fine. The combat is too simplistic for my tastes, but encounters didn't drag on enough to be a bother, nor did the dungeon as a whole. The difficulty of the boss fight felt just right, for a first boss.
-Just came across this bug, I'm guessing it's a plugin thing. Battle log appearing over Skill descriptions.

-Got the end of the demo.
I think going in with the expectations it would be heavy on the story would've helped in my case. The part I played today was better though, more focused. And also more gameplay stuff to do. Most of my criticisms lie within the first part of the demo. The strong point is clearly the story, and the mapping is quite decent too, while the exploration and combat aspect I found lacking. The demo felt pretty polished too, everything worked as it should. Only minor typos and minor bugs that are easy to overlook, and shouldn't be hard to fix for a final release.

 

[awkaiyoki]

I had a playthrough and so far I can see you put in a great deal of events and story to give a entertaining plot introduction. I myself had a lot of difficult story I tried to push in to an intro and I think shortening the introduction would be difficult but not impossible. It's still a good read, but players really want to be involved from the start nowadays.

I really liked how you created the battle scene back drops, that was a great choice over the rtp, you're originality was on the mark. Your status menu is quite amazing also. I really adore the extra stats and information that is tracked, it's interesting.

Your game has it's own identity and originality to it. I really would not change it to much, just layer on top of what's there and be mindful of todays players and who you're wanting to play your game. It'll get easier from there, but I do wish your project a bounty of success. Eventing of this length is hard work, I should know

Continue to keep your project original.

 

[kelarly]

I had a playthrough and so far I can see you put in a great deal of events and story to give a entertaining plot introduction. I myself had a lot of difficult story I tried to push in to an intro and I think shortening the introduction would be difficult but not impossible. It's still a good read, but players really want to be involved from the start nowadays.

I really liked how you created the battle scene back drops, that was a great choice over the rtp, you're originality was on the mark. Your status menu is quite amazing also. I really adore the extra stats and information that is tracked, it's interesting.

Your game has it's own identity and originality to it. I really would not change it to much, just layer on top of what's there and be mindful of todays players and who you're wanting to play your game. It'll get easier from there, but I do wish your project a bounty of success. Eventing of this length is hard work, I should know

Continue to keep your project original.

Thanks for your input. It seems like I will need to do some tweaking to the intro part of the game. You all have good points on how people view the intro as a first impression to the game (a very important first impression). I will definitely work on making it more exciting and a better impression of the rest of the game.

 

[awkaiyoki]

Last post.
In my experience, it took me a few tries to get the intro right for my game. I ended up chopping some of it up. The good thing with your intro is you broke it up over many maps. You could set a choice option asking if the player wants to watch the intro. And if they don't, you could reference some of the key points with a shorter cut scene. I hope that helps. It's not effort wasted. It just means you have the option to break it down for certain players.

Updated today.
I've been playing your game more, and I definitely recommend shortening the amount of dialogue at the start. Even 15 minutes in, it's still quite read heavy. I will say that you did an amazing job of the city, I like to spend time exploring and you really made a nice detailed city.

Could I also recommend that if you are able to add a save option between long reads then that could help also. Please keep up the great work.

 

[FleshToDust]

Damn, walls of text and 30+ minutes with just dialogue and no gameplay?
This was on my to-play list but I'm gonna have to say no. Information may be important but you can't just slap a 20LB steak on the table and expect players to eat it. You break it up into smaller, more edible pieces. Anyways, good luck on your game.

 

[kelarly]

Just a small update for this game. I have done a lot of quality of life changes to the game, especially in the prologue section. I broke up a lot of the opening cut scenes, and introduced gameplay much earlier. I updated many of the NPC dialogues to give some background info on the world of Vassya and what events are taking place at the moment. I also made it possible to run in the intro level. There has also been a few small story changes in order to better explain things. As for the game, I am closing in on finishing Maxwell’s story (I’m building the final level now), and I have had Damian’s story finished for over a year now, so the game is almost complete. Once I complete Maxwell’s story, I’ll do a bunch more quality of life changes to the game as a whole, and revise some more of the story. I've spent a lot of time with these characters, and it's all coming together finally.
Keep an eye out for this, I’m in the end game now.

 

[awkaiyoki]

Just a small update for this game. I have done a lot of quality of life changes to the game, especially in the prologue section. I broke up a lot of the opening cut scenes, and introduced gameplay much earlier. I updated many of the NPC dialogues to give some background info on the world of Vassya and what events are taking place at the moment. I also made it possible to run in the intro level. There has also been a few small story changes in order to better explain things. As for the game, I am closing in on finishing Maxwell’s story (I’m building the final level now), and I have had Damian’s story finished for over a year now, so the game is almost complete. Once I complete Maxwell’s story, I’ll do a bunch more quality of life changes to the game as a whole, and revise some more of the story. I've spent a lot of time with these characters, and it's all coming together finally.
Keep an eye out for this, I’m in the end game now.

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Well done. I remember playing, and you really put great attention in to your writing, and mapping. I'm really glad you're moving forward on your project. I would be so happy to play your game further.

 

[kelarly]

Another update on the game. I have completed both stories now!
Both stories logging about 12-14 hours of story each, not including side quests and exploration. I’m also up to 950+ maps (almost hit the limit!), all which are unique and important. I am pretty proud of the stories I wrote. They aren’t perfect, but pretty damn good! I still have many hours I need to test play and do some balancing revisions to the game. Also, need to add some extra content I’ve wanted to add. Shouldn’t take me too long. I’m hoping to release within the month, or in early July.

 

[kelarly]

Adding one more update to this game. I finished alpha testing the game, and it is now in some beta tester's hands. Game should be complete within the month... hopefully.
I'll create a post in the Completed Games forums once it is ready.