Destiny of a Wizard

[Ultimacj]

After over a year and half of hard work, Destiny of a Wizard has been officially published and released on http://www.aveyond.com! 

Game Storyline:​

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Since the dawn of time, the power of the Blue Wizards 
has been known to all folk. Life was peaceful for many years until an evil being known as Darklin came into the realm of the Vale Islands ​

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This was known as the "Darkest Hour". 
Many perished...men...women...and childern. 
The battle between the powerful Blue Wizards and the 
force known as Darklin waged on for many, many years. Until finally, the Wizards drove off Darklin and he was banished to another realm.​

 
Even though he was defeated, he was not dead. ​

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The Wizards sealed him away. The only way he could be brought back is by sacrificing a Wizard.  By sacrificing a Wizard, their power could be used to release the powers of darkness. ​

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This would break the seal that binds Darklin. 
Knowing this knowledge, the Wizards decided to shut themselves away from everyone. ​

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They decided to live in secret so that no force, good or evil, can know where the descendants of the Wizards lived. ​

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Our story begins here, where the Wizards reside in peace and in secret....​

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Screenshots & Features!:​

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Old School Combat: Experience fast pace old school "Dragon Quest" like combat back in the early retro age!​

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Unique Voice Overs!:  Encounter colorful characters with actual voice overs that bring the journey to life! Such as the witty narrator, the wise old man, and the drunken dwarf.​

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Dangerous Dungeons:  It's dangerous to go alone, however, the would-be-wizard will have to as you journey through a fire infested volcano battling hazards and fiends!​

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Five Unique Chapters to Explore!:  The journey to become a full fledged wizard will not be an easy one, as you will journey around the Vale Islands covering over five chapters of adventure!​

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Battle Monstrous Fiends:   Fight off hordes of enemies such as giant spiders, giants, infamous blue slimes, bats, and more!​

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Quest's with comedy references!:  Comedic of various references including "4th wall ones"!​

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Game Info, Price, and where to purchase:​

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Destiny of a Wizard (version 2.03, created with RPG Maker VX Ace) can be purchased for $10.99 at http://www.Aveyond.com.  A downloadable demo for the full version is available which will let you play the game for one full hour.

Direct link for purchasing (as well as the DEMO):  http://aveyond.com/games/destiny-of-a-wizard/

Official Facebook Page of Destiny of a Wizard:  https://www.facebook.com/ultimacjproductions

Official site of Destiny of a Wizard (for more information about the game):  http://ultimacj.wix.com/ultimacjproductions

I would also like to thank Amanda at Aveyond helping me getting this finalized and published.  I would also like to thank my fellow beta testers and the people who worked hard on the voice overs bringing this project to life. 

To everyone:  I hope you enjoy the game in it's entirely as much as I enjoyed making it and I look forward to your comments, feedback, ideas, and suggestions.  If you have any questions about the game, either reply to this forum or you can PM me as well as I'll be sure to get back to you.  Thank you again for viewing, and happy gaming!

UltimaCJ

 

[Shaz]

Congratulations!

 

[Kes]

Congratulations.  We know how many hours you put into this.

 

[Evan Finkel]

Congrats! ^^

 

[Shinma]

Congratulations on your release!

I only played for 28 minutes and have a good bit of feedback that I jotted down if you would like it.

If so, would you prefer it here or in a private message?

 

[Ultimacj]

@ Shinma Here or PM.  Every audience (or person) is different and I welcome feedback (good or bad).  It'll give me a better idea what to put in the next game project (and yes I am working on a sequel but it'll be quite awhile before it's finished as it'll have a lot more content & features now that I have a better understanding RM works!).  I hope you over all enjoyed the game

 

[Shinma]

Okay, here is my list. I only played for 28 minutes and didn't get very far because I was jotting things down to help you improve it:

• During the cutscenes I saw MANY mapping errors.
• There is a typo in the diary, the same lines are written twice.
• The fire in the fireplace is the wrong type for there.
• Many mapping and grammatical errors in the first few minutes.
• Signs and stuff have lag before the text pops up.
• Mixed styles of interior mapping.
• Crates of swords with the tops missing.
• Why does Chie and her father stagger running instead of moving at the same time?
• Some text runs off of the edge of the text windows.
• Personal opinion, but I am not a fan of NPC's always moving when standing in one spot.
• Basement has no sense of depth due to mapping problems.
• Where is the top half of the open door after the battle?
• Inside the building you can't walk across broken tiles, but you can outside. 
• Smoke in the middle of nowhere?
• "What awaits our hero is this new found land?" As an example of dialog errors, should be: "What awaits our hero in this new found land?"
• 5 thy experience points received. Should be 5 experience points received.
• Below issues are after entering the town of Leah.
• Can't exit the town of Leah from the flower tiles.
• Water at north edge of village although it is landlocked on the overworld map.
• Spawn on the exit so must walk up then back down to exit.
• Double tiled windows with only the bottom tile.
• A set of dirt stairs but no indication of raised height.
• Non-animated fountain in the water in the middle of the village.
• People sitting at tables with stepping animation on.
• Moss just sitting on top of water.
• A double wide bridge but you can't move up or down.
• Many shift click mapping problems.
• Character portraits do not align with the sprites.
• Voice over is way too low compared to everything else.
• Stone tables are missing the top section in the 3rd floor of the Mayor's House in Leah.

 

[Ultimacj]

Okay, here is my list. I only played for 28 minutes and didn't get very far because I was jotting things down to help you improve it:

• During the cutscenes I saw MANY mapping errors.
• There is a typo in the diary, the same lines are written twice.
• The fire in the fireplace is the wrong type for there.
• Many mapping and grammatical errors in the first few minutes.
• Signs and stuff have lag before the text pops up.
• Mixed styles of interior mapping.
• Crates of swords with the tops missing.
• Why does Chie and her father stagger running instead of moving at the same time?
• Some text runs off of the edge of the text windows.
• Personal opinion, but I am not a fan of NPC's always moving when standing in one spot.
• Basement has no sense of depth due to mapping problems.
• Where is the top half of the open door after the battle?
• Inside the building you can't walk across broken tiles, but you can outside. 
• Smoke in the middle of nowhere?
• "What awaits our hero is this new found land?" As an example of dialog errors, should be: "What awaits our hero in this new found land?"
• 5 thy experience points received. Should be 5 experience points received.
• Below issues are after entering the town of Leah.
• Can't exit the town of Leah from the flower tiles.
• Water at north edge of village although it is landlocked on the overworld map.
• Spawn on the exit so must walk up then back down to exit.
• Double tiled windows with only the bottom tile.
• A set of dirt stairs but no indication of raised height.
• Non-animated fountain in the water in the middle of the village.
• People sitting at tables with stepping animation on.
• Moss just sitting on top of water.
• A double wide bridge but you can't move up or down.
• Many shift click mapping problems.
• Character portraits do not align with the sprites.
• Voice over is way too low compared to everything else.
• Stone tables are missing the top section in the 3rd floor of the Mayor's House in Leah.

There's A LOT of feedback here, so as the developer I'll try to answer them best to my knowledge:

Spoiler

Dialog:  I see some of the errors you are pointing out and this was an oversight of my part and majority of the beta testers.  Most of them played the male wizard, so some dialog will be missed and those who played the female wizard either didn't see it/recognize it or didn't interact with the object at all.  We were very through on other dialog's of the game but this was not caught.  Good catch, and I apologize for that it was not intentional.  You will encounter some dialog that was ad libbed into the game (voice will not match dialogs), but this was ad libbed in and flows well with the text.

Tilesets/Portraits:  First map represents a destroyed village, so that is the effect it's suppose to represent (with random smoke, fire, and missing building parts).

I've had various feedback about the tile set usage and I've done my best to line everything up and use correctly, but there was certain things I wanted to use that just "looked right", this goes for the portraits as well, although some of the sprites may not match character verbatim, I wanted to match characters personality with the portrait.  Although this is the first time this has been brought up, not even the testers found this as a problem.  As for tile set usage, I used different styles for it and this will not agree with everyone, and depending on each person may or not agree with it.  This was a top question I asked our testers and they found nothing wrong (other than some errors  myself used i.e. ceiling for walls etc - but this was addressed and fixed).

Not everyone will agree with what was used and I totally understand that, everyone has a different keen eye when it comes to RM.

Voice Overs:  The background sound was changed to different levels during testing and even the people who did voice overs listened to this with the game until the volume level for the background was found at the right pace (around 40%).  Each system is different when it comes to voice overs and may sound lower or higher on different computers.  There are hundreds of different systems out there and when you factor in different game musics with voice, there are a lot of variables.  I'm apologize if the volume sounds too low or too high, but I appreciate this feedback.  The next game project the background music will be turned down a bit more so it doesn't over power the voice but the player will hear the background music.

Other/Misc:  Since you played over 30 minutes into the game, you've probably have noticed some of the silly references made to other games and such.  The "thy experience" is a tease/pardory derived from the old NES game "Dragon Warrior", when winning a fight it gave off a similar dialog so that's what I was aiming for.  This is also goes for the same for the standing in place NPC's as the series was notorious for doing that, again for parody reasons (some people may like this and some won't I've received feedback on both counters of it).

For the chase scene, since for auto event only one event can be executed one at time - the characters moved individually, but also since the village is under attack I wanted to emulate the characters having trouble reaching their destination.

Thanks again for the feed back Shinma and I'll apply this to game and patch it accordingly, if there are any more problems I will address them.

 

[Kes]

One of the problems with parodies is that people have to know the original and recognize it in what is now in front of them.  A lot of people now will not have played old NES games and so won't know what the allusions are.  They will just appear wrong or awkward.

What I hope wasn't meant as a parody is the following - I thought I'd try your demo, just to see what it was like.  I noticed that you had disabled Save.  I got to the first save point after the prologue and the save didn't work.  It just gave me the buzzer.  Not good. 

Like Shinma I also noticed mapping errors, and these were before the battle, so they are not the result of trying to make the village look destroyed.  They do not "just look right".   They are simply errors.

You want to charge $11 for this, and really you need to do a huge amount of work to get it up to that standard, otherwise I think you will find that you have very few takers.

I'm sorry to be so blunt about this, but I think it is better to say honestly what I think.  I could list out a whole range of things, but I think that Shinma's post nails enough of the issues as it is.  Please, please, do some further work on this game.  As it stands, it will not, imo, be a success.

 

[Ultimacj]

When did you install the game?  I've spoken to the Administrator at Aveyond Games and the problem should be averted.  I checked the installer for myself to make sure it saved right.

The problem is not with the game but the installer, if the game installed to the ProgramFilesX86 directory.  You'll need to do one of the following:

Go to where the game is installed and right click GAME.EXE and select "Run as Administrator", game will successfully save afterwards.  Aveyond recently uploaded a fix for the installer (it should now install to C:\Game\Destiny of a Wizard - unless otherwise changed).

The other solution is to reinstall the game with what you downloaded and change the install path outside ProgramFilesX86, since Windows NTFS file system is wonky like that and won't allow file(s) save to a hard drive since it's not being given privileges for the ProgramFilesX86.    I deeply apologize about this as this was an issue shortly after the game was launched.  I hope this helps!

I'll be looking over the game and with the community and patch things accordingly, but you should not run into any tile issues i.e. walking through them or being buggy these were thoroughly tested.

 

[Shinma]

For the chase scene, since for auto event only one event can be executed one at time - the characters moved individually, but also since the village is under attack I wanted to emulate the characters having trouble reaching their destination.

A way you can handle this is you make a separate event that you set off in a corner somewhere, let's say you name this Cutscene. You then make 1 dummy event, for instance name this Chie's father.

In the Cutscene you use the 'Move Route' command to move both the player and the other event.

I made a quick demo to try to help you, you can access it here.

As for the parody of Dragon Warrior (one of the best series created, imo), the original stated it as "Thy Experience increases by <number>."

 

[Ultimacj]

Yeah I didn't want to completely copy it

I'll check out this demo and see what I can do with it thanks.

As for graphics and such every audience is different, I've received mix opinions about it (good and bad), so I know you can't please everyone which is fine I'm the same way.  I appreciate you playing and if you decide to purchase it, thank you myself and others worked very hard on the game to bring it life

 

[Shelby]

"feedback, ideas, and suggestions."

The mapping, needs a lot more detail and depth, I see so much empty space in these screen shots.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I'd try the demo when I go home this weekend probably... Personally, I want to know if this is worth the price... There have been lots of good and epic games nowadays that are on that price range (or even lower), so competition is quite hard... I hope it is, if not, then I could only suggest for you to improve it more so that it reaches that worth.

Judging from the detail alone, it don't look like it. I hope the game proves otherwise.

Also, I saw on your site that a sequel or 2nd game in the series in already underworks. May I humbly suggest that you take time to fix the things mentioned by other people above and make sure the game is actually on a good standing before working on that one? You might get swept up in working with the 2nd game and forget to fix things in this one ASAP. And doing that will be bad for your reputation. :3

On a side note, congrats for completing the game.

 

[Ultimacj]

@ Engr. Adiktuzmiko @ Shelby:  I've had mixed opinons when it came to terms of graphics, as every audience is different (including those who have purchased it).  DoaW mostly uses the stand alone RTP sets.  Most of the maps have extra details, while others are point A to point B, depending on the map.  But as I said, I've recieved various feedbacks about it (too much detail, not enough detail, or just right, it just depends on that particular person).  I didn't want to over clutter maps at the same time but also leave an open amount of space as well for navigation since the game themes around older old school games as well as other elements (such as saving at inns or special check points not just anywhere -- which follows the theme/challenge of the game).

As Shinma stated earlyer, I plan on patching DoaW with some of the feedback I've recieved and some cosmetic changes to a couple of dungeons.  I am working on a sequel that uses a lot more different graphical tilesets (such as DS/DS+), and the majority of the maps are based off the examples that came with it (which are fantastic), so it will give me an idea how much detail to put into each map without over cluttering it.  But as stated before, each audience is different and how the audience will be captured with using the new system will be solely invidual based.  As you said, there are a lot of good and epic games out there.  While it's my first game project completed, I certainly can't compare to the epic ones out there since it's a first in the series.  Based on various feed back, imo, it's under the good catagory and (maybe) the sequel will fall under something greater, only time will tell .  I am postive it will be better because there are a lot more features and the like that will be added to the game (can't even begin to count lol).

DoaW focuses a lot on story and challenging game play as well as humor, the sequel will have similar features but considering it will be a much bigger undertaking it will be awhile before it's in a beta test phase.  Unlike this game, I will be looking for beta testers for the second game in the RM community, not just non-rm players like last time.  Perhaps it's because the type of players they are, never really played an RM game before, for the most part.  Although, they did point out a few graphic errors which were addressed, but unlike the some of the RM community didn't find a lot wrong with it (at least graphically).

I appericate both of your input and will apply it to the next patch as well the second game and I hope you enjoy the game  when you get the chance!  ...and thanks for the congrats I appericate it ^_^ thank you!

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Just a curious question, are the blue wizards something like FF's blue mages?

I am postive it will be better because there are a lot more features and the like that will be added to the game (can't even begin to count lol).

Just remember, don't add anything that won't make sense in your game. It's quite easy to overpopulate a game with such. :3

 

[Ultimacj]

Just a curious question, are the blue wizards something like FF's blue mages?

Just remember, don't add anything that won't make sense in your game. It's quite easy to overpopulate a game with such. :3

Actually funny story, originally in the storyline I just called them wizards but when I was showcasing my first alpha build to my dungeons and dragons group (yeah I'm a nerd I know ) the dialog read as Wizards in blue and one of my friends said "You should call them Blue Wizards to match the text!".  So the name stuck as more of an inside joke, which makes sense now because I wanted to aim for Earthbound/Mother 3 type of silly humor.

I was about to say weren't they called Blue Mages in FF, not Blue Wizards though I can see the similarity...dang didn't even think about adding that in the commentary now that you brought it up   The main hero is not an actual blue mage and doesn't learn skills from monsters.    

 

[phoenix_rossy]

When did you install the game?  I've spoken to the Administrator at Aveyond Games and the problem should be averted.  I checked the installer for myself to make sure it saved right.

The problem is not with the game but the installer, if the game installed to the ProgramFilesX86 directory.  You'll need to do one of the following:

Go to where the game is installed and right click GAME.EXE and select "Run as Administrator", game will successfully save afterwards.  Aveyond recently uploaded a fix for the installer (it should now install to C:\Game\Destiny of a Wizard - unless otherwise changed).

The other solution is to reinstall the game with what you downloaded and change the install path outside ProgramFilesX86, since Windows NTFS file system is wonky like that and won't allow file(s) save to a hard drive since it's not being given privileges for the ProgramFilesX86.    I deeply apologize about this as this was an issue shortly after the game was launched.  I hope this helps!

I'll be looking over the game and with the community and patch things accordingly, but you should not run into any tile issues i.e. walking through them or being buggy these were thoroughly tested.

You could just use Amanda or Jet's APPDATA save script, which basically makes the game create its own save file directory outside of the program files folder. I too have encountered this problem.

My main concern is... how did a complete lack of save function slip by the beta testers? Did they each only play 3 minutes of the game? o.0

 

[Ultimacj]

@ Rossy It didn't.  When the game was sent to the beta testers the game did not have its own installer yet, I basically gave them the self extraction exe file that RM does upon compliation.  The beta testers did not install the game to ProgramFilex86 directory, but rather to it's own directory.  The game can save completely fine.  Now if one of them installed to programfiles86 directory then they would have ran into the issue.  The issue is not the game itself, but permission rights from Windows itself.  If the game was installed to programfiles and tried to save to that directory, the "error" would occur because it was trying to write to the hard drive in a directory where administrator rights were required by the user, unless the person ran as the administrator. 

When I first made my self installer with EasyCreate Install, the installer itself defaults to ProgramFilesx86 directory, unless you tell it otherwise.  I encountered the error myself, and remade the path directory to C:\Games, instead of C:\ProgramFilesx86.

When the game was put on Aveyond, the publisher made their own installer for the 30 day trial (with the same program, they made the installer install to ProgramFilesX86, so that's when people began running into the error.  When that happened, I installed the game myself from Aveyond, and the same errors were produced as before, unless I manually told the program to install to another directory outside ProgramFiles or if I right clicked and ran as adminstrator.  When i contacted Aveyond they quickly fixed the error and remade the installer. 

All the beta testers played the game from start to end including the bonus content with no errors upon saving (because the game was not installed to ProgramFiles), so the fault wasn't the game itself but Windows doing it's own security thing.  I didn't know about a save script at the time to save outside RM Maker.  I'll either use that on the next project or make SURE when the next game is released that it's not installed to program files

Hope this clears things up ^_^

 

[phoenix_rossy]

@ Rossy It didn't.  When the game was sent to the beta testers the game did not have its own installer yet, I basically gave them the self extraction exe file that RM does upon compliation.  The beta testers did not install the game to ProgramFilex86 directory, but rather to it's own directory.  The game can save completely fine.  Now if one of them installed to programfiles86 directory then they would have ran into the issue.  The issue is not the game itself, but permission rights from Windows itself.  If the game was installed to programfiles and tried to save to that directory, the "error" would occur because it was trying to write to the hard drive in a directory where administrator rights were required by the user, unless the person ran as the administrator. 

I know that this is the issue... hence why I offered you your solution You just need to save outside of the install directory.