Dusk and Dawn

[nuvestrahl]

Dusk and Dawn

Dusk and Dawn is a short, "high danger, low attrition" -model, JRPG-style dungeon crawler I made as a school project over the course of a few months. I mainly wanted to practice producing my own art assets and finishing a working game, though in the end I had to fall back on some of the default assets in RMVX Ace due to time contraints.

The game is rather brutal and cheap, as it will kill a player who doesn't know the incoming attack pattern, or who wanders into a new area underleveled. But it is rather interesting once one gets the hang of it. Using the right abilities at the right time is very important.

Game:

Download: 198mb (standalone)

Soundtrack:

Full Soundtrack by Aaro Arvola

Controls:

• Alt + Enter = Full Screen mode
• Confirm: Z
• Cancel: X
• Dash: Shift
• Movement: ←↑↓→ Arrow Keys

Features:

• Turn-based battle system
• 4 characters with unique abilities
• Dangerous enemies and bosses
• 2 dungeons, each with distinct atmosphere
• Day and Night time exploration
• Original Map, Monster and Character art
• Original Soundtrack

Credits:

• Sami Kaisanlahti (Game Design & Art)
• Aaro Arvola (Music)

Additional Scripts by:

• Yanfly
• Hime Works
• Modern Algebra
• Seer UK
• OriginalWij

Screenshots:

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Hmm No comments on this game, eh? A shame - more people should try it out. it's pretty looking and sounding.

I played this for about 20 minutes. It was nice. I didn't get too far I feel, partly because I was getting the feeling that this isn't 100% my sort of game. What with the characters not having any dialogue - I'm a big fan of characters. Still! This was pretty well put together.

The custom music is very nice. I enjoyed what I heard of it a lot. The character and monster graphics were nice as well~ I am especially fond of the monster that's file name is "bone_crown." I feel like the tree graphic on maps is a bit lopsided though? Everything else looked good in my opinion. The houses were a bit bare, but you said you were close on time near the end. They were functional enough. Overall, wonderful work on the custom material. Considering that was what you wanted your focus to be, you did a wonderful job there and it'll be neat to see where your work will go if you decide to stick around the community.

I'm not sure why, but I found the game seemed to run strangely slow. It wasn't lagging, just everything felt very heavy and like it was dragging. The fact that I could only dash with shift was probably part of the reason. Though this ws fine in the dungeon, since it is a mechanic for dodging monsters, I was pretty annoyed by it in town. Battles as well felt like they were moving at a sluggish pace. Considering it doesn't take long to find an attack pattern that works on every enemy, the slow feeling of the battle really bogged down the experience for me. (and holding space bar, which I've noticed speeds up most RPGmaker battle systems didn't work)

Sluggish pace aside, battles were fun. They weren't ground breaking, but there were some neat mechanics at play. It was nice that you fully recover after battle as well, so I was encouraged to use my skills. (the first battle I fought I was being very reserved about my MP consumption and it made the battle VERY long. Once I realized I didn't have to worry about that, things were better.) I wonder if Aura Slash was supposed to cost 0MP to use? I mean, it was GREAT that it did, but that felt a bit strange.

I found the Hectsnake monster had too much HP. It's never a threatening fight, and you basically spend it doing the same thing through the whole battle. The fact that they were the most common enemy (that I saw anyway) and took so long to kill made me annoyed any time I saw their face. (Which was often) Speaking of Hectsnake, the fact that there's no way to cure anyone's poison except the healer's was a bit odd. It never posed as a problem from as far as I got, but just that there was no option to do so felt like an oversight. (The store isn't open, I never got a drop from them that heals poison, and I never picked one up from the random loot points.)

Here's a few more smaller things I noticed while playing:

 * When you re-enter town from the West, you appear at the South entrance of the town

 * Green haired boy in town by the rock slab: "Did you know? Our blacksmith world class craftsman who can mold even spiritual matter!" There should be an "is a"  between 'blacksmith' and 'world class' and world-class should be hyphenated. "Our blacksmith is a world-class craftsman who can mold even spiritual matter!"

 * The description for the item Soul Lantern is cut off on the first line.

 * Enemies move while text display is on the screen, causing you to easily be surrounded during the whole 'soul lantern is glowing' forest whisper bit.

If you tell me that the story/characters are going to start being more of a thing later on, maybe I'll play more, but as it stands now, I'll probably leave it there. HOWEVER! I certainly recommend anyone who enjoys exploration games of this style! Nice work Good luck on future projects!

EDIT!

I forgot to mention this!!

You can't go south on this map. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but I felt like mentioning it.

 

[nuvestrahl]

Hmmm. The game speed was a very conscious choice. I tried a faster speed for the exploration but I felt like it made things too hectic and took away from the atmosphere. The battle speed was also set to the slowest possible allowed by Yanfly's Battle script, because I felt like it was very easy miss essential events and states in the fights if it was too fast. Someone who is more accustomed to RM battle systems might be able to keep up with it more easily though. One aspect that might make it feel slow is that the battles are quite simple in the beginning of the game so it might feel too easy. They get a bit more complicated later on and against bosses. Battle frame rate is something that's relatively easy to buff up though, so I would consider making it faster if I get more feedback on it.

As for map design inconsistensies, there are some, definitely. The whole parallax mapping and level design was a new experience for me. I had various ideas about secret areas and events at the back of my head when I was making my first maps, but I didn't get around implementing them. All in all it was a learning process and I feel like the later maps are made slightly better. There's a lot of room for improvement though, like working more closely from the gameplay perspective and sticking to the grid more rigorously.

I can't say the story gets much wind later on, the game is very much about gameplay: exploration and battles. I've never written any scenarios or dialogue and it wasn't something I wanted to tackle half-heartedly so I focused more on gameplay. I'm definitely interested in writing proper stories but I feel like I need more time to actually learn about writing engaging storylines and characters. But if you enjoy battle puzzles, I think the game gets more interesting as you progress through the areas.

As for typos and small bugs, I'm terribly sorry for those, the game lacks thorough QA testing so there's probably a few here and there. Feel free to report  any you find and I'll get around fixing them in a bigger bunch if a lot turn up.

Thank you for your interest! m(_ _)m

 

[Artificer]

Hey i played your game until death and this is the far as i could go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmT6cJU4js

 

[Ralpf]

I just downloaded it, don't have time to give it a try right now, but I will try to get to it later.

Are those monsters in the 4th screenshot your design? I like the look of them.

 

[nuvestrahl]

Hey i played your game until death and this is the far as i could go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmT6cJU4js

Thank you for your interest! I imagine it is nigh impossible to get through the game without dying, but with perseverence and careful strategy you will be able to overcome your enemies.

I just downloaded it, don't have time to give it a try right now, but I will try to get to it later.

Are those monsters in the 4th screenshot your design? I like the look of them.

Yes. All art is by me, except for most sprites, status/item icons and battle animation sheets. Those are RMVX Ace defaults.