Dynasthir - Evernight

[Mireneye]

Evernight, a shard of Dynasthir quite unlike any other. Dynasthir as a world is like
​

a patchwork. Most of the shards are connected by physical threads. From place to place. Evernight is different.
​

Evernight is bound to the concept of "forest". While traversing any forest in Dynasthir, you might suddenly find yourself in Evernight.
​

Many a traveler has come before you. But they were all consumed.
​

Foreword
Evernight aims to be a difficult but fair game, full of exploration and intense and interesting combat encounters. It's a dark and twisted fantasy world that attempts to impose an atmosphere of extreme struggle and dispair while giving players that lush sense of archivement of overcoming and figuring things out on their own.

NEW Download V0.6 here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxcWwkV7p-8SmRTR2kxS25qNzg/view?usp=sharing

OLD Download V0.59 from here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxxcWwkV7p-8OElTWHU2bElhQmc/view?usp=sharing - Game + hotfix for controllers and a small NG+ fix

Screenshots

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Features

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*Obscure world - Through actions and their order, rather than from complex dialog
*Explore and interpret - Piecing together the lore from bits and pieces around the world
*Unlockable skins - Playable skins you can find through exploration
*Action Battle System - Borrowing the power of XAS
*EnemyAI - Enemy AI knows when you heal, hit or is low on stamina(amongst other things) be careful!
*Interesting and challenging bosses - Patterns and functions that while punishing are mostly fair. Be ready for sacrifices!
*Unique Healing system - Will you gather the one time use heals? Or dare you venture into the dangerous world to to find them, and then returnst to the start to combine them into refillable healing item?. The choice is yours
*Unlimited Ng+ - If you can't get enough. Heavily tied to the story and lore
*Smithing - Simple yet effective
*Monster capture - Some monsters can only be captured, not killed. Enjoy!
*Parralax mapping
*Diagonal movement

Time & the game

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The game's first Ng+ could take anywhere between 25 minutes to five hours. I would expect the latter, however it is a very speedrunner friendly game IF you know your way around it. Should you like it, subsequent Ng+es up to three has some significant surprises and lore points. The nature of the forest is tied to the Ng+ function.

 
Technical

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Reccomended you play with an Xinput controller. Just feels best. Default controls are a bit odd at first but feels good when you get used to them.

  
End word

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I hope you will enjoy Evernight as much as I enjoy making it. It's been one helluva ride & I spend many long days and nights with it. Evernight is loosely based upon my Pen & Paper roleplaying setting Dynasthir. I've taken inspiration from games such as Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, The Ys Games, The Legend of Zelda to some extent with my own wicked ideas thrown into the mix.
 
Disclaimer - Do not name your character "Calamity" lest you want an incredibly difficult start.

 
Credits

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Engine
Enterbrain RPGMVXA

Free resources, scripts
Kread-EX - Tile Swap, SSR
Zerbu - Title screen window options
V.M of D.T - Basic Window Resizer v1.1, Event Fine Tuning
Xiderowng http://xrxs.at-ninja.jp/ - XAS
Galv - Move route extras, Jump Ability, Cam , MSG BG
Yami - YamiEngine, Overlay Mapping
Yanfly - Parralax Lock, Move Region Restrict
Cidomar - Perfect Pixel Collion System
V - V's Level up Stats
TheoAllen - Stored Variables
Fomar0153 - CustomSlots & Additional Equipment Slots
efeberk - Detector (Free)
game_guy - More Self-Switches
richter_h & TheoAllen - Smithing
various - hd dll fixes
DrDhoom - complementary addon for TheoAllen's variables
Raizen - Lune Smooth Camera Sliding
Modern Algebra - Animated Parallax
 
Free resources, art
Apprentice Geisha's (http://bugiwa.web.fc2.com/tip004.html) - Squirrel
Rainbow Jello & Recife - Quality Blood Tile Resource
Kalez, GrandmaDeb - Underwater chests
Enterbrain - Software and base RTP resources
http://opengameart.org/ - Various free resources
 
Music
The Machine Spirits
HellkiteDrake Remixes

Licenses & permissions
Khas (nilokruch@live.com) - Awesome light effects,(Creative commons license) ask for use in commercial. 
 
Lone Wolf (& raulf17) - Gamepad Extender 
 
Victor - Victor Engine, Victor Engine - Fog and Overlay, license granted! , - VE Basic module, - VE Fog & Overlay
 
Tsukihime - Gameover Events, Feature Manager, Feature Movement Speed, Custom Page conditions, Picture Wrapper, Large Choices 
 
Extra shoutouts
Lonewolf, Tsukihime, GaryCXJk for being amazing forces in the community who have tried to answer and help out with mostly every question I've asked. THANK YOU!

 

[Mireneye]

Progress update #01

Work towards next version continues.

New features:

*Rings/acessory/equipment that boost a specific element
*Equipment that will make the player more or less silent/visible
*Two new enemy types
*Revised enemy pathing around obstacles

*Ng+ cycle 1 and forward has some new challenges

*Tutorial notes

*Save point teleport system (Almost finished)

Map updates:
*Tutorial area

*Early end game area prototyping

Graphics:
*One new enemy base graphic edited and implemented. Still need attacks etc
*Edited and implemented boss graphics from old XP rtp resource(Yes I own XP license, can I do this if I own both?)

Next up: 

V.0.6 - Ancients Rest

 

Tweaks:

*Make conditions for Aami to appear that make sense lore wise.

*Make it so the blacksmith does not respawn when killed. But make sure the player can still get out of the area. If Blacksmith is dead, leave a Monolith Blackrock behind? Or have guards that will throw you out.

*Add a shield tutorial message.

*Restructure the Blighted Mire from the ground up! Similar idea. Sideview ish! Like the new tutorial map!

*Update the third Valkyrie graphics, used on map Evernight Main.

*Update the Thunderlord cultist graphics used on map Pavillion.

*Update the old man graphics. Maybe it can serve as a base for the last boss even?

*Update the hidden glade graphics.

*Change out the Chariot boss graphics.

*Add item descriptions to the Starting gear screen.

Additions:

*Lost Dungeon graphics!

*Finish Beardmans quest, build the cinematic where the player get's thrown out.
*Trader NPC who wanders around
*Build Ancients Rest map
*Hammer & chisel: Used to chip off material from different 

things.
*Implement Aamis quest for the items she wants. 
*Implement more conditional boss variations for the Miasma system.

Fixes:*Prevent inf farm of Skelathine Bonedust.

*Fix the mages who summon Adim.

*Shield using enemies will now only protect front not all around them.

*Adim disposed bitmap mind****...

*Research potential fix for capturable monsters, being able to damage them and kill them w/o capturing them.

*Fix so smithing lists all weapons in inventory. Now it only list ones equipped.

*Rocks still bleed Fix it!

*Fix so you can see the elemental boost on the effected weapon/skill screen

Then on to 0.7!

 

[Banquo]

That looks really dark. I like dark games, downloading it right now.

 

[Mireneye]

That looks really dark. I like dark games, downloading it right now.

Awesome! I hope you'll enjoy it. It's not an easy game by any stretch, don't be discouraged tho. The system can be mastered!

 

[Banquo]

I haven't played much so far, but it looks pretty good! I was sceptical about the unusual look of the maps (photos?) but it's very well edited and is very atmospheric. And it's hard, like a tiny Dark Souls, haha!

It's a bit difficult sometime to find the right way and so far I have absolutely no clue what I have to do at all. Even if it is geared toward exploration you should let the player know why he is exploring in the first place and what he is looking for. There're also a few minor things that bug me, but I'll get to that later. Gotta play a bit further for now.

I'm intrigued.

Edit:
So I've been playing more of it and found the following:

-No walking animation on the "Old Traderroute" map when it's raining (where the wounded guy lies).

-The same happens on the "Rainfall Path" when it's raining. When walking in the water the movement animation shows up.

-The cursor on the level-up screen is off. It's actually selecting the line below the line it's pointing to.

2nd Edit:
-Just found the shield! Haven't seen that chest!

-Is it just me or has the Valkyrie become much stronger now? Now she jumps at me right after entering the map and throws fireballs!

-Woah, found out I could charge attacks!

-Killed the first boss (that huge black ghost) with a single charged hit. Just stood in the bottom left corner, charged up and it wouldn't attack me until I got closer and released.

-So far 51 deaths and 13 saves.

-How can I regain my health? I'm constantly at minimum health and get one-hit-killed all the time.

-"Forgotten Tower" map, the whitish pillars partially cut off my head. I know this issue from Parallax Mapping. Usually I just place such objects, like pillars and trees as events on player level, so they layer properly automatic if I move in front or behind them.

 

[Mireneye]

-snip-

-No walking animation on the "Old Traderroute" map when it's raining (where the wounded guy lies).

-The same happens on the "Rainfall Path" when it's raining. When walking in the water the movement animation shows up.

-The cursor on the level-up screen is off. It's actually selecting the line below the line it's pointing to.

2nd Edit:

-Just found the shield! Haven't seen that chest!

-Is it just me or has the Valkyrie become much stronger now? Now she jumps at me right after entering the map and throws fireballs!

-Woah, found out I could charge attacks!

-Killed the first boss (that huge black ghost) with a single charged hit. Just stood in the bottom left corner, charged up and it wouldn't attack me until I got closer and released.

-So far 51 deaths and 13 saves.

-How can I regain my health? I'm constantly at minimum health and get one-hit-killed all the time.

-"Forgotten Tower" map, the whitish pillars partially cut off my head. I know this issue from Parallax Mapping. Usually I just place such objects, like pillars and trees as events on player level, so they layer properly automatic if I move in front or behind them.

Yeah the art-style is using textures as it's base. And lots of work is put into making it work for this slightly pixelated style and then composing it all together ^-^ Happy you've come to like it!

Thank you <3 It's nice to know I'm on the right track. I think part of the charm should be figuring out what you are supposed to do. It's hella obscure tho and I don't expect simply one person to figure it out on their own. I do see a community kind of puzzling it together tho. However it will become a bit clearer as I get further into development.

I will dive right into these issues and see if I can find the culprit behind them!

Point by point:

-Congratulations! I still have lots of tweaking and work before I feel that It can be really helpful.

-The fireball is a response to something you do. So is the jump attack, sometimes the trigger for it will remain between maps. Resulting in seemingly agressive behaviour.

-Thanks for the reminder. Charge attack will be changed and quite severely nerfed for future updates. It's one of a few "hidden" features in the battle system.

-Good work! I'll check and see if it's too much of a cheese strategy. I think it was just clever use of game mechanics. 

-51 deaths and 13 saves noted! You've got quite some tenacity amigo ^-^

-There are a number of ways. It's a mechanic I put quite some work into balancing. There's an NPC early on who will tell you if you are low on hp what to do. Remember to check back with NPCs once in a while. Said NPC also tells you how healing works.  (hint she is on the first playable map, excluding tutorial).

-Yeah. There's a few of those minor graphical issues. I'll have a loong look at them a version of so before final release to see what can be done to them. 'Til then simply too much is subject to change anyways ^-^

Cheers! Hyped that you are having a good time ^-^

EDIT: 

Fixed both of your issues. One of the fixes is imperfect but much better.

-When pools of water gather on maps it will no longer break the player animation

-Cursor has been moved for clarity

-Special charge attack has been nerfed

-Ghost boss defence has been buffed

-Ghost boss max HP lowered

EDIT2: 

Updated today with two new weapons. They still need balancing and more thorough integration. Not large enough an update for it's own post.

-Essence edge, a weapon that will grow stronger as you use limited healing items.

-Dagger, for the button masher in you! Quick, deadly. Considering giving it a poison upgrade "path". 

 

[Mireneye]

Been hard at work lately. Introducing build variety and thinking of ways to enable different interesting playstyles. 

*Switched out the old lighting solution for Khas Ultra Lighting (90% done), GPU lights for the win!
*Super rough Couch Co-op feature implemented(needs a lot more work)
*Rebalanced jumping. Takes more stamina but has a shorter cooldown
*Enemies now react to if you are playing stealthily

*Enemy aggro severely tweaked to allow for more stealthy approaches
*Fixed an issue where stacking two move_speed equipments would turn you into Sonic the hedgehog
*Implemented a ring that will buff healing items but severely punish you if you remove it
*implemented a feature to make different equipment make you harder/easier to detect
*implemented more hidden bonuses from specific equipment
*You can now put the dying NPC at the old Traderoute out of his misery
*Cause of lag removed from the Tower interior map
*Reworked how all switches and variables carry over to NG+ and onward
*Finished the base graphics for an end-game map
*Designed the AI for an end-game enemy
*Designed a devious enemy AI who I have yet to defeat myself. But in theory it's possible!
*Rocks no longer bleed when you hit them! Wohoo finally!
*And a lot more!

Moving onward I'm going to take a deep dive and try to finish up the inconsistencies in graphics. Like enemy animations, sprite sizes.
Figure out how to enable enemies to have very large weapons. And update all the old map graphics to the new standard. 

 

[Zevia]

Gave the game a try over at my Let's Play thread: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/25194-zevias-lets-play-updated-9115/?p=439421

It felt frustrating how powerful the enemies seemed in comparison to my character. The lack of skills or items in the beginning also meant that the stamina system felt especially limiting, particularly since the enemies could often outrun and outjump me when I tried to back away to recover some. Losing your essence shards on death, when you could just reload your last save file and get them back, felt like a pointless and aggravating feature. A lack of distinguishing characteristics on who was someone you could talk to and who was someone that would actively try to kill you was also frustrating.

That the second enemy you encounter outside the tutorial is a purple bomb that you can't damage, and one of the very early enemies you could possibly encounter is also a slime you can't damage similarly feels trying. I just felt incredibly limited with pretty much everything I did and encountered, and ended up not getting particularly far.

I thought the combat system seemed interesting - I enjoyed Secret of Mana, so I don't mind a stamina system or an action combat system, but this one seemed, as I mentioned at the end of my video, punishingly unfair.

 

[Mireneye]

First of all thank you for the effort in trying the game out! The community effort alone is worth a follow. I'll have a watch in a bit!
The version you played did have a steeper difficulty curve. I've since then added a starting/tutorial area and some guidance. 

And a bunch of build variety that becomes more apparent as you find more of the secrets.

I will stress the fact that the starting enemies are not that bad. You can compare them to say.. the Hollows of the Souls games (altho much faster). Once you understand their pattern they become infinitely easier. And once you  grow more accustomed to how to avoid it. I'll say that I can consecutively remain unscathed from them if I play well. It's the balance I want. 

Also you don't loose them permanently for dying once. You can go retrieve them at the spot where you last died. One time chance. 

Essence shards should remain dropped even upon loading previous save. I'll have to check that!

Also by design. It's not meant to be apparent who is "friendly". Approach with caution,

I don't mean for the player to exclusively feel limited. But I want that feeling of extreme struggle before the player starts to understand and master things.

The Slime now has a "tutorial" message tied to it explaining what is up with that. 

The "purple bomb", well. I might dial down and take some of them out. It's a bit too stressfull early on and that area is big on exploration. I'll be looking at that, maybe just dial down aggro range and move them around. to allow the player some needed leeway.

Happy you found the combat system interesting. It's punishing, but it does reward the relentless who persist in learning it. 
Again, you went the extra mile and recorded it, you are awesome, thank you <3

Cheers!

 

[Zevia]

While I'm a fan of exploration and figuring things out on your own without being too "hand-holdy," I think maybe an explanation that your essence shards are not immediately lost would be good - that you can collect them if you go back to where you died, especially if there's the caveat that you have to get there without dying again. Is that what those blue circles on the ground were? When I picked them up, I couldn't figure out what in the world they were and why they were sometimes there and sometimes not.

Difficulty is a very nebulous thing to nail down, but especially if you're the game designer - I had plenty of bosses in my project that I thought were too incredibly easy and I needed to make them more difficult, but then would get feedback that they were actually too hard and needed to be toned down quite a bit. It's hard for me to assess because I created them, know all their stats, know all their behavior, know the exact mechanics of how every ability works and how much damage it does and everything hidden behind the scenes. And the more I playtest my own game, the easier it becomes.

But for a first-time player, I will say that losing half my health in two hits in the tutorial without ever having a chance to recover it felt pretty unfair. When I was killed after the tutorial, I only recovered to the health I started with after the tutorial - so instead of starting with 600-something health after each death like I could have if I skipped the tutorial, I started at 340 health after each death.

The first battle I ever had crippled me for the beginning of the game - and it was in the tutorial, which should've been a safe place to learn how to play the game. There was only one enemy in the tutorial, too, so I didn't really learn anything before I was tossed into the gameplay. I was pretty much starting on, "Two hits and you're dead" difficulty, when I actually would've been better off just not doing the tutorial at all.

I'm always an advocate of making the game you want to make - if that's the difficulty level you want by design, then I think I'm probably just not the right kind of player for Dynasthir. Personally, I would've been more willing to stick with it if the difficulty curve was much more lenient at the beginning until I'd become accustomed to the controls and figuring out how to identify enemy behavior and adapt to it.

 

[Mireneye]

Noted!
 

I'll admit that the very first enemies you encounter should probably be nerfed damage wise. Actually Jenra (Npc who tells you about Essence) will tell you how to get back to full health if you are below a certain amount of HP. I will tweak the threshold for that behaviour.

Also something to note is that friendly NPCs will generally let you hit them a few times before they turn hostile. Something I also want people to figure out by themselves. But just to bonce the idea off you since I really enjoy discussing my ideas about game design. 

You brought some really good things to the table, and I know I'm being a bit of an rear end in a top hat to new players. I'll work on some of the points to smooth out the learning curve a tinsy bit to make it more fair because I do want it to be fair. Fair but really challenging. Maybe I should not that when I say fair I don't mean as in you and enemies have the exact same odds. Enemy AI isn't that smart when it comes to movement for instance where as you as the player has a lot of freedom in that regard. The player is much less mechanical and so the fairness comes from balancing what I think people will be able to handle. Not from limiting enemy stamina/movesets.

Also hah, it really doesn't make sense that moste early enemies have the long jump attack. That's definietly something getting tweaked. 

Cheers! 

 

[Zevia]

It's up to you how long the player should get before enemies start becoming drastically dangerous, and that will change from player to player, even - but I think there should be some kind of forgiveness early on so people can get used to the controls and the playstyle of the game.

I did notice that the few friendly NPCs I saw pretty much stood in one place or just randomly wandered - but every hostile NPC on the screen, regardless of their distance, seemed to make a beeline straight for the player. But the people who were hostile didn't otherwise look any different than the people who weren't - and there wasn't any story reason given (that I had reached) for why some people were cool with just telling you to move along and others were trying to straight up murder you. Like, who is the valkyrie? Who are the random commoners trying to kill you? What are those purple orbs?

I suppose the end result is that it makes me hesitant to try and approach just about anything because I don't know if I can talk to or interact with it, or if I'm supposed to try and kill it. If you want that hesitation and uneasiness, then I think giving friendly NPCs a few hits before they turn on you should be enough.

I don't think it's bad for the enemies to have an advantage over you numbers-wise or mechanics-wise, so long as it's not insane. When all I have is my basic attack, with no items or skills, I would think that any starting enemy should be capable of being dispatched with a single round of attacks from a full stamina bar to an empty one unless there is something special about them, just because otherwise you're running around with your head cut off just waiting on the bar to recharge - which is particularly aggravating when they do so much damage if you happen to miss a dodge while waiting on your stamina to refill.

Maybe some kind of skill or item that you start with or receive from Jenra that allows you to continue to be offensive when your stamina is low, or to give another avenue of approaching enemies? The orbs, for example, basically could not be meleed - but maybe if there's a ranged way of picking them off, instead of just running around and trying to avoid them until they explode while also trying to avoid all the other people trying to kill you on the screen. I picked up a weapon early on that lowered my ATK, but boosted my MAT, but I had nothing that used MAT. So it was just junk in my inventory until I could use more magic. Perhaps the slime wouldn't be so bad if you ran up, attacked it, saw it was immune to your attacks, but then if you switched to a skill or something, you could damage it.

 

[Mireneye]

I hear ya! What I could do to give the player some means of attack when low on stamina is let the player "equip" fists. Which will drain incredibly little stamina and function as a skill not a weapon. So another button and you'll have to choose yourself if you want to use them. This is already in line with features I want to implement. 

And yes, most NPCs will take a few hits before going hostile. I think I set it to when they go below 200 hp and they avarage 700-1000 ish. 

I have buffed stamina regeneration on the player a tinsy bit. I'm also working on connecting maximum stamina to the Agility stat proper.

There are items in the game that will make stamina regeneration faster by the way. Not certain if they are in your build tho.

A balance I'm going for is for the player to start eventually finding these secrets that give them more and more advantages to handle different situations. And so beginner areas become infinitely easier to deal with. I want that feeling of returning to an area that severely kicked your ass earlier only to find heyy, I'm stronger now and these arn't so bad.

 Imma just straight up tell you about the orbs. The orbs are Miasmites/flames (can be read from the name). The theory here is that you pick up that flaming weapon "Quencher of Miasma" that you found equip it and try it out, it works wonders on them. 
I guess what I could do is put down a tutorial message in the tutorial telling people that certain enemies can only be killed by specific weapons. It's similar with the slime actually! But that is a bit more complicated and ties in with a game mechanic you find later. I've already adressed this by putting down a tutorial message 'bout it close to the slime earlier.

MAT in and of itself is a type of damage that some Enemies are weak to. that's how It's setup in the game. 

 

[Zevia]

So does MAT function in your game the way elements do in other games? That is, X enemy is weak to ATK, Y enemy is weak to MAT, but your attacks effectively do both?

I guess my confusion is, if I were to equip the Quencher of Miasma, which would lower my ATK, but boost my MAT, would my basic attack become stronger against enemies with lower MDF? I simply assumed the MAT stat would only affect skills (or perhaps some items), but not my sword-slashing attack.

I'd be interested to try an updated build of the game with a lot of the changes you're mentioning - let me know when you have a new version of the demo and I'll give it another go. I'll make a point of sticking with it if I still have trouble with the difficulty the second time around, too, since you've been so open to feedback and seem very keen on getting a good level of balance.

 

[Mireneye]

Thanks Zevia ^-^

Yes that is exactly how it works. It's not quite AS useful as it should be, right now it's use is somewhat specific. But someone who has been playing for a while might make a build around the Quencher weapon. I actually had to nerf the build slightly because it was one shotting things in "late game"/Ng+
I guess I'm keen to archiving a balance of sorts at least, hahah. I'll be sure to keep you up to date.

Cheers mate!

EDIT: 
I'll call this one the Zevia update, but it does include a lot more. I will probably roll out this update later this evening or tomorrow!
 

Aside from some game breaking crashes, integrating Khas Ultra Lighting menu with the XInput gamepad, a lot of behind the scenes work, here's a list of some of the more apparent stuff:

 

Fixes/Tweaks:

*Player base stamina slightly lowered

*Stamina now tied to the Agility stat. 

*Stamina drain from Quencher of Miasma & Equinox lowered

*You now get the Monolith tip from Jenra if you go below 300HP instead of 250HP.

*New and tweaked Valkyrie enemy replaced some  early encounters.

*New and tweaked Lords man enemy replaced some early encounters.

*Miasmites on Evernight will now only follow you from a certain range.

*Miasmites on the Adim bossfight have their follow range lowered

*Light source added to all friendly NPCs

*Switched out the deflect effect to something more game mechanically friendly

*Slime enemy slighthtly tweaked for some consistency
*Added some game mechanic messages for clarity

 

Additions:

*Player light activated by F5            
*Puzzling archstones with letters on

*Game now use correct Dynasthir lingo for its stats/parameters

*Actual PLAYER pixel movement

 

-New items(I won't tell how they are used to their full potential but they were fun to design):

*Ring of Essence scatter

*Fools lifeblood scythe

*Draw for Essence ring

*Asatolian vest upgrade

Notes:
Severely broke the Pavillion map. Still playable but laggy and there is no environemental collisions for the player. This is going to be a focus for the next actual planned version update. But it works for now.

 

[Mireneye]

EDIT: Been working on ways to steadily improve FPS in heavy areas. In doing so I've been working on a few nifty effects. A small test map can be seen in this video: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVcnyJLNQ0E&feature=youtu.be

Excuse the late update. I had more issues than I thought that I felt I had to adress. I can finally move back on my normal version release schedule now that things are seemingly working smooth. 
I still need a lot of testing to be certain. Without further ado...

Version 0.59 is done(Link in the first post):

In addition to the updates in the last post:
*Fixed lingering Boss health bars
*Fixed a slew of glitches and oddeties
*Map transfer fix in order to work with the new Pixel movement

Content:
*Added unique item descriptions to the starting item screen 
*Added a new secret area
*Added a new sword, Lucid
*Reaper Enemy now has a more fleshed out animation set
*Fixed NG+ (I think), all but proper enemy scaling.

Known issues:
*Enemy drops are kind of difficult to pick up with the new Player pixel movement
*Uneccessary Lag in some areas. Researching causes!

*Collision on Pavillion map is not perfect. Yeah I know! but it works for now

*Moving to NG+ a bit clunky

 

[Mireneye]

Wohee, I've been keeping busy lately! While not a whole lot to actually talk about I've been doing a lot!
Some notable things:
*Player jumping 90% fixed. There's a very tiny issue where you can still get stuck. Not 100% certain why yet. But I'm almost there! Enemy jumps are next ^-^
*Fixed errors relating to player being pushed out of the screen
*Fixed so players should not be able to go out of the screen
*Some elemental weapons now react to the weather
*XAS Quick menu now fully comatable with controllers. Previously you could not change menues
*Optemized a metric ****ton of event/script systems
*Started reworking the flow of maps
*Changed an old game design idea to something that works better for the game
*Lots of small graphical upgrades to make the experience feel more complete
*Repaced a lot of the combat encounters
*Replaced two or three maps
*New secret area mechanic implemented, based on the idea of finding them by chance while doing other things

Because of all the background work I've started a new project where I slowly introduce a new element and a new map when I'm pretty much 100% done with the previous one. This does release me of a lot of the preconcieved ideas I had when I first started the project and I get a lot of artistic freedom. I'm certain it's leading up to a much more refined experience. 

I hope you will like it. I think I have at least two more weeks or maybe three before I can release this refurbished experience. 

Cheers!

 

[Mireneye]

Instead of a boring list here's a video with some of the last developments from the dev stream over at twitch.tv/MirenyeTV
*New Swamp
*Miasmic Cloud
*New NPC





Enjoy!

 

[Mireneye]

No video today but here is a list of the changes lately:
*Completely converted one more old area, new graphics, new events new boss area setup
*Added birds that feed on corpses that fly away as you approach, still an animation loop issue tho!
*Added flies (using a similar method as the Miasma cloud)

*Created graphics for a type of Aura field

*Added custom armor graphics for Asatolian Vest
*Created a short but versatile guard chase sequence
*Fixed an issue where the player could not jump off a bridge to reach a lower area
*Fixed a series of misplaced events
*Fixed a series of graphical inconsistencies

Only two more major areas to rework and then I'll be able to start creating actual new content!

 

[Mireneye]

A new build will be released this weekend!

This build includes a vastly reworked experience. A much expanded NPC storyline along with lore, Every map has been reworked in a number of ways. I'm down to the last graphical
inconsistencies. As well as a myriad of other improvements. I can now say with true certainty that I'm ready to move to beyond V0.5X. I will keep refining the current 0.5 until this weekend. 

In my pursuit, I've introduced (or realized the existence of) some minor graphical glitches. I don't count on finding the fix for these any time soon, it does not really effect the overall experience, they simply come down to polish.

This release coincides with me celebrating 1000h of clocked steam time in VX Ace. I'l be hosting an event over at my twitch channel:
twitch.tv/MireneyeTV for a randevouz of the game design and ideas behind the concepts in the game and where I want to take the project. Hopefully I can get some friends and maybe one or two other Indie developers to join me as we dissect my creation and think loudmouthedly about it.

I'll be back with a date.

Cheers!
Signed, Mireneye