Empty

[Blah_Blee]

Empty:

Hello everyone, this would be my first post in the RPG Maker forums, so greetings to all who visit this post. I am here to show off my a game I've worked on in hopes of creating a trilogy for all to enjoy. This will be my second game ever made, as my first is under rigorous testing. It is rather short, however, so bear with me on this one:

The Premise:

'Empty' is the working title of an RPG/Adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic setting. The title puts you in the shoes of a delivery boy tasked with... well... delivering parcels to a stern, enigmatic man by the name of Reginald. While this may seem like a simple task, the journey is far more dangerous than the destination.

Along the way to Reginald's home, you will need to fight off bandits and mutants, collecting loot along the way to upgrade and craft new items to ease your path. That's not all, however. Since you are a delivery boy, your time is limited to deliver your parcel over to your correspondent. Should you fail to deliver in time, the game is over.

As days transpire, you notice that something seems... off, about Reginald. Despite this, your deliveries should help create a friendship with the hermit, once you learn about his past doings.

Features:

Crafting System:

The game features potion, weapon, item, and armor crafting to help you design the perfect fighting machine a delivery boy could be. Over time, weapons and armor of better quality, and even bombs will be at your disposal, provided you have the correct materials.

Randomized Loot:

Each day in the life of a delivery boy will be different, and no two loot chests are the same, chests respawn with each passing day, so make the most out of your deliveries, and collect as many as you can!

Screenshots:







Credits:

Special thanks to Szyu for the crafting script.

 

[Blah_Blee]

Added a non-RTP updated version found here:

DOWNLOAD

Please provide feedback if possible, It's a very minimalistic type of game that focuses heavily on storytelling.

 

[Labyrinthine]

Ok, here's some brief impressions so far after playing it through to the 6th day.

First of all, i like the setting and the way you've handled progression in the game. It feels original. However, i hope there'd be more variety in the following days, since in the point where i'm at, it begins to feel a bit repetitive. The mapping is suitable for the post apocalyptic setting, although a bit more detail would've been nice to have.

There are some minor bugs in the maps, like the spots on the village's northern wall which can be traversed through.

The dialogue and story are fine and well written. The characters do not annoy me, which is always a positive. I'd advice you to recheck some of the text boxes though, since there seems to be few instances with missing punctuation.

I'm not sure what to think about the crafting system yet. So far, i haven't had the need for it at all, but i can imagine the game gets harder later on.

All in all, for what i've played so far seems to be a decent game, and in a strange way, it's also addictive. I'm gonna play at least two or three more in-game days to see where it goes.

 

[Blah_Blee]

Thanks for the feedback, just a few comments on your notes:

- The game is very grindy, and requires some battling to make use of the crafting system. So yes, it can be a bit repetitive.

- I fixed the bug in the main village walls, but it shouldn't be too much of a concern.

- The enemies indeed become tougher later on, so the crafting system should be of some use later on.

- There are 15 days in total, and the story begins to build up by day 7, so I recommend you play through the entire game to see where it can go.

 

[Darksandstorm]

So far after playing a bit of your game, the story is pretty solid. The only thing I have really found is.

-butterfly should be above the player. (however if they are meant to be below then ignore this.)

-This is more of a personal preference thing, your maps look nice, but your insides look....void. Meaning that they look like they are floating in the middle of nothing. I would recommend you use walls to fix this. (If the players house there is a hanging kitchen tool above the sink attached to darkness.)

-I also would advise you either (input dialogue that would check their level, on day 3 before they go in the bandit game. This would state whether they are of appropriate level to actually do it.) I didn't grind on the first day due to the time limit and not know how far it was, but on the second day I did grind and I got destroyed in the cave. OR allow the players to escape.

But all and all I might end up picking this up again and playing all the way through the story is definitely interesting. GOOD JOB.

 

[literarygoth]

Hokay, I've had a play through and I've made it to day 6.

My initial impression: this appears to be a repetitive dungeon crawler style game ala Diablo. While these kinds of games can be fun, it's certainly pertinent for the developer to make the combat and dungeons interesting as the player is going to be going through them repeatedly. I can tell you're using just the RTP and mapping inside the program only, so I won't be very harsh when it comes to what I dislike about your maps. You're working with what you've got, and I'll give you an A for effort at least.

For my more detailed breakdown that will follow, remember that I recorded this as I went through the game, they're my initial thoughts only and are not intended to be a harsh critique, even though some will certainly sound that way. I'll follow up this detailed assessment with my final impression of your game and suggestions/recommendations along with what I liked and disliked. So, read the following with a grain of salt.

~ I found the introduction to be a bit, blasé. Perhaps it's the way its written, or that there's not much going on on-screen. The characters are just standing there, not moving and we're expected to read the wall of text.

~ It strikes me as odd that this character, Reginald, would divulge so much personal information to a complete stranger.

~ The tutorial was short and sweet, definitely gave useful information but once I'm into the full game I realize, that the tutorial could have just as easily been handled later, say in the blacksmiths' shop, rather than at this exact point.

~ In your initial panning screenshot going to Reginalds cave, there's some mapping errors, specifically with the random shadow on the left right at the bottom of the cliff/mountain.

~ Ah, so the intro was just that main character dreaming. This seems to be a prevalent concept amongst many RM games (including mine) that I've played lately.

~ Inner mapped areas do not have any walls, just floors in a black void. Interesting choice but it is a bit jarring for the player. I see that you've also placed wall shelves on the floor next to the shelf downstairs in the players' house. This just throws off the look of everything.

~ Your outdoor maps are very symmetrical, which doesn't look natural. I suppose this would be the case in an area where people are living and tending to things, but it just looks a bit odd to my eyes.

~ The water is terribly square and looks man-made due to this. If that's the point, then forget this. You can give the appearance of more natural water by staggering the water tiles a bit.

~ Very first mob I encounter is a Spirit mob. And it destroyed me in 3 or 4 hits. I didn't have any healing items. And I didn't save, so I had to reboot and start over again.

~ The story of the game is literally forced on you by the NPC's. I feel there's not much interactivity with the game. The NPC's talk way too much. You can break the story up into smaller dialogue scenes that are more interesting to read and play through rather than just having them tell you all the things. This is a trap many early RM developers fall into (including myself in my earlier development days). Let your player experience and play through the story, rather than shoveling it in their face.

~ The combat system, is flat and boring. Encounter rate is way too high in the grass, and would appear it only gets worse as the days progress.

~ the dialogue itself is weak and amateurish.

~ I'm curious, just one small farm that only grows 1 type of food, with 1 chicken to feed the entire village + Reginald?

~ Some descriptions on the more ambiguously named spellbooks would be nice. I assumed First Aid would be a healing spell, instead I was rather dismayed to learn that it just removed all status ailments.

Final summary:

This in my mind falls under the dungeon grind game category. These types can be very fun when well implemented, and I feel yours falls short of the fun mark just a bit. With some adjustments, you could turn this into a fun play. As it stands currently, I'm sorry but it just isn't that fun. It's boring, and the grind gets to be annoying.

Some suggestions: work on your dialogue a bit more. What I do when writing dialogue, is I say it out loud as though I was talking to someone. If it feels forced, or just doesn't feel right to say it, then I know it needs to be worked on. Try breaking up the forced story dialogues with more interactive scenes. Have the player learn key story points throughout the game, rather than being forced to listen to it all.

Your combat system requires some tweaking as it's a huge portion of what your player does, and right now it's not interesting at all. It's simply mash attack until you have enough points to use ultima, heal yourself = win! The enemies all have one simple attack. So it's just a back and forth tennis game of combat. Try some variation. Give each simple enemy 2 moves or abilities, and harder enemies give them 3 or 4. These skills should all be different and provide a varying degree of difficulty or tactical something to overcome. I'd also recommend adjusting the encounter rate in the grass. I realize that the player can simply avoid all combat by avoiding the grass in these areas, but at times, especially by day 6, one can hardly go 2 steps without running into an enemy. This is tough considering healing items are scarce, don't heal for much, and are expensive given your limited funds.

Your crafting system is really nice, I quite liked it, just due to the aforementioned issues with the combat system, it made gathering supplies to actually be able to craft, frustrating.

Your maps aren't terrible, but they're not fantastic. I'd recommend pouring over the screenshot thread, and looking at some mapping tutorials. There's nothing wrong with mapping inside the editor alone, but you can certainly make better use of what you've got. While symmetry looks reasonably good in towns and cities, it doesn't make sense out in the wild. Nature is hardly symmetrical. Your town is simple and small, but a little too small visually, for how many people show up to Adrian's birthday party. Make it a little bigger, with at least 2 more farms and add some variety, and interesting people to talk to.

As for the varying paths to Reginalds caves, I did like the variety and could tell that you thought out the different ways carefully enough. Does it fit the story to adjust the paths from day to day? Like throwing in random obstacles that weren't there (say from a rock slide or something?). You don't always need to rely on enemies to create obstacles. Be creative!

To summarize completely:

Your game is not that fun, but you do have a good base idea to build up from. Flesh it out a bit more, spend some time with your writing, and designing of your combat system and you'd have a really fun dungeon grind game on your hands.

Don't give up, and keep trying.

Cheers,

~Lit

 

[Blah_Blee]

Hokay, I've had a play through and I've made it to day 6.

My initial impression: this appears to be a repetitive dungeon crawler style game ala Diablo. While these kinds of games can be fun, it's certainly pertinent for the developer to make the combat and dungeons interesting as the player is going to be going through them repeatedly. I can tell you're using just the RTP and mapping inside the program only, so I won't be very harsh when it comes to what I dislike about your maps. You're working with what you've got, and I'll give you an A for effort at least.

For my more detailed breakdown that will follow, remember that I recorded this as I went through the game, they're my initial thoughts only and are not intended to be a harsh critique, even though some will certainly sound that way. I'll follow up this detailed assessment with my final impression of your game and suggestions/recommendations along with what I liked and disliked. So, read the following with a grain of salt.

~ I found the introduction to be a bit, blasé. Perhaps it's the way its written, or that there's not much going on on-screen. The characters are just standing there, not moving and we're expected to read the wall of text.

~ It strikes me as odd that this character, Reginald, would divulge so much personal information to a complete stranger.

~ The tutorial was short and sweet, definitely gave useful information but once I'm into the full game I realize, that the tutorial could have just as easily been handled later, say in the blacksmiths' shop, rather than at this exact point.

~ In your initial panning screenshot going to Reginalds cave, there's some mapping errors, specifically with the random shadow on the left right at the bottom of the cliff/mountain.

~ Ah, so the intro was just that main character dreaming. This seems to be a prevalent concept amongst many RM games (including mine) that I've played lately.

~ Inner mapped areas do not have any walls, just floors in a black void. Interesting choice but it is a bit jarring for the player. I see that you've also placed wall shelves on the floor next to the shelf downstairs in the players' house. This just throws off the look of everything.

~ Your outdoor maps are very symmetrical, which doesn't look natural. I suppose this would be the case in an area where people are living and tending to things, but it just looks a bit odd to my eyes.

~ The water is terribly square and looks man-made due to this. If that's the point, then forget this. You can give the appearance of more natural water by staggering the water tiles a bit.

~ Very first mob I encounter is a Spirit mob. And it destroyed me in 3 or 4 hits. I didn't have any healing items. And I didn't save, so I had to reboot and start over again.

~ The story of the game is literally forced on you by the NPC's. I feel there's not much interactivity with the game. The NPC's talk way too much. You can break the story up into smaller dialogue scenes that are more interesting to read and play through rather than just having them tell you all the things. This is a trap many early RM developers fall into (including myself in my earlier development days). Let your player experience and play through the story, rather than shoveling it in their face.

~ The combat system, is flat and boring. Encounter rate is way too high in the grass, and would appear it only gets worse as the days progress.

~ the dialogue itself is weak and amateurish.

~ I'm curious, just one small farm that only grows 1 type of food, with 1 chicken to feed the entire village + Reginald?

~ Some descriptions on the more ambiguously named spellbooks would be nice. I assumed First Aid would be a healing spell, instead I was rather dismayed to learn that it just removed all status ailments.

Final summary:

This in my mind falls under the dungeon grind game category. These types can be very fun when well implemented, and I feel yours falls short of the fun mark just a bit. With some adjustments, you could turn this into a fun play. As it stands currently, I'm sorry but it just isn't that fun. It's boring, and the grind gets to be annoying.

Some suggestions: work on your dialogue a bit more. What I do when writing dialogue, is I say it out loud as though I was talking to someone. If it feels forced, or just doesn't feel right to say it, then I know it needs to be worked on. Try breaking up the forced story dialogues with more interactive scenes. Have the player learn key story points throughout the game, rather than being forced to listen to it all.

Your combat system requires some tweaking as it's a huge portion of what your player does, and right now it's not interesting at all. It's simply mash attack until you have enough points to use ultima, heal yourself = win! The enemies all have one simple attack. So it's just a back and forth tennis game of combat. Try some variation. Give each simple enemy 2 moves or abilities, and harder enemies give them 3 or 4. These skills should all be different and provide a varying degree of difficulty or tactical something to overcome. I'd also recommend adjusting the encounter rate in the grass. I realize that the player can simply avoid all combat by avoiding the grass in these areas, but at times, especially by day 6, one can hardly go 2 steps without running into an enemy. This is tough considering healing items are scarce, don't heal for much, and are expensive given your limited funds.

Your crafting system is really nice, I quite liked it, just due to the aforementioned issues with the combat system, it made gathering supplies to actually be able to craft, frustrating.

Your maps aren't terrible, but they're not fantastic. I'd recommend pouring over the screenshot thread, and looking at some mapping tutorials. There's nothing wrong with mapping inside the editor alone, but you can certainly make better use of what you've got. While symmetry looks reasonably good in towns and cities, it doesn't make sense out in the wild. Nature is hardly symmetrical. Your town is simple and small, but a little too small visually, for how many people show up to Adrian's birthday party. Make it a little bigger, with at least 2 more farms and add some variety, and interesting people to talk to.

As for the varying paths to Reginalds caves, I did like the variety and could tell that you thought out the different ways carefully enough. Does it fit the story to adjust the paths from day to day? Like throwing in random obstacles that weren't there (say from a rock slide or something?). You don't always need to rely on enemies to create obstacles. Be creative!

To summarize completely:

Your game is not that fun, but you do have a good base idea to build up from. Flesh it out a bit more, spend some time with your writing, and designing of your combat system and you'd have a really fun dungeon grind game on your hands.

Don't give up, and keep trying.

Cheers,

~Lit

Thank you for the criticism, I truly appreciate it.

As for the pointers:

1. I understand and can relate to the carefree intro. I wanted to convey as much information as possible as to not confuse the player when all the other characters are going about at speaking.

2. As much as I hate to admit, it, my mapping skills are pretty weak at best. As this is a one-man project, I would have certainly preferred hiring someone for help. But as it is with my inefficiency at art in general, I didn't put too much thought into it.

3. I wanted to make a game that was challenging, but I understand that I should have prompted the player to save often.

4. As for dialogue: I'm not sure what you mean by 'weak and amateurish'. I wanted the characters to sound casual and normal, and I wanted to avoid using articulate speech whenever possible to give off a sense of realism.

5. The small farm itself was an oversight. I forgot to explain that there are multiple farms outside the village walls.

6. As I focused on the storytelling entirely, I, unfortunately, didn't pay much heed to the combat system. I'll attempt to fix it however possible.

That's all for my response. Please be sure to proceed through the entirety of the game as I'd like to hear your final verdict.

 

[literarygoth]

I'll certainly give it the 'ol college effort and play through the rest of the game, I just had to shut down as I had some errands to run.

Mapping can be a bit daunting when you're fresh to the engine, it certainly was for me. My inbox is open if you want to bounce ideas off anyone. I'm a parallax mapper myself, but I started off mapping in the editor. If you have any image editing software, you can edit some of the RTP files together to make your natural areas detailed in a way that is less symmetrical. Good maps are certainly something that take time and effort to achieve, so keep at it. You're not going to be an amazing mapper over night, nobody is. The screenshot thread is a good place to peruse and see how people made use of the tiles. Lots of parallax mappers in there, but they can still give you a really good idea of how to put your maps together in a way that is not only pleasing to the eye, but really sets the atmosphere for your game.

As for weak and amateurish, what I mean is, it sounds like an inexperienced writer, writing the dialogue. This isn't a stab at you personally. All writers start off this way. What I mean is that you put things into the dialogue that don't fit the moment, or are telling the story to your player, rather than letting the player experience it. Specifically, the conversation between James and Adrian's mother in the pub. As I suggested, try acting your dialogue scenes out loud either alone, or with a friend you trust, and see what the dialogue sounds like spoken. This can give you a really good idea as to what needs editing and refining.

Another suggestion, would be to type up your dialogue in a word document and post it somewhere here on the forums and ask for some writing tips. There's plenty of people here willing to assist. You may be amazed with the outcome!

Play through some other RM games as well, the good, the bad, the ugly XD

Try as many as you can. Learn from their mistakes, learn from what they did well.

The combat system just needs a bit of tweaking, you're close. Just a few adjustments here and there and it'll be interesting to play through. There's actually a thread going on in the game mechanics forum about combat skills, this may be a great place to pick up some ideas!

There's nothing wrong with making a challenging game, just remember that as the developer, you know the game inside and out, so you're aware of where everything is. Try having a friend playtest is for you, not only will they find bugs (I personally didn't find any when I played, just mapping errors mentioned), but they can also give you an idea as to how the game is balanced for someone that is totally fresh to it. If you don't know anyone that can, try asking here again for someone to be a tester, there's usually someone that is up to the challenge.

You're well on your way, have fun with it, be creative, try pushing your limits. You just might be an awesome mapper and just don't realize it yet!

Cheers,

~Lit