Godstones - Genesis

[Ted]

GODSTONES - GENESIS​

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Hello and welcome to the beginning of the Godstones Saga!​

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This is Godstones Genesis and is meant to be a prequel to the main Godstones project (keep an eye out for that).

Only Chapter 1 is completed so far (it's about 2 - 3 hours of gameplay) and everyone is invited to play and enjoy it!

What is Godstones Genesis?
It is a Jrpg, that draws inspirations from all the classics such as Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire etc. It is made with Rpg Maker MV by me (Ted Latas)!

In the game you assume the role of Aeon who is travelling to the capital, guided by his recurring dream of defeating the "Warlord".​

Not knowing what expect, the trip takes a sudden turn when his ship sinks and is washed ashore in the desert city of Saitis.
With the help of the second survivor Enros, he must find a way to travel to the capital, and join forces with other adventurers along the way, so he can finally fullfill his supposed destiny.
All this in a young world, before technology and machines, pulsing with magic.​

I want spoil the rest of the cast here as it is optional.

The game adopts a non-linear approach, except for a main objective, and rewards exploration vs grind. 
You can choose classes for most characters that fit better to your playstyle.
The classes are Gladiator, Defender and Swashbuckler (since v. 0.2.0) for melee​

and Elementalist, Mystic for mages.
Like everything in the game you must first search for it, so keep your eyes open!

As I said before, this is Chapter 1 only. Keep your eye open for when the 2nd Chapter is done!

One last thing! Godstones Genesis needs your help! Please post your feedback(with bugs!) and all ideas about any mini quests or improvements you might come up with!
I aim for the best (that are also doable) to be included in the final game, along with proper credit and npc named after you (a name that's fitting please!)

Credits for plugins go to:
Yanfly, Julian 'Szyu' Heinen, Rexal, Yoji Ojima​

Screenshots:

Spoiler

DOWNLOAD HERE!  v:0.2.0 Various Bug Fixes and Added the Swashbuckler class!

 

[Clangeddin]

Ok, I've played this and pretty much did everything I could do in the first town (except Chimera, but maybe I should give her another shot), I ended up with 860 gold so I would have to farm a little more to progress (need 1000 to take the ship).

Overall, the game is good. I will just point out what I found that didn't work properly (imho).

1) In one of the houses of the noble district, the one with the statue that came alive, you cannot go downstairs because the game returns an error (a file is missing).

2) Enros' fire bomb does not apply Burning to the enemy.

3) Even though the snake witch absorbs fire, you can apply the burning status to her, dealing lots of damage and trivializing her along with Poison. Consider making her immune to Burning.

4) You can fight the Snake Witch multiple times. Not sure if this is intended, she seems to drop elixirs with a 100% rate.

5) The items you buy from shops that teach new moves to Enros can also be used (wasted) by other party members and are consumed in the process.

6) Synthesis shops do not recognize the items I have the inventory. I do have all the required reagents but it says I have zero, hence you cannot make anything with them. Only a few things from the medicine maker work, but the blacksmith is completely unusable.

7) You cannot return to the Portal World, there's a few unique spells, equipment and monsters there. Consider adding a way to return there after the quest in the temple. (Praying at the temple does nothing)

8) Elementalist and Mystic can be accessed from anywhere (because you get the class changing item in the inventory), whereas Gladiator and Defender require specific trainer location. Why is there this discrepancy? Can't there be a godstone for them as well?

9) Killing the "source of corruption" inside the cave where the wolfman lives does not give any reward? I also expected that killing the four tentacles before engaging it would remove them from the fight, but I guess it's just a waste of time.

10) Fooling around with the class system at first can be a bit unforgiving to the new player and force him to "hold back". I wouldn't make the White Godstone mentioned by the old man so rare and actually hand it right away so new players can experiment with classes without being punished too much if they don't like what they picked.

That's all I can think of right now.

As for suggestions for the future, in addition to fixing the stuff mentioned above, I can only say to expand the class system with more classes (like thief, archer, bard, ecc..) and add new characters , especially females, that seem to be lacking right now.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing your next releases.

 

[Ted]

@Clangeddin: Thanks a ton for the feedback!

1)I accidentally deleted a resource in use, when minimizing the size. Fixed

2)Fixed

3)Fixed

4)Fixed. I had a switch messed up

5)There are a couple messy workarounds, for the moment I'll make them non-consumable

6)That is very strange. It works as intended during playtesting. I'll have to look into it again.

7)I'll make it so you can. Praying adds an extra dialogue later, but it's not of importance in the demo (it was planned to affect things when the whole game is complete)

8)I felt like it made more sense for the "physical" trainers, but in the end it's a game so I'll add Godstones for them too.

9)You're right I will add a better reward, and make the Tentacles affect the boss fight.

10)I was on the fence for the 'true hardcore' class vs 'flexible class system', but now I'm pretty sure it's better to add White Godstones so the player can fool around a bit.

For the future suggestions: there are 4 more characters created (3 female ) that are planned to appear in the 2nd city in chapter 2, and originally I had 2 more classes but scrapped them for this release.
Thanks again for the feedback, I will replace the download file with the fixes by the end of the day (MV files are huge damn!)

 

[BloodletterQ]

I find the mixture of the default and boxart characters somewhat jarring but you're just starting out anyway. I would provide feedback, but the game isn't provided on the Mac.

 

[Icecat]

I had a great time playing this. I think you have a pretty good eye for pacing. I also like all the little side quests that help the world really feel alive.

If you're interested, I encountered a typo right before the chimera boss beneath the slums ("Distrub" the boss). I also encountered an error by approaching the western stairs on the second level of the Sculptor's House that's keeping me from progressing.

Looking forward to the rest!

 

[Couch Flipper t(o.ot)]

I also had an error with the chimera boss beneath the slums in the green crystal. during the fight, i kept to a pattern of attacking/overdrive with enros (defender), green dude was elementalist and healing with white wind and the head of that guild was the mystic using smite. after a while of fighting it froze with an error saying item was undefined :/. I also had an error with the blacksmith, nothing worked at all with that.

overall not bad so far though . some of those bosses can be rough if you go to fight em right away though. like the statues, i only had 2 peeps and one was an adventurer and green guy was elemtalist. went in when i came to it (derping around, didn't really grind or anything). and it was... O.O

 

[Ted]

Thank you all for playing and for the feedback. 
I am gathering all suggestions and as soon as the 2nd chapter and the improved 1st chapter are done, I will upload the new stuff!

 

[Harmonica]

I checked out your game and have a few things to comment on:

First off, I got stuck after beating the three thieves in a building on the right side of the town.  There was the Master Key in this room as well.  Once I beat them and tried to head back, I couldn't get in to the building I came from.

Some other things:

Story/character development:  I feel we need more of this before getting thrown in to the game.  Why should the user care about these characters? 
More tutorials, advice: It seems like there is a lot of things that can be done (lots of stuff to find, materials, job classes) yet no explanations or minimal info is provided.  Slowly introduce this.

Mapping:  Overly complex for a starting area, distracts from a potential story.

 

[Ted]

@SpellcraftQuill: Hello! What do you mean jarring? I plan to release the mac version when it's done.

@Icecat: Thank you for playing! I think they are fixed now!

@CouchFlipper: Thank you for playing! I think you might have the previous version, the things you mention are fixed in the current upload!

@Harmonica : Thank you for your feedback Harmonica! 

In the thieves area just press the action button looking down, there is the door that leads to the south room. I admit it's not clear (as is shown in the youtube Let's Play), so I've already changed it to be clear for the next release (added stairs).

But still you can continue if you choose to.

The intro and characters will be improved (already adding stuff for a better intro, a few new character specific sidequests etc). 

Most tutorial hints are provided by the npcs, but I suppose you are right on this one, optional tutorials wouldn't hurt.

What do you mean by overly complex mapping?