Hero for a Day (Download Available)

[Ms Littlefish]

Hero for a Day

Oh, Lord. It's an hour long game. Why be a drag?

Game Description

[SIZE=11pt]Craig remembers absolutely nothing about last night and cannot explain how he wound up inside the video game “Heroes of Breslin.” After being given the honorable “Hero for a Day,” quest he and his new companion Noreen adventure out into the backwoods of Breslin to thwart a zany and lisp-ridden bunch of land-dwelling pirates that pillage the villages for their valuable pie ingredients. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Screenshots[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]

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Features

·         Full OST composed and produced by Ms Littlefish

Found here https://soundcloud.com/maireadgamemusic/sets/igmc-hero-for-a-day

·         Custom art by Ms Littlefish

·         Humorous plot, battles, and flavor text

·         Mazes and Obstacles

·         Mini games

·         Pot-Pies!

Credits

·         Battlers, faceset edits (raw material from RPG Maker VXAce), and title screen by Ms Littlefish

·         Writing and dialogue by Goldstorm and Ms Littlefish

·         Eventing by Goldstorm

·         Maps and Dungeons by Goldstorm and Ms Littlefish

·         Main character sprites made with Game Character Hub

·         Tilesets were modern, Ace RTP, and futuristic

·         Engine is RPG Maker VXAce

·         Jump Ability v1.6 script by Galv

·         End Phase Triggers script by Hime

·         Map Screenshot script by Hime

Download

https://www.dropbox.com/s/74b4af7888qa8ih/H4DFolder.exe?dl=0

Thoughts from Ms Littlefish

“Hero for a Day” is Goldstorm’s and my first true experience with using RPG Maker VXAce. First time making maps, events, oh; you get the idea! Our personal goals with this project were simply to create a start-to-finish, operational game and learn the most basic functions of the program. Despite not being able to bring our best ideas and think-tanking into fruition, this experience has encouraged us, and not the opposite. I believe we are capable of much greater design and execution in the future for having participated in this contest. That will come later. But, we had to start here. You have to not know, before you know. And do, to do better.

Enjoy!

 

[??????]

OMG Its the killer pen!s butter stick !!

 

[That Bread]

I laughed at the I cannot believe it's butter reference!    This game looks like fun.

 

[Goldstorm]

OMG Its the killer pen!s butter stick !!

But seriously, I'm working hard on finishing the last 10% tonight and tomorrow. Wish me luck.

 

[??????]

~Good Luck

I need some of that too lol - just wasted hours on a save function mishap :/

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Update time guys! Ok, here it is! It was quite a bumpy ride. It has been a learning experience and boy have I learned a million things. Things I want to keep doing and things I never want to do again when I make a game!

IGMC Link  http://contest.rpgmakerweb.com/game/view/id/701#.U7IBEvldVCi

Dropbox Link https://www.dropbox.com/s/shiv9v7zzh1tb6v/H4DFolder.exe

 

[EternalShadow]

*Hovers over to download*

 

[mlogan]

Yay! Putting it on my download list for the rest of this week.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Small hot fix incoming. Sure, it won't be what the judges see, but that's not really what I care about! I wanted to make something silly and fun so with that we needed to make a few changes to ensure that.

Hero for a Day V1.1 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoaz8x0eoyw1ljd/H4DFolder.exe

• The battle text was meant to be quite humorous but one problem. It scrolled by entirely way too fast! We slowed it down so you would be able to catch every moment. 
• Jazz n' Juice was not so jazzin' and did not revive a downed ally. This has been fixed.
• A few spelling errors though I'm sure others lurk despite gratuitous use of Microsoft Word
• Made all the apostrophes go the same direction because Goldstorm's OCD is too strong. 
• A pirate did not ask a question during his quiz
• Added missing spell effects
• You can now buy items out of vending machines
• Changed our currency from 50" plasma TVs (this was a place holder) to "Vouchers"
• Blocked a region you aren't suppose to walk over
• Buffed "Pot Pie Geyser"
• Buffed "Plant Things"
• File size was lowered from 278 MB to 250MB.

 

[Housekeeping]

Since your music always grabbed my attention, I thought I'd give this a go.  Overall, I think I'm in a better mood now than when I began the game, so, in that respect, it was probably successful.  Here's some detailed feedback:

Spoiler

-The comedy was pretty hit or miss for me.  I find puns pretty atrocious, so the pot pie-rates were eye-rollers for me, but I know a lot of people love puns, so I'm probably not your target audience.  Conversely, the opening fight with the table made me laugh out loud.  I also liked robbing the old man's corpse and the fantastically bizarre final boss.  Some of the item descriptions were fun, too.-Making the battles super easy was a smart design decision considering the game's comedic intentions.

-It was cool to see your compositions in practice.  The music of this game really worked for me.  One of the things I really admire about you as a composer is that your compositions sound uniquely yours.  That's a tough thing to accomplish.

-The jump mechanic needed to be explained to avoid any confusion in the first area.  Honestly, though, I would have just ditched it altogether.  It's a bit buggy at times and the game could have be modified so that it wasn't necessary without too much trouble.

-I don't really see Noreen's purpose other than to act as comic foil for the main character.  I wish she had a bit more personality.

-I didn't really get the post-credits dialogue.  Was that a reference to something?  It seemed like unnecessary exposition.

-Edit: Oh, and the file size is insane for this game's short length.  Google how to remove the rtp from VX Ace and only use what you need.  It's a bit of a hassle, but in a world where 500+ people submit games in a month, a 250 mb file size can be a possible turnoff.

Overall, this was a nice little game with some legitimately funny moments, and it didn't overstay its welcome.  In the future, it would be cool to see you guys try something more ambitious.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Thank you for the feedback, Housekeeping. I totally hear you with the jump mechanic and the file size. I have plans to touch a few things up post contest. I feel like the shortcomings with the story and Noreen's character came from this being such a rushed job. I feel the exact same way about Noreen's character. I also found it extremely difficult to make characters for such a short game whereas character in my large projects have come a lot more naturally. If I make more games that are short length in the future that would be something to work on, for sure!

I definitely did this game with the purpose of learning the software (had never used it before the contest start) so I definitely would like to do something a little ambitious now.

The ending was a reference to another project I'm working on, but I think it hindsight it was a bad idea, and you bringing it up isn't the first time I've thought that. o-o

 

[Indrah]

Here's my very quick and sketchy take on the game (link for info on why it's so short and all that jazz)




+Mapping on the town exterior is nice.


+Good use of expressions with the limited generator.


+The custom (I think) battlers were nice.


-Mapping of some areas is shaky (the interiors had some questionable choices here and there))


-The jumping mechanic is a bit odd/it’s not conveyed well enough (I can go on the black ceilings? Okay…)


-The characters we get to play as seem to be the least interesting ones. (The girl is just bland, and the main gets repetitive).


-Many sources mixed up that do not mesh well (generator faces with rpt faces, sprites from the Ds set and the rtp, etc).


-Lack of introduction to the setting sets some confusion. I’m having trouble deciding if this is a “pretend” game in a modern setting or an alternate “future fantasy” one.


To the developer: I feel this game suffers of that brand of diffuse “not bad, but not great either”. What it lacks is something to engage and hook the game in. It could be just me (I am as biased as anyone) and this game may work well for other people, but I had trouble staying interested when the girl showed up. Maybe switching that area up a bit and making the setting’s presentation clearer would help.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Thank you for the review, Indrah. I appreciate your input. You've stated many things I was unhappy with in the game, myself. And most of the feedback I've received has been on the page as yours and my own opinion as well. I definitively have plans in the future to avoid this (the number one being to take my time and not have deadlines). But this is very helpful and I know reviewing all these games cannot be easy!

 

[Adellie]

Heyo,

I decided to try your game since i wanted to play something not-so-serious.

 

Liked:

* Humorous battle notes, descriptions and afflictions, the dialogue is funny too but to a lesser degree. Anyway, I smiled throughout and found myself looking at item descriptions for the lulz. 

* The main character is quite likable.

* Kooky things to battle; nothing too tough or annoying.

* Game progression/pacing is good.

* Pirates, arr.

 

Disliked:

* I think you should have some note reminding the player that A is jump in the beginning area. I did the same thing as Indrah did lol.

* Noreen and the other two characters from the beginning don't really do anything for the story.

* Some visuals don't blend well with others.

* Needs volume control.

 

Issues: no errors.

 

Overall, it's a pretty standard rpgmaker game. There doesn't seem to be anything special about it. I'm not complaining though. ;p It was enjoyable.

 

Also, I know that the bgm is all original. I'm not really qualified to make comments about music so all i can say is that it didn't strike me as being fantastic but it wasn't obtrusive either.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

I just finished the game.  BWAHAHAHA! That was a hoot! But also, it was a HUGE cliff hanger... ;-;

I KNEW there was somethin' fishy about that guy...

 

[Dalph]

Ok, I finished it:

Spoiler

There are some problems (nothing too serious however) but the most important thing about a game is that it must be fun to play, and tbh this game was fun and enjoyable for what it was.

I particularly enjoyed the humour (in the dialogues\items\skills descriptions), the main character and the mixed setting, also the custom battlers\music themes are a nice addition too.

What I didn't like very much was the mapping, in the city it's decent but in the forest it needs to be improved because it's kinda weird in some parts, also there are some shadow problems here and there.

If you guys need some help and\or suggestions on how to improve the mapping you can send me a pm anytime.

As Indrah already said the resources are mixed (DS sprites and faces\Ace generated faces\RTP faces) and this is a bit confusing...stick with one thing please, my suggestion is to go with the RTP\ACE generated sprites and the ACE generated faces only. I also recomend to change the windowskin because the classic one is boring and so damn overused, and possibly the font too (I told to Goldstorm how to do it in a thread) these little changes will make the game even more unique.

I liked a lot the jumping\platform\puzzle sections with the pirates (and the quizzes too ofc), but as the others already said the player must know that he\she needs to press the A button to jump, took me a while to realize it.

Overall it was fun and entertaining to me, despite the few problems the game is pretty enjoyable and kinda original too in some way, with a few fixes it can easily become a good title.

I liked also that you guys added yourselves in the credits, that was a really nice addition, lmao