RMMV Lady of the Lake Demo (My First RPG Video Game)

[recoculous]

I am developing the Lady of the Lake RPG, which is inspired by the King Arthur stories. Vivian is sent on a simple quest by Merlin, and she finds herself entangled in multiple possible adventures. You can defend Camelot from different threats, find the Holy Grail, and defeat the Dark Lord!

The Demo is now up here. (recoculous.itch.io/lady-of-the-lake-rpg-demo). The game was developed using RPG Maker MV and a ton of resources (both free and commercial). A lot of personal customization was also used, such as using various helms and hats in unique ways.


The demo has about a third of the total game story, around 3 hours out of around nine hours. The complete game takes around six to twelve hours to beat. The demo is a single file with an external www and save folder, so that you can make good use of save files.

Some interesting aspects of the game:

1. There are different scenarios, such as various attacks on Camelot, that can happen depending on your actions or inactions.
2. You can get monsters to join the team. What monsters can be recruited depend on the first monster you recruit.
3. The combat system uses boost points similar to the brave point system in Octopath Traveller.
4. The monetary system is inspired by real life. Eighty silver coins equal one gold coin. Somewhat impressive equipment can be bought by a single gold piece.
5. Several plugins are put to good use to use rows, skill trees, Olivia's OTB battle system, New Game Plus, etc. I also developed my own quest and help system for the game.
6. The final version has a timelapse, and the main characters get old. It's one of the only games to feature an older woman as a main character.
7. The attribute system was also changed to use strength, endurance, agility, and wisdom in ways that can have an interesting impact.

We are now mainly in the playtesting/bug fixing/balancing part of the development process. All the main bugs from plugins have been fixed. The complete story was finished months ago.

 

[recoculous]

The demo was updated a couple of times, and I now consider it to be version 0.82:

• There's now information about controls in the Help section, such as about controls used for a gamepad. The gamepad controls are the default ones, but I have not seen a good diagram for them before.
• There's now always two ways to find the Bronze Key, which is needed for the first quest. (The quest is optional for the most part in any case.)

 

[HexMozart88]

Looks interesting. I'll give it a try and give you a reaction video.

 

[akuakudac]

this looks fun, just letting you know I'm giving the demo a shot!

 

[recoculous]

The demo was updated a bit more, and I now consider it to be version 0.84:

• Animated cupboards, closets, and dressers were added. Treasures can be found in them.
• Treasures can also now be found at sparkly spots and bookshelves.
• More treasures can also be found in pots and barrels.
• There were a couple problems with the skill trees that were fixed.

@akuakudac @HexMozart88

Did you have a chance to get the demo?


(recoculous.itch.io/lady-of-the-lake-rpg-demo)

 

[HexMozart88]

Not yet, no. I'll be playing it sometime this week.

 

[HexMozart88]

OK, so for some reason, YouTube keeps giving me problems with video uploads. I'm just going to tell you what I said in the video.

- Battles are too frustrating: Only Shock actually does anything, and it one-shots the enemies basically without fail. And Rebecca is useless.
- Maps are too squared. Trees are in rows instead of staggered and sometimes a little empty
- Not all music fits the game/ is too creepy sounding.

Things I liked:
- I like how you get various party members that help you at different times.
- Befriending the mouse was very cute
- Clearly some effort was put into sound design.

 

[recoculous]

How far did you get? In the early game, any attack spell will one shot the weaker enemies. Later on, you can buy new spells from the skill tree, and there's more variety of enemies. You can use BP to make the spells stronger as well.

Rebecca is perhaps the weakest ally you can get, but she is exactly what the enemy verion is at first and does get better.

Thanks for the feedback.

OK, so for some reason, YouTube keeps giving me problems with video uploads. I'm just going to tell you what I said in the video.

- Battles are too frustrating: Only Shock actually does anything, and it one-shots the enemies basically without fail. And Rebecca is useless.
- Maps are too squared. Trees are in rows instead of staggered and sometimes a little empty
- Not all music fits the game/ is too creepy sounding.

Things I liked:
- I like how you get various party members that help you at different times.
- Befriending the mouse was very cute
- Clearly some effort was put into sound design.

 

[recoculous]

The Lady of the Lake Demo was updated, and it is now version 0.85:

1. The options menu now has Gamepad Config, which enables you to control what all the buttons do.
2. The titles menu now has an option to close the program (Quit).
3. The Help menu now has information about Formation. (Which has to do with the party order).
4. Some other smaller updates were made.

 

[Ahuramazda]

Based on the trailer and what I recall from playing Octopath back when it came out... I would probably abhor this game. The battle speed in Octopath was so utter slow that from start to finish the game felt like nothing but a Normal Battle grind, and bosses were way worse, but a boss should be hard and require strategy to win against.

Don't read me wrong, the game itself looks like you have put in a lot of work to get a final product, but as soon as I realized it was Octopath's battle system I immediately lost interest in looking much further :/

+1 for recruitment of enemies, that can actually be a hard system to add into a game and make it feel proper.

 

[recoculous]

Based on the trailer and what I recall from playing Octopath back when it came out... I would probably abhor this game. The battle speed in Octopath was so utter slow that from start to finish the game felt like nothing but a Normal Battle grind, and bosses were way worse, but a boss should be hard and require strategy to win against.

Don't read me wrong, the game itself looks like you have put in a lot of work to get a final product, but as soon as I realized it was Octopath's battle system I immediately lost interest in looking much further :/

+1 for recruitment of enemies, that can actually be a hard system to add into a game and make it feel proper.

I personally like Octopath Traveller a lot, but hopefully this game will not have the problems you are concerned about.

I think the main issue with Octopath Traveller being slow is the weakness "break shields" issue. I am not using that, and a lot of battles can actually be too fast in my view, if you know what you are doing.

The boss battles can take a while, but mostly nothing compared to Bravely Default 2, which took way too long in my view.

 

[Ahuramazda]

Yeah, if you aren't using the full system it might be better for me then. I don't know when Ill have a chance, but Ill download the demo and give it a shot at least when I do get some time.

 

[recoculous]

The game is now version 0.87. There were two main updates:

• The allies now have a stepping animation, even when not walking.
• The full screen toggle option had a problem with the on/off description, and that should be fixed now.

If you use the full screen toggle plugin by SumRndmDde, you will have the same problem. I discuss the solution here.

 

[Ryanmcleod]

Really enjoyed this! Two tiny bits of feedback:

- Merlin telling you how to save your game, was a little immersion breaking. Keep dialogue to narrative, and for gameplay things like that have a system message, similar to your combat tutorial.
- Walk speed was a bit too fast (keyboard control, didn't try controller)

Love me some Arthurian Legend!

 

[recoculous]

The game is now version 0.88, and the demo was updated:

• Merlin no longer tells you about saving the game, as @Ryanmcleod suggested. Now when you leave the save zone, the game has a warning about it and says to save near Merlin or in a town.
• When a random friendly NPC joined for a battle, there was a problem that they wouldn't leave the party when you escaped the battle. There was a problem with Yanfly's Utility Common Events plugin, as discussed here. I decided to use SR Dude's Battle End Events Plugin instead, but there is a fix to Yanfly's plugin as well.

@Ryanmcleod I will keep the movement speed the same for now because I heard a lot of people prefer it that way. You can slow it down using the auto-dash toggle in the options menu, though. I'm using Olivia's advice and Anti-Player Stress plugin, seen here.

 

[recoculous]

The game is now version 0.9. A play tester found out that Guinevere had a chance to disappear forever. Somehow I accidentally deleted the event that would change her location. It was easy to fix by copying and pasting from an old backup of the game.

 

[recoculous]

The game is now version 0.94. The game was recently greatly updated and play tested.

A few of the main updates:

• Cutscene: A cutscene at the Hobgoblin Boss had a problem where the game assumed that Vivian was the first actor in the party. That could lead to a duplicate Arthur or Guinevere, and it should be fixed.
• Optimized equip: A friend prefers using "optimize" to equip items, and the default tool is terrible. Luckily, the very recent Equip Optimize Grade plugin by AphoticAmaranth seems to work great, and I am using it now.
• White rabbit: A Monty Python-inspired white rabbit boss monster was added.

You can see more information about the updates here.

 

[recoculous]

The game was updated and it is now v. 0.97.

A few of the main updates:

• A new Game Over screen.
• BP healing should now show the numbers similar to HP/MP healing.
• There was a mouse cursor issue where you had to target allies when attacking. I think I found a simple solution, discussed here.

More information about updates.