Raven's Den

[Cronus]

Name: Raven's Den
Engine: RPG Maker VX Ace
Genre: Action/Action-RPG
Development: 06/01/2014 to 06/30/2014
Status: Complete
Developers: Diovanni Souza, Matheus Dalla Costa, Victor Moura

Introduction

"You can feel the dirty soil bellow you. Lying down struggling to remember what happened and where you are. A loud grinding metal sound wakes you up as you listen to the ravens flying away. You are in the middle of nowhere, lost and confused. Looking behind your shoulders, you see skyscrapers on the horizon, that may hold the answers to all your questions. What you cannot expect is that your path will bring you an intense fight for your survival."

Raven's Den is Action game with some elements of Action RPG's, developed for the on this link(soon).

Words from the Developers
First of all, thank you so much for your attention on reading our thread, downloading, voting or providing any kind of feedback, we really appreciate it.
Now, talking for myself (Victor), there's some things we really would like to say.

The most important is that, as said above, despite of all our efforts, we still didn't managed to make a completely enjoyable or perfect game. The lack of time, our parallel responsibilities, communication and planning are just few of all the problems we had during the development, and of course this had big impacts on making our game not achieve the results we wanted too. There's a lot of bugs and glitches, balance and gameplay issues, some graphics missing or being placeholders, some stuff made on a rush, and the list goes on and on. On the end of the deadline, we were very frustrated because our game appeared to be broken, and honestly we felt a bit ashamed because it's not the game we wanted to show. We even tried to hide of our friends for a little bit and we weren't planning to post on the communities.

But you know, we changed our minds. We worked really hard to make something original, with some identity  that would be a fruit of our own efforts. I have finished some games myself before, but for Matheus and Diovanni, Raven's Den is their first completed game released, despite of all of us not being new with RPG Maker. So we can't just throw this away and act as if it was a complete failure. We accepted what we managed to make within this time, and each one of us are happy and proud of our individual results. We want to share our game and show what we could make, even if it's not the way we wanted to.

Feel free to give any kind of feedback. What you liked, what you didn't liked, your suggestions, the annoying bugs you found. We will be glad to listen of what you guys have to say, and we will try to work more on the game to released a better, more polished and more enjoyable version posteriorly.

Artwork
  

Credits and Thanks
Diovanni "Anticasper" Souza - RGSS programmer
Matheus Dalla Costa - Graphical Designer, Special effects adviser, Scene Director
Victor "Cronus" Moura - Pixel Artist, Graphical Designer, Level Designer, Illustrator

Special Thanks
Victor Sant - Multiframes and Diagonal Events scripts
Zeus81 - Keyboard, Video and Fullscreen+ scripts
Gleen - RGSS Support
Alexandr Zhelanov - Music
Kevin MacLeod - Music
Zander Noriega - Music

Thank you for reading!
 

 

[anticasper]

Hello!

I'm AntiCasper, the main programmer of Raven's Den. 

As my friend Cronus said, it was hard to develop something good within the short available time. I had other issues to deal with in my life and making games has always been a hobby. Nevertheless, I tried to do my best, RGSS language is not the best thing in the world and RPG Maker has its limitations.

But our game has some nice things. Our art and graphics are 100% original. We tried to insert as many sounds as possible around the city to raise the immersion. We tried to give the player enough freedom/power to make choices and regret them later. Take a not so good decision and you can die or get stuck.

And guys, there are some bugs, indeed. But I think it's something normal when time is short and we have other affairs. And well, we're proud to show you this and and happy if you manage to watch the final scene.

Att!

 

[Makio-Kuta]

And what lovely 100% original graphics they are. This game is absolutely gorgeous. That opening video--that shot of the building against the orange-yellow sky and then horizon shot as the sun goes down and it starts to rain~ ((the sparks flying off the train tracks)) Lovely work there!!


I love the sprite work when the game starts proper. Unfortunately, I was having trouble getting as much into the game play as I was into the artwork. I really, really wanted to! Because I loved the style, and the beginning built a nice bit of mystery while being short, but combat was very repetitive. bash a,s, or d over and over and over. The DNA absorbing system seemed rather interesting, but I didn't get any actual feel of variety from what I did manage to find. (The only two attacks I found (the blade arm and the shooty green thingy) didn't seem to have any advantages over each other. Sure, one was close combat and one was ranged, but for the most part the monsters were always in your face anyway) I wouldn't have minded this repetitive nature of the combat too much, if it weren't for the fact that I constantly had to stand around and wait for my attacks to recharge again.


I'm not entirely sure the best thing to suggest to work around that however, maybe giving each skill their own charge? So having two combat skills would allow you to swap between them when one runs out? That might defeat your vision of the game though.


But I found myself running away from all the battles after a while because I couldn't be bothered to smash my keyboard, wait, hit a, wait hit a, wait hit a for any longer.


One thing I would certainly suggest is some sort of indication that the player is being hit! I noticed enemies flashing white when I hit them, but for the first while I was thinking I was playing the game darn well and never taking any hits on myself, until I notice my HP was abysmal haha The combat system is evented right? There were some odd things here and there with it, but overall it seemed to run pretty well! Sometimes enemies would jump to another square or other little jarring things, but I never noticed anything particularly glitchy about how it ran.


I eventually got stuck and couldn't figure out what to do. I had found about hmmmnnn 4 dead bodies I think (one which was a person I offed myself) and a map with lots of fire. I ran around for a bit, but had to stop because the crow was giving me a headache lol


I will admit, I feel like there was something I was missing...


Overall! I think this game certainly has the makings of something lovely. Indeed, a month is a short time, but I think it is wise that you all want to continue to polish and balance it and try to give it the attention and time it needs. Great work to everyone involved and best of luck in the contest! And a solid high five to your pixel artist because daaaaaaaaaaaaang what a pretty game.


PS - disabling spacebar as confirm was crazy strange on my head lol

 

[Silvestre]

Nice to find a game by fellow Portuguese speakers, you have me sold by the screenshots, let's see about the gameplay and story. I'm looking forward to the completed version, and playing the one available.

Parabéns pelo release!

 

[Cronus]

@Makiko-Kuta: Thank you SO much for your detailed feedback! We are aware on many of the points you have mentioned in your post like the lack of purpose on enemies, and we already talked about re-planning as we couldn't work on certain parts with all the care they deserved. About the part where you get stuck, let's say that you are supposed to use the last skill provided by the Boss to access a new area, but we didn't made it very clear where exactly you should use it (I can tell it is on map blocked by fire). The battle system is scripted although it can look evented, but our programmer will look forward on trying to make it more fluid in general (I really think it's perfectly possible to create a good action battle system on RPG Maker, but let's be honest, RM sucks for that). Again, thank you so much, we are taking note of everything we can to try to make it better. Also:
 

 And a solid high five to your pixel artist because daaaaaaaaaaaaang what a pretty game.

Thank you =)

@Silvestre: Thank you so much for the interest! We can say this game is complete at its actual stage, as it haves a beginning and an ending. But our goal is to make the middle better and with more care, giving the necessary time, haha. Obrigado, um abraço!