RMMV Run The Last True Symphony (V.280 In Development)

[charlottezxz]

Demo when Sam, we've all been waiting a cawfully long time.

 

[EuphemiaArtoria]

Hi! I have only had a quick look of the game, but found the introduction very fun and lighthearted, the music is an especially nice touch. The overall feel is very reminiscent of 90s anime, like Trigun. It's a curious contrast to all the teaser material posted here which has a very dark, edgy tone? The teaser trailer in particular takes itself very seriously and made me expect something very different. I was pleasantly surprised! The title sequence (after the little intro in front of the cave) was also really good.

2 notes about the demo; using the threat of sexual violence against your female lead at the start of the game makes me feel a bit tired. I understand the shorthand for "these are bad guys who deserve a righteous beating!" but it's, well, it's been done.

The other note, a lot lighter, there's a lot of talking without player interaction or movement. For the whole initial intro where the characters are talking about the Symphony and the Empress, we're basically looking at a static screen with text boxes over it, and it's very long. Even in the bar, there are a lot of long NPC dialogues that don't offer any choice, and just seem to be there to deliver skits. I'd maybe consider whittling down a tiny bit so that the player can get to the part where they control first. This is a style point - as a player and a developer I much prefer to have control and action and agency rather than sit watching something.

Oh, and one question - I really really like the small animations you use in combat. Did you just scale down the existing animations in the DB or is there a script that scales them to the characters? It looks really good in combat!

 

[samkfj]

Heya! Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for trying it out. A lot of the things you brought up I've really been working on lately for the re-release, and some things I think need more work now that you mention it.

Yeah, the teaser trailer is very different, it's relevant to the unfolding of what I have in the works, but yeah a worst case scenario--it's almost like a dream sequence sorta. Don't worry, I don't plan on making an edgy game, some things might happen but I'll keep it within the guidelines I've set for myself.

--and thanks for that too, was a lot of fun making the trailer and the intro video.

I totally get what you mean by it being tiring and done before, hoping to come back to that scene again in the future and see what I can add/change to make the intro scene for Donica more dynamic and less cliche or tired; along with other parts. Nothing is set in stone so am always open to ideas

I've also been speeding up and consolidating the text better to make things flow faster so hopefully that'll also work better too. Same thing with movement and also adding things like emotes. Been a lot of work but a ton of fun. Doing my best to try to limit the time the character isn't in control, it's a little tough especially for high tension or dramatic moments, but really trying to keep that few and far between, or at least not too long.

For your last question, yeah I do a lot of animation manipulation, I don't have any plugins that affect those, it's all a lot of trial and error.

Thanks again for playing it and I'll continue working to make everything a better experience.

For anyone else reading; I'll just say that yeah am still working, sorry for not keeping to my 'at least 1 post a month' rule. Going and fixing many maps still and finalizing the addition of the new content at the moment. After that I'll bug test and if anyone would like to play it during this stage, just let me know. It'd be a great help to have more hands on deck for bug hunting.

Also--am keeping an eye out for spriters to do some battlers, if you're interested or know anyone, let me know. Am not ready to make a formal request on the classified section, but just sort of food for thought for the future of RTLTS.

I'll be seein' y'all soon.

-Sam

 

[EuphemiaArtoria]

I totally get what you mean by it being tiring and done before, hoping to come back to that scene again in the future and see what I can add/change to make the intro scene for Donica more dynamic and less cliche or tired; along with other parts. Nothing is set in stone so am always open to ideas

Had a wee think about this and I do have a couple of suggestions that I think would help it out:

• Remove the sexual element - make the thugs just out to mug her instead. Maybe something about her makes them think she's wealthy (conspicuous jewellery), the way she speaks, or just the fact she's not from round here. Either way, making the motive financial makes the violence less gendered.
  • Could be introduced as a grift too "I could show you around town - for a price" before they just resort to threats
  • As an additional benefit you might be able to emphasise an element of Donica's character here. What makes her stand out, and is that something bad guys might use against her?
• Change the thugs to be a mix of male and female, particularly, if Syphon is a woman, it'd change the dynamic.

A friend put this really well to me "rescuing a woman from unwanted sexual advances is a male fantasy, but for women it's just frightening - it's not novel. It's something most women have experienced"

I hope these suggestions might be helpful- I don't know how these characters play out in the wider scope of the game, obviously if Syphon is a recurring character it's a lot more work to gender swap him.

But thanks so much for listening to my feedback and responding!

 

[samkfj]

Very interesting, I like this. I have a few other moments that have a similar set up too with thugs being thugs for the sake of thuggery, that is. Those updates will be with the next version. I had a few thoughts about possible ideas while I was at work.

Not going to lie--this idea got me really thinking. I'll be giving this a lot more thought. Thanks for this.

 

[FoxIt]

Why hello there.
I've just finished chapter 1 of Run the Last True Symphony and am quite interested. I would thus like to give some feedback.

Set up and tone
This is easily the game's best aspect. Cutscenes are very well setup, music transitions are perfect and the general tone is amazing and feels like a lot of detail was made. The custom OST is also great at doing this. The introductory scene of Longinus is particularly. While @EuphemiaArtoria pointed that the scene itself is cliched, it's very well made in terms of setup and is a great introduction overall. The music cuts in at just the perfect moment. The writing also helps A LOT as I didn't feel like the writing was bad in any sense of the word. In fact, the cinematography is very good overall for every scene.

Dynamic NPCs
The NPCs have personallity. You bothered making portraits for them which is good at giving them an immediately viewable personality and the writing has given them some care and personality on top of that. Great. The portraits is especially nice considering how much effort it takes to assign every single dialog box a portrait which is highly time-consuming in terms of eventing (and I hate eventing lmao).

Slow Pace
This is by far the game's worst flaw right now. The prologue lasted a whole 3 hours for me and that's a LOT of time. But instead of complaining let's look at the flaws and fix them.
Text Pauses
OH. MY. GOD. The text pauses constantly when a new character speaks and sometimes they can last forever. I can understand the value of slow cinematography for scenes like Longinus's introduction but for most of these scenes just makes talking to NPCs far slower than it really needs to be. I would suggest removing these pauses or making them shorter overall. You're often just left there waiting for dialogue to come up. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of scenes are very long without any player interaction (this is namely the case for Sepia's introduction conversation).
Slow battling speed
This namely comes down to the game's very slow animations. You can litterally just use YEP_BattleAniSpeedOpt.js to fix this issue as the animations's generally take too long, it's in fact already in your project folder It doesn't help that the combat in Chapter 0 and 1 is very slow and lacks options.

Battle difficulty
So, I like hard games, so let's see... Yes, multiple skills at base for everyone, I see so many RM games that can't be bothered to give you 2 skills at base and just don't have any options for a long time... Though, the combat itself is pretty easy and wasn't very interesting. What was I really supposed to learn from the training fights though? I just don't know. Though, apart from that, making Longinus's "Lucky Guess" skill show state resistances would be a good idea.
I like hard games... so it may be a personal thing... but I'd like you guys to implement game difficulties with plugins like this:

[SSG] Difficulty Setting

[simple Stupid Gaming] Difficulty Setting version 1.0.3 by Heartbreak61 INTRODUCTION This plugin allows you to set difficulties that affects enemies stats, exp, gold, and shop price. You can choose wether to display difficulty setting on Game Option screen or not (default: on). In case you...

forums.rpgmakerweb.com

I just like brutally hard games. Though the one mentionned above conflicts with YEP Options Core that you're already using so maybe something else will be good (though I'm pretty sure it can accomodate for the plugin, I don't really use Options Core)

Hope you learned a thing or two from this

 

[samkfj]

Hello! o/

Hey thanks for playing it and thanks for your feedback too!

First thing I wanna say is--I think you'll be happy to know that for the next updated version, the pauses are a lot fewer and I try to reserve them for the "dramatic" moments; even then I try to speed it up. I realized it when I would even skip the dialogue during playtesting, it was torture for those that wanted to play it. I feel bad, I thought it was a good idea at first xD

A lot of peeps agreed it was way too slow, so I've been speeding it up everywhere. Hopefully with the additions and removals of some things, it'll go by quicker by the time the main quest is given. I don't want to keep the player inside the academy for too long, just long enough, y'know? Still finding that balance, hopefully it'll be a lot closer to it on the next version. The pacing at the beginning has been my focus for a while; with it being the slowest and with only a few key scenes there for character development, I want to get it right. It's been a real series of trial and error, so hopefully it's going in the right direction now.

I'll have a look at this plugin too! Might be an interesting addition. Battles are still very similar to .270, but I've been toying with a lot of new things, hopefully I'll get it all working before the next release. Different setups for martial/magical characters like TP for martial and MP for magical, etc. It's still too early to add it in fully, but I'll continue on with it. Balancing and testing are what I've been doing a lot lately--so hopefully it wont disappoint. It wont be ultra flashy or crazy, but hopefully it'll be interesting enough to hold peeps to continue, including the difficulty.

As for the first fight, I've also revamped that a bit. It's there to introduce, so I don't want it to be too slow for sure, hopefully my changes have helped with that, I'll find out during the test--fingers crossed too. I did also add an optional quest for Donica that would teach the player about battles, with a reward if the player manages to complete all 3 scenarios without getting wrecked. The tourney fights I haven't messed with in a few months, but I do remember fixing them a bit. I have to go back in there to change a few things now that you mention it, thanks for reminding me before I completely forgot about that xD

I'll be sure to go over everything in detail once .280 is complete, that way I can highlight significant changes for those interested in seeing--also, assuming I remember them all. .270 is... nearly if not over a year old now, but this kinda feedback really helps me zero in on things that might still be issues, so your feedback is very valuable, and I appreciate and thank you for it.

I hope you and the others here will stick around for it, am trying for a release before the end of spring. Here's hoping I can do it. Thanks again, hope you stay around for what will come next.

 

[FleshToDust]

I played your game. You should have the name of the game on the title.
Also way too much dialogue. I only had 1 battle in over 30 minutes of runtime.
The way the story is going I'm guessing you don't get another battle until after the hour mark since you have to explore the city and meet your father at the university.

 

[samkfj]

Hey thanks for trying it out, I actually... just finished a newer test version yesterday! It's only on my discord for now, having a small private test to see if there's any bugs or anything.

It is very dialogue and story heavy for a while, and I've changed the pauses, they were very slow in that version. Am happy you tried it out and I totally get your frustration, if you'd like to try the newer version--just send me a message (I know we're on one discord server, I think we talked about anime once xD.)

But yeah, thanks for trying it out! I really appreciate it, and I'll be sure to watch the rest of your video when I get a chance today!

To everyone here interested: I'll be removing the download link on my website (soon as I get home) and I'll be replacing it in the next week or so with the newer version (after any fixes.)

I'll be sure to post an in-depth (or at least... somewhat so) list of changes and other things.

 

[FleshToDust]

Thanks for your comment @samkfj . I'm glad you understand my frustration.

 

[Catchyname]

Shame I missed the first few iterations! Looking forward to playing it!

 

[Finnuval]

@samkfj this thread could use an update dont you think

 

[ohmygiggles]

The trailers and videos for this look absolutely amazing! How is the development of this game going?

 

[TheGentlemanLoser]

I am too old to really "get hype" on things anymore, but if I was 10 or 15 or 25 years younger I would be so instantly hyped for this it would border on the ridiculous. I've seen the banners for this around and so my curiosity was piqued for a while by the title which is highly intriguing. As a jaded and bitter broken down wreck of an old man (jk, but only kind of) let me just say that this has me very intrigued.

The story teaser is pretty amazing, particularly the use of music (what I assume is original music, and original music w/ vocals made for an RPG Maker game is extremely rare if not unheard of), just beautiful. I'm curious what the piece is called and who recorded it and so on. Do you have a rough estimate of when the demo will be available for download (again)? I can never find the time to play RPG Maker games these days, not even the ones I really, REALLY want to play, but I will try to make an exception here once I get a demo of my own game out.

(By the by words cannot express my jealousy that you have someone willing to compose your forum posts for you. If I could have a chance of people noticing my games w/o ever doing "the forum thing" (i.e. "marketing") boy oh boy, I'd have it made in the shade. Not that I don't enjoy posting here, I really do, but it eats soooo much of my time because when I join a community I tend to join it pretty "hard" so to speak.)

 

[samkfj]

Hello, thanks for y'alls interest!

@ohmygiggles: Thank you for your kind words, I had a lot of fun making the trailer. I've been slowly working at a new trailer and also a new video opening (among other things as well)--slowly but surely. My career has picked up a lot and I've been doing a lot of 10-12 hour days six days a week, so I tend to work a couple hours at the most every evening. Once covid slows, I hope to jump back into development in full-swing.

@TheGentlemanLoser: Thank you for your interest and your words, it means a lot to me to read what you wrote. To answer your question--the song is by End of Silence, they allowed me to use the song for the teaser so long as I didn't make any money off of its use. I have been composing my own music lately, but as I said above... sadly my time is very limited these days, but I use what little time I have to keep moving forward.

For a rough estimate--I have a version that I've been working at and I hope to release something publicly before the end of spring. I had a closed test some months ago and I've been slowly changing things, adding things, and removing things.

and yes! my girl is wonderful. She's more keen on things like forum posting--even though now she took my training wheels and has me doing it on my own now. I also understand what ya mean by joining a new community, sadly I don't come here often as much as I did. I spend more time offline and in solitude nowadays.

Also, I never did explain how the title came about. I have shared the story to my discord community, and it's a silly story really, but it's been with me a very long time.

When I was in college, my old girlfriend and I wanted some time together, she worked at the library during the day, and I worked nights at fedex--so we didn't really have much time together til the weekend.

Well one day we went into one of the art classrooms to spend some time away from our friends. There were a lot of little magnets on one of the white boards that had words written on them. We figured--the school wont mind a few missing, so we took some and put them on my fridge in my apartment. Random words mostly... but one day we started to rearrange them and what we wrote out with some of the words was in fact "Run The Last True Symphony" This was back in 2006 (or 7?) so it's for sure been the five little words I've held onto for a very long time, it fit perfectly when I was searching for what I would call my game.

I actually have a lot of trivia and fun facts surrounding my game. Maybe one day I can share them on here.

I'll make time soon to update the thread with new info, art and other things I've been working on. Thank you everyone who came to visit the thread, and I hope you visit again. Take care and have a good and safe evening.

-Sam

 

[coucassi]

So there is no demo available at the moment, right?
Damn, I would love to try this from everything I've seen and read. Especially people saying there is "too much dialogue" xD For me the best way to charactarize people is still to let them talk and I can totally enjoy a good story, even if there is not so much gameplay in between.

So you can be sure I'll be wating for that demo to come!