The Age of the Crystal

[wynautastronaut]

Synopsis

The Dragoons and their dragons have taken over the world, tormenting and submitting everyone to their power. First, they attacked the Crystal, and then the Elementals. The Ancients remained together, and vanished away from the chaos. Most of the Savants attempted to resist, but were forced into the Dragoon’s submission.

During the first twenty years some survivors formed resistance groups in efforts to overturn them, but the Dragoons were great in numbers and power. The resistance ended when Emperor Kenos, their leader, captured and hid the last shard of Crystal.

As a last attempt to end their tyranny, the remnants of the Savants and Elementals have joined forces and, based on new information, have formed a plan. They seek to locate the shard and reclaim it from Kenos.
 

Characters

Spoiler

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Gorreon
A descendent of the primal Ifrit and heir of the lost Gallahean Empire. He was forced to flee his castle with his family’s loyal friend and guardian when he was only a boy. He has since been in hiding with other survivors.

Ponjo
A Savant of many trades, most notably engineering and alchemy, who served the house of Gallahan for many decades. For the past thirty years, Ponjo has gathered survivors by providing an underwater hideout, unreachable by dragons and dragoons.

Kenos
The leader of the dragoons and fourth Emperor of The Dragoon’s Age. Kenos came to power after capturing the last piece of Crystal shard. He then used this power to kill his own Emperor to take his spear and place.

Vale
Former ruler of the dragoons. Vale lead to the destruction of The Five Pillars and to the birth of The Dragoon’s Age. An age where humans, and not mana, rule the world.

Screenshots

   

     

Features

30 minute demo with a basic battle system and a short puzzle.

Credits

Spoiler

Enterbrain

Celianna

Lunarea

Makapri (http://ameblo.jp/makapri/)

Momope8 ( http://momope8.blog67.fc2.com/)

Lucifer (http://lucifer.raindrop.jp/Empire/e/tkool.htm)’

Yanfly

Yami

Victor

Soundimage

Gyrowolf (http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/541-gyrowolfs-rpg-maker-music-pack/)

http://windowskins.rpgmakertimes.info/ 

Notes

This is my small project that I forced myself to do because everything I start doing ends up beings too much. I don't know if I will/should keep working on this game, that's why I would like some feedback. This game is part of a series of games I would like to work on, but there are certain things slowing me down, like mapping. I know the first step in improving the game is recruiting a mapper, as my skills are inadequate. After I do that I will re-release the demo, also with additional improvements based on the feedback. Thanks in advance for reading and/or playing!

Download

http://www.mediafire.com/download/itxj23kyhac0my1/The+Age+of+the+Crystal.exe

There is no cure for death in the demo. If a character dies you will have to restart from the last save, as I don't know how to make it a game over.

 

[Kes]

as I don't know how to make it a game over

Can I check what you mean by this?  The default is that when the whole party dies, it is automatically game over.  So if you're not getting it, you must have changed a core script in some way.

EDIT

Trust me, you do get Game Over.  This is not surprising as there are (as far as I can tell) no available healing items (the only chest I found had Bone syrup which heals PP not HP) and Ponjo's ability to drain HP for himself is no help for Gorreon while his healing skill doesn't restore even as much as one blow from a Dragoon.  The Dragoon seems way overpowered and appears to have a massive amount of HP.  First time I lasted 2 battles.  I have never had such a fast game over.  Second time I went down on my 3rd battle.  Facing 4 enemies with the ATK and HP that they have with nothing in the inventory is not fun. Third attempt I lasted a bit longer as I found another chest with bone syrup, so I now know I need a horned dragon's head, and I've collected a dragon fang, but I then go down again.  If the whole enemy troop goes for one party member, even if that member is at full HP, he goes down.  Once that happens, the second cannot survive.  Although you do not specifically advertise this as a brutal battle set-up, I suppose I should have guessed when you said that there is no cure for death.

I am also a bit confused about the way this has been set up.  In the Menu Gorreon has 280PP and Ponjo has 415PP.  In battle Ponjo appears to have that amount while Gorreon, on the other hand, started battles with various low amounts (3, 14, 7, 5) of what is described as MP.  But is it MP when it seemed to increase the way TP does?  And where did his 280 PP go?

At the moment I have to say that I find it unbalanced, and not enjoyable.  I like a challenge, I like being able to be strategic, but this is more than a challenge and I cannot find a strategy for staying alive more than 10 minutes.  Faced with the attacking power of the troops I cannot see how to last out for 30 minutes.  

 

[wynautastronaut]

Can I check what you mean by this?  The default is that when the whole party dies, it is automatically game over.  So if you're not getting it, you must have changed a core script in some way.

Yes, the default works, but I would like to make it so that you get game over if any party member dies. Currently if one party member dies, he will remain dead and the game will carry on. He will show up on scenes and such, but you can't revive/resurrect them.

I have never been a fan of the single character or party wipe game overs. I would like to change it to its own feature in the future, where when a character runs out of HP he is "fatigued" for X turns then permanently dies (like Doom), unless he is removed from party and allowed to recover. I am trying to see if I can do this with states and hoping I won't need additional scripts. 

 

[Kes]

And my query about MP/PP?  Also, I think if you intend this to be brutal battles, you should indicate that in your opening post so that potential players know what they are letting themselves in for.

Even if there was the feature you mention in your second paragraph, it would still be game over if one character is 'fatigued' as a single player will not survive against those troops.

 

[wynautastronaut]

I think I replied as you were editing.

Gorreon shouldn't have any PP, thanks for letting me know I'll remove that. Under terms, I switched TP to MP and MP to PP. I want PP to be a set amount while MP raises in battle as you attack/are attacked. 

I'm sorry you are finding it frustrating. I'm surprised, I didn't know it was so brutal! I wanted to design a battle system where players don't attack smash. Did you try to use Ponjo's skills? You can crowd control with Ponjo's Hypnotic Repose during large encounters, then Gorreon and Ponjo can both take a Guard or Lancer in a single turn, especially if you use Energy Drain and Life Drain instead of Attack with Ponjo. Did you try doing something like that? Or are you using Ponjo's attack? Bone Syrups help Ponjo keep his PP up so you can keep using Hypnotic Repose and Drains. If you have tried that and it doesn't work, please let me know. I will have a better lead on how I can fix it. 

As for Gorreon, he also learns self-healing spells within the next three levels that ease battles. Even if it's tough at the beginning, it should ease after a couple levels up. 

Thanks for the feedback so far. 

EDIT: You can use Ponjo's Alchemy during and out of battles to refill HP. It's not much, but all characters eventually can self heal so that's meant to be a little extra. This is also part of another feature I would like to have, where Ponjo can mix different potions and use them in battle. 

 

[Kes]

Yup, tried Hypnotic Repose in all battles, and only once did it get more than one enemy, and then it was just 2.  I usually used life drain to take out a guard the next turn, but after that it was healing until Gorreon leveled up to get his healing spell.  Though I still had to use Ponjo's skill if Gorreon had been inflicted with 'Wound' as well as hit.  While he was healing he was not, of course, dealing out damage to the enemies.  I hardly used Ponjo's attack skill once I saw how poor it was (let's be honest and say more or less useless).  I only found 2 chests before dying, and even using both syrups on Ponjo, he was almost out of PP when he died and I was nowhere near completing the task for this level.

I think that 80PP for a sleep spell (irrespective of its percentage chance of success) is rather high.  Okay, once they're a few levels up with a bigger PP pool it might be fine, but that's no consolation at the beginning.  When it has a fairly low success rate as well, then it is an even higher 'cost', as it is almost a wasted turn which at this stage can be (and indeed was) fatal.

It seemed to me that luck (i.e. random factors) played a slightly too high a role in these battles.  I'm curious about what percentage variance you're using, as hits from the enemies varied between something in the three hundreds to over six hundred.  Then there would be the luck of whether the party would be hit evenly, or whether one character would get all the attention which invariably meant death for that character.  Things like that.

 

[wynautastronaut]

Thanks for letting me know in detail. I think I know of a few things I can do now to improve battles. I'm out of time to leave a better response I just wanted to leave one before tomorrow. I can include them in later if you would be interested to know. 

I hate to hear it's unplayable to you as I'm sure it will be for others. It's too bad you couldn't make it to see the rest of it. I think that floor with the puzzle is the hardest. The boss battle is long, but you will have two more party members.

Again, thanks a lot for all the feedback. I spent a lot of time on the battles and I guess I got used to them. I am glad I can improve it now. I am really sorry it was frustrating and couldn't make it until the end. 

 

[Kes]

Don't worry about it - that's what early testing and feedback is like.  I know what it's like with my own games; there are things which I think are stunningly obvious and I'm scratching my head as to why my tester managed to miss them.  The problem is that no player can ever know the game as well as the developer.  We know every quirk, trick and nuance that there is.  The player cannot know them (at least first time round) unless we have made an incredibly boring, totally predictable game.  The trick is finding the way to handle the player's ignorance so that it doesn't become too much of a handicap without making it a complete cake walk.  I have played far worse early demos, so don't be discouraged.  If I thought this was a terrible game I would have said so.