The Divine Conspiracy [Demo Available]

[Sorey]

I haven't had time to get very far into the demo, but if the intro and maps are anything to judge the game by, this is looking pretty damn epic. I'll definitely be following this as it progresses along. 

 

[Deathspecter]

Thanks Sorey!  Please be my guest!! And if it is not asking too much, please give me a small review on it. Even if it is not detailed, I can get an idea of what people think and work my way on it 

 

[Dalph]

I'll try it and give you suggestions to improve it (if I find issues). I'm known to be harsh but very constructive.

I see you're well prepared though, your mapping is solid and I like concept and characters.

So what do you think, wanna take the risk? ;D

 

[Deathspecter]

Awww yees I like people to be constructive critics. Bring it on

 

[Dalph]

Tried on Insane because I'm Insane:
 

Spoiler

Your game reminds me about a few old classics JRPGs for NES, must be the classic plot and the music choice (some themes that you used are very MIDI sounding). Personally I'm not a fan of Mog's titlescreen but at least you didn't overuse the effects, it looks decent this way. I like that you can choose the gender and difficulty at the beginning, these are very nice additions and they add replayability to the game. I also like that you made a video for the intro, nobody really uses videos in RM so I give you a point in favour for this, plus you added the images with text, I would have complained saying "Show don't tell" if you wouldn't have added them.
If you use random encounters make them more fast paced though, as Susan said the skill animations are too slow, everything in battle seems slow, the battle music needs to be more fast paced too, this will make everything less boring.So make the animations faster and choose a more fast paced track for battles. ;D
Most of the NPCs provide useful infos for the background story, this is very nice and it encouraged me to explore even more the maps BUT please don't disable dash in the houses...it takes ages to explore them (and it takes even more to explore the castle and large rooms), either enable Dash everywhere or add a Dash\Fatigue Bar.
The mapping is a solid 8 out of 10 for me, good use of the RTP and Mack.
For the innkeeper:

Either use a different faceset (just recolour the green boy in the RTP) or a different sprite, because they don't match at the moment.
That Quest Menu with the pictures of your destination is a very good idea, this helps the player to orient himself\herself better during the exploration. I missed the Orc in the Merchant's road but so far I finished all the other Quests.

The skills are ok, but it's too early to comment about them, it's still a demo and I was only at level 4 when I finished it.

The difficulty level is bang on, it was challenging enough in Insane and took me 40 minutes to finish it.
Also check this small issue:
 

The head of this NPC gets cut in the chair.

Overall:

It was a very nice jump in the past, fix the issues that I pointed and you'll be ready to go.

A Last Question:

What's that house in the Merchant's road? There's nobody there.

 

[Deathspecter]

Wow Dalph, you got a keen eye to spot that hair missing in the NPC    Never noticed it before!

Thanks for the review and I'm glad you like it   I will give a look on random encounters indeed because it seems to me it needs some work indeed, after what you and others said. I agree on the battles being a bit boring and a bit too common. Will have to give it a fix.

The Mog's Titlescreen I agree with you when you say it has too many effects, that why I'm using everything at a minimum quantity 

About dashing inside houses, I really don't like it. We don't run inside houses in real life either 

However, I never though about a dashing/fatigue bar, maybe I'll consider it in the future.

Last but not least, I'm really glad you enjoyed it and I will take all your suggestions in consideration 

Thanks for playing! 

EDIT: Oh, and about that house, it will have a purpose in the future 

 

[Dalph]

About dashing inside houses, I really don't like it. We don't run inside houses in real life either 

Glad you appreciated my thoughts BUT man, if you don't enable dashing in the houses you're doomed. I warn you, this will turn off 99% of the players from playing your game. And no, we can totally run inside the houses (or walk really fast) IRL. Who said we can't? If there's enough space to run or walk fastly (or the situation demands it) nobody prevents us to do it. It's a proven fact in the RM scene that those who like walking on bigass maps to 'enjoy' the scenery are an endagered species. Every player will tell you to enable dashing and you will get sick of hearing it eventually.

Would you enjoy Skyrim if you will walk slowly inside huge castles all the time?

 

[Susan]

Imagine casually strolling indoors while being chased by monsters, or when the whole castle/house/cave/etc is threatening to fall to pieces on, and around, you in 'x' amount of minutes.

And while it is nice to 'walk' around those huge beautifully made maps to enjoy the scenery, it gets pretty old and tedious after you have to walk 'x' amount of times to and forth the same beautiful scenery, no matter how much work was placed into creating it.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

*raises hand* I run in my house. And skip. And sometimes cartwheels. 

I think I'll download and give this a shot later. But wanted to go ahead, stick my nose in, and say. There is no real reason to disable dash in doors. Slow sprites make me cry tears.

 

[Deathspecter]

Well I have Dalph's proposition, Susan's example and Ms Littlefish proof of what Dalph said xD Guess the majority wins here an that you are right and I am wrong ^^' will enable dashing everywhere from now on

 

[Evan Finkel]

Few issues as I played.

Gate opening automatically is a bit odd, dat issue can be fixed if you can do more eventing works.

Dat's it.

 

[Kes]

This has a lot of potential, the mapping is generally solid.  I haven't even got to the camp yet, and I have quite a number of points, so I thought I'd give what I have so far.  btw, this is given without having read other people's feedback as I didn't want my own to be influenced even slightly by what I read, so I apologise if it repeats what's already been said.

Spoiler

Your Intro is potentially very powerful – but it needs proof reading.  For example, the past tense of “seek” is not “seeked” but “sought”.  It is not “it’s rich terrain”, but “its rich terrain”.  There are other errors as well.

I think it might be an idea to give a default name, rather than leave it blank.  Not every player wants to be bothered thinking up names (there is a thread somewhere discussing this precise point).  It also makes discussion/queries/bug reports far more difficult because you have to explain with a lot of detail who the character is that’s involved in whatever you’re writing about.

If you tell the player to press “B”, that’s what they’ll do, and then sit there puzzled that nothing happens.  If you mean “esc”, then say so – at least, for me that is what brings up the Menu, not “B”.  Esc is the most common key to use for this, but I notice that your first language is Portuguese, so perhaps your keyboard is different?   

Maybe a bit more on NPC dialogues?  For example, in the opening Inn there is a woman who asks if you have ever been to Narce.  It would be a nice touch if that character (see – I don’t know what to call him!) replied “No, ma’am, I haven’t.”  Then on subsequent interactions, she could say “I recommend you go to Narce; such an interesting place!”

House with 300 gems, I can walk all over every chair.  Actually, that's true of every house.

Have you turned off auto dash inside houses?  If so, why?  If you give the player the choice to put it on, why then take it away?  If you haven’t turned it off, then there is a bug somewhere because walking speed seems noticeably slower inside every house.  Makes exploration tedious.

The girl who gives you the info about the Inn, the word “refreshened” doesn’t exist.  “Refreshed”.

Main city gates, the one with 3 arches – there is a very noticeable judder underneath the middle arch when going up; doesn’t seem to be there going down.

Mr. Todd’s dialogue: “…maybe I have something for you…” should read “…maybe I’ll have something…” as it is in the future.

Could I suggest that you resize Mack’s kitchen sink/cupboard/stove by, say 25%?  It is far bigger in scale than the rest of the stuff and especially the sprites.

Citizen’s dialogue (old man, bottom left of the town)

“Did you ever thought about…”  should be either “Have you ever thought about..” or “Did you ever think about…”  You can’t mix those two forms.

I noticed that you are using UK spelling (travelling).  But you are also using the US spelling Armor.  I think you have to pick one or the other and stick to it.

Citizen’s dialogue (old woman, bottom left of the town)

“…which wasn’t a part of none of the Great Kingdoms.”  Should read either “…which wasn’t a part of any of the Great Kingdoms” or “…which was part of none of the Great Kingdoms.”

In a couple of places I’ve seen the word “Equipments” e.g. the traveler (only one l this time, which is the US spelling).  Equipment is rarely used in the plural.

In the pub, bottom left corner, is a Mack cupboard which comes with its own slanted shadow.  It also has the autoshadow.  It doesn’t need both, and looks odd.

Very laggy/juddery around the water feature.

Talking to the king

“Once again, Great King, I am trully sorry.”  Should be truly.

In the Library, one of the bookshelves says “In dialogue this colour refers to Cardinal”  Cardinal what?  There’s no full stop, so it looks like something else should follow, particularly as Cardinal on its own doesn’t make sense.

Item Shop:  One antidote costs 100 gems which is twice as much as a potion healing 500HP and is the same as a sword.  Really????  When enemies only give 1 gem?

Nice touch to have enemies stay away from the path.

 

[Deathspecter]

Gate opening automatically is a bit odd, dat issue can be fixed if you can do more eventing works.

I'm afraid I didn't understand where the problem is. Could you please explain it a little better? ^^

This has a lot of potential, the mapping is generally solid.  I haven't even got to the camp yet, and I have quite a number of points, so I thought I'd give what I have so far.  btw, this is given without having read other people's feedback as I didn't want my own to be influenced even slightly by what I read, so I apologise if it repeats what's already been said.

Spoiler

Your Intro is potentially very powerful – but it needs proof reading.  For example, the past tense of “seek” is not “seeked” but “sought”.  It is not “it’s rich terrain”, but “its rich terrain”.  There are other errors as well.

I think it might be an idea to give a default name, rather than leave it blank.  Not every player wants to be bothered thinking up names (there is a thread somewhere discussing this precise point).  It also makes discussion/queries/bug reports far more difficult because you have to explain with a lot of detail who the character is that’s involved in whatever you’re writing about.

If you tell the player to press “B”, that’s what they’ll do, and then sit there puzzled that nothing happens.  If you mean “esc”, then say so – at least, for me that is what brings up the Menu, not “B”.  Esc is the most common key to use for this, but I notice that your first language is Portuguese, so perhaps your keyboard is different?   

Maybe a bit more on NPC dialogues?  For example, in the opening Inn there is a woman who asks if you have ever been to Narce.  It would be a nice touch if that character (see – I don’t know what to call him!) replied “No, ma’am, I haven’t.”  Then on subsequent interactions, she could say “I recommend you go to Narce; such an interesting place!”

House with 300 gems, I can walk all over every chair.  Actually, that's true of every house.

Have you turned off auto dash inside houses?  If so, why?  If you give the player the choice to put it on, why then take it away?  If you haven’t turned it off, then there is a bug somewhere because walking speed seems noticeably slower inside every house.  Makes exploration tedious.

The girl who gives you the info about the Inn, the word “refreshened” doesn’t exist.  “Refreshed”.

Main city gates, the one with 3 arches – there is a very noticeable judder underneath the middle arch when going up; doesn’t seem to be there going down.

Mr. Todd’s dialogue: “…maybe I have something for you…” should read “…maybe I’ll have something…” as it is in the future.

Could I suggest that you resize Mack’s kitchen sink/cupboard/stove by, say 25%?  It is far bigger in scale than the rest of the stuff and especially the sprites.

Citizen’s dialogue (old man, bottom left of the town)

“Did you ever thought about…”  should be either “Have you ever thought about..” or “Did you ever think about…”  You can’t mix those two forms.

I noticed that you are using UK spelling (travelling).  But you are also using the US spelling Armor.  I think you have to pick one or the other and stick to it.

Citizen’s dialogue (old woman, bottom left of the town)

“…which wasn’t a part of none of the Great Kingdoms.”  Should read either “…which wasn’t a part of any of the Great Kingdoms” or “…which was part of none of the Great Kingdoms.”

In a couple of places I’ve seen the word “Equipments” e.g. the traveler (only one l this time, which is the US spelling).  Equipment is rarely used in the plural.

In the pub, bottom left corner, is a Mack cupboard which comes with its own slanted shadow.  It also has the autoshadow.  It doesn’t need both, and looks odd.

Very laggy/juddery around the water feature.

Talking to the king

“Once again, Great King, I am trully sorry.”  Should be truly.

In the Library, one of the bookshelves says “In dialogue this colour refers to Cardinal”  Cardinal what?  There’s no full stop, so it looks like something else should follow, particularly as Cardinal on its own doesn’t make sense.

Item Shop:  One antidote costs 100 gems which is twice as much as a potion healing 500HP and is the same as a sword.  Really????  When enemies only give 1 gem?

Nice touch to have enemies stay away from the path.

Thanks for poiting out so many things with a small play time, that means you really are paying attention to the game and I love to get construtive critics.

I'll try to adress your points by points as well.

About the video and the general dialogues language I have to agree that I tend to mix a lot the US and UK English (my alpha tester friend says the same and he usually gives me words to fix, but even him can miss some things obviously) and I also give some grammar errors. My english is good but not perfect and I do like to have an intricate, and not childish, dialogue through out my game. That was actually one of the main reasons for me to release an early demo and I'm glad I finally get some good criticizing on that area, because I know it's far from perfect.

About the default name on the character, and I would love a suggestion on this area!!

I have a problem with this, because I DO want it to have a default name on the Name Selection. Problem for me is, since I use a simple event that basically trades the Faceset and the Charset of the character in the Gender Selection (the actor is the same regardless the choice), I can have only one default name, when I actually needed two: one for the male and one for the female. Any suggestions? ^^

Pressing "B" point, well I questioned myself if I should use "Esc" like you said or "B" which is the button refered in the RPG Maker VX Ace help as the button to open the menu. I decided to use the "B" but that was a bad decision indeed and I'm going to change it.

Chairs problem. I'm aware of it and I already fixed it 

Autodash problem, also I'm aware of this. Was a bad idea disabling dash inside houses. Will fix it as well.

Mack kitchen tiles, will look at it and maybe I'll reduce it yes.

The bookshelf problem, it should read "Cardinal Points". That's something I'll have to fix, wasn't aware of it.

Prices of items problem, like stated in it it's an early demo, I still didn't work on that ^^"

EDIT: "Main city gates, the one with 3 arches – there is a very noticeable judder underneath the middle arch when going up; doesn’t seem to be there going down." Didn't understand what you mean... Screenshot maybe?   

2ND EDIT: OK, only now I understood what judder means lol. I feel dumb right now. Yeah I noticed it before, and I do not know what could be causing it   Any ideas?

 

[Evan Finkel]

I mean when I want to pass through the gate, it first opens then players move in.. which sounds very odd. To get through this, first make the player walk inside, then gate opens and player passes through.

 

[Deathspecter]

UPDATE NEWS:

- Shkëmbzot renamed to Güslat, much easy to pronounce and remember.

- Updated the Intro Movie and posted it here as well for you guys to see it without having to download the game itself. (But please download it  )

- More Story Plot has been developed, need to put it down in the program.

Why have I been offline past weeks?

Well besides having a degree to finish (which I still have) I have been working full time to pay for my education. Time to be self-dependent! Therefore, I had very little time and patience to actually work on the game cause I was very tired all the time and without any ideas (not much motivation as well).

But, a few days ago I was changed to part-time and, even though it will still be complicated for me to work on the game (cause I still have 3 days of work and 3 days of classes and evaluation), I'm hoping I can get back to work on the game now, even if only a couple of hours per week.

Just wanted to update you guys since I don't want you to think this project is dead. I consider it to be delayed (very...), that's all.

Thanks for your support and follow the post to keep yourselves updated as I progress. It will be slow but I will not let this die. 

 

[Deathspecter]

Okay, time for a BIG update!

I've been offline yet again from the site for a long time, but it's getting pretty extenuous to work all weekend, attend my classes all week and still find time to work on the game without affecting my personal life.

Essentially, and since I have not been that inspired to work on mapping and eventing lately, I've been essentially working on enemies and skills.

That being said, I'm publishing here the work that I have been doing (It's a PDF Document):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qkznh9lxmhqlff2/RPG%20DATA.pdf?dl=0

So these are the classes that I have finished. Most of the mechanics are simple to anyone who has played an RPG game before (Damage, Bad Status, Buffs etc etc). However, I had some more inspired days, and I created some things that I would like to explain, we'll get there in a second 

Before jumping into the most particular skills I've ccreated, I want to share some basic info about my Battle System:

• Skills change with the weapon equipped. There are 6 weapon levels, where 6 is the most powerfull and gives the best skills.
• From weapon level 4 and beyond, you unlock a "Signature" move that stays the same from level 4 to level 6 weapon.
• "Signature" moves and "Buffs" use SP (Special Points) instead of AP (Ability Points), used by all the other skills.
• While "Buffs" use varied amounts of SP to be used, a "Signature" can only be used with a full SP bar (100 points).
• "Buffs" and "Signature" are Certain Hits with 100% chance of successful use.

Now, presenting the best ideas I had so far, since most of the skills are just plain simple rpg usual skills:

-> Fighter Class:

As the skill name indicates, "Counter Stance" is a buff that, for 1 to 2 turns, has a 50% chance of countering the enemy attack. It's accuracy on use is 65%, still studying if this should be buffed or nerfed. Not that inspired actually xD

-> Archer Class: "You get a bad status, he gets a bad status, EVERYONE GET'S A BAD STATUS!"

"Full Salvo" is it's Signature Move. Archer in my view as a class that has a low profile in battle and excels and causing Bad Status. For that reason, I decided that it's Signature Move should be the ultimate Bad Status inflicter xD

- Damages & causes various bad status to all enemies. This Status include Poison, Stun, Bleed, Paralyze, Blind, Confusion and Amnesia!  The total chance of getting at least one status is 50%, being the individual chances 8% for Poison and 7% for all others.

-> Halberdier Class: Some interesting skills on this one!

"Javelin" deals damage and has a 75% chance of "Taunt" ing all enemies, making them only attack the user for 3 turns. "Spear Drill" is an upgraded version of "Javelin". Having 95% chance of hit, it deals damage and Taunts for 3 turns as well. "Light Brigade" is an Halberdier's Signature Move, healing all allies by 20% HP raising greatly all their Stats for 5 turns. It seems OP, but the SP charge rate of the class is slower 

-> Swordsman: Now this was inspiration! Lucky enough it's the main character and you will deal with this awesome mechanics a lot as soon as you get your LVL 4 Weapon.

I always imagined the Character as sort of a "Chosen One" type. So IMO it was needed some looks of that type onto his battle style. This is what I created, which basically includes very particullar mechanics on 2 skills:

- "Soulblade's Will": Signature move of the main character.

It raises the ATK and M. ATK. of the user and grants an Elemental Force (Fire Force, Ice Force or Thunder Force).

These forces grant the user Weaknesses and Resistances to elements (Fire Force grants resistance to Fire and weakness to Water; Ice Force resistance to Ice and Weakness to Fire; Thunder Force resistane to Thunder and Weakness to Earth). It also grants that Element Force to it's Normal Attacks.

- "Aura Blade": "Aura Blade" uses the Elemental Force acquired on "Soulblade's Will" to inflict special status based on the Elemental Force active. So basically:

- Without Elemental Force: "Aura Blade" damages all enemies.

- Fire Force: "Aura Blade" damages all enemies and has chance of inflicting "Bleed" Status.

- Ice Force: "Aura Blade" damages all enemies and has chance of inflicting "Amnesia" Status.

- Thunder Force: "Aura Blade" damages all enemies and has chance of inflicting "Paralyze" Status.

Status Inflicting Chance: Aura Blade I - 30%. Aura Blade II - 35%; Aura Blade III - 40%.

And this is it, haven't done much more beause, like I said, my life right now is so full that I feel that I should not be even sleeping 

Hope you guys find it interesting and keep tracking my game, I know it is slow building but it will be worth it! 

Cheers to all, any questions or suggestions feel free to comment!!