The Oracle Spheres (demo available)

[Skijarama]

Synopsis​

Hundreds of years ago, the celestial being of death, darkness and despair, Mortalitas, violated the sacred law that forbade celestial beings from interfering with mortals. He emerged from his realm, the fade (name is subject to change), and began an invasion of the mortal world using an army of demons. But he was met with far more resistance then he expected or should have been possible.​

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The Oracle, another celestial being with the power to see the future, came to the mortal world before he did and warned the mortals of the danger, pledging to fight with them to defeat Mortalitas and his army.​

They succeeded, and banished him back to the fade where he would never be seen or heard from again.​

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The oracle, for his treachery of also interfering with mortals, was banished from the celestial realm, and severed from his source of life energy. He was stranded in a world that could not hope to sustain him. But the people he saved would not allow this. They brought together the greatest wizards from all corners of the world, and forged the Oracle Spheres, powerful objects of magic that gave the oracle the energy he needed to live. Using the spheres, he created a new dimension for himself to live in.​

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And such has it remained. Until recently, all was well, for the most part. But now the spheres are being stolen, and the culprit leaves a trail of death and destruction everywhere he goes. A brother and sister, victimized by one such attack, must now follow this thief and stop him before he can reach whatever nefarious goal he has.​

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Screenshots​

Spoiler

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Features​

PLANNED: Future vision. See glimpses of what's to come in order to get an idea on how to prepare.​

PLANNED: Various monster types that will require some thought and experimenting to beat.​

Still working out more features in my head. Open to suggestions on this one.​

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Genre:​

RPG.​

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Flavors:​

Fantasy.​

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CREDITS FOR CURRENT RESOURCES​

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Music credits​

MaestroRage​

Liopingg​

freebullets​

Mikko Tarmia​

mattuiop​

RobKenna​

CreamingStar​

Storm of Zehir​

DualityGod​

Setu-Firestorm​

popraz​

RPG Maker 2k3​

jdrcomposer​

magnificat12​

MustyElbow​

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Script credits​

Fancy Death: Yami, Archeia_Nessiah
XaiL System - Menu Delux: Nicke
XaiL System - Core: Nicke
Yanfly Engine Ace - Cast Animations v1.00
Victor Engine ATB
Victor enging base module.
Jet's viewed battle system.

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Sprites​

Game character hub.​

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Demo Link:​

DEMO: As of 7/16/2014​

This demo covers the prologue. The game will have three chapters total upon completion.​

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Known issues that I am working to fix:​

None at the moment.​

 

[LittleEight]

Here's some of my feedback.  I really like your game and I want to play more of it if I can!  I've written down some constructive critiques, please don't take them harshly! I think your game is off to a great start

The beginning is great, well-paced and easy to tell what's going on.  The writing is really good, though there are a couple of grammatical fixes that I've noticed. I fixed them here: "You only have, I'd say, two days until the fusion is complete!"  (needed a couple of commas).  "Meet me in the mountain pass when you're free." (you had "your".  I always remember that if it's "you are", you put an apostrophe instead of the "a" to make "you're". Maybe you knew that already, I dunno ) Another one: "You're a good tracker" instead of "your". 

    Some sentences in the service cut-scene have commas where they shouldn't be and other little grammatical errors. I can tell you about them if you'd like or you can have someone proof-read it in person.

Maybe this is nit-picky but you could have no music at the name screen since it's a little wonky to have the pleasant home music, then the creepy dream sounds and then back to the pleasant music. It would set the mood better if the name screen were silent.

The maps are nice, not too big or small. Clutter and furniture looks just right!  It would be more interesting if I could look at objects and have the character say something about them. Say stuff like "This is dad's piano, blah blah..." you know what I mean. "The door is locked", "It's too early for the pub!", and "I can't go there yet, I've gotta get to work!" would be nice instead of nothing when trying to open doors or go down a path.

I went back into the church while looking around after the service and got trapped there, oops! Surely there's some religious joke I could say but I'm kinda sleepy...

I got stuck in Ryle's house while looking for the orchards after the lodge meeting, also Laless is still in her bed even though she's in my party. Not sure where to go to kill those slimes. I really wanna see your battle system!

That's all I've got so far, hope it helps!

 

[Skijarama]

Odd about the locked house door.

As it is, the orchards entrance is at the northernmost part of the map. Just go up through the narrow passage in the cliff face.

EDIT: Also, do please tell me about the grammar errors.

 

[Skijarama]

UPDATE​

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New Demo released! Contains a lot of new features and new stuff. Let me know what you think!

Demo Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/jd5zrye3jtg6jw9/The_Oracle_Spheres(4).exe

It includes a large number of fixes and additions to just about everything. Including now being able to interact with some of your environment.

I will update the first posts credits when I have more time.

 

[LittleEight]

Cool! I'll check it now now. I'll spell out some more of those grammar corrections as soon as I can. 

*edit* Okay I did check it out! 

  The title screen animation is really cool!  The intro is perfect now.  I like how you added a few interactive things, more would be even better.  What does the sign say at the town entrance?

   I did get to play some battles and they seem well-balanced.  I don't really like random battles but maybe some people do.  I find myself rushing through them to get to more of the story.  This happens in my favorite big-name rpgs so it's not something specific to your game.  Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time was the worst with frequent random battles for sure. I lost interest even though I really wanted to do more crafting and especially see more of the story.  I think there is a trend towards not having random battles and it's really easy to make your battles happen when the player touches a wandering monster on the map instead.

I really like the story so far!  I got up to wandering the forest with the alchemist guy, but the game crashed when I used his heal spell. It said "syntax error" and I forgot the other details of the error report.  It's probably something simple to fix.

Overall, it's looking good!

 

[Skijarama]

In the time since  I posted that update, I believe I have found some more errors and corrected them. I'm not sure, though. Tell me, is the battle system ATB or standard with the addition of sideview?

 

[Skijarama]

Cool! I'll check it now now. I'll spell out some more of those grammar corrections as soon as I can. 

*edit* Okay I did check it out! 

  The title screen animation is really cool!  The intro is perfect now.  I like how you added a few interactive things, more would be even better.  What does the sign say at the town entrance?

   I did get to play some battles and they seem well-balanced.  I don't really like random battles but maybe some people do.  I find myself rushing through them to get to more of the story.  This happens in my favorite big-name rpgs so it's not something specific to your game.  Star Ocean: 'Till the End of Time was the worst with frequent random battles for sure. I lost interest even though I really wanted to do more crafting and especially see more of the story.  I think there is a trend towards not having random battles and it's really easy to make your battles happen when the player touches a wandering monster on the map instead.

I really like the story so far!  I got up to wandering the forest with the alchemist guy, but the game crashed when I used his heal spell. It said "syntax error" and I forgot the other details of the error report.  It's probably something simple to fix.

Overall, it's looking good!

Yeah, the healing agent ability was fixed recently. I'll get to uploading a fix here soon.

EDIT: Went ahead and posted a new update. Still only covering the prologue.

 

[Skijarama]

UPDATE: 7/16/2014

New demo! Extends beyond the prologue!

LIST OF FIXES AND ADDITIONS:

• Updated Battle system.
• Battle tutorial.
• Rest Shrines (Save points).
• More storyline.
• A new character who can use magic.
• Fixed a number of minor story issues.
• Fixed a number of small bugs.
• Removed a few unnecessary scripts.
• Updated the font.

All of these on top of the last update, which had a lot of changes.

Also, know this: Future demos will not go beyond this point in terms of story until final release.

Heres a link to the new demo.

DEMO: As of 7/16/2014