RMVXA The Seven Seals

[Scourge]

THE SEVEN SEALS

​

A retro RPG with customizable parties inspired by games like Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 and Final Fantasy 5. ​

STORY AND FEATURES

Spoiler

The world is in danger! The Demon Lord stirs in his ancient prison and his minions run wild across the land. The only way to stop this great evil is with the legendary Seven Seals, but they have been scattered across the land and lost to the passage of time.

Four unlikely heroes will arise and confront the Demon Lord in the name of good. A guard captain, a bandit, an apprentice mage, and a village healer will lead the forces of light in a great battle with the ultimate evil.

FEATURING:

1. Seven (7) chapters of exciting gameplay
2. Twenty-two (22) unique classes
3. Customizable parties with thousands of possible combinations
4. Multi-party battles, dungeons, and puzzles (like Final Fantasy 3/6)
   
5. Optional dungeons and challenges for even the most hardened player
6. A rich story with surprising twists and turns

SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler

The castle of Winterthrone.

I'm shaking in my boots!

Where could Prince Lot be?

Featuring shameless graphic rips from more popular titles!

CLASSES

Spoiler

For more information on the available classes, please follow the link below!
https://rpgmaker.net/games/5743/classes/

WORLD MAP

Spoiler

DOWNLOAD LINK

Spoiler

https://rpgmaker.net/games/5743/downloads/9633/

 

[Marquise*]

I thought you were doing That movie as a game!

 

[Scourge]

I thought you were doing That movie as a game!

Oh man, I didn't even think about that when I was naming it! The game actually started out as The Seven Swords, but I decided to change up the title for a few reasons.

Game Update: The beta-testers have almost finished with Chapter One (I'm waiting for one more of them to get through the last dungeon) and there should be a download available within a week! Chapter One covers about 5-6 hours of gameplay and contains all the basic and advanced classes and most of the features that will be in the finished game, with the exception of multi-party stuff, which is not included because you won't have multiple parties yet.

 

[Scourge]

Download for Chapter One (5-8 hours of gameplay) is now live. Please follow the link in the OP, or click here: https://rpgmaker.net/games/5743/downloads/9633/

 

[Scourge]

The download has been updated to version 0.16. This version fixes some bugs and typos and, most importantly, lowers the encounter rate. If you played Chapter One and that it seemed a little too encounter-heavy, you were totally right. This version should be much more enjoyable. If you have any constructive feedback, I look forward to hearing it!

 

[Kes]

I'm playing through this demo at odd times, and asking myself why I don't feel the impetus to put in long stretches. I think I've identified the main reasons, and they're ones which aren't too late to address.

What happens is, I go round a town, and get the usual NPC feeding me odd bits of information dialogue, and I also get the dialogue telling me the next bit of my quest. ... And that's it. The characters don't have any conversation between themselves e.g. when they find something in a chest one character could make a comment which does a tiny bit of character reveal/development. I get that it is tricky with a party set-up like this, but with switches and conditional branches, not impossible. Is it really likely that a party of adventurers will go through a whole dungeon, fight the baddie at the end and not say a single, solitary word to one another? If nothing else, Marcia could make some comments, as you know you've got her. It makes it all a bit flat.

One other thing, when examining barrels, crates etc., every single one has a bit of text. Usually the first line ends with a dash, and it moves on to the next line fairly quickly. Sometimes, however, the first line ends with a slowed down ellipsis which means we crawl to the second line. Personally I don't see any reason for this. As it is, I have to go through 2 lines each and every single time I examine something. (It could be one line e.g. "Nope, nothing here." and that line could be varied a bit.) I don't want to add to that with a tedious wait for an ellipsis to work its way out.

It would be a shame if the significant amount of work you're putting in on other aspects weren't supported by these elements as well.

Oh, nearly forgot - when I change maps and the map I'm transferring to has a different screen tint, I can see the tint changing after I arrive which looks unfortunate. The way I get rid of that is this.

On the map I have a parallel process with the screen tint set to 1 frame wait, plus anything else which I want to load up with the map. The last command is 'Erase Event' so that it doesn't continue running, but will run again the next time I enter that map.
For the transfer, I have to ensure that the full tint change happens out of sight of the player. So, my transfer event looks like this.
Fadeout screen
transfer player - with the fade in that command set to 'None', as you don't want 2 fades - it would make it very long.
Anything else I might want to happen e.g. switches on or off,
Fadein screen

It does mean that you have to do this when you have a difference of tinting rather than using the Quick Event, but the extra polish it gives is worth it, imo.

 

[TheoAllen]

Tried this out of curiousity (and cz I'm bored developing mine too)

I haven't gone far though, but I have entered a mining cave which I forgot what was it. The encounter seems like cheating, because they take turn first before my actors. Granted, I might picked a wrong composition, but idk. Funny thing, I even got an encounter in front of miner after warn me about an encounter

The world and starting point kinda overwhelms me. Out of nowhere a guard told me that the king needs help. But I started in a town that you indirectly want me to explore everything in sight. It might not bad, but it just does not suit with me maybe

This concept looks good, you made a lot of classes and everything which looks promising, yet however I saw a little to none customization aside from the database itself. If you put more effort of trying to make a custom animation (and battle sequence), that will be better, especially if it made for a sideview battle (not using the default animation one). Because it gets old sometimes

 

[Scourge]

I'm playing through this demo at odd times, and asking myself why I don't feel the impetus to put in long stretches. I think I've identified the main reasons, and they're ones which aren't too late to address.

What happens is, I go round a town, and get the usual NPC feeding me odd bits of information dialogue, and I also get the dialogue telling me the next bit of my quest. ... And that's it. The characters don't have any conversation between themselves e.g. when they find something in a chest one character could make a comment which does a tiny bit of character reveal/development. I get that it is tricky with a party set-up like this, but with switches and conditional branches, not impossible. Is it really likely that a party of adventurers will go through a whole dungeon, fight the baddie at the end and not say a single, solitary word to one another? If nothing else, Marcia could make some comments, as you know you've got her. It makes it all a bit flat.

One other thing, when examining barrels, crates etc., every single one has a bit of text. Usually the first line ends with a dash, and it moves on to the next line fairly quickly. Sometimes, however, the first line ends with a slowed down ellipsis which means we crawl to the second line. Personally I don't see any reason for this. As it is, I have to go through 2 lines each and every single time I examine something. (It could be one line e.g. "Nope, nothing here." and that line could be varied a bit.) I don't want to add to that with a tedious wait for an ellipsis to work its way out.

The lack of dialog on the part of the characters is not going to change anytime soon. While I understand that this makes them lack personality, that's kind of the point. They're meant to be blank slates, similar to party members in games like Dragon Quest 3. My intent with this game is less about having a dazzling cast of characters and much more about gameplay. Even the set heroes are intentionally left with little or no reaction to events because I want people to be able to see the characters how they choose, if that makes sense. There are, ultimately, 16 different playable characters in the game; 12 of them are total blank slates and four of them are heroes who have some kind of backstory. Add in the fact that those 12 characters can be either male or female and one of 18 different classes and giving them all dialog isn't something that would take just a little more effort: it's something that could literally add months to production. I may come back to this later, but it won't happen any time soon, if it happens at all.

The barrel, crate examining issue is my mistake. The faster method of displaying text is the correct way. Unfortunately, there are a lot of items that can be searched and I'm still going through and fixing them all. This will be fixed in later releases; I'm sorry it's proving tedious. Believe me, I get frustrated with it too, which is why it's changing!

Oh, nearly forgot - when I change maps and the map I'm transferring to has a different screen tint, I can see the tint changing after I arrive which looks unfortunate. The way I get rid of that is this.

On the map I have a parallel process with the screen tint set to 1 frame wait, plus anything else which I want to load up with the map. The last command is 'Erase Event' so that it doesn't continue running, but will run again the next time I enter that map.
For the transfer, I have to ensure that the full tint change happens out of sight of the player. So, my transfer event looks like this.
Fadeout screen
transfer player - with the fade in that command set to 'None', as you don't want 2 fades - it would make it very long.
Anything else I might want to happen e.g. switches on or off,
Fadein screen

It does mean that you have to do this when you have a difference of tinting rather than using the Quick Event, but the extra polish it gives is worth it, imo.

The late-changing tint is actually intentional. I think it feels kind of weird to exit a dark location and then everything is instantly bright. To me, a slower transition makes things feel a little more natural, kind of like someone's eyes adjusting when they go outside. While this may make the game seem 'unpolished,' it is an intentional choice and not one caused by a lack of familiarity with the engine. I appreciate you sharing your methods, though!

Tried this out of curiousity (and cz I'm bored developing mine too)

I haven't gone far though, but I have entered a mining cave which I forgot what was it. The encounter seems like cheating, because they take turn first before my actors. Granted, I might picked a wrong composition, but idk. Funny thing, I even got an encounter in front of miner after warn me about an encounter

The world and starting point kinda overwhelms me. Out of nowhere a guard told me that the king needs help. But I started in a town that you indirectly want me to explore everything in sight. It might not bad, but it just does not suit with me maybe

This concept looks good, you made a lot of classes and everything which looks promising, yet however I saw a little to none customization aside from the database itself. If you put more effort of trying to make a custom animation (and battle sequence), that will be better, especially if it made for a sideview battle (not using the default animation one). Because it gets old sometimes

I'm glad you're enjoying the game! I'm slightly confused by what you mean with 'little to no customization.' I agree that the animations need some updating to look good with a sideview system and that's something I'm continuing to work on. The icons are still a little basic as well, I realize. However, there's a lot of customization in the game, including custom systems made through events in addition to the main draw of the game, which are the vastly customizable parties.

If the mines are proving difficult, you might be slightly underleveled or have a slow party. Literally just wandering around the world map for 10-15 minutes is enough to get your party their first level up. I think it's an average of 3-4 random encounters. If you're exploring optional areas, like the border crossing, then you should be well-prepared. Which classes are you using? Some definitely have issues with agility. The Cleric in particular has already turned into a bit of a meme on RMN, where the download is hosted.

 

[TheoAllen]

I'm slightly confused by what you mean with 'little to no customization

No, it's not about the game features. But as I said, the animation and battle sequences. Maybe, I worded it wrongly. Everything looks default even though you tried to add features. I looked up at the database since it's unencrypted. I only saw few new animations, and you used Battle Engine Symphony, which it should have some cool action sequence, but no, it was just standard moving to enemy and playing animation. Maybe, try to explore what can u do with the script?

It might be about a slow party. I remember I was picking up cleric, paladin, and another one I forgot the name, it was some kind of mechanic class that use gadget? Obviously I need to pick a high agility class at least eh

 

[Scourge]

No, it's not about the game features. But as I said, the animation and battle sequences. Maybe, I worded it wrongly. Everything looks default even though you tried to add features. I looked up at the database since it's unencrypted. I only saw few new animations, and you used Battle Engine Symphony, which it should have some cool action sequence, but no, it was just standard moving to enemy and playing animation. Maybe, try to explore what can u do with the script?

It might be about a slow party. I remember I was picking up cleric, paladin, and another one I forgot the name, it was some kind of mechanic class that use gadget? Obviously I need to pick a high agility class at least eh

Oh, yes, I see what you mean! I do have custom animations that I plan on inserting; I just need to find the time to sit down and go through them. The battle sequences are pretty basic. I'd like to learn how to use Symphony better and have cool custom ones, but I think that will wait for a while. They may be nothing special now, but they do work just fine. I'd rather have something simple that functions without any issues than spend a lot of time trying to get custom sequences to work. That is something I want to revisit before the game is finished, but my focus this time was just to release a working demo. That put me in a position where I could release the game immediately without custom animations and sequences, or delay it for a while and keep trying to make the animations flashy, but I wasn't sure how long that would take.

This game was actually on hiatus for four years, so when I decided to work on it again, I wanted to spend less time customizing elements like animations and more time pushing out a release. In my experience, both creating games and watching games be created, projects that focus a lot on having custom animations, and custom battle sequences, and custom graphics, and custom everything else are projects that rarely get done. I'm the only person building the game, so if I want to add those elements in, I have to be the one to do them. I'm much more comfortable with something simple, but maybe that will change.

I apologize if I sound a little harsh there. I really appreciate the feedback!

With the party, a Cleric is very slow and a Paladin and a Gadgeteer are both average. I haven't heard from many other players about encounters being too fast, but I will look into it. Thanks again for trying the game out!

 

[TheoAllen]

Oh man, I get where that come from. I also once pushed a release and using placeholder asset (mostly plain RTP) until it's completed. And I back at it again to revisit everything, change a lot of thing to be more customized. And it worked really good. You may want to put a disclaimer or so on the first post that you're using default and have a plan to change it in future.

There is no harsh taken, I thought mine was the harsh one that u had to explain the situation. Again, I like the concept, good luck with your project

 

[Scourge]

Hi all!

Apologies for the radio silence these past few weeks (or months, here on rpgmakerweb). Work has been very busy and I'm already looking forward to May, when our travel season will wind down.

However, I come bearing good news! Chapter Two is now in the hands of some excellent testers and I'm looking forward to hearing back from them. If all goes well, I'm anticipating an end of March release.

I wish I had more to say here, so I will give you a few teasers.

Chapter Two has, in my biased opinion, a very fun and challenging boss fight that took a lot of scripting and eventing to pull off. It also has a much more vocal protagonist and raises the stakes for the future. There's also more expansive and interesting dungeons that require more than "walk through cave, stab/burn/bash monsters, repeat." And, lastly, it lays down some nice foreshadowing for Chapter Five and beyond. Look forward to Chapter Five in 2023 at this rate!

I'll be back in touch once the last few kinks have been ironed out and the game is playable and, hopefully, fun!

 

[Scourge]

Chapter 2 has been released! Enjoy the new content, plus a ton of updated and improved mechanics, maps, and dialog in Chapter 1.

Here is the download link: https://rpgmaker.net/games/5743/downloads/9633/

I'll also update it in the OP.

For a comprehensive changelog, you can go here: https://rpgmaker.net/games/5743/Changelog/

As always, feedback is appreciated!