Tinkles Must Die!

[Alkorri]

Synopsis
In a land torn by war and earthquakes, Tinkles is just a fun-loving jester whose sole mission is to make people laugh. But tragedy strikes when he is summoned to the bedside of his dying king. One thing leads to another, and Tinkles is branded a fugitive with a price on his head! Now on the run, Tinkles must embark on a journey that will change him forever. Will he escape the wrath of his enemies? Will he ever be reunited with his pet mouse, Lancelot? Will he snack on Cook's heavenly pastries again?

What most don't know is that Tinkles wields a mighty power at his fingertips - the power of jokes and pranks and tricks. Somehow, he alone must find the strength to get to the one place with answers to his questions. And if there's one thing his pursuers should have learned, is that you never, ever, back a clown into a corner.

Features

Spoiler

• A complete 1.5 to 2-hour fantasy RPG
• A story filled with humour, desperation, self-discovery and emotional moments
• A main character who doesn't know the first thing about using a sword
• Spells, skills and items based on the jester theme
• Combat mechanics with special moves - choose the right one to cripple your enemies!
• Gameplay that rewards interaction and exploration - can you attain the rank of Ultimate Explorer?
• Two minor secrets - can you find them?
• A powerful secret
• Fireworks
• Donuts
• Four different environments
• Have I mentioned fireworks?

Screenshots

Download Latest Version
Mediafire file HERE
Dropbox file HERE

Changelog

Spoiler

V1.7

• Changed the state icon for Helpful Reminder
• Minor fixes

V1.6

Added a Dropbox download
Made orcwife's location even clearer
More exploration milestones! Can you find at least 35?

V1.5

• Added another hint to orcwife's location
• Added more jokes
• Corrected minor error of exploration milestones

V1.4

• Removed black pixels from castle walls (Thanks Venka and cabfe!)
• Added more objects to interact with in later levels
• Added more milestones needed to achieve rank of Ultimate Explorer
• Fixed passability errors
• Fixed mapping error in last map
• Added proper animations for several debuff items
• Increased Sparkler's chance to Burn from 10% to 20%
• Nerfed damage of Kitchen Sink slightly and raised casting cost
• Altered final boss' stats for a hopefully more interesting battle
• ...and more!

This is my first game ever with RPG Maker, completed as part of a personal challenge. Tinkles Must Die! was essentially a one-month crash course to learn the engine and do my own art edits. Thank you in advance to anyone who tries out my game! I would love to hear your feedback.

Credits

Spoiler

Chibis
Makio-Kuta

Graphics
RPG Maker VX Ace
Archeia Nessiah (Terrence/Alain busts)
Avery, for her lovely icons
Amysaurus aka Qtpi (feather icons and child sprite template)
Pandamaru, for juggling jester sprite and Game Over screen
Soruve and Cinnamon, for the balloons
RavenTDA, for the orcs
Pentagonbuddy
Celianna
Momope (Windowskin)
Game Character Hub
Closet Ace - Ruslan/King faceset
Mitchi.exe and GFXcream
RPG MAKER DS+ Resource Pack [Copyright]© 2012 ENTERBRAIN, INC; artists Archeia, EvilEagles, Tobby Ong, Caz

Animations
Timmah
Mr Bubbles

Music
Darren Curtis aka DesperateMeasurez - "Hold On to the Memories"
Darren Curtis - "Triumphant Celebration"
Darren Curtis - "Illusory Realm"
Scythuz - "Faded Reflections"
Scythuz - "Cold Winter"
Davey Brite - "A King's Descent"
Davey Brite - "Demised Danger"
Jeremiah "McTricky" George - "Hardened Muse"
Jeremiah "McTricky" George - "Trial of Beasts"
Kairi Sawler - "Pacing Mind"
Joel Steudler - "Dawn of a New Age"
Tarranon - "Enspiron" RMN Music Pack
Lana42 - "Hamlet" RMN Music Pack
NathanGDay - "Fisherman's Prayer"
RMN Music Pack
RPG MAKER DS+ Resource Pack "Dance Party of Blessing"

Sound Effects
freesound.org
benboncandobroidesl130594
soundscalpel.com

Scripts
Racheal and Makio-Kuta's Encounter Indicator
Yanfly Engine Ace System Options
Fomar0153's Substitute edits
Venka's Enemy State Display script

Special Thanks
Enterbrain
Degica
Busted Ed for lighting effects
Setheim for the Drunken Unicorn logo and title screen
Vash, GrandmaDeb and Dai
Marimo and Scinaya, for tons of advice on faceset edits
Matseb2611
Dalph, my deadline slapper
Indrah
Housekeeping and other amazing friends on the forum for their support

Playtesters (you rock!)
Housekeeping
Matseb2611
Makio-Kuta

Update: I address why Lancelot the mouse isn't in the game (boo!) here in this post

Someone requested a support banner, so here it is (thank you, Palladinthug!). If you like this game, please support

Smaller version:

 

[Indrah]

I don't like clown- wait. WAIT. DO I READ DONUTS IN THERE? Well **** SIGN ME IN!
Will be streaming this sometime tomorrow or the next. Hold on to yer butt XD

Also: Congratulations on completing your first game in a month~~
It's a really big achievement, so be proud you lovely ho.

 

[nio kasgami]

lol this is seem really interesting! 

the vampcat will try this!

 

[Alkorri]

Oooh, it's approved! Thank you, nio and Indrah ;D

 

[Kes]

Congratulations on completing your own challenge.  That's a tough one, and you made it.  I'm impressed.

 

[Venka]

Wow just thought I'd post real quick before I pass out for the night. I just finished the play through and it took me 2.5 to 3 hours (I forgot to check). But very impressive for a first completed project and a one month deadline to boot!

It was very cute and it made me laugh a few times there was only a couple of things that took away from it.. but really they were all minor things. Like the castle walls had stray black pixels (it might have been a transparency setting (I've had tilesets do that to me).

Be proud!

 

[Alkorri]

Thank you, ksjp17

Venka, I appreciate the feedback! I would love to hear about these minor things so I can improve the game. (Not sure what I can do about the castle walls, however, as the tiles came with the engine lol). But, thanks for playing and thank YOU for the script I needed. You really went above and beyond.

 

[Evan Finkel]

Haha - Love that Makio's art! I am really impressed of this game, will try it out soon!

 

[McTricky]

Playing through it now, just wondering.

Common Rat has bat wings, while Mutated Rat, is just a normal looking rat. I'm assuming that should've been the other way round? XD

 

[Alkorri]

Thanks for playing, McTricky! No, it's a land where 'normal' rats are considered mutated :>

 

[Dalph]

 It's a solid game, quite frankly there's nothing wrong with it:

Spoiler

Everything is nice...writing, characters, mapping, gameplay, it's fun to play, not pretentious and goes straight and directly to the point. The intro is nice and although the plot is a bit clichè the execution is very good, and this is all that matters.

Tinkles is very funny and well developed, I like how he can interact with basically everything around him, the exploration is one of the strongest features of this game. You said that you struggle with the Database but I see a lot of cool items\skills and stuff, there's customization basically everywhere. Kitchen Sink is very powerful and you can crush every foe (bosses included) when you use it, quite frankly I believe that you need to make the bosses immune to the negative statuses, or else they will become too easy to beat (even the final boss was pretty easy after I used that skill).

I Finished it in 1 hour and 22 minutes, I admit that I had a bit of troubles in finding the Orcwife...ahahah

I foresaw the plot-twist at the end, I knew about his real identity all the time...ahahah! But still everything is well executed.

Just a suggestion here, improve the speed animation of the skills, this will make the battles a bit more fast paced and less frustrating. I believe you aren't using YF ACE Core Engine so go to Sprite_Base, line 63 and change the @ani_rate to 2.

Bugs\Errors spotted (only 2 tileset passability issues):


 

Overall it's a nice game with a nice ending...Good job, Chris! I'm glad that you finished it in time! I enjoyed it.

 

[Kes]

I should be working, but I gave myself a bit of time off and played some of this.  So far enjoying it a lot.

One bug you might want to fix

Spoiler

Before you get to the 3 soldiers in front of the door, there is a jar with an apple of health in it.  No self switch so you could get yourself 99 apples if you wanted to.

 

[Alkorri]

 It's a solid game, quite frankly there's nothing wrong with it:

Wow, that's high praise coming from you. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I didn't know you could speed up the animation of the skills, will certainly follow your advice. And yes, I intended to do something about Kitchen Sink. I admit I went for a cliche story while I learned the engine, but am glad you thought it was executed well. 

Time to go hunt down those passabilities!

@ksjp17 - That is invaluable, thank you. I must have spent hours clicking on every interactable object to check if I forgot the self-switches. Guess I missed one! Will fix

 

[Indinera]

It's a great performance to have completed a game in just one month, big gratz! What are you going to do next?

 

[Alkorri]

@Indinera - Thank you for the kind words! I was thinking of either doing a Pirate or Cowboy themed game next

 

[Indinera]

Personally I'd be more into pirates, but your call of course. Have you got good material for both?

 

[Indrah]

Screw cowboys, go for pirates >D

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Congrats again on finishing your game!! I really gotta beat that final boss haha


To everyone looking at this game thread thinking 'oh someone's first game, nah I'll pass' STOP download and play this one! This is what first games should be - This was obviously not an attempt at 'oh I want to puddle around and see how the program works" this was "I want to puddle around and see how to make a game!" and the difference really shows.


Plus there's a lovely little flashback sequence that I think even veterans of the program could learn a thing or to from.


Again, lovely work Alkorri~! I can't wait to see how you grow from here.

 

[Venka]

I started to just type up a couple of points, but I ended up rambling a bit.. so I'm using spoiler tags. I'm also still trying to fully wake up so sorry if I sound a little harsh, it's not my intent in any way as I really enjoyed the game and I don't like pointing out nit picky things cause I feel like I'm nay-saying, but you said you wanted the feedback.

Spoiler

Ok now that I'm not so tired.. As for those black pixels, it might be an over lay then if it's not an imported tileset. It only ever happens inside the castle. I'm just guessing at the overlay since I know one of the light effect scripts uses one. But other then that small issue, all the art work in the game is fantastic It took me a minute to figure out the little clown animation with the seer's orb in the top right hand corner. That was a neat touch.

I honestly didn't expect something this polished coming out of a first attempt and was pleasantly surprised Like Dalph said, the battle started to get a little long. I can't balance battles so I can't get a lot of feedback here. I really like the Dagger throw skill you get that costs 12CP. It made battles a lot easier to get through. I liked it so much, that I didn't try any of the other skills except the big fireworks skill when I didn't have enough CP.

I like corny little jokes, so I loved the tell a joke special move. I used that a lot just to make sure I got to read them all. Everything moved along at a nice pass. I also had a bit of trouble finding the Orcwife cause I was just expecting her to be pacing around. So after a first look around the lake, I started taking a better look and found her. And in hindsight, the mapping in the area was the clue you needed

The last map with the final battle had a different feel to it, like maybe you started to run out of time. All the other maps had things Twinkles could inspect and either found things or he had comments to make about it. The last map was lacking these things.

So as I said, all very minor things. It was a solid game and I enjoyed playing it. Oh, and I know you do proofreading so that's your strong point, but it was refreshing playing a new game that had no typos or grammatical errors. I'm not nearly as good as you are at catching all of them in other folks game (I saw some of your work in the IGMC) but it makes the game sooooo much better when things read smoothly.

Oh and one last night, the mapping was well done as well. I didn't notice as many mapping issues, but when in the tunnels under the castle and your run into Mr Burr I think his name was (the guy napping), there were some boxes to the left. At first I could walk behind them, and then I couldn't walk back. Like I could go right, but not left. It was wierd because I could walk behind them the first time and then was locked out and I have no idea what could even do that. I thought it was a passability issue at first. Also some of the bookshelves, I felt like I should have been able to take one step closer to it.

 

[Alkorri]

Does no one like cowboys lol? Seems pirates always get the love, heehee.

@Indinera - I honestly have yet to gather them. There's the Western resource pack, of course, and some pirate resources around but I haven't got around to collect them!

@Makio-Kuta, that means a lot! Your chibis are also amazing. Everyone should check out Makio-Kuta's shop! 

@Venka

Spoiler

Ahhh, I see. It's not an overlay, but I am using BustedEd's lighting effects which is just using a character set with a Custom move route. I will be sure to look for those black pixels! This is all very helpful feedback, and you're right I had only ONE day to map the gardens, and subsequent polish before releasing the game to playtesters.

I'd been meaning to add/change some things, so now's the chance to fix the other issues. Thank you again