Star of Shadows RPG v0.03

PRetty neat. Keep up the good work. I love the old school graphics ;)

Tried the demo. The game feels slow. The player moves slow, and the screen transition fade effect feels like it takes forever. I know it wasn't just my system because that drunken guy was darting around all over the place. Which brings me to another point: talking to people who won't stop moving is a real pain in the ass. It needs a couple of gallons of spit shine, but based on some of the stuff going on in testtown, you have a nice scripting system working already.

Ahhh, using recolored Final Fantasy 6 (err...3?) sprites, nice[grin]

That's really cool. It looks like you have an impressive event system going there, and the game looks nice too.

Just one thing, maybe I missed it but, can you post some of the controls? I couldn't really do anything besides move and talk to people.

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Original post by Deyja Tried the demo. The game feels slow. The player moves slow, and the screen transition fade effect feels like it takes forever. I know it wasn't just my system because that drunken guy was darting around all over the place.

I'll take a look at it; I believe I need to speed up the fading. The player moves as fast as the drunken fellow, so you should be darting all over the place too. ;)

Also: would you mind sharing your system specs? It could be useful in determining if it's my code or your system that's the culprit.

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Which brings me to another point: talking to people who won't stop moving is a real pain in the ass.

Noted. I'll increase the actor proximity.

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It needs a couple of gallons of spit shine

That's why us developers clever name these as "Alpha", so we can (supposedly :P) get away with having a game that is not very visually attractive.

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but based on some of the stuff going on in testtown, you have a nice scripting system working already.

Thanks!

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Ahhh, using recolored Final Fantasy 6 (err...3?) sprites, nice

Actually, they're completely redrawn sprites that used FF6/3 sprites as a template originally.

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Just one thing, maybe I missed it but, can you post some of the controls? I couldn't really do anything besides move and talk to people.

Those are the controls, heh. Again I make reference to the "Alpha" tag. ;)


Thanks for the comments!

I tried out your demo last night; it seemed to be working reasonably okay (at least, the bits that I think were meant to be working properly were working; I realise it's an early alpha). The only small bugs I found were a few scripting problems with the quests (Ajay repeatedly accepting the drunk's money, confusion over the difference between the LTTP key and the LttP key, and I couldn't complete all the quests to speak to whoever it was who wanted that). I'm assuming that they're all placeholders anyway, so I'm not sure if that's a problem.

Great improvements over the previous version (especially considering that I couldn't even get the npc's dialog boxes to stay open in the previous version). There was only a few suggestions that I can add to the already posted suggestions, which I mostly agree with. For one, when the screen would refresh, I could see the sprites being blited to the screen, as there was a bar that would run up the vertical, not sure if others could see this. I really like the style of the game and was disapointed that I couldn't test out my lightsabre as there were no battles, hopefully there will be in the next version, along with an inventory, and the other common interfaces for rpgs. Another suggestion I have has to do with the scripting, I visited the bar and found ajax's(spelling?) secret stash first. THen I ended up getting the money off the drunk and gave it to ajax. Then I went to the weapons shop and they were just like oh great you found it, you know have access to the shop. I'm not estupid, I figured out what they were talking about, but it just didn't seem very natural too me, so my suggestion is just to watch your flags, games like this the player may not do things in a particular order that you may have planned out, so try to keep this in mind in your designing, I know it's hard to think of all the ways a player might act, but do your best to make it natural. If you think that there should be a restriction for the shop owners to only sell items to the player after they've completed the quest of getting they're stolen goods back, then make it obvious to the player that this needs to be done. Don't count on the player going to the shop however, have a character approach the player before entering the bar to let them know the situation with the shop owners, this way the player doesn't miss the important quest plot, and won't feel like they don't know what the hell's going on. Of course this is just one suggestion. Good job, good luck, and keep it up.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid I tried out your demo last night; it seemed to be working reasonably okay (at least, the bits that I think were meant to be working properly were working; I realise it's an early alpha).

Thanks for your understanding. Most developers know what kind of water I stand in, but a lot of folks misunderstand what 'alpha' means and get their hopes up a little too high. ;)

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The only small bugs I found were a few scripting problems with the quests (Ajay repeatedly accepting the drunk's money, confusion over the difference between the LTTP key and the LttP key

Oops, case error on my behalf. LTTP is the fellow outside the bungalow on the right side of Test Town. There's two quests pertaining to his key: once where you retrieve it from the purple-haired knight north of Town, and once where you steal it from him for Ajay. Confusing, I agree. But it sounded so darn good during design. :P

Thanks for the comments, TZ.

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For one, when the screen would refresh, I could see the sprites being blited to the screen, as there was a bar that would run up the vertical, not sure if others could see this.

Woah -- what? Not sure I fully understand what you mean. As in it was drawing so slow you could see the sprites being blitted? As for that annoying vertical refresh bar, I believe it's a product of Vsync being uncooperating. I'll take a look into this.

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I really like the style of the game and was disapointed that I couldn't test out my lightsabre as there were no battles, hopefully there will be in the next version, along with an inventory, and the other common interfaces for rpgs.

Hehe, it seems like I keep on disappointing people. In the last release everyone was disappointed that you couldn't go inside buildings. Oh well, one step at a time. ;)

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Another suggestion I have has to do with the scripting, I visited the bar and found ajax's(spelling?) secret stash first. THen I ended up getting the money off the drunk and gave it to ajax. Then I went to the weapons shop and they were just like oh great you found it, you know have access to the shop. I'm not estupid, I figured out what they were talking about, but it just didn't seem very natural too me, so my suggestion is just to watch your flags, games like this the player may not do things in a particular order that you may have planned out, so try to keep this in mind in your designing, I know it's hard to think of all the ways a player might act, but do your best to make it natural. If you think that there should be a restriction for the shop owners to only sell items to the player after they've completed the quest of getting they're stolen goods back, then make it obvious to the player that this needs to be done. Don't count on the player going to the shop however, have a character approach the player before entering the bar to let them know the situation with the shop owners, this way the player doesn't miss the important quest plot, and won't feel like they don't know what the hell's going on.

You're absolutely right; I sort of slacked on this task, since my scripting system isn't quite as nice as it should be, I took the easy way out and simply left out some stuff or didn't account for all cases. But in the real game (Test Town doesn't count :P) I'll be much more careful with tieing off all loose ends.

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Good job, good luck, and keep it up!

Thanks very much for the comments, D1. :)