[POTM] Nora's Dragon Stories (download available: Battle Demo)

awesome

This looks absolutely spectacular, you've created a unique and interesting story, given an outline for characters and events which given proper depth could be stellar, and your mapping and use of lighting therein leaves nothing to be desired! I aspire to create what you have here in a work of my own; I commend you in your efforts, and pray you have the mettle to see it through to it's end!

now, I'm not going to jump down your throat or anything robo, but try not to post in older threads if they are dead. not really a big deal, just a rule of thumb. i suggest subscribing to the thread if you want to keep an eye on it for updates if it interested you, but the last post here was august of last year. just keep an eye on that.

Hello everyone!

Well, it's been a VERY long time... but I'm back! Not that I've ever been gone, because all this time I've been working on Nora's Dragon Stories, but I just didn't find the motivation to post all of my development on rmrk.net.

But on this very day (happy newyear, btw!) I wanted to tell all of you what I've been doing and what I've got so far. The creation of Nora's Dragon Stories hasn't been the fastest one, because I'm a busy little guy; school, girlfriend, Cambridge Advanced Certificate English Module, little job... all that stuff. But still, every single minute of my spare time, I spend on Nora's Dragon Stories.

Introduction

In the past few weeks I've been working on a little demo of my battle system, just to show you what I've got and to get comments on the system. I wanted to know if everybody would be content with this battle system, so I opened up a new project and started editting everything I wanted to make, so that I would have the battle system in a seperate project.

Screenshots

Also, I've mapped a lot. A very lot. The screenshots in the opening post are outdated, so I've uploaded the new ones. I've put them in the opening post, but here they are once more. I've updated Meclador Ville; it's a little bit darker now, I've fixed some mapping errors and I've put some more NPC's in it.
As for the Meclador Cave; I've changed the color of the grass, added some of Kipes addons (great addons!), got a lot of new enemies... Also, I've added a new area: the Collateral Woods and Collateral Caverns, an 'expansion set' of the Meclador Woods. I made this to make the gameplay a little bit longer, because I had the idea that Chapter 1 could be too short.

So, here are the new screenshots!

Spoiler for:

The title screen


The Collateral Caverns

The Collateral Woods, next to the Collateral Caverns


Farmer Brody's, to be found at the end of the Collateral Caverns


A shot of the Intro Scene


The Marsha Family, a crazy family in Meclador Ville


The Meclador Cave


The entrance to the Meclador Cave


The Dragon Platform in the Meclador Cave


A little passage between the entrance of the cave and the city


Meclador Ville - 1


]Meclador Ville - 2


Meclador Ville - 3


The Meclador Woods - 1


The Meclador Woods - 2


A little sidequest in which you'll have to find grapes


The lake, a part of the expansion of the Meclador Woods

Music

Another big change in the project, is the music. Sswave stopped making music because of personal reasons, so it was time to find a new composer. But that didn't work out quite well; I didn't find anyone. But hey, that's a keyboard over there! And that's a beautiful piece of software to record the keyboard!

So there I was, composing my own soundtrack. I love composing and I've been doing it for a couple of months now. I've created like 10 songs now, which are all made for the concerned scene in my game. Here is the theme song for example, composed by me.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUkdk9IlyU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUkdk9IlyU</a>

Also, the demo contains a bit of my own music, particularly made for the demo.

Battle Demo

Time to show you guys the battle system of my game. I've updated it a lot of times and I think there's only ONE error left: you should be able to play without RTP, but Module Alworks doesn't let you. Well, on some computers it does, on some it does not. So I'm still figuring that out.

The demo is not so very long, you can only try the battle system on a lot of monsters, a very tiny puzzle and a little cutscene. But the demo also shows you the ambience that's going to live throughout Chapter 1, the full chapter. So please download and tell me what you think, what I did good and more important what is wrong.
It also shows you what I got. There's only one RTP graphic, and thats the locked door which you'll have to pass. All of the other graphics are selfmade or at least custom. The music is custom and the battle system is drastically changed. It's Mr. Mo's SBABS addon for NeoABS, but I've changed a lot in it, so that it would be more spectacular. More sounds, more moves, other graphics.

Download now! - Version 2.21

===ReadMe!===
1. Install fonts that are included in the encryption
2. Close as much processes as you can, because for some computers it's kind of a heavy map
3. Play by clicking on 'Game', with the icon of the little guy on the red background

So...

So, I'll update the opening post in a sec. I hope you guys don't hate me for being inactive here, haha. :') And I also hope you guys see how much work I've put in this project. I really hope that someday I can show you the whole game. And for now I think the battle demo and thus the fact that my battle system is finished, will really make the process of making this game go faster.

From now on, I'll try to post updates on my game now and then, to keep in touch with this forum as well. Because as I said to my mom: I can post on my dutch homeforum everyday and get comments and all that stuff, but I think that there are some real experts on rmrk.net from who I hope to get some real criticism.

Oh, and a big, crunchy cookie for everyone who reads the whole text.

Nora's Dragon Stories has been nominated for Project of the Season for Winter 2011. Vote here if you wish to support this project: http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,41338.0.html

Wow, thanks! Again, didn't see that one coming!

Why did you pick Nora's Dragon Stories all of a sudden, if I may ask?

It looks cool, and now we know it's not dead. since you're actively working on it, it qualifies.

Hi all again,

I wanted to give you an update on some stuff I've been doing lately.


There's always been one comment that has been in my head for about 2 years. It's modern algebra's comment about my menu and the fact that it wasn't great. I've always thought the same. So now I decided to do something about that, because I felt like I had a temporary menu instead of a real one.

So I'd come up with a mock-up of a menu I would love to see in my game: simple, easy to use and of course a little bit original. So I've asked a friend of mine, a really great scripter, who will undoubtedly show up some day over here, if he could create that menu for me.

A couple of days later I got my new menu. I've edited some things, and now I wanted to show you guys and girls what the new menu of Nora's Dragon Stories looks like. I feel like it's a huge improvement and that it suits my game's atmosphere.

I might change the icons though. Also, there will probably be an icon grid as an inventory menu and it features stuff like the fact that when you're having one player in your party, you don't get a selection screen of all the actors in your party, but with 2 or more players, you will get a screen like that.


I've also been doing balancing. I considered that my balancing wasn't all good, so I decided to do it differently. Where Devo initially had like 543 HP on level 1, which is quite the standard, he now has 21: that of course goes with major decreases on every stat of all monsters as well. So now, with such low numbers, it's far more easy for me to just adjust the monsters's strenght to Devo's stats.

That looks pretty gorgeous there Japur

Thank you very much! Means a lot coming from such a great scripter, hehe.

Also, has anyone tried the battle demo yet? I did get some feedback from the Dutch forums, but I'm dying to get some from rmrk.

To remind everyone, the download can be found here.

I would love to. Tho the game started, the first map appeared and for a second then the error popped up

Script 'AMS' line 686: RGSSError occurred.
failed to create bitmap

Happens all the time I tried to run the game >.< Dunnu why :/ I have RMXP and everything all right, just fyi

You have to install the given fonts. Then everything should work just fine.


Still nobody who tried the demo? Again, the download can be found here.

Updated the opening post a little bit (including the art at the top), more will follow soon; I've got chapter 3 and 4 written down in dutch, it's only a matter of translating: I will update it soon.

Also, Chapter 1 is bound to be done this holiday, which means that you should be playing it in 3 weeks! I'm very glad it's all coming to an end now, and to be honest, I think I've created something worth playing.

I love this game already because of two things. Great mapping and an ABS.
I'm not going to read the story. I actually want it to be a surprise to me.
Trying now.