[XP] Masamune Exploration: The Spirit Ship [OFFICIAL Thread]

Welcome to the Official Masamune Exploration: Spirit Ship thread.
This is an RP title I've been working on for quite some time now, and It's nearly finished, With a full release in the Summer.

Storyline

Spoiler for:

A 17 year old boy called Masamune finds himself on a ship after a hole has been ripped in the very fabric of time.
This is no ordinary ship though.... It's a Ship driven by the mysterious Captain Lambart, who seems to know a LOT about the catastrophe....
The reason why this catastrophe (Named the 'Reality Crisis') happened was because a man, simply known as The Chancellor, wanted to be the World's greatest fighter and be the top Samurai, and so he killed the top 10 Samurai, except one. Master Osha was too powerful for The Chancellor and decided to revive all The Samurai. This included Masamune's Father. After Master Osha revived the Samurai, The Chancellor's son came from the Dark World and took the 10 Samurai's lives. All this caused The Reality Crisis and then Masamune and a girl named Teia were transported to a ship. This was no coincidence though.... this was fate....
The Masamune Trilogy continues this whole story.

Characters

Spoiler for:

Masamune
The 17 year old hero

Teia
Masamune's friend who he travels with

Kane
A 16 year old boy who Masamune saves from a cave

Osha
The Spellcaster who's heavily involved with the storyline

Blake
Sorry, If I spoke about this Character then you'd be spoiled

Characteristics/Races

Spoiler for:

Spellcasters: These have up to three lives, once they've died, they can either jump into their next life there and then or wait until they think the time is right

Screenshots

Spoiler for:

Demo

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=34ST4NZH

Alternatively, see attatched

If there's anything else you need to know before you play it, just say so and I'll add it.

EDIT: Due to (slightly) popular demand, some screens have been added. Battles and menu system coming soon.

Honestly I don't think very many people will download it without seeing any screen shots.  That's a pretty big decider in whether anyone wants to play the game, so I'd consider adding some.

edit: I downloaded it but I can't play, as there's an error that says the rgss102e.dll could not be found.

yes show us some screenshots, with some battle images, menus, and maps... :=)

I had to reinstall the rtp for some reason, but I was able to play it this time.

There's a couple issues I noticed, the first I'm not sure if it's intentional or not.

The first is that you can't walk down the stairs on the ship deck.  Well, you can go down the stairs that take you below deck, but you can't walk down the stairs that would simply lead to the back of the ship (I hope that made sense).

The second problem is a bigger issue.  The first fight I got into and won, it didn't change back to the map.  It just stayed on the battle screen after the victory, playing the map music.  So..you can't really do anything after that.

Aside from those two problems there's a couple pointers I can give you.

The first is the mapping.  The maps are big, but they're very sparsely furnished.  They look unnatural without any plants, or different terrain.  In most cases it looks like objects have just been thrown on for no apparent reason though, the most obvious being the chess piece on the ship.

The second suggestion is the story.  I'm not sure why I'm there.  I'm going from point a. to point b. without any idea of what I"m supposed to do, and without anything telling me why I'm going.


aside from all that critique, I enjoyed the new music I heard and after reading the story on this thread, I really like the idea.  So I hope you keep at it =)

I had to reinstall the rtp for some reason, but I was able to play it this time.

There's a couple issues I noticed, the first I'm not sure if it's intentional or not.

The first is that you can't walk down the stairs on the ship deck.  Well, you can go down the stairs that take you below deck, but you can't walk down the stairs that would simply lead to the back of the ship (I hope that made sense).

The second problem is a bigger issue.  The first fight I got into and won, it didn't change back to the map.  It just stayed on the battle screen after the victory, playing the map music.  So..you can't really do anything after that.

Aside from those two problems there's a couple pointers I can give you.

The first is the mapping.  The maps are big, but they're very sparsely furnished.  They look unnatural without any plants, or different terrain.  In most cases it looks like objects have just been thrown on for no apparent reason though, the most obvious being the chess piece on the ship.

The second suggestion is the story.  I'm not sure why I'm there.  I'm going from point a. to point b. without any idea of what I"m supposed to do, and without anything telling me why I'm going.


aside from all that critique, I enjoyed the new music I heard and after reading the story on this thread, I really like the idea.  So I hope you keep at it =)

The weird ship part is intentional, and the story part is sort of explained as the game carries on.

I've fixed the Battle problem, the new Demo should be out soon, with Improved maps.

Update May 13th 2010

Development is on hold for now until I get my Laptop fixed, the game has been delayed until Autumn. The game is about 96% done

Major Update June 17th

Development is fully back on.
99% Done (basically, I need to add variables where they should be used).

New Battle System
New Menu

I'm pinning July for the full version release

This game kind of pissed me off.

The battle thing that Passededge was talking about was freaking annoying. I had to escape every battle or risk the game freezing after I finished.

The maps were a pain in the ass to navigate, with the stairways on the ship making no sense at all. Why do I get carried belowdecks when I'm trying to go up a ladder to talk to the helmsman?

The battler graphic for the main character is kind of ugly, but that's not really too much of a gripe because the artwork is at least original.

The main character's sprite needs to have the transparency adjusted, because there are some patches of light blue that should be set to semi-transparent (or otherwise edited).

The windowskin is somewhat obnoxious, especially the cursor. I am having trouble reading behind it.


To sum it all up, the gameplay is kind of a mess, and I didn't feel like playing through very much because a lot of the stuff either didn't make sense, or it frustrated me.

This game kind of pissed me off.

The battle thing that Passededge was talking about was freaking annoying. I had to escape every battle or risk the game freezing after I finished.

The maps were a pain in the ass to navigate, with the stairways on the ship making no sense at all. Why do I get carried belowdecks when I'm trying to go up a ladder to talk to the helmsman?

The battler graphic for the main character is kind of ugly, but that's not really too much of a gripe because the artwork is at least original.

The main character's sprite needs to have the transparency adjusted, because there are some patches of light blue that should be set to semi-transparent (or otherwise edited).

The windowskin is somewhat obnoxious, especially the cursor. I am having trouble reading behind it.


To sum it all up, the gameplay is kind of a mess, and I didn't feel like playing through very much because a lot of the stuff either didn't make sense, or it frustrated me.

Fair enough lol.
I'll release this title to an unexcited audience, then do the sequel.
Btw, after the ship it picks up, I don't like the Ship either.

Edit: Masamune is 100% finished.

Now, for the Ship's explanation.

The Ship is meant to be weird like that, you work out why later on since if I told you all now it'd be a massive spoiler.
It's meant to be a mystery, you find out the mysteries as Masamune finds them out.
I really like that type of gameplay since I fell like I'm really in the game, finding out at the same time the main character does.
If you don't like that gameplay style, that's fine, but that's how I've made it.

Now, since I've had people saying how bad this game is, I've decided to face-lift the whole system for the sequel.

The mapping was horrendous, the dialog was awkward. I got to the first random encounter, and after beating both wolves heard victory music but nothing happened, no ext, no gold, no nothing, the game just stuck. I tried again and the same thing happened. So, I try the game again this time running each time. Finally I reach a boss battle and am forced to fight... I kill i in 1 hit, and the game messes up again and doesn't exit the battle.

I do have to give you props on one thing though, you may have actually made a game worse than Phillip's was.

Skaraflame, do you want me to fix that bug?

The mapping was horrendous, the dialog was awkward. I got to the first random encounter, and after beating both wolves heard victory music but nothing happened, no ext, no gold, no nothing, the game just stuck. I tried again and the same thing happened. So, I try the game again this time running each time. Finally I reach a boss battle and am forced to fight... I kill i in 1 hit, and the game messes up again and doesn't exit the battle.

I do have to give you props on one thing though, you may have actually made a game worse than Phillip's was.

lol you're a proper funny guy XD
the best part is the mapping part XD

I like how you're basing this on two qualities.
-The first 10 minutes of the whole game (it takes over an hour to complete).
-A glitch that I have actually fixed XD

lol keep these comments coming, I'll probably be on the floor at your opinion on the finished version XD


Valdred, Ive fixed the glitch AND added a new battle system

Your mapping is horrid. The rest looks alright though.

Your mapping is horrid. The rest looks alright though.

LOL! I love people that say stuff like that XD
That's very early in the game. Plus, they'll annoy you so much you'll complete in av hour (just you, no-one else).