[XP] Dark and alone...

trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc687BcCEig

Dark and alone...

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The Altar has summoned you and your bravery. The rituals within have filled you with the essence of valour! What cruel fate met the inhabitants of this lonesome place? What is it that is closing in around you? The more you have the less you see...

Tip: Hold down the space bar and move in the direction of your enemy
instead of hitting the space bar over and over again for each attack. This will
ensure maximum damage is dealt in the shortest amount of time! Pin them against
a wall and have at 'er for best results!

Cold and hungry...

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The dampness chills you to the bone. The growling in your stomach signals the need for nourishment. The deeper you go the colder it gets. Never venture too far unprepared...

Tip: Time is of the essence! As time passes your hunger will increase
until you have starved to death. Find Bread, Meat, or Fish and fill yourself up!



This is you! Each enemy you defeat garners Soul Orbs. These can be payed as tribute to God at the sundial. 

Weapons:

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Note: only Club [Basic] is available in version (a0.01)! Future versions
will include additional weapon types such as Swords
and Axes (+ more)!

Incantations:

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Note: only Call of the Brave (Lv. 1) is available in version (a0.01)! Future versions
will include additional incantations!

Enemies:

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Rat (1 Soul Orb) - drops meat
Skeleton (1 Soul Orb)
Giant Spider (1 Soul Orb)
+ ?

Tip: Save often! There is no pause button at the moment, but accessing the save/load screen will stop time (useful for those bathroom breaks)!



Screenshots:

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Download:

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Version (a0.01): http://my.tbaytel.net/brendan/dark_and_alone_a0.01.exe
file factory mirror: http://www.filefactory.com/file/c146f73/n/dark_and_alone_a0.01.exe

Controls:


Use the ARROW KEYS to move

Press the SPACE BAR or ENTER KEY to attack

Press ESC to access the menu

Interact with objects such as chests and doors with the MOUSE CURSOR

Navigate through menus with either the ARROWS KEYS or the MOUSE CURSOR

When you aquire a weapon, press the W KEY to view it's stats

When you aquire an incantation, press the SHIFT KEY to use it

Credits:

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Music: Kevin MacLeod
Graphics: Reiner "Tiles" Prokein
Created by http://www.appallingproductions.com

Scripts used:

Universal Message System by Ccoa

Mouse Input by Near Fantastica & SephirothSpawn

More Sprite Frames & Step Animation Speed by Night_Runner

Dynamic Lights by kellessdee

Stay tuned for the new version! New weapons, new enemies, and a complex dungeon system are planned!

Feedback:

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(a0.01) This current version is a test version and a shell of the overall game planned. It does not have a ton to it at the moment. Hopefully it gives you a good idea of the atmosphere and gameplay I am going for!


Known bugs - sometimes the attack animation goes off too many times


Things to improve - load/save screens are the default RMXP ones and not very good
(easy to make mistakes). Going to look into changing these for the full release


Currently the inventory menu is very basic - for example if you have more than one piece
of meat it will just say "Meat" instead of "Meat x2." This is because it is event based
and I simply wanted the game to be functional in this early state.

If you find any bugs or errors please feel free to post here! Likewise if you have any constructive critisicm or suggestions regarding the gameplay!

Wow this looks nice, for some reason it reminds me of fate.

Yeah! It reminds me of that too, it has to be the stairs to descend deeper :3 or so i assume?

i am a big fan of dungeon crawler type games like the Diablo series (the obvious one), haven't played Fate personally but i know it's in the same vein


right now it's pretty simple and hard to compare with games like that but i have been working hard to give it an enjoyable dark atmosphere and trying to pay attention to detail



you could beat the current version easily in less than half an hour, would much appreciate anyone who gives it a try 

Alright, this bit of feedback will be sequential, so this should be smooth commentary.

First off, I like the graphics of this game, the animations could use a bit of work, but I believe in you. The music however is fits perfectly. One thing I realized is that there is a strange red square in front of the character after you attack, It looks strange.
I don't really like that I have to click to do all the actions, but contol my character with the arrow keys. I mean opening doors and using a sundial. It's not very user friendly I suppose, you should try changing the controls to allow click movement, or switch movement from the Arrow Keys to WASD. I honestly have no clue where my health is displayed, so I died in the first section of the demo.
I replayed, unlocked the Key, and now I'm moving on. I hope this is simply a tutorial section, because I'd much rather find a Key than kill monsters until I can summon one. The combat is a bit clunky, once you begin combat, there's a feeling of being stuck for a while if you try to back up. So, the pace of a dungeon crawler is kind of removed because approaching an enemy is a sure attack to your HP, meaning that you can't really run in poke and back up to fight more cautiously.
I was also wondering if you could Loot Skeletal Remains, if not, I don't think hovering over them should tell you what they are. I really liked the Old Journal bit, hearing the note read aloud was awesome, I hope there are many more of those type of things.
Not knowing how much health I have is getting very annoying.
I just rage quit.
How do I gain more HP, I saved at a point I kept dying (after I kill the ghost and have to fight a spider a second later, and keep dying. I tried eating food, still died just as fast) Is there a healing potion I'm missing, because not only have I no clue of my HP, bit I don't even know how to keep it up.

Thank you for playing!


Firstly, I have had a similar complaint about not being able to interact with things using the space bar. This has been fixed, you will be able to do so in the next version.



Your health is the glowing orb above the space bar HUD. When you attack monsters you can see that it fills up. And when they attack you it takes it away. Perhaps I shall show a number, but right now there are only 2 levels of "dimness" so I could instead just make it so it getting less bright is more obvious. It is supposed to be akin to the Resident Evil survival type games where you only get a general idea of your health.


I realize it is not very clear that your health fills up each time you hit a monster. I am going to add that to the readme and maybe somehow include it as a tip in the game.


I have sped up the combat as well so that you aren't "stuck" after attacking. The red square is simply to help you see where it is you are attacking, it might be a little weird looking but I think it works.


You can gain more HP or "valour" as it's called in the game by entering the spider house and finding the cog and putting it in the strange machine. This will give you the first incantation available in the game Call of the Brave.


The remains of monsters will have a use in the future.



You aren't supposed to "run and poke and fight cautiously" because each time you hit you gain health. So the ideal way to fight is to simply try and hit them as much or more then they hit you. Again this isn't very clear in the game so I will work on making it more clear.





Thank you for trying! Remember this is a test version and I am going to work towards smoothing out all the things you and others have mentioned. Most of these things I kind of predicted I would have to change