Author Topic: FADE [Demo] (Read 14611 times)

#1 • Feb 6, 2013

F A D E

Introduction
Less than a week after completing my first game I'm back at square one with a new project. I'd thought I'd find inner peace after finishing my own created game, but it only increased my desire to create more. So, here I am.
The game's first demo is out now, so make sure to give it a try.

About the game
FADE is a direct sequel to my first game, BETA. The story picks up shortly after the ending event from the first game, and continues to build on the established main characters from the first game, as well as introduce new characters later on in the game. It is not required to have played the first game, though.
FADE stands for Fun, Adventure, Danger and Excitement. These are the 4 key-words that are the basis of my game.

Fun - The most important aspect of my game. It's supposed to be fun, and funny as well.
Adventure - The game revolves around the player going on an adventure. To explore places, and to meet people within the game world.
Danger - There will be villains. There will be treacherous locations. There will be challenges for the player to overcome.
Excitement - The game must offer enough variety in action, fun, story, everything to keep the player interested.

Planned features: - (subject to change)

A fun story, with lighthearted dialogue
Several different characters to join your party over the course of the game
A simple, yet deep, turn-based combat system
Equipment changing the looks of your character sprites and facesets
Several dungeons to explore
A variety of out-of-combat minigames, challenges and puzzles
Signposts readable from any direction!

Even though FADE is a sequel, it is absolutely not required to have played BETA in order to enjoy, or to understand what's going on in the game.
For those who have played the first game, there'll be an option before the game starts to fill in the actions and choices you have made in the first game. Those choices will carry over to stuff that happens in the second game. Example: If you got to befriend Eldin in the first game, she will be your friend in this game.

Plot & Main characters - Contains spoilers!

Spoiler for:

PLOT

After helping the people in Beta town, Roth was rewarded with a huge airship, made by the scientist. Together with his li'l bro, Thieme, and his best buddy, Rage, the three of them have set out on an adventure! Not long after departing they pick up Eldin, a friendly girl from Beta Town. She has lived most of her life in her parent's house, and has always dreamed of going on an adventure.

Suddenly, the Prince of Darkness appears! He doesn't appreciate the group of adventurers flying around that close to his home, and launches an attack on the party and the airship. The chaos summoned by the Prince of Darkness causes heavy damage to the airship, forcing it into making a crash landing. It is there where the real adventure starts... (dun dun dun!)

ROTH - THE THUNDERGOD

Roth is the game's main character. He's the leader of the Battler trio, and a pretty relaxed guy with a witty attitude most of the time. In battle, Roth controls the powers of lightning and electricity to shock his foes.

THIEME - THE KINGPIN

Thieme is Roth's younger brother. He likes to sleep, a lot. Besides sleeping, Thieme is interested in exploring the unknown, learning new things, and meeting people from other parts of the world. In battle, Thieme uses the power of earth to do his bidding.

RAGE - THE DRAGOON

Best buddy of both Roth and Thieme. Rage is a cool guy, a hothead, and has a heart of gold. He likes to act all big and bad, but everyone knows he has a soft side too, specifically for women. In battle, Rage likes to turn up the heat, using fire and flames.

ELDIN - THE LADY

Having lived most of her life inside her parent's house, Eldin has always dreamed of going on an adventure. Her time has finally come to do so. Eldin is a friendly person, with a positive outlook on life. In battle, Eldin wields the powers of light to smite her foes and to protect her friends.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS

The Prince of Darkness lives in the Castle of Darkness, located in the Shadepeak Mountains. It is there where he plots his next evil plan. Some of the things he dislikes are RPG Adventurers, people who mispronounce his real name, and finding hairs in his soup.

Screenshots - Contains spoilers!

Spoiler for:

Credits
As the game is still in development, and subject to change, a complete list of credits will be added once the game is completely finished.

Spoiler for:

Download demo
FADE - Demo V1.12 ~11,5MB
FADE - Demo + RTP V1.2 ~22MB
Length-wise, I'd guess it's around 15 minutes. Could be a little more, or less, depending on how much you look around (there isn't that much extras, though).

Known issues with the game, all related to combat:
-Monsters will frequently run off screen.
-There's a very slight chance of a player move not being registered.
-There's a slight chance of the game freezing up during combat when 1 or more party members have died.

Current progress

13-03-2013
FADE - Demo V1.2

-Made slight changes to some of the dialogue.
-Added examine for the lever during the airship assault.
-Fixed a mapping error.
-Fixed a bug that could get the player stuck by examing the airship's mast.
-Fixed a bug that would cause a decrease in movement speed when skipping text too fast during an event.
-Decreased the difficulty on the first boss fight.
-The player will now receive a revival item prior to the boss fight.

Short term to-do list:

Gathering demo feedback
Start working on my first dungeon

Old news:

Spoiler for:

06-02-2013

Spoiler for:

09-02-2013

Spoiler for:

12-02-2013

Spoiler for:

16-02-2013

Spoiler for:

18-02-2013

Spoiler for:

23-02-2013

Spoiler for:

27-02-2013

Spoiler for:

Just thought I'd do an update on the project. I have finished the first 2 maps, which are basically the airship on which you play the intro of the game. I also finished the first mini-game. It involves birds and cannons. Do I need to say more? Also some eventing after that happens after the mini-game, although there's still a lot left to do before the intro is finished (when it's finished I'll upload the first demo).

About the direction of the game. Yes, it's still going to be as crazy and random as the first game. My main aim with the game is to have a lot of WTF!? and LOL!! moments happen during gameplay, just by adding a ton of small, but funny things in it. To sum it up: it's gotta be fun. Other aims with my project are to provide a more structured story experience. There will be a main quest, with clear indicators on where to go next. There'll also be side-quests, but they're more hidden (although, some may be crazily obvious =P), and optional.
As for the intro to my game, my aim is for the player to gain control and start playing as fast as possible, while still providing information about what's going on. I want the player to do crazy stuff within the first minutes of playing the game, hence the mini-game I put in right at the start. The main villain will also be introduced during the intro (it's gonna be good, I promise), and there'll be a brief combat tutorial, followed up by a few battles, right before the intro will end. All these things should happen within the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay to set the pacing.

Anyways, that's it for my current plans. I've got a load of crazy and fun stuff planned for this game, probably more than I'll be able to add to it. But it's gonna be good.

Yeah, I'm more serious about this project than I was about BETA, which was more of a test thing. I want this to become a good, and fun game. I've had some useful feedback from people who've played BETA, and I've been reading a lot of articles on gamemaking. On top of that, I'm a lot more experienced at gamemaking now, so I feel like I should be able to do a lot better with this project.

05-03-2013

Spoiler for:

It's been a while since an update, but setting up the combat mechanics has been eating up a lot of time. I've made some good progress on the intro, though, and I think I will have my first playable demo ready some time this week.

On the subject of combat, I thought I'd do a blog post about it. Note that it's still pretty early in development, so things might change later on. So, combat... something that can make or break one's game. Make it too easy, and players will find themselves bored to death spamming attack. Make it too hard, and players will get frustrated and rage-quit your game. Obviously there needs to be a fine balance, and that's the goal in my quest towards making a fun combat system in my game.
The idea I have with my combat system is to have MP management to be an important aspect of it. MP is used for skills (derp), and if I want to avoid players just spamming Attack over again, skills need to be available a lot so the player doesn't forget about them. Normal Attacks will regenerate a bit of MP, but there will also be skills that can help you get your MP up. For example, Roth will have a 0 MP skill that grants to MP Regen to any one ally. Using skills speeds up the killing, so if the player manages his MP well, he should get through fights faster, while also taking less damage.
I will design enemies in such ways to force the player to use their skills, otherwise they will get hurt, and slowed down. It's pretty easy to do using conditions. Conditions, such as poison or bleed can deal a large amount of damage over time, if not cured. So, getting rid of these is vital to survival. Luckily, characters will have a variety of skills to cure their allies from conditions (some of which don't cost MP to use).
Speaking of conditions, there will also be buffs that the characters can gain by using certain skills. Buffs are the opposite of conditions, and strengthen the player in some way. For example, there's the Aura of Health skill, which grants a HP Regen buff to any one ally (also cures Bleed condition). These skills will also be upgradable later on in the game to lengthen the duration of the buff.
I want to keep the use for items during combat as low as I can. There will be a few items that can be used during combat, though. There's the Smoke Bomb, a consumable item that a player can find or buy in stores, that will allow him to escape from a battle. I'm thinking of adding an item that revives a downed character, but I'm not far enough into development just yet...
Well, that's about it for combat for now. I have a lot of ideas for it, but then, there's also a lot of things I still need ideas for.

08-03-2013

Spoiler for:

10-03-2013

Spoiler for:

I'm open for any ideas, suggestions or comments about my project.

#2 • Feb 9, 2013

Tried to work with RPG Maker VX Ace, but to be honest, I hate it. All sort of things I want to use seem to have been removed, and they probably just want people to use scripts or whatever. I've had a look at scripting, but I don't think I want to spend that much time on it. So, I'm moving my project to RPG Maker 2003, which has a side-view battle system. I won't be able to use the exact combat system that I wanted, but then again, I wouldn't have either in VXA, unless I learned how to use scripting. I just want to get to the fun stuff of game making, which is making making awesome stuff, and making stuff awesome.
RPG Maker 2003 does let me do just that, and has some additional features compared to RM2K, so I'm happy with it. It also means I can use my old sprite- and tilesets, which saves me some time. I could use my old facesets as well, but I thought it'd be nice for an upgrade. I made a higher resolution prototype faceset for Roth when I started in VXA, but scaling it down for RM2K3, it still looks nice.
Battle sprites will be based on sprites from Dragon Ball Z: Legendary Super Warriors (old GBC game I love). They have the right size, look cool, and they aren't so hard to edit and to animate. I have updated the first post with Roth's profile. I'll be working on my other characters next.

#3 • Feb 9, 2013

Quote from: Milennin on February 09, 2013, 11:23:10 AM

Tried to work with RPG Maker VX Ace, but to be honest, I hate it. All sort of things I want to use seem to have been removed, and they probably just want people to use scripts or whatever. I've had a look at scripting, but I don't think I want to spend that much time on it. So, I'm moving my project to RPG Maker 2003, which has a side-view battle system. I won't be able to use the exact combat system that I wanted, but then again, I wouldn't have either in VXA, unless I learned how to use scripting. I just want to get to the fun stuff of game making, which is making making awesome stuff, and making stuff awesome.
RPG Maker 2003 does let me do just that, and has some additional features compared to RM2K, so I'm happy with it. It also means I can use my old sprite- and tilesets, which saves me some time. I could use my old facesets as well, but I thought it'd be nice for an upgrade. I made a higher resolution prototype faceset for Roth when I started in VXA, but scaling it down for RM2K3, it still looks nice.
Battle sprites will be based on sprites from Dragon Ball Z: Legendary Super Warriors (old GBC game I love). They have the right size, look cool, and they aren't so hard to edit and to animate. I have updated the first post with Roth's profile. I'll be working on my other characters next.

I didn't know that alot of stuff was removed from RPG maker VXA tbh. It's the only maker I have been using so far though, so that might be the reason. Having scripts shouldn't be necessery to make a pretty cool game in VXA in my opinion, but it will certainly spice up things alot. When I started making my game, I had 0% knowledge in both the maker and in scripting but you will learn everything pretty fast, but I agree that it takes some time and failures before you get it right. There are tons, and tons of awesome tutorials on the net though, and all the people that makes scripts are really good at puting in instructions that makes it alot easier to work with. I'm not saying you should go back to VXA if you don't like it, that's entierly your call, but I believe you would be able to learn it pretty fast if you worked with it for some time. Atleast that's how I learned everything so far. According to the battle-system aswell, I saw in your post that you were thinking about using a similar battle system as in my game. You will need to have a script for that, but the one Im using is very simple, and doesn't need alot of custumization.

If you want, I could help you out with that script aswell and scripts are only necessary if you want to add something out of the box. But like I said, I'm not sure what kind of features that is missing in VXA, and if you have made up your mind I shouldn't speak about it

#4 • Feb 9, 2013

Quote from: Dizturb3d on February 09, 2013, 12:42:00 PM

I didn't know that alot of stuff was removed from RPG maker VXA tbh. It's the only maker I have been using so far though, so that might be the reason. Having scripts shouldn't be necessery to make a pretty cool game in VXA in my opinion, but it will certainly spice up things alot. When I started making my game, I had 0% knowledge in both the maker and in scripting but you will learn everything pretty fast, but I agree that it takes some time and failures before you get it right. There are tons, and tons of awesome tutorials on the net though, and all the people that makes scripts are really good at puting in instructions that makes it alot easier to work with. I'm not saying you should go back to VXA if you don't like it, that's entierly your call, but I believe you would be able to learn it pretty fast if you worked with it for some time. Atleast that's how I learned everything so far. According to the battle-system aswell, I saw in your post that you were thinking about using a similar battle system as in my game. You will need to have a script for that, but the one Im using is very simple, and doesn't need alot of custumization.

If you want, I could help you out with that script aswell and scripts are only necessary if you want to add something out of the box. But like I said, I'm not sure what kind of features that is missing in VXA, and if you have made up your mind I shouldn't speak about it

Yeah, I suppose it's not bad if you're not used to the old engines. It's just that there's a bunch of stuff that used to be simple to make with a few clicks now require you to learn to script, because the options are simply missing in VXA. Like, when I use facesets in dialogue in RM2K for example: I have person A's face appear on the left of the text box, and person B's face appear on the right, to make it look more like a conversation. They took out the option to set facesets to the other side of the text box in VXA. Why they removed it? I wish I knew...
On the subject of facesets, since setting facesets is tied to the text message itself in VXA, it's no longer possible to make a simple switch that makes facesets change, depending on hero status/equipment like I could in RM2K which had its set facesets seperated from the text messages. And sure, these things may all be possible to do in VXA, if I learn how to script or spend time digging through script archives, but that's not fun to me.
Then there's map editing in VXA that lacks a layer. In RM2K(3) there's 3 different layers, in VXA there's only 2. It just complicates things for no reason. I'd guess they would iterate on the flaws from their previous versions and expand upon what they have, but instead they remove a bunch of stuff, and add other stuff instead.[/rant]

But thanks a lot for the offer to help out, but I'll pass on it.

I actually had the battle system in place after watching a bunch of tutorial videos, but I kept hitting obstacles about things that I wanted to do, but had no idea how to do them unless I was willing to use scripts. It just annoys me if I have to constantly search for scripts, or have to ask people to do little thing this or that for me.

#5 • Feb 9, 2013

I'll keep an eye on this game, I liked Demo, it was fun and had great writing. That mixed with an rpg should serve to be an excellent game. Good Luck.

#6 • Feb 12, 2013

Quote from: hiromu656 on February 09, 2013, 06:30:25 PM

I'll keep an eye on this game, I liked Demo, it was fun and had great writing. That mixed with an rpg should serve to be an excellent game. Good Luck.

Thank you, glad you liked it.

Updated the first post with Thieme's profile. Also adjusted Roth's battle sprite animation to make his movement look more natural.

As for the rest of game development, there isn't much to say about it just yet. I'm focusing on getting the base graphics done for the main characters first (few more to go). I already have an idea of how I want to make my game's intro, the rough basis of my main storyline and some ideas for how I want my world to be. I'll write down some of the story here when I finished the graphics. Probably by next week or so.

#7 • Feb 16, 2013

Updated the first post with Rage's profile. Made another slight change to Roth's battle animation as well.

I'm thinking of re-doing Roth's faceset again (again)... After all, he's changed the least in the new facesets I've been doing. Since it's the character the player will be looking at most, so I really want to have his faceset to look well. And better to decide on my graphics right now, before I start on the project, because I know if I'm halfway through with my game I'd be too lazy to do so. If not re-doing Roth's faceset next, I'll be moving on to Eldin's graphics this week, she'll be the 4th major character in FADE. She's gonna be a pain, since I can't use the DBZ: Legendary Super Warrior sprites for her. Gonna have to make them from scratch...

#8 • Feb 17, 2013

Oh the awesome Rage is back!

#9 • Feb 18, 2013

Quote from: Dark_Metamorphosis on February 17, 2013, 02:31:28 AM

Oh the awesome Rage is back!

Hell yeah. And I've already planned a ton of future madness involving him.xD

Updated the first post with Eldin's profile.

I'm pretty happy with how Eldin's battle sprite turned out. I don't have much experience with spriting from scratch, and about 0% experience spriting females. But I like the results, so yay. The next update will introduce the main villain and some of the plot of the game. The update to Roth's faceset is planned for next time as well.

#10 • Feb 23, 2013

Updated the first post with The Prince of Darkness's profile. Also wrote some of the plot of the game (contains spoilers about the first game), updated Roth's faceset with a new hairstyle and cloak, and made Thieme more blonde.

Been messing around with the combat system. Trying to find how to add things I want in it. I have trouble removing monster health bars on party victory, so I'm probably going without monster health bars, unless someone has a plugin that does it well. I did find a way to have hero facesets change depending on their current HP, so that's pretty cool. Next I want to make a feature that shows which conditions are on the heroes next to their facesets in battle. I don't think that should be so difficult to add. Once that is done I'll be starting on the real game.

Bonus: Added a new feature to the features list! It'll be the best thing, like, ever!

#11 • Feb 27, 2013

Added screenshots section.

Just thought I'd do an update on the project. I have finished the first 2 maps, which are basically the airship on which you play the intro of the game. I also finished the first mini-game. It involves birds and cannons. Do I need to say more? Also some eventing after that happens after the mini-game, although there's still a lot left to do before the intro is finished (when it's finished I'll upload the first demo).

About the direction of the game. Yes, it's still going to be as crazy and random as the first game. My main aim with the game is to have a lot of WTF!? and LOL!! moments happen during gameplay, just by adding a ton of small, but funny things in it. To sum it up: it's gotta be fun. Other aims with my project are to provide a more structured story experience. There will be a main quest, with clear indicators on where to go next. There'll also be side-quests, but they're more hidden (although, some may be crazily obvious =P), and optional.
As for the intro to my game, my aim is for the player to gain control and start playing as fast as possible, while still providing information about what's going on. I want the player to do crazy stuff within the first minutes of playing the game, hence the mini-game I put in right at the start. The main villain will also be introduced during the intro (it's gonna be good, I promise), and there'll be a brief combat tutorial, followed up by a few battles, right before the intro will end. All these things should happen within the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay to set the pacing.

Anyways, that's it for my current plans. I've got a load of crazy and fun stuff planned for this game, probably more than I'll be able to add to it. But it's gonna be good.

Yeah, I'm more serious about this project than I was about BETA, which was more of a test thing. I want this to become a good, and fun game. I've had some useful feedback from people who've played BETA, and I've been reading a lot of articles on gamemaking. On top of that, I'm a lot more experienced at gamemaking now, so I feel like I should be able to do a lot better with this project.

#12 • Mar 5, 2013

Added a screenshot.

It's been a while since an update, but setting up the combat mechanics has been eating up a lot of time. I've made some good progress on the intro, though, and I think I will have my first playable demo ready some time this week.

On the subject of combat, I thought I'd do a blog post about it. Note that it's still pretty early in development, so things might change later on. So, combat... something that can make or break one's game. Make it too easy, and players will find themselves bored to death spamming attack. Make it too hard, and players will get frustrated and rage-quit your game. Obviously there needs to be a fine balance, and that's the goal in my quest towards making a fun combat system in my game.
The idea I have with my combat system is to have MP management to be an important aspect of it. MP is used for skills (derp), and if I want to avoid players just spamming Attack over again, skills need to be available a lot so the player doesn't forget about them. Normal Attacks will regenerate a bit of MP, but there will also be skills that can help you get your MP up. For example, Roth will have a 0 MP skill that grants to MP Regen to any one ally. Using skills speeds up the killing, so if the player manages his MP well, he should get through fights faster, while also taking less damage.
I will design enemies in such ways to force the player to use their skills, otherwise they will get hurt, and slowed down. It's pretty easy to do using conditions. Conditions, such as poison or bleed can deal a large amount of damage over time, if not cured. So, getting rid of these is vital to survival. Luckily, characters will have a variety of skills to cure their allies from conditions (some of which don't cost MP to use).
Speaking of conditions, there will also be buffs that the characters can gain by using certain skills. Buffs are the opposite of conditions, and strengthen the player in some way. For example, there's the Aura of Health skill, which grants a HP Regen buff to any one ally (also cures Bleed condition). These skills will also be upgradable later on in the game to lengthen the duration of the buff.
I want to keep the use for items during combat as low as I can. There will be a few items that can be used during combat, though. There's the Smoke Bomb, a consumable item that a player can find or buy in stores, that will allow him to escape from a battle. I'm thinking of adding an item that revives a downed character, but I'm not far enough into development just yet...
Well, that's about it for combat for now. I have a lot of ideas for it, but then, there's also a lot of things I still need ideas for.

#13 • Mar 7, 2013

Quote from: Milennin on March 05, 2013, 08:38:20 AM

Spoiler for:
Added a screenshot.

It's been a while since an update, but setting up the combat mechanics has been eating up a lot of time. I've made some good progress on the intro, though, and I think I will have my first playable demo ready some time this week.

On the subject of combat, I thought I'd do a blog post about it. Note that it's still pretty early in development, so things might change later on. So, combat... something that can make or break one's game. Make it too easy, and players will find themselves bored to death spamming attack. Make it too hard, and players will get frustrated and rage-quit your game. Obviously there needs to be a fine balance, and that's the goal in my quest towards making a fun combat system in my game.
The idea I have with my combat system is to have MP management to be an important aspect of it. MP is used for skills (derp), and if I want to avoid players just spamming Attack over again, skills need to be available a lot so the player doesn't forget about them. Normal Attacks will regenerate a bit of MP, but there will also be skills that can help you get your MP up. For example, Roth will have a 0 MP skill that grants to MP Regen to any one ally. Using skills speeds up the killing, so if the player manages his MP well, he should get through fights faster, while also taking less damage.
I will design enemies in such ways to force the player to use their skills, otherwise they will get hurt, and slowed down. It's pretty easy to do using conditions. Conditions, such as poison or bleed can deal a large amount of damage over time, if not cured. So, getting rid of these is vital to survival. Luckily, characters will have a variety of skills to cure their allies from conditions (some of which don't cost MP to use).
Speaking of conditions, there will also be buffs that the characters can gain by using certain skills. Buffs are the opposite of conditions, and strengthen the player in some way. For example, there's the Aura of Health skill, which grants a HP Regen buff to any one ally (also cures Bleed condition). These skills will also be upgradable later on in the game to lengthen the duration of the buff.
I want to keep the use for items during combat as low as I can. There will be a few items that can be used during combat, though. There's the Smoke Bomb, a consumable item that a player can find or buy in stores, that will allow him to escape from a battle. I'm thinking of adding an item that revives a downed character, but I'm not far enough into development just yet...
Well, that's about it for combat for now. I have a lot of ideas for it, but then, there's also a lot of things I still need ideas for.

I agree with you on the 'importance of useful skills', and preventing people from just spamming the attack command all the time can be a bit hard to pull off (I'm trying to go the same way as you in my game) where skills will really have a big impact on the outcome of the battle, and if you don't use them in a strategic way you will suffer from it. It's really a tricky bit to pull off (atleast from my experience so far) but it seems like you have a really good plan to build up something really cool! The battle layout you have implemented so far is really nice, I like it a lot! It also brings back memories from BETA, while still looking totally fresh and new! Hat's off for your work so far, and I can't wait to try out the demo! Keep it up mister!

#14 • Mar 7, 2013

Spoiler for:

Thanks. And yeah, you do with the skills in your game. I learned pretty fast that I have to use the Lightning skill well to increase my chances for surviving, and it's pretty fun to use. That actually inspired me to come up with a battle system of my own that does something similar, but in a different way.=P Before playing your demo I had really no idea what I wanted to do with the combat for this game.

#15 • Mar 8, 2013

First demo release can be downloaded here.

There's some known issues, all combat related, while it mostly isn't anything gamebreaking, I'd still advice to save your game before combat.
-Monsters will frequently run off screen (no effect on gameplay)
-There's a very slight chance of a player move not being registered (this happens extremely rarely)
-There's a slight chance of the game freezing during combat up when 1 or more party members have died (happens somewhat rarely)

I'm looking for feedback about what I've got so far. Especially on the combat (ignoring the known issues).

#16 • Mar 10, 2013

FADE - Demo V1.1 (~12MB)

-Fixed some minor things, mostly a few small typos.
-Added harmony.dll, as that was apparently missing in my first version.
-Added a download for Demo V1.1 + RTP (~22MB).

I'm also still looking for feedback on the demo, and especially the battles (ignoring the known issues).

#17 • Mar 10, 2013

Well, I couldn't get past the first fight because I kept dying, which would lead to the freezing problem you mentioned. I'll try again later to beat that boss, but for now I only gathered a little bit of feedback to share:

When you're on the airship, if you hop up the ladder and stand on the bottom flag, you can run off of the ship and run on the sky. If you'd like a picture of what I mean I could show you.
The shooting birds from the sky was a pretty cool event, and already I can see your sense of good video game comedy showing. The dialogue is great, from the little I was able to play, and the combat is pretty good.

My only complaint with the combat is that most of your turns are spent applying buffs, and the Aura that Roth has, must be constantly applied because you really get to cast one spell, then you're out of mana. I think a good fix for this would be to either increase the effectiveness of these auras, or just increase the amount of turns that they last. Using basic attacks doesn't do enough damage to survive the Boss Fight with no casualties and since most of your turns are spent applying auras and not dealing damage, it's tough to work around that freezing bug in its current state.

#18 • Mar 10, 2013

Map error. Thanks for reporting, will be fixed in the next version. And I thought I caught them all.

About the boss fight. Yeah, applying the Auras is key to survival (don't rush the fight, take your time managing Aura casting on those who need it). Casting an Aura restores some MP to the caster, so you will still gain the MP to keep some spellcasting going on. I don't know if you did or not, but I can say that casting Aura of Endurance will be helping out a lot too. Just thought I'd mention it, because in most games, buffing defence usually isn't very common or effective.
I am planning on letting the players upgrade their skills as they progress through the game (finding treasure, doing side-quests, secrets etc.), which will include increased durations on the Auras, and stronger side-effects. And of course I'll also introduce other ways of regenerating MP and HP at higher levels, to keep the player more on the offensive.

Seeing as it's the game's first boss, I think I'll tone him down some, if he's causing that much trouble. I kind of wanted him easier in the current release, but I ran into the problem of the player being able to attack-spam their way through the fight. I'll have some re-balancing to do.

The freezing glitch is an issue with the combat plugin I'm using to get turn-based battles to work in RM2K3. The plugin is still in beta, and doesn't support death/stun/paralyze states so well yet. The plugin creator said he would work on updating it, so that's all I can give on that unfortunately.=(

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

It's very helpful. And glad that you liked the dialogue. That's always awesome to hear.

#19 • Mar 12, 2013

It isn't that the boss is very difficult, it's the bug that makes it pretty hard to pass him really. His difficulty is fine, it's just that I can't help but lose someone, and it freezes. Pretty much if that bug wasn't there, it'd be okay.

#20 • Mar 12, 2013

Yeah, the freezing bug sucks. The sooner that guy can get the fix for it with his plugin, the better. If not, I'll try something different. I was thinking maybe by increasing player and monster speed to the maximum I could emulate some sort of a turn-based system fairly well, but it would be sort of complicated to get it to work. But for now I'm just hoping that the plugin will get patched some time.

#21 • Mar 14, 2013

FADE - Demo V1.2

-Made slight changes to some of the dialogue.
-Added examine for the lever during the airship assault.
-Fixed a mapping error.
-Fixed a bug that could get the player stuck by examing the airship's mast.
-Fixed a bug that would cause a decrease in movement speed when skipping text too fast during an event.
-Decreased the difficulty on the first boss fight.
-The player will now receive a revival item prior to the boss fight.