Dead Content Aqua'os: Tears of the Ocean

[Moogleking]

So...  I was playing the beginning, and thinking, "Hey, this is cool.  I don't really know what's going on, but perhaps it will be explained further."

And then I went to the 2nd floor, and saw the scene with the thief guy.  I proceeded to open the treasure chest in the room, and it attacked me and insta-killed me before I could even run away.  Game Over.  Awesome... didn't even save yet.

That really turned me off to playing this anymore.

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

Spoiler

That'll learn ya from opening chests without thinking >.<; (personally hated always the opening of things without never having permission or consequences)

Thanks for the spoiler btw...

Spoiler

For the first chapter you better not talk to little children lost in dark mazes that they have no bussiness being in, Chances are they are gonna be a monster in disguise waiting for some unsuspecting hero.

I do a lot of that. You should save often, I do believe I've mentioned this. >.>...... you can save right on the Main floor after talking to Taelia again.

 

[Moogleking]

You should at least have some kind of hint or clue or even a warning before just randomly killing off the player without giving them a chance to do anything.  Up to that point there was not even a smidgen of a hint that doing anything could end the game, or that the player should save immediately.  Instead you had an NPC that said people throw away stuff in the boxes and that sometimes there's good stuff or just trash.
That just makes your game frustrating, not fun.  And then if I want to play again I have to sit through the 5-10min intro?  That's a real turn-off.

Another thing I noticed, make sure to run through and check all your grammar or spelling.  Not to be a grammar-nazi, but things like "hidding" instead of "hiding", leaving off the 't' in "might", and "your" instead of "you're" really drive some people (like me) crazy.

I'll give it another chance and see how it goes.

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

I'll do that, Never claimed grammar and spelling was my forte. Instead I've stated I love words, but they don't seem to love me back ^^;

So please be a grammar nazi! You give me a list and I'll eat it right up. Just tell me WHERE they are. Because, well I wouldn't know where to start for one.

Spoiler

And the guy said the Green trash bins/boxes....not all boxes. I do believe, I could be wrong.
Once again save often! and I kinda thought not everyone liked having things explianed to them,..and having a guy go, "Be careful about boxes!" Would not be the same as discovering it for yourself, you wouldn't learn the lesson in the same way.>.>.....I don't think. Let the paranoia begin!
Also, the monster isn't immortal, it IS very possible to beat it, you'd have to have better weapon/armor and plenty of items.

*Goes to put a warning to save often* Hopefully that'll recitify having to sit through a long intro, so you wouldn't have to restart.

 

[BlueChaos]

I like what I've seen in the screenshots, however, I'm not a big fan of the concept art. It looks good, but you can tell it isn't made by some rank A (or even B or C) artists. That's probably  my own bias against american art styles though. (I'd be redrawing it over and over until it looks like something you'd find in a modern game manual. I'm actually artist, and if I'm not satisfied with my product, I'd trash it and start over repeatedly. Once again, this is my opinion.) The menus also need a little work. Try using a simple, but elegant frame.

 

[Reives]

Ah, this is finally out. But cheesus, isn't that at least 3 months of delay from original plan? :p Will download in the near future, seems like this will have quite a lot of eye candies to learn from.

P.S. The new arts/colouring style are quite an improvement imo, great stuff on that. (I think I saw it on the other forum though.)

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

Really? I thought I was somewhat decent, well, for a self_taught learner. A C minus artist perhaps, unless your scale is A_Z. Ah well, perhaps you'd be willing to show me how to improve? As an established artist you could whip up versions of my charas to show me your ideas of non American art. Personally, I had always strived to stay away from the style, going instead for my spin on anime\ manga style, well the shojo style.  But one at times can be blind to ones own art...    >.<                      *as for the menu, I am going to keep it as is.  Call it a difference of opinon, cause I like the scifi fantasy terminal feel, I think it has. 

 

[jbart321]

I like what I've seen in the screenshots, however, I'm not a big fan of the concept art. It looks good, but you can tell it isn't made by some rank A (or even B or C) artists. That's probably  my own bias against american art styles though. (I'd be redrawing it over and over until it looks like something you'd find in a modern game manual. I'm actually artist, and if I'm not satisfied with my product, I'd trash it and start over repeatedly. Once again, this is my opinion.) The menus also need a little work. Try using a simple, but elegant frame.

That is a pretty insulting post.  To basically ridicule her art cause it is "American" style and say it is not done by a good artist is mean spirited.  The fact that this game has original artwork done by kiera is wonderful.  Not many games have that.  You should apologize for being so rude.

On topic, I like the artwork and I like the uniqueness of your game from some of the others here.  Good start to the demo.

 

[Diedrupo]

I think it's pretty good artwork too.

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

@Reives: Yes, well it took me awhile to fig. the mess I made, then 'life happens' choose to happen.  *sigh* Anywah, 'learn from'?! It is you I need to learn about pics from! Want a pupil?                                                                      @Jbrist & Diedropo; thank you much.                                                                                                  @ Everyone;  the demo shouldn't have crashing bugs, just some annoyances. Working on them now, thanks so much for pointing them out! Also adding a skip intro option for those who don't like it. For those who do, give me your tips please! I'd like to see if I can do more scenes like it & the credits. Thank you!

 

[darksora]

awesome demo. :D

First of all bugs i found:
1.the cutscene with merrik in after the meeting goes wrong replays if you enter the building again. Use control self switches instead to stop scene from restarting.
2.The curtains picture remains after the concert until you enter the elevator. Just make sure to close picture before teleporting player to another area.
3.BGS (heartbeat i think it was) from LW patient room in first building continues when entering the previous room again.
4. Need to make sure that some items are not usable in battle like concert tickets. For some reason i chose to use that instead of the tonic. Luckily the boss was meant to win, phew :p

Anyways, like i've already said the demo is awesome. things that stand out:
1. Great NPC interaction. (although some npc's in the queue to the concert had blank messages). I liked the cashew guy :p
2. massive amounts of info. Seriously, the amount of background info of the world and characters is ace.
3.visuals. From artwork to sprite work, all good ^_^. The player battlers are a bit too big (something that i have a problem with in my game too). But the size doesnt really take away from the gameplay so its ok the way it is.
4.Bounty hunter capture process. I was surprised with this and it works pretty well. Only problem i can see is that it seems like you're not meant to be able to recapture the same monster again, which i was able to do on the bee monster in the city.
5. The dont pop minigame was cool, although the crystals dont shine and disappear on the second and onward trys.
6.City is well layed out and designed ^_^

Apart from the bugs i think it may be best to pace out the cutscenes a bit more and let the player do some things, like even moving to a desk instead of having a player to watch it, so that it keeps there attention on the storyline as the first cutscene/ intro was a little long. Also, in the intro scene for some reason i found it hard to make out who was talking until the lord (that gets attacked) moved. There were a few spelling mistakes like "migh" instead of "might". Cant remember any more atm though.

prologue was pretty cool, nice use of the pictures there :D Same goes for the credits.

Oh, the ending to the demo was a perfect place to end it.

And huge thanks for mentioning me in the credits

The demo took me, i think, 1 hour and around 10 mins. I did what i could, but i wasnt able to buy the girl in the hospital a toy.

 

[The Urchin]

Their are a lot of pass ability errors.

 

[Avadan]

I did what i could, but i wasnt able to buy the girl in the hospital a toy.

I bought her one! ;D

Spoiler

Had to sell every item though :P

 

[darksora]

what was the reward? :p

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

@the urchin; Uh, that doesn't help much.  When, I asked for feedback, I think I asked for a tad bit more info. Thanks for trying though.  @DS & Avadan; thank you so much for the C&C! I Heart  ( luv) you guys!  In the fixed demo you'll be able to see the results of the lil' girl (the last piece you'll need to unlock is there...gomen otherwise it just smoothes over tensions a lil bit by certain 'actions/ choices' you might have picked ) On a slightly related note, the font/  message window is cutting off my letters & words. i.e. " might "  It is also doing it in the jojac books, windows, & item detail, etc. Is there a way to rectify w/o having to edit everything for space? Or is this not the proper place to ask?  >.<;

 

[darksora]

Is it not fixable by the font size in the rgss stuff?
(cant remember what script and line you need to go to though )

 

[The Urchin]

@the urchin; Uh, that doesn't help much.  When, I asked for feedback, I think I asked for a tad bit more info. Thanks for trying though.  @DS & Avadan; thank you so much for the C&C! I Heart  ( luv) you guys!  In the fixed demo you'll be able to see the results of the lil' girl (the last piece you'll need to unlock is there...gomen otherwise it just smoothes over tensions a lil bit by certain 'actions/ choices' you might have picked ) On a slightly related note, the font/  message window is cutting off my letters & words. i.e. " might "  It is also doing it in the jojac books, windows, & item detail, etc. Is there a way to rectify w/o having to edit everything for space? Or is this not the proper place to ask?  >.<;

I'm sorry but you can't expect me to list the hundreds of passability errors.  I just wanted you to know so you could look for them on the tileset editor.  Literally they're everywhere.

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

ok, I can understand that, but seeing how I made the tilesets I need to find out is it the way i choose the passibility that irks you or a passibility I over looked. Thanks to some being specific, I was able to pinpoint the shadow boxes were the cause of over half. Not to metion the 'hundreds' were on the one old tileset I hadn't updated with passibilities of the newer. I Ask for specifics because I have a tendency to over anaylize and make things worse when there is a  MUCH simpiler solution, and that'll mean another few months till a fixed demo. Not being lazy or anything but when you work alone from scrath ya tend to luv specifics, ; )  which brings me to  ......                DS!! Oh you saved me! I Was about to mess with window size and line size in the script editor.  Such a simple solution & I was about to complicate n muck up!  >.<

 

[SakuraPhoenix]

Well, I've uploaded a fixed Demo! See first post. http://www.rmxp.org/forums/index.php?topic=19509.0

<(^-^ )> Thanks everyone for your suggestions, I've implemented as many as I could and hope this demo will be more smoother.
-option to skip intro
-can move about in some of the cutscenes
-can now save much earlier, (directly in the hotel)

What's different this time?
Well other than a great deal of the bugs being fixed..
Now you can enter into the hotel, and get more items and try out the kitchen.

Spoiler: concerning getting the little girl a doll

Also if you find all the pieces of the Jojac pages and get the girl a doll, you will now be able to obtain a weapon that will enable you to actually beat the last boss ^_~.

Actually there are a lot of places to get extra items so selling every single one, isn't necessarily something you have to do. Try looking in the various "disinfectant sinks, some boxes (not all) and food throughout the game. You could sell the food for Ginny, just be careful what you eat! Some food will add a "sick" status, some will not. Also another tactic is going to the vending machines, sometimes they will give you something worth less than what you put in, sometimes more, or even nothing at all! Be careful, you can break them!

I eagerly await your feedback and C & C!

 

[Avadan]

Okayssss... I played trough the Demo...
I dont know if its because of how many times I have played it but I undestood everything XD
and I must say the world you are presenting to the player is very nice and complete... everything has an explanation.

The technological concepts could be a bit hard to understand at first... I`m guessing this is because this demo is a fragment of chapter 2 (right?) so they dont have an introduction(on the demo).

Spoiler

found a bug... when you talk to the lady at the inn she gives you the dialogue from the beggining and sends you to the first building... and cuz you dont do the scene with Taelia you dont change the character graphic and Aqua keeps the down pose