Dead Content Black Effect: Sequel to Under

[Taylor]

I'm baaaaack.~

Okay, while I like the new style there are a few things that stick out as going to annoy me.

- Get rid of auto-full screen. Maybe add "You can use Alt+Enter to enter full screen mode." to the sign that tells you how to save.
- Have James say his sword is on the wall to "my right". (Or maybe I'm too thick to realise where his sword was. :V)
- What do you use to make your graphics? Theo's battle sprite has a transparent hand. A girl in the church entrance has transparent hair. The soldiers have transparent armour. Priest Vanderhiem(?)'s hands are transparent. Libarian's end-of-slieves are transparent. Look through your graphics for anything that possibly has white as the highlighting, and give the true transparent areas vivid colours. Like bright green. This way setting the transparency won't make holes appear in your graphics.
- The colour loss in the window graphics is ick-ick-ick. It needs cleaning up.
- Battles are way too hard. (Even with the better neckguard.)For the start of the game, you shouldn't have to heal after every battle. The groups of three scorpions will kill you 90% of the time.
Lower their attack power greatly, and halve SP use of the Slash and Double Slash tech.
- Also, double slash attacks quicker than the normal slash. (The time it takes for the flash to occur before the tech attack is carried out.) Slash should be instant. Double should be sliiightly longer. But not as much as Slash is now.
- I also preferred starting in the jail.
- My- imeanuhh James' eyes in the face graphic are... rather bright. It's kinda scary.
- I notice you've replaced the hometown's theme with an RTP one. D: I preferred the original version because it gave it a quite, unnoticed feel. Then of course we know what happens after James gets out of jail.
- The flash/glow effects at the start of the game and during James' vision have black holes on them. Another transparnency error? Clear the transparency with the "clear" button if you're sure there is no pure black on the image. (Don't do this on the character sets.)
- Why is the home town bordered brown?

... okay. That wasn't a few... I feel kind of bad pointing out all these little things but I was expecting rather alot with a much darker style... Just not this.

I'm still in the church caverns... looking for a piece of ladder I think.

EDIT: I've just reached the world map.

Nothing was wrong with the jail scene, although the movable boxes in the trial scenes need to be set to ignore impossible movement. Otherwise if the block is pushed against a wall, when going behind the wall the block will move by itself.

- James' feet sometimes appear above his head on the world map sprite.

Mwhehe... I love James' gory visions. X3 Such a disturbed little mind. That makes three things in common. :D

 

[The Man]

Thanks for the comments. Most of the issues you have brought up have been fixed. (But not uploaded yet as a new demo). I figure if I'm going to upload a fixed demo it should be longer.
As for darker, I think you should be suprised after the church tombs stuff. I've been told that's when it really picks up. I'm working on ways to "Spice up" the beginning of the game. But I find that starting a story is often the hardest part.
Anyhow, I look forward to any idea's and suggestions you have for the rest of the demo. Having reports this in depth is a great help.

 

[Taylor]

oooooooo?

Spoiler: Possible spoiler

When Digit goes through what appears to be the Place of Trials, it's slightly different. But when James goes through it, it's basically the same as in Under, just a little busted up.
Does this mean they're each in separate worlds/timelines, with James falling between the two through visions?
And if I'm right, is Digit the one in the "other" world/timeline, as James is seeing the Trials as it was in Under? Possibly the "real" one?

What the "BLACK" is for in battle?
It also needs to be lowered on the z axis in the script for it and fixed so it doesn't pulse after certain turns.

 

[The Man]

Sorry Jirbytaylor. (Read spoiler)

Spoiler

Nothing so fancy yet with. The place of trials Digit enters is in another town. I've been wondering how clear that was made out to me and you confirmed what I thought. I'll have to add some extra dialouge to make that more clear. There are a number of training fadcilities around the world. However... (Another spoiler)

Spoiler

It's funny you wrote that, almost like taking a page out of my mind from the story of the game. Quite strange.

As for the "Black" in battle, I am trying to come up with a cool looking battle HUD, but can't seem to create anything that fits. I want an overlay for the battles, and the black words is more less a reminder for me.
To answer a previous question about the town theme.
The entire game is going to have a custom soundtrack. The town theme is a filler. I wish you were one of the game testers. Then you could play the new version which is almost ready for testing. Much longer/darker. Seems I get more sinister the more of this game I write and create. lol

 

[pixel?trump]

Congrats bro. Can't wait to see the new version of this. Maybe then you can get some sleep. lol

 

[The Man]

Thanks PT. Sooner or later???

 

[Taylor]

Can I not be one of the game testers then? :D
*laughs at the scene with the old hero sprite*

Ah, also I figured out how to fix the bug where cancelling out of a enemy brings up the Tech and action menu.
Find "def end_enemy_select" in the default, SDK, or whatever the lowest version in the list is. (SDK 1.5 doesn't have it.)
You should see an if statement checking if @actor_command_window.index == 0.
The bug occurs because this still treats the system as if the first selection goes straight to enemy selecting. Delete or comment out the statement (and the contents and end o fcourse.)

EDIT: I'm stuck. I'm controlling Gin in a cave and I don't know what to do. Should the naplam bomb be usable from the menu? Because it isn't.
EDIT2: ... You might want to make that certain point shine. Or maybe again I was being thick. :V
But yeah I got past it demo end.

 

[The Man]

Thanks for all the help, and really thanks for the battle fix. I have been meaning to look into that forever and keep forgetting. I'm working on all the siggestions now. You never did post your overall thoughts on the game?
As for testing, if you are interested it would be a pleasure to have you on board to find all my ungodly errors. You'll have to go on the games homepage and join. Then I'll grant you access to the tester forum if you are interested. The timing is right since the new version is almost ready for testing. Anyhow, thanks again.

 

[Taylor]

Well, I'd say that aside from the slight difficulty issues with the battles, I liked it.
The puzzles are interesting and the whole dark feel is also good.
Some of the special fog overlays you use to create lighting could be cleaned up, but it's good to see this technique becoming more popular to try and lower the bland feel of RTP style sets.
I was rather surprised to walk on to a world map, as well as the slight plot changes... I think.
Did you get rid of Miniex in favour of "good deeds"? Aww. I kinda liked the idea of a single choice changing certain pathways and stuff as it originally did.

It's kinda hard to say my opinion, while I like it, some of the changes seem a bit much, or original concepts were - in my opinion - better.

... I think your website is broken. I get a blank page.

 

[The Man]

The page was down for a little, but back now.
As for Miniex, he is still in the game but not yet. I guess he plays a bigger role this time around.

 

[Big Billy]

Nice work. X-Cellent game, X-Cellent story, and very well presented. As I expected. lol
A error two you've missed. In the second part of Mineze a tree on the fence looks really wrong. You'll see it now that it's been pointed out. Also. There is still a error in the battle system. Cancelling the item menu brings up the old one but leaves the new one still visible.
Back to the good. I really love how the game is progressing. Keep it up.

 

[The Man]

I have updated this topic, and included the newest demo. It's 5-7 hours long.
I have also added a link to a review of this game to the original post. (And here as well)
This is version 8 of Black.

Link to review:

http://www.rpgrevolution.com/preview/3/

Comments and thoughts on the game are much appreciated.

 

[ChaosMaxima]

I don't know whether this is just me... but when I click the download link it gives me a "404 - Not Found" error...

 

[The Man]

Sorry ChaosMaxima. The host went down but it's been fixed now. Hope you give the download another go.

 

[The Man]

I've updated the demo for this game. Longer, fix(s), and more custom content. I've also included a link to this games review and new screenshots on the first post. As always, thanks everyone and suggestions and comments are very helpful. Good and bad.