Dead Content [DEMO] FF7: Sandfall

[Anonymous]

posting this for despain~

Sandfall

Sandfall is the story of a man named Serren Kraye. The nation of Scarabia is pulling itself back together after a monumental revolution. However, Serren is dealing with his own demons. The two people closest to him, brother and sister Ismael and Issa Sturge, were murdered four years ago. Not a day has gone by in Serren's life since then without deep heartache. He wanders the desert nation without a purpose in his life, not caring if he lives or if he dies.

...until he gets his hands on a treasure map, a map that leads to a legendary Crystal City. He devotes himself to this search, desperately grasping onto some purpose to his existence. Along the way, he discovers that he isn't the only one searching for the lost city, and he realizes that he may have a part to play in the deadly repercussions of the revolution.

Features

Sandfall is a game, not a novel. And as such, I do not rely purely on the story to bring enjoyment to the player. The game has multiple original features designed to enhance the story and world of the game while at the same time separating Sandfall from other RM games.

Single-hero Active Battle System
The battle system has been redesigned to accomodate a single hero. The story of Sandfall is ultimately a personal one, rather than a forced epic, and the features of the game have been made to reflect that. Serren has nothing but his wits and his weapons to help him fight his enemies. This system, programmed by Mr. Mo, makes use of a shared active turn bar to give the fight a more dynamic feel.

Map Combat
On most maps, enemies will be visible before the player encounters them for battle. The player is able to shoot at the enemies and possibly finish them off, thus avoiding the separate battle system. The enemies respawn after a short period of time.

Ammunition System
Serren is a gunslinger, and his guns are a major focus of the game. Different types of bullets can be held as items and will be used to reload a weapon when it runs out of ammo. This is used in both the normal battle system as well as the map combat, and in future areas Serren will need to use his weapons- and ammunition- to help him solve puzzles.

Pit Fight Mode
Pit Fights are a staple of entertainment in Scarabia. In the full game, Serren will find himself dueling in these dangerous one-on-one battles. The fights are also included as a separate game mode, accessible from the main menu. Similar to classic fighting games, this mode has multiple difficulties and characters- although these are limited in the demo version.

Selling Experience
Money is valuable in Sandfall, and hard to come by, as the only thing you gain from enemies are exerience. However, the experience earned in fights can be turned into money. Unlike most RPGs, Serren does not automatically make use of his experience points to level up. Instead, his experience can be sold to those looking to improve their skills, such as novice pit fighters or children on the streets. The money can in turn be used to purchase ammunition or new weapons or armor to make Serren stronger. (not in the demo)

Atmosphere, Atmosphere, Atmosphere
Sandfall strives to have a unique atmosphere. This is initially obvious by heavily-edited and original graphics, making use of a custom color palette and style, but the atmosphere is also enhanced in the game by an original ambience-based soundtrack by Teloch (the demo makes use of multiple tracks- the full version will have all original music). Cities are populated with animated NPCs that help bring the world to life.

Screenshots

Three shots of a city, showing off some of the folks who inhabit Scarabia.

The battle system; Serren against a couple of thugs.

Taking on a baddy in a dark cavern.

The pit fights, and action-based minigame.

Serren visits a pub in the capitol city.

A gang of thieves wants to rough up our hero.


Download
The game should work without RMXP or the RTP installed. If there are problems, post about it and I'll reupload a new version.
Remember to install the font file included in the game before playing! Have fun.

Download the game here: Here

 

[Volrath]

Tested this out last night. Good stuff.

I've been waiting a long time for a real demo of this to emerge, and it's heartening to see that Des was able to master what almost always spells doom for ambitious projects: customized visuals. They draw you into the world immediately....and that camel is just a work of art. Battles weren't fully implemented in the version I played...but I suppose that gives me something to do while I wait for a larger chunk of the story to come along. Everybody play this shizzle.

 

[WithViolence]

Downloading now, I'll edit this with my impressions later.

 

[KitanaSanti]

Looks really good! When I tried to download the demo it gave me a 404 not found error. :/

 

[Anonymous]

guys wait a little bit to download; he fixed an error and is reuploading. it should be up pretty soon tho

 

[KitanaSanti]

Hehe ok. I guess I jumped the gun a bit there.

 

[Andy6000]

Download is working now.

 

[KitanaSanti]

Yay! *goes to play*

 

[Jstreet]

Great job as always Despain. I definitely recommend this game.

The introduction to the end is elegantly weaved together making a solid storyline that not only displays good writing, but it almost gives the feeling of being in a movie theatre. The game itself could stand alone as an interesting cinematic. There is a lack in character depth, but I think that it sets the mysterious and desolate atmosphere.

The graphic style is a work of art. I loved the dry and grimey feeling. I've always been a fan of your artwork and pixel work, and to see you've taken your previous designs and expanded them into the art style presented in the game is a real pleasure. The visuals were very pleasing. Excellent job in this department.

The game played out WAY different than I expected. My only complaint is a lack of information on certain features, but I already address those. The battle system both ways was pretty impressive, although the beginning battle might turn some heads at first, because of the battle pace, which speeds up afterwards. So far there wasn't much in the field of puzzles and such, but in my eyes that's all for the better.
The game play may not keep you on your fee all the entire time, in fact there were times when I got quite relaxed, but it is suiting and has its high points.

The music and ambient effect were great. They helped weaved the game together. The enviroment has a lonely feeling, which I felt was perfect for controlling Serren in. There are actual music pieces that offer a low - medium intensity sound. They made the "video game" aspects stand out a bit more, as they did not give that cinemactic feel.

All in all the demo was a pretty good play. Interesting. Relaxing. Fun. What more can you ask for? I await the full game, and I believe in you despite the curse of incompleted RMXP game.

Now, is the hardest time to continue - when you've released a demo - this where most games take a turn for the worst with repatching the demo several times and getting caught up in thread idling. I know that isn't your swag Des, so push on homie.

 

[Roman Candle]

Ahh! Ahh! Downloading!

 

[Yeyinde]

Fucking awesome work, Des. Too bad you're not here and that. I encountered only who errors during my plays. One was an error with the battle system which froze Serren and prevented him from doing any action. (I reloaded) The second is a small glitch in the Pit Fight system in which you input the commands really fast and it thinks the enter key is wrong when it is right. Just hitting one of the arrow keys makes it work again, though. And once again, FUCKING AWESOME!!!

 

[Reives]

Oo, this is pretty cool, seems to have some original ideas as well. Great stuff.

 

[Impreza]

I clicked the link and it brings me to his site.But where to download? Is it the April Fools Trailer of Sandfall? I already downloaded that.

 

[Munkk]

Just started playing this, I love it so far. Will come back with more comments alter.

 

[Roman Candle]

Great, except for the painfully slow messages, (even holding space continually). At first the fights were quite frustrating, (especially the dogs), but once I sped up it got much better. The graphics are teh l337. Music great also. Now I need to sleep, (your stupid game has me awake at 5 in the morning :/)

 

[Yeyinde]

Tip: For to make the fights go faster, run through the cave and get the "Hand Pistol". It uses 8-CARTRIDGE ammo, which is 8 rounds in one item (Yay). It really helps with the battles.

 

[Prexus]

I have a fair bit of negative criticism about this, which saddens me deeply.

Graphics, Style and Setting, and Music are all top notch. The maps are interesting, not too huge and not too small, and easy to navigate.

However, there are lots of amateur mapping mistakes (the jugs on top of crates making them passable stands out.)

In the Pit Fights, sometimes when the last icon is active, any button I press makes a sound as if I inputted it correctly, except the C key, which buzzes. And it won't let me go any further.

Edit

The second is a small glitch in the Pit Fight system in which you input the commands really fast and it thinks the enter key is wrong when it is right. Just hitting one of the arrow keys makes it work again, though.

This doesn't fix it. I've had this happen several times, and no combination of buttons fixes it. It forces me to reload, and lose that progress.

Also, there isn't enough money and ammunition to fight every creature on the way from the first city to the second city. Granted there are chests with ammunition, but that should be bonus, not a necessity. With no way to attack when you have no ammo, there is no way to win in combat except to escape.

Also I found that after you select an attack, sometimes enemies attack two or three times before Serren's portrait gets to the end. Since they are attacking for the same amount of damage each turn, they should take as long to do so. If balance is an issue, the enemies should be given more hit points or Serren given less. Currently, as it stands, in the fight against the two Spider Guild members, I can lose as much as 20 out of 50 hit points before I kill one guy. For a first fight, that is not fair. Especially if someone didn't reload before hand, or notice the Double Attack option.

Also, I suppose it could be a stylistic thing, but I find there are far too many Signs. You could simply put an icon or symbol on the sign for many of them, to designate what is inside the building, instead of forcing the player to check the sign.

If I was rating this, I would give it a 3/5. The flaws ruin the greatness that it should be. I had high expectations, sorry Des.

 

[Ellescene]

I had the same issue with "slow" battles as Prexus and sometimes with the game play overall. I'm kinda glad I wasn't the only one because from reading all the other posts, I was thinking to myself "Okay, everyone else is doing fine, so I must really suck at this game." ^^;;;

The first time I played through, the characters were walking painfully slow. Battles were painfully slow as well, but only for Serren, while the enemies attacked 3 or 4 times before I attacked once. I restarted it because I figured maybe it was my computer and not some programmer's choice to make things unbearably slow (going back to the title screen and reloading my save file didn't work, I had to reboot the whole game). The second time I loaded it, walking speed was normal and so were battles until it got to the point between choosing what to do and initiating it, and then it became painfully slow again. Third time I rebooted the game, everything was running smoothly, as it was probably planned to be.

I'm really not sure what could be causing this. The first time it happened, it was because I brought up the menu and tinkered around with it. Dunno if that might be it because I haven't tried it more than once.

I enjoyed the pit fights though. Actually, I really enjoyed them, it was probably the highlight of the demo for me and I came across no errors. ^^

 

[Rhino Cap]

I trust the admins will let me keep this account here for game-related posts like this one- and I will keep them to this topic and this topic only. I release the game on the forums so other members can enjoy it, and I make this account to support the game, not some lame way of working around a ban, so I don't necessarily think that this account will be a huge problem.

First off, thank you for all the positive feedback on what I think are the most important parts of the game, and the parts that we're the proudest of- the style and atmosphere.

Thank you even more for the negative feedback. Some people don't like it, but I embrace that stuff. How else would a game get better?

As for the bugs- well, the one major bug that has been plaguing everyone. The battle speed.

I'm going to admit it and take the fault. I messed up big time. It's not an issue of balance, though, as some might have thought. Right before I compressed the game to release it, I did a last test run. The battles seemd pointlessly slow (everything moved at the speed half of the current, so essentially all icons moved at a pace of the slow-moving Serren throughout the whole battle). I figured I could make the battles better by just cutting all the speed numbers in half, doubling the speed of the fights overall. I did that, and I tested the game, and it worked fine.

The problem was, I think, that I was using a save file to test with- one that had that item equipped that Yeyinde mentioned made the battles move at a decent speed. Because of this, and because I was rushing to release the demo, I didn't even realize that the speed was messed up (because I had forgotten to change one of Serren's stats along with the rest- the dexterity stat affects the speed after the choice, the agility stat affects the speed before). It's my fault for not testing the game fully before releasing it- don't take it out on the game itself. I've already fixed this issue and plan to re-upload a new version tomorrow.

Really sorry about that one. After testing it out and seeing what you were talking about, I realize how it could seriously have ruined the entire game for some people.

Now that's out of the way, the pit fight battles shouldn't be giving you any problems unless you're doing something really weird. I've tested that feature pretty extensively. The only problem I can replicate is Yeyinde's, which comes from mashing the buttons insanely fast. But then, like he said, just pressing another button fixes it easily, so at least it doesn't break the game.

Prexus, if you've had that error more than once, I'll look into it, but it might have been a wierd fluke- nobody has reported any errors like that. Do you remember how it happened?

Also, there isn't enough money and ammunition to fight every creature on the way from the first city to the second city. Granted there are chests with ammunition, but that should be bonus, not a necessity. With no way to attack when you have no ammo, there is no way to win in combat except to escape.

The chests aren't a bonus. They are a necessity. With all the chests, there is more than enough ammunition to make it safely and win a fair amount of fights. I've designed it so that the chests are on the maps just when you might need them (additionally, in the sequences right after the demo ends, Serren learns how to sell his experience points. from then on I assume it would get smoother).

I clicked the link and it brings me to his site.But where to download? Is it the April Fools Trailer of Sandfall? I already downloaded that.

Click the refresh button. Your computer's remembering the old page before I updated it with the demo download.

 

[Prexus]

I have had the error more than once. It was from mashing buttons pretty intensely, but I was unable to fix it.

Out of five pit fights, it happened three times.

As far as the ammunition thing goes, I think Serren needs some sort of default attack when he has no ammunition. Pistol Whip?