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[oldbone]

This project is a cross between an 8-bit CRPG & a sports management sim. The closest thing to it is "Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King" (WiiWare):

www.kickstarter.com/projects/2062086221/sim-hero

You manage parties of adventures and send them into dungeons for loot & xp... very deep class/skill/loot systems.

(playable demo!)

[Hanzoku]

There might be a tide of 'rawr, you only joined to post for a game' coming this way.

Anyway, I went ahead and tried the demo, but this isn't the game for me. It's being built in RPG Maker, which isn't a downside per se, but the sort of menu-driven gameplay this is designed to encourage is made a lot harder by not being able to use a mouse to click through the series of menus needed.

A few annoyances I ran into:
- My level 4 party ran into a TPK in a level 1 dungeon
- Lack of healers
- Ambiguous necessity of a leader party. I wasn't capable of doing anything with him, so why does he have equipment, class, skills, exp, etc? (Oh, and a squire flunky, that I'd rather went to filling out the ill-fated party 3.)
- boredom. You send your three parties out, you wait until they come back, you laborously switch to each party, heal them, bury their dead, consolidate them into two parties and send them out again. Repeat until you're out of heroes.

The problem is, there's nothing to do while you're waiting for your heroes to adventure - I ran around the town once already to pick up any additional characters I could, and otherwise I can't go anywhere or do anything while waiting.

I think it has a good but deeply flawed idea as a foundation - without the kingdom-running aspects of Majesty, it simply ends up being a big of a boring drag.

[oldbone]

Yeah, I suppose it looks bad. I have been playing DF for about a year, even donated. Just because I haven't engaged in the forums I guess that's perceived as a black stain by the anonymous internet... sigh.

Wow - you played the demo. That's awesome. Thanks for taking the time, I know we're all busy people.

[Meta]

Yeah, I suppose it looks bad. I have been playing DF for about a year, even donated. Just because I haven't engaged in the forums I guess that's perceived as a black stain by the anonymous internet... sigh.
[...]

Well, it does look bad because this sub-forum is regularly the target of escaped lunatics just here for advertising. And we don't know that you have been a lurker for about a year, so we can't take that into account.

Bah, at least, welcome among us!

[oldbone]

I get it... ran a BBS back in the day of modems.

feel free to 'rawr me all you want. I can take it

[ragnar119]

So it's something like towns or dungeon village. Will dl the demo and try it out later

[EuchreJack]

Playing the demo, a more streamlined system for transferring characters and items would be nice.

Also, the ability to donate in amounts of 100 instead of 500-1000 (dunno which, description says 500 while "don't have" response says 1000) would be nice.

I hired someone in the inn, and she was dead, lol.

[Hanzoku]

I went ahead and played the demo a bit further, and here are the things I thought about while doing so:

- global inventory option. All equipment should go to a global inventory. Otherwise, you have to switch someone out of say, Party 1, switch in the person who can actually use the gear, equip them, switch them back out and switch back in the original party member. It's far easier just to have all gear go to a communal pool.

- Heroes should be resurrectable up to level 5 or so - this assists in the early portion of the game when gear is poor and HP pools are limited.

- I wasn't able to replicate the issue where the Squire went to the Court group instead of the Reserves, but there should be the option to transfer people out of the Court (or the Court should be able to adventure as well.)

- I did find the throne this time around, with the promise of something to do while your heroes are out doing the heavy lifting in the dungeons, which at least gives an option rather then pacing back and forth in front of the healer, waiting to see who comes back.

- There's no ability to use items (like a burial shroud) when a total party kill occurs, locking out one of your parties forever.

- I'm not sure how hard this is to do in RPG Maker, but it would make more sense to have a list of all (living) heroes, and then have the ability from that list to assign them to parties, rather then needing to switch to parties and use the Transfer Orders to move them around.

- The 'optimize' button seems to reduce the mana for casters - maybe because it unequips and reequips mana-pool increasing items?

- Heroes should be able to find/buy consumables - healing potions are a staple of the genre, and would (probably) go a long way to making groups without a healer more effective.

- When you gain the ability to have a party of four, the fourth member should be shown when walking around.

- It seems like higher level dungeons  take longer to complete - it'd be nice to have a timer by each group so you know when they'd be back.

- Old Well seems to be mis-marked as a level 5 dungeon - should be marked higher.

- As EuchreJack also encountered, you shouldn't recruit dead heroes, especially as they can't be removed from the reserve group.

- Finally, upgrades to the Blacksmith take your money but don't do anything - no new shop, no new inventory.

[oldbone]

Thanks for all the demo plays. Will try to answer most questions below.
The demo has been updated, get it here: https://www.copy.com/s/Fpra9GIie2BC

Updates of note (now live in the demo, which requires a rip & replace):

- Diplomacy system is live (ally with either the Orcs, Dwarves or Wood Elves to recruit that race's heroes!)

- Event system is live (random events will plague the castle, and you must resolve them to keep your castle alive... tho the actual "lose game" mechanics still aren't in place yet)

- Managing your army is also live now. Many events will call upon your army to fight. You may also send heroes to serve with the army (once the "Wounds" system is in place, this will be an attractive option to send your hero with a missing arm off to pasture).

---


responses to this thread:

- Global inventory: that's in my plans as part of the kickstarter $. Just need a little help from a better scripter than I.
- rez heroes up to level 5 (it's on my radar... maybe. I also toned down the first few dungeons in the new demo version)
- squire to court group: yup, all fixed in the new demo version. That was a bug.
- throne: yup, it's obvious and there's a ton to do now.
- burial shroud, TPK - thanks, will add to the list
- better party switching: I'm hoping to get that in with the Kickstarter $: a mouse system + drag n drop party management.
- optimize: it just adds the total stats of the current item and compares to other items of the same slot... it's not the smartest, but it's "good enough" for now (the item swapped in may have given more HP or more bonuses to other stats)
- consumable items: yup, it's all there, just not part of the demo yet as I wrestle with the AI to make 'em work right
- 4th member walking: yup, on the list
- party timer: when you goto "Switch party", you can see how many seconds are left... it does "pause" from time to time, so it's only a "general" idea of when they'll be back.
- old well - yup, I need to mark it higher.
- hiring dead heroes: will look into that
- upgrade blacksmith... yeah, that's one of the "demo endpoints" I haven't cleaned up yet.

Again, thanks... you guys/gals are great.

[HopFlash]

nice that such a demo exists...some points to mention:

- Switching Party to an empty one and you can choose "Class" what will produce a crash of the game.
- Could be there a option to switch off the music? It's not bad but if I only want to hear the sound effects I can't even turn off the whole sound.
- I have no idea of RPGmaker capabilites but is Window-Resizing/Fullscreen possible?
- Do not switch back to "Your Court" if using the Party Switch Item.
- Info, why my game ist "Game Over" (I think it was because of the invasion but I saw no signs to hurry)

Only impressions of my first run...if I have time I will check it again I think

[Ultimuh]

I am a bit suspiciousdue to it being created with an RPGMaker engine.
Now don't get me wrong. Plenty of such games are probably good, but I also know of many terrible games made by those engines.

So will you avoid the mistake of making huge square rooms and big empty spaces on the maps? (Maps, instances, rooms, whatever they are called.)
Also avoid straight roads unless they are made in populated locations.

[HopFlash]

I am a bit suspiciousdue to it being created with an RPGMaker engine.
Now don't get me wrong. Plenty of such games are probably good, but I also know of many terrible games made by those engines.
So will you avoid huge square rooms and big empty spaces on the maps? (Maps, instances, rooms, whatever they are called.)

As I can see in the demo the ways to walk are short enough

But I think if such a project gets enough attention and he can hire someone it could be possible to take the next step (perhaps better engine/programming language) for version 2 or not?

[oldbone]

nice that such a demo exists...some points to mention:

- Switching Party to an empty one and you can choose "Class" what will produce a crash of the game.
- Could be there a option to switch off the music? It's not bad but if I only want to hear the sound effects I can't even turn off the whole sound.
- I have no idea of RPGmaker capabilites but is Window-Resizing/Fullscreen possible?
- Do not switch back to "Your Court" if using the Party Switch Item.
- Info, why my game ist "Game Over" (I think it was because of the invasion but I saw no signs to hurry)

Only impressions of my first run...if I have time I will check it again I think

- switching party, choose "class", crash: Yup, on my known issues list.
- switch off music. will add it to the possibilities list
- full screen: just hit F5 to toggle that on/off

Thanks for giving it a whirl!

[oldbone]

But I think if such a project gets enough attention and he can hire someone it could be possible to take the next step (perhaps better engine/programming language) for version 2 or not?

That's the idea...

After initially falling in love with the "My Life as a King" gameplay, I quickly found that game was more about where you place your buildings in the 3d world than any *real* strategy with the parties of adventurers.

... and I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement. ("Dungeon Village" didn't cut it for me... "Majesty" isn't a perfect fit either...)

Maybe this game type has no market. Who knows. But it's the game I want to play, and I guess it's up to me to make it. Of course, I have grand ideas of how to "do it right", but I don't have the budget for that right now (my family *does* like to eat).

[Moogie]

Well I for one really enjoyed "My Life as a King", and simultaneously it annoyed me for the same reasons you point out (most of your important decisions revolve around where you build houses, shops and the like, rather than how you handle your adventurer parties).

So I hope this gains interest and can grow into its own engine someday. I wish you luck!