I wrote a reply to this thread yesterday, but I was at work and didn't copy my text before my lack of cookie killed it, so I'll do my best to say again what I said yesterday (and more):
ncw64 wrote:Hey, my computer died and I just not got a laptop and got my game online. I'm uploading my game regardless, and I'm not sure if it's too late. Hopefully the T-shirt will still be a possibility!
Would the game have been on time if not for hardware failure? If so, I'll see if Inferior Minion is able/willing to make another shirt.
J_Taylor wrote:On second thought... I'll get mine done for HoT2, for sure.
Yes, please do. And tell Puzzle that I'd like to see that Celtic game make an appearance if it's ready by then. I'm quite interested to see how it turns out.
JSH357 wrote:One more thing: please make the NPCs pushable. I had to wait on one to leave that long narrow corridor in the first area for ages.
Seconded. And I think all games that have any kind of narrow corridor should make this a design necessity.
Actually, the T-shirts weren't my idea. You can thank Inferior Minion and Fenrir-Lunaris for that one. IM was so pleased with the idea behind the Heart of the OHR contest that he wanted to throw a prize of his own into the pot, and that's what he decided on. Fenrir actually designed the logo for the shirt, and I liked it enough to brand it the official logo of the Heart of the OHR now and forever, or until inspiration drives him to create a new logo. But the discussion about the T-shirts and its design took place back in June, so I don't think so. Sorry.
Mystic wrote:The Apophenia video made me realize something important...
The camera should really start with Gumshoe in the center.
I wrote something similar yesterday, but alas the cookie thief stole my chance to show it to the world. But yeah, I had no idea why my player wasn't moving until I looked to the bottom right of the screen. My eyes' focal point was on that chair in the western room, and because the game was so dark, and the chair so cape-like, I thought that was the hero.
Speaking of
Apophenia, I found time to play some of the games Thursday and Friday. I'm still playing through them, and I will most likely post some Slime Salad reviews on each of them throughout the month of December, but here are my early impressions:
Apophenia:
I think it's a clear sign that I've played too many shooters in my life when I knew exactly how to defeat the assassin before I fired off a single shot. Regardless, I thought it was a great mechanic, and it left me wanting more. My only criticisms so far are the camera issue plaguing the intro, and the extreme darkness of the palette. Unfortunately, my monitor is temperamental and doesn't always handle dark games with care. It's the primary reason why I won't play
Bloodlust. If I can't see the game, I can't very well enjoy it. That would be a concern of mine for the future of
Apophenia. But otherwise, it's a fine game, if not incredibly short at the moment.
Skyfall:
This game really surprised me. Not that I should've been surprised, but I thought it was put together very nicely, and I really liked that you had the player return to the cavern with newer, stronger people. I don't know why, but that second visit was more appealing than the first. And I agree that battles were very nice to look at. My only criticism is the lack of detail to the cloud city. I hope you spend the bugfix period filling it out. But yeah, I will be looking forward to future installments of this game. Please keep working on it.
Chronoboy's Adventures:
I already gave a mini-review of it on Castle Paradox in the dedicated thread for it. I still like the idea that money can come from jobs as much as it can come from battles. And the time system is neat, if not sometimes impractical. I tried it at 2am, and of course, all the key people were asleep. And my screen was too dark to really appreciate nighttime exploration anyway. But still, it's a neat system when used well. I had an idea for something similar a couple of years ago where you had to solve a crime in 30 days, and you could only gather certain pieces of information at certain times (in real life). I'd still like to design it someday, as I still think about it a lot. But I'm glad that someone else gave me the chance to see whether that idea would even fly.
Eternity Fragment:
I barely touched this so far. I walked around the castle a bit, waited on those NPCs in the tight corridors, and eventually fought and lost to a random enemy. I played something else after that. I will go back and play more, but my attention span is short, so game overs tend to knock me out of interest for awhile, especially when they happen in the first five minutes. I thought the NES cartridge opening was awesome.
Virida Ch. 2:
I've been waiting a long time to play this game, and for some reason I get the idea that I'm still waiting because this is, after all, chapter 2. But I really like the design here. The equipment tent was ingenius. I think you've given me a great idea for hero upgrading here. And the battle sequence, while long and ultimately futile--as I lost--was well designed, and mostly fun. Like I did for
Eternity Fragment, I quit after the game over, but I will try again soon. I'm really eager to see this one finished.
HERO.RPG:
One of only three entries that I finished so far, I think it has the makings of a good RPG in there, but extra care needs to be made into presentation. Interior rooms should be centered, not left-justified. Dialogue should be split by character, and not bleed into new lines with words that aren't even finished. Also, when I say that I finished it, I'm only guessing, as I did all that I could find. I rescued the drunken flirt from the cave and didn't really know where to go from there. I also thought too many NPCs said the same thing, and I tend to cringe at lack of variety. The good news is that most of the things it needs are easy to fix. I do hope you work on presentation a bit for the bugfix session, though.
Side note: Am I the only one who finds it strange that two HotOHR entries share the same RPG file name?
Do You Want to Be a Hero also uses the filename HERO.RPG.
Motrya:
I intended to save this one for last, but last night I decided I couldn't wait any longer. I had to see what the hype was about.
Let me just say right off the bat that the Lyte Snap game, while I'm still trying to figure it out, is one of the best additions to any OHR game I've played to date. In my opinion, this makes a great game stellar. And I love that the player is rewarded for defeating his classmates at the game. This inspires me to get more creative with minigames. Excellent job. I can tell that the scripting for it must've been a nightmare, and I'm glad you muscled through it. I'm still forming my opinion about the game itself (it has a strong resemblance to
FUABMX V4 if I recall), but so far all the ingredients are in place. It was 4am when I played, so I didn't get far yet, but I'll try to finish it today. Certainly the most polished of all the releases this year. And even though you had more ducks in
Duck in MJ 2, I think the lack of ducks in
Motrya so far is forgiveable. And a note to your co-designers: the graphic design is pleasant and the music really takes the game to a higher eschelon for me. Good job to both of them.
I'll play the others as soon as possible. But I really feel like these games capture the old days well, and again I thank each of you for making it a success. I'm quite happy with the results.
On to other matters:
Be careful when giving scores to the games in this thread. The voting system for this contest will rely on scores, not necessarily on rankings, so you may not want to get attached to your scores until the 16th.
Also, I contacted IM the other night about the T-shirts. At some point, if he hasn't already, he'll be asking all the on-time entrants for addresses and shirt sizes. If you don't hear from him soon, let me (or him) know. Mogri, I told him about your situation, so you should be among the ones contacted. If you aren't, let me know.
Lastly, I wrote this earlier in one of my edits, but I haven't heard anyone discuss it yet, so I'll ask again here: Would any of you be willing to create a youtube trailer for the Heart of the OHR games? I think it would be nice to have a short compilation of what this contest was about. Also, if anyone would be willing to score it (musically, not numerically), that would also be fantastic.
And just to throw my own game into the discussion, I am still trying to put the newest
Powerstick Man XE trailer together, but Windows Movie Maker has got to be one of the buggiest programs on the planet, and I keep finding myself losing significant changes to the presentation thanks to its constant unwillingness to work properly. Granted, what I have so far is pretty ridicu-awesome (in my opinion--you all might think it's stupid), but the moral of the story is that it's taking me far longer to finish it then I had realized. I still plan to finish it soon so that it can have relevance to the Heart of the OHR name, but if Movie Maker continues to hammer my skull with headaches, this possibility will become less likely. Second moral of the story: buy a functional movie-making program.
Also, I've noticed some dialogue problems with my game, and I'll try to fix some of them today. I haven't decided yet if I'm gonna upload a fixed version or not, though. Since this is a preview copy, I'm not sure if uploading a new version would make any sense, as the official release will have major changes in some areas anyway. Does anyone insist on seeing a fixed version between now and the 30th, or can you wait until this summer when the finished version will *hopefully* be released?
Also, if anyone could be so kind to send me a list of bugs you've encountered in the preview, and/or things you really liked about it, I'd be quite grateful.
Okay, that's it for now.
