Slime Salad

My game has been uploaded: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5440

Thanks, FnrrfYgmSchnish. The game looks good.

I'm going to bed, guys. There are still four hours left to upload your games and still be eligible for the entry prizes. Hope you get them in on time. I'll update the official release list with links to each game in the morning.

Don't forget, you can still release your games after 6am (and up until 6am on December 8th) and be eligible for the winning prizes if for any reason you can't get them uploaded before tonight's deadline. Don't drop out because you missed the first deadline by an hour. You're only missing out on the bug bounties (and possibly the T-shirts) by submitting late. Just submit what you can as soon as you can.

Good luck, everyone. Thanks for making this another successful year for the Heart of the OHR.

I made a pretty mad dash to the finish.

I've uploaded a game.

Thanks for the encouragement, Spoonweaver.

Okay, guys, the inevitable moment is here. The first deadline had passed. Any game you submit between now and the morning of December 8th will still be allowed into the contest, but without the bug bounty reward in tow.

Here is the official list of games, authors, and download links for your convenience:

Original:

Universal Wars by jcenterprises
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5169

Illusions by MasterK
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5182

DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons by KF Harlock and Shizuma
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5197

Reign of Grelok by misac
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5127

Legacy by BMR
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5267

Super Penguin Chef by Mogri
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5419

AR-PUH-GUH! by Meowskivich
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5428

Kinvesard: Epilogue of the Princess by Spoonweaver
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5430

Dreg Sector: The Tract by Willy Elektrix
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5432

NO MORE VILLAINS by Fenrir-Lunaris
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5433

Cool Guy Bob Surlaw by The Wobbler
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5436

The K'hyurbhi Lands by FnrrfYgmSchnish
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5440

Silhouette by Mystic
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=5441

Rereleased:

Abel by BlastedEarth
Download at: http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-d ... ?game=1059

Final Dragon Legacy by mjohnson092088
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=3972

Legendary Heroes by Spoonweaver
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=3916

OHR Legends:

Vikings of Midgard by Fenrir-Lunaris
Download at: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=38

Unless someone sneaks in a late entry or verifies any of the three games I'm still uncertain about, this is the official game list for Heart of the OHR 2012.

Be sure to keep leaving feedback for the authors to help them improve their games for the final push to December 7th. Remember, we are NOT at the voting stage yet, so suppress the urge to start ranking games until the 8th. Thanks.

Whoever wants to edit the Wiki with the new list of games, downloads, and special comments about the contest (to model the 2010 entry), please do.

Dreg Sector
Okay, I just blew through a good part of my afternoon playing this game. It's kind of a grindy game, but I'm still liking it a lot. The battles are pretty well structured. Each of the ships have a unique role in battle, and you have to think about how to best equip each one to suit their role. (I wound up using the Fighter, Scout, Transport, and Scavenger.) The ships also all have unique graphics. I would've liked it if the ship's sprites were related somehow with their functions in battle, but just having them all look different was enough to make the battles look pretty lively.

That said, it was a bit hard to get into at the beginning (since most of the first battles even in the blue area has you outnumbered by enemies with better equipment than you do). It was kind of irritating that the Scout's flee ability fails so often, since it seemed like something that was made for the early game.

Also, it was hard for me to tell the difference between the red and green areas. Granted, I am kind of color blind, but I think it'd help if you made the red tiles a little brighter and the green tiles a little darker (or something like that).

EDIT: Quick bug. The Hyper Core that you get from the tomb increases your Evasion rather than your Core.

Kinvesard
This game has some good ideas. I liked the premise of building your own party by combining a race with a class. The dungeon was relatively short and simple, but I liked what I played of it.

It'd help if you included a guide (in your readme or something) as to what all the abilities did. I figured out Song through experimentation, but I'm still not quite sure what Sneak or Spores do. In the game it says Guidance boosts your Aim, but it actually restores your HP (my health increased when I used the attack on myself).

By the way, can you open the locked door in that one room (just south of the boss)? I've tried putting a Rogue in my party and looking anywhere but I can't figure out how to open that door.

Grelok
There are a lot of problems with this game. You can't save your game. The "Potion" command doesn't work, I couldn't find any inns in town and the only way to restore your HP is leveling up. The maps are big and empty. I got killed by a mountain lion and I didn't feel like starting over from the beginning.

No More Villains
I liked the game overall. The first few fights were fun because you got to experiment with different parties and figure out how different villains worked best with each other. The puzzle battle aspect did die away once you can choose your own party, but.. there weren't that many important battles after that. Surlaw and Whale Puncher was the hardest battle, though mostly because I didn't know I was supposed to grind for equipment in an earlier scene.

I think the battles could also stand to be a bit more transparent, since I wasn't always sure what was going on. The enemies would use counterattacks and I wouldn't be sure if it was a counter or a normal attack. And I had no clue what they were countering against and why they were countering against it (took some trial and error to figure out it was mostly Vlad triggering the counters). It was clear enough what most of your attacks did, though I didn't figure out that Gahn's Faith attack raised your Magic stat until the final boss fight (I had assumed that it raised your Res).

A quick bit on the games I've played so far.

Super Penguin Chef

I really enjoyed this game. The humor worked very well, and it was whimsical enough to be fun, yet serious enough to be challenging. The variety of possible recipes is interesting, and the obsessive compulsive in me wants to figure out as many of the recipes as I can.

The contests are also done rather well, and are challenging enough to require some forethought. Also actually knowing how to cook helps, as it's possible to guess at recipes and what recipes would and would not make sense.

One of my major gripes is that the inventory size seems to be rather limited. This could be intentional, but at times when I didn't notice that my inventory was full, I would receive an item (The power gem I think it was, the one needed to unlock the most powerful ability) and have it go to waste because I didn't have any space left.

Also, I know now that the other three dungeons weren't finished yet, but on my first playthrough I thought I was doing something wrong as nothing was happening. Perhaps an in-game indication would be useful.


AR-PUH-GUH!

Despite the initially ridiculous sounding name, this turned out to be fun, if not a bit frustrating at times. The graphics are simplistic, but I find that this adds to the whole feel of the game and aids in setting the atmosphere. It's initially confusing as to what's supposed to be happening, so it might not appeal to people who want their games to be cut and dried as to what's supposed to happen. It will, however, appeal to the explorer as exploration and side-questing seem to be rather integral parts of the game.

My major gripe would be that at times there's little indication as to what's level-appropriate. I understand that it's part of exploration, but some in-game, in-story sign as to what areas are harder than others might help.


Kinvesard: Epilogue of the Princess

This was an intersting and fun game. I liked how it was possible to combine race and class, though the use of non-traditional races threw me at first as I wasn't initially sure what race would go with what class. Granted, the text provided at race selection helped, but it did take a bit of experimentation to figure out just what worked best with what. On the other hand, this might have been in the readme which I didn't read, tsk tsk tsk, how poor of me.

The battles were tough at times, but they were beatable without any undue frustration. I couldn't figure out how to resurrect fallen companion after I'd used up the two healing things at the start though.

Another interesting point was that certain things would be triggered depending on who you had in your party. Using the statue when a healer is present at the start provides a bonus for the party for example. This was a rather interesting mechanic, though it might have been made more interesting if there were more classes so it wasn't possible to have all four classes present in the four-member party.

It is indeed a rather short game, but it's just in its demo phase and from what's present, it looks to be rather promising. One thing I didn't quite get though, was what is an epilogue of a princess?




Anywho, that's all for now, I'll add more as I play more, cheers!

Universal Wars

I played this game before but I gave it another go to refresh my memory. The game has very simple graphics, but there is enough detail to know what most things are and where they are. The graphics aside, it has an interesting plot, with having to fight mad cows (which are infected with mad cow disease) and having to deal with all sorts of strangeness. It won't make you laugh out loud I suppose, but it's still engaging enough.

My major gripe would be the battles. For most of the fights, I just held down the attack key. During the first part (and throughout most of the middle) there aren't too many things that can really do enough damage to make the fights challenging. Still, I made it through the battles and progressed through the story which is, like I said, an interesting one.

I wanted to give Ar-Puh-Guh a try, but the Window's download doesn't include the .rpg file. It only has the GAME.exe file, sooooo

wait, what?

no, the folder has the rpg file, it's just hidden. the .exe should run it just fine though.

Have something against .exe files?

I don't, but apparently the .exe file has something against hidden .rpg files. It doesn't show it or run it if it's hidden.

Why would it be hidden?

And don't know about others, but I usually use only one copy of Game in a central dir rather than using different ones provided by different games. I don't know if that made any sense, it's 1 in the morning and I should sleep, hehe.

mjohnson092088 wrote:I don't, but apparently the .exe file has something against hidden .rpg files. It doesn't show it or run it if it's hidden.

Odd...never had anyone have that problem before.
And as to why I have the file hidden, I can't really place logic on why I did it, I think it was originally to deter people from trying to open the game file? I dunno.
But if you're having troubles with the file getting hidden, then I'll un-hide it from now on.

Just go into the folder properties, set the whole thing to hidden and press apply, then turn off hidden and press ok and then all things int he folder should be revealed.

Well I got it to work by using Extract All, but I usually just click and drag the files into a folder that I make in the OHR folder.

BMR wrote:And don't know about others, but I usually use only one copy of Game in a central dir rather than using different ones provided by different games. I don't know if that made any sense, it's 1 in the morning and I should sleep, hehe.

If you put a copy of GAME.exe in the same folder as the game and rename the .exe file the same as the .rpg file, then running the .exe will automatically run the .rpg file without having to select it in the sub-directories. Not sure if you knew that, but it's kinda handy.

And uh, I don't know why it would be hidden either, but maybe Meowskivich should put that in the README file because I didn't know that until he just said so.

(edit)The reason why it probably didn't work at first was because like I said, I click, drag, and drop the files that come in the zip folders into another one. The .rpg file didn't get moved because it was hidden, so it wasn't selected when I went to move the rest of them.

Well, that makes more sense, I suppose.

I'll stick the note in future read me's, I guess.

Spoonweaver, I'm still playing through Legendary Heroes, but here are some bugs I'm discovering as I go. Check this post from time to time in case I edit in new reports.

Bugs:

After you slay the squid beast in the giant lake, the proprietor of the monster guild says, "Here's your reward," but doesn't actually give you anything. Also, the sailor guarding the broken dock continues to report that the sea monster is out there, even when it's not.

After you get the "boat" and sail around the lake, you can find a castle full of worms and one undead. The western coast alongside the castle is set to overhead tiles, so the heroes disappear into the earth.

The guy who found out information on the Goblet of Migor asks Biff to pass the message along to his friend, Ron, but when I try to tell Ron, he merely tells me to let him know if I find out any information on the goblet. Incomplete subplot perhaps?

Oh, and you really need to proofread your dialogue.

The chest that gives you the Mage Ring in the blood spider cave doesn't empty, so I could make out like a bandit in there. Actually, the chest dropping the Raise potion doesn't empty, either.

Okay, I just finished the demo. The only other problems I've spotted are both relative to the final areas. In the cave where you acquire your final hero, there is a fishing hole that isn't active. Finally, above the castle, there's a water tile that hasn't been animated.

Suggestions:

I think the fire rats in the cave north of Pearville drop too few rat pelts. I know you said you don't want to make this a grind-heavy game, but you turn it into one when creatures drop pelts fewer than, let's say, 40% of the time.

Using the lute to summon the "boat" may not be immediately intuitive to some players (at first, I thought I had been abandoned by the cave where the crystal transporters are located). I'd suggest having Myrtle remind Biff to play the lute if they want their ride to return the first time they dismount on to land. This will eliminate the chance that someone will give up because they don't know how to get back into the water.

So far, I'm enjoying this as much now as I did two years ago. I still have to explore the areas around the lake, but I'm moving along pretty well.

END OF DEMO EDIT: Okay, I defeated the lumberjack and went back to collect the last of my treasures in waiting (the 20 bats item). I'm satisfied with how the game has progressed since the last Heart of the OHR contest. I wish that all of the subplots had been filled in (the goblet and the monster guild reward for killing the sea monster are the only two that I found), but I seem to recall there being other subplots that were opened but unfilled in the last version that are fulfilled now (part one of the seed quest), so I'm sure there's a reason for them not yet working. Overall, I'm glad you've continued the game, and I hope you'll have this finished soon.

Do remember that this is the last time that Legendary Heroes will be eligible for a prize in a Heart of the OHR contest. If you submit it in 2014, it will be categorized as an OHR Legend, which isn't a bad thing. Great job, Spoonweaver.