Back to Basics Collection

[Chronoboy]

Honestly one reason why the game was delayed so much was because all I was doing was playing the bloody thing rather than developing it further. I actually found fun and entertainment in it, although the missing monsters past that starting area kept disappointing me. I tested the the side-quests multiple times, just because I actually did enjoy going through them and making sure the dialect the characters were saying were correct.

My main profession is in computer science, not in game design, story writing, creativity, or even graphic design. I create these games because I enjoy playing with the underlying technology and think this engine needs lots more marketing. The OHRRPGCE is way under marketed for it's vast potential as a Retro game development system. It's cross-platform, and now even compiles games to Android. It's a wonderful piece of open source software that needs to be out there, it needs to be marketed as a viable platform for indie Retro game developers. Much like how engines like Unity are marketed as a truly awesome cross-platform real-time 3D engine. I see the potential in this engine from a computer science prospective, and enjoy playing with each new release.

So I apologize if the games I produce are lackluster, and are not as polished as some of the other games people releases. Everybody has their individual talent.

The reason why I stated this project is open source and that other people can fork the project, isn't because I want someone else to finish it for me... It's far from that. If you read some of my previous threads on the topic, I am keeping it unlocked and open to anyone as a learning tool for newbies to understand the most basic concepts of the engine and what it is capable of without using plotscript. Some people come to this community with absolutely no programming background, and usually don't dive into plotscript right away. Having an example game which is unlocked and uses no plotscripting, allows someone whom is new to explore the insides of a full game and tinker with it and try out new things with an existing game.

This idea sparked to me when I recall playing some older NES games, and thought it would be neat if I could edit this game and create my own quests. In later years of the ROMs, game editors for various games were finally made available, but they were rather limited on what they could due. Having such a concept in an OHRRPGCE game I believe is a great idea. As it's an open game, anybody can take it, and make their own similar game, while changing parts or even the entire story. I except people to merely try adding new quests and such first, or a new NPC, something more basic. But as newbies become more familiar with the engine, they could use this as a testing ground for their own game.

Also since the game is plotscriptless, but has a populated world, it gives vets the ability to try out new concepts with plotscripting in a retro-style RPG game. So rather than creating a brand spanking new blank RPG file and importing various assets and building a world to test a new and exciting plotscript in, one can use this RPG file as a base. You can easily import your plotscript as-is into the game, and the game won't complain one bit. If you try to replace plotscripting for a game which already uses plotscripting, then you risk breaking the game and will need more debugging to enable your custom plotscripts.

So, in a closing, this game in my eyes is suppose to have multiple purposes, some for my own personal journey, and others meant for the community as a whole. In my opinion, this community needs more plotscript-less games which are unlocked that a newbie can explore and tinker with. The tiles should be easy to place and use. I see some games which are open using rather complex tilesets which takes a lot of time to learn and understand. This can be overwhelming to someone who is new and just looking at the engine and fiddling with an existing RPG file to see what they could do. When I was first introduced to the engine, it shipped with 3 plotscriptless demos, which wonderfully teased concepts, and the tutorial which came in the ZIP explained how to add monsters to the sand, and how to make these robots dance. It excited me to try more than just make the robots dance. Now the game that ships with the engine is an actual game... If I were new to the engine and saw this game in CUSTOM, I'd be too overwhelmed, and there isn't even a tutorial that explains how to edit that game or add new stuff. It's a good game, but really not suitable to be shipped in the ZIP file when it's the first RPG file a newbie will actually open in CUSTOM!

Okay, I'm done with my little rant there. If there are any newbies reading this, how did you find the included RPG file with CUSTOM, did you even look inside the RPG file, did you know it was actually unlocked when you first downloaded the engine? What was your first impression when you opened the RPG in custom? Would you prefer the good old days of CUSTOM shipping with a nice guided tutorial and 3 starter RPGs which are purposely incomplete?

[Meowskivich]

Not to insult ye, but...
too long; didn't read.
At least most of it.

I hope I didn't come off as negative in my comments to ye, I like the game quite a bit, it's really well done (besides sprites being randomly outlined or not), and it appeals to the explorer in me, especially looking for those elemental rings. I think I've found three, the Ether ring, Ice ring, and Earth ring.

I can test the game out for you as a playtester any time you wish, as I'd like to help you get this game made up real good. I felt cheated when the two times I scrounged up enough money to buy keys both doors led to nowhere, since the stairways located within didn't work.

So yeah, I'll help you get this done, if you'd like.

[Meatballsub]

This is my opinion, so take it for what it's worth.

So I apologize if the games I produce are lackluster, and are not as polished as some of the other games people releases. Everybody has their individual talent.

You don't have anything to apologize about, and I don't think anyone is asking you to do anything you aren't capable of doing.

But...

Not everyone is going to love your game, regardless of how it is developed and advertised. There will always be people that just don't appreciate the work you've done, whether you deserve it or not. I'm not saying anyone here acted out of line, but there is a certain degree of dislike that you have to expect when releasing a game, especially when it is released as an "incomplete alpha" product.

Years ago the OHRRPGCE used to have tons of elitists that would set your house on fire if you didn't do things right. Nowadays, I feel like the community is much more relaxed, despite being a much smaller base.

The main issue I had with your game was this:

Okay... Well since life is getting in the way of this game way too much, as I was suppose to release this and perhaps another game this year... I am going to release what I got currently as an unfinished alpha and have the community see it and judge it, and perhaps tell me of any bugs they find. I do plan on completing this game eventually, and it is so close to completion...

This is the reason why many people are giving you negative responses, in my opinion.

Unless you are on your death bed and releasing a game prematurely is the last thing to do on your bucket list, you should never do it. History shows us that releasing games just to meet a "deadline" is a bad idea in itself. If you need proof, then let me remind you of the Atari ET landfill.

Okay, they HAD to release theirs before the deadline, but most of us have the luxury of choice rather than a hard deadline.

You saying that you are releasing your game solely because life is "getting in the way" is a terrible excuse in my opinion. Most of us in the OHR community nowadays have been here for years and years, and now have full time jobs, wifeys and kids. Even if we didn't have these things, life would still "get in the way".

There's a difference between wanting and having to release a game under a certain time period. If your game is in alpha stages, then why did it have to be released? Why not delay the release for a few months and make it into something really special? Nobody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you release the game now. I covered deadlines in my Newbie's Guide to Successfully Publishing A Game for this very reason.

I genuinely like the idea behind your game, I just feel that it should have been worked on longer before release.

One last thing. I don't think any of us are professional game designers, but that isn't an excuse not to strive for improvements. Years ago I more or less copied some graphics from FUABMX for an unreleased game of mine. I think everyone has been guilty of graphic ripping at some point in time. Looking back, however, I'm glad I stopped doing it because I now see how far my skills really have improved. I mean seriously, even looking back at my work from a year ago makes me want to go back and re-do all of it.

The truth is, you won't get any better unless you try. And if we are all mostly casual game makers, isn't that our goal anyways? If not, then what is the point? I say all of this because I'd like to see everyone's games succeed.

[Chronoboy]

Thank you Meatballsub, that was very well written and many great points made. In retrospect, I shouldn't have released it when I did. One of the goals of this Back to Basics Collection was to start doing my own graphics, but after I get better at general game design. One step at a time.

Meowskivich, glad you were able to find 3 of those rings, and sorry about their locked doors and non-working stairs. Those stairs were one of the next sections I was going to focus on. Exploration type games are the types of games I usually enjoy playing, like many of the older NES/SNES RPGs. One of my main focuses when making an RPG is usually exploration with lots to hopefully see and do. I don't limit where the player can go so much, if they are strong enough or have a specific item, then they should be-able to go there. Not a huge fan of linearity in general.

With those statements being said, I am planning on resuming work and polishing up all the rough edges. I believe I'll make this a goal for 2014. This is definitely a game I'd like to see finished.

So unless there's a gun pointed at my head, I won't release a newer version. I may update the one I already uploaded to repair that wall bug I missed, and to perhaps populate the world with more monsters so that it's at least a more playable unfinished alpha. Didn't add monsters past a specific location as I didn't feel like having random encounters while testing the world map out.

I don't have email notifications for new replies, so I'm not trying to ignore everyone. I check these forums every-so-often(guess every couple months). Will be checking the forums a little more often now that the holidays are over.

[Meowskivich]

Yessss, I needs me some more Drag'n Worrier.

[Sparoku]

Yessss, I needs me some more Drag'n Worrier.

Agreed. X3

[Chronoboy]

Glad to see your interest SparElric. Hopefully you guys don't finish all those side-quests before the game is finished... On that note, if anybody has some monster graphics they might want to have included in the game world, of course they should match the same palette. The RPG file is unpassworded, so feel free to extract the palette if you wanted to contribute a nice 8-bit monster. Feel free to also submit a name for it as well.

[Chronoboy]

Okay... So, I am going to be reviving this project which I have unfortunately neglected. I read the only review and I do understand what has been said. Some of the points made are due to the game being incomplete with only a couple quests available...

As for the graphics, they aren't ripped, but actually public domain graphics offered by a member of the OHR community. I will try and dig down the information and add him/her to the credits of the game. I would also like to ask the author of the graphics the licensing of his rather awesome work. You see, I'm not much of an artist, so it only makes sense that I out source that as any game development company would. You wouldn't hire an artist to program the logic of the game. I do know that there are some people out there who are a Jack of all trades, but I really don't plan on going there with my skills. I'd highly recommend playing https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... gamedev3en - Game Dev Story, it has some really interesting gameplay.

Anyways, back to the reason why I am reviving this post. Someone commented about being able to walk on water... I am currently going through and patching any bugs, and I checked the wall map and was unable to find any gaps that would allow the player character to get onto the water. So, if I may ask that when you do give a bug report, can you please give a bit more detail than just a smirk and a screenshot showing the player in a place that tells me little about where the bug actually occurred. That's all I ask of this community, and it's common sense in any bug reporting system. If you submitted a bug report for the OHR engine itself, I am sure you wouldn't just say vaguely what went wrong, you would give information on how it can be reproduced. I used to work on various Help Desks, and when probing the client to properly troubleshoot their problem, we need to know how it can be reproduced.

Anyways, enough of that rant. If anybody else recalls any weird bugs/glitches, please bring them to my attention. Please do not report the most obvious, as I know the monster encounters are not all done yet, and that some of the stairs in the game are not linked. For the current version, just any bugs or glitches. I will try and have a new version out for people to beta soon.

Something else I would like to also learn and understand, is how you are playing the actual game. What do you first do when you start a new game, who do you normally talk to first, which order are the quests being completed. Is there any character dialogue which makes no sense or that has some odd wording and/or grammar?

Finally, if you have any suggestions whatsoever regarding the current gameplay, or what you think should be changed, added, or removed, please don't hesitate to tell me. I will highly take your suggestions into consideration if they mix well with the current story and gameplay. Please do not request the addition of plotscripted events, this will not happen.

For my next update, I am planning on adding the following:

• More monster encounters and more variety of monsters
  Completion of the underground labyrinth
  More spells and associated recipes the player can find
  More weapon and armor types for the player to weld
  More as I think of them

As some of you might have noticed, I have commitment issues, I want to stop it with this game and actually complete this game. I had a huge amount of passion for this game while I was originally developing it, and feel I can complete it with the support and feedback from this community.

P.S. If anybody recalls who originally drew the tileset I am currently using and know how I can contact the author, please do let me know. I found this tileset on one of the OHR resource pages, and I am sure the original author would be happy to see his/her awesome retro tiles in use. ;) I will also look around and update this post if I manage to find the original download and author.

[Gizmog]

As for the graphics, they aren't ripped, but actually public domain graphics offered by a member of the OHR community.

See the two comparisons. Some of your graphics *ARE* ripped, and if someone is posting them as public domain we need to find out where and stop it. SOME of the graphics are not ripped, the lead hero seems to be original and perhaps a few others, if only because they don't have the black outlines that seem to be on all of the ripped ones. I didn't do the legwork on it, but I'm reasonably certain that the guards, little kids, and old ladies are ripped too, most likely from Final Fantasy but maybe Dragon Warrior.

Anyways, back to the reason why I am reviving this post. Someone commented about being able to walk on water... I am currently going through and patching any bugs, and I checked the wall map and was unable to find any gaps that would allow the player character to get onto the water. So, if I may ask that when you do give a bug report, can you please give a bit more detail than just a smirk and a screenshot showing the player in a place that tells me little about where the bug actually occurred. That's all I ask of this community, and it's common sense in any bug reporting system. If you submitted a bug report for the OHR engine itself, I am sure you wouldn't just say vaguely what went wrong, you would give information on how it can be reproduced. I used to work on various Help Desks, and when probing the client to properly troubleshoot their problem, we need to know how it can be reproduced.

Anyways, enough of that rant. If anybody else recalls any weird bugs/glitches, please bring them to my attention. Please do not report the most obvious, as I know the monster encounters are not all done yet, and that some of the stairs in the game are not linked. For the current version, just any bugs or glitches. I will try and have a new version out for people to beta soon.

That *IS* frustrating. I looked over the map too, and I didn't notice anything obviously broken. Maybe you fixed it and forgot, or maybe it's something goofy with vehicle mount/dismount. Either way, it's really hard for a tester to decide what is an "obvious bug" and what isn't. If you've got a list of bugs you already know about, you should write 'em down somewhere for people to check before they report, rather than asking them to make a judgement call. It's really frustrating for me when people post games that are broken, and they know they're broken, but they want to see like... "Well, BEYOND THAT, how is it?" and it's hard to say 'cause all you can see is the broken bits.

I don't want to be too mean to you, because I think you're trying to do an honorable thing by helping people. I just think there's mroe directed ways of helping than making a 16 color game with no plotscripts. Demonstrate some cool stuff with attacks and write-up how they work. The OHR Battle system is a labyrinth, and I would really hate to sit there with two copies of custom open, meticulously copying an attacks stats from one game to another, and then have to test and see if it stisll works right.

Good luck, though!

EDIT: Oh, and I don't know if you saw it or not but Charbile had some good comments. He's a little bit flippant in this case, but his stuff about the textboxes and some other statements are pretty accurate.[/url]

[Spoonweaver]

I've said this before, you should NEVER complain about feedback. Any feedback. Big companies pay testers to do this sort of thing, and you get what you pay for. Its no one's right to have their game played and reviewed here. To put it a different way, you're not paying so you're kinda begging and you're not just taking what you get, you're choosing. Beggars can't be choosers.

This isn't directed solely at you Chronoboy. It's a common problem not only here in the OHR but in the indie game community overall. All I can say is, not everyone even gets there game played. You have to help players want to play these games and be thankful for every tiny piece of info they leave behind. To that end, a screenshot in your game listing does wonders to attract players.


As for the game itself, I'd just like to say, I feel the same as Giz and Charbile on basically every point. I think I understand why you started this back to basics thing. Chronoboy adventures wasn't received well and it was heavily scripted. However, you're clearly a coder. Making a game that denies your greatest strength as a game developer is basically the same as you doing only the graphics for a game.

Look, I'm holding the random collab contest soon. You should enter. It'll give you a chance to swap designing points with someone else while at the same time allowing yourself to focus on what you're best at.

[Chronoboy]

I've said this before, you should NEVER complain about feedback. Any feedback. Big companies pay testers to do this sort of thing, and you get what you pay for. Its no one's right to have their game played and reviewed here. To put it a different way, you're not paying so you're kinda begging and you're not just taking what you get, you're choosing. Beggars can't be choosers.

This isn't directed solely at you Chronoboy. It's a common problem not only here in the OHR but in the indie game community overall. All I can say is, not everyone even gets there game played. You have to help players want to play these games and be thankful for every tiny piece of info they leave behind. To that end, a screenshot in your game listing does wonders to attract players.

Hmm, your right I did forget to include a screenshot, oddly I never actually realized that until you pointed it out. I can understand were your coming from regarding testers, I can understand your point there.

As for the game itself, I'd just like to say, I feel the same as Giz and Charbile on basically every point. I think I understand why you started this back to basics thing. Chronoboy adventures wasn't received well and it was heavily scripted. However, you're clearly a coder. Making a game that denies your greatest strength as a game developer is basically the same as you doing only the graphics for a game.

I have been coding since I was like 8(I think), and still code in many different languages these days. Part of me does want to add some scripting into the game, and it is hard to hold back. However, I am rather impressed at what I was able to accomplish without scripting. It really does show the raw potential of the OHR engine.

Look, I'm holding the random collab contest soon. You should enter. It'll give you a chance to swap designing points with someone else while at the same time allowing yourself to focus on what you're best at.

That sounds great. I will highly consider your offer.

See the two comparisons. Some of your graphics *ARE* ripped, and if someone is posting them as public domain we need to find out where and stop it. SOME of the graphics are not ripped, the lead hero seems to be original and perhaps a few others, if only because they don't have the black outlines that seem to be on all of the ripped ones. I didn't do the legwork on it, but I'm reasonably certain that the guards, little kids, and old ladies are ripped too, most likely from Final Fantasy but maybe Dragon Warrior.

I ended up going through all the current assets, and I can confirm that some of them do appear ripped. Most of the tilesets are from the tileset I found on an OHR resource page. The sprites and battle animates are too. So, if those are ripped, they weren't ripped by yours truly. Something which I am actually considering is to redo all the graphics entire, and make them myself... However, after I received some rather bad reviews for the art I actually tried to make in Chronoboy Adventures, I feel sort of terrified at what this game might end up looking like. I made all the graphics which take place in the real world in Chronoboy Adventures, the part of the game that proceeds the isometric world you see for most of the game. It actually took me many days to rip the Ultima 6 tileset in the way it appears in Chronoboy adventures. Ripping isn't as easy as you might think. The Ultima 6 tileset is 16x16, whereas OHR uses 20x20, so naturally there were many awful scaling issues. So what I ended up doing, is converting each tile one-by-one, and it was a process I never wish to ever repeat. I told myself, that if for some reason I lost these converted tilesets, I'd just start a different game from scratch. Ripping 20x20 tilesets is super easy yes, but with 16x16, I also needed to make sure all the walls were able to attach correctly, and the transparency was correctly set for some of the foreground objects. I think I may have the original GIF of the tileset I converted if you wanted to try converting the isometric house tiles... It was a god awful experience that I never want to endure again. The watergates in Chronoboy adventures were handmade by me, as Ultima 6's moongate tiles are absolute crap. I can normally draw nice 3d geometric shapes in pixel art, I just have trouble drawing people and animals. I actually have trouble drawing people and animals on paper too, but can draw nice 3d shapes easily. I'm a computer science geek, so naturally I'm better at art that can be mathematically created.

[Chronoboy]

So, I finally took the time to locate where I got these 8-bit graphics from. From what I recall, someone in a previous post mentioned that I ripped the tiles from another game. I mentioned that I obtained the tiles through a legal means, and they were freely available graphics to use in any game seen fit. Unfortunately at the time I was unable to prove where I actually got the graphics from, which lead to additional words being traded...

So, here we go. I finally got proof of where I actually got the graphics from, and if anybody here did read Super Walrus Land newsletters, may have already seen these graphics. The artist gave them away hoping that they could be used eventually in a game, but no game has yet to use them, until this one came around.

The actual graphics were drawn by FnrrfYgmSchnish, and the link to the newsletter article is here: http://superwalrusland.com/ohr/issue36/ ... rites.html

About 2 years back, I actually went and read through all the articles in the magazines, and as a result also downloaded all the free assets which were provided by various artists.

Now that I know the artists name, I will actually properly credit him within the game itself as the graphical artist. I did draw some of the graphics myself, namely some new enemies. I also updated some of the existing tiles and such, which is allowed according to the author's notes.

So, I hope this response clarifies where the graphics are from, and if you have any problems with how those graphics were drawn, take it up with the artist. Personally, I like the nice 8-bit style this artist created, and that is why I choose these assets for this particular game. I will highly consider using these 8-bit tiles for future projects.

On another note, if you managed to read this far, I do plan on continuing development of this title. I was on IRC recently and came to a conclusion that I want at least one completed OHR project in my lifetime, and I feel that this should be the project I complete. I have gotten pretty far in it's development, have a pretty lush map made, and I still have plenty of ideas going forward. Wish me all the luck, and thank you very much to FnrrfYgmSchnish for creating the perfect graphics set for a Dragon Warrior syled game.

[TMC]

Cool, good luck. Don't forget to make suggestions for engine features for those script-less games. Or do what I would and just add them yourself ;)

By the way, all the free graphics released through HamsterSpeak (I believe) are linked from the Free Graphics pages on the wiki.

[Chronoboy]

Cool, good luck. Don't forget to make suggestions for engine features for those script-less games. Or do what I would and just add them yourself ;)

I will, and already have a suggestion just from playing Walthros again. Every console JRPG I have been playing has a Defend option in the battle menu. Why is this battle option still missing in the engine? Are designers suppose to add it themselves using the Magic/Skill system? I personally believe it should be in the battle menu natively, and would work as you would expect. Increase that characters Def and Dog type attributes. Although some sort of customizability would be nice.

By the way, all the free graphics released through HamsterSpeak (I believe) are linked from the Free Graphics pages on the wiki.

That's actually where I started looking to find it. And it is listed there as the 8-bit graphics pack.

Anyways, today I hope to get some more progress done on my game.

[TMC]

A defend action should definitely be defined in the attack editor rather than something builtin; there aren't any other built-in attacks. But it would be nice if it were easier to define such an attack; the attack editor is pretty intimidating. And there's always the option to provide default attacks in new .rpg files, just like we have default vehicles.