Heart of the OHR Contest 2018

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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TMC
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Post by TMC »

The Fight Fantasy demo was publicly released on SS on 2017/10/30 (and a little later on steam).

TheLordThyGod: yes, you just have to ask about what's feasible. Allowing larger tile sizes is much too much work (that's something I plan to implement in the distant future). "Additional MP-like meters" basically means more hero stats? I could implement a fixed number of additional stats (say, 8 more). That seems doable. But it sounds like there are more parts to this, like a way to control how stats behave (whether changes are preserved out of battle, whether they are restored by inns/"Restore HP/MP" textbox conditions, and how they are displayed in the Status menu) and more attack cost settings. That's all extra, but since this would be an incredibly useful feature I should just accept it, right?, even if it takes me longer. (Your third request is also quite doable.)
Last edited by TMC on Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Has anyone else had trouble downloading One Pirate: Adventure in Summer Island?

For those who have already downloaded and played it, does it give you trouble downloading now?
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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

I'll end on my own one because that feels appropriate.
I'm going to do the post-mortem thing [on the demo, at least] instead of an actual review, since reviewing your own stuff is strange.
Anyway:
The first bit of FS drawn up was in mid-2016, I think. None of the graphics I drew there actually made it into the demo, but it did establish how I was going to be approaching things:
1. It'd be Dragon Quest-styled, both in and out of battle.
2. It would be emulate GBC graphical restrictions.
3. It would heavily rely on being able to change out master palettes.

Point 3 ended up being the main technological thing to work out, while point 1 ended up influencing a lot of other things [the way the battles look, as well as the general look of the game].
Point 2 is a bit looser, though. End-of-life things like Star Ocean: Blue Sphere and the port of Dragon Warrior III definitely pushed the GBC a lot, which thankfully gives me a lot of leeway in terms of what I can do with the other restrictions [you know, 4 colors per tile, and 3+transparency for NPCs/objects]. There's some parts of the demo where I erred on the side of conservative with the tile counts [the cave floors, definitely], though.
These actual things came later, though; back in 2016, I had drawn a few tiles, some NPCs, a few enemy graphics... and once I'd gone and done witch2.rpg, I went and put the OHR as a whole to the side for a good while.

The real meat of the game came a bit later, when I repurposed a list of classes I made around that same time for use in a proper game. The decision to go with a permissive equipment system came in a bit later, once I realized how much of a pain making a custom equip system would be. It'll allow for things like giving someone equipment with good elemental resistances or status-inflicting effects even as it tanks their stats... although, obviously, those aren't in the demo.

I still haven't got to the point in the game where the systems I've built up actually start to show their weight [or make certain design decisions, like not using the OHR's usual manner of making heroes, relevant]. The demo only has the first layer of classes [the back half of which get more relevant as the game goes on and mitigating damage becomes more important], which start to get built upon as the game progresses. This is also part of the reason as to why the first chunk of the game is pretty easy; I have a long way to go, and starting off at a low difficulty level [in addition to having a few other features, like party members reviving after battle with 1HP and party wipes not being game overs] allows for a pretty substantial ramping up of things.

Maybe I made the start a bit too easy though; the ramping up a linear stat progression has at the start makes those first level ups very noticeable; the Prey Mantises at the start can easily OHKO level 1 mages [or anyone with bad HP growth], but stop being a threat almost immediately. The Plateau Cave monsters also kinda bug me a bit, being a bit bulky but not really hitting hugely hard. It makes the final boss of the demo a bit of shock, given how getting the right attacks off at the start makes him pretty strong.

As for the story: yeah, I guess it's a bit vague on things at the moment. It's the opening act, and the main enemies only show their faces at the end of the demo [and even then, the three seen are far from their strongest].

But then again, communication [or the deliberate denying of it] is already pretty prevalent in what's already been shown, right?

...this went in a direction. Hmm.

Anyway, the other things:
Music: I got someone doing it, honest
Those PC portraits/walksets: I'll redo them at some point, sure. They're not the most important thing at the moment, but making 8 more for the second set of base classes wouldn't be out of the question.

8/10, because that's what I give my games now
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spoiler: he doesn't
spoiler: he doesn't
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If the pictures on the side really do bring you out of the illusion that this is a real GBC game, just imagine they're the special side borders and it's being played on the super game boy or something
If the pictures on the side really do bring you out of the illusion that this is a real GBC game, just imagine they're the special side borders and it's being played on the super game boy or something
falsesky0031.png (6.37 KiB) Viewed 3722 times
If you actually got to this level in the demo, I have questions.
If you actually got to this level in the demo, I have questions.
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TheMan
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Post by TheMan »

yeah i might as well give my own game a "review"
basically i started out on "really hard game" back in may of last year with a sketch of the main character, and a picture of the final boss i made in photoshop (right). i forgot about it and then came back to it during july. i saw the really stupid protagonist i had drawn and thought it would be neat to do a game where graphics aren't the main focus and i could concentrate more on world building, gameplay, etc. in addition to this, i was playing a lot of dark souls 2 then and thought making a parody of "hard" games might be a good gimmick.

i concieved the ending of the game first: you walk up to this photoshop-collage demon, and get shot in the face because theres no way you can possibly beat it. i was going to have this happen pretty early in the game, but it kept getting pushed back until i decided it should be at the end.

since i didn't have any plans besides the ending and the game being hard, i just made up the world as i went along. like ok there's a town: how do you get to the town? using a road. what's on a road? commuters. why are there commuters? there's a factory. what's in a factory? smoke etc... this is probably why the progression is disjoined, each level is completely separate from the others and there's only one way to get to each of them. sometimes, these transitions are really esoteric, like going behind a tree that obscures your vision. imo, this is the most major flaw of the game. (thinking back, the only area i planned out beforehand was the final "underground" area, just because of how branching it is)

another qualm i have with the game is the "obese swordsman" class. this dude is just too tanky to be any fun to play. you can hold down the enter key, doing 9 damage per turn, and win just because your health is so high. this is almost never an interesting way to play turn based rpgs.

i really lifted some stuff from space funeral, the "bad" visuals being the most obvious. most of the music, much like space funeral, is taken from old psych/krautrock LPs. i generally just assigned a song i liked to an area and called it a day. but despite having low-effort graphics, i put much more effort into this game than my one from 2017. the humor is also more on-point and less reliant on cheap stuff like 4th wall breaking.
7/10 game tbh
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hell yeah
hell yeah
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Trytuges :: 7/10
The generic graphics set actually works here considering the plot. Honestly, it just wasn't wacky enough imo.
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Idontknow
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Post by Idontknow »

Asphlodius 2/10

Arc Wars 4/10

Bale 8/10

Birdcaged 9/10

Dark Planet 4/10

Dreamwalkers 5/10

Drydocks - A Merchant RPG 5/10

False Skies 7/10

Trytuges 5/10

YNAH 6/10

I'll post the actual reviews in the reviews board, I still have a few more in progress.
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guo
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Post by guo »

  • Arc Wars: 1
    Asphodelus: 5 (I really liked it, but don't think it belonged in the contest, so am giving it a neutral score)
    Birdcaged: 7
    Dreamers: 6
    Drydocks: 7
    Hero: 3
    Masks: 6
    MLP: Rockfarm: 4
    Rolling Radical Revolution: 6
    Px: 5 (I don't think it belonged in the contest, so am giving it a neutral score)
    Zalag: 2
Last edited by guo on Sun Jan 27, 2019 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kefyrra
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Post by Kefyrra »

TMC wrote:Also, anyone who entered the contest, even if they dropped out, and hasn't made a request yet still can! That's TheLordThyGod, thecrimsondm, Mammothstuds, Morpheus­Kitami, dantedynamite, whoapotato, Chalk Flower, Kefyrra, TheMan, and Bird.
If possible, I'd like to see an attack that can transmogrify you into a different hero during battle.
And I'd generally like to see the implementing of battle scripts in the near future.

I know I've asked for this before, but it'd also be nice to see games playable in html.
TMC
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Post by TMC »

Hmm... transmogrifying a hero may be reasonable, since a lot of the enemy transmogrification code could be repurposed. But with caveats; I'm not sure how to handle spell lists. Should there be an option whether to keep the old spell lists or switch to the new ones? Should skills you've learnt be transferred to the new skill lists if there's a matching learnable skill? Maybe old spell lists should be stored but hidden, so that you get them back if you later transmogrify back to the original class.
What I can do is just implement one of these to begin with, and later add an option to control it.
Oh, that reminds me, I wanted to add a script command to change a hero to a different hero ID, which would be very useful for class systems, and it's something people do often. This also ties in to reloading of hero data while using Test Game, which I started on recently.
Battlescripting and a web port are too large!
Last edited by TMC on Mon Jan 28, 2019 1:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Kefyrra
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Post by Kefyrra »

Since the hero would supposedly transmogrify into another hero created in the editor, their stats and battle menu would change accordingly (though the game creator should be allowed to decide this via a bitset).
A bitset thay decides whether the change remains or reverts after battle is another good decision.
Last edited by Kefyrra on Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Bird
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Post by Bird »

The voting period for HotOHR is in the hot phase. My votes for all your games have been given already in secret to the organiser.

Early result estimations see Kaiju Big Battel in front and a fight for the podium between Bale, Birdcaged, Drydocks, False Skies, Hinterlands and RRR.
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guo
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Post by guo »

CrystalCaves: 5
Summer Islands 6 ( don't judge me I loved both of these )

Dark Planet: 7
Last edited by guo on Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Kefyrra
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Post by Kefyrra »

Arc Wars - 4/10 (updated)
The Mr. Bones' Wild Ride of RPGs. At least there's nothing quite like it out there.

One Pirate Summer Island - 5/10
The story's an absolute clustertruck, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Like in FFV, it mostly serves as an excuse to have your characters jumping from one crazy scenario to the next. A little buggy, but nothing gamebreaking for the most part.

One Pirate Crystal Cave - 3/10
A little like Summer Island, but with more gamebreaking bugs.

Dreamwalkers - 4/10
Nice graphics and the setting is compelling. Battles are very unforgiving however, making it too hard to recover, and asks for too much grinding.
Last edited by Kefyrra on Mon Feb 18, 2019 2:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

TMC wrote:Hmm... transmogrifying a hero may be reasonable, since a lot of the enemy transmogrification code could be repurposed. But with caveats; I'm not sure how to handle spell lists. Should there be an option whether to keep the old spell lists or switch to the new ones? Should skills you've learnt be transferred to the new skill lists if there's a matching learnable skill? Maybe old spell lists should be stored but hidden, so that you get them back if you later transmogrify back to the original class.
What I can do is just implement one of these to begin with, and later add an option to control it.
This would be very cool!

I like the idea of saving the original spell list, and being able to revert back to the original hero ID in the same battle-- but just being able to change at all, even if you couldn't revert until battle ended would be a very useful feature.
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Post by TMC »

Well, whether transmogrification should revert after the end of battle is another question! I was assuming not (to match a "change hero id" script command). We're going to want quite a few settings to control these things, and I won't implement them all at once, I'll just pick whatever seems most useful.
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