Heart of the OHR Contest 2020

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Hedera
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Post by Hedera »

Eonhetwo wrote:MILD SPOILERS BELOW
I'd overlooked the crowbar previously, so after I got it I was able to go to all the aforementioned places. Whoops. Although, the sewer rat in the foreground's a nice touch.

Is there a way to rest up or otherwise heal people, outside of burning a medkit or grinding berries in the backyard?
kylekrack wrote:Unfortunately I don't think your save file will continue to work if I fix the game. If you want to keep your data, compress the folder called "savedata.saves" in the same directory where the game is and send me the compressed file in a PM. I will find a way to get it functional.
Eh, I was planning on replaying it again when the finished version comes out. Thanks for the offer, though.

I forgot to report another bug, where if you load your save with the aspect ratio set to 16:10, the camera doesn't scroll with the mouse until you set it to a different aspect ratio (and back, I think?).
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Post by Eonhetwo »

@Hedera Helix

I really slimed up on the healing bit.. currently there's no way to revive someone except with jenkem, and only ways to heal are berries, medkits and sodas from the vending machine.

Since you didn't mention the soda, I'll assume you havent found it, it's in the suck Mart, lower right corner. You have to collect plastic bags and catch cans in the minigame at the sister's house, then recycle the cans at the "Cans 4 Cash" machine, which is right next to the vending machine.

My thought process was that it would require exploration to discover these mechanics and such.. but didn't consider that nobody cares to explore it to that extent lol.
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kylekrack
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Post by kylekrack »

Thoroughly enjoyed the amount of Walthros that I played through tonight [spoiler](got to the point right after Bob gets back to town after passing out for 2 weeks)[/spoiler].

I'm probably going to move on to other games so I can vote on everything on time, so my Walthros vote might not be the same as if I'd played it more. The pacing in the beginning is really good. Feels like it's setting me up for a good story. The flavor mechanics, like side-quests and sharing meals, as well as the density of meaningful stuff to explore helped me get into the game without being bombarded with combat and too much story. I rarely feel as compelled to actually explore and look around every building as I did in Beta City, so you did something right there.

That being said, it feels like I haven't really gotten into the game yet, so I'm voting on a fairly surface-level experience. Maybe I'll play more by the time I actually vote and that'll change.
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

Thanks! I'd say the game really opens up once you meet Salom. Would love to hear what you think of the rest even if it's not until after the contest voting is over.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

For anybody interested I'm going to stream more Heart games on my twitch channel around 8pm EST. Was a lot of fun in the chat last time if you guys wanna hang.
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Post by RMZ »

I just finished playing everything tonight. I'm curious what you guys thought about the games that did not have the minimum amount of gameplay as I was under the impression that was means for disqualification, which I accounted for in my scores. However Pepsi told me all complete games were not able to be disqualified.

I did judge the games based on a score ranking of 3 points to Innovation, 3 points for Fun, 3 points for Presentation. All games that made it in got a free point to get to the 10 if they had 30 minutes of content or more. All games that didn't have 30 minutes of content did not get the 1 complementary point for the main Heart rule.

Overall I'm very happy to see the fine level of quality games. There truly is a type of RPG for every type of RPG fan which makes judging them super subjective. Each game really felt so different and I had fun with games I didn't expect to. Everybody did a really great job.
Last edited by RMZ on Sun Jan 31, 2021 5:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I just finished playing everything tonight. I'm curious what you guys thought about the games that did not have the minimum amount of gameplay as I was under the impression that was means for disqualification, which I accounted for in my scores. However Pepsi told me all complete games were not able to be disqualified.
The other thing to remember for anyone who still needs to vote is that if it's in the contest, then it's a legitimate entry and can be voted on. I'll usually disqualify a game before I publish the list if I think it misses too many essential rules. There's only one game on this year's list that comes close to disqualification, but it manages to squeak out enough of the requirements to pass. Barely. There's another game, Moonday, that I wanted to add but ultimately couldn't because it just doesn't hit enough of the requirements to justify a spot. The games on this year's list have earned their place, in some cases begrudgingly, but nevertheless fairly. So those of you who are on the fence about casting a vote for this game or that game, you can cast the vote if it's one of the 15 on this year's list. The game is eligible.

And yes, just to reiterate one of the lesser realized rules, the 30-minute game time requirement is waived for complete games. Within reason. Ultimately, it's on a case-by-case basis, but if I can get more than 10 or 15 minutes out of a complete game that still meets the RPG or character-development requirement, then I'll typically let it in. Where I won't admit it is if the game is clearly trolling the player or the contest. So, if it's complete by nature of starting with a five-minute cutscene, throwing the player into a quick battle, then saying "Congratulations, you won the game!" when they press Enter and instantly defeat the bad guy, then I'm gonna say "not good enough." Not sure how something like that would even qualify as a game, much less an RPG or anything of player interest. The games that fall shy of the 30-minute mark on this year's list are still thoughtful and finished and contain enough of the other requirements to justify their place on the list, so I consider them worth voting on.

Hope that clarifies my position on the shorter games for anyone who's on the fence.

That said, if any of you can't bring yourself to vote for a particular game for a particular reason, you can abstain that vote. Abstentions won't count toward that game's average, and I'll completely understand. The voting rules are designed to allow for protest votes, so don't feel pressured to vote for every game if there's anything on the list you can't rate fairly for whatever reason. I'd rather you all vote on the games you can justify voting for. We'll have a happier outcome for it.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

So, just a quick update. I've finally started adding everyone's votes into the scoresheet, so I've got a good idea what the trends are so far. Obviously, it's still too soon to see what the final outcome will be, but if the trends continue, then the end result will confirm one thing everyone is saying:

This is the best reviewed Heart of the OHR ever.

This is a very hot race for the top.

You all submitted a great crop of games this year.

Don't forget that you have until March 7 to vote, so there's still time to play through everything if you haven't started yet.

And if you started to vote but didn't finish, don't forget to finish.

But thanks again to everyone who has submitted votes so far. I'm glad you've been enjoying this series of games so far. I have, too.
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

Just finished my votes. Here's a quick rundown of them all again just in case

Alliterative Abbreviated Adventure :: 3/10
AXE COP :: 9/10
Blood Ledger :: 5/10
Christmas Stars :: 3/10
False Skies :: 8/10
Forget-me-Not 6/10
Gay Savage and the Enigma Rip 5/10
Katja's Abyss: Tactics 10/10
Slimes World 4/10
Tim-Tim 2: The Almighty Gnome 11/10
Tough Girl Gina 7/10
TutOHRial 5/10
Vikings of Midgard 9/10
Walthros Renewal 6/10
Xoo: Xeno Xafari 7/10
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Hedera
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Post by Hedera »

Is it okay to review games on the Slime Salad game list, if they're part of a contest where the voting period's underway? Similarly, is it ok to review a game whose download's been taken off the game list?
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Spoonweaver wrote:Just finished my votes. Here's a quick rundown of them all again just in case
Thanks, Spoon. I was tempted to ask you for the last two. They're now recorded on the scoresheet.
Hedera Helix wrote:Is it okay to review games on the Slime Salad game list, if they're part of a contest where the voting period's underway? Similarly, is it ok to review a game whose download's been taken off the game list?


As far as this contest is concerned, sure. But every contest has their own rules. This one says review away. Regarding games without downloads, I think reviews are just forum posts, so there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed.
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Post by Mogri »

I've never seen a contest forbid reviews.
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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

The Short Ones

Forget-me-not
I liked this one! It's a horror/puzzle game with a bit of a flower theme to its characters, and a bit of a mystery going on with its plot and setting.
I really have to note its level of polish. The textboxes have an RPG Maker 2k3 vibe to them with their two-tone text, and each of the characters has a unique cut-in picture alongside them. The tiles themselves are a bit rough, but it's more than made up for by its ambience [using opacity stuff to darken the place to great effect. There's even a custom save system, with small pictures for each area!

Where this falls down is its length. The second save I have doesn't even come in a 10 minutes, so being as generous as I can be and counting the two potential deaths you can get into, you'll get 15 minutes out of this. I want some more flowery characters and puzzles that kill you if you do the wrong thing!

6/10

Christmas Stars
This is a game where you climb up a tree and head towards an exit. You can get three of them in at most 5 minutes total, and the last about a few minutes later. It's cute, but there's so little meat here I can't give it much.
3/10



Gay Savage and the...
On one hand, I'm kinda glad a game of this sort popped up. Something that doesn't really take itself seriously is a nice refresher from more involved stuff. It's crude, sure, but I was enjoying it in spite of that.
On the other hand, the actual RPG portions of this are barely present, the only reasonable source of money is a minigame you can fail at almost instantly, the maps poorly communicate where exits and entrances actually are, and it does the adventure game fatal sin of hiding critical items in a field of grass [a field of grass that has an incredibly high encounter rate, by the way].
I'm pretty sure I spent more than half an hour on this, but I don't want to know how much time I spent aimlessly wandering around wondering what I missed. I went into the CTRL-F1 menu a few times to get some hints about where I needed to go, and that's not exactly a great sign when it's a game of one-screen rooms.
3/10

EDIT: This one also fits the topic so...

Slimes World
In this homage to Hinterlands:Pilgrimage, you start out by doing some character generation [slime color, class, deity], after which you get given a quest to go visit a mountain - but not before doing some preparatory gathering and crafting. You go continue the quest chain, chop down some trees, turn them into planks, and then there's nothing to do with them because you experienced the sum total of what's in this game.
Sure, there's a a forest to go to [wherein you go down a wide path to a dead end, fighting nothing enemies as you do so], a cave to get starter equipment that doesn't alter your stats and materials you can't do anything with, NPCs that will 9 times out of 10 say nothing, and a world map full of locations you can't go to - but that's irrelevant when there's nothing to do there.
And yet this game's still completely unbalanced! You don't have any skills, so my first character [a blue wizard] had a whopping 5 HP and couldn't clear a single battle. While I ran away, there's no healing in this game, so I was doubly out of luck. Meanwhile my red fighter had no trouble whatsoever.
I spent most of my playtime in a cave holding the space bar having rock formations go from colored to grey. There's some neatish scripting going on, but as is I'm pretty sure any number of asset flipped crafting/survival games on Steam are superior experiences to this.
2/10
Attachments
Stunning map design. Just incredible.
Stunning map design. Just incredible.
slimesworld0005.png (3.78 KiB) Viewed 3304 times
The big adventure game-ish backdrops are 'neat', but they make actually wandering around a massive pain.
The big adventure game-ish backdrops are 'neat', but they make actually wandering around a massive pain.
GaySavage0006.png (14.07 KiB) Viewed 3342 times
Getting strong swordplay vibes from this guy.
Getting strong swordplay vibes from this guy.
christmasstars0001.png (6.45 KiB) Viewed 3343 times
neat
neat
forget_me_not0001.png (15.14 KiB) Viewed 3343 times
Last edited by Feenicks on Thu Feb 11, 2021 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Friendly reminder: You all have just over three weeks to finish playing and rating.

If you haven't started playing yet, now's a good time to start.

Remember that you can PM me your ratings on Slime Salad, email me if you know my email, send me a PM on Discord (assuming I'll see it), or post them in this thread (least desired option).

For games that don't quite hit 30 minutes of game time, remember that they've been approved for their completion status, so they're still eligible for a rating. Likewise, games that don't hit every hallmark of a traditional RPG that I've nevertheless approved to enter are still eligible for a rating.

Games should not be rated on whether or not they fit the rules perfectly but whether they pass your standard for a good time. I probably don't need to reiterate this, but sometimes I wonder if I should anyway, just in case.

Don't forget that I've posted a guideline for rating if you're not quite sure how you should approach your score. Ultimately, you can score what you want for whatever reason you want, but we all hope that scores are established by fair parameters, so if you're not sure how to come up with one, I've outlined my personal standard in the guideline above. Again, you don't have to use my standard, but I'd like to think it's a fair one.

That said, fun games are fun, so...

Remember the rating scale is 1 to 10, whole numbers only. Zeroes will be counted as abstentions and elevens or higher will be rounded down to ten.

Hope you have all the information you need to cast a fair and mighty vote.

Keep getting them in. I'll be closing the voting period on March 7th. Regarding the results, I'll have news on that shortly. Things will be a little different this year.
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Feenicks
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Post by Feenicks »

The ones by the two people who [s]can't help but subtweet one another[/s] are making big longform RPGs and aren't me

Starting with the review scores for reasons.

Walthros: 8*/10
Axe Cop: 8**/10

Why am I grouping these two together. Well, read the top of this post. More importantly, though, there's an interesting number of similarities between them:

- Both involve eclectic casts in strange, not-quite-modern-day settings
- It's a bit self-evident, but both have a party of characters with fairly set in-battle roles [Walthros moreso]
- Both have fancy scripted menus and, in general, interesting ways around interacting with the party and extended cast [Walthros with the phone, Axe Cop via the radial menu]
- Both have on-field enemies
- Both feature scripted minigames as part of dealing with dungeons
- Both put fancy titles up when you enter new areas

Of the two, I kinda prefer Walthros, since its focus on side stuff, interactions between the various characters, and dungeons that aren't aggressively long are all plusses.

They're both pretty alright, and being on the internet for so long has made me incapable of writing reviews that don't lean negative, so take what's below as you so wish.


________________UNHELPFUL OPINIONS BELOW HERE________________


Axe Cop

At the start of Chapter 2, Axe Cop and crew get pushed off a mountain by an evil santa. Thinking quickly, Axe Cop uses his axe as a snowboard and rides down the mountain ahead of the avalanche.

It's neat and looks cool, but it extremely simple mechanically, and seriously started to seriously drag after a while. The segment would be cooler if it was half, or even a third, as long. It's also a microcosm of the game as a whole, for good and ill.

Lets stick on minigames for the time being. RMZ has implied on multiple occasions that he wants his money's worth for them, but there's something to be said for making the initial pass of something almost too short, and then later on having the more involved version be some side content. You may have this already [I didn't look around town all that much], but an arcade would be neat. And if you do have an arcade? Throw in some difficulty levels to pick from; for the snowboarding minigame, the current one could be level 3 or something.

Moving on. I feel that plenty of people have said this already, but the areas are too long for their own good. If the ice caves didn't have their own music, I'd probably be going mad having had listened to the snow planet's theme for over an hour. I didn't get to the third area, but I'll let people who have gone there speak for themselves.

The whole overly large map issue isn't really helped by how field enemies are dealt with. You see, they have a tendency to pop up again upon scrolling where they'd pop up offscreen. You're going to be walking back and forth through some areas, especially given that some of the puzzles demand retraversal, or just looking around a map for a hidden trigger you have to sniff out for. You're going to be hitting those enemies again. Field enemies can and typically are better than random encounters, but this is pushing it.

Speaking of battles, the MP recharge thing bothers me a bit. I totally understand why it's there - it's a fallback option in the event you run out of MP and also don't have any MP healing items, so it's definitely useful in the dinosaur area.
By the end of the snow area I was hitting close to 50 of the items that healed 25 MP, which may as well make that command obsolete. I can only assume that this trajectory will continue through the game in some form.

Also the title theme is far too close to the Crazy Frog theme for comfort.


Walthros: Renewal

I'm choosing to view the Surlaw bits that bookend the demo as deliberately melodramatic/tonally dissonant. Otherwise, they run into the same problem the tower scenes in Ghosts Towns did, just even more out in the open: it feels out of place, the characters aren't suited for that sort of tone and plot, and Surlaw's doing this while throwing around penguin summons. If it is in fact intentional, good; ignore this entire paragraph.

My major sticking point is that the battles in this don't feel great, and it took me a while to figure out exactly what the cause was. To use an obnoxious term, they're boneless.
Let's start with the battle music: it's kinda just there, and the boss music is some kinda droning thing that doesn't feel that ideal for battle against something called a Book Yuk.
Battle issue #2: skills just don't feel great to use. This is also primarily an audiovisual problem. The menus don't have any sort of sound effects to them, and that makes the act of selecting them a middling experience. When it comes to the skills themselves, they feel weak. Not in the sense that they're weak - they're all good and useful, even if I have my own preferences as to how powerful buffs and debuffs should be [stronger]. They just fall short visually.
Yes, this is the OHR, whose animation limits are often griped about. But you still have three frames of animation to fully use, and the ability to make things big and use the high-saturation parts of your palette.
Battle issue #3: the Hurt animation on the heroes basically isn't there. Yes, this is minor, yes the other animations on the heroes really aren't there either, but I feel it's the final piece of the puzzle. Maybe there's some animation there I'm missing, but it's so minor it may as well not exist. Walthrosian Fish seem pretty pliable; show that in battle!

All these add up to battles that don't do much conveyance visually and catch me off guard when a piddly-looking attack knocks off a quarter of a character's HP. Wobbler mentioned on twitter about one of your testers not wanting to use skills, and honestly? Sure, I get it - if they don't feel better to use than a regular attack, why bother?
Getting things to feel nice to use is a thing even people whose job it is to make that happen mess up all the time. But when you get it right, you get people writing thousands of words on it. Renewal's attacks just aren't there yet, not matter how useful Salom's dragoon jump is.

I also have my reservations about the captions for skills being a single, endlessly repeating phrase, but that's an OHR thing at this point so it's not really something I can really gripe about



________________UNHELPFUL OPINIONS ABOVE HERE________________


but yeah they're both neat


* I'm avoiding the juvenile gross bits of Axe Cop here, as otherwise I'd be giving it a 1/10 for Chapter 4 out of principle and that's not useful.

** I muted the game, played Final Fantasy 3 DS's battle music, and battles immediately felt better. Fix the audio half of your battles and you're golden.
Attachments
This boss battle demands catchier music than what you're currently using. Same goes for all the bosses, really, but this doubly so.
This boss battle demands catchier music than what you're currently using. Same goes for all the bosses, really, but this doubly so.
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Favorite enemy of this HOT OHR is this guy.
Favorite enemy of this HOT OHR is this guy.
walthrosrenewal0011.png (5.8 KiB) Viewed 3262 times
the horrors of the american penal system
the horrors of the american penal system
axecop0008.png (3.69 KiB) Viewed 3262 times
This guy has way more patience than I can muster.
This guy has way more patience than I can muster.
axecop0004.png (5.32 KiB) Viewed 3262 times
Last edited by Feenicks on Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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