Spellshard: The Black Crown of Horgoth (FULL GAME RELEASE)

Master K · Post by **Master K** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 12:52 am

If only Mogri could create a Slime Arena item to commemorate the event.
He could make the Black Crown of Horgoth an actual Arena Item, heh...

ncw64 · Post by **ncw64** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:37 pm

Hey, just wanted to note a couple things I've seen so far while playing.

First, I'm nowhere near done (just beat the mansion of the pirates), but after that, the pirates are all gone yet the innkeeper still says something about having no beds.

Also, in the first town you start in, in like the upper-right non castle building one of the texts is glitchy but I can't remember what it says anymore.

So far it's been a lot of fun though! Very difficult but fun (minus the sorceress having like 0 defense and getting 2 shot)

Shadowiii · Post by **Shadowiii** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:03 am

Oh man this game is amazing.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 10:38 am

I'll be playing this game on and off, but I won't have anything to say unless it's defending from haters.

Master K wrote:Looks good. I wish I could draw 8-Bit style. My graphics are trapped between 8-bit and regular.

Anybody can draw 8-bit/retro style, really.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:57 pm

Interesting game. I like the party selection part, but why can't I just fully customize my party and have 4 warriors if I wanted to? Anyways, I suppose being different then FF1 in that regard can be a good thing.

There seems to be a fair amount of balance to the game and it's apparently complete. Well done. There really needs to be more complete OHR games. What I'm wondering is, why did you release your game now? I mean, I know HotOHR2 is a long ways away, but you could have won!

Anyways, I'll comment again once I finish the game. It might be a while...

Oh, not that it really matters, but I noticed that when you first start, right before you appear in the king's chamber, you can see your leader standing on a dark map for a brief moment. I kind of understand what happened there and might I suggest covering up the hero with an overhead title so the player can't see himself for that brief moment.

Newbie Newtype · Post by **Newbie Newtype** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:15 pm

The timing for this release is bloody brilliant.

Shizuma · Post by **Shizuma** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:19 pm

ncw, others... if you find bugs you should probably email about them as they are more likely to be fixed in future patches that way.

Spoon, Newbie... I released the game when it was finished. I don't see what the big deal is. I can always go and make more games you know. ^^

charbile · Post by **charbile** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 3:35 pm

Had a chance to begin playing lastnight. It was a blast.

Playing on a 4:3 ratio TV, with a joypad--so much fun. I was tempted to pull out my nes to make it look like I was playing on that. That light down there is from the computer. I took a couple other pictures, but the TV's image was too bright to make sense of it.

Party:
Ranger, Thief (best character in the game so far), Sorceress, Cleric

KF Harlock · Post by **KF Harlock** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:31 am

Wow, playing on a TV - that's immensely cool, Char! I'll definitely try to make the joystick implementation more solid in a future update.

So, how is everyone liking it so far?

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 4:31 pm

Well, I'm pretty biased, but I'd say it's the best OHR game I've ever played. The graphics all look right, there's reasons to choose different party members (though I have a hard time imagining someone taking a wizard over a sorceress or a bard over a thief), the songs fit the situations where they're played and aren't ripped from anything too mainstream, and there's a certain rightness to the game as a whole.

Only thing I'd like different would be everyone having higher speed stats. The fighter most noticeably, but increasing everyone else's to maintain the same balance would be good. As it stands, the thief has the speed I usually give my "slow" character.

In the old version, Valada town had a different music from the castle. I liked the music, and would like to know what the piece was (I heard someone play it on a violin in church once, so I'm certain it's not from a game like much of the rest of).

charbile · Post by **charbile** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 5:05 pm

The town music is apparently from the musical for Les Miserables. I now know this because the guy watching me play the beginning told me so, and griped about it being so repetitive and started singing along. He liked its use, but had very focused criticism about it, like all that music from the musical being very thematically specific. I think he was a fan, but it did have the magical effect of putting him to sleep and allowing me to rename all my heroes from his My Little Pony names into something more recognizable.

And pretty much what Nathan said. It plays very solid. The speeds are slow, but not that bad when you think: thief will always have the first turn, sorceress will have close to 2 turns as well, and the ranger and cleric will have 1 per round. I think it would help immensely if you added the option to the menu for turning on 'show battle speed bars' *and* 'pause on player's turns'.

To me, it's just a lot of basic rpg fun. The stuff most people tend to ignore or do poorly in favor of fancier whims:
- Random battles are a breeze, just have to keep an eye on HP
- Boss fights are intense and have great thematics
- Figuring out what equipment and spells to buy
- Map design is very small and compact

About the Thief VS Bard: I've been told by one of the creators that the Sleep spell can be highly effective against bosses. Pretty rare to see that in a game!

KF Harlock · Post by **KF Harlock** » Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:49 pm

Heya, guys!

Just wanted to state that we've now released a v1.11 that fixes a lot of the cosmetic issues that you guys noticed, as well as one bug that has the potential to render a puzzle unsolvable, under certain rare-ish circumstances (thanks, RMSephy!). Everyone playing it ought to download this new version just to ensure you don't have any difficulties; there are no changes that should stop you from using your current .sav files. You can grab it from the same old Slime Salad gamelist page:

http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=4363 <-- THE LORDS OF DECAY AWAIT!!

Thanks everyone for your help in making it a better game!

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:02 pm

This is the kind of game that I created the Heart of the OHR contest for. Great old school mechanics wrapped up in a professional tone. I confess that I had no interest in it years ago when it was still a demo, and I suppose that's a good thing now, since back then it was just a demo and I probably would've been frustrated to reach a "to be continued" message. But my attitude about it changed when I saw Shizuma poking around the game file on one of his Livestreams, and I decided that I wanted to try it. Now that I am playing it, I am quite happy with it. It doesn't demand ridiculous amounts of questing or fetching. While it's somewhat of a spacebar-masher, the battles never reach the level of obnoxiousness (I really must hear your secrets on how to accomplish this). In fact, I echo what's been said about battles in general -- simple random battles alongside harder boss battles. If you haven't written one yet, I'd love to see your theory on battles as a HamsterSpeak feature. I know we have a few already from other authors, but this is one of those subjects that could benefit from diversity. For those who enjoy random battles, your game seems to be the defining lesson on how to make them work to a game's advantage.

Seriously, I'd love to hear your tips on the matter, as I'm often dissatisfied with my own approach to battles, and I've increasingly eliminated the need to fight them in my own game development in response to that.

I've already fielded my one criticism about the game and I'm pretty sure it won't be considered since it's more of a personal preference than something that most RPG veterans would consider rational. Simply, I was hoping that the classes could have an elemental label (or a subtitle under the hero's name once James implements the ability to label classes on the status screen) to remind the player which classes he's working with. I found that while I like the symbols denoting classes, it's a little cumbersome to associate those symbols with avatars rather than names, especially when the only time I've seen the class names was when I was choosing them at the beginning. And for people like me who've never played Dragon Warrior or the original Final Fantasy, it becomes a chore to remember the difference between a paladin and a bard and a cleric and so on. Yes, I have pictures in the instruction booklet, but why am I having to load a PDF file just to confirm that the woman in the middle of my party is a sorceress and not a bard, or the guy at the bottom is a paladin and not a thief when I could just check the status screen and see her class title in the elemental list (or the subtitle if and when James gives us that availability)? It's certainly inconsequential to the enjoyment of the game, but when players are buying magics for the first time, it does cut down on confusing lightning bolts with the sorceress's bank of magics, and ultimately lessens the chance that they'll waste money on things they can't use if they have the class names readily available. Again, it's inconsequential, as the player will get used to the members of his party and the symbols they're attached to as the game moves on. Still would've be helpful in the first twenty minutes.

Other than that, I'm quite happy with the game so far. I've been playing it in pieces -- another thing I think is great about it; I can play a quest here, take a break, then play another quest later. There's no long-term commitment per sitting, and yet there's a long-enough-term commitment to keep the player coming back for more and more. Right now I'm fighting the boss pirate in the mansion on the second island. I probably need to save up for that spear first, since the guy's a tank. And I'm fine with that.

I don't know if I'll have time to review it for HamsterSpeak, but I think that whoever does decide to should break the review up into sectional walkthroughs (or commentaries if a walkthrough is too pretentious of an idea). For all the time you guys put into making it, I think it deserves a well thought-out review and not a quick slapped-together overview that can be read in three minutes. Players have already confirmed that it's excellent. I think that whoever reviews it should show why it's excellent, and that would help by addressing the missions individually.

Anyway, I could keep going on about it, but I've said the important stuff. Great game all around. I'll update my comments if I come to a troubled spot. Good job, guys.

KF Harlock · Post by **KF Harlock** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:35 pm

Thanks for the comments, Pepsi. It's great that you're finding something to like about it, even not being in the "hardcore DQ throwback" demographic, heheh. To hear that the creator of the legendary Powerstick Man is immersed in our game is just excellent.

I would love to have class names appear on the menu! I'm not sure if it's something we can do as the version we're using caps off at 16 elements, and we'd need between 8 and 40 to make names show up on the 2nd page of the status screen, right? Or is there some other method for doing it? If we can't do it now, then I'll keep an eye out for the eventual adding of the "subtitle" feature, and incorporate it then, because I do like the idea quite a bit.

About writing a feature on how I handled enemy stats and random battles, I would definitely be willing to do so if enough people wanted to read it. Ideally, it'd be great if I could get Shizuma to write a 2nd-half of it with me, because he's the one who came up with basically all of the boss fight strategies that really keep things interesting and memorable.

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:38 pm

You could give each class a portrait of its hero graphic with the classes name written above it.