Heart of the OHR Contest

Make games! Discuss those games here.

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Momoka
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Post by Momoka »

msw188 wrote:About the dialogue, I've thought about it a bit. I'm not sure what to do about it. I usually have a lot of stuff to get through in any given cutscene; lots of back and forth between the various characters present might just lengthen everything.
http://superwalrusland.com/ohr/issue30/expo/expo.html :angel:
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Just wanted everyone to take note that I've appended the voting window slightly. Deadline is still December 31st, but only if I have a minimum of 10 votes. If the deadline comes and we're under the minimum, I won't actually close the polls until at least 10 voters give the games a fair playthrough and score them (with optional comments or critiques). Too many contests have lackluster voter turnouts, and Heart of the OHR will not be among the list. There is no winner until at least 10 people voice his or her opinions about the games. Thank you.

P.S. I'm only mentioning this now because polls have been open for more than a week and I've only received 3 votes. There is no hurry, but there is also no final tally until the minimum is met. If you've entered a game, you'll probably want to vote, since there are at least 10 of you who entered. Food for thought.

Both the main page and the voting post have been modified to reflect the new voting standard.

Thank you for your cooperation.
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msw188
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Post by msw188 »

Just wanted to apologize guys - there's no way I will have votes ready by the 31st. We have some long entries, and I don't want to vote without giving every game a fair chance. This month has been very busy; gigs plus driving home from CO to PA, and trying to see as many folks as possible during these holidays. I should have a bit more time in January.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

So far I have had time to play Apophenia, and the first 30 minutes of Motrya. I would like to vote, but I suspect I will be missing the deadline.

I'll give everybody feedback-- someday

I have also been meaning to go through the remaining feature requests and explain what I still need to do to complete each of them, but now is sleepy time :)
Last edited by Bob the Hamster on Sat Dec 25, 2010 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Shizuma
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Post by Shizuma »

I'm sorry I couldn't enter, the half of the year when I was supposed to be working turned out to be a really difficult time. But I'll still continue with my plans regardless.

I plan to play and judge all the entries soon, maybe starting on Monday.
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Newbie Newtype
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

Tales of the New World - 9/10
Eternity Fragment - 8/10
<TheGiz> oh hai doggy, oh no that's the straw that broke tjhe came baclsb
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FnrrfYgmSchnish
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Post by FnrrfYgmSchnish »

I'm planning on voting on this, but I'm going to have a hard time getting to all of the games, since the bigger ones are a pain to download on dial-up and I've been kind of busy with other stuff lately.

[s]Not counting Okédoké, I've only downloaded two games, and I've only actually gotten around to playing one of them... so I'm guessing my votes probably won't be in before the 31st. I'll still try to get them in before it's too late, though.[/s]

EDIT: Turns out that a lot of the games had surprisingly small filesizes... probably should've checked that before I said I'd be late, heh. I've managed to download and play through most of them already.

The only ones I haven't managed to download yet are Skyfall (connection crapped out mid-download), Viridia (connection screwiness again), Vikings of Midgard (saving this one for last since I've played earlier versions and it's pretty long), and Motrya (which is apparently a big file, so I'm saving it for the next time I have access to a decent connection.)
Last edited by FnrrfYgmSchnish on Thu Dec 30, 2010 3:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Gizmog
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Post by Gizmog »

Game: Apophenia
Vote: 3

Liked:

Holy slime the conversation system. This is AWESOME. Every now and then the textbox would get stuck behind the conversation options, but still amazing improvement. I'm glad I downloaded the final bugfix, and I hope everyone else did too.

The promise of a big city and the story of an amnesiac detective.

Very nice custom menus.

Disliked:

Picked up a first aid kit through a fence. Seemed like you were supposed to have to push some barrels to get back there.

Lack of music made every sound effect startle me.

Random pushable chairs.

Having to look for the quit button in Options


Where I quit: In the diner, where the pushable chairs almost kept me from getting back to the exit.


Final thoughts: Ultimately, this is still a tech demo. I was really excited to see the conversation with the mysterious lady, and then instantly it was the end of the demo, in the exact same spot it was before. I think you even took out half of the wandering through the hospital, reducing the total gameplay time. I don't think you hit the half hour mark by a long shot, but this could be really really good in a few months.


Game: Chronoboy Adventures
Vote: 1

(Kind of) Liked: The idea of a real-time day-night system.

Disliked:

Random Moving Camera: The Intro!

Most of the dialogue, the credits with your name in every slot, your name in the title

The NPCs in the intro who were allegedly in my party and then refused to talk to me and just wandered around willy-nilly

The execution of a real-time day-night system.

How the whole meteor in town thing reeked of Earthbound..

..and how I typed the last dislike, looked back to the OHR and had somehow fallen down a hole? Are those refrigerators or looseleaf notebook pages around here?

The whole "What's kidding? What's stupid? What's slang?" angle

a fifteen second, unskippable, fanfare for earning 20 GP. If milking two cows is that impressive to Chronoboy Adventure, I don't want to see what the victory condition is.

Having two characters talking in the same textbox.


Where I quit: "Our pee bucket is in the corner"


Final Thoughts:

Chronoboy Adventures never engaged me. The intro was a mess of random camera movement, overlapping credits and textboxes, inane dialogue ("We've snuck past barricades before"? Really? And how did what's-her-face distract the police? When I
went up there she was hiding behind something and the cops were still in a picketline around the meteor), and then after hearing the police and their plans to rescue me, I play a harp and wander through a portal to Hell, where sheep farmers make me buy my own shears to do their work for them, and the townspeople gleefully remind me of sanitation conditions in the 15th century. The game crashed shortly after that, and I didn't feel like going through it again. I don't mean to discourage you, because no one's tried something in this style before, but it really needs a lot of work.
Game: Do You Want To Be A Hero?
Note: Might be playing the wrong version. It claims to be the Oct 2009 release.

Vote: 7

Liked:
The music and distinctive graphical style.

Best custom battle system I can remember playing.

Disliked:
Having to buy a topaz in level 3... but being able to get off the boat on top of the level gem (In fact I could land on top of the gem in Level 4 too)



Hard to judge the difficulty of fights. Case in point: Level 2. Seven purple-eyed ghosts to choose from, and the difficulty varies widely from one to the other. Could be a single goblin, could be a golem and a slime.


HATED WITH A FURY (In a nice way):

Those stinkin' ghosts who phoenix down everything!!!

Spells that cost 12 MP... AND MISS


Where I quit: Level 4. Had a hard time finding ANY battle I could win, but I can see myself playing farther.

Final Thoughts: I remember this from last year's Halloween contest, so it feels a little stale. I'm also still really bad at it, I feel like I'm having a lot more trouble than I should be, like there's something I'm missing. Still, it's a very impressive piece of work. I can't remember any game that combines RPGs with a platformer sense of "Get to the goal before time runs out!", and I had a tense moment getting out of level 3 with 30 seconds to spare.
Game: Eternity Fragment
Vote: 8

Liked:

The game-within-a-game concept

Levelling up felt super effective.

Disliked:

The walkabouts are way too white, and the super pink castle carpet hurts my eyes

Why does the King give me a wood sword when I already have one?

The battle music would be more appropriate for a dungeon

Spending all my money on equipment that didn't make much difference, then having to grind 800 gp for a boat. The boat shop could've been better marked too, it was pure luck that I went in there.

Dungeons without treasure

Where I quit: 3 hours and 3 minutes in, after finding the Rusted Armor, Sword and Shield, returning to the king (To no avail) and checking a mysterious leviathan statue (also to no avail)

Final Thoughts: Solid entry, solid rpg. Absolutely cannot wait to see where the game within a game concept goes, and I think I like the Aeris/General Leo rumor thing you've got going on. I didn't like how the game spoiled that the girl was going to get killed early, but maybe that's foreshadowing to set something else up later. The start is a little bit slow, but after a few levels the balance really picks up, and I never felt unfairly underpowered again. The dungeons could also use a little bit of variety, there was just one too many plain gray maze for my tastes.
Game: Hero
Vote: 1

Liked:

Interacting with bookshelves and drawers

Saving in town rather than on the world map

Disliked:

No title screen

Having two characters talking in the same textbox.

All the NPCs in the hospital saying the same thing

No battle backdrops

No idea where to go

Where I quit: After FINALLY finding Brian in a cave, and dying to a troll

Final Thoughts: Didn't really care for it. Too many walls of text, too much guessing where to go to next. The opening bit where EVERYBODY says the same thing about the NCW turned me off of talking to NPCs through the rest of the game. Didn't like chasing the rumor trail to find Brian, and I had a little trouble finding the training grounds. Needs a lot of polish.
Game: Legendary Heroes
Vote: 7

Liked:

Neat visual effects

Stylish walkabouts and maptiles

Monster Hunter's Guild

Disliked:

Brevity of demo

Kind of stingy with EXP

Used cure out of battle for a whopping 3 health gain

Where I quit: When the turtle said it was all over.

Final Thoughts: Good level of detail for a demo, but it was pretty short. Didn't have much trouble just holding down enter, and spamming my techniques when a boss came up.
Game: Motrya
Vote: 10

(I've already discussed this in IRC so I'll keep it to a cliff's notes version here)

Liked:
Lyte Snap would've been a fine entry on its own

Changing strategies after a defeat was unique and added a great deal

Some of the best battles in the engine.

Disliked:
The intro was a little bit awkward, as was the wording of the flashbacks

Occasional lapses in the music

Glitchy bit in the woods where I talked to some guys who were "in hiding" and had to go around the other way to "wake them up"

Where I quit: Finished

Final Thoughts: Clearly the best entry this year, and a great team effort by JSH and Newbie to get everything working so nicely. Hopefully they'll keep it up for the second installment which I hope will be coming out soon.
Game: Oke Doke
Vote: 3

Liked:

Graphics were nice, reminded me of Village People.rpg

Disliked:

Music was repetitive and irritating

Only looked for a third character because IRC told me to, would NEVER have found otherwise

Where I quit: 3 hours in, at the haunted house after my car broke down.

Final Thoughts:

There was a lot of effort put into this, but I just don't like it. The attempts at humor don't really work, some of the jokes feel downright hateful, almost all of my techniques are worthless compared to fighting, the chapter cards/elevator/donkeys/cars/character has joined! cutscenes all feel too slow, it was never clear where I was supposed to be going. If it weren't for JSH in IRC, I never would've looked SOUTH of the starting town for a third character who turned out to be fairly useful, I hated having a dungeon between each town, and if I'd wandered there myself I would've assumed it was an optional dungeon or somewhere I should go later on in the game. The battles didn't give out much EXP or gold, and the NPCs were totally useless. If half of the buildings in your city are just locked doors, then you don't need half of your city.

Long story short, the graphics are pretty, it dodges a lot of the newbie mistakes, there weren't two people talking in the same textbox, the spelling was good, but it just wasn't very much fun. I might've given this game more time than I maybe should've, in the hopes that it was going to get better, but it never did.

(PS: Hachi streamed this game for the guys in #SlimeSalad, and he ran into a lot of things I hadn't. There's a lot of layers and options and secrets in this thing, but without better hints nobody can find them. If my experience had been more like Hachi's, this easily moves up to a 7 or 8)
Game: Skyfall
Vote: 7

Liked:

Good graphics

Nice story telling

Disliked:

Repetitiveness of monsters

Might've been a little short of the 30 minute mark

Where I quit: At the end

Final Thoughts: It's a good start, but there's not much meat to it. I enjoy the company of the characters, and the story is just intriguing enough to make me wonder how the whole thing is going to play out.
Game: Tales of A New World 2
Vote: 1

Liked:

Attention was obviously paid to the battle system.

Disliked:

Early battles were too difficult (I died in my first random battle)

Having two characters talking in the same textbox.

Black backdrops for battles

Where I quit:
Not very far in.

Final Thoughts:
I actually played this the shortest amount of time of any entry. Didn't like the dialogue, didn't feel like the game was really trying to tell me where to go, the first random battle killed me and while it was nice to pop back up in town the more I played the more the whole thing felt unpolished/unfinished.

Game: Vikings of Midgard
Vote: Abstained

Final Thoughts: This is too big of a game for me to tackle for this voting. It shows a heck of a lot of promise, and when finished will probably rival commercial RPGs, and for that reason I don't want to play it before it's finished. Keep up the good work, Fen!
Game: Viridia

Vote: 3

Liked:
Beautiful graphics and a story that could be going somewhere.

Disliked:
Sitting through an eternity of battles that didn't even require me to do anything.

Where I Quit:
After that eternity of battles.

Final Thoughts:
There's a concept in Dungeons and Dragons called railroading where the dungeon master wants to tell his story and isn't really interested in how his captive audience (aka players) would like to influence or change things. One way they do this is by providing powerful NPCs who accompany the party, offering them strategies, killing tougher foes and keeping the party healthy at all costs so they can see the next "totally awesome" scene. In my opinion, that is exactly what this game is trying to do. The series of battles intends to tell a story (And a long one at that) without being fun or even significantly needing my input. It should probably be put into the backstory and let the game start somewhere where me and the heroes can actually achieve something and have some fun. I hate to give this game such a low score because the graphics are beautiful and the battles are indeed well scripted, but the game aspect isn't there.
In Summary:
Apophenia: 3
Chronoboy Adventures: 1
Do You Want To Be A Hero?: 7
Eternity Fragment: 8
Hero: 1
Legendary Heroes: 7
Motrya: 10
Oke Doke: 3
Skyfall: 7
Tales of a New World 2: 1
Vikings of Midgard: Abstain
Viridia: 3
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Barnabus
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Post by Barnabus »

Do You Want To Be A Hero?: 10/10
Way past fun!

Motrya: 10/10
Now you're playing with power!

Eternity Fragment Prelude: 9/10
CANNOT WAIT FOR THE ENDING! Great exploration!

Skyfall: 9/10
Great music! Mysterious! :)

Okedoke!: 9/10
Great start! Couldn't get past Death, wish there was an end of demo message. :(

Vikings of Midgard: 9/10
HUGE. Can't wait to spend more time with this!

Legendary Heroes: 9/10
The opening is amazing! :)

Apophenia: 8/10
Great start! Can't wait for this one!

Chronoboy Adventures: 7/10
Wow! So much to this game it's overwhelming! Couldn't figure out how to sneak in to Pyrota :(. Loved the gate explanation.

Viridia: 7/10
Great presentation! World is so detailed! Battles confusing.

Tales of the New World 2: 5/10
Enemy copy is a great idea! Couldn't figure out what to do :(

Hero: 4/10:
What's an NWC? Don't give up, keep trying!
Last edited by Barnabus on Fri Dec 31, 2010 2:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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FnrrfYgmSchnish
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Post by FnrrfYgmSchnish »

Okedoke!: 9/10
Great start! Couldn't get past Death, wish there was an end of demo message.
There is an end-of-demo message... in Chapter 6. From the sound of it, you ended up stuck around the middle of Chapter 1.

To get past the ghost town where you find Señor Death, come back after you've gone down the desert path and gotten Señor Rialgo. Or just get Señor Rialgo and continue north through the desert from there; the area blocked off by the ghosts is optional and not too important.

I really should come up with an alternate way to get around the ghosts, so people aren't forced to go all the way back and get Señor Rialgo if they wanted to go all the way through the mountain path first... I think I had originally planned for there to be a way to do this waaaay back when I first started making the game, but for some reason I never put it in.
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Barnabus
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Post by Barnabus »

FnrrfYgmSchnish wrote:
Okedoke!: 9/10
Great start! Couldn't get past Death, wish there was an end of demo message.
There is an end-of-demo message... in Chapter 6. From the sound of it, you ended up stuck around the middle of Chapter 1.

To get past the ghost town where you find Señor Death, come back after you've gone down the desert path and gotten Señor Rialgo. Or just get Señor Rialgo and continue north through the desert from there; the area blocked off by the ghosts is optional and not too important.

I really should come up with an alternate way to get around the ghosts, so people aren't forced to go all the way back and get Señor Rialgo if they wanted to go all the way through the mountain path first... I think I had originally planned for there to be a way to do this waaaay back when I first started making the game, but for some reason I never put it in.
Oh, sorry about that! I'll go back and check it out, then.
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Baconlabs
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Post by Baconlabs »

In response to the controversial reception of Viridia chapter 2, I will say this.
All of the gameplay, aside from cumbersome game-overs, is completely intentional. I do not regret my design or entering this contest one bit; it has been one heck of a learning experience if nothing else.
I doubt I will make another chapter, or even another game, quite like this.
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The Wobbler
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Post by The Wobbler »

Sorry I'm late, I'll keep posting these as I can. I won't have time to replay Okedoke or Vikings.

Motrya - 9/10 - The best OHR game in a long time, music is great, graphics are great, battle system's completely solid. Pacing felt kind of off at times (during the siege) but other than that I've got no real complaints. My review from last month says all I need to say.

Apophenia - 5/10 - Graphics have a really nice style, text boxes do not. Reading white text on a white background is unpleasant, but at least there's not much of that. Turquoise on black isn't much better though. Custom menu looks good, but the colors aren't the best on my eyes. I like that there are choices in dialogue, but the color of selected dialogue is way, way too similar to the unselected one. The demo's main section is very short, and I wish the healing items did significantly more than they did, but there's a ton of potential here.

Chronoboy Adventures - 1/10 - Incredibly strange graphic style, dialogue feels machine translated at times (wholy crap!). Side view of the police seems to imply that they're pieces of paper or something. The ripped graphics clash really badly with the original ones, and I don't know why there's a DELETE SAVE option on the main menu. I fell down a hole, went through a portal, the original graphics turned into ones ripped from an Ultima game, I died in a battle before I could even choose a command, and then when I started walking around my sprite turned into a different dead character depending on which way I was facing and I couldn't find any way to leave the map I was on. The game's profile on Slime Salad makes it seem like there's a lot to it and I didn't see anything to do.

Hero – 1/10 - Needs a title screen, doesn't need to include custom.exe. The dressers rotating to face me are scary! I do not know what NCWs are. I assume Adams is supposed to be some kind of martian. All of the duplicate NPCs are pointless. Battles need to be faster and I felt bad fighting random kittens that couldn't hurt my main dude. The dialogue really confused me. By the time I reached Ogiri I really didn't feel like continuing.

Legendary Heroes - 6/10 - Guy's profile picture is unbelievably smug. I like the world map graphics, but you need to slow down the speed of the ocean and maybe make it move back and forth instead of constantly east, it looks like the continent is flying through the air. I really don't like the profile graphics at all, but everything else looks nice. Battles are nice and quick. What in the world was that sound that played when Rebobinar joined? The cave where you search for her brother isn't very well designed and I died against the boss instantly even though the random enemies before him barely did any damage. Rebobinar's flame spell does the same amount of damage as a normal attack but costs a lot of MP. I think this one has a lot of potential, but I didn't really feel drawn in. It needs a better opening than Biff saying I'M BORED. I'll go back and try to play this one again later.

Skyfall - 7/10 - I don't like the font. This doesn't really impact the game, but I've played no OHR games with custom fonts that I've found pleasant to look at. I like the visual style, but your hero looks so goofy and dumpy as a walkabout and is then thin and macho in battle. The stances in battle are really awkward looking, but the walkabout stuff is great. Battle speed needs to be increased. There needs to be a readme saying what skills do, I didn't know why my hero had a Focus command until I used it and then looked at my MP, and since I used it before using my Skills I didn't notice anything at first. Power Attack seems to do 150% damage, not double as its description says. The scorpion boss looks really good. Sometimes my guys can be seen through buildings.
Image
Centra felt way too empty, but I guess this is a consequence of it being a demo. I didn't like having to fight the same spider boss again, but I like the idea of controlling multiple parties. Short, but fun, looking forward to an update.

Viridia – 5/10 - Nice NPC and portrait graphics, even if I really assumed from Tyler's that he was a woman. maps look great. The opening is a bit too much of an information dump. The game praising me for cleaning up my dirty clothes after tossing them on the floor was great. There's a ton of style here, but I felt like I had no real control over anything that happened and I was honestly kind of lost on the story. Playing the role of a support character instead of a big hero is definitely interesting, but it's not really exciting. The voice clips/stock screams when characters died really didn't fit the game's style. The conversations in the camp after the long string of battles are way, way too long.

Eternity Fragment - 4/10 - I really like the opening cutscene a lot! The graphics are also really great. Is the music original? I don't recognize it, but I really like it. This game has a better 8-bit style than most OHR games that have attempted this style. I wish items had descriptions, I wish the battles were faster, and I wish the enemies gave more XP and gold. I shouldn't have to go back to the healer after each battle with a slime. Your level 2 stats should be the hero's level 1 stats, at minimum. There also needs to be more enemy variety in the starting area. The inn in the first town costs WAY too much. Is there another way to get the boat? I do not want to fight enemies until I have 800 gold to spare. I want to put more time into this game but I feel like I'm getting nowhere fighting dozens of Pippins.
Last edited by The Wobbler on Fri Dec 31, 2010 9:56 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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JSH357
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Post by JSH357 »

I already sent these to Pepsi, these were my votes:

Apophenia - 3
Chronoboy Adventures - 1
Eternity Fragment Prelude - 7
Legendary Heroes - 7
Motrya - 10
Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana - 1
Skyfall - 6
Tales of the New World 2 - 2
Vikings of Midgard- 4
Viridia Chapter 2 - 4
Hero - 1
Do You Want To Be A Hero - 8
Last edited by JSH357 on Fri Dec 31, 2010 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com
NayusDante
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Post by NayusDante »

...are we allowed to vote for our own?

(also, sorry I didn't vote, still haven't had time to play any of them >_<)
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