Heart of the OHR Contest

[Spoonweaver]

@GUO: I'd rather you didn't do that. I like to track the number of people that download my game. I also plan to update it in the near AND far future, and an old copy that I have no control over would be beyond my control to update. I realize I have little to no control over what people do with my files once I upload them to the internet, but I'd rather they didn't upload them else where, or in a different way for the above reasons.

[msw188]

I was one of the ones pulling for judging games as a whole, because I think RPGs are designed in a way that 'new' content depends deeply on the pre-existing content. New story/enemies/etc may very well depend on story/attacks learned earlier in the game, etc. And it will be too much to ask people to play games twice to be able to judge the 'new' version from the 'old'. But the more I think about it, the more I can see the other side as well...

[Baconlabs]

Thank ya'll so much for the input, it really helps me get some direction as to what to do next.

Pacing seems off

Incidentally, this is the only thing I didn't quite understand. Can you clarify for me what you meant?

I had to stop playing after a bit and hadn't had a save opportunity, so I'll have to replay it some time.

I was afraid of this happening, but I have no idea how to tackle saving and reloading during a cutscene. I even tried implementing a special game over script that would return you to the 3rd battle or so, but it ended up failing in many ways, so I removed it at the last second.

Long winded. This felt more like a who killed dino giant or house heroes type game.

As time went on, I felt more and more conflicted about making this chapter for a contest that's supposed to encourage us to do RPGs the old-fashioned way, or something. But dropping from the contest just because of this felt wrong, so I persisted.

Back to work for me. Lots of doohickeys to fix.

[JSH357]

Real quick, first impressions of everything else but the three long ones (Powerstick, Vikings, Okedoke):

Legendary Heroes - 4/10 - I love the concept of a game about hunting monster infestations. Sadly this is very incomplete and I even ran in to some bugs, like characters talking when they don't exist yet.

Eternity Fragment - 5/10 - I am giving it this much based solely on the presentation. This game LOOKS and SOUNDS like an amazing Dragon Quest clone. I was totally digging the feel, and kind of disappointed that it came from a graphics pack. The game was well put-together though. Sadly, the battle balance is just all wrong. None of the enemies are threatening, and the hero gets his turns so slowly that grinding is way too much of a chore. This game would benefit a lot by increasing speed by about +15 all around and pausing on all menus in its present state. The enemies need major buffing as well. The intro was awesome. I still haven't gotten the boat, by the way. Might come back to it later.


BACONLABS: IGNORE WHAT I SAID ABOUT THE PACING; I AM AN IDIOT. That's actually fine. I'm referring more to the way the NPCs and such move in scenes... it seems a bit too fast at times. The dialogue might also be a bit "overwritten," (like, unnatural) but that's just a style thing that I'm probably guilty of myself. Still, I do plan to come back to the game at some point so that's something. I love the idea of playing as a White Mage.

[The Wobbler]

@GUO: I'd rather you didn't do that. I like to track the number of people that download my game. I also plan to update it in the near AND far future, and an old copy that I have no control over would be beyond my control to update. I realize I have little to no control over what people do with my files once I upload them to the internet, but I'd rather they didn't upload them else where, or in a different way for the above reasons.

I haven't played any of the games yet (Will start Motrya tonight) but I just want to quote and agree with this.

[Bob the Hamster]

I created a long-overdue wiki page here: <a href="http://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce ... OHR">Heart of the OHR</a>

It is just a skeleton article, but it does have links to all the entrants in one place.

Please don't make me keep this thing up-to-date all by myself guys ;)

[Pepsi Ranger]

Okay, I hope I'm answering everyone's questions. Ask me again if I didn't respond to your specific question.

to make sure this is within the rules, here are the things I plan to add within the two week 'bug-fixing' window:
*fix any bugs I find, naturally
*fix any other problems I find as well, like grammar things, or accidentally empty treasure chests
*rebalance probably the majority of the enemy stats
*MAYBE recalibrate the aiming system to use the (relatively) new %-based aiming algorithms, although this will require a good bit of both work and thought that I probably won't have time for

Yep, that's all fine and dandy. Whatever you have to do to make your game playable (and fun). I think we can all agree that this contest is about more than winning; it's about reviving the community's interest in OHR RPGs. Too many crap games have tainted it over the years, and this is our chance to fix things. Whatever it takes to make a quality entry, I'll accept during the grace period.

I feel a bit funny about this, because there's probably going to be a lot of work put in during that time, but the rules seem to allow this way of doing it - cramming the content for the first deadline, and making sure it works for the 2nd one.

Yep again. All of my contests live by this philosophy. Sort of an antiprocrastination measure. You already have the game made, so you may as well spend a week or two cleaning it up.

About the point deductions...

Is that for games that haven't been submitted at all yet, or if we revise/bugfix what we put up before the deadline?

Unreleased games. Once it makes the November 30th posting, it's counted as punctual. Anything you fix afterward is a freebie.

Is there a collective lists of all the entries anywhere?

I had planned on making this today, but if you check guo's Heart of the OHR 2010 complete download entry, you'll see the list there. I'll create a new thread for voting that includes all the released games and any new ones that sneak in after today (hint hint people who claimed to "fail at making the deadline"--stop making excuses and get those games turned in).

Why the year long gap? Why not start it in 2011, and make it yearly?

The contest window is too large to make it annual. Plus, I find that yearly contests receive lower turnouts each successive year, and I want this one to survive for awhile.

Also, I think it would be unfair to James if I held this annually;).

I spent all day yesterday traveling, then had internet troubles when I got home. Short story: I will have something downloadable later today, and it will strongly resemble the state of the game as of a month ago. I hope this is acceptable or something close to it, as I have had no real way to upload the game since last Tuesday.

Yes, and I'll waive your T-shirt and point deduction penalty for the next day or two. I still have to honor the bugfix bounty deadline, though, since I'm not paying for them.

@Spoonweaver
I am sure there will be other contests to fill in 2011. (I know I am planning a little one) and Heart of the OHR is such a giant multi-month contets that it makes sense to me to spread it out more-than-yearly

Yes, and truth be told, I was dangerously close to making this a tri-annual contest rather than bi-annual. But I think for now, having the contest on even numbered years should work out. As long as the turnout remains consistent, I'll keep it for every two years.

I'm going to make a zip file of all the contest entries and seed it as a torrent, if anyone's interested.

I'll try and whip up a game list too.

+1 on the game list, but I would modify the file to include only those games that authors are willing to package. Any author who doesn't want the lack of control shouldn't have to be included. Truthfully, I'm with Spoonweaver on this one. I'm still a little irked over the Softpedia invasion from a couple of years ago.

So any first impression on any of the entries yet?
Or are we waiting for the voting thread after the grace period?

I'm gonna try to post Slime Salad reviews for some if not all of these games throughout the month of December. Whether I do it now or after the grace period remains to be seen. For HamsterSpeak, I'm still undecided on a review blitz. I'm probably gonna pass on that one since we have ten games and counting, and that would make for one horrendously long feature. Plus, I'm more interested in seeing dedicated reviews for each one (maybe even multiple reviews for each one since multiple perspectives are more helpful to authors than single perspectives--a throwback to the old Operation: OHR days). Whatever happens, my plan is to do something for each game.

Speaking of entries, are we judging only the NEW content of re-releases? It seems weird to have Vikings and Okedoke judged by the same merits as the rest is all I'm saying.

Ideally, yes, but I think I'll leave that to the voters. What I will clarify is that Okedoke and Vikings should not be voted on solely for their old content. New content must be considered. However, not everyone has played Okedoke or Vikings yet, and this is a good opportunity for them to discover them, and that will mean factoring in an overall impression. I think I did say somewhere in the depths of this thread that authors should include a readme of what's been added to the game since its last public release to make it easier on voters to identify what's actually HotOHR content. Okedoke has this list in its game description, but I'm not sure if Vikings does. In any case, I do remember stating in the beginning that authors needed to take special care in designing their games since Vikings, Okedoke, and even Wandering Hamster (had it made an appearance) were just as eligible to enter as any new game, since the possibility does exist that the entire game will be considered for vote.

I hope this clarifies things.

I was one of the ones pulling for judging games as a whole, because I think RPGs are designed in a way that 'new' content depends deeply on the pre-existing content. New story/enemies/etc may very well depend on story/attacks learned earlier in the game, etc. And it will be too much to ask people to play games twice to be able to judge the 'new' version from the 'old'. But the more I think about it, the more I can see the other side as well...

Right, I do think the new content depends on the old, and for the new content to receive fair judgment, the old content should be considered. But again, the point of this contest is to give players new RPGs and new content in old RPGs, so those take priority to old content that we've been playing since 2006.

Any other questions? Any answers that you don't like?

Let's keep discussing these games, guys. This is the perfect opportunity to help each other make our games better.

If you still want to release your game for this contest, don't hesitate. Join in on the fun.

EDIT: James, even though Powerstick Man XE is not an official entry, I'd still like a link to its trailers (maybe under a "promotional" category or something). I don't ever use Wiki, so I don't want to bung up the page from my own attempt at editing it. However, the game itself will still be on that page for the next month, so I think it's fair to remind a future generation that this was once the "kick-off game."

EDIT 2: Would anyone be willing to create a video trailer for the contest games that we can attach to the wiki? I'd do it myself, but I'm still busy with my other trailer, and then I have to get back to work on other projects.

[Spoonweaver]

Played Motrya. It's great. I fixed my rating. I played the card game for an insane amount of time.\

Legendary Heroes - 4/10 - I love the concept of a game about hunting monster infestations. Sadly this is very incomplete and I even ran in to some bugs, like characters talking when they don't exist yet.

Cool thanks. I'm guessing this is rebobinar in the cave of fire. While reading this I realised I never activated the npcs that are suppose to block that cave before she's on your team.
If it happens, or also happens, another time, please let me know.
What other bugs did you find? I'm trying to track them all down.

[JSH357]

Played Motrya. It's great. I fixed my rating. I played the card game for an insane amount of time.\

Legendary Heroes - 4/10 - I love the concept of a game about hunting monster infestations. Sadly this is very incomplete and I even ran in to some bugs, like characters talking when they don't exist yet.

Cool thanks. I'm guessing this is rebobinar in the cave of fire. While reading this I realised I never activated the npcs that are suppose to block that cave before she's on your team.
If it happens, or also happens, another time, please let me know.
What other bugs did you find? I'm trying to track them all down.

It seemed like a lot of NPCs just popped in and out of places randomly. Maybe this was intentional?

[NayusDante]

Wow, I just now found the "pause on all battle menus" bitset. That's how I wanted it to be in the first place...

Also, rest assured that EF will be rebalanced soon. All the monster stats were lowered when I was testing, but they should get a bump in my bugfix release.

I think I'll be able to start playing the other entries tomorrow, so I'll try to have some feedback for everyone up before too long.

[Spoonweaver]

@jsh: Well yes, SOME npcs are suppose to do that. The rats, until after the first boss, and jason the hobo ( if you save him ). That's really it though.

[ncw64]

Hey, my computer died and I just not got a laptop and got my game online. I'm uploading my game regardless, and I'm not sure if it's too late. Hopefully the T-shirt will still be a possibility!

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

I just now noticed that you can RESIZE CUSTOM by dragging the window around. This means I can now realistically use my wacom tablet. This also means the OHR itself is now my favorite program to make sprites with. Thank you whoever did this.

Also it took me a moment to figure out that holding Capslock and scrolling around has been superseded by a new Scroll button. I'm such a fool.

Just completed Viridia. The story's great, and I liked that so much of the world is just so interactive!

[The Wobbler]

I just now noticed that you can RESIZE CUSTOM by dragging the window around. This means I can now realistically use my wacom tablet. This also means the OHR itself is now my favorite program to make sprites with. Thank you whoever did this.

This and the new color replace tool make my life so much easier.

Edit: Played Motrya for about an hour so far, this game's fantastic.

[Mystic]

However - I don't know if it's just me, but the draw tool doesn't work if you hold down the mouse button and go. I have to click each spot.