Heart of the OHR Contest 2012

sleepish · Post by **sleepish** » Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:09 pm

I started on Vikings of Midgard but have a long way to go till new content.
Pepsi Ranger, that was great, something like that should be on the blog.

Fenrir-Lunaris · Post by **Fenrir-Lunaris** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:04 am

Most of the newer Vikings content is found in the "World of Ruin".

It mainly consists of newer optional boss fights against several superbosses for each character's ultimate weapons/techniques, a series of new questchains based out of Thule that hint at the location of these bosses, and the conclusion of Night's personal story and revamped battle against [s]Omega Weapon[/s] Sericyon to get the Dark Matter and thus break the game's damage limit. Oh, and, every enemy should now have unique skills they can use, which I'm hoping adds quite a bit more flavortext to the game itself.

I've decided after some soul searching that I've let Vikings drag on for too long by constantly adding new content to it, and that it's time to close the book on it by having only ONE more update - and by axing a significant amount of planned content that would have gone in. This means there won't be that planned Necromancer character, nor the Dwarven steampunk dragon-golem craftable party member, and thus their planned content will forever remain unfinished. This also means I'll be cutting out a significant chunk of material from the arena area (though finishing the shops) and skipping out most of the planned unique battles for treasure. I may also leave out the fight against Nix in the Jade Fields subdimension, and instead just place Freki's ultimate weapon in a treasurebox hidden in some obscure corner somewhere.

This leaves only the revamped fight against Jabberwocky to pick up Kitt's Excalibur sword, and a new TRUE final boss that appears only after the conclusion of everyone's questlines. Then that's it.

Such is life, I guess.

Master K · Post by **Master K** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 1:50 am

^
Awww but I liked the aesthetics of the Jade Fields. Especially the music. How about just making an island in the center of the Jade Fields and placing the chest on that.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:10 am

Pepsi Ranger wrote: BMR's Legacy (which I just completed my mini-review for) is a visual feast full of impressive presentation and audio goodness. It strives for realism like few OHR games ever bother to attempt. I admire that greatly. Even the dialogue trees, which can be cumbersome to get through at times, feels like a great idea on paper. In short, everything about this game should've blown my mind.

But it didn't. In fact, I found it pretty boring all the way through to the end of the demo.

This actually makes me want to work harder to make Legacy a much better game. I admit it's an ambitious project (and my first serious one) so I suppose that I'm still learning the ropes, so-to-speak, of making a good game. Still, I'm not giving up on the project, and if anything, this inspires me to fix everything that everyone has posted about and turn Legacy into something that's actually fun to play, hehe. Cheers!

Master K · Post by **Master K** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:16 am

my first serious one) so I suppose that I'm still learning the ropes

I've been here for two years and I'm still learning the ropes...everyone else has basically been here forever.

msw188 · Post by **msw188** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 3:51 am

Super Walrus Chef (Mogri)
Quick Notes Through ~45min
-HONK! That's awesome
-Intro is a little long
-Holy slime sound effects are LOUD
-This is the first game where the aesthetics actually bothered me - is the music in restaurant a purposely awful rendition? Also, I couldn't tell that what the tables and booths were; need to use different color for back of booth versus table top
-"Produce Isle" haha, good sense of humor spread throughout, although party members talk too much
-Shortcut unlocked is a great idea for a game like this
-Crashed in the Forest while walking; it was right after a Lvl up, MIGHT have been upon me trying to open main menu

Quick Thoughts After
I actually played a bit more after the crash, but it was disheartening to lose a fair amount of progress. Even though this game has a sort of silly tone and I dislike the party members commenting so much, there's still a certain charm to the 'story' here.

The gameplay is pretty great for the most part. The battles are fair, the levelling up system of choosing attacks/upgrades is great, and everything other than dialogue is wonderfully streamlined (ie, the town is nothing but what it needs to be). I'm a bit puzzled as to why the player can't leave a dungeon and come back to it all during the same day; luckily there is a textual warning to indicate this. One thing that is missing though is an indication that the player should visit the restaurant before going to bed; I think it would be nice if the bed says something like "are you sure you want to sleep before visiting the restaurant for the day?" if the player does this.

The crash makes it a bit hard to rate the game, not only because it may or not be due to the game itself (as opposed to the engine), but also because it effectively stopped me from playing much further this evening, and in the interest of hopefully playing the last two new games tomorrow, I probably won't return to this. That said, all of the indications were there that this had the makings of a fun RPG-like experience in the matter that counts - gameplay.

RATING: 7

msw188 · Post by **msw188** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:09 am

Not sure if it helps anyone or not, but here's the gdebug output I had from after the crash:

Code: Select all

OHRRPGCE alectormancy+2 20120731.5284 gfx_directx+sdl+fb/music_sdl FreeBASIC 0.23.0 &#40;08-14-2011&#41; Win32
01-18-2013 21&#58;48&#58;38
mersenne_twiser seed=16683.53968542293
Initialising gfx_directx...
gfx_directx "gfx_Initialize&#40;&#41;...
Adapter&#58; Mobile Intel&#40;R&#41; 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Driver&#58; igdumdx32.dll
IDirect3DDevice9 object created as hardware device.
D3DXSaveSurfaceToFile&#40;&#41; failed to load. Probably lacking d3dx_24.dll.
Joysticks supported."
music_sdl, SDL 1.2.14, SDL_Mixer 1.2.12 &#40;22050Hz, Music decoders&#58;WAVE,MIKMOD,NATIVEMIDI,OGG,MP3 Sample decoders&#58;WAVE,AIFF,VOC,OGG&#41;
prefsdir=C&#58;\Users\Mike Willis\AppData\Roaming\OHRRPGCE\chef
OHRRPGCE alectormancy+2 20120731.5284 gfx_directx+sdl+fb/music_sdl FreeBASIC 0.23.0 &#40;08-14-2011&#41; Win32
Runtime info&#58; gfx_directx "gfx_Initialize&#40;&#41;...
Adapter&#58; Mobile Intel&#40;R&#41; 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Driver&#58; igdumdx32.dll
IDirect3DDevice9 object created as hardware device.
D3DXSaveSurfaceToFile&#40;&#41; failed to load. Probably lacking d3dx_24.dll.
Joysticks supported."  music_sdl, SDL 1.2.14, SDL_Mixer 1.2.12 &#40;22050Hz, Music decoders&#58;WAVE,MIKMOD,NATIVEMIDI,OGG,MP3 Sample decoders&#58;WAVE,AIFF,VOC,OGG&#41;  
Playing game C&#58;\Users\Mike Willis\OHRRPGCE\HotOHR2012\chef_132\chef.rpg &#40;Super Penguin Chef&#41; 01-18-2013 21&#58;48&#58;39
Partial game data upgrade...
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 0
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 1
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 2
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 3
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 0
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 1
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 2
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 3
use nifty new save slot preview for slot 0
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 1
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 2
fall back to boring old save slot preview for 3

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:11 am

msw188, was there any crash info in g_debug.txt or g_debug_archive.txt ?

EDIT: no clues there, but thanks for posting it anyway! :)

Mystic · Post by **Mystic** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:29 am

I must be the only person who thinks the sounds were fine in super pengler. Hm.

The Wobbler · Post by **The Wobbler** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 6:01 pm

They're fine if you keep the volume low enough to not hear the music.

Post by **Mogri** » Sat Jan 19, 2013 8:03 pm

Mystic wrote:I must be the only person who thinks the sounds were fine in super pengler. Hm.

That makes two of us

But I'll definitely be lowering the volume for the next release based on the comments I've received. It'd be nice if there were a way to do this from within the engine (wink, hint).

This is the first game where the aesthetics actually bothered me - is the music in restaurant a purposely awful rendition?

It's actually the version of the song (Vivaldi's Spring, I think?) bundled with the OHR.

I haven't experienced any crashes with the game personally. Regardless of whether you're affected, saving often is a good idea, especially especially if you're the kind of player who reloads when things go down the drain (I won't judge).

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 5:44 am

Hey guys,

I should have time tomorrow to start working on compiling the scores. Normally I'd send the results to the Wobbler and have him post the results in the upcoming issue of HamsterSpeak, but obviously that's not an option this time. My option now is to send it to TheCube for his blogging site, but I don't know if or how well that's being maintained, and I don't really want the results to get lost in Internet hell. Would anyone like to host the results and link them to the official wiki? If you check out HamsterSpeak #45, you'll see how I plan to format the results page. Or, if it's possible to create a wiki that matches that format, then perhaps someone would be willing to do that?

Let me know if any of you are willing to help me make the results both public and shiny. Thanks.

(Oh, and if you have any last-minute scores to edit or post, this is truly the last minute, so get them posted now. I won't accept any new or changed scores after tomorrow.)

Post by **Mogri** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 7:27 pm

Cube is still maintaining The Hamster Burrow. You can also just post the results on Slime Salad, though I'd prefer if you gave an exclusivity period of one or two weeks to Hamster Burrow.

msw188 · Post by **msw188** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 5:17 am

Just wanted to post a quick apology to both Fnrrf and JC. I meant to play all of the new games for this contest, but the time just wasn't found. I'm especially disappointed because, based on Okedoke, I'm willing to bet I would have had a pretty good time with K'hyurbhi at least.

Anyways, it should be interesting to see the results.

Pepsi Ranger · Post by **Pepsi Ranger** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 6:21 am

Scores are compiled and the official results feature will be released soon. I just have to add in the "Audience Consensus" segment to each game before I can call it a wrap.

If you've agreed to host a prize, please review the prize section on Page 1 of this thread to see what you're offering. A few prizes will either have to change or dissolve thanks to a few adjustments to the community, including the end of HamsterSpeak and the silence of Inferior Minion (who was going to give you all T-shirts originally), but there's no reason why we can't fill those voids with new prizes.

If you're covering one of the "side quest" prizes, aka Best Villain and Best Dungeon, you'll have to review the thread for those votes. To me it doesn't look like there's much of a consensus on that, but if you still want to give voters time to vote on that, that's your prerogative.

Mystic, I have no idea what you are looking for for your special conditional prize, but hopefully you'll let us in on your secret.

TheCube, I will send you the results for the Hamster Burrow in the next day or two. I just need to know whether I should send it with the screenshot .PNGs or if you can directly post on your blog what's in the document file. The Wobbler usually needed the files before he could post the screenshots on HamsterSpeak. Let me know.

If anyone wants to add to the prize pot, you still can. Call it a thank you to the winner(s) for making such excellent games.

Having said that, I'd like to thank my prize suppliers for their willingness to contribute: James, Mogri, Momoka, Fenrir-Lunaris, Mystic, and Inferior Minion. If I've left anyone out, please let me know so I can thank you, too.

Feel free to comment on the contest as a whole if you'd like. Is there anything you'd like to see done differently in 2014? Any particular type of games you hope will make an original appearance, or currently unfinished titles that you'd like to see enter the rereleased category? Which games should make the OHR Legends ranking next time? Sound off.