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[TheGrandHero]

EDIT: BEGINNING-TO-END BETA VERSION NOW AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME

Another Star is a console-style RPG like none you've ever played before! Which is really just marketing-speak for "it's like every other RPG you've ever played, except it has a few things that make it feel new, different and exciting".



It was inspired by the 26th Ludum Dare competition theme of Minimalism, and the goal was to make a "full size" game using only a single 128×128 pixel tile sheet of 256 8×8 pixel tiles. Emulating 8-bit hardware, the tiles can be flipped vertically or horizontally, but cannot be rotated, and everything uses the same 16 color palette of 8-bit colors (so, more akin to the Master System than the NES). To give it a somewhat unique feel, the music was composed using an emulated YM2413, which was a budget-priced chip FM synth chip that became a common add-on in the late 8-bit era.




---LINKS AND GAMEPLAY VIDEOS---

You can visit the website here:
http://www.visionriders.com/anotherstar

The IndieDB page, with more images and additional information, is here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/another-star

Here's a trailer:




And a video showing off the basic gameplay mechanics:





---DOWNLOAD---

This is probably why you're here:
http://www.visionriders.com/beta_test/AnotherStarLEAK.zip
http://www.visionriders.com/beta_test/AnotherStarB1.zip (limited time beta)

It's unfinished, but playable. Grab it while you can, because I plan to take it down later. The ReadMe.txt file included should get you started, but it basically all boils down to A being the "cancel" button, and D being the "select" button. Future versions of the game will allow for remapping the keys. Alternatively, you can use a gamepad (both the left stick and d-pad can be used if you play with an XBox 360 controller). The fullscreen resolution cannot currently be set and uses your current system settings, but you can resize the window by dragging the sides.

Almost half the game is playable, but the game is very much unbalanced, and there may be areas where you can get stuck and unable to progress. Please note that your progress in this version won't be able to carry over to the final version. The game is still in development and too much will have changed, breaking compatibility.

I'd love to hear about any battle strategies you came up with (especially in boss battles) and what items/equipment you found most useful.


---TROUBLESHOOTING---

• The game should run fine on Windows, Mac, and Linux so long as you have either .NET or Mono installed, but I haven't tested the current build in Ubuntu to be sure, and don't have access to a Macintosh at present. Previous builds were working just fine in Ubuntu, but because I don't know for sure I didn't include the Mac or Linux icons for this thread.
• If the game crashes on startup with an openal32.dll error, try downloading the OpenAL installer from Creative's website.
• The game uses a shader for the CRT effect, but if it's slowing down your system, use F4 to toggle it on and off. This setting will be available in the options menu down the road, and include a lower-quality "light" version for those with slower system.
• If you get stuck in a wall because you managed to wander into an unfinished map sector, use ALT+HOME to soft reset the game without saving your progress. (If you save the game when stuck like this, you won't be able to get out.)
• The text has not been finalized, so I don't really care about typos at this point. A lot of it is going to change later, so there's no reason to fix what may not exist later

[fightmagicrun]

I like the way you give a choice of accepting random battles.  That's a nice default.

[Games Inquirer]

Great stuff, will you sell the final version? It's better than Dragon Quest clones people buy on iOS, like Dragon Fantasy, as it's more creative, less of a rip off, not a meme based story, and seems potentially deeper too. But I won't play this version much, I played a Driftmoon alpha and then didn't really have a desire for the final product.

[TheGrandHero]

Great stuff, will you sell the final version?

That's the plan, yes. It should be out sometime before the end of the summer.

[tweiller]

The first thing that got me was the printscreens. I loved the graphics, the simplicity. It looks like Master System game and that´s quite a compliment ♥ The TV shape and the skanlines are really a nice touch to the whole Master System set ♥

However, when I was all set to play and had just hit to start, the game crashed. I tried again and again the same error. My man also tried in his computer and experienced the same error in the same moment.

This is the error message:


My PC is a core 2 quad Q6600/8gb ram/VGA card GD4890/ Windows 7 64bits.
My man has an i7/8gb ram/VGA card GTX560/ Windows 7 64bits.

[TheGrandHero]

When you open the game, it tries to use whatever the system language is. It's supposed to default to English if the given language doesn't exist, but I forgot to add that part.

Oops?

You can either go into the Data/Text folder an rename the "en" folder to the the two-letter ISO code of your system language ("es" for Spanish, "ja" for Japanese, etc.), OR you can redownload the game as I've just uploaded a fixed version. That should also get all the text to show up. You'll probably need to delete the save file and make a new one, though.

Let me know if it works.

[thomasmahler]

Just played it and loved it.

Obviously becomes a bit too repetitive after the first 15-20m, but I'd buy it anyway.

[mushbuh]

mmhm

[QCPolmer]

The music on this game works really well.

I tried playing it a few times, and the farthest I got I used throwing stars. The other times (particularly on hard mode) I kept losing to the slimes... Which I appreciated. Exploration based RPGs never feel right to me if the possibility of loosing to random encounters isn't there.

[sigvatr___]

plz send me your shaders

[TheGrandHero]

I tried playing it a few times, and the farthest I got I used throwing stars. The other times (particularly on hard mode) I kept losing to the slimes... Which I appreciated. Exploration based RPGs never feel right to me if the possibility of loosing to random encounters isn't there.

The hard modes are very unbalanced early on, and probably a little too easy later. I'll try to find a good balance when I go back and start polishing everything. But I do want players to be able to get the thrill of "oops, I might have wandered a little too far ahead".

One thing that is already implemented, however, is that a few enemies use slightly different abilities depending on the difficulty level. Instant-death spells also work a bit differently based on the set difficulty.

plz send me your shaders

The shader files can be found in the Data folder. You're looking for CRTvert.shader and CRTpixel.shader files, specifically. Both of these files have credits in the comments detailing the license and crediting the original authors; the code is only slightly tweaked from their original versions.

Please note that there are other shaders included that aren't being used, such as a multi-layer NTSC shader that I couldn't get to work with the game. They don't include credits or license information and are not intended to be included in the commercial release of the game, so use them at your own risk. They shouldn't be to hard to hunt down online if you look for them.

[Games Inquirer]

Hope you're still working on this

[Themaister]

Oh, some shaders :p My NTSC shader you're using there is very wrong and outdated. It probably didn't work because you need floating point framebuffers and passing frame counter. If you're not going to use it though, I suppose it won't matter.

[Noyb]

I haven't made time to play the "leaked" demo yet, but from following its development I'm psyched for the full version!

[TheGrandHero]

Derp, I really need to log in more often. Can't believe I missed all these replies!

(By the way, grab the new beta version I just uploaded while you still can. It's playable from beginning to end, so I can't imagine leaving it up forever like the "leaked" version. The link is edited into the first post. Save files from the previous version may or may not work, so it's best to start a new save or else your stats will be all wonky and glitched.

If you play the game and leave feedback, I will try my best to credit you, by the way. (If you prefer to be credited under your real name, leave it for me in your post, or email me.)

Hope you're still working on this

I am, as the new beta version shows. :D

Oh, some shaders :p My NTSC shader you're using there is very wrong and outdated. It probably didn't work because you need floating point framebuffers and passing frame counter. If you're not going to use it though, I suppose it won't matter.

It's been awhile since I've toyed around with it, but yeah, I probably missed those values. Do you have a newer version of the shader uploaded somewhere that I can use? I probably won't incorporate it since the CRT filter does most of what I want (with a little extra NTSC bleed faked internally), but if I have the time I might try to get it working with the current shader engine.

It's ironic that I spent so long as an animator waiting to be rid of NTSC, and now I'm trying to emulate it. :/

I haven't made time to play the "leaked" demo yet, but from following its development I'm psyched for the full version!

I'm working on it with all my might!