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[Zaphos]

Thanks for pointing out that it was kind of confusing; perhaps I can rewrite the text to say something like, "you need to fill all 3 orbs" rather than saying you need to absorb the Melolune.  Do you think this would be enough to help players get through it? 

Yeah, that would have avoided my getting stuck.

I played through the rest of the demo, looking forward to seeing more ... whenever it comes out!  I like the atmosphere and walking around, though I must say the 'gameplay' bits were not very strong ... I mean, for non-boss combat I would often just target the medic first (if there was one) and then close my eyes and tap spacebar until it sounded like the battle ended.  In some sense this easy combat was a relief for me, 'cause I don't like jrpg combat that much & my ideal jrpg might just not have combat, but still it did start to feel silly tapping space with my eyes closed.  (edit: I should probably clarify: I still really enjoyed the playing!  The combat feeling silly was not that big of an issue for me overall.)

Nitpicks: In the last town there were a few places I noticed I was walking through people (the dancers, and some of the soldiers by the shipyard...).  Also, I think there were a couple typos in the script -- I might have seen 'interestign' somewhere (?) -- so maybe running spell check on the script would catch something.

[HyperDuckChris]

@HyperDuck: Thank-you very much ^_^  To answer your question, yes I'm the one who sings the main theme.  I have so much fun doing vocals for songs, it feels different to me than when I sing regular music.  It's almost like I have an easier time getting into character if that makes sense, hehe   Oh, I was going to say that I saw the trailer for "Dust: An Elysian Tale" on your site and wow, that looks like a beautiful game!  The artwork reminded me of Legend of Mana because everything had so much detail and such nice colors.  How is that project coming along?

Well you have a beautiful voice, I'm really impressed. The mix on your voice in the songs, as well, is excellent! Whats your recording method or what programs do you use? Cubase, ProTools, etc ?

It IS a beautiful game! I've been one of the lucky few to play it before PAX2009, and I get regular builds off Dean to help him out in testing. It's coming a long well, least on Deans side, Dan & I have only done a few songs for it so far and will be doing the rest of the soundtrack to complete for early 2010, first quarter anyway. It's really quite amazing that Dean hand paints basically everything in Dust, no doubt the reasoning behind it's brilliant looks!

[allen]

Yeah, she has a fine voice. Definitely not my style though, I had to turn the speakers off when the singing started. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine song-just not my style

I really like the fact that you included to much dialog. I like that in RPGs. I play 'western' rpgs like the witcher, mass effect, planescape torment, and the like and I really like talking to everyone without them having something generic to say. Dragon Age: Origins did this, and it's awesome. Even a lowly guard will tell you his life story occasionally.

[supershigi]

@DYRE: Thank-you for checking out the demo   Yeah, I see what you're saying about the portraits.  I think in the future I'd like to recolor them and possibly add a border while still maintaining their original style.  And thanks for offering to point out those other things, I'd definitely appreciate it!  There's so much dialogue going on that even after lots of bug testing I still manage to find a text error here and there >_<

@JackNeil: Well the good thing is that rpg maker sort of has built-in asset managers, so whenever I make new character sprites or tilesets I can just upload them to the various folders.  Dialogue on the other hand can get kind of messy... especially if I have stuff written for several different conditions.  Ah, thank-you for the link, I'm really looking forward to reading your article!  That was really cool of you to post that!

@Zaphos: I'm always looking for ways to make the combat more interesting; that usually seems to be the area in jRPGs that I'm not particularily fond of (except in Chrono Trigger... perhaps all the cool animations made the battles more tolerable).  Do you have any suggestions for things that could make the battles more interesting while still maintaining the current system?  Right now I have enemies that heal, enemies that do a lot of damage but are easy to kill, tanks, etc.

@HyperDuck: Aw, thank-you... I appreciate that ^_^  I use Sonar 6 for sequencing and production, and a variety of soft and hard synths (I have my trusty Korg Triton for samples and the weighted controller, Edirol, EWQL, Cakewalk TTI, etc.).  I'll also use Soundforge on occasion to do some editing.  What about you, which programs do you like to use?  Ah, so the art in Dust is hand painted!  No wonder it's so lovely. 

@allen: I think I'm the same way about dialogue... sometimes I just like to wander off and talk to the various NPCs to see if any of them have funny hidden messages.  I got such a kick out of Francis' fortress in Super Paper Mario for that reason.

[Hima]

Dropped by to say congrats for releasing the demo! I have also downloaded your game and will be back with more feedbacks later I need to work on my thesis on this weekend , so I'll probably get to play after that. I'm afraid that if I play the game now then all the time I should be working on the thesis will be spent on playing your game hehe  

[HyperDuckChris]

@supershigi: I am a student, and therefore own Cubase Studio 5 on Educational discount.

Prologue and HALionOne, plus GrooveAgent are all great programs that come with Cubase, I use them an a bunch of other random free VSTs, depending on what it is. It'd be a pain for you if i listed them so yes, if you ever need a particular sound and have no idea if it exists, give me a shout, I might have it sitting on my PC somewhere. Too many sounds to count, I'm a VST junkie.


Had a Triton for a while, they're excellent! I just work from cubase with a sequencer keystation now.

Aside from Cubase, I can't think of anything else to be honest, I play all what I write, and only sequence kits and arps, so cubase studio 5 covers a lot of that for me. If you're a student in USA http://www.studica.com/products/product_detail.cfm?productid=58891 that link may come in handy if you ever think about getting cubase studio 5, worth the money and coming at that amount of discount (i think it's originally 600) it's a good catch.

UK goers should try http://students.pugh.co.uk/index.php?nID=productDetail&manu=78&prodID=2448

Anyways, yes!

[supershigi]

I thought I'd post a link to another song from the game called "The Great World."  It used to be the main theme back when the game was called Blue Star... but now it plays during scenes when the characters resolve to do something adventurous (like when they leave to save the village, or when they're on the boat to Ciro). 

@Hima: Hi Hima!  Thanks for stopping by   Good luck with your thesis... what is the topic?  And does that mean you're almost finished with school? 

@HyperDuck: Thank-you for the offer   Cubase is pretty cool; I tried it out back in college when I was working with a friend.  And thanks for posting the link, I'm sure there are a bunch of students out there who would love to take advantage of that offer!  Music software can be so expensive sometimes. 

[JackNeil]

I already told you, that you inspired me to create a story-based-game, but I'm not an experienced writer and writing a compelling, deep, and moving story is hard. So I though the best approach would be to improve the entire story in an iterative process, like the maps and puzzles in Grappling Hook.

Important is, that even big changes won't take much time, to keep the time exposure of every iteration low. Also, a playable version should be ready as early as possible and at any time.
The creation of the story-test-environment also shouldn't take to much time.

Till now, my best idea to do this is some kind of text adventure, because it doesn't require artwork or other content. Even gameplay-sequences could be replaced by short descriptions.

For the entire project this would mean:
1. Create a text-adventure for the story.
2. Improve the story with many iterations until it is very good.
3. Create the real game, with gameplay, dialog-system, graphics, ...
4. Port the story from the text-adventure to the real game.

What do you think about this idea?
Do you have a better or alternative ideas?
Have you done something like that for Melolune?
Do you have any other tips to ensure, that the story of a game will be great?

[PsySal]

I wanted to post my feedback before I read everyone else's. I played it last night I think for an hour or more (2 hours? 3? I'll have to check!), and made it to the village past the swamp. I think I did most of the side-quests, including the birthday one (really touching), the power ring, and the zombie mushrooms.

Here's what I think!

- Amazing quality. This is a very finely crafted game. Graphics are an absolute joy to see!
- Perfect Pacing. Some people I think will feel that the story is slow, but I would suggest not to listen to them. I just get the sense that you know what you're doing, what you want to accomplish, and the pacing reflects that. This is a "soft" game; it feels very gentle. I did read one other feedback item that said "cute" but I actually think "gentle" is a better word. I love it. The story seems very well thought-out, very nice use of foreshadowing in places (I'm thinking of the "Do humans eat..." bit, the purple tracks, etc.)
- You should see how other demographics than the "standard RPG crowd" (though I'm not sure what that actually is...) feel about it. Honestly I don't have much experience in the marketing realm, but my brain says that younger girls would fall in love with what you've created. You should get them to play it, video tape them talking about it, and when it comes time to promote it, use that video footage. Well that's what I'm planning to do with my game (http://kittylambda.com/texas), since I discovered at a recent event that younger adult to middle aged women love it. =) Hehehe...
- Music is beautiful. Nothing really to say here other than good job. The voices on the voice track sounded a bit muffled but it could be that my windows PC is in the closet and I don't have it hooked into a proper stereo system.
- I feel a strong Chrono Trigger influence throughout this game, which is probably part of why I think it's so great.
- Menu complexity, both battle and config, feels just about right. Anything more and it would start to feel overly complex and "system" based. I like the level of complexity with things, and you do a good job introducing/explaining it.

If you can keep to your original vision, I think you'll have a really beautiful game. I wonder how long this demo is, I'm amazed at how complete it is so far. I'll give a big "frowny face" when I reach the end, but I'm sure I'll have an even bigger smile. =)

Glitches/bugs found, criticisms:

- Really, I only found one. After defeating the hawk on the top of the mountain, I saw for a very brief time the hawk flash on-screen, in the sky to the left and above the nest.
- The portraits of the human boys seem to be drawn a bit differently than the little rabbity-guys (sorry, I can't remember any names right now!) The boys don't look as sharp, somehow.
- The overworld graphics I think need to have a softer palette to match the areas. When I first entered the overworld map it was very jarring. Were they drawn by different artists? Truthfully, and it's a bit harsh to say it, I would redo the overworld graphics. It's probably a small job compared to the "area" graphics, and it detracts a lot from the experience. CT had amazing overworld graphics, I feel your area graphics are on par with CT but not the overworld.

I really enjoyed this, wow! You've created something really special and I wish you the best of luck at the IGF.

[PsySal]

Ah, finished it off last night. Really nicely done! I enjoyed the battle with Molra...

Anyhow, awesome job, that was a fun conclusion (to the demo). Such a little gem of an RPG...

[MaloEspada]

Downloading it right now, will provide feedback later.
EDIT:

The music was awesome. You made me stop playing just to listen to some tunes, specially that one in the first dungeon (the brownish dungeon, I think it's called "The Great World").

I noticed some influences by Chrono Trigger, most when I saw the world map.

The story was ok, the Melolune system was interesting. The part with Mani and Dominic was a little emotional, which was kinda... well, cool element.

What I dislike the most is the graphics -made with the pre-set RTP from RPG Maker- but maybe you chose that way because you didn't want to make all the graphical assets. That's understadable.

Also in Basho there's an old man whose right-walking animation is glitched.

I stopped playing after Dela's sidequest, cause I don't know where to go The soldier on the southern town won't let me go in..


Great work overall. The presentation was really good.

EDIT2: I also forgot to say that the Main Theme is AMAZING.

[PsySal]

What I dislike the most is the graphics -made with the pre-set RTP from RPG Maker- but maybe you chose that way because you didn't want to make all the graphical assets. That's understadable.

Ah, I didn't know it was made with preset graphics. Still, those are really nice prepackaged graphics. =)

[supershigi]

First of all, thank-you guys for leaving me feedback... I very much appreciate it.  I also want to clarify: Actually, quite a few of the graphics are original; and everything that is based off of the RTP was heavily edited and/or added to in order to personalize it as much as possible... the treehouses in the Leeble Village for example were not from the RTP, nor were the Leebles.  The RTP was a base for me, but I've spent a lot of time customizing it to fit my story.  I don't think it would be possible for me to make every graphical asset from scratch since I'm only a single-person development team trying to complete a 40 hour rpg ^_^; (in the version that's 80% complete, I'm up to about 500 maps!)  But I've definitely spent a ton of time on the graphics; which is why you'll notice this game looks very different from a regular rpg maker game.  I've been working on the game for close to 3 years now, and all the music is original as well, so hopefully you can see the effort ^_^

You made me stop playing just to listen to some tunes, specially that one in the first dungeon

I just wanted to say that this comment totally made my day   Thank-you for your feedback, I'll make sure to check on the old man in Basho.  Let's see... if the guards won't let you into Debonet, it might be because of this: Did you get passes from the check station in Basho?  There's a tent in the middle of town, if you talk to the soldier inside he'll give you passes that will let you into Debonet.

@PsySal: Thank-you for taking the time to play the whole demo and leave so much feedback, that was really nice of you!  That's good advice about trying it out on the non-standard crowd... I would like to see how other groups react to it.  I teach piano to a few children, and I had them try out the game last week.  I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to handle the dialogue, but perhaps because they read a lot of novels for leisure, they didn't seem phased by it.  The girl wanted to be able to play as "the pink Aero" because she only likes girl characters, hehe.  I think you're right about the overworld map as well... I think when I complete the linear gameplay and sidequests I'm going to go back and try to tackle some of the non-matching graphics.  I also wanted to say that I checked out your game, and I totally got a kick out of the video you made on the topic of deer animation.  I hope you add a spring-noise ^_^  Where did you get the music for that video?  (The Lompakko one)... I really liked it for some reason.

@JackNeil: I'm so happy to hear that you're planning out your story-game, that's fantastic!  I think the process you mentioned sounds like it could definitely work.  Creating a text-adventure first would help you iron out little details, and then you could go back and expand on it later.  When I made the story and events for Melolune, I had two separate visions going on: 1.) The events as they would have unfolded in an rpg (because even though I had no idea that I was going to turn it into an rpg at the time, I always thought of it in terms of one since I'd played a lot of rpgs growing up), and 2.) The story as if it were a novel or movie (because it's easier to imagine how characters would really be talking to each other this way).  #1 is helpful because it helps you to balance the amount of dialogue/cutscenes with battles/puzzles.  I've found that if there are too many battles in a row the player gets bored... but if there are too many cutscenes in a row, the player isn't invested enough to find the cutscenes compelling.  What is your story about so far? 

Hm, as for tips: I've noticed that there are quite a few games (even successful commercial ones) that have kind of silly dialogue.  I think the best way to avoid this, is to test your dialogue out by reading it aloud.  Sometimes when people write dialogue, it ends up not sounding realistic because it's not how folks would talk in real life.  Reading parts of it aloud (especially important cutscenes and exchanges) helps you to see if it sounds "real" or not. 

[MaloEspada]

I figured out some graphics were original, sorry if I offended you or something. It's not an easy task to make a 40 hour RPG and you should be proud of your work. Because I used RPG Maker for a long period of my life I was able to detect some different tilesets and even edits on the original RTP, yet again I made that statement. I'm sorry.

I can't play the game right now, but I'm pretty sure I talked to everyone, including those in the tent. When I get my PC back I'll try to finish the demo.

Keep up the good work, please. More people need to listen to your awesome music.

[supershigi]

@R.D. Ein: Thank-you for your kind words ^_^  Oh, I wasn't offended or anything... I think I just wanted to make sure people knew that I wasn't only using pre-packaged graphics, and that I had put a lot of effort into making the game look nice.  I'm really happy that you like the music.  What type of rpg did you work on back when you used that program? 

Have you been to the Doogay Swamp or Izaya yet (the place with the talking signs and high class zombie)?  That is the area directly south of Leeble Village where you talk to Dominic's friend Cedar about hitching a ride to Ciro.