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[supershigi]

Hm?  I use MIDI versions of the songs, perfectly 100% legal.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but starsrift and John are absolutely right... A "MIDI version" of an original piece of music from another video game is still owned by the company who produced that game (or in some rare cases, the artist).  Either way, you are not legally allowed to use it.  I have a lot of experience with copyright law, specifically in the area of video game music... and I can assure you, you are absolutely incorrect.  Of course, I doubt it's worth anyone's time to issue you a cease and desist. 

Regardless of whether or not you care about doing things legally, using a prominent Silent Hill piece in your trailer makes your game feel unprofessional. I've heard it in like 20 other rpg maker games (and I'm not even exaggerating about that number, that's how commonly it's used).

[Cleril]

Technically, I'm pretty sure it's not legal. It's just that, with a few exceptions, nobody seems to care.

Well, it's a free game I'm not making any money off of it so it's no different then downloading the song from that site.  The same agreement was made with Mr. Bosa, if I don't make money, he doesn't money, and I can use his music.

Hm?  I use MIDI versions of the songs, perfectly 100% legal.  The other songs were given to me by a composer, Mr. Bosa, who made a mod for Morrowind with that music and he said I could use it in my games.  A player of Haven also gave me the songs he made for me to use.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but starsrift and John are right... I have a lot of experience with lawyers who represent composers (several in the video game industry) and I can assure you that it isn't legal.  Of course, I don't think it's worth anyone's time to issue you a cease and desist, but I figured I should point that out since you seem to be convinced that MIDI versions of original work are somehow not copyrighted.  To be honest, hearing the Silent Hill song in your trailer was off-putting not only because it's not yours, but because I've heard it in like 20 other rpg maker games (and I'm not even exaggerating).

Okay, the game is free, the download for the songs are free, I don't think anybody gonna sue me anytime soon.

Pardon me for using resources available to me?  You're nitpicking to an extreme extent.  "I'm not going to play your game because you use music other people have used in your trailer."  Really?    Sure, you didn't say you wouldn't play it but why bring the issue to me then?  I know trailers are crap.  Why?  My laptop sucks.  If I could make music for the game I would; I can't, therefore I use other things I can find.

I'm so sorry for being resourceful?  

EDIT:  And before you whine about my attitude to you, I'm being sarcastic.  Also, I've spent 200+ hours on just Haven.  To hear someone pissing on my game because my music choice is just ridiculous.  Did I say the game features 100% original music?  No.  I do have a 100% original RPG Maker VX game and story.

I joined this community to get bombarded with complaints from people who don't even play the game I worked on.  Did I ask for feedback on the trailer?  No.  I asked for feedback on the games! 

[supershigi]

First of all, I don't think anyone is saying you're going to get sued... I even specifically said that it's not worth anyone's time to issue you a cease and desist.  People are however pointing out that regardless of whether or not you sell the game, you aren't legally allowed to use that music.  It doesn't matter whether or not it's a MIDI version, and it doesn't matter that you aren't making money off of it.  It's not legal.  Period.  Again, I honestly doubt anyone is going to care, but it's useful information.

If people are mentioning this to you, they're doing you a favor.  You've mentioned several times that you want to use these games for your portfolio in hopes of getting a job in the industry.  I can tell you that I've worked with all sorts of video games companies (everything from small indie companies, to ones like EA and Sony) and a lot of folks would have a hard time taking your work seriously if you had the attitude of "oh, it's 100% legal to use Silent Hill music in my game because it's a MIDI version."  There are a lot of artistic people out there who spend just as much time making these resources, so the idea that you feel entitled to those resources because you spent hours on your game makes no sense.  Obviously folks are going to steal resources, it happens all the time... but acting like you're so entitled to it is the part that really puts people off.  You're not entitled to it.  It's not a free resource for you to use. 

I don't usually care when I see this sort of thing, I almost expect it.  What bothers me is how you actually feel that you are entitled or have the absolute right to use this material.  Do you honestly think that just because you've spent 200+ hours on your game, it entitles you to use original resources that someone else spent tons of hours working on?  That's just ridiculous.

Don't get so upset that folks are putting their opinions out there about stolen resources.  If you want to be taken seriously, it's something to consider. 

Well, it's a free game I'm not making any money off of it so it's no different then downloading the song from that site.

And actually, legally speaking it's very different.  But rather than give you this information, I'll leave it at that since you seem offended when people try to give you perspective.

[Cleril]

First of all, I don't think anyone is saying you're going to get sued... I even specifically said that it's not worth anyone's time to issue you a cease and desist.  People are however pointing out that regardless of whether or not you sell the game, you aren't legally allowed to use that music.  It doesn't matter whether or not it's a MIDI version, and it doesn't matter that you aren't making money off of it.  It's not legal.  Period.  Again, I honestly doubt anyone is going to care, but it's useful information.

If people are mentioning this to you, they're doing you a favor.  You've mentioned several times that you want to use these games for your portfolio in hopes of getting a job in the industry.  I can tell you that I've worked with all sorts of video games companies (everything from small indie companies, to ones like EA and Sony) and a lot of folks would have a hard time taking your work seriously if you had the attitude of "oh, it's 100% legal to use Silent Hill music in my game because it's a MIDI version."  There are a lot of artistic people out there who spend just as much time making music and artwork, so the idea that you feel entitled to those resources because you spent hours on your game makes no sense.  Obviously folks are going to steal resources, it happens all the time... but acting like you're so entitled to it is the part that really puts people off.  You're not entitled to it.  It's not a free resource for you to use.   

Don't get so upset that folks are putting their opinions out there about stolen resources.  If you want to be taken seriously, it's something to consider. 

I never said I was entitled to them.  I said I used them because that's all I have available to me.  I'm not a composer, I am writer and developer, that is it.

I learned it's not legal, big whoop!  Now that I don't have that thought pattern anymore, satisfied?

Why not take the topic seriously?  I posted this topic to get feedback on the games, not the trailers.  "The trailer put me off" is not the first time you've been "putt off" by my offerings.  That isn't feedback, that's complaining.  You don't like the song I used because other people used it?  Maybe it's a good song?  Constructive feedback would be to suggest a song to use instead.  Of course it doesn't matter because it's not the game.

The trailer sucks because I have a crappy computer.  That you going to put you off too?  Why not just play the game?  That's what this topic is for, feedback on the game, constructive feedback, not "this put me off" crap.

I apologize if I sound rude, I probably do, but if I wanted feedback on the trailers, I would ask for feedback on the trailers.  I didn't.  Also, there are 4 other games to provide your thoughts on, not just Haven.  Don't want to play Haven because of it's trailer?  Fine, go play some other game.  I would think your really naive for basing your opinion on a game off it's trailer but I would care less if something else caught your interest.

I use RPG Maker VX, yes, because I'm not a programmer and my laptop, again, sucks.  Why don't I just go get a new PC and use the Unreal engine and then make a trailer for a game made in it with the Silent Hill midi so that you won't complain that 20 other VX games used it?  Does Haven have anything in common with those other 20 VX games?  No, save for being made in VX.   

[supershigi]

Why are you still talking about the trailer?  My entire last post was about using stolen resources.  So long as you're not going around saying things like, "it's 100% legal to use Silent Hill music in my game because it's a MIDI version" then I don't really care.

I would point out though that if what you honestly want is more feedback, you should stop being so defensive and rude towards people who are leaving you comments.  I'd be much more inclined to play your games if you weren't so ragingly sarcastic and rude in your responses.  Nothing anyone here has said is out of line.  You have to keep in mind that several games are released here everyday, but people have limited time... what is anyone's incentive to check out your games given that there are a ton of other interesting games being posted everyday by people who aren't rude?  You're being very naive if you don't think attitude plays a major role in getting folks to check out your game, or even in succeeding in the game industry.  If this is how you respond to very reasonable comments about stolen resources, then you're going to have a difficult time finding people who actually want to hire or work with you.   

Oh and just for the record, I also use rpg maker, and I've found that it's definitely possible to make a game without using stolen resources.  In fact, the reason your attitude bothers me so much is because within the indie game community, rpg maker users have a negative stigma surrounding them.  A big part of this is because so many rpg maker users use stolen resources (and because they feel like they have every right to do so). 

[William Broom]

I played some of Haven and I thought it was quite good. The graphics look nice, but I think they came packaged with RPGMaker? Even if they did you've used them quite well. The same goes for the music. Nevertheless I hope you're able to move on to using your own resources at some point, first and foremost because it will remove restrictions on your ideas. For example, I got the impression (could be wrong) that you decided to make the actors into monsters because you didn't have any other character sprites to use.

Overall, I really enjoyed the surreal tone of the game. Have you ever played a game called Pathologic? Because there are some similarities between that game and Haven.

The sequence with the jester, and the play, were both very cool. I'll be interested to see if more plays become available later in the game. As for the jester, I didn't really understand any of the puzzles he presented me with, but I got through them anyway. "The door disappears when you try to open it" was a nice touch.

On the other hand, some other sections came off as a bit cliched and pretentious. The story about the gravedigger's ghost often sounded like some teenage emo poetry, especially when you described him as 'stabbing himself over and over again for eternity'. That doesn't mean I think the gravedigger's story is inherently flawed, I just think you should work on its implementation. At the same time, I wouldn't want you to lose the unique strangeness that pervades all the scenes in the game.

The meadow dream sequence was also a bit cliched. It reminded me of Baldur's Gate 2, but not as good as the dreams in that game. Am I right in thinking that I was just supposed to wait for the rain to start falling? It took ages, so you should speed it up.

The sequence at the beginning, with the papers and the 'real' Cleril gave me a bad first impression. It seemed a bit narcissistic, like a fanfic author who inserts himself into his stories. Fortunately, the 'Cleril' who we actually control in the game doesn't seem to be much like you in real life (unless you are actually a mysterious bard?) If I were you I would remove that opening sequence entirely, or change it.

I noticed one glitch, which was that when I played the game at full screen everything was flickery. This was unplayably irritating, but when I restarted in windowed mode it went away. Another thing I noticed was that when you try to talk to the old man at the inn, when he is asleep, the papers on his desk will turn into a flowerpot. I don't know if this was intentional - if it is, then I say keep it because it adds to the bizarre atmosphere of the game.

You make quite a lot of mistakes in grammar and usage of words. It's hard to remember them all, but I know there were frequent uses of "it's" when you should have used "its"; in the opening speech made by Cleril, the word 'profess' seems to be used incorrectly, but I'm not sure because that speech is very confusing anyway; and in other sections, you use a full stop where you need a comma and vice versa. Remember that if a sentence does not contain a verb (doing word) then it's not grammatically correct and will sound silly.
This may sound like nitpicking but I think that having a strong control of language is very important for you to appear professional, especially in a text-focused game like Haven.
Another thing that seems unprofessional is that sometimes when you inspect an item, it is described in a neutral third-person narrator's voice, whereas other times it is described by Cleril himself. To make things more wonky, sometimes the third-person narrator is accompanied by Cleril's portrait. Unless you have some sort of esoteric rationale behind these differences, I think you should make it consistent through the whole game.

I'm going to play Haven some more when I have time, and hopefully give you some more feedback about other parts of the game that I haven't seen yet.

[Jonathan]

I'm gonna jump in here and say that I was also kind of put off not only by the fact that you're using someone else's copyrighted resources in your game, but also because of the way you're responding to people's comments here.  People are doing you a favor by playing your game and leaving feedback, not the other way around, so if you want people to play your game you just can't respond like that.  From what I can see, supershigi and John gave you some objective information; quite possibly saving you the embarassment of saying something as ridiculous as "It's perfectly legal for me to use Silent Hill music in my game as long as they're the MIDI versions" to someone you want to work for someday when they ask you why your games feature stolen assets.  Your response was unnecessarily rude.  A simple, non-sarcastic "thanks for the information" would have been much better.

Also, if someone says they didn't want to play your game because of your trailer, that's perfectly legitimate.  I don't think they're harping on the quality of your trailer or even saying you need one.  I think they're bothered by the fact that you're using music you don't own in your project; both for legal reasons and because they're going to hear a Silent Hill track and think of Silent Hill... which in many ways compromises the artistic integrity of your game.  There's nothing "naive" about that.

I'm using these games for my portfolio later in life to get me a job in the industry as a writer/developer, that's why feedback is a must.

I worked for years at Bioware and later EA before leaving to start up a project with friends, and the number one thing I could tell you about getting a job in the industry is to have a good attitude.  I'm guessing from your overly emotional responses in this topic that you're still quite young, but you have to learn to take comments in a more graceful manner.  If you applied to work for any of these companies and you responded like that, we would never hire you.  The industry is a lot smaller than you think, so being cordial to people is just as important as getting them to play your demos.  As far as I can see, you don't have anything so spectacular to offer that it would override your childish attitude.  If you can work on that, I'm sure people would be much more willing to help you out.  Just my two cents.

[Cleril]

Why are you still talking about the trailer?  My entire last post was about using stolen resources.  So long as you're not going around saying things like, "it's 100% legal to use Silent Hill music in my game because it's a MIDI version" then I don't really care.

I would point out though that if what you honestly want is more feedback, you should stop being so defensive and rude towards people who are leaving you comments.  I'd be much more inclined to play your games if you weren't so ragingly sarcastic and rude in your responses.  Nothing anyone here has said is out of line.  You have to keep in mind that several games are released here everyday, but people have limited time... what is anyone's incentive to check out your games given that there are a ton of other interesting games being posted everyday by people who aren't rude?  You're being very naive if you don't think attitude plays a major role in getting folks to check out your game, or even in succeeding in the game industry.  If this is how you respond to very reasonable comments about stolen resources, then you're going to have a difficult time finding people who actually want to hire or work with you.   

Oh and just for the record, I also use rpg maker, and I've found that it's definitely possible to make a game without using stolen resources.  In fact, the reason your attitude bothers me so much is because within the indie game community, rpg maker users have a negative stigma surrounding them.  A big part of this is because so many rpg maker users use stolen resources (and because they feel like they have every right to do so). 

Take things from my perspective, okay?

I joined this community, then everyone assumed I was to be inactive because I decided it to be logical to post my games first and then while waiting for feedback to post elsewhere.  I didn't know this was looked down upon because this information was no where to be found.

Then I have the whole MIDI mishap.  I've only been an "indie" by definition for 7 months.  I'm also in high school, taking college level courses, I don't have time to properly research legal bindings and such.  My point was that if nobody was going to sue me over it then why bother bringing the issue up?  My attitude changed on that, sure, I now know what I did was illegal.  But as I said, I'm in college level courses in high school, I do not have the time and perhaps don't have the skills to make 100% original games.

Then people complain about the music in the trailer because "it's Silent Hill and 20 other vx games have used it."  I didn't make this topic for feedback on the trailer.  Also, if my music choice is so bad then why not suggest a new song to use that might be legal or something?  To me what you gave wasn't feedback, it was an insult, from my perspective.

Finally I get called naive for all of the above.  That is everything that has happened sine I chose to join the community.  In my eyes I've been nothing but assaulted here for a series of random events.  That is why I'm so defensive.  I feel as if I'm being attacked.

And now?  Now my joining of this community was entirely ruined because of a series of misunderstandings.  I'd like to not slink away from this site having gained nothing but then, at this point, what options do I have?  Stay and always have a handful of users thinking I'm an ass hole?  I don't think you would like those options.

I played some of Haven and I thought it was quite good. The graphics look nice, but I think they came packaged with RPGMaker? Even if they did you've used them quite well. The same goes for the music. Nevertheless I hope you're able to move on to using your own resources at some point, first and foremost because it will remove restrictions on your ideas. For example, I got the impression (could be wrong) that you decided to make the actors into monsters because you didn't have any other character sprites to use.

Overall, I really enjoyed the surreal tone of the game. Have you ever played a game called Pathologic? Because there are some similarities between that game and Haven.

The sequence with the jester, and the play, were both very cool. I'll be interested to see if more plays become available later in the game. As for the jester, I didn't really understand any of the puzzles he presented me with, but I got through them anyway. "The door disappears when you try to open it" was a nice touch.

On the other hand, some other sections came off as a bit cliched and pretentious. The story about the gravedigger's ghost often sounded like some teenage emo poetry, especially when you described him as 'stabbing himself over and over again for eternity'. That doesn't mean I think the gravedigger's story is inherently flawed, I just think you should work on its implementation. At the same time, I wouldn't want you to lose the unique strangeness that pervades all the scenes in the game.

The meadow dream sequence was also a bit cliched. It reminded me of Baldur's Gate 2, but not as good as the dreams in that game. Am I right in thinking that I was just supposed to wait for the rain to start falling? It took ages, so you should speed it up.

The sequence at the beginning, with the papers and the 'real' Cleril gave me a bad first impression. It seemed a bit narcissistic, like a fanfic author who inserts himself into his stories. Fortunately, the 'Cleril' who we actually control in the game doesn't seem to be much like you in real life (unless you are actually a mysterious bard?) If I were you I would remove that opening sequence entirely, or change it.

I noticed one glitch, which was that when I played the game at full screen everything was flickery. This was unplayably irritating, but when I restarted in windowed mode it went away. Another thing I noticed was that when you try to talk to the old man at the inn, when he is asleep, the papers on his desk will turn into a flowerpot. I don't know if this was intentional - if it is, then I say keep it because it adds to the bizarre atmosphere of the game.

You make quite a lot of mistakes in grammar and usage of words. It's hard to remember them all, but I know there were frequent uses of "it's" when you should have used "its"; in the opening speech made by Cleril, the word 'profess' seems to be used incorrectly, but I'm not sure because that speech is very confusing anyway; and in other sections, you use a full stop where you need a comma and vice versa. Remember that if a sentence does not contain a verb (doing word) then it's not grammatically correct and will sound silly.
This may sound like nitpicking but I think that having a strong control of language is very important for you to appear professional, especially in a text-focused game like Haven.
Another thing that seems unprofessional is that sometimes when you inspect an item, it is described in a neutral third-person narrator's voice, whereas other times it is described by Cleril himself. To make things more wonky, sometimes the third-person narrator is accompanied by Cleril's portrait. Unless you have some sort of esoteric rationale behind these differences, I think you should make it consistent through the whole game.

I'm going to play Haven some more when I have time, and hopefully give you some more feedback about other parts of the game that I haven't seen yet.

95% of the graphics in the game came with VX.  The computer and blood splatter graphics were made by me.  I could always change the monsters in the theater but I see no point at this point to do so.

Never heard of Pathologic but I intended Haven to be philosophical and such without any inspiration.

Many people have said my poetry and writing is emo.  I would like to speak for myself for once and say that I am not emo, I am Existentialist and realistic.  If you want to consider that depressing and emo, go for it.  I think you wrong though.

I'm not trying to rip off any game with the dream sequences....never even played any Balder's Gate.  Cleril is my pen name, you are essentially playing as me in the game.  I don't see how that's a problem...?  I'm pretty sure I don't ever go "Cleril is teh awesome, worship him!" do I?

That wasn't the first opening sequence, the first was a stilted dialogue with the mayor.  I don't feel the need to change it as most if not all players like the new one.

There's thousands of text boxes in the game....I don't have the patience to go through each one, one by one, and change them.  That would also be a massive waste of time to be....

If I sound rude then please be aware I'm clearly not in the best of lights on this site right now and clearly am not happy here at the moment.  I do not mean anything towards you, thank you for the feedback.

I'm gonna jump in here and say that I was also kind of put off not only by the fact that you're using someone else's copyrighted resources in your game, but also because of the way you're responding to people's comments here.  People are doing you a favor by playing your game and leaving feedback, not the other way around, so if you want people to play your game you just can't respond like that.  From what I can see, supershigi and John gave you some objective information; quite possibly saving you the embarassment of saying something as ridiculous as "It's perfectly legal for me to use Silent Hill music in my game as long as they're the MIDI versions" to someone you want to work for someday when they ask you why your games feature stolen assets.  Your response was unnecessarily rude.  A simple, non-sarcastic "thanks for the information" would have been much better.

Also, if someone says they didn't want to play your game because of your trailer, that's perfectly legitimate.  I don't think they're harping on the quality of your trailer or even saying you need one.  I think they're bothered by the fact that you're using music you don't own in your project; both for legal reasons and because they're going to hear a Silent Hill track and think of Silent Hill... which in many ways compromises the artistic integrity of your game.  There's nothing "naive" about that.

I'm using these games for my portfolio later in life to get me a job in the industry as a writer/developer, that's why feedback is a must.

I worked for years at Bioware and later EA before leaving to start up a project with friends, and the number one thing I could tell you about getting a job in the industry is to have a good attitude.  I'm guessing from your overly emotional responses in this topic that you're still quite young, but you have to learn to take comments in a more graceful manner.  If you applied to work for any of these companies and you responded like that, we would never hire you.  The industry is a lot smaller than you think, so being cordial to people is just as important as getting them to play your demos.  As far as I can see, you don't have anything so spectacular to offer that it would override your childish attitude.  If you can work on that, I'm sure people would be much more willing to help you out.  Just my two cents.

I messaged you back concerning all of this.  From my perspective I've been nothing but berated for my work and such since I got here.  That is why I'm defensive.

[undertech]

Lots of stuff.

Tip for you: take two steps back, then take a deep breath.

How's that feel?

[Cleril]

Lots of stuff.

Tip for you: take two steps back, then take a deep breath.

How's that feel?

Better.  Thank you.

[John Nesky]

The community does not give up on you until you go away or you get banned. (For reference, Adam Coate took 5 pages to get banned, and people tried to help him the whole time.)

Although it's entirely valid to prefer the feedback of less critical communities. You might find more enthusiasm on an RPG-dedicated forum, if that's what you're looking for. Paul Eres would know more about that.

[Cleril]

The community does not give up on you until you go away or you get banned. (For reference, Adam Coate took 5 pages to get banned, and people tried to help him the whole time.)

Although it's entirely valid to prefer the feedback of less critical communities. You might find more enthusiasm on an RPG-dedicated forum, if that's what you're looking for. Paul Eres would know more about that.

Well, that's grand.

I'm just not used to such feedback.  It's like high school for indies here and everbody is a teacher ready to pounce.

I'll look into that, try to stay here....so far though it's been hit after hit for me. 

[William Broom]

Cleril is my pen name, you are essentially playing as me in the game.  I don't see how that's a problem...?  I'm pretty sure I don't ever go "Cleril is teh awesome, worship him!" do I?

Not exactly - it's certainly not as bad as the typical 'Gary Stu' who is completely without flaws. But you are still casting yourself as a sort of taciturn, wandering hero. Also, the line about your poems 'falling to the floor' was quite self-aggrandizing.

There's thousands of text boxes in the game....I don't have the patience to go through each one, one by one, and change them.  That would also be a massive waste of time to be....

Ultimately it's up to you, but if you want to use this game as part of a portfolio some day, it will reflect quite poorly on you if it doesn't have correct grammar and usage of words.

[Perrin]

Wow, this thread is a real car crash. I've really been put off trying these games sadly. I tend to find some of the most talented creative people are those who are very self critical at their work, looking at the flaws and problems and trying to work to improve. I could be wrong but it really sound like you're looking for praise more than feedback, which this may not be the best community for you.

People here are looking to be critical of your work, to help you improve it. This board can be quite good for watching games go from a rough state, to getting more polished as people play them and provide feedback. If you can listen to what people are saying, try to understand it and take that on board you can really improve you games.

If however you see every negative comment as an attack, and react defensively you're only going to alienate people even more. If you continue to make excuses for everything people are critical about in your games then you're not really going to get anything useful out of the feedback board.

[Cleril]

Cleril is my pen name, you are essentially playing as me in the game.  I don't see how that's a problem...?  I'm pretty sure I don't ever go "Cleril is teh awesome, worship him!" do I?

Not exactly - it's certainly not as bad as the typical 'Gary Stu' who is completely without flaws. But you are still casting yourself as a sort of taciturn, wandering hero. Also, the line about your poems 'falling to the floor' was quite self-aggrandizing.

There's thousands of text boxes in the game....I don't have the patience to go through each one, one by one, and change them.  That would also be a massive waste of time to be....

Ultimately it's up to you, but if you want to use this game as part of a portfolio some day, it will reflect quite poorly on you if it doesn't have correct grammar and usage of words.

Well, another reason is that I don't use proper grammar in my poetry and to me Haven is like a prose I'm writing so I could just be doing it out of my writing style.  I'm not trying to make excuses for it, just saying that that's my reason for it existing in the first place.

Wow, this thread is a real car crash. I've really been put off trying these games sadly. I tend to find some of the most talented creative people are those who are very self critical at their work, looking at the flaws and problems and trying to work to improve. I could be wrong but it really sound like you're looking for praise more than feedback, which this may not be the best community for you.

People here are looking to be critical of your work, to help you improve it. This board can be quite good for watching games go from a rough state, to getting more polished as people play them and provide feedback. If you can listen to what people are saying, try to understand it and take that on board you can really improve you games.

If however you see every negative comment as an attack, and react defensively you're only going to alienate people even more. If you continue to make excuses for everything people are critical about in your games then you're not really going to get anything useful out of the feedback board.

I obviously noticed the thread crashed.  I didn't want that to happen, as if that wasn't obvious already, but after a series of misunderstandings that's what happened.  I'm sure I'll be kicked again for calling all of it misunderstandings but that's what I think all of that was.  If I could make it go bye bye I would.

Just know that I am not used to the critical views of this community.  I've gotten bad feedback before but nothing like this, that is why the misunderstandings happened you see.  I didn't spend 220+ hours on these games to not get feedback, good or bad.

Take those words as you'd like but I didn't adapt to the way things work here yet.  Can you blame me?  Sure.  Am I apologetic for the mess?  Clearly so.  Would I like you to play the games?  Very much so, if you want to that is.

[CosmicMaher]

I just joined though....I've obviously not gone away now have I?  I've got other things to do at the moment, then I get to sleep.  I don't see how joining a forum for less than 3 hours and not posting anything but my games is bad....I again, got it out of the way.

The point is not to post your game until you've made more of an effort to become part of the community

If anyone is telling you this, it's because they're only trying to be helpful... if you truly want feedback, going about it in this manner won't be very fruitful because a lot of folks flat out aren't going to pay attention to your thread when you've just joined and you're already pimping your game.  Being harsh or sarcastic towards us doesn't help either... like I said, tons of games are posted each day, are we really going to be compelled to take time out of our day to play your games and leave you feedback when you're rude to us?  I highly doubt it.

It's not really rude, she is right. What exactly requires someone to be part of a community to get feedback for a game?

[William Broom]

Well, another reason is that I don't use proper grammar in my poetry and to me Haven is like a prose I'm writing so I could just be doing it out of my writing style.  I'm not trying to make excuses for it, just saying that that's my reason for it existing in the first place.

Seriously? You're trying to tell me that writing "your" for "you're" and "could care less" for "couldn't care less" are all part of your writing style? I don't want to be too harsh, but that sounds like bullshit. If you just want to say "I can't be bothered to fix up all those text boxes" then I wouldn't really mind. But please don't lie to me because you're really only lying to yourself.

Anyway, I played some more of the game and I'm starting to feel like it needs more... well, gameplay. All I'm doing is wandering around talking to people. I know it's intended to be a non-combat RPG, but that doesn't restrict you from including puzzles that are more challenging than just following simple directions from the mayor. Also, a lot of these quests seem like filler: For example, the scene where Cleril helps the old baker woman doesn't engage the player on a *game* level because you're just walking and talking, but it doesn't really seem to have any significance in the story either. So why is it there? Is it just because RPGs are 'supposed' to be long and have irrelevant sidequests?

I still think that you are making a mistake by casting yourself in the lead role. It's quite embarassing to see you write about yourself as some sort of tortured, misunderstood poet genius - not to mention that you can apparently charm the knickers off young girls just by calling them 'lovely'.

In geneal, I feel disappointed with the sections of the game that I saw in my second play session. The first jester sequence, and the monsters' play, were both pleasingly strange and ambiguous. In contrast, the missions given to me by the mayor so far have been quite boring and mundane, while other scenes like the poet's performance and the knights fighting each other were merely trite and cliched. In the poet's performance, your description of poetry as an uncontrollable urge came off as pretentious - in my experience, people who talk about writing or art in such a manner are more concerened with themselves as *artists* than they are with the art itself. And the scene where Cleril tells off the guard captain for fighting was just pointless moralizing. Saying that war is bad is like saying the sky is blue - it's true but uninteresting because everyone already knows it.

Nitpicks: The scene where the girl plays the piano for you goes on far too long - almost a minute of simply sitting and waiting for the game to give you back control. You should definitely give the player an option to interrupt it before then.
Having a pause menu which includes things like Dexterity and Strength stats and an empty 'skill list' seems very wonky and betrays the game's origins as an RPGMaker game. I think you should cut out all those stats if you can. Yume Nikki had this problem too, but the creator managed to circumvent it somewhat by setting all the player's stats to 0 except for HP, which would increase whenever you collected an item. Maybe do something like this yourself?
When I came back later to the square where I had first met the jester, he was there again and it seemed that I could do the first jester sequence all over again if I wanted to. Also, the door which vanished when I tried to open it had reappeared. This seemed like a glitch, especially after I had met the jester for a second time in the castle.
When you speak to Luis and he introduces himself, you can speak to him again and hear the same introduction, which sounds silly.

This feedback has been very critical, but bear in mind that I wouldn't bother to write so much about a game which I simply flat-out disliked. I see a lot of potential in some sections of the game. For example, I loved the surreality of having to throw the red ring into a fire to make it glow with passion. I like the amount of detail you've put into the game, with so many objects having a unique description (though I wish you would give us more of Cleril's bizarre comments such as "This could be a picture of his father, or his lover" rather than the inane ones such as "I quite like tea.")

[CosmicMaher]

I just joined though....I've obviously not gone away now have I?  I've got other things to do at the moment, then I get to sleep.  I don't see how joining a forum for less than 3 hours and not posting anything but my games is bad....I again, got it out of the way.

The point is not to post your game until you've made more of an effort to become part of the community

If anyone is telling you this, it's because they're only trying to be helpful... if you truly want feedback, going about it in this manner won't be very fruitful because a lot of folks flat out aren't going to pay attention to your thread when you've just joined and you're already pimping your game.  Being harsh or sarcastic towards us doesn't help either... like I said, tons of games are posted each day, are we really going to be compelled to take time out of our day to play your games and leave you feedback when you're rude to us?  I highly doubt it.

It's not really rude, she is right. What exactly requires someone to be part of a community to get feedback for a game?

Hah, never mind, I apparently missed the shitstorm afterwards, I take my words back. Though I do think the "become more involved in this community before getting feedback" thing is kind of wonky.

[Frostblade]

I gave True RPG a try. A few questions, bugs and miscellaneous problems (aren't I positive?):

• Selecting any enemy from the vampire-reaper-woman's dialogue menu gave me a bat. That same menu seemed to have controls inverted- Z was cancel, X was confirm. (This seems to happen on-and-off, randomly. I'm not sure why.)
• Would it be possible to cut out the unused resources from the download file? Downloading a ~50mb file to find out that you used maybe 5-10mb of resources was pretty irritating. You also seem to have included the "Audio" folder twice.
• Without more content, it's very hard to gauge how balanced the game is. Balance is relative, after all; when new items are introduced is going to be far more important than how objectively powerful they are. Right now, there isn't much we can say by playing your game that we couldn't also say by seeing a list of numbers and damage equations.
• The "Incapacitated" alert sounds like a status effect more than a death indicator. Since the enemies will vanish directly afterwards, it seems a bit redundant.
• I was once attacked by an enemy during the pause between killing it and the "death fade" animation. If this isn't a bug, some kind of "counter!" alert might be helpful.
• The messages in battle were often missing spaces after the enemy names (for example, "Slimedealt 18 damage!")
  

Again, sorry about the negativity and nitpicking.

[Cokho]

Yeah I think I have to agree with everyone here, you need some polishing(is this a word?)
You said you were in game developement for 7 month, maybe you could have used like 4 of them to make Haven, so you can change all those grammar faults (haha I'm the one talking) and maybe make something more consistent. It does look like you are just writing your game along when you have to know where you going with your story, and how! Write everything down on paper, don't hesitate to change a lot of thing, and accept critisism 

Good Luck!