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[Eraser]

I played through the demo a few days ago, quite nice. I think it took me 3 hours or so. I avoided battles as often as I could, because they were merely a nuisance to me (don't get me wrong, I love not walking around randomly pokemon style and getting into fights). Predetermined paths were annoying, although I'm not sure what you can do with RPG maker. I also found a fatal flaw in their AI. Simply face away from them and never walk into them, and you won't get into a fight. I've had enemies walk up to me (where I was standing in the middle of their path), and turn away.

I think the cave near the end of the demo was the most annoying part, in general. I didn't know how many switches I had to find, and at least one of the switches (second, I think sequentially) didn't look like you could walk off left of the map.

I remember somewhere (perhaps an inn?) there was a place where you forgot a blocked tile on the top of a wall, so when I went into a room and walked down I was chillin' on top of the wall.

Other than that, it was a nice storyline, but you seemed to have thrown in so many random names at the beginning I couldn't quite grasp what all was going on. Something about Ciro expanding, with some kind of Dark Rift or other, and some other stuff I don't remember.

Some of the portraits looked kind of poorish quality, and with how fast you had the characters move, it looked unnatural with their walk animation speed.

Music was pleasurable, not annoying, and not intrusive.

There were some random annoyances I had, like with the whole Star festival thing, suddenly all of the roads had trees fallen down blocking my exit, which were magically cleared in the morning. Considering the west and south exits didn't have many maps, it would have been nice to just let me go there. East is quite large, but you really shouldn't get in a habit of placing random scenery to block paths temporarily. Just stick some of the leebles around saying "Blah, stay in the village and have a good time. Nothing to see here, carry on."

I could sense your target audience (less expierenced with games or RPGs), but that's perfectly fine. (Things along the lines of having to point out the obvious purple tracks and suggesting I follow them, having 2 important houses being the last on either side of the treehouse complex, etc..)

Oh, and I tried to catch the frog at the very beginning of the game, but apparently that didn't work out because I didn't have a net (although my character later mentions having not have had to use it?).

[CiroContinisio]

Other than that, it was a nice storyline, but you seemed to have thrown in so many random names at the beginning I couldn't quite grasp what all was going on. Something about Ciro expanding, with some kind of Dark Rift or other, and some other stuff I don't remember.

Sorry, I'm not expanding. Not that I know...

[Eraser]

Other than that, it was a nice storyline, but you seemed to have thrown in so many random names at the beginning I couldn't quite grasp what all was going on. Something about Ciro expanding, with some kind of Dark Rift or other, and some other stuff I don't remember.

Sorry, I'm not expanding. Not that I know...

Oh, you.

[supershigi]

@Ciro: Hahaha... nice

@MindEraser: Thank-you for taking the time to play the game and leave some feedback ^_^  On a totally unrelated note, everytime I see your name it reminds me of that one scene in the movie Monster Camp where the "Dream Moth" is like "I eat your mind 1, I eat your mind 2..." (It's a really amusing film, I highly recommend it) 

Anyways... you're totally right about the Mountain Melon Cave, I think I need to add something at the beginning that let's you know how many switches there are.  Perhaps I could have a "keep out" sign somewhere near the entrance that Dolby writes; it could say something about how if you really need to find him, you'll have to trigger all 3 switches in the cave.  Hopefully the battles will be slightly more interesting now too; I redid the enemy database so there will be more variety in the fights. 

As for the AI-thing, thankfully I've fixed that issue   Before, the battles would only trigger if your character touched them... now a battle will trigger if they touch you.  Oh, and I totally agree with you about the random battle thing.  Even though I enjoyed games like Pokemon and FF6, I absolutely hated their random battles, so I made sure not to have that in my game.  They're just so frustrating, especially when you're trying to get your bearings in a dungeon! 

Can I ask... do you remember around what level your characters were at by the end of the demo?  And thanks again for playing, I appreciate it

[Eraser]

At nearly the end of the demo [SPOILER]when I'm dressed up as a guard about to sneak through to the ship[/SPOILER] my characters' levels were 5,6,6,5, with 2hr 33m of play time. I'm betting my levels are low and play time faster than expected, because I avoided enemies like the plague and exploited their flawed AI. Because of this, [SPOILER]that boss in the melon cave was hilarious fun, although somehow I managed to never let any of my party die once. It involved lots of ethers, and killing the cleric/priest/medic (blue melon) was more of a challenge than killing the boss itself.[/SPOILER]

Overall a good game so far, I'd probably recommend it based on the demo alone.

[Davioware]

I wanted to post some sort of update today, so here is a piece of music that you'll hear in the dungeon that comes right after demo ends:

The Mines of the Orderian Engineer's Guild

Love it. Everything before 0:57 and after 1:16 reminds me of the Stone Tower theme from Majora's Mask, which is one of my favorite songs from the game. The part at 0:57-1:16 is also really fitting. It adds that little bit of hope and "I'm going to make it" feeling to an otherwise serious and concentration inducing track.

Did you use IL Autogun for the instrument that comes in at 0:57 by any chance? I love the sound! What is it made in/from?

[supershigi]

I've been meaning to update this thread for a while now, but I feel as though my recent progress is sort of on the boring side.  Mostly I've just been playing through the game in chunks in order to balance battles, items, gold, and experience points.  One cool thing though: Jeriaska from indiegames.com was nice enough to interview me about the Melolune soundtrack (which I recently decided to release in increments on bandcamp.com).  So if anyone is at all interested in reading that, here is the link to the interview (it was posted today):

Melolune soundtrack interview at indiegames.com 

@Davioware: Thank-you for listening.  I'm glad that you gleaned the "I'm going to make it" feeling from that part of the track, since that's exactly what I was going for ^_^  To answer your question, the instrument at 0:57 is actually part of an industrial sound kit from Roland Groove Synth.  I really like that sample because it actually sounds like a miner hitting something with his pick axe.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

sounds good, still looking forward to this game; will go read the interview now

oh and make sure you use a few playtesters for that aspect too rather than just yourself; i often found that balancing a game to my own skill at it makes it far too hard for most players :D

[petra]

Welly welly welly welly welly welly well, good to see my ancient sprite edits are still making use of themselves! The Leebles remind me of cake decorations with rose and lavender frosting, which is delicious.

I'm really keen to see those musical dungeons in action. It's such a wonderful concept and with your top notch composition skills this game definitely stands out from the ever depressing grotto that is the RPG Maker community (as I typed this, a moth flew into my nose - but I stand by my words).

I can't quite remember if many musical gameplay elements crept their way into the demo or not... I may have to give it another whirl with a fresh mind!

[PompiPompi]

I have played the demo a while ago. I have the annoying type of feedback.
The one that you probably can't make changes to "fix it" at this stage of development.
Overall I enjoyed the demo while my character was in the village.
However, once I got out of the village I was confused by the fact how easily those two teenagers with just a broom or stick in their hand were defeating heavily armored trained soliders.
I know it might be a bit OCD. But to be honest this was the point I stopped playing the demo.
But all my experience until that point was very positive.
Hope this helps you somehow.

[ink.inc]

However, once I got out of the village I was confused by the fact how easily those two teenagers with just a broom or stick in their hand were defeating heavily armored trained soliders.

Heh. I thought about this too.

Just played the demo today. I'm parroting, but the music is really, really excellent! Catchy, and, well... fun. The artwork is fairly professional looking- nice waterfalls and shrubbery, and the character sprites are decent as well. The only exception to this is the character portraits. If you still have the time, please, please fix these. They look unprofessional and out of place with the rest of the game. They don't need to be on a Yoshitaka Amano level... they just need to be cleaned up (black outlines have random gray pixels in them) or redrawn (a couple of leebles were a bit... off). Also, for having once been part of the army (apparently many years ago), the character portrait for Dominic looks really... young.

The game ran fine on my laptop for the most part. But I noticed that whenever you entered battle in the glowing melon caves, the waterfalls weren't animated.

Battle system works fine, but you can blaze through most anything using just the attack button. Any damage you incur can just be dealt with via tonics once the battle ends. Hopefully the dificulty ramps up later in the game.

[supershigi]

@rinku: Thanks Paul -- You're totally right about that, as soon as I finish this preliminary run-through I'm going to try and get some help with that part.  I'm always afraid that no matter how much I test it, someone will still find a way to break the game completely that I didn't account for!

@petra: Hi birthday-buddy!  (At least I think that's you, if I remember correctly from the zodiac sign thread... 4/16 right?)  That's cool that you used to work with rpg maker.  I agree that the rxmp community is kind of depressing these days... I used to participate in it more, but have grown more and more put-off by a lot of things there.  I still go to Spongen.org a lot though because it tends to be a lot nicer overall.  Thank-you for offering to check out Melolune sometime, I really hope you enjoy it

@Pompi: Thank-you for taking the time to try out the demo, and I'm sorry to hear that you were put-off by the soldier-part (though I appreciate your feedback just the same ^_^).  I actually don't have too much of a problem with that particular story element... for starters, as soon as you encounter the soldiers who are attempting to poison the village, it's revealed that Achaius is quite powerful (he conjures a lightning storm to take them all out).  Also (and hopefully this will be made clearer once the new art is in place), Dominic is not a teenager -- he's supposed to be in his early 30s.  The soldiers around the village are also explained to be "new recruits" so they aren't much older or stronger than Dominic and Achaius.  So it isn't really that much of a departure.  Besides which, the game isn't supposed to be super realistic... after all, you're living in a village full of talking cat creatures with wings, and you come from a world where people combine melodies to conjure spells   But I understand where you're coming from... I just thought I'd point those things out ^_^

@John: Thank-you for playing!  And I'm really glad that you enjoyed the music ^_^  I am actually in the process of replacing the face art (my friend Hima, who is also here at tigsource) is helping out with those... that should also solve the problem of Dominic looking too young.  As for the waterfalls, the battle backgrounds aren't actually animated (they're screenshots of the maps) so your computer is working just fine   And yes, the difficulty definitely ramps up later on in the game.  I tried to make the battles increasingly more difficult, and use enemy combinations that would encouarge more decisions on behalf of the player.  Hopefully I can get those all balanced so that they feel good! 

Oh, and your avatar is adorable -- I don't think I ever saw that episode of Sesame Street as a kid (or at least I don't remember it), but it totally cracked me up.

[petra]

@petra: Hi birthday-buddy!  (At least I think that's you, if I remember correctly from the zodiac sign thread... 4/16 right?)  That's cool that you used to work with rpg maker.  I agree that the rxmp community is kind of depressing these days... I used to participate in it more, but have grown more and more put-off by a lot of things there.  I still go to Spongen.org a lot though because it tends to be a lot nicer overall.  Thank-you for offering to check out Melolune sometime, I really hope you enjoy it

But I already did check it out, silly, and enjoyed it so much I fixed up those sprites for you, though that was a while ago! Now I'm holding out for the finished product. 

[PompiPompi]

supershigi.
If you will make it more clear that dominic is very strong and powerful, it will make more sense and won't feel awkward(at least for me).
Somehow we can accept in RPG games that characters become very strong and can defeat dragons with their sword and can take damage from boulders or fireballs. If only we feel the character is very powerful.
The soliders part felt weird to me, because up until that point the whole game have been "Life like". The characters deal with ordinary daily events, and don't seem to be a super hero every moment of their life.
That's my impression.
I am just trying to say that the fact you have winged cats in your game doesn't mean you can get away with unreasonable things.

[supershigi]

But I already did check it out, silly, and enjoyed it so much I fixed up those sprites for you, though that was a while ago! Now I'm holding out for the finished product.

Aww... thank-you so much ^_^ Wait...are you sharksweetheart from .org?  I'm so bad with online names    If so, thank-you so much for helping me out with Aero's sprite, it made her look so much better!

@Pompi: Hmm... I really wouldn't consider it "unreasonable" given that it is established that Dominic is an ex-soldier and is a lot older than the rest of them.  Additionally, the soldiers are spoken of as "new recruits" so most of them aren't older or stronger than Achaius or Dominic (although the Captain does pick on Achaius).  And I think the main reason I wouldn't consider it to be unreasonable is because it's established early on that Achaius is quite powerful (in the encounter with the soldiers who are poisoning the water source, Achaius conjures Melolune to wipe 3 of them out at once).  One problem I do see though is Dominic's faceset art -- I'm in the process of changing it so that he looks more mature in his picture (because I can see how that would cause some confusion) ^_^

Somehow we can accept in RPG games that characters become very strong and can defeat dragons with their sword and can take damage from boulders or fireballs. If only we feel the character is very powerful.

Actually, I think there are a lot of examples in RPG and adventure games where weaker characters take on strong foes early on.  In Secret of Mana for example, a young village boy who just recently pulls a sword out of a stone battles a giant Mantis Ant alone.  In Chrono Trigger, Chrono is a teenager but fights many strong monsters wielding nothing but a wooden sword.  Generally speaking, there are a lot of liberties taken in this area.  Regardless, I did try to make it clear that Achaius is quite powerful during the opening sequence and the scene where the soldiers are poisoning the stream, so I really don't think it's unreasonable that he could fight new recruits (especially with an ex-soldier at his side) -- but as John mentioned, I'll definitely try to make Dominic's faceset look more mature, and I'll try to see if I can drop more hints in the dialogue that Dominic is bigger/stronger/etc.

[petra]

But I already did check it out, silly, and enjoyed it so much I fixed up those sprites for you, though that was a while ago! Now I'm holding out for the finished product.

Aww... thank-you so much ^_^ Wait...are you sharksweetheart from .org?  I'm so bad with online names    If so, thank-you so much for helping me out with Aero's sprite, it made her look so much better!

I was... once. I've since put those dark times behind me. But no worries, you're most welcome! I'm just rather excited to see this project still going strong.

[PompiPompi]

Hi supershigi,
I already agreed with you in the previous post that making it a bit more clear dominic is strong will "fix this problem". I think I will also give the demo another chance when I have more time.

[KM]

I can see a well trained solider with a broomstick beating a poorly trained armoured solider with a sword, even if the broom stick weilder is quite young. It's all a matter of technique.

[Dri]

I've seen your interview on IndieGames Blog and fell in love with Traces, I will give the demo a go when I will have some time.
However the RPG Maker XP style is bugging me, but I guess it's because I've seen it too often, I hope I will be able to make abstraction of it.

[PsySal]

@shigi I read that interview yesterday, really cool. I really liked the Melolune demo not because of one specific strength but more like how it has this super consistent, lovely feel to it. Like a whole-greater-than-the-sum kind of thing. So stick to your best judgement, though Paul is likely right about playtesting for difficulty, too.

The problem isn't really "skill", I think it's really is that nobody has as much practice as you do at your own game. Worse, you know all the internal rules that might not be obvious to other players. Anyhow My rule is basically, it should be at least as easy for me to beat as say Zelda 3 is, which is a game I have played quite a bit less than Texas. BUT! Again I didn't find the demo was anything other than really-nicely-balanced so, probably best to just ignore all this advice!!