Carpe Diem: The Living Flame

[Linkforce]

zidane912: Thanks man, and thanks for giving it to your brother!  I'm glad he stuck with it and found an enjoyable experience   Tell him to join charas, haha!

SaiKar: Ok, after reading everything you said, I found the only way to rebut this is to go point for point on what you said. 

*It's called an intro.  They're usually long and filled with things you won't understand until you keep playing.  Usually intros do that.  Unless you are playing an action game...this is an RPG.
*I wouldn't say 20 feet but its not too long.  Did you want me to make the road 10x as long and have you go down the whole thing for 5 minutes?  If you also noticed, there was more path leading to the town.  Skylar jumped off early.
*Not even gonna bother with this one cause you would understand why its "neutral soldier" if you continued to play.
*He's winking?  It's called a victory pose.
*You know, it's a fantasy RPG for a reason.  Maybe you can use your imagination for a second and not take everything so literally.  Maybe it was covered in the carriage?  Maybe he just had one stashed away under his shirt that fell out?  Yes stop..
*There's a save in the first village.
*Maybe he has great skin complexion.
*Thanks.
*It's supposed to make you think, "who is that, etc etc."  That scene isn't very long too idk why you must complain.
*No, all the text isn't auto-close in the game.  Most important scenes are but everything else is at your leisure.  And they're called "cutscenes" for a reason.
*His father?  He hasn't seen his best friend in 4 years.  That means they were 13 and 14 when they last saw each other.  A lot of maturing happens in those years.
*Ok
*Many save points meaning types of save points.  You should maybe play past Chapter 1 to see them all.
*'Cats everywhere huh?  You mean the 1 in the inn and the 1 in the item store?  My fault...waaaaay too many cats.
*fighting through a dangerous cave.  Would you have rather just got there and mission accomplished?  It's an RPG not, use your imagination, obviously things are going to not work 100% with common sense.  You could say oh why don't they just swim around the border or oh why don't they just climb over the border.  It's a game.
*Oh no reading a sign twice!
*Maybe I didn't want all the enemies to be avoidable?  Just because you can see them doesn't mean they'll just get out of your way or won't block places off.
*Thanks.
*Thanks.
*Just a design choice really.  I have a "missed" sound effect that goes along with it though.
*You have more then enough time to get across the bridge and back.
*Can't hit the switch?  I'll have to double check that.
*Yes, I should probably include a small tut in the beginning to let the player know about the run button.  Also, I don't like my player sprinting wherever he goes.
*The cave is only 5 maps long, you must have a very very low tolerance...to everything it seems.
*Yeah Haru is a little overpowered and Skylar needs a tune up, I've always had stat issues, gotta work on that.
*They just wanna be your friend.
*Really?  Walk between the spikes?  Dude, give me a break this is a VIDEO GAME.  This isn't some movie where if one thing is off it destroys the integrity and creates a plot hole.  If he could fit between the spikes, then are you really fighting s floating lizard holding a spear?  Are you really walking through a cave with automated spikes in it and random switches that god knows who placed?  You think tiny lizards would actually constitute slicing with your sword when you can just walk over them?  What about those holes in the ground, do they really have items in them?  How does that bridge just appear and disappear out of thin air?  And for that matter, what are those sparkling lights where you can save your game?  What does that mean, save your game?  Is life just a game?  Oh wait, it isn't life, its a VIDEO GAME.  Honestly dude, give me a break.  If you're gonna sit there and nit pick at all the things that you can't except are fantasy and not use your imagination and be so close minded and one sided then what are you even doing here?  If you can't grasp this concept then idk even what to say anymore.
*I agree, this boss battle needs tweaking I'm gonna go back and work on it.

Also, if you're quitting after the FIRST dungeon, then you sir have no patience what so ever.  You can't even give it a chance and giving it a chance isn't nitpicking every small thing, and then giving up once things get hard.  Giving it a chance is at least playing the demo, because it's supposed to show you what the game will be like.  But hey, if you don't want to then that's fine with me.  May I suggest you change your attitude about RPG's in general, if this is indeed how you interpret them, because you're going to continue to be disappointed at anything that isn't on a major console.  Keep in mind....this isn't Final Fantasy or Chrono series or what not...it's an rm2k3 game.

RPG LORD: The above post will answer your points.

[Prpl_Mage]

Dude. He just mentioned what went through his head while playing. Everyone have their own taste.
You don't need to take it as a frontal assault.


Erhm... I got a game over after the Inn scene in Temerill. I think it was becasue skylar died againts the boss and the other two left the party in the Inn scene.

[SaiKar]

Yeah. Not all of those thoughts were "agg this game is awful" type things. A lot of them poke fun at the genre in general and were just my observations as I was playing through. NOTHING I said was directly inflammatory or saying I hated the game or I hate you or anything. It was ALL constructive criticism and you got defensive about almost all of it. The fact is that this game could use a lot more polishing up and a few second looks at some parts... especially since this is the very first chapter, the one that is supposed to hook the player into continuing on. If you want to ignore almost all of it, that's your prerogative. At least I'll say I gave my honest feedback.

If you want the super-summary list, I'd say that the fact you can't read the text at your own pace (even if it's an intro. You can stop reading books and pause DVDs), the overuse of the exact same puzzle element (not stepping on spikes when they're up) and a very difficult first boss encounter (using every single healing item the game had given me and barely winning by the skin of my teeth and sheer dumb luck) are deal-breakers for me. This feels like a game that was designed to challenge you, who knows everything and has tons of patience, not me, who has no reason to like the game yet until the game gives me things to like. You call it nit-picking; I call it just having no reason to go on.

Basically I'd recommend you take the "4. I would appreciate it if anybody who plays write what they think about it.  I am always open to constructive criticism." out of your opening post. It's flat-out untrue.

[Nandez]

Dude. He just mentioned what went through his head while playing. Everyone have their own taste.
You don't need to take it as a frontal assault.


Erhm... I got a game over after the Inn scene in Temerill. I think it was becasue skylar died againts the boss and the other two left the party in the Inn scene.

Yes thats is the reason and its something I've mentioned before and one of the bigger complaints I have with the game that I've mentioned is how the characters are not in the party. (he has explained to me why but I still am not fond of the idea) Though if the only actual character in the party dies in battle then yes it will be game over.

@ Saikar I do like this game but I do find some of things you said accurate but mostly the "(using every single healing item the game had given me and barely winning by the skin of my teeth and sheer dumb luck) are deal-breakers for me. " I had to agree to that because in Chapter 1 I was at the point I overtrained my characters in the first chapter so they easily floated through the rest of the game to a certian point because the first boss was extremely hard,a nd when it hit chapter 2 the fights were ridiculous they were fun but incredibly hard with barely enough equipment or power with a Level 2 character that I had to play the part over several times and when I won it was like I can't believe I actually won.

@ Linkforce I don't really think Saikar was flaming just constructive criticism   of what he thought. I can also see why Linkforce may be a bit defensive you work on a game for long you don't want people to really dismiss it. I don't really think Saikar was completely dismissing it just more of he wasn't having fun because of the extremely hard fights so he didn't continue the game so he stopped, which in honestly is probally a good choice because the game only gets harder.

[Prpl_Mage]

which in honestly is probally a good choice because the game only gets harder.

It does indeed.


I beat the demo yesterday. Played trough it all again.
First off, I have to agree that Skylar seems a lot weaker than Haru. It is more apparent in this demo, not sure why though - maybe you changed something?
Skylars ordinary attacks did around 9-18 damage. Haru slapped 'em up about 25-55 two times.
Skylar needed 2-3 attacks to kill a lizard.
Haru could kill 2 different lizards during one Attack command.
And then it kept being like that, no matter what - Haru dealt more damage than Skylar and Trance combined.
And when the boss didn't use scale armor everything was fine, it died as it should. Then I got a game over after the inn and had to do it again. This time he used the scale armor skill twice and the damage taken dropped so badly. Like I remember Trance's skill still deal the same damage (around 30) while Skylars skill is absorbed and Haru's skill does little. Ordinary attacks against the boss after 2 scale armor is basically 0,0,1,4 when all my characters attacked.
Also, remove the save point when the place is falling down. I kinda figured I could use a save in case I had another game over screen at the inn scene and didn't make it out because of it. My own fault of course.

I think you remember how I feel about the middle part of the game. I knew it better this time around but it's still hard and that boss is strong as Bidoof.
But how come those jelly's absorb Arkamars ordinary attacks? So annoying, good thing that pinwheel costs nothing though.

Also Rayne can't do much in battle, her Attack command barely leave a mark. And her heal healed about 30-40 which is hardly enough against the jellys who deal about 25 damage with rain and 19 with aqua.
Had to kill a bunch of things so she gained lvl 2 and learned some stuff. And I'm not too fond of grinding when there are no inns or shops at the area. It was a 50 / 50. Either you lost far too much hp or you made it through okay.
And Dwight/ Deight or whatshisname didn't seem to have enough defense to survive that part, most attacks damaged him far too much and you can't heal or revive him after battle. I'd suggest that those "guest characters" at least gets revived if killed after battle. But at least his Spire attack did some nice hunk of damage, too bad I didn't have a lot of mp restores though...

About the - I guess secret boss. (you need to give him a new graphic by the way. It was just so very pixely)
It hurts so bad, and he never died. Well he died eventually but at the time I got to the actual boss afterwards my healing items were very few.
I did make it through that battle easier though, sometimes I could get unlucky and he killed Rayne who doesn't have a lot of hp. But it was fine.

The second boss battle was in true CD style though. The pair is so annoying. The guy with digitalizer just blew my party away at the first try. All stats were lowered and they are both so fast that I barely had the chance to heal up before it was too late. The damage output of my party was also pretty lame at this time since I was completely out of mana restoring items. Dwight couldn't use spire and his normal attacks did little. Arkamar spammed pinwheel(thank god that it ignores accuracy checks) and Rayne were on healing duty. I went back and leveled up once and gave it another shot, knew what to expect and barely survived with only Rayne and Arkamar left.


Yeah a hint to all those who play this game - get recovery items, train your characters and restart battles if they somehow seems to go very wrong.
This game is not for those who want to breeze through. You kinda need patience and rather buy those cure salves rather than a new hat. 'cuz it is hard when you don't have the ability to simply strut back to town and get some new. Train a lot when possible or realize that your characters just aren't strong enough when the bosses kill you.

EDIT: I'll give you this slime instead of the one you had. It's basically the same slime only I smoothed the edges, so it's no masterpiece.

[Nandez]

Oh dude no doubt the forest part was like nothing but Death (I played the test demo  before it was released where the monsters in the forest were 3 times harder than when the demo was released) I actually trained Rayne up until the point where she could restore her mana and had her and Alkhamar on heal duty since Dwight did the most damage the Secret Boss wasn't so bad the Second boss was harder but my characters were strong enough to take it down now like you stated Prpl the final two were true CD and it doesn't play around I got wiped out the first time and the second I still got my *** beat by them what was worse was the one I cocentrated on first healed 6 times in a row basicially erasing all the damage i did for 10 rounds. It was as bad as Beelba was in chapter 2 who kept me enraged and kept healing also. Like you said if you're looking for a breeze through then the game isn't for you despite the story. It's hard there is no doubt about that it challenging nerve racking and painful at times but when you win you freaking earned it.

I think Haru was so strong because you can't really upgrade Haru's weapons ever and his skills are incredibly useless. I agree with you when you said don't buy equipment because you need nothing but healing items and maybe some Mana items because you will need them.
Out of everyone Haru is the most useful though at least he is strong cause Alkamar,Skylar, and Ledron are pretty much useless. the only diffrence was I trained in the first dungeion until I got 100 salves from the monsters so my Skylar and Haru were doing mad damage in in every boss fight. Even with 100 salves by the end of chapter 2 I had  62 left by the end of chapter 4 I had 3 left.
If I hadn't of grinded in the first dungeon then I would have been boned in chapter 4.
During chapter 4 I had the urge to quit because the regular monsters (in my version) were 30 minutes battles I was only doing 3 damage to the flames. (I'm glad he made the monsters weaker before he released the demo because if everyone fought what I fought I don't think anyone would have gotten thorugh it without cheating)

The game is no doubt challenging but it's worth it and hey it's not as hard as Demon Souls.
There is a sense of satisfaction once you win and continue with the story because you know without a doubt you f*cking earned it,

[Linkforce]

SiaKar: Alright, I understand now that you weren't trying to flame or anything but I hope you can realize that some of the things you said were just down right demoralizing, even if it was you poking fun at the genre..you were using my game to do it.  I do take criticism and I do like when people tell me their opinions so I can make my game better and more enjoyable, but not when it comes in the form of making fun of things I can't change.  (Like traveling through a dangerous cave for no reason-type thing, Skylar winking at the end of a battle.)  Perhaps next time if you were to make criticism about my game, you could formulate your thoughts in a post, instead of showing me everything you were thinking, because some of those thoughts were ridiculous when you thought them and not helpful/sensible to an rpg game.  I do appreciate your input though and the parts that you said that weren't poking fun, I have taken into consideration. 
So yes, my game does have stat issues I realize that, so I'll be going back into my database to correct those errors and make battles a lot more enjoyable and fluent.  So thank you for those points...but not some of the others.  I hope you reconsider continuing the demo.  (Oh, and I also kind of agree about the spike traps...maybe I can make alternating patterns or do something with them to spice it up a bit.)

Prpl_Mage: Well, I'm glad you got to finish the demo and I thank you for your input!  For starters, I've had trouble with those slimes in the past, as Nandez mentioned.  I'm reworking their stats now too so battles with them will be much less challenging but still fun.  As for the whole item scenario, I was planning on having a character (One you've already met...but it would make sense for him to be where Alkamar is cause he is on a different continent at the time) be everywhere the party is, offering them items, but it wouldn't work in context with the story in Chapter 4.  Perhaps I'll add a stray merchant or something, kind of like in Chapter 3 when you were in Makran cave and you found that old miner.  But I do understand what you mean so I know my biggest issue is reworking stats so that will be my main focus now as I go through the game again.  Oh and thank you for the retouched slime!  He looks much better!    Now only the Zylacs are pixelated

Nandez: Yeah I need to rework the optional boss too.  And yes, Haru is super powerful because he keeps the same weapons at all times so he needs to compensate for that somehow. 

I think for the fist boss I'm going to make it, instead of using Scale Armor, create a barrier that the player needs to destroy in order to continue attacking the lizard.  So instead of Scale Armor, every now and then it'll throw up a barrier that you need to break so you can get through to the actual boss.  Is this a better idea then simply increasing the boss' defense?  Again, sorry for coming off as attacking, I was simply responding to what was posted and I thank everyone else for their input and help.  I really do honestly appreciate it!

[Emerates]

Personally I think that making the text in cutscenes auto-close was a pretty smart idea because it forces the player to read or else miss out on a lot of stuff.  While playing, I found myself more engaged in the cutscenes because of that sense of 'the next one's coming soon and I can't stop it WHERE ARE THE BRAKES'.

E:D:I:T: Also, a little bit of grain never hurt anyone.

[Linkforce]

Haha thanks Emerates, at least I found someone who likes the auto-close texts. Also, what do you mean by grain?

[Muraiko]

When playing the game for the first time, the slow atmosphere isn't so bad, infact, it's quite enjoyable. And in the pauses, I do find myself on the edge of my seat wondering what's going to happen next. Great for a first time playthrough, but very bad for replay value. Forcing players to rewatch a scene just because he/she lost the boss battle is INCREDIBLY discouraging.

Of course, you already have auto-close, slow text speed, and pauses-in-text integetrated into the game, so unless you're willing to spend hours editing all your messages, I doubt it's going to change. It's silly how people nag or complain about how slow the game is when it's pretty much impossible to change at this point.

[SaiKar]

Pretty much impossible? It'd take a couple hours  maybe. Fairly boring hours, and he'd prolly miss a few the first time through, but a drop in the bucket as far as the whole project's timeline is concerned.

Also: haven't forgotten the request for science; just don't get much time during the workweek to do stuff like that.

[Shady Ultima]

Alternatively, he could simply use a skip button.

Instead of forcing a player to re-watch the scenes, have a key command active for say shift, which then skips the scene, taking you to the next part.

[Linkforce]

Muraiko: Wow, you actually got it exactly how I wanted everyone to get it!  Bravo sir!  But I agree on how it can be discouraging for players to have to re-watch long cutscenes after losing a boss battle, especially when the battle are flawed (due to balancing issues.)  I think once I perfect the battles, people wont get a game over as much and if they do, it'll be for the right reasons.  (AKA the boss being an admirable foe, not an impossible struggle.)

Sai: It would take an EXTREMELY long time to go through the entire game and change everything.  But even if it was easy, I just don't want to deviate from what I like so all I can do for now is fix all of the balancing issues so that people don't mind the cutscenes and text speed.  And thank you, I was beginning to wonder if you saw my thread or not! 

Shady: Hmm....I could do that.  But I'd have to find a way to allow the player to skip the scene if they're ALREADY watched it, because I don't like giving players an option to skip a scene.  Why would I make the scene then?  But you do have a good point.  Hmm....

[Prpl_Mage]

I have 2 problems with the text. That's all.

1. It's too slow for me, I usually speed up most texts in RPGs that allow it because I'm a fast reader. So when I read it in my mind it's like I'm a kid stumbling over words. So try to make it go just a little bit faster and I'm a happy mage.

2. The fact that I have to watch it all again. I had to restart the game when playing this demo since I didn't have my old save file. And I still remembered everything, the mayors house, the merchant, the conversations, the boat, the cave and the castle ect. I knew what were going to happen all the time so it was kinda boring. I remember that it was completely awesome during my first play though.
And well, bosses. You lose against a boss and you suddenly realize that the scene before the battle was pretty long. Like the lizard boss in the beginning, the fight in the cave and really all 3 boss fights in the latest demo. That secret boss fight had a pretty long scene, and the same for the last boss there.
It was cool the first time. But after a bunch of deaths I grew bored off it.

What I'm trying to say is this.
If you add a skip button - do it only for scenes before bosses.
And if you don't add a skip button (which I'd prefer).
Please make it possible to click the action button to get all the text at once during the pre-boss scenes it would make the game a lot more enjoyable.

[Linkforce]

Well it's been about 5 months since I've updated my page so I figure now is as good a time as any to let you guys know what I've been up to all this time.
Since I released my demo a few months ago, I've been working diligently on fixing up parts of the game that needed some serious polish as well as doing a complete overhaul on battles and stats. It's a long and tedious process, what with constantly testing to see if things are done correctly. The main portion of the game that needed the most attention was Chapter 1, as it is the oldest part of my game, in the sense that it was made first. I'm almost done with it though and once I am I can move through the rest of the game much faster and fix the entire demo up. Here's a list of things I have done thus far and a list of what else needs to be done.

What's done:
-Editing and smoothing out intro scene. (Took out lots of nonsensical dialogue.)
-Re-mapped first village.
-Changed dialogue speed for non-cutscene text. Basically now all the text will be at "normal" speed whereas text during cutscenes will remain the speed it was.
-Re-mapped all of Serpent Cave, added a mini-boss and a little time bomb event whenever you try to get a new item. (As in from a 'chest'.) It should help to change the pace up a but from just fighting monsters.
-Edited all monsters stats in the cave.
-Re-mapped Temeri. It looks much compact and town-like. I've heard good things from the people I've shown it to.

What needs to be done:
-Finishing up Temeri. (Smoothing out events and re-mapping inner maps.)
-Re-eventing Cargo Ship scene to make it less....cheesy.
-Go through the rest of the game to work out minor kinks and also redo text speed and monster stats.

As you can see I've gotten a lot done but there's still a lot that needs to be done. My goal is to finish all these revisions by the end of the month and get a revised demo out so that anybody who didn't get a chance to play it can play it, and all those who already played it but were annoyed with many of its shortcomings can replay it and enjoy it for what it's truly worth.
For now though, I just wanted to give you guys some information and to let you all know what I'm working on and that I'm still working. I'll be sure to get some new screens up soon to show you my progress as well.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please let me know! Anything at all is a real morale boost. Thanks for reading!