Incline Heroine's Quest - D/L Link in OP - Available NOW (FREE)!

[Kaldurenik]

I enjoy the game alot however i have one question. How do i drop a item?

 

[GarfunkeL]

 

[Jaedar]

I enjoy the game alot however i have one question. How do i drop a item?

I think you can't, but you can put it in one of the chests in the inns.

 

[Kaldurenik]

I enjoy the game alot however i have one question. How do i drop a item?

I think you can't, but you can put it in one of the chests in the inns.

Ok thanks

 

[Coyote]

We're aiming to get v1.1 out this week. Slightly delayed from our original intended date because some more bugs were reported recently!

Sorry, bros.

...that said, I just found another one. And it's a doozy. The most important parts are in bold:

Spoiler

Andvari's ring can cause all kinds of issues due to how certain things associated with it transfer across saves. I'm guessing it's designed that way to mess with people who return to Midgard, realize something is amiss, and try to reload an older save, presumably having also saved at least once since picking it up. I like the idea, but it can lead to problems if you haven't made a save after picking it up, as in my case (I reloaded an older save shortly after picking the ring up for unrelated reasons). This results in there being two copies of the ring in the game: one that's immediately added to your inventory when you load the game and the one that's still in Andvari's house. Indeed, you may unwittingly pick up the second if you don't check your inventory first (which I also did, although at least I still had saves from beforehand). If this happens, then when you give away one copy of the ring you'll still suffer the effects of the second, and the game will sometimes crash when you try to give away the second. (More on that in a moment.)

The way the points work is odd, too: the 3 points you gain for getting rid of the ring transfer to any saves where you don't already have those points (so if you reload a save from before you picked up the ring, they're immediately added to your total), but the 2 points for taking it in the first place don't (so if you reload a save from before you picked up the ring, you keep the ring but not the points for having picked it up). Picking up the ring again prevents the 3 points from appearing upon reload until you give it away again, but of course this also makes the ring appear upon loading any saves; in fact, it won't show up in your inventory until you reload. If you give away the ring, load an older save (thus getting the 3 points), and then save, then you'll retain the 3 points even after picking up the ring and reloading this save; in other words, the game won't take away the 3 points from any save where you already have them when it's in "retain ring upon reload" mode, just add them to any save where you don't when it's in "retain points upon reload" mode. Giving away the ring in a save where you already have the 3 points from giving it away can sometimes lead to the aforementioned crash, but it doesn't always do so (haven't figured out what makes the difference yet); when it doesn't, the game correctly detects that you already have the 3 points and doesn't award them a second time.

Don't know how well I'm describing this - I'm starting to feel like Aurvandel - but basically the end result is that until you figure out how to give it away without the game crashing, it's possible to get stuck carrying around a second copy of Andvari's ring or, if you retain a save from before you picked it up, to be incapable of getting the initial 2 points from picking it up without getting stuck carrying around a second copy.

Now, if you try to give both rings to Fremont, the game will crash with the following message:

An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.3.0.1148)

in "room88.asc", line 293

Error: LoseInventory: invalid inventory number

Eventually I realized that you could give it to Heime too, but the same thing happens if you give the first ring to Heime and the second to Fremont. Fortunately, it appears that the game won't crash as long as you give the second ring to Heime (regardless of who gets the first), so it's still possible to get rid of the rings if you get stuck with two of them.

Some other odd things I found while messing around with this: at one point I saved and reloaded immediately after giving one ring away, and the second copy simply disappeared (I think that I had deselected the ring as the currently "equipped" item before saving in this case, so maybe that's a factor?). I also managed to get it once to where I had the second ring in my inventory, but NPCs didn't acknowledge it. However, these were exceptions; most of the time in the same circumstances the opposite was true, and I'm not sure what exactly caused the different outcomes in these cases. Also, picking up the ring and loading a save from after you've already gotten rid of all copies of it will cause it to show up in your inventory again, although it doesn't give the usual message upon opening your inventory. The ring does cause NPCs to be unfriendly again at this point, but it can also be given away to either Heime or Fremont without any trouble.

More importantly, I also found that the ring transfers between separate characters and even into new games. This seems like it could cause some problems, although it's not quite as bad as it sounds: from what little testing I did it appears that NPCs in the first chapter initially give their "unfriendly" lines when you speak to them but then proceed into the normal dialogue screen. The 3 points from getting rid of the ring also transfer to other characters and new games, so once you've picked up the ring for the first time, you'll always immediately get either a copy of the ring in your inventory or the 3 points from giving it away upon starting a new game, depending on which action - picking up or giving away the ring - you've performed most recently.

 

[V_K]

2. RPG system. Look, I absolutely love QFG series and it's great that you've decided to spend so much effort on this tribute to it. However, while staying faithful to the original is cool, it didn't mean that you should've repeated all of its mistakes. QFG's rpg system was always broken because of its overreliance on the exploits. Y'know, like, need to climb a tree for your quest? Sorry, we won't give you an opportunity to raise your skill properly, so go do some repetitive clicking on some random tree or cliff until you'll get better. And that's what you did through most of those games - just made some pointless and repetitive actions so your stats will grow.

But is there a better way to do it in such a game?
If all the options to increase skills present themselves as proper puzzles in the course of main quest (or are limited in any other way), those skills may be dropped altogether because they'd have no real effect on gameplay.
If some general kind of XP is awarded for combats (and only combats), that'll gimp non-combar builds too much.
If XP is awarded for puzzles and quests, it'll be too easy to gimp yout build to the point of not being able to finish the game (see AoD discussion).

Basically, those "pointless and repetitive actions so your stats will grow" are this game's analogue of trash mobs - and is there any game out there without trash mobs?

 

[Infinitron]

Blackthorne You say that you have a way to get your game on Steam that bypasses Greenlight. Could that way also be used for an additional, free game?

 

[Pope Amole II]

those skills may be dropped altogether because they'd have no real effect on gameplay.

And why the heck not? What positive effect it inflicts on the gameplay anyway? If you have a system in your game that accomplishes nothing (especially with the skills being absolutely binary - either you can do something or you can't) but forcing your player to grind, why would you implement such system in the first place? There is (and always was) only one reason to do so - to artificially inflate the "gameplay" time (and boast those majestic 50+ hours RPG goodness).

But, given that Heroine's quest is quite a big game already (for what it is) and you can play though it at least seven times three times with reasonably varying experience, what's the point? What's the fucking point of wasting your player's time? Not to mention that non-rpg system would allowed for much better combat balancing as the designers wouldn't have to ask themselves "but what if the player is not properly grinded?" Well, given how distorted the combat difficulty is, it's not that they've asked it a lot, but they should have.

(see AoD discussion).

Actually, AoD would benefit a metric fuckton from getting rid of its complex skill system. Leaving the basic stats is ok, it's just that instead of having to metagame to distribute your skill points properly, you choose a number of skills at the start of the game that you're good at and that's it. No more skill points, no more guesses. Maybe some quest perks to improve your performance somehow (or to justify going though helluva difficult situations - like, some quests where you'll need not only the chosen skill, but also some previous quests finished), but no fucking "distribute your points -> fail -> reload -> distribute your points correctly -> succeed" bullshit.


And mind you (now we return back to our Heroine), even if you don't like the skill system being skipped altogether, there are much better ways of doing it that plain grind. Actually, the only interesting part of the grind in these games was scouting for its enablers, and, if we disable the "train by use" mechanic, that one could still remain. You kinda mentioned it in your post, but it's just that you categorized it as a hopeless deal and I don't agree with you here. Unlike AoD, you can always escape non-quest combats in Heroine's Quest (and since there are no time limitations, you don't need to rush quest combats), so the player getting stuck is not a big problem (especially in the adventure genre where getting stuck is kinda part of it). However, if skills were raised by the way of interacting with environment (1-time only affairs, but with greater bonuses), it would be less of a grindcore festival and more of a scavenger hunt which is pretty great, I think. Just look at it as at that beloved "gather 500 pts out of 500" system, just with more impact on the gameplay.

 

[V_K]

those skills may be dropped altogether because they'd have no real effect on gameplay.

And why the heck not? What positive effect it inflicts on the gameplay anyway?

Flexibility. If we get rid of stats and skills, there'll be two options. Either every solutions is open to every character - and that'll make the game too easy. Or possible solutions are determined by the initial class pick, and then why bother with implementing alternative paths in the first place.

However, if skills were raised by the way of interacting with environment (1-time only affairs, but with greater bonuses), it would be less of a grindcore festival and more of a scavenger hunt which is pretty great, I think. Just look at it as at that beloved "gather 500 pts out of 500" system, just with more impact on the gameplay.

The main problem with such a system is that if training points are fixed and combats remain random, then combat-oriented builds would have a huge advantage over non-combat ones. Also, it'll once again be completely deterministic and ultimately just another puzzle you need to solve.

I'm not exactly saying that grinding is good, just that I don't see a much better alternative for this kind of game. Some improvements can be made, and HQ moved in the right direction by limiting the grinding somewhat with its fatigue/hunger/cold mechanic (although it botched it somewhat with availability of free food and lodgings) and making grinding points have different effectiveness. I agree that it might be a better option to drop the skills and leave only multi-purpose stats (or have skills as one-time picks). But ultimately it's either grinding, or possibility to make a walking dead build like in AoD. I'd say the second option is infinitely worse.

(And anyway, I don't know what you did differently, but I only remember having to grind at two points in HQ, both optional - cleaning Andvari's workshop and dispelling the ice wall)

 

[Fizzii]

Heroine's Quest v1.1 is now available.

------------------------------------------------------------

When Heroine's Quest was released in December, it received many positive reactions. As our game was played by many more people than our internal testing team, some issues came to light. We have worked on fixing these, and as the result, version 1.1 of Heroine's Quest is now available. We hope you enjoy this update, and thank you all for your interest and support!

http://crystalshard.net/hq.htm

Unfortunately, saved games from v1.0 cannot be used in v1.1, although your completion records can be copied. You'll have to decide whether to complete your game on v1.0 or start from the beginning in v1.1 (or complete your current class in v1.0 and try a different class in v1.1). However, we recommend that you restart if you've made it to Svartalfheim without reclaiming your items from the thieves, or if you've failed too many of the vouches in Munarvagir as a sorceress. These situations may lead to a dead end in v1.0, but they can no longer occur in v1.1. If you have further questions, please ask on our forums.

http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=17

------------------------------------------------------------

(Music track download coming as soon as Radiant gets it online )

 

[Bubbles]

The link to "our forums" on the indiedb page leads to

http://www.indiedb.com/games/heroin...rum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=17

 

[SuicideBunny]

good changes. you guys should do a kickstarter and make this into a series, btw.

 

[Fizzii]

Changes to Gameplay:

Spoiler

The control panel now has a button to redefine the keys used for combat.
The game now includes a setup utility that can be used to select window size and toggle fullscreen mode.
Regin will now give Gram only to a warrior heroine, not to a rogue. However, the sorceress can buy daggers now.
You can no longer enter the thieves' lodge by just entering the house and using the sword; that was never the intended solution.
You can no longer advance to Svartalfheim before dealing with the thieves' lodge, because later events assume that you've done this.
Liff will now pay you for extra pieces of willow bark, and Sigrun will pay for varg hides. However, stealing an item and then selling it back to the same character will no longer work.
Brynhild's and Skrymir's dialog about honor has been changed to clarify that bragging or telling tall tales is not considered dishonorable to a viking.
Use the hotkey 'N' to view the notepad, if you're carrying it.
Hints have been added to several puzzles that people indicated having trouble with.
We've done some rebalancing of the training rates of certain skills, as well as the amount of food and money present in the game.
To prevent dead end situations, certain items cannot be placed in a chest or otherwise abandoned, and certain locations cannot be entered while you're missing crucial items. For the same reason, if you lose Regin's chest you can now retrieve it. Conversely, you can no longer use the figurine to teleport out of certain plot events.
And fixes for every bug reported in this forum, including but not limited to the crystal lock glitch, the rogue's final battle without poison, the game hanging when asking Lithrasir for a drink, Lithrasir not following you to the holt, Aurvandel leaving while you're using the telescope, the crash if you throw too many daggers in the same room, giving the chest to Regin if you already have the quest reward, Sigyn leaving the room too fast, the sorceress not getting points for the mirror image, the 'cheater' death message in the lodge, characters being hidden if you skip visiting the jarl, and Heronus disappearing.

Made cross-class skills more useful:

Spoiler

Animal Ken: can be used to calm dogs and cats when sneaking around.
Herbalism: increased chance of getting two potions from alchemy, and you now get a scroll that lists all ingredients, and you can steal some of these from other alchemists if needed.
Stealth: increased chance of avoiding random encounters, and you can now capture Heronus with very high skill.
Thievery: warrior and sorceress with this skill can find lockpicks in Thrivaldi's cave, and can join the Lodge with only this skill.
Mead of Poetry can now be used to learn an extra skill.

Bubbles - thanks for the heads up. Seems IndieDB tends to automatically make all links go to their site! Hopefully fixed now (or else it is awaiting admin approval again).

 

[Crooked Bee]

Niiice

 

[Fizzii]

And here is the soundtrack!

http://www.indiedb.com/games/heroines-quest/downloads/heroines-quest-soundtrack

 

[Coyote]

Found a few more bugs/errors along the way (although I stuck with version 1.0 in order to finish this playthrough, so they may have already been fixed):

Spoiler

* If you throw a dagger at anyone while they're in Skrymir's house, they'll call for help, and the game will crash with the following error message:

An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.3.0.1148)

in "Module3.asc", line 141
from "Module3.asc", line 605
from "Module3.asc", line 3046
from "GlobalScript.asc", line 2565

Error: Error running function 'on_mouse_click':
Error: Script appears to be hung (a while loop ran 150001 times). The problem may be in a calling function; check the call stack.

I suspect that this will happen if you cause anyone to call for help in Skrymir's house for any reason, though like characters that you meet in the wilderness, none of the NPCs in Nidavellir seem to care about failed pickpocketing attempts.

* I (accidentally) asked Hervor to train me sometime late in chapter 3, and it entered the combat screen as normal. However, when I tried to exit, the game crashed with the following error message:

An internal error has occurred. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.
(ACI version 3.3.0.1148)

Error: ScriptOverlay::Remove: overlay is not there!

The same thing happened when I reloaded and tried it again.

* When you ask Helgi about Munarvagir, the text for his second line says, "Sigurd may pose as a humble innkeeper, but he is a powerful leader one of the strongest warriors I have met. He might even be make a better jarl than Ylfing of Fornsigtuna." The VO correctly omits the word "be".

* After giving me the runic stick, it still showed up in the background of Eitri's house (even after leaving and reentering), although it could no longer be interacted with. Not sure how this came about, as when I reloaded an earlier save from the same chapter it never even showed up in the background at all.

* If you tell Thrivaldi that he doesn't want to destroy the world, the higher-pitched head has a line where the text says, "And destroying ugly cities! There will be lots of good eating from dead humans!" The VO omits the first sentence.

However, my favorite one by far came at the end of the game:

Spoiler

I grabbed everything I was storing in any chests before going to Gastropnir. So there I was, basking in my victory after defeating Egther and saving the world from Ragnarok... and then this happened:

Not content to leave things in the hands of those corrupt Ylfing lackeys, Liff steps in.

And then, for some reason, Skrymir:

All this over a shovel. Don't come crying to me the next time you need someone to keep the world from ending, you ungrateful louts!

Of course, then I had to redo all of Chapter 4, which made it slightly less endearing, but it's still one of the more hilarious bugs I've come across in a while.

 

[Fizzii]

Coyote Ha! That gave me a big laugh . Nice find and thanks for posting it.

Just catching up on posts. I had been a bit short on time before 1.1 got released (testing, testing and more testing, plus real life job and chores and all that stuff you need to do to live).

Finished the game somewhere about a month ago (as a sorc, also tried to do a warrior run, but got too bored almost before the end of act III), but decided to wait for a while before leaving any kind of impressions here. Just to be calm and more objective. All in all, I liked the game, but I'm not as overhyped about it as the rest of the codex - honestly, in terms of "zealotry" (for the lack of a better word) people here aren't much different from the fans of (let's troll a bit) bethesda, bioware or ea, it's just that the focus of their obsession is different and the obsession itself remains the same. More or less (I won't argue that point, but just look at the codexian top-10 - for all the elitism of this place, it's not half as monocled as it should've been). Anyhow, let's begin from what I didn't like in the game:

Thanks for taking the time to write your feedback.

Humour is an individual preference (personally, I just accept that those characters are just like that, and I never thought they were meant to be laugh out loud funny all the time, myself). Some people have said they like all of those characters. But not everyone likes the same sort of cup of tea

Grinding stats - from my own perspective (I am not the designer), I like players who go beyond the bare minimum to be rewarded for their efforts. If I recall correctly, the instances where a stat grind is required are for puzzles which aren't mandatory. I've also played the game many many times testing it, and the only place which I find a little painful is for the ice wall (which is a totally optional area). I know that a number of players may not like it, but there are others that have said they did enjoy it at the same time (maybe it's that nostalgic factor). Likewise, if a player chooses to max their stats upfront, it means they are rewarded for their efforts later by not needing to grind later. We were fully aware of that and OK with it.

Around combat, I suppose the middle level enemies would be lindworms (which are only in Svartalfheim). Given their size, giants are indeed meant to be a big step up and a big challenge to a weak character. Note that you don't necessarily need to train to max stats to be able to take on giants, and things like Liff's amulet, or Andvari's armor can really help make a big difference against them. We did know that players were unlikely to be able to slay giants earlier in Chapter 3, but were OK with the idea of players running away from them until they were ready to take them on.

Blackthorne You say that you have a way to get your game on Steam that bypasses Greenlight. Could that way also be used for an additional, free game?

Thanks for trying to get Bt help . We're looking into options (FYI, I actually have worked on QFI as well, so I am well aware of how Bt got his game on Steam, but that is not an option for Heroine's Quest as it is freeware).

good changes. you guys should do a kickstarter and make this into a series, btw.

I am glad you really enjoy Heroine's Quest and want to see a series out of it! We aren't looking into going commercial though, and if we did need funds for any future games for some reason, we'd probably try to avoid the Kickstarter route if possible. I'm not saying Kickstarter is bad, but many backers on there expect to see special rewards which are limited to Kickstarter (which primarily boil down to physical rewards, and physical rewards are expensive to make and ship). The other thing is that early on, game development has a lot of new art and music to show, and people tend to judge a game's development status by what they can see, leading to expectations that the game will be out sooner rather than later. But it is actually the programming which takes the longest time to do, so maintaining interesting updates when it comes to the later stages of game development would be a lot of work on its own (heck, I was running out of stuff to write about when I started making IndieDB updates leading up to Heroine's Quest's release!).

 

[Jaesun]

I FINALLY had some free time to start playing this, and man what a fucking blast this is! I really am liking this a lot. <3

 

[DeepOcean]

Hey, this game deserve to be on Steam, the people behind it deserve some visibility. It is a fucked up system where Rambo: the Video Game costing fucking 40 dollars get a spot in there but this game no.

 

[Jaesun]

Need some help with that thief....

Spoiler

I found the cloth and in the morning I used the dog to track the sent into that house with the wooden barrel on the wall. I figured out that the guy in the house leaves in the evening, and went there. I then searched all over and when looking at the bookcase, it says you have found a lever. So I click on the bookcase and all it says is "You don't need to do this now". Do I have to do some major pixel hunting to activate that lever? Though, I have no idea if that lever even activates that wooden barrel on the wall or not.

 

[Berekän]

Have you looked at everything?

 

[Jaesun]

Have you looked at everything?

I figured it out. (Leverage... duh!). I'm playing as a fighter.

Spoiler

I'll assume those letter and activating the lever is probably for the rogue class.

 

[Berekän]

Yeah, you need those for both mage and rogue, didn't know you were the warrior.

 

[TripJack]

At last Heroine's Quest is a real game

 

[Fizzii]

Ha yes, we are happy to say that Heroine's Quest is now available for free on Steam, thanks to Screen7 (publisher of The Cat Lady and upcoming The Samaritan Paradox).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/283880

There are a bunch of achievements set up, as well as badges and trading cards, so enjoy