The Great Gaias playable demo

[Pots Talos]

Hey all!
I'm trying to get some feedback on my game demo I recently released, you can find it at www.horizonsend.com

So far I've gotten all positive feedback but that has just been from people following the game. Now I'm hitting up some forums I frequent to try and get some outsider opinions. I figure if I can handle the brutal honesty of the Codex, I can handle criticism from anywhere else.

Thanks in advance if you check it out and let me know what you think.

 

[80Maxwell08]

EDIT: I just saw your join date. Well I'm an idiot. Anyway it's a bit late here so I'll play the demo tomorrow.

 

[Pots Talos]

EDIT: I just saw your join date. Well I'm an idiot. Anyway it's a bit late here so I'll play the demo tomorrow.

Thanks for checking it out, I look forward to hearing what you think.

 

[A user named cat]

Is there anything more trashy than fanboys trying to make money off RPG Maker projects on Kickstarter? This is the last forum you should try promoting this but you wanted criticism.

Looks no different than a thousand other games that have been released free online. Ever since RPG Maker was first translated and pirated, every man, woman and child started thinking they could be armchair devs who can recreate Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger. Stop it. We've seen enough of this crap, these tired games can be found for free even on Android. None of you have the talents Square and Enix did back in the 90's, and even then their shit began to stink due to a lack of deviation and originality. You're not Japanese. You're not programming on cartridges. You're not pushing hardware limits to the max. You're not doing anything new. You're just milking nostalgiac JRPGs and making dime-a-dozen games that all look the exact same using software that's been passed around more than Paris Hilton's vagina.

Now you people are hopping on the Kickstarter bandwagon trying to actually make money for some busy work, mostly busy work others have created and posted on forums for you. Telling people their funds will go towards special features? Like what, some shit anyone can Google scripts for? Some lame anime art? I recall even learning how to add day/night/weather cycles and custom battle systems back in the day playing around with RPG Maker while it was still archaic. Here we have you man children calling yourselves producers and designers for thiis rubbish where you now have countless codes and scripts available online to copy and theft. At least fucking credit the script makers or program your own systems from the ground up.

Appears as if you even tried asking 25k for this on Kickstarter before, and now $8500? Give me a break. Learn to use a real engine that requires actual talent and coding work if you want to make a buck. Go look at a project like Underrail for inspiration if you must. I feel embarrassed for anyone that pledged for this.



LOL you even used default menu sounds that have been in RPG Maker since 2003. Is making some blips and bloops in FL Studio even too much work? Get out. The only one involved in this who deserves a dime is your contracted music composer.

Your supposed "tactical" combat system looks like it was ripped straight from this. How sad, just look at it. Can't believe you'd call yourselves designers/producers and brag about systems that you simply copy-pasted from online scripts which have already been used countless times.

Combat script found on forum from 2008, can be seen in free fan games and various Youtube vids

$25,000 $8500 game

 

[felipepepe]

Who ever is the writer of that intro, he isn't nearly as smart as he think. He's clearly writing sentences using the most epic and profound sounding words / cliche sentences he can find:

Lost to the test of time; man once lived in perpetual balance; a taste of true power; a war of genocide; the War of Nations rattled the very foundation of the world; starting a new age for mankind; but people forget and mistakes are made; only the dead have seen the end of war

It reads like a bad, generic power metal song from non-native speaker. And it makes no sense. So everyone was immortal and lived in peace, then a guy came out of nowhere, fucked everything and killed the elves, but he was defeated by a "once renowned Valdian general", leading the Warriors of Light from the nations of Tenat... why there were even nations and a renowned general if the world lived in peace?

Also, stop with the fucking exposition:

The characters speak like either they are reading the summary of a book or vomiting their entire "deep backstory" on you at once. Which by the way, are all over the place.... this is clearly one of those games where every character has a "ultra-unique backstory that makes then special and memorable"...

I would continue, but your game just killed me the most retarded way I've even been killed EVER. My companion tells me I must sneak past a group of guards on a mountain pass... I get a dialog with two choices:

1 - "Ok, let's go."
2 - "It will be easier..."

I pick choice 2, thinking it will be about an alternate path, but my character says "It will be easier than your sister!", to what my companion kills me out of the blue and it's game over screen.



There's a HUGE difference from sucker-punching the player sometimes to simply killing him out of the blue. Not even Sierra adventure games had such pointless death.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

@Phantasmal
Since you are so knowledgable about RPG maker games are there any games you can recommend? Besides obvious examples like Yume Nikki or To The Moon.

 

[A user named cat]

No, I'm not knowledgable about RPG Maker releases but I can point out the animu elephant in the room when I see it being abused for financial profit. I played around with it like a decade ago for a good while (along with Adventure Game Studio) but I've never come across any actual good games made with it.

 

[felipepepe]

Is not made in RPG Maker, but Zeboyd Games are the extremely similar and actually manage to give it enough twists to be interesting:

The biggest problem it has is the HORRIBLE Penny Arcade humor and inside jokes... that's probably why I'm actually looking forward to their new game, Cosmic Star Heroine, that managed to raise more than 100k on kickstarter:

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Will probably also wait for the second game, the Penny-Arcade one looks like garbage and I can't stand Penny Arcade or anything related.

EDIT:
But thanks for recommendation. The second one managed to achieve a nice ballance between western sci-fi, and animu nonsense.

 

[A user named cat]

cboyardee may be more of an expertise on this whole subject since Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden was first made with RPG Maker. At least he didn't attempt to ask money for it to my knowledge, let alone $25,000.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Sorry I haven't had too much time to play this but so far I basically agree with what's been said here. Also why copy the ATB system instead of trying to do something interesting with the core gameplay? I really wouldn't recommend asking for money for this sort of thing on kickstarter by the way since it's such a long shot that you will even get it. There's so many people trying to make games like these that yours doesn't really stand out. I can't offer that much criticism since I don't know enough about these types of games to help but I would recommend listening to people's advice here.

 

[Pots Talos]

Not that anyone probably cares here but we've released The Great Gaias.
Decided to just fund it ourselves and we did take your criticisms into account, updated the gameplay, story, writing... Basically everything.

 

[MRY]

Congrats! Simply finishing a game, even in RPG Maker, is a tremendous accomplishment. I hope you guys are taking some time to celebrate.

 

[aweigh]

even in RPG Maker

 

[abnaxus]

How does it compare to Wannika?

 

[MRY]

even in RPG Maker

I failed to finish games in both RPG Maker 95 and RPG Maker 2000.

 

[Shadenuat]

Even finishing a reasonably long mod with story for already existing game with solid modding tool is hard for 1 person.

 

[Pots Talos]

How does it compare to Wannika?

That's tough to answer.
You'll just have to play and find out for yourself.

Thanks for the congrats MRY it took us seven years (11 if you count the world building done in our D&D campaign).
Everything is custom, no stock RPG Maker garbage. But even still people will give us shit for using RPG Maker anyway.

 

[aweigh]

it does look a lot better than the first videos. have you posted on rpg watch website yet?

 

[MRY]

How does it compare to Wannika?

That's tough to answer.
You'll just have to play and find out for yourself.

Thanks for the congrats MRY it took us seven years (11 if you count the world building done in our D&D campaign).
Everything is custom, no stock RPG Maker garbage. But even still people will give us shit for using RPG Maker anyway.

Yeah, RPG Maker mostly helps by freeing you (to some degree) from the tyranny of the coder who flakes. You only have to deal with the writer who flakes, the scripter who flakes, the artist.....

 

[aweigh]

All I know is that Cleve doesn't use RPG Maker.

 

[Pots Talos]

it does look a lot better than the first videos. have you posted on rpg watch website yet?

It's come a long way since those first videos and Kickstarter attempt, I'm glad we failed in the end because we wouldn't have been able to meet the release schedule anyway.

Yes, I contacted RPG Watch and they did post a simple news article about us which was nice.
It's been hard getting any notice, but I think the Steam reviews speak for the quality of the game.

I sent a copy to felipepepe because he had played the old original demo and said the game was complete trash so I was hoping to see how he felt now that it is finished. Probably just mostly trash now

 

[Emmanuel2]

Is there any postgame content or a way to skip animations in combat?

I would have it on my to-buy (it's pretty short right now) list if it does especially if it has the latter since that is basically my requirement for JRPGs.

 

[Pots Talos]

Is there any postgame content or a way to skip animations in combat?

I would have it on my to-buy (it's pretty short right now) list if it does especially if it has the latter since that is basically my requirement for JRPGs.

Once you beat the game it ends but there are multiple endings. There is an unlockable hidden dungeon area with extra hard encounters which lead to a couple of super bosses.
There is no way to skip animations in combat but really the only animations that are especially long are the summons and they take maybe three seconds to play when cast. With over 17 playable characters you don't even have to use the conjurer if that is an issue for you. I'm not a big fan of over elaborate combat animations and when making the animations I kept in mind the fact that people would have to be seeing these over and over during play.

 

[Emmanuel2]

I'm not a big fan of over elaborate combat animations and when making the animations I kept in mind the fact that people would have to be seeing these over and over during play.

This is a very nice consideration.

I'll soon™ buy it and have it wishlisted right now.