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Wannika: a free 25-minute jrpg created by yours truly; Episode 2 released on June 30!

abnaxus

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Dec 31, 2010
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Fiernes
It's a fun game.
 

Fluent

Arcane
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The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
i think this is awesome and that Roguey should package both 1 & 2 and sell them for .49-.99 cents on Steam. Bigger audience, some sales motivate. What do u guys think? :)
 

baud

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Septentrion
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
i think this is awesome and that Roguey should package both 1 & 2 and sell them for .49-.99 cents on Steam. Bigger audience, some sales motivate. What do u guys think? :)

Just the first episode, because it's the better of the two, but with a comment mode, because I think it's interesting to know what are the inspirations.
And instead of Steam, which ask for some upfront money to publish there, there's itchio, which seems to be a much better fit to sell a game for a few pennies
 

Fluent

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
A few things. Steam can produce more sales/word of mouth, so i'd go with Steam as well as itch. Second, the second episode would add length to the short first episode so it would attract more buyers/word of mouth to have both in a package deal. Price it for 49c and you're all set. :)
 

Alan

Novice
Joined
Apr 11, 2022
Messages
46
Location
Spain
I was very entertained from beginning to end. It took me 45 min to do the entire thing. Maybe you should try and develop a longer game focused on encounter design, because that was the best. I rather liked the girly writing and realistic flavour, even though the violence turned me off at first. I'm not playing the sequel because I'd rather encourage something bigger

Since the plot tries to feel cinematic and on the edge, it is a very good fit for a linear type of gameplay, and you wouldn't have to go ambitious. For my money, I wish the characters were a little more grounded and less "cool", but you did a good job for such a short story. If you feel like you got something to say about people with unusual backgrounds and/or weird interests, then you should DEFINITELY try to make a longer game

I don't think it's a good idea to bundle some chapters for half a dollar. If people see that low price, they're gonna think the game is bad. I would aspire to make a 5h game for a $5 price. Maybe you are still fine with the RPG maker engine, although I don't know if the encounter design could be expanded there. Undertale was such a great success with the game maker engine. That game makes me cringe, but the success is worth a thought

BTW, the Catalina exposition about witchery was pretty awful. Maybe you were trying to portray some annoying speech patterns, but I don't think it was worth it. Made me suspect that you ain't capable of developing a deeper story, but that don't matter a lot. Maybe the writing was rushed, but cannot be sure, since the encounters were so good

In any case, I think that you have good taste and should go for a bigger effort. Like a turn-based Hotline Miami. Perhaps you could branch the dungeon exploration or even storyline, but I wouldn't advise it. I've come to think that C&C is merely a gimmick that never improves the game. It should be considered a luxury, reserved for clunky AA projects. You know better gameplay and should expand on that front
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
BTW, the Catalina exposition about witchery was pretty awful. Maybe you were trying to portray some annoying speech patterns, but I don't think it was worth it. Made me suspect that you ain't capable of developing a deeper story, but that don't matter a lot. Maybe the writing was rushed, but cannot be sure, since the encounters were so good

In my defense, this was a nearly word-for-word copypaste of a post made by the person who inspired Catalina.

I'm a witch. Not a Wiccan, though, but an actual occultist who has learned languages to be able to peruse really old books, studied obscure and weird philosophy, practiced her butt off in the pursuit of power, knowledge, and enlightement, etc. Regardless of whether or not you believe in such stuffies, that's how it goes and that's how my life is.

All the ancient traditions, the traditions that we witches and warlocks consider to be extensions of a primordial tradition or experience, describe exactly the same metaphysical experience, distorted only by cultural noise. So those of us who are serious and meta instead of just being on this for the lulz, with meta signifying we aren't into following this or that tradition but actually trying to understand those elements all traditions share to discern what the primordial experience or tradition was like and thus move beyond the cultural noise, study all the traditions we are able to get our greedy paws into to try and discover those points they are all concordant in.

One of those elements is the so-called original schizm. The original schizm is the idea of that thingie, the original thingie, either emanating or becoming divided in two stuffies or ruling aspects that then become involved in an war that will last for as long as creation itself lasts and will involve all strata and levels of it, from the lowly microbes to the high lords, the divine aspects, and everything else that is. Every level of reality is nothing but a reflection of the one above, and given this war is the entire point of the first level of reality then in some way, shape, or form, in both consciousness and subconsiousness, be it either in philosophy, or thought, or emotion, or action, that war will be raging. Always.

Those two sides are the two hands. They have different names in different traditions, obviously: You have Yin and Yang, you have Hyle and Chaos, you have Fire and Ice (or fire and water), you have the two pillars of the temple, you have the fiery word and the wet nature, you have the symbolical salt and sulfur, you have the seelie and unseelie courts, you have Amatsukami and Kunitsukami, etc, etc, etc.

Those forces always share some basic elements, too. The right hand is related to expansion, light, creation, emanation, order, law, growth, fire, summer, etc, etc, etc. The left hand is related to contraction, darkness, destruction, absorption, chaos, power, death, water, winter, etc, etc, etc. In all traditions there is a middle path, a middle pillar, which is about trying to reach enlightment and ascencion not through allegiance with one or the other but by moving in between the two, as unmoved by either as much as all are to be unmoved by mortality and mundane worries.

Some other thingies most traditions share is number and, let's say, society: Most of the time the right hand is always more numerous, civilized, and organized than the left hand, yet individually those who follow the left hand are much more powerful than the right. This is kind of obvious, given the left hand is about competition and struggle and defying all rules and limitations, be them mortal of heavenly, so those who don't go insane, die, or fail are actually pretty nasty pieces of work. However, it all balances it out in the end, though it never reaches equilibrium: The left hand is more powerful and wise, yet they can't organize for shit and are as inclined to fight some great war to imanetize eschatons as they are to backstab each other or fall into infighting because you do not like this other guy's face. And the right hand is weaker but they have social, moral, philosophical, and ideological unity. Most of the time, at least.

The right hand also has training. There's also no way of learning the ways of the left hand, as it is about individual power and knowledge: If you can't understand yourself what is it about without guides you don't deserve neither power nor knowledge. You are weak. So there are no guides nor manuals to the left hand. You just need to study, research, deduct, and read between the lines of the manuals and guides and holy texts of the right hand to see that which is implied but never accepted nor allowed, nor pointed at. So it is also much more romantic and heroic and tragic, true maladjusted nietzchean chevaliers and, uhm, chevalierettes raging against God, against Heaven, against Hell, against Law, against, uhm, physical laws, against fate, against, uhm, the planet's orbits, and against everything that is not themselves.

Gee, kind of like KKKodex.

That's the true pull of the left hand, though. It is romantic as fuck. For example, take the traditional christian and hebrew demons, regardless of whether you see them as true entities or archetypes to inspire yourself to greatness or warn you against sin, depending on what side you are on. Let's take, like, Eligos: A demon lord who fights just because fighting is what he does, and always picks the losing side because fighting losing wars and making it to legend as he who kicked tons of tail and made entire armies fear his name is the most awesome thingie ever. A demon who rebelled against god, if we keep with christian and hebrew symbology, just because god was going to win, and he was going to make those angelic pansies pay every step with blood and tears and suffering and pain to show them what a real man was like. At the same time he's the perfect knight: Proud, beautiful, elegant, and fucking badass. And if you do something he despise, no matter how small, he's going to fuck your shit up. Why? Because he can do it, and given he can do it it is his power given right to do so. If you don't want to, get more powerful than him or accept his rules. Period.

He's fucking awesome, man! He's like Shepard and Snake Plisken and the three hundred spartans and the one hundred and eight bandits of Liangshan Marsh and, like, all of the three kingdom's heroes rolled into one. He is the patron non-saint of BADASSES.

The last thingie you have to keep in mind about the left hand, in any case, is insanity. It is something you can't help, because you are trying to become a living embodiment of primordial chaos. If you keep your mind, aren't you actually fearful of letting go of shape and identity? Aren't you scared of the little deaths that make your life? And there's also nihilism: You have to become a creature of whim and passion, unbound by everything but, like, whim and passion, as all law and all order are anathema to primordial chaos. You have to become passive before the beast and darkness, being violent when it happens and being nice when it happens, being charming when it happens and being queen bitch when it happens, without any say on it. You just flow, you just dance, and you just do shit because you can. One day you can't and then you meet the final truth of the left hand: Nothing can escape death, no matter how badass. That's it. But you accept it, because you are badass and awesome and cool. And those things beyond the threshold of death better watch themselves, because you are fucking coming and you are going to get this place straight.

That's more or less the left hand.

I gave her thanks in the credits. :M
 

Alan

Novice
Joined
Apr 11, 2022
Messages
46
Location
Spain
I knew that it seemed out of place, but somehow intentional. Your writing is much better than that shit. Fuck all inside jokes and references. Forum users are not so interesting
 

AdolfSatan

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
1,871
If writing needs to be "bad" to represent a cringey teen's language, then it's not bad writing. Dumb characters using refined language to match the author's has been out of practice for a long while already.

Nothing wrong with it being based on a real person, I didn't loose anything by not knowing whom it was referring to.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
I still have to play this. Wasn't B. Cat outed to be a dude larping everything? Not that it matters much unless you use it as a plot twist at some point.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Alright, should have played this long ago but there was always something to be done first.

Finished both. First one is more intense and shorter, I liked it except for the surprise boss battle near the end with the ghosts. I like your combination of magic and "realism" so to speak.

Second game is more fun to play but less intense story-wise, but a good change. Shame you didn't do a third episode. There's a fatal bug though where if you try to use the healing item in battle, you're kicked out of the game due a "missing healing animations" error.

It also reminded me of posters here that are long gone and how has the Codex become a shadow of itself over the last years. :(
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
There's a fatal bug though where if you try to use the healing item in battle, you're kicked out of the game due a "missing healing animations" error.
:negative:

This is what I get for not testing literally everything.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Well, the first game had no healing, so seeing a healing item in the sequel, my first thought was to see if it worked in combat, regardless of its usefulness. It turns out it doesn't work. The item that allegedly prevents you from suffering status effects doesn't work well, if at all, as those enemies that inflict such kind of attacks (spiders and scorpions) still manage to reduce your stats even when such healing item is taken before battle. Funnily enough, the "Paralyze" status effect from bats isn't as dangerous as the stat-reducing ones from spiders.

In any case, I hope you make a third part as a conclusion with a confusing, try-hard ending to end the trilogy. Extra points if you later release an "extended ending" that makes it way worse. :troll:

More seriously, I wouldn't mind to play more of Wannika's adventures. Perhaps in the third game she meets a strange girl fan of "hardcore apiculture", one that calls herself Crooked Bee.
 
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Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,655
Well, the first game had no healing, so seeing a healing item in the sequel, my first thought was to see if it worked in combat, regardless of its usefulness. It turns out it doesn't work.

Oh, I see why I overlooked it now; it only heals 100 hp, so with my D&D mindset the idea was that people would heal up after a battle, and no one would bother to inefficiently use up a turn during combat to heal a negligible amount. It works just fine when used from the menu.

The item that allegedly prevents you from suffering status effects doesn't work well, if at all, as those enemies that inflict such kind of attacks (spiders and scorpions) still manage to reduce your stats even when such healing item is taken before battle. Funnily enough, the "Paralyze" status effect from bats isn't as dangerous as the ones from spiders.

I don't have RPG Maker installed on this machine to verify, but I believe that, in Sawyerist fashion, I was against the idea of an item being a hard counter, so it only reduces the chances of the status effect applying rather than eliminating it. In RPG Maker games a buff can stack twice, so it's my recollection that applying two to one person will make the effect almost-but-not-quite non-existent.

Bro, you need a developer tag now!
That's for professional game devs only, I'm an amateur until I offer something for sale.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
Oh, I see why I overlooked it now; it only heals 100 hp, so with my D&D mindset the idea was that people would heal up after a battle, and no one would bother to inefficiently use up a turn during combat to heal a negligible amount. It works just fine when used from the menu.
I used the small amount of healing to keep weakened party members alive for longer. Not very efficient, but it sounded like a good idea, alas it doesn't work in combat.

I don't have RPG Maker installed on this machine to verify, but I believe that, in Sawyerist fashion, I was against the idea of an item being a hard counter, so it only reduces the chances of the status effect applying rather than eliminating it. In RPG Maker games a buff can stack twice, so it's my recollection that applying two to one person will make the effect almost-but-not-quite non-existent.

I see. I didn't consider using it multiple times, I only used it once, not knowing the anti-status effect thing could stack.
 

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