I've been trying to study what makes a game addicting/fun. And now, of course, when I say "addicting" I mean fun, not the "I need one more hit of crack" kind of addicting.

What makes it so that someone can play a game, and look at their play time, and go "Holy crap, 100 hours? That can't be right..," without having left the game idling.

So far from what I've collected surveying people, the most common features in a game seem to be:

- Getting every item
- Customization in the creation or development (leveling) of one's character

This game is looking great as ever. I hope that the development is steady. =)

I'm wondering if anyone here plays League of Legends...

So I did get the chance to play the game, and I have to give a few suggestions and a bit of praise. =)

- The music could be placed a bit better. The FF7 Parade Theme plays inside of the castle, and you don't know where to go at first, so it might be better to either tune the volume of the music down while your inside of the castle or put a song that has a little more variation. The song was used in Final Fantasy 7 and 9 for when there were actually band players, so the presence of those musicians came first, and that seems to be why it worked so well.
- The dialogue is great, but the one part with the guy who gives you the monster tracking equipment goes on forever. There are other parts that seem to have kind long dialogue here and there.
- On the opening displaying internet aliases for credits seems a bit weird. If you marketed/promoted the game on youtube to a more general audience than those only tolerant to rpg maker projects, they may find that a little weird-feeling.
- Even though the MP3 music is great, you could compress it to make the size of the game smaller for slower connections
- Walking around the castle looking for the dock took forever for me, while that FF8 song was playing. You may want a kind of castle theme midi or mp3 to play on those parts, as the FF8 song sounds like there is "battle all around you" while you're just waking up, strolling around the scene.

+ The graphics, and mapping is awesome. It feels like a true SNES rpg.
+ The opening is really absorbing.
+ It really does have a great story.
+ The battle system and battle graphics are really good.
+ The potential for a very interesting full game, kind of like Demon Legacy or Onyx, is huge.

Bottom Line:
Recently, I experimented with releasing my project, Takuto, as a visual novel with loads of text on Newgrounds.com among other various communities. I found that people didn't have big enough attention spans, and I felt that if I want to go far with the dream of getting hundreds of thousands of people to experience my story, I'm going to need to tell my story in a way that will grab them from the get-go, and then keep them going.

I feel that it could work as good advice to you, here. You are a great director with a good project, that has potential to really grab people right from the start and keep them playing. Just remember that, if it's your goal to have a lot of people view and play your artwork, you may have to find ways of keeping them playing throughout the course of the game, keeping every part fun and absorbing (people that have played 2d snes rpgs before might be tolerant enough to walk for 5-10 minutes through a place, looking for where to go, but most will want a snappy, quick, experience).

If you believe your story is great in your heart, it really has the potential to give quite an experience to viewers. The opening shows that you are a very good director, and a great writer. I do wish that the entire thing could have that same impact, including those parts where you're walking around the castle. Hope you can release another demo with improvements all around. =)

Hope that you can have the opening music done soon. Love to hear all of the original music that springs up from rpg maker projects.

It is definitely a long name for the title, though I think it has a lot of potential.

You know, I still think that RTP games can be very interesting as long as it has a very well written screenplay. =)

This game's really looking awesome. =)

Awesome. =) Can't wait to hear what Shizu comes up with.

Alright, done with the main theme and battle themes.

Can't wait to hear the mp3ed version of the battle theme. =)

Oh, friggin' awesome. =)

Love the style. On these forums you should tag this with [Advert]

This style is a GREAT idea, as you can still do low-res pixel-editing. All of the graphics could be original pretty easily.

Sorry I haven't tried it yet. I'm getting to it, I just need to get some wi-fi. I live in the middle of no-where and I'm stuck with slow/limited internet until I can get to a hotspot. Tomorrow I'll try to get to the library to download the game.

Still, looking great. =)

A tip for mapping, Atma.

Try the style of not making things too wide open spaced. If you make things more like narrow paths (even in a wide open spaced place like a city) you can PACK detail into it and keep adding and adding and adding to one map.

Make sure to save your MIDI file as format 1 and not format 0?

Try exporting your midis (if you are) from a different program.

You may have two software synths (if you're using a sound card).

So far, the screenshots look wonderful, whether ripped or not (but everything rm2k and 2k3 is ripped, isn't it?).

On the note of the graphics again, it has been said that "The graphic style in consistent" and the screenshots look great at the same time. I think this shows the that Niko of a good visual artist, as with all visual art consistency is such a huge part of it.

And of course, it's more about the game and story than the graphics all together, so I definitely look forward to playing it.

And basically, one final thing, over at rpgmaker.net they seem to really like the game.

I have to go out anyway, today (can't download it on this cel phone internet connection that I'm using here), and once I get over to the library/wi-fi I'll make sure to download the game and try it out. I'm looking forward to it. =)

Well I definitely never thought of it that way...I guess it's more of a social board than business.

Also, eatmygore, Taylor Kaz has come out seeming a lot more like a human in that little argument.

I don't know, I think topics like this one aren't such a bad thing. If you read over the entire thing you can rat out some people that really bring this place backwards and make it kind of a horrible community.

Regardless of age or experience GW has the potential to promote games with great stories, rather than mini-games.

Now Gaming World has decided to go in the direction of promoting Game Design in general, rather than it's original idea of promoting the tools to create and tell a story. It's selling out to a more generalized crowd. Not that GW has been the greatest community ever created, but it used to own a decent chunk of internet space dedicated to those tools that allowed people to tell their stories. There are already many websites that promote the creation of indie games.

GW used to make more of a difference.

Yes RPG Maker is dying, but part of why it's dying it seems is because GW left it.

Ok, RPG Maker Games can be sloppy and seem to be a lot less professional than mini-games that focus mainly on gameplay/programming, but it all depends on how the website makes the image of RPG Maker Games out to be.

I will say this much. If GW was to promote RPG Maker games with an image of integrity, people on the forums that don't have faith in RPG Maker or any other tools that allow someone to bring their stories to other artists, would not be expressing the same point of view.

difference is i wouldnt' say the same about rpgmaker games

I still believe that most would agree that there are some solid rpg maker games out there, and they are still in development and being released right now. It's personal creative self-expression. Like writing a story. It's artwork. Rm2k3 was only 6 years ago and can tell some pretty good stories.

Bejeweled remakes I would think are hardly close to creative self-expression.

rpgmaker games are almost always awful and the few good ones do not make up for the number of ones that are so bad.  after all, "Just look at this board :\"

That's the same with indie games and indie movies, but I would say that the good ones completely make up for the bad ones.

Will Gamingw ever be getting an RPG Maker Game Database (like it had as it's main theme not just 3 years ago)?

RPG Maker games are alive and well, they just need the right kind of place to promote their stuff. Unless RPGmaker.net has basically taken over as the new Gamingw and Gamingw is now dedicated only to indie games (as in re-makes of bejeweled, pong, and pinball).

It looks great. if it's a long shounen like Bleach or Naruto I'll really enjoy watching it.

The manga is usually always better than the anime though, keep that in mind. =)