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his teeth grind eternally at the bottom of the well where the light of the sun only torments the unworthy, all hail the undermensch

I'm really sad to hear that he passed on. He was a great guy and he was full of potential. Sredni, I wish you and his family didn't have to go through this. My condolences.

I don't really know what else to say. Shit just isn't fair sometimes. :/

also reading that diangostic, the malware on Caliburgames is ironically because of Google and Yahoo.  ​

You must not be very good at reading because the domains listed have 'google' and 'yahoo' in the names but are obviously not owned by google or yahoo

Nocturne is the opposite of Persona 4. Persona 4 is this semi-hip social simulator where the objective is to establish relationships and understand characters. There's a dungeon you go to frequently, but it's secondary to the game's social component. Nocturne is a giant dungeon with almost nobody to talk to. The world is more important than any individual character in it, but it has such a compelling world and battle system that the lack of characters isn't even something you consider.

So Persona 4 is an exploration of characters and Nocturne is an exploration of a world in change. Play them both. Nocturne's better though.

Also I have no idea about Persona 3. I've never played it!!!!! I've heard Persona 3 is not nearly as good from people whose PERSONA OPINIONS I respect, but that 4 is also a similar concept executed much better.

Just My Professional Opinion As A Gamer.

FYI both Persona 3 and Persona 4's normal storyline battles tend towards being easy, but if you set the game's difficulty to Hard, it gets a lot more challenging. Also, both of them have optional dungeons at the end with ridiculously difficult enemies and bosses. Persona 4's optional dungeon/boss in particular are definitely worth your time.

The modern Persona games are definitely not SHINING EXAMPLES IN THE RPG GENRE or anything but they are very enjoyable games if you're in the mood for them. They weren't what I expected after Persona 2 but I liked them.

Positives:
Outstanding art direction (especially 4)
Good music, as long as you don't mind the style
Excellent writing
Unorthodox plot and structure (this applies more to 4 than 3, though)
Good battle system

Negatives:
Rather awful pacing
Lots of 'filler' content to pad out the game calendar
A lot of the interactions between the main character and female characters are ridiculous stereotype bullshit. 4 improves on this but still suffers from it pretty badly.
Lack of direct party control in P3 is frustrating

In my opinion P3 and P4 are just the result of taking one modern trend in JRPGs (story-driven games) to its natural conclusion. Instead of filling the game with prerendered cinematics and using them to tell a linear story, though, they just fill it to the brim with well-written dialogue and intricate plotting. Naturally, some of the other things that might make JRPGs appealing for you take a hit - the dungeons and combat are not quite as compelling as in other SMT games. I think they're also notable for how much control you have over the progression of the characters and the story. Both P3 and P4 offer some particularly interesting choices to the player that have a significant impact on the game world, even if the "ending" is set in stone.

P4 in particular is also notable if you're one of those literature wanks who cares about gender roles and stereotypes.

This article and this article provide a pretty good overview of the notable things about P4 even if you don't agree with the articles' conclusions.

Alright, after attempting the first level on a keyboard... I must admit this game is EXTREMELY difficult on a keyboard.

It's probably just me though; because I use the arrow keys over A and D.

Hopefully I can get my hands on a Xbox 360 controller, and give this game a real test.

If you didn't notice (it's not in the readme) you can use the arrow keys instead of WASD if you like. You can also use H and L instead of Q and E for Backflip and Slide.

That boss fight is gruelingly long, in my opinion. I guess it's not really THAT long(3minutes I guess so bad) but it felt like it took forever. I'll have to play it myself tomorrow morning to see if it's that long when you're actually playing it or if it's just because I'm watching a video of someone playing a game.

Some of my favorite boss fights in this type of game have been much longer - for example Eligor and Dracula in Order of Ecclesia - so I don't think 3 minutes is necessarily too long. But you may be right; the boss fight is rather simple and monotonous at present, not nearly on par with either of those examples. I was more afraid of the boss feeling like a pushover than I was of it being too hard/tedious so I leaned towards making her have a large health pool.

So, what was your role Hiret?

Very impressive looking, I am downloading it now and will make a write up of what I think afterwards.

Programming, writing, most of the level and game design, and bits of sound fx/art here and there. Everything else was done by my artist and sound designer.

There's a new build up with an additional section of the aqueducts and a boss fight. Check it out and tell me what you think! Lots of stuff has changed; one particularly big change is that I added a slide attack that is useful for beginning combos against small enemies.

Here's a playthrough video, if you get stuck or just don't feel like downloading:

combat was kind of difficult. When I tried to crouch and hit the enemies, the attack button wouldn't respond at times. everything else was pretty solid so far. I really like what you've done in terms of animation and sound. looking forward to playing more of this.

If the combo meter at the top of the screen is red, that means your attacks are locked out because you missed the combo timer. I probably need to make this way more obvious. There's also a short delay before attacks are enabled again, which could do with some UI.

Were there specific things about the combat that felt difficult, or was it just the attacks? I know that right now it can be quite difficult to avoid enemies' attacks since they have a very short wind-up animation.

Did you find anything else confusing?

Also when you use the "AttachTo" function in the editor you should code it so that it doesn't move the entity/geometry/whatever from where it is, for example if you place a switch on the top of a moving platform and "attach" it to the platform the switch will appear in another position

Thanks, I think that used to work correctly but I probably broke it.

1 ghz athlon + geforce fx 5500

Ah, yes, that would probably be it. Surprised it ran at all.

It might run better for you if you go into the graphics options and lower the resolution, to like 800x600. You might also get a better framerate in fullscreen mode.

Nice graphics, did you pay someone to draw them?

Yeah. Glad you like them!

I didn't notice any bizarre behaviour, except that I don't know if it's because of my obsolete computer but the game is rather slow

Out of curiosity, what kind of machine are you running? The processor and graphics card are the most important.

The sandbox level runs faster so I think it's due to my pc

Found a glitch, when you make a platform that moves diagonally and you're standing on it it works fine when going down/left right but when it's going up/left right it doesn't (the player character slides away from it)

Thanks, that's good to know - I don't think I had tested platforms that moved diagonally in a while. I'll probably be using them later on so I should make sure I fix it.

Hey guys. I've been working on an action platformer, inspired by the modern Prince of Persia and Castlevania games. I'd be really grateful if you'd take a few minutes to try it out and tell me what you think, either on your PC, or on your XBox 360 if you have a Creator's Club membership.

The current build has maybe 5-10 minutes worth of gameplay in it, so I'm still primarily looking for general feedback - how do the controls feel, how does the art look, how is the audio, etc. Anything goes, though - if you have specific feedback about the level currently in the game, I'd be glad to hear it.

PC download:
http://luminance.org/inferus/setup.exe
Note: Requires a Direct3D 9-capable video card and an installation of .NET Framework 3.5.

Creators Club download thread (for XBox 360):
http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/35499.aspx

Keyboard Controls:
Left/Right : Move
Hold Left/Right (Towards Ledge) : Grip Ledge/Plate
Up : Mantle
Hold Down : Crouch
A : Jump
D : Punch Attack
F : Dagger Attack
Hold Left/Right (Towards Wall) + A : Wall Rebound
Left Shift : Backdash
F12 : Open Debug Menu
~ : Open/Close Level Editor

XBox 360 Controls:
Left/Right : Move
Hold Left/Right (Towards Ledge) : Grip Ledge/Plate
Up : Mantle
Hold Down : Crouch
A : Jump
X : Punch Attack
Y : Dagger Attack
Hold Left/Right (Towards Wall) + A : Wall Rebound
Left Trigger : Backdash
Right Bumper : Open Debug Menu

Here is a screenshot:


And here is some random youtube footage:

Note: The 360 version of this will definitely cost money, since XBLIG has no support for free games, and the PC version might eventually cost money as well. Is this compatible with the forum rules? I remember the old rules were very much anti-commercial but there isn't a rules thread now, so I'm unsure.

1. Random loot drops that you can pick up.
2. Movements.
3. Simply displays what you're holding, no interaction needed.
4. The items you are holding.
5. Mission notes will go here.
6. Simply describes where you are.
7. Only turns red in battles, which will be a clear indication a battle has started.

I assure you, if you play it won't be confusing. As far as images, what you see is what you get. I'm trying to go with simplicity. However, as you can tell the level selection menu has a bit more elaborate preview pictures.

Awful, awful, awful UI design. Reduce the amount of unnecessary stuff on screen by about 10x.

Some basic suggestions:

Just don't show the goddamn 'click to attack' box if you can't attack. It's a confusing waste of space.

Only show loot if there's loot available. Ideally loot should be a modal window that the player interacts with and then dismisses forever.

Don't show inactive icons in the DEF and ATT sections. It's confusing and not at all helpful to the player.

Quest items should be laid out sequentially - scattering them randomly around a grid makes the list harder to understand. This also applies to the DEF and ATT sections - if possible they should just be a sequential list of the active effects. The icons look different from each other so I would advise having a single 'effects' section instead of separate sections for attack and defense.

You're not very good at your game Hiret. It's looking really nice, but I think the player's char seems a bit stiff. He needs more frames of animation, methinks!

I mentioned this in the youtube comment, the problem is that recording in full HD with Fraps at 60FPS makes my computer randomly freeze while capturing frames, so I miss context-sensitive cues like wall rebounds and dodging attacks.

Also yes I'm not very good at video games.

The walk animation is actually being redone as we speak. I think some other parts of it will probably remain looking stiff for a while, since fully fluid animation is expensive. But hopefully the most glaring parts will end up feeling better.

Tomato: Is the entrance to that dungeon hidden in the Women's room at a truck stop?

Hooray, music and monster art and polish and stuff. Still a lot of broken things left to fix...

@Kaempfer;
I see your point so;

just means more programming for me \:S/

The readability of that font is subpar at best, especially on the button images. That'll only get worse due to glare/etc on a small LCD like the PSP's. It might help to antialias the text.

Sanosuke: If your battle system has as much latency when you play it as it does in those videos, I'm pretty sure nobody's going to like it. The other limitations like tile based movement aren't that big of a deal - people will put up with them if the design is good - but that huge delay between the animations and things happening is pretty much unforgivable in an action battle system.

You might be better off going with a more simple-to-execute battle system so that you can still deliver a good experience if you insist on using RM2k3. Most people would prefer an unoriginal but well-executed battle system to one that's crippled by lag.

Your avalon town looks pretty nice, but those big flashing talk/enter icons detract from the looks a lot, and so does the overlay. I'd advise eliminating both of them, or at least toning them down.

Trying to start work on this again. Still not sure how the game will play.

Games are always better when their text is tiny and nearly unreadable!

Sprites look pretty good, though.

All major cutscenes will be fully animated like so (not the real music used in game):

Watching your characters stand perfectly rigid while the text sits there like a blurry brick of cleartype isn't particularly interesting. At the very least you should have their mouths moving around so it looks like they're not statues, but ideally they should shift around a bit too since they're supposed to be people.

I'd also suggest adding some weight or motion to the text, even if it's just a simple fade in/out effect.

You should also pick a better font.

Also some LOLRPG nitpicks:

Those wyverns are hilariously tiny compared to the humans.

Why doesn't he grab her with his other, free hand so that he won't lose his grip? Is it because his sprite can't pose that way, perhaps?

Revenant:
Your sidescroller is looking nice. The character sprites are detailed and have a lot of personality. I think the face portrait at the top left is a little bland and could use something to make it more interesting - maybe show more of her head instead of just a close-up of her face, and have her move around a bit in the portrait in response to game events?

Your HUD seems to lack contrast with the game world - maybe try a darker outline around it.

Your environment tiles are pretty good, but a couple of the ones in your screenshots are really visibly noisy and high-contrast, which seems like a bad choice for a background tile - distracts too much from what's happening in the foreground. You might want to tone that down.

Looks pretty awesome, but I'm not a fan of how the water clips when the hero blocks the flow of it.

Yeah, I've been thinking about how to make that work instead. I may just make it not get blocked by the hero.

Hiretsukan, I thought you gave up on game making stuff, or what that just fury^2?

The video looks pretty cool but the gravity seemed really low.

Nah, just Fury². Became impossible to maintain after a while due to compiler bugs and such. Just didn't have much time for games with my day job, so you never heard much from me (:

@Hiretsukan: I like how you die in the game man.

Hehe, thanks. Hopefully you see it less during actual gameplay than in my test videos.

Hiretsukan - If I were to play that and died twice less than 10 seconds into the game, I'd shut it off. If I rocked it for the first 10 mins then ran into a situation like that, I might play longer.

Well, in the actual game you're not going to die quite so much. But death only sets you back a few seconds (since that point you teleport back to upon death will move automatically as you progress through the dungeon) - the idea is that individual platforming and combat events in the dungeon can be challenging and take multiple attempts, but you'll never need to load a saved game or redo a previously completed puzzle.

I am leaning towards higher difficulty at present, though. Maybe that's a bad decision.

Have any ideas for making death less frustrating?

Woo sound effects and water and shit. Need to replace that shitty placeholder skeleton with some real monster art...