[XP] Lunar Legacy(Demo Time)

[Neoend]

A teaser of sorts?: ShowHide

The Download Link: ShowHide

https://www.mediafire.com/?sa6y8oesdw2upxd
Ok everyone, this download ended up being the first third of the first chapter, so, it's a nice little taste of the game.
Key Aspects for this demo is the battle system and the first bit of story. Let me know what you think, time be willing.
Have fun!

Story

An extract from the intro: ShowHide

The story follows a young traveler named End. Spurred by events beyond his control and his desire to make up for his mistakes, he travels to mysterious structures known as Gates armed with an equally mysterious eye. At least, this is the most he ever tells anyone.
Coming ashore on new ground, the journey continues. Now, the mysteries surrounding the Gates and mysteries about End himself begin to unravel as the journey reaches its peak, for all those who accompany him to see. Whether they want to or not, the events they will bear witness and will be caught up in, will be one of many to change the world. For better or for worse.

Landing in a desert, End is forced into assisting on an attack of what appears to be an army outpost. Paired with Luna, a desert dweller, the two dive into the outpost as the first part of the plan.



Characters

Spoiler: ShowHide

End
Age: 19
The protagonist of the story. Devoted to his goal, he employs a down to business attitude more often than not.
Most people that have met him refer to him as cold but respectful, monotone but effective. His enemies on the other hand know him to be ruthless and cruel. Really, he's just doing what he needs to do.

Luna
Age: 16
A young girl from the desert that End allowed to tag along. One of the first people he met in this new country, she actually knows little more than he does of what lies beyond her desert home. With a sunny disposition, she embraces the new world that unfolds in front of her.

Slider
Lana's pet weasel left to her by a father she never met. Luna and Slider have a strong bond and are rarely seen apart. He is ever either riding on Luna's head or hiding in her hair.

Screenshots

Spoiler: ShowHide

Revealing a new system for players to interact with environments! S.N.A.I.L


Revealing a new minigame to go along with interacting with environments!


This area is a bit of an experimentation to see what kind of effects I could achieve


Wonder what's down there


A small piece of a small village that may or may not be important, who knows



Another Small glimpse


One of the mini-game portions


The First Scene!


The Desert Town

Finding certain items depends on the where and the when


A lucky twist of fate

Features

Spoiler: ShowHide

A small list of confirmed features and systems
-The RTAB Battle System with modified damage mechanics and augmented with an experimental event based skill system
-A world that aims to be immersive and made for exploring
-Stat distribution System
-Particle System
-Day and Night System
-Minigames
-Crafting System
-Passive skills and chain states courtesy of Tons of Addons

Gameplay Elements

My Romanticism with Battle: ShowHide

As previously mentioned, this project makes use of the RTAB Battle System, so that should give an idea on how the battle scene would look and flow. This bit of info isn't so much on the look but more on my take on RPG battle to give a clearer picture of want I'm trying to aim for with Lunar Legacy's battles.
Growing up playing RPGs all the time I always loved getting new skills and watching the cool animations. I always liked having to think a lot during battle scenes too. But for a vast majority of RPGs that I played most battles became spamming the same skill that exploited a weakness and healing, some skills were just never used or just replaced when the higher tiered version was learnt. It felt like it was limiting the amount of solutions that could be used. And to be fair, this is kind of to be expected from a technical stand point. But wanting to avoid this was a big piece of motivation for what I have today. I wanted battles to be more dynamic and versatile instead of static so without further ado, elements that I included are:

The Style Mechanic
The first thing to know is that every character can learn over 50 unique skills to them. These skills are grouped into "Styles". When a Style is selected from the Skill Window, all the skills learned under that style become available and are removed when the style is changed, which  serves to avoid clutter.
Styles were created in an attempt to add some strategy into battles. The Styles themselves are based on the RMXP stats (Str, Dex, Agi etc). For example, End has a Style referred to as Hit 'n' Run. This is a Style that relies primarily on the Agility stat for all of its attacks. It increases Agility and Evasion in terms  of a Stat boost. Every style also includes a Passive Skill courtesy of Tons of Addons that further increases stats to suit that style.
Skills in styles are unlocked as that style's stat increases, as you level up, as the story progresses and/or you use that particular style enough times.
Styles are designed to be unique enough to truly offer different ways to play depending on what Styles you have developed more and the overall synergy of the party.
Note: Certain Bosses can also use Styles.

Credits
Credit where credit is due. The game wouldn't be as great as it is now if it weren't for the awesome resources.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Graphics: Scriptkitty, Namura, strawberryquartz, Etolier, Mack, Naramura, PickleIceAxe, Toraneko, Tana
Scripts:Blizzard, Zeriab, dubealex, RPG Advocate, The Sleeping Leonhart
, DerVVulfman, cogwheel, Guillaume777, ccoa, Claimh, ForeverZer0, SephirothSpawn, game_guy

A quick message

Spoiler: ShowHide

Hey guys just some quick little background on this project.
It's my first time posting my game on a forum. I've been working on this for almost 3 years now. Its an exciting time with the first chapter coming together now. Its a very ambitious project. One of the goals was to try to make the world feel as alive as limitations allowed. The ways I went about doing this were making NPCs and environments as dynamic as I could, and including a great amount of world building sidequests that after a while, you'll really start to wonder if it was right to call a sidequest. I don't want to give too much away yet so apologies but look forward to it.

Regardless, constructive criticism is welcome, after all improvement is a good thing. Either for the Game or the post itself.

[Zexion]

This looks like one of those rtp games that I love to play lol. Wish the best for this project By the way, you might want to try sprucing up your logo a bit (no offense intended). It's just a little bland at the moment, and I'm not sure if you were planning on making a better one upon release.

[Neoend]

Thank you for the well wishes 
And yeah, you're right with the logo being bland comment, but rest assured it'll be much more better by the time the first chapter is finished and ready. Right now it looks like the logo will be the last thing I finish before the release.

[Zexion]

That's usually what people do. The artist in me just has a habit of being a noob and wanting to draw stuff before the game is done

[G_G]

This project looks intriguing. Can't wait to try it out! Keep up the good work.

[KK20]

Wow, 3 years? That's some serious dedication right there. I know far too many people (including myself) who has an idea, starts a project, gets immersed in it, suddenly get bored of the idea, and move onto the next idea. I wish you the best of luck~

By the way, you might want to try sprucing up your logo a bit (no offense intended). It's just a little bland at the moment, and I'm not sure if you were planning on making a better one upon release.

Hell, I don't even have a logo for my Advance Wars Engine. I cannot art.

[Zexion]

LOL.

I cannot art.

Beauty right there...

Also to the O.P I know you said you would eventually make a logo. Just letting you know that I am always willing to help :p.

[Neoend]

Thanks for the interest guys!
@KK20
A lot of those 3 years were spent revamping the game and making more and more additions to the overall design. So I'm pretty much one of those people that just keeps adding stuff in but pretty much halts progress. Although that's not really an issue now :p

@Zexion
Thanks I'll definitely keep that in mind

On to business, Updates:
I'm going to start Winter semester in a couple of days which is kinda going to delay progress. So I've decided to add in a Gameplay section to give you all some info on what I have in mind for this project. I'm starting off with Battle elements because well, I'm pretty sure that's going to be the most polarizing thing. I've added in just one mechanic so far but I'll keep adding them as I get the time. Bit of warning, it's a small wall of text right now and it may be a bit confusing or not clear enough, but I'll try to clarify to the best of my abilities if needed.
Suggestions and thoughts are welcome

[Neoend]

Hey all, it's been a bit but yes,

Updated:
Three new screenshots just showing off some small aspects.
Now with things getting less hectic, updates should be happening more frequently

[Dark_Kyu09]

I have to say, this is actually an interesting idea. I like it

So you've been working for three years to work on this game? Must've come a long to perfect the game.
I'm looking forward for this game.

Quick question, are you going to release the demo?

[Neoend]

Thanks for the response, but yeah, I can't say it's perfected but it definitely keeps up with the vision I have for it

In regards to a demo, the plan was to release it chapter by chapter. But since that might take a good while longer, I could release a demo of the first hour or so that's been more or less completed if there's interest for it.
If this happens then I'll make sure to have all the gameplay systems present in the first chapter to be fully functioning for the demo

[Neoend]

Hey all, just making a small update with a screenshot to show what's taken up my time

Spoiler: ShowHide

It's a WIP minigame segment. The in story version won't have a point display.
The minigame is kind of rhythm based, the goal being to get from one end to another by timing button presses with the little indicator.
There's gameplay and story segregation here which is why its presented the way it is

[Zexion]

This project is turning out pretty nice

[Neoend]

Thanks Zexion, glad you think so =]

Anyway, updated with a new screenshot testing out a fog effect. It's taken up a bit of my time trying to figure out the bugs with it.
And as a break from the more tedious parts of game work, came up with this;
comments are appreciated :

Spoiler: ShowHide

[Neoend]

Hey all, the main post has been updated with some new images for everyone to take a gander at,
but yeah, I'm currently aiming to release something on this Saturday, December 21st, or the 22nd at the latest.
I say something because this can go two ways. Right now, there's a guaranteed 1 hour of the game that Will be available for everyone to check out.
This hour however only covers one third of the first chapter. This could be all that's released come Saturday, with subsequent updates following closely after. Alternatively, I could get the entirety of the first chapter up to releasable condition but it really depends on how many snags I run into.
Either way something will be released this weekend, and I hope that everyone may have time to enjoy it.

[locowhiteknight]

It looks great! Good luck with the demo preparation.

[Neoend]

Hey everyone! Demo has been posted!
So if you look at my previous message, it ended up being the first case, which is fine. I ended up running into a lot of small bugs that made me question what I had done up til now. But anywho, the demo right now serves as a little teaser for the story and enemy battles.
Let me know what you think! After going through this week,personally, I'm feeling my pacing is a bit too brisk but you know creator bias.
Also let me know of any bugs; due to the way I was doing cut offs for the demo, there's a possibility there's something I overlooked. Anyway have fun!

[locowhiteknight]

I tried testing out the demo, but it doesn't seem to working quite right. When I run the game.exe the title screen and music start, but none of the options for new game, continue, shutdown are visible. I selected the first position (where the new game option normally is) to try to start the game, which loaded the starting map with some people on boat and an empty dialog box that wouldn't clear off the screen. Perhaps it's operator error on my part, I'll tinker around a bit more just in case. Is anybody else having an issue with this?

[KK20]

If you don't see any text in-game, then obviously you do not have the font installed on your computer.

[Neoend]

Well that's momentously embarrassing. I forgot to include the font.

Anywho here is the link to the font download. Apologies for the inconvenience.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/35jqm6jwcaqtpks/Devroye.ttf

Will now commence updating the main topic

EDIT: Download now includes font file

[Zexion]

No worries I did the same on my first demo release lol.

[locowhiteknight]

@kk20 That's what I was kind of thinking, but thanks for the help (levels up).

My thoughts on the demo so far:

The Good:

I really enjoyed the opening sequences of this demo. You picked a great song for the intro and synced it perfectly with  the animated synopsis. You pulled it off so well in fact, that by time the game started, I was genuinely pumped for a grand adventure.

I'm still working through the demo, so I'll post something more complete at a later time, but some of my nitpicks are:

Sometimes the rules for entering and exiting doors are not consistent. Sometimes an action key is required, while other times it's not. It seems to be something that was just overlooked in a couple of instances.

I not a huge fan of the mapping so far. I guess it's good enough to get by, but it seems like it should be little bit tighter (I've only made it to the assault on the fort).

The combat seems difficult, but I'm going to play through it again and be more thorough. I normally start demos by rushing through them to scope things out first, to make sure they're worth playing, before I invest too much time into them.

Overall, I have a very positive impression of the game. I'll post a review that's hopefully more helpful at a later time.

[Neoend]

whoa thanks locowhite i wasn't expecting impressions so early, especially not on christmas!
Hearing your nitpicks, I'm both happy and a bit annoyed. Annoyed because the door consistency was something I was trying to tie down, but I'm happy that it was caught. So much bittersweet feelings. In terms of the mapping that's a totally fair criticism. My mapping style is still needing of a bit more refining but I hope I'll get there!
Although in terms of mapping I must say that that particular area has been in the game since the very beginning. It's been revamped over time, but there was one area I never touched upon again, the fortress. The mapping there is particularly weak. It's really a vestige from three years ago. But still hope you might enjoy it!

And yeah I got that intro implemented about 40 minutes before I uploaded and wow I was almost in tears by how well it turned out.

But yeah with Lunar Legacy I'm going for an effect that it's a grand big world, that doesn't just revolve around the main characters action. These aspects won't really appear in this small segment but I'm working on it. The downside is that this vision increased the work load horrendously and I have to make compromises. But still it's a fun time.

Oh and for battles, they're intended to be hard, but once you figure out the weakness or strategy, you can do up to 7 times the damage!
Thanks again Locowhiteknight!

[Neoend]

Hey everyone. It's been a while but, development is going forward albeit at a snail's pace due to other projects and commitments.
The main post has been updated with two screenshots showing the new system I'm calling S.N.A.I.L

What S.N.A.I.L stands for: ShowHide

Streamlined Natural Action Interface ....um....Logic?

The goal with Snail is to make environments more engaging with tons of secrets to find and things to explore. Snail also allows for some puzzles but I'm still working out the infrastructure for that aspect.

Right now progress wise, I am working on the third story dungeon. Mostly the puzzle aspect of it, and then once that is done what I will be doing are as follows:

Things coming up: ShowHide

Working on a massive and hopefully epic 'end of chapter' scene.
Creating 3 optional towns for players to visit
Fleshing out the Snail mechanics
Creating 2 hidden dungeons
Cleaning up the database
Testing

There are a few features I'm working on on top of the above tasks that are intertwined with the sense of exploration. I'm hoping that I'll be able to execute them properly so that they are enjoyable.
So yeah, if there any questions let me know, and I'll answer. Have a good day.

[WhiteRose]

I like the HUD used for SNAIL. I'll have to download it and give it a try - the game looks fun. How long is the demo?

[Neoend]

Hey WhiteRose glad to hear it. The look was one of those nice little accidents, and I just rolled with it.

The demo if I recall correctly could be finished in 45 minutes.