Game Overview
Legionwood is a console style RPG made using RPG Maker VX. Legionwood is my attempt at creating a nostalgic and familiar RPG experience reminiscent of the classics of the early 90's such as Breath Of Fire and Chrono Trigger.
Legionwood features a massive world filled with adventures and side quests, and is expected to contain over 20 hours of gameplay and four huge story driven chapters.
While it isn't revolutionary and contains gameplay that is for the most part bog standard RPG fare, Legionwood is designed to be that way; familiar and fun for RPG fans looking for a casual game to play.

Storyline
The world of Legionwood. Once upon a time, it was prosperous and full of technological wonders. About three thousand years ago, a mysterious phenomena demolished most of mankind's cities, and as a species, they had to start again. This much, archaeologists and scholars know from the ancient ruins of technological cities and fortresses dotted throughout the most barren parts of Legionwood's surface.
After at least two millennia had passed, mankind had begun to re-establish itself as the planet's dominant species. Major inventions were being rediscovered, and technological development had finally reached a medieval period. It was at this time when everything began to go wrong. Legionwood has always had war, but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere began a furious and unpredictable world war that raged for years and devastated cities and nations worldwide. This terrible conflict, known as the Great War, ended as suddenly as it began, with no mention of its cause or conclusion to the public, and mankind began to pick up the pieces.

Now, one thousand years have passed since the Great War came to an end. Since that terrible time, makeshift peace treaties have ensured there have been only minor conflicts over the last centuries, but once again technology is on the rise, and half truths and legends about the Great War and its origins are prevalent in popular culture.
Each country, empire and kingdom fears its neighbours, and only reluctantly are peace ties held in place. In a last ditched effort to try and maintain some sort of peace between the rival kingdoms of Charn and Trevelle, the king of Charn has decided to hold a celebration and
festival to honor his new daughter's birth. Everybody in attendance is expecting a good time, but a key figure linked to Legionwood's dark past of conflict and death has been biding his time, and has decided that now is the perfect time to stage a new Great War and political upheaval. Simply looking for a way to wind down after months of hard work, Lann and his sister Liara come to enjoy the festivities, but soon they will both be pulled unexpectedly into an epic saga which may just have a battle to decide the world's fate waiting in its wings.

Game Features
- A character driven story full of twists, turns and red herrings, and an intended gameplay time of around 20 hours.
- 6 playable characters, each one with a distinct personality, which you can mold into your own custom character classes to suit your combat style.
- Turn based combat with an emphasis on tough opponents and using skills, rather than mashing "attack" over and over. Think, don't button mash!
- A custom soundtrack, composed entirely of non comercial game music, some exclusive to Legionwood.
- Collect, raise and summon 5 elemental spirits to aid you in battle! Summon level up, learn skills and fight just like your party members!
- Innovative Ability Point system by KGC allows you to choose which bonuses you gain in level ups, so you're free to decide which role your characters fill in your battle plan.

Screenshots











Download

You can download this game from the page here:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/792/

*If the download is not available when you try, it is simply due to RMN updating; try again in a few hours.

I played the game and finished chapter 1. I encountered two major bugs, one of them game stopping.

The first bug was when fighting the sea monster on the ship. For some reason the screen remained pitch black and I had to fight with neither the boss nor the characters visible. The menu was still visible though, so the fight was manageable.

The second bug came near the beginning of chapter 2.

Ah yes, well that brings me to this post. Good thing we caught that bug in a short time.

Attention!

The beta testers I used at school seem to have not informed me of a few audio errors which occur in the mid areas of the game. As a result, I've released a new 800kb self applying patch to fix these. This patch will also perform the same operations as the last one.

If you're downloading the game from scratch, please get this latest patch. Unfortunately the patch will not work for those who've already used the first patch I posted yesterday. You can still fix these problems without redownloading however, by following these steps:

1. Go into Legionwood 3.1/Audio/BGM folder.
2. Copy "jbsm024" and rename it to "Crysta".
3. Copy "jbsm010" and "jbsm026" and rename them to "06a-Battle-Field" and "Terranigma - Sad Theme" respectively.

I don't have a lot of critique at the moment, but be sure to read what I have. First of all, the story is cliche, and it sort of copies the Final Fantasy stories. Now, your probally wondering why I quoted these features. I quoted them to let you know a few things, first of all, don't get to cocky. You waaay over exaggerated your features.
"Fantastic Mapping"
Eh? Says who. Though I must say, that mapping is better than most mappers here, it is far from fantastic. In fact, a lot of the mapping is mediocre, even though I love the forest screenshot with the treasure chest. Also, the character customization thing is over-used now a days. You seem to make a big emphasis on that, even though it really isn't that fantastic. In closing, I do wish you will have the best of luck on your project. I will be watching this to see how you improve (or ruin?) this game.

-Dr

Hi! Thanks for your feedback which I have read over. I assure you, the story may seem cliche in opening, but it opens up later. I had no intention of copying FF, in fact, I tried to make a story of the kind you WOULDN'T see in that game. I guess I suppose that the story outline I posted sounds a tad like FFX. Oops, I actually did not notice that. No, I assure you, it's original.

Fantastic mapping? heh I know, but good writing's half of the sell eh? I work hard to make better ones as I go along. Also, keep in mind that this game was first released back in '07. At that time, character customization in a VX game was fairly rare. I guess it isn't nowadays however.

Update!

I've realised that I actually posted the wrong patch to download; it doesn't fix the tree blocking Hawkshire. I've released a new patch (which I should have posted initially) which I had mistook the other patch for. I don't keep a very organized computer. Sorry about the problems!
Check out the original post for a link.

This new patch will work on both the original unpatched version of the game AND the version already patched with the previous patch.

Update!

To circumvent all of the patching that has to be done, I've uploaded a new version of the game with all of the problems fixed and at a smaller size too (58MB).

To move your save files over, do this:

Update:

I discovered the problem! My RPG Maker VX was for some reason failing to save changes to my game (no doubt since it's in Program Files and my Vista changed security settings lately) so every time I thought I was fixing a problem pointed out by my beta testers, I really wasn't! I reinstalled RMVX, reset the security settings and released a new patch which fixes the few problems left in the game's final areas. Just apply it to the latest version of the game. (Either the raw download or one that's already had patches 1 and 2 applied).

I am sorry for this very much. Damn Vista...

I finished chapter 3. The game is good enough to be worth the time, but far from as good as advertised. Your list of features happens to provide a convenient format for criticism, so I'll discuss each point.


The story is interesting enough and turned out to be fairly unpredictable. However, it also contains padding, like having to delay the main quest in order to slay a fearsome beast. Further, the game could have done a better job a showing and not just telling. For example, war is a big theme as advertised, but the feeling that a war is imminent isn't really there. I'm told by various NPCs that a war is about to break out, but nothing about the game actually conveys that feeling. I know "show, don't tell" is often hard to pull off, but I have seen it done.


I haven't really seen those kind of quests. I admit I may have missed them though, I did not talk to every NPC, just most of them.


The characters do have their personalities, but they aren't really that striking. Lann and Ark gets quite a lot of spotlight. Liara manages to show quite a bit of personality early in the game, but as more characters join, she takes a backseat role. The other female characters does voice their desires when they join, but after that pretty much say things anyone could have said. The Frenzy attacks also haven't been that powerful.


This isn't true at all. Physical characters can safely use Double Strike and magical characters just need to figure out the elemental weaknesses of the enemies and then they to spam the same skill over and over. Heal as needed. Nothing I haven't seen already.


I liked the music, so good job here.


It's more in line of OK then Fantastic. It looks rather bland. That said, dungeon layout is rather good and requires some exploring to get everything, but doesn't give me the feeling I'm wasting a lot of time going off track.


Is the party changer system really a script? It looks evented to me. You use an item to enter the party changer menu which looks very much like the standard dialog box and from there make your changes. Also, while I'm getting the feeling you're not supposed to, you can add a fifth party member.


So far the winning strategy seems to be to first determine whether a character should be be physical or magical and then only spend on defense and attack/intelligence for physical/magical characters respectively. All other stats can safely be skipped. As the game went on, battles became easier and easier, so I'm getting the feeling my strategy is making me overpowered. The impact those three stats have one damage done and damage received is probably to big for the sake of balance. Also, the characters cannot wield whatever equipment they want to, most equipment pieces are barred to some characters.

..

Uh.

What makes this game any different from any other game on this forum?

I've looked at the features and there is not one single thing that stands out as special or unique.

The system specs really aren't needed and don't make any sense to be honest.

The storyline is honestly cliche. Even if it is not a Final Fantasy rip-off, it contains every RPG cliche in the book, and it happens to have a sequence of a typical JRPG.

Graphically, it looks as if you used some recolored RTP tilesets. There is not much to say here. This may just be me, but something about your mapping looks odd. It could just be spacing issues, but things just look way too crammed together. Also, the characters seem to not match their surroundings whatsoever. Of course, this may just be me.

When it comes to the music, it is average. Nothing exceptional. This isn't bad, as it serves it's purpose. From what I can tell so far, the tracks fit well enough to their surroundings.

The battle system is a cliche in itself. The turn based system has been done to death. I cannot blame you in particular for it being boring. There is nothing about it that stands out, but the sideview, turn-based design itself is a lazy concept. Pulling off a decent battle system in RMXP/VX can be difficult, so I won't knock you too much here. Ability wise, it is still the run of the mill abilities one can see in any JRPG. Abilities are quickly over shadowed and rarely used by stronger ones that are honestly over powered. This is an industry problem too, so I can't knock you much for that if the pros do the same.

Scripting wise, I can't really comment much on that. I am assuming much of it wasn't originally done by you. If my assumption is wrong, feel free to correct me. Features seem to work as they should though.

Overall, you managed to finish something playable. That is a plus. Your presentation could definitely use some work, as you are definitely over hyping it quite a bit. The game could use quite a bit of polish before it could really stand out from anything else on the low-end Indie scene. If this is a hobby, you managed to finish something I guess. Good for you. If this is something you are serious about and wish to get better at, it is at least a start. The game industry can be tough. If you want to get better, then dropping the anime premise would be best honestly. Realism is what all companies look for. (Yes, even Japan kids.)

Think of it as a tree. Realism is the trunk and all other styles are the stem. Try smaller concepts and branch out when you create something more playable.

Overall, it was a good effort. I could see what you are trying to do. It just all isn't there.

I just wanna say that I find the tone of your post incredibly off-putting. PD threads are basically for pimping your game and getting feedback on it, it's true, but you're taking the pimping thing way too far, if you ask me. When you describe your game as the best thing since sliced bread, you're not convincing me I wanna play it, you're just making it look like you're in love with yourself. Or, alternatively, that you're trying way, way too hard.

It also sets up impossibly high standards for you to meet. After this kind of buildup, if your game is not MINDBLOWINGLY AMAZING, it's a letdown even if it's actually pretty good. And if it really is hot shit, let it speak for itself. If the plot is riveting, open with some kind of novel, unique hook that shows exactly what's so different about it. If the characters are deep, hint at their various motives and conflicts in their descriptions. If the mapping is good, show it in the screenshots.

Your game should be able to stand on its own merits without you shouting them from a mountaintop. If it's good, and you're able to convey that by showing us the game instead of just talking about it, people will play it. The excessive advertising is just distracting and irritating.

For an example of what I'm talking about, the entire features section made me cringe.

I also like how you advertise "fantastic mapping and graphical prowess" when really it's an inconsistent mess of readymades. you have VX RTP and default Kaduki sprites mixed in with sprited battlers of a completely different graphical style, with the 16-bit battlebacks from the rm2k3 RTP to top it off. it's some pretty heinous graphical inconsistency, but it wouldn't be half as bad if you didn't try and pretend your graphics are anything more than slightly below average.

your problem is that you're trying to pretend to be a professional, but you have no idea what that implies. you're aspiring to something without actually trying to realize it, and instead just pretending you're already there. you need to improve. we all do. if you're happy with things as they are, that's okay, but you'll always just be posing instead of really achieving.

also you already had threads for this and The Beyond, and they're not that old. I don't think you've broken anything major, so I'm just curious as to what major changes there have been.

I had threads already? I know I made one only recently for The Beyond but as far as I knew, I'd never released Legionwood here before.

Ah, yes, okay, I admit my writing is a bit better than it should be. Chalk it down to I'm practising my skills; generally, I present my games to a lot of people outside of the RM community (such as indie game sites and PC magazines - some feature them too) where such writing is neccesary and expected, and I just copy and paste the content without altering it. In an RM community, it's true, the game, while quite decent, is certainly not the best out there so I SHOULD present it as so. Okay, I promise for my next game that I will rewrite the topic into something more modest.

EDIT: What the hell? I felt like writing so I rewrote it.

@Crystalgate:

Yes, as you can see, I still need to work on a few areas. I like to think I'm coming along though. In future chapters (remember, this game is not finished) there will be a lot more stuff to show the effects of war, I do have that planned. Also, no, there aren't any side quests spanning continents in this release, but overall in the complete game there will be lots of little side quests that interlink into massive world wide ones. Keep in mind my features list is written (actually rather a hackneyed choice) for the game I INTEND this to be when it's complete. I actually intend to add a party changer script at some point as well. Thanks for playing and I appreciate your comments. The game will improve, remember it's still a work in progress!

@Mawk and Perilhelion:

You're absolutely right. In the places where I predominantly promote my games, one needs to pretend they are a proffesional to get a second look. How do you like my thread now? I tried to trim it a bit and rewrote some areas to make it a bit more modest.

This is much better. That said, your feature list is still full of things every RM game ever has. Using the RTP is a downside, not something you wanna advertise. And 48 scripts? Congratulations; you can download scripts from the Internet and put them in your game?

But that said, those are a little odd rather than actively cringeworthy. I also agree with the other people who've posted that it basically looks like standard fantasy.

Also, the system requirements are odd. Most people here can run RM or they wouldn't be here, but uh....


....what kind of computer has these specs?! 200MHz, 4MB video RAM, 1GB RAM? @___@

Not a big deal, I guess, just perplexing.

Now, graphics!

The floor in this screenshot is really distracting.

The fog in this is strange. The sunlight is streaming in, but streaming through...what, exactly? The walls end way below where the light seems to be coming from.

This reminds me of something you'd do in RMXP, but the contrast between the different types of grass in VX is high enough that sprinkling them around randomly together looks weird rather than adding detail. The forest looks okay, but there's way too much crap on the ground for it to look right for a town, imo.

And, yeah, the battlebacks are kind of atrocious. They might actually look better if you resized them with a good resampling algorithm in Photoshop or something to at least hide the horrible pixelation, but I'm not recommending you keep them. You know, one really good way to generate battle backgrounds is to make a suitable map and take a screenshot. It's not flashy, but it's not a lot of work, and it'll probably look better than what you have.

The fanart is nice, btw. Did Kieara draw it? It looks like her style.

Yeah, Kieara and I are quite good friends on the RRR IRC and she did it for a favor. I'm thinking of employing her efforts in the future. Thanks for your feedback and I am certainly intending to change the battlebacks, I've been meaning to do so for a long time actually, and even if I just use XP RTP ones (if I can't be assed making my own) it will look better in the long run. Thanks for your time.

As for the system requirements, well in the past Legionwood was so laggy, you needed them to run it. That's probably not the case anymore, but I leave them there just in case.

Update:

For the matter of convenience, I've uploaded a fully pre-patched file to RapidShare. This version is a simple .rar file which you can unzip and play. Unfortunately it still contains my beta tester's save file. Check out the first post for the link.

In other news, I discovered the source of the annoying sound error. The game requires a file called "jbsmc033" not "jbmsc033." SM - Not MS.

So I downloaded this game and played until I got to the world map for the first time, and I have some comments for you! I took notes and everything!

First up, the title screen. Not only is character art a faux pas, but all three of them are drawn in different styles. You should really revisit it and pick something that represents your game on a more abstract level. I wrote up a long thread on what makes a good title screen, and I highly recommend you read it; the link's in my sig.

The credits at the beginning are unnecessary. Put them in your thread or at the end of the game, not at the beginning--no one cares. Also, the lack of music there is a little odd.

And now we're into the actual game. The Terragen render or whatever you used there is glaringly out of place with the rest of the game. Art is one thing, but you do not put 3D environments in an otherwise 2D game; it just looks bad. I recommend making a cliff or something with tiles for them to stand on and then using a *drawn* panorama.

The dialogue itself is really overwritten here. You sound like you're trying to be formal and Tolkienesque, but it just comes off as stilted, and the infodumping is really, really transparent. I would honestly prefer just the standard black screen with white text infodump. At least that's honest. The part where the kid forgets the name of the guy who wrote the book he's devoting his ENTIRE LIFE to studying made me cringe, too, even if I realize you were just looking for an excuse to name the hero. The bit at the end about THIS STORY IS ABOUT LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP is about the most hackneyed line ever, too. Honestly, the entire tone of the prologue really rubs me the wrong way. While I understand it may be contextually appropriate for this guy to go HOLY SHIT LANN IS THE COOLEST DUDE EVER, it comes off as you patting yourself on the back, and you really don't want that. Moreover, I don't even really get who these guys are or what they're doing. Why is this story such a big secret? Why does it have to be handed down? What exactly is going on here? I think your prologue raises too many questions on its own to effectively frame the game. Since I assume you're not revisiting it until the very end, not understanding what's going on is annoying rather than intriguing. By the time you get around to answering these questions, I won't care anymore. Chrono Cross does something like that and fails for the same reason.

Also, this cutscene is also about three times as long as it needs to be to get the point across. A lot of the dialogue was redundant. In general, never say anything twice, and if you can take something out and still get the point across, do it. This length problem greatly exacerbates another issue you have--that of static cutscenes. You have pages and pages of dialogue with no sprite movement or changes in expression, which is pretty boring.

Okay, more cutscene. The bit with the evil dudes is better than the prologue, but there's still mad amounts of poorly disguised infodumping here (if you MUST convey this information at this time, either work it in better or put it in the book thing or something, idk). Also, the whole thing with I JUST WANT TO DIE is pretty unsubtle. I don't see a primo evil dude pouring out his heart to his lackey.

And now we finally meet the hero. Waking up at the beginning of the game is done in every RPG ever, so it made me roll my eyes a little. I realize that waking up to another peaceful day in your backwater village is a tried and true genre staple, but it's pretty overdone and not very gripping. It might be better to start the game at this festival thing, but I haven't gotten that far yet, so I dunno. On a minor side note, why is Lann sleeping on top of the covers?

The tutorial segment is both unnecessary and insulting to your gamers' intelligence. Things like which button opens the menu is useful for people who aren't familiar with RM games, but arrow keys to move and enter to interact with things? Really? And you don't need to explain what an NPC is. People playing this game have probably played one or two video games in their lives.

Now for something good! The dialogue with Liara and Lann is MUCH better than the stuff in the intro. It's way less stilted, although, again, I think you beat the point into the ground and could stand to make the scene shorter. The emoticons over their heads is a good way to add some dynamism and emotion to the scene without lots of additional spriting, too. Boring subject matter aside, this is definitely the best cutscene so far in the game.

Finally, the game lags a lot when I'm walking around and trying to talk to people. My computer is pretty suspect for a lot of reasons, but I don't usually have massive problems running RM games. I have a 1.9MHz processor and 1GB RAM, jsyk. I don't think it did it before in the intro part, so I suspect it's your game's fault. Look at your common events and such.

By the way, did you compose this music? I didn't see you credit anyone but yourself and Enterbrain, but I'm not familiar with the VX RTP. I'm impressed if you did, at any rate; it's quite good.

Okay, that's it for now. I stopped playing as soon as I got out of the first town. I might play more later!

A tip. As soon as Ark joins, see if you can exit from wherever you are and teach him the skill Double Strike. There will not be another opportunity and I spent the whole game wishing he had that skill.

This brings me to a point a forgot about earlier, the characters are strangely uncooperative about the Attribute Assignment system. Ark joins with a status score and equipment selection that says physical fighter. He does not however have Double Strike and instead comes with a bunch of spells. Another character has high intelligence, but comes with fighter equipment, dual wields and cannot equip mage type equipment at all. Fortunately, that character can simple be made to dual wield mage weapons, so it works out anyway. The last two characters also comes equipped with something that doesn't compliment their strongest stats, but they at least can equip the right armor types, so it's an easily fixed problem.

Sometimes I got the feeling the characters tries to be fighter/mage hybrids. That only works if the Attribute Assignment system has diminishing return. Actually, it does have diminishing return, but it's not diminishing enough to make a hybrid a good choice.

Also, I got some poor advice from NPCs. For example, one of them recommended me to raise agility if I use equipment with agility penalty to offset said penalty. However, let's do some simple math.

Let's assume armor A has 20 defense while armor B 30 defense, but also has a -20 agility modifier. The character chooses armor B and raises agility with 20 to offset the agility modifier. The result is 30 defense. However, let's instead say that the character chooses armor A and instead of raising agility, puts the points into defense to raise it with 20. This yields a 40 defense and the same agility. The only character who's ever gonna take armor B is someone who doesn't care about agility.

You seriously need to think the attribute system trough better. Balancing the game is hard enough when the game automatically gives you the stats and if you hand over the attribute assignment to the player, it just becomes harder. You will not get away from having to calculate the effects if you want a balanced system, just testing and testing will not suffice.

Okay, I played a little farther!

I got a few other people to test it out, and the lag definitely isn't just me. You really need to address that.

The battle tutorial was like TEN PAGES LONG, which is, again, excessive. The general commands should be self-explanatory; the only thing that might need explanation is the trance thing, which you can explain very briefly the first time it happens or something. Also, embrace for defend? Uh, what? I noticed you changed all the commands to atypical words, but those words are standard for a reason, and changing them really does not make your battle system more novel or interesting.

Speaking of that, random enemies do way too much damage. This problem is greatly compounded by your decision not to let people revive their characters except in town, which is generally a terrible idea in jRPGs because you can't strategically place your characters to avoid damage. When I got into the first dungeon, the enemies were killing my characters in 2-3 hits (there are no random battles on the world map, so I found the suggestion that I should be L2 by that point perplexing), which is pretty brutal when you have two characters fighting three enemies. It actually took multiple reloads before I could level up without anyone dying, which is ridiculous. Even at L3, though, I still can't go more than a few battles without hitting a save point to heal, and if I have to grind to get through the dungeon (haven't tried it yet and don't know how long it is), I'm probably just going to stop playing.

The idea that you can develop your characters as you want is a nice one, but the fact that equips are character-specific kills that idea pretty dead in the water. I wanted to make Lann my mage and Liara my fighter, but I can't because Lann gets the fighter equips and Liara gets the mage equips.

Also, the attribute assignment thing. I was just mashing z through tutorials by that point because every single one prior to that had been a waste of my time, and I missed the one thing that was actually relevant (my fault, really), that being how to do the attribute assignment thing. It took me forever to figure out to press A on the status screen. It IS something you'll want to mention, but you should at least put "Press A to go to the attribute assignment screen" on the status page somewhere, because if you forget, you're just fucked as it is. It's not even remotely obvious.

One last note.

"You won't be able to give her the cat from this side. You must give her the cat from the front so she is able to take it into her arms."

Uhhh...what? If you needed the heroes in a specific place for the cutscene, why not just...do a move event? The explanation is really bad. If you can't do a move event for some reason, it's a lot better just to have her not respond than give that message.

I stopped at the save point before the path to the city, anyway.

okay there are some problems with the game. If you leave the first town before talking to the apple guy you can run into random battles.. but right after leaving the town after talking to the apple guy you cannot run in to random battles on the world map, so it makes that tutorial about the attribute system a lie "should of lvled up once by now". How can i level up if there's no random battles?! Also your save crystals are fucked up. when you fully heal with it it says MP and I'm pretty sure you called it SP in your game. It's not BAD but the game needs a lot of work a touch ups. Get rid of the tutorial's... accept for the one about the attribute system one.

Also FIX THE GOD DAMN LAG! its horrible!

Hi everyone. As you can see, even though it's coming along, I still intend to do lots of work on this game. Fixing the lag is my first priority. I'm also working very hard to adjust the battle system and attributes, and I have taken the suggestion to add a "press A for attributes" message on board too. I've found too that the game starts of real difficult but ends off real easy, so I'm trying to modify the difficulty curve and change the system a fair bit. There IS a place you can level up before the first area, but the reason that LV2 message is so perplexing is because it's a relic from when I DID have world map encounters. I should change it. By the way, Perihellion, there's a small cave on the world map where you encounter easy bats you should use to reach L2 at least.

Dialogue issues... Yeah, as a writer I tend to be a little long winded (like Shakespeare I guess) and it's a fault I'm working on. I do want to shorten the cut scenes a bit. At least those early ones. You'll notice the further you get the more my writing improves; I just never revisited those early ones.

The opening cut scene is meant to be corny. It was meant from the beggining to sort of be a "oh I'm entering "Ye Olde" RPG better get ready to make my character" sort of thing, if I phrased that correctly. I'm thinking of cutting back to those two people at the end of each chapter though, that way you continue learning more about them rather than getting one huge revelation at the end. Off topic, did anyone be reminded of Pokemon's "Here is my grandson. What was his name again?" comment from it's intro?

Anywho, thanks for playing and the feedback. You've really helped me make the game better.

@Perihellion: That cat thing's a rather lazy attempt to hide an inability to event on my part. I could only manage to event the scene from the front without it looking wierd.

so uh
- why is there the ONE tutorial encounter on the world map, then? that's incredibly misleading and suggests to the player that there are more to come
- saying to the player HEY THERE'S AN OUT OF PLACE CAVE WHERE YOU CAN GRIND is not solving the problem. the majority of players are not going to see it as they pass by or stop by there for long, especially since you can't do anything there for a long time. besides, those bats still pose a big challenge to a first-level player

see, the thing about the entrygame in a balanced game is that enemies are easy. give the player time to settle into things. you will have somewhere on the order of 400 HP and enemies will deal 30 to 50 damage each and die in two hits. you will not have 200 HP and enemies who deal 50 to 70 HP and die in three or four hits. it sounds like a few minor differences but it really makes a thing

also you do not have monsters in the entrygame that can simultaneously stun, poison, and do a load of damage to one character.


nothing of the sort. Shakespeare knew how to write dialogue. your problem isn't being wordy, it's having your characters explicitly explain their emotions and motivations to the audience, and give exposition in a really cluttered and thinly-veiled way.

seriously you did not just compare yourself to Shakespeare. nothing you do justifies that correlation. you do not take criticism about your writing and turn it around and say WELP GUESS I'M AN ARTISTIC GENIUS WITH SKILLS BEYOND YOU PHILISTINES

because man I know beauty and what you do is not it


how did you not expect this to make the player completely lose interest in the characters and story? because that's what it accomplishes. trying to do a serious scene in a serious game in a self-aware joking kind of way doesn't work out (although personally I think you're just covering your ass with the "that's what I meant to do" thing)


yes and it took away from that scene incredibly, even considering the terrible dialogue that preceded it


check player's facing
if player is not facing up set a move route to place him in the appropriate space in front of the girl
continue the event as before

I can't resist...

You just got Tomamawk'd (corny I know, but it played out so well)

Hi, erm, please try to stay on topic and don't make this into about who posted what, because that way lies drama and silliness. This isn't about "tomamawk"ing but rather about providing Gaia with useful criticism so that he may improve his game. ~Perihelion

Now, as far as my opinion goes, it's been stated already. Your bats are too powerful for first encounter enemies. I understand the desire to want battles that aren't ridiculously easy (and I employ that same desire in my own projects), but you're making them a little TOO tough. Later down the road fine, but not so early.

Mapping could be better, but my problems have already been addressed.

I hope you take this criticism and roll with it. I know a fair number of people who hear so much feedback and think people hate their project and dump it completely. I'm sure you've put a lot of work into this, and I hope it works out in the end.

Okay, all of your criticism is being noted and I am working hard to address all of your concerns. The opening scenes and parts of the game are in need of an overhaul; as I said, I've improved since then and it shows the further you get in, so I should redo them.

@Mawk: you took that in completely the wrong direction. I wasn't comparing myself to Shakespeare, I was just making a small passing reference in a joking manner. I personally find Shakespeare boring and repetitious, and so was noting that unintentionally this was how my dialogue turned out because of a personal flaw. I DO tend to be quite long winded. As I've said though, I do improve. Those parts of the game should be reworked.

what did you expect? if you start obviously trying to downplay a problem to yourself then make a comparison to one of the most well-known and well-liked writers ever, most people's knee-jerk reaction is not going to be "oh heh a little self-effacing humour."

and again, the problem's not that the dialogue is "long winded." it's that the dialogue is dull and unrealistic and in many places it's just strikingly obvious that you're trying to shoehorn exposition in without paying much attention to how it fits. it is a little long winded, yes, but that's by no means the major problem. in fact, long winded as it is, I'd have expected you would have been able to fit in that exposition with much more skill than you did.

p.s. the TM symbol really ruins a title screen for me. I'm fairly sure no one is going to gruffle "Legionwood" as a title for their game in the first place.

The TM is just there to abate my own personal feelings. I like to have TMs, so they go there. I feel that it improves presentation just a little, but if you think it's better without...

Okay, I officially retract my Shakespeare comments...

Also, the reason my writing is a bit off is that I quite literally make it up as I go along. For the next version, I'll go through and rewrite every cutscene.

Edit: Nevermind... I figured it out a while ago.

UPDATE NEWS

A new release is currently on the way, expected to arrive in mid January. While it isn't a new chapter release, it is still a release worth getting, due to the fact that it addresses most of the criticisms people have about Legionwood.

In short: This is a version of the game designed to get rid of the things people hate about Legionwood and make it a more appealing game to the people who currently despise it.

Features

I've decided to pretty much overhaul Legionwood as I've decided I want to make it into a game that everyone can play that is fun to play. I'm addressing the most pressing criticisms about the game and turning the game into a more casual game overall. I don't want to make a revolutionary game; just one that is fun and does what it does well. Thus, whether you're a fan of Legionwood already, someone who's never played, or someone who despises the game with a passion, I urge you to try this new release, as it is a new Legionwood and one which I've engineered to appeal more to you.

1. Every line of dialogue in the game and every cutscene will be streamlined and rewritten, and will flow smoother and more naturally.

2. The issues with balancing in the early areas of the game (which thankfully do even out later on) will be resolved. The early game difficulty will more closely match the later areas of the game. You will be able to clear the first dungeon at level one.

3. Several skills and items will be rebalanced as some are too weak/too powerful.

4. Focus will be taken off characterisation and placed upon the story instead. I agree: Legionwood is always awkward in the scenes where I make the characters try to characterise so the story will now become more world driven.

5. A complete playtest will be done and every reported bug and sound error will be fixed.

6. Chapter three will be extended slightly. You'll be able to proceed to Castoth's fortress this time around.

Release Notes

Despite all these massive changes, those currently playing the game will be able to use their save files to continue if they want to.

Update/News - Jan 2010

Hey there everyone!

As I type this, the fourth release of Legionwood is busy being uploaded onto RMN's servers where with luck it will be available to download soon. With that said, if it isn't there when you try to download it, it most likely hasn't been approved yet, so try back in a few hours and it probably will be.

As Legionwood is my main project, I've invested quite a lot of time into it so far (bordering two years now) so it wasn't a very difficult decision in the long run to try and pinpoint people's major concerns with the previous versions of Legionwood and spend time addressing these things and reworking the game to a more likable state rather than simply pressing on with yet another chapter with those problems unfixed, so the main draw of this release is simply being able to see a refined, redone version of Legionwood rather than seeing new content.

In summary: This is the new Legionwood. The game you know is still in there, except now it's different. The bad parts nobody liked are gone, and the good parts have been made much, much better. This is Legionwood in its best form yet. Hopefully if you didn't like the game before, this version will prove to be much more appealing to you. I've worked very hard. Special thanks go to the folks of RMN and HB Games for helping me with this.

For those who were expecting new content however, don't despair! This version of Legionwood brings with it a bigger, expanded chapter three with about a full hour's worth of new story material and quests, plus these little additions as well:

- Rewritten dialogue from the start of chapter one to the end of chapter three. Cut scenes now flow more naturally, are not as boring as they once were and are somewhat shorter too.
- New battle system! The battle system has been upgraded to a later, smoother running version of the Tankentai script, so you can expect new battle abilities based on Tankentai's unique animation capabilities. As well as this, you can expect semi-new battle backgrounds and every single enemy being rebalanced and tweaked to make for an easier but still challenging game.
- Tweaked and rebalanced character stats and growth. Level ups have been made a lot weaker in terms of stat boosts so emphasis is now on the AP system to develop your character (as was originally intended) plus all characters now have roughly the same stat growth, meaning now you truly can create your own class as all restrictions that existed before, such as characters obviously being geared towards spellcasting etc, have been removed.
- New, shorter game intro which is somehow as (if not more) informative storywise as the last one despite only being a tenth as long.

Sweet! It sounds like your revisions are going to be well worth it. I look forward to downloading!

I haven't gotten around around to playing this yet, but judging from reading a few of the comments you have problems with overly verbose characters. Here's some advise for your revisions, take it or leave it;

Characters should never spew out their goals and life story unless they have some major motivation to do so. Drop hints here and there if you want us to learn their history or clues about a plot point to come - don't give it to us all in one big dramabomb.

One of the biggest things that irks me about video game writing, JRPGs in particular, is the way they'll take what would have otherwise been a subtle clue and HAMMER IT INTO YOUR SKULL OVER AND OVER until any twists or revelations are obvious because of ham-handed exposition.

Another thing is don't be afraid to have characters be a little deceptive, whether they mean to be or not - unless it's the Voice of God himself giving you exposition, It's going to be a little biased to that character's point of view.

More to come when I play through the demo - BTW I like your windowskin. :)