Thanks for the words of support. I'm glad you enjoy it! I promise to make the Complete Edition well worth the wait.

At this point, it's still too early to say about pricing, though.

VACANT SKY Volume 1: CONTENTION
by Sailerius and the BC Buddies


part 2 :)

okay, so i pick up at my save point and head out into the woods again.

here's a suggestion for the battles: is there a better way to emphasize which character you are controlling at the moment? i mean it's not that it isn't CLEAR, but the ATB rate is very fast (this is good) but when combat is going quickly i think it might be more INTUITIVE to have like the currently selected hero maybe his face gets huge or something—isnt there a script to have the camera zoom in? idk man just SOMETHINg i think do you get what i am saying?

FUCK YOU. i give my ly life to tell some guy that his wife needs help hiding her jewelry (the dialogue here is—again—horribly expository and not believable in any way whatsoever. it's so by-the-books "go here do this" wordy garbage. i mean don't get me wrong, it's not like THE WORST EVER by any stretch, but i want to hold this project to a high standard, because it's the kind of project that deserves that kind of recognition. imo take some time and find some articles or something on writing dialogue for film or something it might help).

also i get that I chose "veteran" instead of "beginner", but dude your enemies take our 2/3rd of my character's HP with each swing. on top of that I have no skills to use other than these useless "dodge" and "guard" techs. and i have no healing items.

it's like the game is saying: "oh hey i don't really want you to play me anyway." a game should be VERY EASY IN THE BEGINNING (especially in an RPG game because you want to quickly give your player that feeling of success when gaining levels). i should not be dying at all in the very first area of the game, i dont give a shit what difficulty i chose.


okay so on the third time i dodge the battles until i can equip both the things from the cave and manage to get through to the dead boy who seems to be still breathing.

zaqris is kinda a dick, huh.

blondie is RAYMOND BELMONT, DEMON SLAYER. ummm ok i'll go along with it sure.

okay so after some dialogue that pretty much promises THESE TWO WILL FUCK we go into a flashback. i have written a lot and lot before (in a review like these ones i did for Quintessence) about why it's not a good idea to go into flashbacks this early in the story. so i'll spare you that and just say: ITS NOT A GOOD IDEA TO GO INTO FLASHBACKS THIS EARLY IN THE STORY.

first off please do not change my playable characters again after I had just used them for the first time. this is fucking ridiculous. just put me into the game already.

after the first five doors i try don't lead anywhere, i give up wanting to explore and head towards wherever the commands instructed me.

so im in a cafe or something with a girl and suddenly i'm choosing to lie about mundane things. :| ummmmmm ok.... something was said about mom being home from work so i decide to head back home hoping to end this little dollhouse game and get back to the story.

ahahahaha dude there's a part where i walk by a tree and a shady dude sees me and disappears into the shadows that was great. unnerving and foreboding too. after much wandering through an exmpty town I find myself at the train station where I say a tearful farewell to mom, who is sending me to live with my father because i went into a suburban cafe to study with a friend the morning after people were murdered nearby.

the whole shooting scene seemed a bit lame and entirely unprovoked honestly (did my mom set me up to be executed?) but i guess it works.

and now we ask ourselves: did this portion REALLY need to be PLAYABLE? (answer: no) could we have just used the relevant cutscene part —and NOT take away from the main action for purposes of arbirarily lengthening gameplay time? (answer: yes)

okay so it's time for the debut of the great hall of legends. i'm gonna save and take a break here. i know i didn't play for too long but i need to get some sleep becase i work tonight. know that i DO plan on continuing with this—let me know if that's something that you want or if you dont find my crits useful at all.

That's possible. Doesn't the active character flash? I could've sworn it did.


Man, I only increased their stats by 2 points and they went from too easy to too hard. I'm really sorry about that. What stat build are you using?


I'm not sure what you mean by that.


The player character didn't change. o_O


It's not explicitly stated, but Auria visits her father every weekend. It's a weekly occurrence.


That entire section is skippable if you go back home before finishing.


No, I do find it very useful and I appreciate it.

then what's the point of it at all? cut it. it's nothing but fake gameplay time and serves no purpose to advance the story. when they're sitting aroundthe campfire about to tell the story to blondie, have it start when she gets off the train

okay and now we're back on the horse.

PERVIOUSLY ON VACANT SKY: auria got shot in the head by a cop like a loudmouth ho getting executed by her pimp. i am picking up from the save point in my first OFFICIAL encounter at the hall of legelds.


"Cut the drama and tell me what's going on." PLEASE DO.

okay so a bunch of ghosts from dead heroes have set up a hivemindish link to my own consciousness in order to resurrect me from the dead. that's actually a pretty sweet idea. i'm really hoping that this isn't gonna be a lame throway excuse for stupid GAM FEATURS and that this becomes like a central story point because i'd like to follow through on this—oh shit bro is this what the VIRAD are are they the hivemind of dead heroes that would be great.

so i get to pickin' weapons from pools. it seems like the choices here represent stats (sword=atk, spear=magic, dagger=spd, sheild=def, am i right?). i want to customize my character really offensively (because your baddies are tuff and i want to kill them enemies before they get to killin me) so i get two swords and GO THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR but i guess i'm not ready to open the gate anyway, and the old guy still won't do anything until i talk to blondie.

you mean I'm—*big anime exclamation point and explosion noise*—dead? really, i think that even in the hippest of hip heroes, there can't be a comic reaction to that kind of news because it creates a disconnect with your player. your protagonist's WANT is to live, right? her motivation? you should take advantage of every chance in your writing to emphasize that. just a change of tone could help tremendously in a few easy places (i would think something like: she shivers or recedes before even acknowledging the guy (think what's going through her head: im dead i just keep thinking about those last moments and he's right i'm totally dead shit fuck im dead im dead but i never got to meet my friend because im DEAD WHAT NO ILL NEVER GET MARRIEDHAVE KIDS GROW UP I WILL NEVER I WILL NEVER I WILL NEVER and how fucking horrifying that revelation would be) and like REALLY capitalize on the emotion of this revelation. i mean this has to be one of the most important events of the game, right? I feel like this whole sequence needs to be more about AURIA and WHO SHE IS AS A PERSON, WHO SHE IS AS A MAIN CHARACTER. the scenes and this whole flashback sequence are intended to have that effect, right? but out of it all I can't seem to figure out the most important thing about a protagonist: what does Auria want? i mean maybe to complete this "To-Do List" that will probably sit useless in my inventory for the rest of the game. the easy answer is to Auria's desire is life, but that's hardly SHOWN here at all, just sort of understood by the fact that she is dead. give her a PASSION.

so okay ray the demonslayer is going to join our party because he seems *shrugs shoulders* trutworty enoughWOAH WOAH WOAH BACK UP A SECOND weren't we just fighting our way through a forest where hordes of human bandits were trying to murder us? didn't i just recount the story of how a random police officer MURDERED ME WITHOUT CAUSE? yeah, okay—sure let this zany guy sleep at camp with us. Seri is a fucking idiot and i hope ray cuts their throats in their sleep.

hey btw can you increase the—um—PADDING of the box with the name? on short names (like "Auria") the ornate box corner designs seem like they protrude pretty aggressively into the text area

so now we're at ciel and i take it we slept peacefully and woke up again and traveled here or maybe this is a dream sequence? Ciel: Whisper in the silence

there's a sprite of raymond hanging out by the gate and he won't talk to me; it looks like he got stuck there or something from the end of the cutscene?

i can walk to the south end of the path on the map but it doesn't lead anywhere???


at this point i wonder if the hero is gonna be gettin any sweet duds any time soon. i don't think that a purplse blouse and jeans are suitable hero attire. (addendum: although she does have a sweet design in all your art and stuff for her it doesn'tt ranslate well to this sprite at all.)

and why am i thinking about fasion when i am in a village that has apprently been freshly slaughtered. and what are my instincts? start looting their homes :)

i think that this part is pretty well made. my instinct is "loot the houses" so i'm keen on exploring. along the way i find intriguing things that make me care about whats going on. good story sequence imo. i thought was a cool way of getting thecoins from the bag and went with what i was thinking as a player, also the event with the body on the floor was cool because it makes you think "well how did these guys get OUT after they slaughtered everyone (or did they)? i think that this is a prime oppurtunity for some REALLY ATMOSPHERIC EXPLORATION so you could capitalize on it a bit further: lots of interactive events, secrets, bigger rewards, etc.

Dawn Postion "heals some stat depressors?" what. that sounds useless.

"Some bottles filled with liquor. I'm not interested right now." Honestly—I think that everything we've seen so far might have the opposite effect. Now i might sound like i'm trying to rewrite auria's character but i'm not (largely though because her character seems very ummm generic so far), but i think that if the four playables (who are in my party with me even though they are walking around on the map outside) would each grab a bottle and start washing the horrors away—auria ESPECIALLY since she died and is lost and everything. and based on the throwaway "I'm not interested right now." line i can't say that her refusal is because she's underage or any bullshit similar. this feels like another oppurtunity for showing some heavy character development and get people talking about WHAT THEY WANT.

auria is giving me two very different reactions: one one hand she keeps saying "oh god this is horrible i need it to go away" but she sometimes seems a lot more lax about it (like when interacting with the other party members who are wandering around on the map or when grabbing those coints from the satchel). personally i would give each party a voice with different reactions (maybe even each event could use something as simple as randomly displayed one of the four hero'es reactions each time you check the event).

i really think the music in this section is pretty sweet bro

also is that virad graffiti on the wall that's cool, but ANYWAY i'm spending waay too much attention on one segment on with the game.

the little WANT TO KNOW ABOUT REACTION speech could have come earlier. although probably i'm just bitter because i died early.

okay so in this section the battles seem a lot more failry balanced and it feels like we're right where we should be. having four party members now seems key, and its nice to have potions if i need them. i would suggest putting a playable area between the CAMPSITE and the SLAUGHTER VILLAGE (and maybe move the reaction explanation there too) so we get to enjoy having ray in the party a little before stumbling across mountains of dead people.

wait what, i guess "we're here" already, even though i was still exploring. is that abigger forest area because i went trhough the cave and thought i was gonna find a secret or something but suddenly i apparently made it to the next town. it really doesn't make sense to have the main way into a town is through a creepy tunnel that leads to some kind of closed-off guarded tomb. :\


"you smell like feet. if you don't take a bath, i'm gonna kick you off a—"I hate to keep ripping on you for dialogue but YOU ARENT EVEN TRYING ANYMORE ARE YOU.

im gonna go back to the woods to—WHAT. there's nothing here anyway. are you seriously telling me that this whole area was only two litle maps and then the next town? dude these are your chances to try and give us some gameplay and i'm sort of feeling robbed of CONTROL. everywhere i try to go i keep getting turned away. (i don't want to use the word "linear" because i'm 10000% in favor of totally linear stories but the gameplay here doesn't seem more than "Get from this cutscene to this cutscene" rather than the other way around. are we making a game at all?

the innkeeper is mean. i guess he's got some kind of thing against gingers. me, i think ginger girls are adorable.

man i like the "do you want to help" "nope" exchange. but i feel as though it should be followed up by trampling the plants under my feet (like dude if you put a sound effect and a graphic change on each of the little plants in Jacob's garden it'll be so funny and totally a worthwile little bit of interactivity. and then maybe the girl gets sad and if you talk to jacob again he'll be less of a angry arab (or maybe more!!!)

who is Oujou Zatenrai

oh ew ew ew ew dude dude you have a door event RIGHT ON THE LAST TIEL OF THE MAP (the one leads to the library) are you serious? this is like the most noobish and horrendous mapping mistake i've seen in an rpgmaker game. do i even have to explain this? make your map a little wider or move the buildings around a bit but i shouldn't shouldering up against to the invisible walls if i want to go somewhere legitimate.

"i am tracing our route please do not disturb me". why not? shouldn't he be eager to share? this would be a great oppurtunity to not only expand on Zarquis's personality (if he even has one at all) while showing off a map of the world graphic. let him school us a little. i wouldn't have gone into the library if i didn't want to read (noteworthy that every grave has a different name but you can't tajke the time to put ANYTHING on the bookshelves in the library?—and no loot in the storage room? ripoff! why have the map there at all?)

i will say that i really like the way you do your panoramas though.

so i'm talking to seri and have to wonder: why were they going to ciel in the first place. they kept talking about OUR DESTINATION IS CIEL but we got there and everyone died and then we decided "oh welp lets head to farithe"—what were seri and zaq gonna do there in the first place? did they have family or something? i think that they need some kind of REACTIOn to the whole thing.

even after i've been invited into corinne's home i cannot go inside unless i talk to her and can't use the door. i might unlock the door after she's first introduced.

okay but here's the scene with the alibaa siblings or w/e and i think that you're giving me that REACTION i was just talking about so cool. nicely timed in your story to get me thinking about it and then give it to me. :)

ohhh sweet we are coming face to face with a Virad. I think that this might be our inciting incident!? (which means we've still got a loooong way to go ohhyea.

OH DUDE and we killed this guy's husband. ahahha holy shit man that's sweet. okay so we';re running and this scene is cool and intense. then we go and hide up in the library (ugh again it just really bugs me that we crawl against the side of the map like that) and now i'm thinking maybe that sotrage room will have a purpose after all?

"WE JUST KILLED SOMEONE OH GOD WE'RE KILLERS OH MY GOD"
"what about the thirteen bandits we slaughtered on the way here"
"THAT WAS DIFFERENT THEY DIDNT HAVE MAP SPRITES"
it's completely impossible to take this scene seriously at all and i think that the great score is wasted.

(honestly i never got ray's "clueless child act" in the first place except in auria's reaction to him and her notebook. he sounded like a pretty normal demon hunting dude)

okay sweet dude there's a portal down here this is better than i expected nice.

ahhahahhaa and here is weapon from the intro. he comes in a lot earlier than i would have thought and i think that this is really nicely done here. he's also got a face which i dont remember him having before and it's cool to see it.

ahahaha weapon seriously is talking about raping the girls holy shit he's such a villain.

OH GOD WHATS GOING ON THIS IS COOL FUCK YEAH I JUST WENT SUPER SAIYAN ALL oh wait dude did she get a whitefacemask like the guy from the intro? that's totally badass if she did but you should show it off. let her face the camera, this scene's pretty badass and wouldn't mind the flash. as it is we see a flicker of his in the side view but that's about it.

(also seri doesnt want to kill her rapist i wouldn't advise releasing this game at any feminist rallies)

ahahahha what i am playing as my party members against myself? this is nuts (not in a bad way). although this battle gives us a level up so auria's gonna be behind everyone elsehahahaha.

so we teleport back through the tunnel, where weapon is waiting and presumably with sandarga and michael waiting somewhere around—but SHIT THERES THE GUY WHO KILLED ME.

hey so i like the stuff between blaise and axylias (i really hate a lot of your fantasy names dude). pretty meaty. interesting that he's first revealed as "well-dressed man" thanks for the description instead of just having it so his back isnt turned to us the whole time and we can't even see that he's well-dressed.

"But she's my goddess." I actually fucking like where this could be going dude.

so now we're taking a train to visit dad and why exactly am i being all friendly with the man who murdered me.

the flashing effect over the village is really fucking sweet dude. this game knows how to make pretty rpgmaker graphics.

WAIT WHAT that's the end? i thought we were just beginning on something a lot more expansive. but then again you have two more chapters (volumes, acts? this is act 1 and volume 1 so its rpetty confusing). but either way you ended on a good note and i might keep going BUT

dude really there was like no gameplay in this at all. if it actually ended where it just ended then this was nothing more than a big flashy prologue, cutscene after cutscene and a few linear maps here and there and it felt pretty hollow. my suggestion: you need at least one full-fledged dungeon for auria and her friends before the shit goes down with the virad at the end oft his chapter. i think it would be a great oppurunity to just ADD a whole dungeon area (maybe even with more skirting virad in the shadows) on the morning after they wake up after auria's story, give the player time to PLAY (and use it as a chance to show off more of the party members' personality and how they interact with each other).

so the ending makes me wonder: act two is gonna be called "halo locks" but act one's title screen says "welcome to halo locks" and really i just don't get your naming conventions here at all.

also general notes on battles:

i think that once you get the fourth party member the difficulty is just fine but your items need to be buffed severely. i don't think that they are helpful enough with the comparable strength of the enemies(or maybe make em cheaper) enemies that dodge waaaaaay too much. totally missing an enemy and wasting a turn complete should never happen on a regular basis.

all in all: the game is visually enjoyable and the story seems like it'd going to be badass but i think that there are lots of issues with the balance/pacing of information, story and gameplay.

Oops, darling!.


Do you mean the southern end of the town? Huh.


That's a good point. I'll think about that.


That's a good idea.


Did you talk to Seri in Ciel? They were going to move in with Seri's uncle who lived there.


Keep in mind stat builds. ACC-centric characters can reliably hit people who dodge but do crappy damage against people who defend. ATK-centric characters can crush defenders but rarely hit someone who's dodging.

Thanks again for playing and the detailed feedback. Act II is in beta now but I'm doing a lot of thorough testing before I let anyone else see it; it's highly nonlinear and I want to make sure that glaring continuity bugs are worked out first. Would you be interested in checking it out once it's done?

yes

also



well it doesnt necessarily have to be a DUNGEON DUNGEON but a place with dungeon elements to give the player something to actually play. you really don't have any play that makes up the MEAT of the game. your logic "this is just to get them to play act II" is flawed because if someone is in this for the GAME then they're not gonna want to pick up act II at all after playing this.

remember that shadowy virad guy who disappeared when i was wandering around and i thought that was really cool? i think that a dungeon using some more of those kinds of guys on the way to ciel would be awesome. you could even have ray be like I SEE A DEMON LOL and rushes off into the woods and they get lost or something, but you really need something with a SUBSTANTIAL PORTION of gameplay time to serve as the centerpiece for ACT I which you really just don't have at all. i think the most actual playtime came in the intro when i was with the badguys and you don't want that: this needs to be an introduction for our heroes. i would say that this is probably overall the most important point from the entire review of ACT I. as it is, it doesn't stand on its own in any way whatseover.

hey dude so Istarted playing ACTII.

these are my thoughts (thread):

Oh, cool. I'll take a look at it pretty soon. As I'm sure you've noticed, that's quite a bit out of date compared to the Complete Edition (especially in terms of the battle system), but as I'm working on the revised version now, I'm sure your thoughts will come in handy.

EDIT: Just watched it. The reason why your save game wasn't usable is because it's from the new version of Act I. My apologies for that. I broke compatibility with the new version in order to make some much-needed bug fixes and system improvements. In the public release, the game will handle save transferring/importing for you.

I was cringing as I saw you interact with the bed again because I had a bad feeling that you'd hit that bad end. Yeah, that was silly and I've since removed it. Fortunately, it's the only instance of that in the game.

this one has a rando error that you might want to be aware of?

Wow, you are extremely unlucky. I have honestly never heard of that error before. Why is it this only happens when someone's recording it? >_>

I'll look into it. Let me know if it happens again.

ok so i played it again and got the same error, but i was recording so i tried it again without the recording and everything went smooth. so it looks like that error was on my end.

i recorded another segment and hopefully i'll put it up tomorrow morning after work.

Huh, that's very strange. What recording software are you using?

I'm really sorry about the problems.

i'm using camtasia 6, but i only had a problem at that one part and i'm passed it now so no big deal. your not gonna like what i have to say about the writing though dude/ :(

New wallpaper to celebrate a year since Act III's release!

For anyone who's interested in the Vacant Sky universe, I've been working on a short story set in that universe titled Ars Harmonia. Currently, fourteen chapters are up. Check it out here!

http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/

For those who've fallen behind on Ars Harmonia, it's presently up to 19 chapters, with just left in the second movement. Check it out here:
http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/

I don't know everyone who is still following this, but as it goes for writing, this is amazing! You came up with a strategic way to keep a story going. I am really enjoying what you have here. Keep it up, I think you are onto something here!

I'm glad you're enjoying it! It doesn't get nearly as much traffic or commentary as the game, so it's encouraging to hear that people like it.

Reading on the internet is always a bit of a pickle. But the chapters i read where pretty well written. Try to get it released as an e-book or something when it's finished? ;)

That's the plan, although that's quite a ways off.

The second movement of Ars Harmonia has just come to an end. For those who are new, it's a series of short stories set in the Vacant Sky universe. You can check it out here: http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia

Presently, AH is on hiatus while I work on the third movement (and other projects!). To accommodate for the lack of an update this week, here's a reference sheet of the white-haired woman:

The bluesophia.net and flameupload links for Act III are now dead.

So, here's the download link for Act III:

http://www.mediafire.com/?io7k166qukxm0xz

Thanks for the notification. I edited the OP.

In vaguely related news, look forward to something special this Friday!

Three years have now passed since the first release of Vacant Sky Act I, the first work by Project BC. Since the completion of Vacant Sky Act III, we've started to branch out with some smaller, experimental titles. Finding Eden, an action/adventure microgame was released over this past summer as well as The Vestibule, a mystery visual novel. Although these smaller titles have been fun experiments that let us try new things, some fans have expressed concern about the radio silence regarding our major projects. Today, on the anniversary of Vacant Sky's first release, I'd like to alleviate those concerns with some announcements. Without further adieu, let's see what's in store for the coming year!

The World Is Made of Paper Demo II
A visual novel titled The World Is Made of Paper, written and illustrated entirely by ganonfrog, has just released its second demo. The game is an atmospheric, psychological adventure and is a great thrill to play. Check out the updated demo and let us know what you think! http://rpgmaker.net/games/2954/



Vacant Sky Volume 1: Contention Complete Edition
I'm pleased to say that Act I and Act II of Contention Complete are now finished and most of Act III is finished as well, save for the new content. Although adding the new content and conducting testing will take some time, the game is coming along smoothly and I hope to make it available soon. However, a public beta of Act I+ has been released. Feel free to offer your feedback!



Ars Harmonia
If you haven't been staying up to date, Ars Harmonia is a series of short stories set in the Vacant Sky universe. These stories expand upon concepts of the world introduced in the games, with a focus on demons and enchantment and the way they interact with the world. Following the completion of the second movement, it has been put on temporary hiatus while the third movement gets ironed out. That will soon be coming to an end! Look forward to the launch of Ars Harmonia's third movement, Crossing the Line of Isolation, on April 2nd!

For those who haven't been keeping up, check it out here: http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia



That wraps it up as far as updates on existing projects goes. However, it would be a bummer to celebrate the anniversary of Vacant Sky without at least announcing something new. Now I'd like to unveil a new project that we've been working on behind the scenes for the past couple of months. I've been sitting on this announcement for a while as we've been working away. It's been very hard to keep it a secret! And now that I've held you in suspense for long enough, I would like to finally announce Project BC's next title.



Set two thousand years before Act I and the story of Auria Edith, Vacant Sky: Awakening tells the tale of Dakura Maladorr, the founder of the original Virad and Orka's first Black Knight. Take on the role of history's most notorious tyrant and leave a trail of destruction in your wake as you fight to protect the end of the world later this year. For screenshots, character bios, and more info, check it out here: viewtopic.php?f=78&p=873119

***

That brings an end to this year's Day of Contention announcements. Thanks to all our friends and fans who have been so supportive for these past few years! I hope you continue to enjoy our projects. Please look forward to another great year for Project BC!

Today marks the start of Ars Harmonia's third movement! Check it out here:
http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/

After a short hiatus, we're back!

http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/

Chapter 26 of Ars Harmonia, a short story taking place in the Vacant Sky universe, has been released.

could this be the end of our hero??? find out next time

"I swear to God, I’m going to wring his neck…"

Today's a double update for Ars Harmonia! Since chapter 30 is quite short, I decided to release it together with chapter 29. Two new chapters are out. Check them out here:

Chapter 29: http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/20 ... de-flight/
Chapter 30: http://www.projectbc.net/arsharmonia/20 ... sensation/

http://www.mediafire.com/?gdkjjtubmedd8e2
http://projectbc.wordpress.com/2012/08/ ... -released/

It's finally here.

For those who have been holding off on starting the series, this is a perfect place to start! Act I+ is a fresh start and expects no past knowledge of the series. It brings in significant improvements to the story, graphics, and gameplay.

I hope you guys enjoy playing it!

Hold up. Complete edition? As in the entire game, or all of Act I? Either way, kudos for finishing (at least one part of) such an ambitious project. I remember starting one of the earlier demos, but everything looks so much more polished now. I'd give you more in-depth feedback if I had the time to play it, but I promise I'll get around to it eventually (once my college life settles down). Good luck, and congrats!