DQ Gaiden: A Starry Legend

[slimeborgi 48]

With true demo release in 3 days! Here's some more info. I want DQ fan's input on the game! It's a fan game so made by and for the fans!

 

Story:

Welcome, to the world of Lotaga. Peace has been abound for hundreds of years after the defeat of a powerful Demon Lord. However, with the threat of monsters gone mankind has turned on one another! The kingdoms of Lotaga, who once allied to stop the Demon Lord, now quarrel with one another over petty things. 

In the past, the mighty hero, Loran, conquered the Great Evil King Geldos, with powers granted to him from the GodBird, Ramia. With his victory his descendants established and rule over the Loran Kingdom. Yet time has forgotten about Loran's great deed... and a New Evil has surmounted to take humankind by surprise! 

You are the child of Batas one of the "Twin Axes of Loran", the best fighters in Loran Kingdom and sworn protectors of the King! One fateful morning, at the start of your young adulthood, the King asks you to be at his attendance... Thus begins the story of you the Hero!

 

About the game:

-Utilizes Graphics/Music from GBC Dragonquest Games Including spell and attack animations (mostly from DQ 3)
-Contains Custom enemies/cutscenes/battlebacks/etcetc made by me Dio.. er Slimeborgi!
-Includes many of the elements found in Dragon Quest/Warrior GBC games (Casinos,Warpwings(animated),Death Processing, Chapel/King saves, GBC style fonts and menus, and even monster recruiting!) 
-A big Thanks to Jamirus834. He's credited for the DQ style menu/battlemenu along with many other DQish elements. 
-A branching story with an open world and events.

-Themes from various DQ games

 

Screenshots:

Standard Battle Screens:

 

 

Day and Night:

 

 

Story Cutscenes:

 

 

 

I'm still looking for team members, just in the event I can't finish this project for whatever reason, I can then pass it on to them. That and someone to brainstorm with; I have a pretty good idea on the final story. Future demo's will need bug testers, but this first demo I've done most of that myself (there have been a few helpers along the way).

 

In all honesty I think this game will be easy to complete in a year I've worked on it a little longer than a month with great progress. It's a matter of getting all the graphics into the game now!

[slimeborgi 48]

This demo release should be well over 3 hours of content my last playthrough was at 3:30 min and thats before I added more stuff. I hope the final game will be around 18-20 hours. (With alot of post game action)

 

For monster Recruiting I was wondering if the following sounds good?

 

Defeating some monsters may yield a monster heart. With the hearts you can form a monster egg. This egg hatches into a monster that will help you fight in battle. I can be morphed into stronger monsters using more hearts. Only 4-6 monster slots total, this is because the game has human fighters too.

 

Formula works this way:

 

1 monster heart to get a monster egg.

 

2 monster hearts to convert a monster.

     -Combining two monster hearts may yield a newer monster. 

 

I'm only wondering how to make the monsters drop these hearts only by using treats.

[hawkeye77o4 209]

Woooo! Absolutely gorgeous!

[King Zenith 641]

Wow, this looks amazing.  Nice work!

 

Looking forward to the demo.  In the mean time, I noticed that the word "Equip" in the battle menu is mixed-cased whereas the others are all caps.  Is that intentional? 

 

Regardless of the above, this is super impressive and will no doubt be top notch.

[solo 58]

good work slimeborgi when i say the name i thougt to my self is this a dragon quest sidescroller

[slimeborgi 48]

Wow, this looks amazing.  Nice work!

 

Looking forward to the demo.  In the mean time, I noticed that the word "Equip" in the battle menu is mixed-cased whereas the others are all caps.  Is that intentional? 

 

Regardless of the above, this is super impressive and will no doubt be top notch.

I just saw that, just fixed it!

[slimeborgi 48]

Finished the Demo, I may release it tonight!

https://youtu.be/eMMeYCdDC68

Edited April 29, 2017 by slimeborgi

[slimeborgi 48]

Demo has been officially released.

You can download it here!

https://rpgmaker.net/games/9700/

[Liam 7]

I'm a nitpick on grammar and tiny details, so.. here we go..

 

Intro

 

"Long ago, in the land of Lotaga, 4 strong kingdoms existed." –– I'd probably use "four" instead of "4" there.

"Tangtl" –– is that its actual name or a typo?

"..offered him many powerful armours.." –– thank goodness for remembering to not use "armors"

"Geldos met it's end." –– should be "its".

 

"[Name] wake up your friend is here to play!" –– I think there should probably be more punctuation in this sentence.

"Now remember no going down the Well." –– Is "Well" intentionally capitalized? Also, there should probably be more punctuation - maybe "Now remember, no going down the Well."

"Also be careful around the horse." –– Maybe a comma after "also"?

 

"Follow me to the Horse stable!" –– Should it be capitalized as "Horse Stable"? Or, if we only capitalize "Horse", "be careful around the horse" should probably be "be careful around the Horse". I think it'd be better to capitalize place names, though, and maybe monster names (ex. "Hey, look - this Cureslime is huge!").

 

"So, I read this book about a golden slime" –– Consider capitalizing "slime" here. You might think about capitalizing "golden", as well (i.e. "Golden Slime") if Golden Slimes are actual monsters - keep it lowercase if it's just an adjective describing a "Slime" though.

 

"Great we can meet back here later tonight!" –– There should definitely be a comma after "great".

 

"Then make our way down the well!" –– Should "well" be capitalized, since it was earlier? (You used "the well" instead of "the Well" a couple dialog texts previously, too - I just forgot to take note). A comma should be after "then" here too.

 

..In fact, I'd rewrite this whole dialog box as "Ava: Great, we can meet back here later tonight, then make our way down the well." ..or maybe.. "Ava: Great, we can meet back here later tonight! Then we'll make our way down the well."

 

"..lets go around the village!" –– Missing apostrophe in "lets".

 

(In inn) "Back again? Leave me alone please!" –– Should there be a comma after "alone" here? (I'm not really sure!)

 

"Oh hush Aru! My brother is so annoying." –– Ara first talks to Aru ("Oh hush Aru!"), then changes to talk to the player ("My brother is so annoying."). Maybe there should be a pause and/or line break between the two sentences, to make it clearer that she's, like, turning around towards you, or changing her focus?

 

"You know Batas & Tega?" –– First, ampersands - are those ever better than just "and"?    – Also, should this be "You know, Batas and Tega?", with a comma after "know"?

 

"Our fathers are so neat huh [name]!" –– A question mark could also work here, but it might be better to keep as an exclamation mark. Also, it might be best to have some commas: "..are so neat, huh, [name]!"

(Town guard) "Don't worry in a few years(..)" –– There should be a comma after "Don't worry" (i.e. "Don't worry, in a few years(..)").

 

"I think it's getting late [name] maybe we should go home and rest a little." –– this should probably have more punctuation, maybe something like this: "I think it's getting late, [name]. Maybe we should go home and rest a little."

 

General

 

"[Name] peered into the vase..."; "There are no books that pique [name]'s interest." –– pick a tense! - usually present tense works best, ex. "[Name] peers into the vase"/"[Name] obtains the item"/"Ew! The yucky goo poisons [name]."

 

"[Name] peered into the vase..."; "Found a Herb." –– I wonder if this is a bit weird? We go "[Name] [verb]" ("[Name] peered") in the first sentence, but just "[verb]" in the second ("found"). I like DQ-DS's translations, because they read nicer, imo: "What luck! A medicinal herb."; "[Name] obtains the medicinal herb."

 

"Found 5G" –– there should definitely be a period after this!

 

Technical stuff

 

"[Character] joins the party!" –– in most DQ games I've played, the music plays while this dialog box is displayed, not after. Or maybe it was different in old DQ games?

 

-

 

Menu interaction –– you're probably just going with how RPGMaker works by default, but I think that in all the DQ games, when you press right from the rightmost column in a grid-style menu (ex. the "item", "cast", "eqpt" menu) it goes to the leftmost column of the current row, not the next row down.

To clarify, your menu currently behaves like this:

 

..but in Dragon Quest, it behaves like this:

 

 

Additionally, in DQ, you can jump from the bottom of a menu to the top, and from the top to the bottom, by pressing the respective arrow key – ex. when you're on the bottom row, pressing down will take you straight to the top row, same column (and vice versa for the top side). This only seems to be a problem for the grid menu, not list menus (in list menus you can already get to the start by pressing down while on the last item).

 

-

 

I found that a few times I accidentally skipped threw a dialog box because I wasn't sure there was going to be another dialog box. That's because sometimes you have a blank pause between dialog boxes - and I mean blank, there's no dialog box visible at that point, it just looks like you can walk around the map again, when really you're still in a conversation. I'm not sure what the best solution is, though. Getting rid of the blank pauses would fix the issue, but often those blanks work well, aside from the issue I just described that inherently comes with making it look like the player can walk around the map when really they're in a discussion.

 

..okay, I'm lazy, this is all I've got.

 

[slimeborgi 48]

 

 

..okay, I'm lazy, this is all I've got.

 

Lazy? that's a whole lot. Thanks! I'll look it over.

(I'm an graduate engineer so my grammar/english has gone down the drain, should probably freshen up)

 

 

I'm trying to make a DQ 3 GBC tile set for RPG Maker for people who want that look . It is pretty funky as I think the GBC uses a different configuration for map tiles. I dont think I can pull off snowy tileset meshing with the normal one. So I'll have to customize a good portion of it.

Here's a sample:

[slimeborgi 48]

I think I'm getting the hang of the DQ 3 GBC tilesets. They use a lot of things I find aren't even necessary for how good the tile already look.

Here's some more maps, I think the next demo will have all graphics in this style? If not the world map will certainly be.

 

Rock Pass Demo 1

 

 

Rock Pass WIP

 

 

Yurro's Tower and what's that little shrine??? (Paschii Track? Monster farm? Warp to the Sky World?)

 

 

Lich Castle, Wonto Cave, a warp shrine, and the Bashur Desert.

 

 

 

Nothing! :^D

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by slimeborgi

[jamiras843 116]

Are you using auto tiles for the forests? If so your'e running into the same problem I was (Well it looks that way), where the trees show up oddly in the overworld.  I also planned on a DW3 set but I won't if you are.

[slimeborgi 48]

Are you using auto tiles for the forests? If so your'e running into the same problem I was (Well it looks that way), where the trees show up oddly in the overworld.  I also planned on a DW3 set but I won't if you are.

Don't let me using them stop you from using it. I placed those single trees you see randomly around. The World Map in DQ3 had that feature, though its usually a single tree not two together.

 

The reason for this, I'm pretty sure, is the configuration of the Tilesets in DQ3 uses multiple variations of each type of tile. I'm using two variations of the hill tiles to apply single hills. I'll probably do the same for the mountains.

 

What I have is probably the best it can get with RPG Maker.

 

Which is unfortunate because I can't do a Ice tileset that coexist with the regular tileset without it all being events. Even then I'm not sure if the ships can sail on it.... (I'll test that out sometime this week) If it doesn't work I'll just do parallax of a glacier on the map!

[jamiras843 116]

The thing about DW3 tile sets is you can't have them used as autotiles. The way autotiles from the maker compile make a weird choppy version. What has to be done for a perfect tile system is to have it as a separate overlay sheet, of course this means there is a lot more room for error since each part has to be manually done and it's a bit more time consuming. Though maybe it's just more noticable with the SNES version or DS games.

 

As for the demo a few notes:

 

* You can enter the well without Ava

* If a character dies and you leave the well prior to finishing the events the town acts as if you did finish the well events.

* If you leave the well you can leave town.

Edited May 2, 2017 by jamiras843

[slimeborgi 48]

 

Is this what you mean by auto tile? The hills are the one's that give me the biggest problem, I've seen the same mistake in the DQ3 Gbc games too. I feel like the slight mistakes in it arent too bad however Most can be avoided depending how you lay the tiles.

Edited May 2, 2017 by slimeborgi

[jamiras843 116]

Yeah that's what I mean by auto tiles. You did a lot better job than I with them. I haven't played the GBC game for three like I said I've been using the SNES graphics too

[Neofrodo 91]

This is sounding pretty good. I'll play the game when it gets released and tell ya how much fun I have with it.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Tesla

[slimeborgi 48]

Updates new patch is out 1.3.

 

I've managed to add a better battle start process.

It plays the classic battle start noise and then goes into the battle music!

 

I listed all of the things I fixed over on the RMN maker site.

[slimeborgi 48]

Monster Book updated to show if monsters can be recruited.

 

 

How it looks in battle

[King Zenith 641]

Nice, that's awesome.  Great work.

[slimeborgi 48]

Thanks, I'll be adding 20 recruitable monsters for the next demo.

[slimeborgi 48]

Here's the list so far.

 

Slime, Dracky, Lipsy, Pixie, Wakamole, Healer, Evilstump, Huribo(treeboy), Slime Knight, Wizard.

 

That leaves 10 slots for newer monsters I'll add for the next demo.

 

I hope for 50-60 monsters total and a few special monsters.

[slimeborgi 48]

Updates!

 

Added a Torneko-esque shop quest in Tangtl. You can work there and receive pay and as NPC's sell better items the shops inventory will update too!

 

Pay is based on how many weapons you sell!

 

I'll probably add more to this quest but for now It'll just be a easy way of getting cash.

[slimeborgi 48]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIbPshG1qS0

 

Here's the first part of that quest in action! I got lucky and got NPC to sell me a Stone Axe and a Broad Sword early!

 

I may have the Shop NPC move on to a larger city once he gets someone to permanently run the shop there? Maybe even have him start his own town! (there will be 3 locations to do so)

[slimeborgi 48]

So players don't forget what the monsters look like while in storage I made a function that displays the monsters sprite.

Edited May 15, 2017 by slimeborgi