fangame Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon

[Dylanrockin]

Given how hyped I was to discover that you could hear different terrain sounds in HG/SS, I'll have to say it again, HYPE

That's essentially what I programmed it off of. Getting the sound effects was the hard part, though. It was fun doing that, since it added some polish to the game, especially with how the sound effects, I programmed, to be timed to your footsteps.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Dylanrockin]

So, good news to those of you who follow my stuff!

Today is my birthday, and I've been given quite a day off, which... is nice. Even though, when you get as old as me you start to care less and less about your birthday; but no matter. Butt, my friend drew for me some fan-art of Vivian Vance and her Froakie, when it still was just a Froakie and not Frogadier when you first get her, for my birthday XD There were also some fan-compositions that were done for my game, for my birthday and I am super grateful to those people. But, here is the artwork in question!

[DemICE]

happy bday

you were given a pretty adorable gift indeed

[Dylanrockin]

happy bday

you were given a pretty adorable gift indeed

Well thank you, I appreciate it ^^

Also, update! New features, and extra in-game polish!

Basically now you can use Verdant Transformation anywhere you want! You can just change costume, but this is way cooler and way more fun XD Even if it is unfinished at the moment, since I plan on adding in particle effects to the transformation and having Vice's bio-electricity be present in the overworld as you walk around in Verdant Form.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Dylanrockin]

So, I'm going to make it clear that I am not dead (unfortunately, I know, some people were really probably hoping that was the case.) But nope, I am still alive and kicking. I am just finishing up my last 2 weeks of rehearsal and then after that... I'M FREE FROM ANY OBLIGATION THAT I MIGHT HAVE! But, until then, things will be very slow...

But, here's some fanart from a friend of mine, to help cheer some of you guys up! Because this person likes the relationship of Vice and Hiro, this was made:

Aside from that, I am currently working on more stuff for my game, and new features that will be programmed in, as well as bug fixes. Also, I have received funding for my game, thanks to my school's refund policy, so now I can pay for any works that I might need for my game, such as animations, sprites, etc, without having to work as I study. So that's good!

[Dylanrockin]

So, Update:

Based on feedback which I have received in regards to one person playing my game, I have come to the decision of leaving out a 1 hour long scene of characters training to prepare for the 2nd continent. My question to you all is this...

Would you like for me to take out that scene, or should I leave it in? Basically the whole arc of the story at that point is that the 4 characters separate and go off and do their own training for 2 weeks, to prepare for the 2nd continent. Vice trains to learn Verdant Transformation, Krista awakens her hidden powers, Vivian... well, let's not talk about that. She does get some training in, but not as much as the others. And Marissa trains with her sister to increase her technical skills with her Pokemon.

Should I leave all that in, or should I cut out the entire training session that these characters have? It's part of their development as well, and I think some of the scenes in it are somewhat humorous, and interesting. I'd hate to leave it out, for the sake of characters losing care of the story, because of their attention spans (complaint I got towards my game, with one of my testers was that his attention span went straight to 0, because of all the talking.)

[Personthing]

Ehhh... If it's a pure story sequence with no gameplay going on, I'd suggest trying adding gameplay to each sequence first to see if you can get that flowing well with your original idea for the scene. (If there is gameplay in that sequence, my bad) Having Metal Gear Solid 4 cutscenes in a mostly text based game can really kill the pacing for a lot of people, so it'd be best to give some more interactivity to the whole thing IMO.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Personthing

[Commander]

First, I love that fan-art and how it's drawn. Sorry I get distracted by pretty pictures.

Secondly, that's really hard for me to say. You say you're axing an hour long scene and it's about training. I'd have to look at the scene to give proper feedback but here's my belief on the situation:

Not everyone can handle story heavy RPGs as often there will be long periods of time without player engagement and interaction. Maybe you could break it up and allow for the characters to be controlled so that said beta tester isn't bored and can think about what he's doing or maybe you need to remove some of the humor scenes so that the impact of the character development is better. When it comes to character development scenes you definitely don't want to cut those out if you can.

But if it's possible you may want to break it up into segments since well...sometimes people need a breather from a long set of clip scenes (though I can handle like two hours worth if it's relevant to the plot). Just really grind down to the player base and given Pokemon fans have some of the shortest attention spans, I can see where the problem and concerns may lie. Maybe throwing a couple loseable battles or even letting the player be able to walk around could help. (And I just repeated myself).

[Masquerain]

If it's something that really lasts an entire hour with no gameplay whatsoever, I agree with previously mentioned suggestions to add some mini gameplay in-between, such as mini training quests to do with the respective character or so, or..just something that is the highlight of their training and when you're done with it, the screen can fade to black and leave the player with the impression that the training didn't stop there, but continued off-screen

[DemICE]

i personally have no problem watching something for 1 hour as long as it is interesting and has purpose in connecting the past and the future of a specific universe.

but many people might find it boring. so i actually suggest something very simple, yet for some reason not mentioned yet.

a choice to skip it. :|

[Masquerain]

i personally have no problem watching something for 1 hour as long as it is interesting and has purpose in connecting the past and the future of a specific universe.

but many people might find it boring. so i actually suggest something very simple, yet for some reason not mentioned yet.

a choice to skip it. :|

Sometimes the simplest things are the easiest to miss :v

I'd agree that's an option as well indeed.. But I also think it's a missed opportunity to not let players experience different characters' training for themselves via mini-training-tasks ... It's something different and would make for an interesting feature if combined. I'd call it a middle ground of sorts

[DemICE]

Sometimes the simplest things are the easiest to miss :v

I'd agree that's an option as well indeed.. But I also think it's a missed opportunity to not let players experience different characters' training for themselves via mini-training-tasks ... It's something different and would make for an interesting feature if combined. I'd call it a middle ground of sorts

the skipping choice could be followed by a written summary of what happened, so that those players will not miss out on important plot points, yet not be subjected to the whole lengthy thing.

[Personthing]

the skipping choice could be followed by a written summary of what happened, so that those players will not miss out on important plot points, yet not be subjected to the whole lengthy thing.

Being able to skip it is definitely an option, but it's kinda like using a band-aid to try and heal getting your arm torn off, for lack of a better comparison. Especially since there is important character development that likely can't be explained away through a few summary lines. Would be best to address the problem at its core, rather than just adding a skip option IMO. But that's just my opinion.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Personthing

[neoplansc]

I think you should leave it in but add a skip button so it gives players an option. Or (as others have mentioned) adding mini quests during the cut scene and such. I think that would be nice

[Dylanrockin]

I think you should leave it in but add a skip button so it gives players an option. Or (as others have mentioned) adding mini quests during the cut scene and such. I think that would be nice

The thing is, though, I am not going to include that, because that's actually really hard to implement a skip cutscene option, and secondly: if you're going to play a game that has equally, if not more text, than a novel, I expect you to read it. You should be going into this, fully aware of how text heavy the game is. I will add in some gameplay to diversify the scenes, but I won't add an option to skip them.

Being able to skip it is definitely an option, but it's kinda like using a band-aid to try and heal getting your arm torn off, for lack of a better comparison. Especially since there is important character development that likely can't be explained away through a few summary lines. Would be best to address the problem at its core, rather than just adding a skip option IMO. But that's just my opinion.

the skipping choice could be followed by a written summary of what happened, so that those players will not miss out on important plot points, yet not be subjected to the whole lengthy thing.

I'm going to echo what I stated above. What you're used to, here on the Reborn forums, in terms of text, story, and character development might be equivalent to running a mile. I'm expecting you to run a 5k marathon. It's hard, yes, to have to read through some of the more lengthy scenes, but when you do read them you'll feel like you got something out of it. Some scenes are longer than others, and this training session with the characters being separated for 2 weeks is the longest scene in the game. However, there will be gameplay bits in there to help alleviate some of the pain there might be in reading it, especially for those who don't have the best attention spans and start to doze off at certain parts.

What I'm trying to say is... the point of the game is the story, and I want you to be invested in it. You should know that full-well, going into the game, that there will be A LOT of text. The full word document of my game is 320,562 words long. From start to finish.

But, I can understand why you would want that. And for as much as I think it'd be a good idea to have the choice to have a skip cutscene button, say, if it was your second time playing through the game, I admittedly don't know how to incorporate that. I could give the choice, but that would seem tacky, as it seems extremely unprofessional if I were to do that.

Sometimes the simplest things are the easiest to miss :v

I'd agree that's an option as well indeed.. But I also think it's a missed opportunity to not let players experience different characters' training for themselves via mini-training-tasks ... It's something different and would make for an interesting feature if combined. I'd call it a middle ground of sorts

I think this would be most beneficial, as it would allow for people to understand, without drooling out of the sides of their mouths, because of how much they have to read. Because literally, this whole scene is the equivalent to me saying "Read chapter 11 of such and such, and then write a 5 page paper on everything that you read." Without gameplay, I think that most people, at least those who aren't adjusted to JRPG's and how lengthy some of their scenes can be, would end up saying "OH SHUT UP, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE! JUST STOP TALKING!" <---- This was one of my testers. It was hilarious. I normally have great tolerance to this sort of stuff, partly because my genre of choice is RPG's but I digress, so I don't particularly care, unless I have stuff to do, and I really don't have time to read it.

First, I love that fan-art and how it's drawn. Sorry I get distracted by pretty pictures.

Secondly, that's really hard for me to say. You say you're axing an hour long scene and it's about training. I'd have to look at the scene to give proper feedback but here's my belief on the situation:

Not everyone can handle story heavy RPGs as often there will be long periods of time without player engagement and interaction. Maybe you could break it up and allow for the characters to be controlled so that said beta tester isn't bored and can think about what he's doing or maybe you need to remove some of the humor scenes so that the impact of the character development is better. When it comes to character development scenes you definitely don't want to cut those out if you can.

But if it's possible you may want to break it up into segments since well...sometimes people need a breather from a long set of clip scenes (though I can handle like two hours worth if it's relevant to the plot). Just really grind down to the player base and given Pokemon fans have some of the shortest attention spans, I can see where the problem and concerns may lie. Maybe throwing a couple loseable battles or even letting the player be able to walk around could help. (And I just repeated myself).

But all of what you guys said are valid points, and I will take them into consideration. It will be annoying to try and find a break, between the scenes to say "do this, or do that," since... it'd be hard to incorporate some sort of training regimen into the whole ordeal. For Vice, spoiler warning, if you don't want to read it, then don't click the spoiler button:

Vice trains with Ariana for 2 weeks to acquire her unfinished Verdant Transformation Technique, so that she could pass it down to him, so he can master it. How I can implement training that the player can actively take part in, I don't know. But, I do have a pretty good idea of one thing I could do.

So, I'd have to get creative with what the player would have to do...

Edited September 28, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[iskelion]

is it available for download? it looks really nice !

[Commander]

If I weren't on a phone I'd joke about firing the guy and letting me beta test. But it's really gonna grind down to how much you want to cater to those people as they won't care too much about story.

My personal rule of thumb for designing events is that so long as the scene isn'the just people standing there speaking a large amount of text. Given pokemon's game design, that can be a problem. I am already redoing a certain event because I am not satisfied with it just being mostly text (like 40 lines worth).

You're in a very unique situation since most fangames are nothing like yours. Criticism is for awareness, not absolute. There's also so much advice I can give only knowing bits and pieces of the game vs a full experience. That's a blessing and curse at the same time.

[Masquerain]

Agreed there^ . I'm an avid fan of visual novels so walls of text don't really bother me much as long as they're informative and not a snooze-fest content-wise, but in a game like yours, I'm not too sure what it'd look like without knowing more details. Overall though, if your aim is to show an hour-long cutscene for the sake of letting people know how the training of each character goes, I really see no harm in making some of that training an active mini-quest as opposed to a passive viewing of the events. It's essentially seeing the same things, except by making some of it active, you would probably please the highest amount of people, all the while achieving the same result that you aimed for (best of both worlds? ).

[Dylanrockin]

Agreed there^ . I'm an avid fan of visual novels so walls of text don't really bother me much as long as they're informative and not a snooze-fest content-wise, but in a game like yours, I'm not too sure what it'd look like without knowing more details. Overall though, if your aim is to show an hour-long cutscene for the sake of letting people know how the training of each character goes, I really see no harm in making some of that training an active mini-quest as opposed to a passive viewing of the events. It's essentially seeing the same things, except by making some of it active, you would probably please the highest amount of people, all the while achieving the same result that you aimed for (best of both worlds? ).

Yes, well, once I finish some of the later events, I will make sure to get around to editing the Training Arc of the game, and add in some actual Training Sessions after the talking is done and over with. They will mostly pertain to that characters' play style, so that way the training doesn't feel the same. Mainly so that way I don't exposition the sh** out of the player, and let them actually do something. However, for the people who don't want to listen to the character babble on about plot related things or character development, I can only imagine Poke-Players, with their webcams on, looking at the screen with a face of distraught and agony, which... I will admit, I am very much looking forward to. Then again, I have a sheer distaste towards famous Poke Players anyways, but I digress.

For the most part however, there will be sequences where you will be able to move around and interact, as well as battle and test out the new character abilities that those specific characters have acquired.

Speaking of Character Abilities. I'm starting to get back into working on the Ability Matrix, however, there will be a lot of things that will be structurally changed, and I will be adding in new abilities for characters who don't have as many as others. But, I've mostly held off work on the Ability Matrix, just because I wanted to get everything else done first, before I finish it. Because writing completely original scripts, from line 1 to line 3000 takes a lot of time, testing and patience. I was losing time with my game, so I held it off, until I got to a point where I would say "Okay, let's finish this thing." But, anyways, I will be working on 5 more Trainer Abilities, and then after that I will refine the Ability Matrix asap.

For those of you unfamiliar to what it is I'm talking about. In an earlier forum post I wrote about the Ability Matrix and documented my progress. You can feel free to search through the thread to find it.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Dylanrockin]

Good news everyone! New enhancements, structurally, for my game!

I updated some aspects of my game to Version 16.2, some, not all. I say that because completely upgrading would take me forever and a half, and some of the included features are dumb and I don't care for them. But, what I mostly ported over to my game, and heavily tested was:

• Improved Battle AI - Basically, the AI has been improved from 15.1 to 16.2, which is a huge jump, and includes Gen 6 moves taken into account. Also, I added in my own custom AI for scripted battles.
• Improved item and move functionality.
• Fixed gaining EXP on Catch bug that I had before.
• Stability fixes.
• And many more things that you guys probably don't care too much about.

So, that's that. Also, I progressed the story so far now, that I can actually now work on some other things, involving script work. Which... is great! I'm also working on eventing a bunch of NPC's and pointless side-stuff, for the people who want that kind of thing. So, that's good!

[DemICE]

if the side-stuff gives us cookies, or any other reward for that matter, then it's not pointless

nice, i guess? AI is always a problem in those games. And it can make a difference in the general difficulty of a game.

so you are numbering versions eh? well since the game will be released in public only once its done, i guess they matter only to you

[Twilightwing]

So in this game you can have separate team of caught pokemon for each playable character or will we have preset teams?

[Dylanrockin]

So in this game you can have separate team of caught pokemon for each playable character or will we have preset teams?

The characters have a "signature Pokemon" that cannot be removed from the party whatsoever, not even the Day-Care will accept them. They also get a preset team, but those Pokemon you can freely take out or change as you see fit. The teams that each character starts out with, in regards to when you first get them are:

Asterisks indicate signature Pokemon that cannot be removed by any means. Not even releasing, boxing, depositing, Day-Care, doesn't matter what. They cannot be removed by any means.

Vice: *Eevee*

Marissa: *Umbreon*, Torchic, Shinx

Vivian: *Frogadier*, Grovyle, Sneasel, Skarmory

Krista: *Kirlia*, Feebas, Pancham, Nidoqueen, Skiddo

Hiro: *Dialga*, *Zoroark*, Talonflame, Metagross, Tyrantrum, Samurott

Allan: *Lucario*, *Zorua*, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Froslass, Arcanine

Hiro and Allan Monochroma have 2 Signature Pokemon, but that is for story reasons, and for balancing purposes. They are very powerful Trainers that you get at the half-way point of the game, but have 2 Pokemon that cannot be removed. Also, signature Pokemon can only evolve when the story demands for it, and there are only 2 characters that have their Pokemon evolve throughout the story.

This whole dealio with not being able to remove signature Pokemon is a little controversial towards people who like "nuzlocking", as the player cannot deposit their signature Pokemon. No nuzlocking capabilities.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Nova]

This whole dealio with not being able to remove signature Pokemon is a little controversial towards people who like "nuzlocking", as the player cannot deposit their signature Pokemon. No nuzlocking capabilities.

If I were to nuzlocke this game (I probably will at some point), I'd simply implement a 'life' system of sorts: All other mons get removed when they faint, and the signature mons have X lives for the entire game: If the mon faints X times throughout the game, it's game over.

There are other ways around, of course. Nothing that really prevents Nuzlocking, though you can't really call it a "classic" Locke anymore.

[Dylanrockin]

If I were to nuzlocke this game (I probably will at some point), I'd simply implement a 'life' system of sorts: All other mons get removed when they faint, and the signature mons have X lives for the entire game: If the mon faints X times throughout the game, it's game over.

There are other ways around, of course. Nothing that really prevents Nuzlocking, though you can't really call it a "classic" Locke anymore.

I did not know of this sort of method. Intriguing. I guess you could say this would open up non-traditional locke's so to speak. From the response that my game has received upon a forum post that shall not be mentioned, there was huge controversy surrounding the game's lack of nuzlocking. At least this will open some form of possibility for those who might be interested in it. However, there are story fights where the Pokemon will be healed back to full, and certain characters take part in certain fights. So, that might be difficult to work out.

Also, this is the first time you have posted here This calls for a celebration XD