Dream's Dénouement Superhero Madness RPG Demo UPDATED Sep 30

[leon]

This is a special stand-alone version of the RPG part for Dream's Dénouement's Superhero Madness module (Dream's Dénouement main thread). This distribution doesn't contain any of the story, so you don't need to worry about spoilers for this module.

The tower exploration part should be self explanatory. Navigate through the tower maze by selecting one of the left/right/up/down arrows and find your way to the top floor while finding loot items and fighting the enemies. There are four different maps; the next one unlocks with every playthrough after you finish the final battle.

Combats are face-to-face, similar to earlier Final Fantasy games, using an Active Time Battle (ATB) mechanic. An ATB gauge tracks when characters are going to act. When the gauge is full, they are able to perform an action from the menu. After the action is executed, the ATB gauge is depleted and must recharge. The rate which the gauge recharges correlates to the Agility(AGI) stat of the character. Strength (STR) stat determines the amount of damage each attack deals and Defense (DEF) stat determines how much damage the character takes.

Available actions are:

• Attack
• Item
• Skip
• Special attack (Extra)

Special attacks are stronger than regular attacks and some can damage all of the opponents at once, but they use Stamina Points (SP). A couple of special attacks are not usable from the beginning - they need to be unlocked by leveling up.

Each character has their own leveling-up plan. Experience points are given only to the character that delivers a final blow to the opponent. You can use the Skip option if you wish to level-up a specific character.

There are 3 types of items in the game. These are used to restore HP (Hit Points) and SP. Check the stat/info screen in the game for more details.

Opponents come in 5 dificulty levels (and the boss), coresponding to the floor you are currently on.

Known issues/unfinished stuff:

• Some pointers (such as pointer for selection of inventory items) are not aligned.
• Character sprites are placeholders/sketches.
• Characters are not positioned properly on the boss battles.

Credits:

• Programming, BGs and GUI: Leon
• Music: Ziassan
• Sprites: Fungii
• Beta testing: Valethar
• Engine: Jake (Ren'Py RPG Battle Engine)

We have uploaded a video with an example of the gameplay to let you see how things run:

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_jEfqSp3Ck



Downloads:

• Windows
• Mac
• Linux

Questions:

• How is the balancing? Is the gameplay too easy? Too hard?
• How long could you play it before it becomes repetitive/boring? Should the maps be shorter/longer?
• Are the instructions clear enough or would you need more help?
• Is there anything in particular you would like to see improved or changed?

Please post any errors and glitches you find, as well as feedback and ideas. Thank you!

And enjoy the game!

[saguaro]

This is cool.

How is the balancing? Is the gameplay too easy? Too hard?

The minion battles were easy. The boss I encountered (blue hair, mad scientist?) wiped the floor with me (he took about 290 hp per hit and attacked very quickly). When I started my next game, he had a more normal difficulty. I didn't have to use healing items but it took me a while to wear down his hp.

How long could you play it before it becomes repetitive/boring? Should the maps be shorter/longer?

I personally would prefer fewer, tougher encounters so you can explore without fighting every screen. I prefer longer maps/exploration and less random encounters.

Are the instructions clear enough or would you need more help?

I really liked the way the info screen was set-up. It's great.

Is there anything in particular you would like to see improved or changed?

The main thing that bothered me was I felt the player units were too close together. I think spacing out the front/back units more would be good. I fell there's a lot of wasted space on the battle screens, even just having bigger sprites with more space between them would be an improvement.

When some of my team died and I tried to use items, the pointer would still exist for the dead/ko'ed person. I don't know if you intend to have phoenix down-type items later?

[leon]

Thank you very much for the feedback.

The minion battles were easy. The boss I encountered (blue hair, mad scientist?) wiped the floor with me (he took about 290 hp per hit and attacked very quickly). When I started my next game, he had a more normal difficulty. I didn't have to use healing items but it took me a while to wear down his hp.

I'll give better stats to the higher level minions.

Story spoilers ahead!

The player is actually supposed to lose the first battle and is only able to win in the second round. In the story the boss (Dr.Z) has stolen all the superpowers from Mack and Lady Rex. To reflect this, in the first boss battle Dr. Z has all the stats from Mack and Lady Rex combined, as well as infinite HP and two powerful special attacks. In the second boss battle, he still has a lot of HP (1000), but normal stats and he loses two of the special attacks, which are now returned to the heroes. I tried to make the first battle very hard, so it would end, before the player wastes too many items, since you can't win that one.

I personally would prefer fewer, tougher encounters so you can explore without fighting every screen. I prefer longer maps/exploration and less random encounters.

I see. I think I'll group the enemies more. This will make for less random encounters and tougher minion battles.

The main thing that bothered me was I felt the player units were too close together. I think spacing out the front/back units more would be good. I fell there's a lot of wasted space on the battle screens, even just having bigger sprites with more space between them would be an improvement.

I'll space the units a bit more and I'll ask Fungii to make the sprites a bit bigger (these are just placeholders).

When some of my team died and I tried to use items, the pointer would still exist for the dead/ko'ed person. I don't know if you intend to have phoenix down-type items later?

No, it's a glitch. I'll look into it. I wasn't planning on adding any more items (Col. Crisp cereal and Hearty Rice are part of the story). KO'ed players are restored with 1HP on the next combat.

[leon]

I updated the demo. I added 3 more maps. I also removed the second/short map, so that's 4 maps now.

The battles happen less often now, but they are harder, because there is now more enemies grouped together.

I also changed how the combat music is played. Following Ziassan's idea, the combat music now plays on a separate channel, so it doesn't start from the beginning for every combat.

When some of my team died and I tried to use items, the pointer would still exist for the dead/ko'ed person. I don't know if you intend to have phoenix down-type items later?

Actually, I think the problem is, that the pointers for inventory selection and the one for showing who you are controlling are identical, so it may seem like there's one extra pointer.

[Kuroki~chan]

Why can't I download it?? T_T

[leon]

Sorry, the download links were broken. I fixed them now.