Let's Play a Demo: "Terrin's Hunt" - First Half

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

What can I say? I'm addicted to making LPs.

LPisode #75: Terrin's Hunt - First Half
Game by orius

How do you create a monster-catching game on RPG Maker 1? orius has an idea.

Wanna start at the beginning? Just click [HERE].

Interested in the game you see? Just click [HERE] to download it.
(RPG Maker for PS1 required.)
More info on the game can be found [in this topic].

[Leish]

Re: Let's Play a Demo: "Terrin's Hunt" - First Half

How do you create a monster-catching game on RPG Maker 1? orius has an idea.

(RPG Maker 2 for PS2 required.)

It's a crazy world we live in these days.

[orius]

Re: Let's Play a Demo: "Terrin's Hunt" - First Half

Gah, it's OAR-ee-us, not oar-EYE-us.

And I simply suggested you do my game if you needed another filler, you didn't have to give up anything you had planned. Ah, well, I like seeing my stuff promoted.

I probably should have given you some advice, but I didn't know if you were going to do this. I probably should have discussed it in private messages. Doesn't help either that the bookshelves in the classroom were supposed to have help tutorials but I forgot them. Also, it's a bit grindier than I like, but my focus was on setting up a basic game rather than working out the balance.

Ok, it's meant to be a demo, that is a game that explores how to do a Pokemon type game, rather than a partial game that wasn't finished. So I did a complete dungeon with a boss, one set of arena opponents, and some real basic facitilies back at the base, a basic shop, save point, rest area, and of course the monster pods. I didn't want anything to be broken or left unplayable, but instead I wanted a demo that could be completed.

The monster souls have several functions. First, that's how you get the monsters in the first place. Second, they provide experience and abilities for the monsters when used at the pods. Third, they're used for bartering, so they're kind of like currency too.

Here's the thread where I originally discussed the ideas I was working on, and I also put some tips in there when I released the demo.

http://www.rpgmpavilion.com/forum/sh...d.php?p=270082

Here's what you're supposed to do:

First off, your supply of soul gems is limited, so you'll eventually run out. At first, trade with that first gnome outside the shack. Trade a captured monster for two fresh gems. You'll need to do a lot of this unfortunately, because the game is still pretty grindy. If you run out of soul gems and you don't have any monster souls left, you're screwed so be careful.

Second, you capture the same monsters over and over, and use the souls at the pods to upgrade captured monsters. So for example, capture more fairies, and use them on the fairy pod to give the fairy experience points and new abilities. That's where you get the spells. Actually, that's what the prize from the princess is supposed to be used for, to make your fairy stronger, although like I said, the souls have several uses. Note: Joker's battle prize is Hobgob soul, which you can't fight in this demo. So don't barter with them, use them on the Goblin.

Basically, each monster has 4 "levels", the Goblin is Goblin, Hobgob(lin) (stupid space restrictions), Redcap, and Puck or something. The next levels give you stronger abilities and more experience. There's only 4 actual monsters in the demo though, plus the bonus Hobgob soul.

Terrin never gets experience. Those stat boosting items are to power him up. You can use them on the monsters, but it's the only way Terrin can get stronger. Terrin doesn't get spells. If that +1 is only a half point of damage like you said, I might increase it a bit, but I also don't want the player to go around farming them and making Terrin too powerful too quickly either.

The monsters should be around level 2 or 3 to fight that gnome battle (I still need to smooth out the game balance). When you beat them, the gnome merchant disappears, but you'll get gnomes as a new encounter. Gnomes drop fresh soul gems with a 100% rate, so you then fight them for fresh ones. Also those trees you noticed will disappear afterwards. I'd get to at least level 4 before exploring too far past them.

And the non-standard game over. I was thinking of suggesting that you throw a fight to the gnomes on purpose for that scene, but you kind of blundered into a battle with them on your own (which I thought was pretty funny ). This is how I came up with the idea. Originally, when I was working on the text for the monster I was just pasting in the monster names from character name. So I was trying to put in "You found the Goblin!" or something and slipped up and pasted Terrin instead. At first I grumbled about the typo, but then got struck with some evil inspiration: what if there are bad guys out there trying to capture the monster hunters? Which led to that warped little scene. This happens whenever you lose to a gnome, so be careful. And it also led to the basic plot behind the game:

Monster hunting for arena fights has become popular in this world, but a bunch of elven extremists are opposed to it, and with their gnomish allies have begun to strike back at the humans and dwarves supporting the hunting. This is going to be a somewhat lighter game than the others I've worked on, while I'm not a huge fan of the sillier games in general, this game will probably be more tongue-in-cheek. Some of that can be seen in the demo (including things like an arena opponent named King Elvis, for example).

Really, hunting monsters has always been Terrin's dream, so this is basically his worst nightmare.... I'm pretty sure the elves have a "capture Terrin" scene in the demo too.

Normally, I don't really like the less serious RPGM games, but if I do a complete version of this game it is going to be seriously warped. I'm thinking of story events where elves and gnomes will force Terrin to fight their human slaves and stuff, with a lot of warped dialogue. You've already seen some of that.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Let's Play a Demo: "Terrin's Hunt" - First Half

It's a crazy world we live in these days.

Oops. Gotta love the side-effects of copy/pasting. :P

And I simply suggested you do my game if you needed another filler, you didn't have to give up anything you had planned.

I didn't give anything up, don't worry. What I meant about "not planning to do this" was that I was planning to go on to the next big game, but of course the LP isn't ready yet. So more filler! Yay!

By the way, you now hold the record for most responses to a single LPisode.

[orius]

Re: Let's Play a Demo: "Terrin's Hunt" - First Half

By the way, you now hold the record for most responses to a single LPisode.

Well, considering me that's not really surprising. I talk far too much about the things I like and do.