Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

[Vonwert]

Siren's Reef


Lex Johnson is coming back by ship from a book signing in Spain. The success of his latest book, "Whispers in the Woods" has once again brought him fame all over the world as the top horror writer.

But his ride is cut short as the ship begins to sink into the dark depths of the ocean. No reason is given, and the captain has little time to warn the passengers of the immedient danger. A sudden jerk of the ship, flings Lex overboard.

Lex soon finds himself alone, floating out in the sea. The currents have drifted him away from the others.

He soon awakes upon an island. He finds himself on a beach enclosed by steep cliffs and no way out. Having found no other survivors, he begins to prepare for a night on this beach.

But during the night, he is awoken by a noise. He soon finds a mysterious cave on the side of the cliff that wasn't there before. Upon entering, he finds himself traveling through dark tunnels until emerging out of a well.

He finds himself in an open courtyard of a elegant manor. He startles a maid upon climbing out of the well. She informs him that he is on a small island called, Siren's Reef. A place that those who are lost will find their way to.

She informs him also, that some of the other survivors of his ship have arrived on the island as well.

She introduces him to the Mistress of the manor who sadly informs the survivors that the next ship won't be until two weeks from now.

And so starts Lex's stay on this mysterious island. Which is somewhat pleasant until some of the survivors start dissapearing....

And what of the ghost of a black slave that Lex sees in the dark corners of the manor. What does she want Lex to see...?

And what of the young woman who forces Lex to play her sadistic games....

It will be up to Lex to discover the dark history of the island and survive its haunting grip.

--------------------------------

I have looked back at WW and figured out what I should streamline and what I can improve upon.

I put Behind Closed Doors on hold due to the lousy loading and warp functions of RPGM3.

I will be getting started on Siren's Reef this Dec.

[Crythania]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

Sounds good.

If you're open to a bit of constructive criticism, I have some ideas on how Whispers could be improved. If you don't want to hear it, just say the word and I'll keep my mouth shut.

[Vonwert]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

No go ahead. I could use any help I can get

[Crythania]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

Okay, let me preface this by saying that I'm not trying to be anything but helpful. Whispers is a classy, innovative, laudible piece of work. If I didn't dig it, I wouldn't be offering ideas.

1. One of the big things that bugged me was stepping onto a staircase, I go down one floor, and I'm staring right at a wall. Because there's a wall right in my face, I don't know which way to turn. I turn to look, and the auto-event activates, asking me if I want to go back up. Annoying. I always put at least two floor spaces in front of a staircase (both ways, going up and down), so the player never emerges from the staircase with a wall to his nose. This gives the player some breathing room to step forward and get away from the auto-event at the staircase. Then you can turn and look to see where you are. Two floor spaces in front of a staircase is good. Three is better. But two at the minimum.

2. Mazes with slowdown. Slowdown bugs me. I know, it's a limitation that may hamper your creativity. But when I was making my game, I attempted to keep the slowdown to a minimum wherever possible. I split up a large labyrinthine floor into two or three separate floors. The less floor space and walls the engine has to draw, the less chance there is of the CPU getting overloaded with slowdown. In spite of my efforts, I still ended up with a few floors that suffer from slowdown. I'm far from perfect. But that doesn't mean I can't try my best to beat the Slowdown Beast. I would split up the mazes into two or three floors connected by staircases. In most cases, this fixes the slowdown problem. Two or three small floors of maze are better than a large floor of maze.

Slowdown is caused by:
A) Too many events and decorations close together
B) Too much floor space on the dungeon floor
C) Too many walls on the dungeon floor
D) Design is too complicated, with blank areas separating areas of floors and walls

3. Puzzle presentation. Many of the puzzles are presented in a four-line text block. When the text is more than four lines, it pauses the scrolling and puts up that "press button to continue" icon. Then it resumes scrolling the text, and the previous text scrolls off the top of the four-line text block. First off, if you're gonna have dialogue or a puzzle description that is more than four lines, I would just create my text in such a way that a sentence ends on the fourth line. It puts up that "press button to continue" icon, then proceeds to display the next block of text in a new four-line text block (not the same one). To me, this is a more polished way of presenting text. Four lines at a time. Four lines per text block. One text block at a time.

Now, since many of the puzzles in Whispers require more than four lines, I would present these in a storyteller with "story" selected as the display style. You can display more than four lines at a time there. That way, I'd be able to see the entire puzzle at once. After I've pressed the button to continue from the storyteller, it would display a QA Branch. "Do you have the answer?" Yes/No. Answering Yes takes you to the multiple choice branch where you give the answer.

If this idea doesn't work for some puzzles because the multiple choice of four answers needs to be seen at the same time as the puzzle, I would do whatever I have to do to present the entire puzzle on-screen all at once. I would take out line breaks, or whatever I have to do to fit everything in there. I had great difficulty with some of the puzzles because it only displays four lines at a time. Being able to view the entire puzzle on-screen at once is golden. I could study it, then give the answer when I think I have it figured out. As it stands, I had to scroll through the puzzle, then scroll through again, and again, and keep scrolling through it multiple times until I finally get all the facts straight. In one case, I had to take notes and write it all down. If I could see the entire thing on-screen at once, that'd be a big help.

These are ideas that would, in my humble opinion, polish up the presentation and make it more professional. I had some more ideas, but I can't remember them at the moment. I'll play through the game again sometime soon (wanted to do that anyway ) and see if anything else comes to mind.

[hitogoroshi]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

Regarding Behind Closed Doors: Doesn't the fade out/warp/fade in work? Or does that not have the effect you want?

[Vonwert]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

It doesn't work. I have tried every single way to make it work, but there doesn't appear to be any.

[Pagerron]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

This new game idea sounds really interesting.Your "Whispers in the Woods" definitely had a unique feel to it. It seems like you're going to continue in a similar vein in "Siren's Reef." Cool.

[H2SO4]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

Sounds good! I look forward to it

[Draggin']

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

YES! Whispers in the Woods was awesome. I can't wait for the sequel!

BTW, will this be for RPG Maker 3 like the last one?

[Vonwert]

Re: Sequel to Whispers in the Woods...?

Yeap. I have wanted to do a tropical island for RPGm3.