Arbor's Eve [now in mv!]

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I just realized that I never finished playing the demo so... Update of of nowhere! I always finish what I start, even if that takes me an eternity (or almost a year in this case) to do so.

Cue some belated observations.

- I finally went to the magic school.
- At least someone has some faith on Jayce. Off to the desert we go.
- The enemies in the desert are giving me a really hard time. Poor Jayce kept getting one-shotted and those horrid eel monsters and their equally horrid poison-induced gunk attack are really getting in my nerves.
- I returned to the town for supplies to find out they don't sell Antivenom. That really bites. It's a shore to get poisoned in the desert and having to backtrack to the town because you don't have another way to heal.
- On my way, I helped that hooded guy with his pet crow problem.
- I've been selling the spare spell books dropped by the manta ray monsters. I've made quite a lot of cash.
- The monsters in the caves were less bothersome.
- Kasper's conflagrate spell made the battle against the Basatrisk a walk in the park.
- Damn, the fade is my favorite area by far. You really hit the ball outta the park on this lovecraftian dimension. The nightmarish music (Can I ask for a source?), the random screams, the floating chairs, the sudden rain, all of it really adds to the atmosphere.
- So we've got a quick glance into both Kasper and Strayer's tragic pasts. Interesting
- I got a free round against the Corruptor. I killed it in a single turn.
- I finally managed to escape from the hellish place only to find the guy from Manos: The Hands of Fate, still watching over the place while the master is away.
- Off to the College now.

That's it for now.

[KasperKalamity]

i love you man. steelbeets member of the year 2015


Cue some belated observations. fixes

- I finally went to the magic school. awesome you got that far, did you go directly from Benzol, or take the side track? you'd know it if you went through it, i don't want to give anything away.

- At least someone has some faith on Jayce. Off to the desert we go. jayce is a kind of tragic charicature of that one friend we all had who blew off school to play nintendo all day and never really grew up, but adapted for the genre

- The enemies in the desert are giving me a really hard time. Poor Jayce kept getting one-shotted and those horrid eel monsters and their equally horrid poison-induced gunk attack are really getting in my nerves. can you screenshot your stats so i can readjust? knowing where everything is, and what all the weaknesses are makes it impossible for me to play the game as a player.

- I returned to the town for supplies to find out they don't sell Antivenom. That really bites. It's a shore to get poisoned in the desert and having to backtrack to the town because you don't have another way to heal. i'll add this in. i thought there was a spell for it.

- I've been selling the spare spell books dropped by the manta ray monsters. I've made quite a lot of cash. i'll lower the drop rate.

- The monsters in the caves were less bothersome. THEN THEY'RE GETTING TURNED UP!

- Kasper's conflagrate spell made the battle against the Basatrisk a walk in the park. crap, that was turned up too high during testing. the base power was 950, i changed it back to 145

- Damn, the fade is my favorite area by far. You really hit the ball outta the park on this lovecraftian dimension. The nightmarish music (Can I ask for a source?), the random screams, the floating chairs, the sudden rain, all of it really adds to the atmosphere. i attached the bgm for the fade. i'm glad you like it. the sound effects are triggered by stepping on events. there are sections of the map where every tile triggers a different sound or weather effect.

- So we've got a quick glance into both Kasper and Strayer's tragic pasts. Interesting the boss who keeps the fade is torturing them with repressed memories to break their will.

- I got a free round against the Corruptor. I killed it in a single turn. idk how this happened, all his attacks are attacks. there isn't a do nothing command in his moveset.

- I finally managed to escape from the hellish place only to find the guy from Manos: The Hands of Fate, still watching over the place while the master is away. awesome you got the reference!

- Off to the College now. this place has my favorite enemy, the shapeshifter. good luck! [shapeshifter tutorial]

i took about a year off, and only started working on it again in the last two weeks or so. next up is the keptie delta, the world of dwarfcraft, and the great plain>

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

There are the stats for the trio:





I didn't do a lot of grinding so they should be at the proper level for this area.

awesome you got that far, did you go directly from Benzol, or take the side track? you'd know it if you went through it, i don't want to give anything away.

I did not take any detours on my way to Green Oaks.

Hmm, does this means I missed some event during this whole sequence? Maybe I'll start another run to investigate.

i'll add this in. i thought there was a spell for it.

My bad, I just found out that Strayer's Healing Water also cures several ailments. This is most likely because I use Jayce as the main healer.

crap, that was turned up too high during testing. the base power was 950, i changed it back to 145

.
950 base power? No wonder why it was so decidedly broken. I was like dealing like 6000+ damage to the Basatrik. Needless to say, the fight was over pretty soon.

i attached the bgm for the fade. i'm glad you like it. the sound effects are triggered by stepping on events. there are sections of the map where every tile triggers a different sound or weather effect.

Thanks. It is a nightmare-inducing as I remember. Nice trick with SEs too, perhaps I'll do the same on my project.

idk how this happened, all his attacks are attacks. there isn't a do nothing command in his moveset.

I got a "surprised the enemy!" message that allowed me to get the first round against the Corruptor. This summed to conflagrate's inherent brokenness made for an anti-climatic boss fight.

this place has my favorite enemy, the shapeshifter. good luck! [shapeshifter tutorial]

Yeah, those foes caught my attention immediately. I'll take a look to that tutorial, it could be interesting.

[KasperKalamity]

the branch is activated in benzol if that's any help. you should have been able to do one thing with one character, and one with another. that branches out into an intermission chapter.

[Ahzoh]

Do you got screenshots of the Fade?

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

the branch is activated in benzol if that's any help. you should have been able to do one thing with one character, and one with another. that branches out into an intermission chapter.

Alright. I'll keep that on mind.

---

the branch is activated in benzol if that's any help. you should have been able to do one thing with one character, and one with another. that branches out into an intermission chapter.

Alright. I'll keep that on mind.

Oh, what gives! More impressions coming up:

- I returned to the school. The battlemage waiting for me at the entrance was mostly a cinch.
- The battle rooms are a interesting concept.
- So are the shapeshifting enemies. I get you cannot killl them before they transform, correct?
- At last, somebody used that inner body tileset!
- A janitor making 4 grands a year? The college must the really loaded.
- Man, Jayce's life really sucks, doesn't it? Not only he find out his only hero is an insane basket case in cahoots with an eldritch horror, he had to put her down as well. I wonder what will happen to the college now.
- Clymidius appears! He main antagonist, I bet.
- I thought I was suppose to lose the fight against Clymidius. Turns out I had to endure several round until hr got bored and left.
- I chose to tell Jayce that it wasn't his business to know about the seeds. He took the revelation better than I expected. What if I chose to tell him that he didn't just ask?
- I wonder where he ran away.
- He was at the cliffs, near the stores. Kasper's peep talk did wonders here.
- So now Caedenda is going to be the new leader? Good luck with that.
- Off to Villageburg.

So far, so good.

[KasperKalamity]

- I returned to the school. The battlemage waiting for me at the entrance was mostly a cinch. lousy conflagrate

- The battle rooms are a interesting concept. thanks! the idea came from the danger room in xmen . i even used the excalibur lighthouse midi for the swamp, it's my favorite level from the xmen sega game.

- So are the shapeshifting enemies. I get you cannot killl them before they transform, correct? right. they have to fully transform. i designed their whole battle scenario to try and communicate the urgency of what's going on in their area. whoever is in charge there REALLY doesn't want you alive. they're fighting you with everything they have.

- A janitor making 4 grands a year? The college must the really loaded. plus if you talk to him after he gives you his Magic Boltcutters, you find out why he's really down there.

- Clymidius appears! He main antagonist, I bet. probably. maybe not. maybe there isn't one. maybe the true antagonist is a world gone mad.

- I thought I was suppose to lose the fight against Clymidius. Turns out I had to endure several round until he got bored and left. HA! CURVEBALL! were you still trained to lose from the Ahti fight? you find out more about clymidius the second time you encounter him. i don't think it's in that old demo. He is essentially a Maclura Pomifera (monkeybrain) who appears in various stages of growth and decay throughout the game.

- I chose to tell Jayce that it wasn't his business to know about the seeds. He took the revelation better than I expected. What if I chose to tell him that he didn't just ask? he gets replaced by a different character later after he does some stuff. if you take the branch in Benzol, and accomplish the sidequest, instead of just completing it.

- So now Caedenda is going to be the new leader? Good luck with that. yeah, she'll probably end up wrecking the whole town and dooming everyone to starve to death on a desert island somewhere once she decides she knows better than everyone else, and evacuates the town once it collapses under its own weight without an active magical essence to hold it up. there's a guy in the item shop near a well who vaguely references it. you also can't go to the basement of the Learnatorium. wonder what's down there...

- Off to Villageburg. go to Delavan, north of the farmlands.





The Fade:


that's an old collage, the floor is now this wriggling autotile, pop it in xp and watch it squirm. (dots are for the map editor)




i'm working on this a lot now. after the swamp, you meet dwarves, and then some indians on a steppe. they decide to kill you to keep from upsetting their balance, but it's already been upset. the great spirit of the island is angry, and its many eyes see many things that anger it further. it has warned the Chinpontong (creole for "up shit-creek without a paddle") about your incursion onto their sacred land, for which the punishment is of course death by feeding to the spirit's terrestrial avatar, the aringor.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

thanks! the idea came from the danger room in xmen . i even used the excalibur lighthouse midi for the swamp, it's my favorite level from the xmen sega game.

I see. Curious, the theme for the swamp that I heard sounds nothing like a midi. The music I recall reminded a lot of the Basatrisk desert theme.

Right. they have to fully transform. i designed their whole battle scenario to try and communicate the urgency of what's going on in their area. whoever is in charge there REALLY doesn't want you alive. they're fighting you with everything they have.

So I was on the money then I decided to wait until they transform before attacking them.

plus if you talk to him after he gives you his Magic Boltcutters, you find out why he's really down there.

I missed that little detail. Another thing to look after in my next playthrough.

HA! CURVEBALL! were you still trained to lose from the Ahti fight? you find out more about clymidius the second time you encounter him. i don't think it's in that old demo. He is essentially a Maclura Pomifera (monkeybrain) who appears in various stages of growth and decay throughout the game.

Well yeah, after I saw him tanking conflagrate after conflagrate, I though I was supposed to lose the battle. Then I got to the game over screen.

he gets replaced by a different character later after he does some stuff. if you take the branch in Benzol, and accomplish the sidequest, instead of just completing it.

Whoa, it truly seems that I skipped a lot of things in Benzol.

there's a guy in the item shop near a well who vaguely references it. you also can't go to the basement of the Learnatorium. wonder what's down there...

Speaking of the Learnatorium, I gave the old man in charge a spare spell book and got a box in return. Time will tell if this is a mayor development.

And now, more impressions.

- I got back to Villageburg. The place hasn't changed a bit since my departure.
- That Jason guy seems to be of the "all talk and no bite" kind.
- They're still investigating the robbery at the mansion, talking about slow progress.
- To the farmlands.
- Glad to see that zombies can get normal, everyday jobs without any discrimination.
- I stumbled across the owner of the hunting club and the first hunt, the flora clam.
- I cannot seem to find the flora clam. The owner of the club says it went near mt athos. I went there and found nothing.
- Also, I tried to return to Marshton but I got teleported back to the Benzol Jungle.
- I finally went to Delavan and... What the hell?! Both Strayer and Jayce are back to the levels they joined me. And they loss all their new equipment as well.

I think something went wrong when this new chapter started. What could have happened?

[KasperKalamity]

nevermind, i changed the swamp theme it seems. i'm not sure what happened with the levels, i'll have to see if something does something... where did you first notice it?

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

When I fought Jason in Devalan I noticed that both Strayer and Jayce were missing some skills. After resetting the game I checked out their stats and realized they were back to their starting levels.