Castle Paradox

[Bob the Hamster]

EDIT: The contest is over! Check this thread for results.

The "Finish Your Dang Game" Contest is drawing to a close!

I will be updating a list of submissions here for easy downloading. It is highly recommended that anybody who is competing for the "Most Improved" prize should also provide a link to an old copy of their game for comparison. If you don't, some judges may assume that you are not competing in that category.

Post all comments about game completeness here, but send your votes for "Best" and "Most Improved" directly to me via Private Message, or via e-mail to Bob@HamsterRepublic.com

For review, here are the voting rules, copied-and-pasted from the full rules.

=VOTING=

After the contest ends there will be a 1 month judging period ending on September 30th. (NOTE: Due to the large number of submissions, this voting period might need to be extended slightly) Extended to Tuesday Oct 20th. Winners will be posted on Wednesday Oct 21st

Voting will be done in three parts. First, each voter will vote for each game by secret ballot (e-mail or PM to me, James) in the following two categories:

(1) Overall quality from zero stars (low) to 5 stars (high)

(2) Level of improvement from contest start to contest end. from zero stars to 5 stars.

Finally, each voter will publicly vote at the completeness of each game in a public thread.

(3) Complete? Yes/No. Completeness is defined as being a whole game that can be reasonably called finished. Complete does not have to mean perfect. It does not have to mean zero bugs. It just means "not incomplete anymore"

=LATE SUBMISSIONS=

Late submissions are okay (The penalty for late submissions after the Sept 1st deadline is 4% per day)

So that makes Sept 25th the last day for late submissions.

And I am sorry I didn't clarify this sooner, but the late penalty of 4% per day is deducted from your score for "Best" and "Most Improved" categories, but deducted from your $5 prize for the "Completeness" category.

=CONTESTANT DOWNLOAD LINKS=

I will do my best to keep this list up-to-date as the entries roll in. If I missed anyones game, please let me know!

* Onlyoneinall - Bloodlust 1.1 (old version)
* godsavant - Tower of Heaven (old version)
* beau_rl - Test of Normality (old version)
* Mogri - Phantom Tactics (Chapter 1) (old version)
* Machu - Modern Magic Preview Demo (old version)
* Blue Train - Dawn 25% Demo (old version)
* Rurouni Catholic - Maces Wild (old version link missing)
* Ysoft_Entertainment - Kana Learning (16% late)
* Spoonweaver - House Escape (old version) (48% late)
* James Paige - Wandering Hamster (old version) (48% late)

[Baconlabs]

I don't see a Wandering Hamster yet. Sadness.

[Bob the Hamster]

[Moogle1]

Hey, heads up to anyone who downloaded Phantom Tactics already: If you can't see the HP bars, you have an old version of GAME. Unfortunately, I forgot to include the DLLs with the executable I packaged with the game. That's been corrected, so if you redownload and use the included game file, you should see the HP bars and everything else correctly.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Rya.Reisender]

Wow you really managed to make an SRPG that's actually playable with the OHR? Have to try that one. I'm looking for a good SRPG for ages, but they are hardly any indie ones and SRPG Maker 95 completely failed and never got a sequel. I remember once suggesting James to make an OHRRPGCE for SRPGs, but that was years ago.

Also I might play multiple of those games if they are really complete games. The OHR is indeed lacking complete games (but that's the case for most indie game communities).

Edit: Oh and PLEASE always provide an Exe-File (and all required files) for your game in every zip you create. Not so much for me, but it's really a pain to make OHRRPGCE games popular in other communities if they can't just be downloaded and started. It may sound silly, but telling someone that he has to download some additional exe-file to play the game will usually result in a reaction like "uh nevermind then", not to mention the hundreds of people that don't even ask about it and just see that there's no exe and ignore the game. Bloodlust is a good example on how a zip-file of a complete OHRRPGCE game should look like.

By the way, are the contests still so that you really have to vote for every game of the contest?

Edit2: Tried out your game (Phantom Tactics) now, pretty nice and actually playable compared to OHR Tactics from years ago. Some things that could be improved:
- I couldn't figure out how the exp system works and it's not explained in the doc file, after the first battle I hardly had any exp.
- I think the HP should be displayed even if you have the green bar; also 0 HP should make the green in the bar disappear completely, your 0 HP currently looks more like 1 HP.
- This is more a personal opinion but I despise perma-death in SRPGs, there's no point in putting that in, either make a "game over" directly when one person dies or auto-revive them after each battle, this will also fix the problem that the dead characters still talk in the dialogues! Really name me one good reason to add a perma-death like that. It's harder to code, 99% of the players will reset their game when they lose a character anyway and it also somewhat takes away a few possible strategies.
- There seems to be a lot of misses and I got the impression that the whole battle system rather depends on luk than strategy.
- I'd add a healer into the starting party, healers are always a nice addition to the strategy.
- The graphics could be improved, really I can see many people getting interested in that game's concept so you might find some people who want to help out with those. But if you can draw trees like that you should also be able to make a better grass tile.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Baconlabs]

[Moogle1]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Baconlabs]

[Rya.Reisender]

Well, if you ask me, discussing the CONTEST GAMES is part of the contest, isn't it? Unless we open a thread for each contest game, all should be discussed here.

[Moogle1]

[Rya.Reisender]

Well, you gotta understand that I give these suggestions because I think it would make the game more enjoyable. I can't force you to implement them but really, take them to heart. If I think so others might too.

[Moogle1]

[Bob the Hamster]

[Rya.Reisender]

It's sad that you think this way, because that basically disables you from making games many people enjoy. *sigh*
Well I already discussed that with you guys, and I basically gave up... it's just that you're making an SRPG, something that I've been waiting for for years now. But guess I can't convince you to make it how games should be: Enjoyable for players and offering the maximum possible customizability. The only reason not to give the player creative control is if it's too hard for the player to understand or too much work for the player to be enjoyable (otherwise the OHRRPGCE itself would be the perfect game).

[Baconlabs]