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vs. RedMaverickZero
The Maroders Map. Parody, and World Map made easy.
RedMaverickZero
Download: 22B
V.S.
RedMaverickZero
Play Time: 3+ hours and minutes
Review # 44 for RedMaverickZero The Maroders Map. Parody, and World Map made easy.
Them's Fightin' Words
    I don't see many people who tend to review their own games, so I figured I would review my favorite series I have done to give the good people of the OHR Community a little information about the series and my thoughts about this game practically a whole year later. Talk about a long time.
Graphics
    Personally, I don't like them. I looked through my old .RPG file of this game the other day and just sat and looked at some of those enemy sprites and they just made me laugh. I don't know why they look rushed. Because I had plenty of time to do them. But often, some of these graphics would look bad and liney. Like you could tell I just opened up MSPaint and used the line tool to create the enemies. One big example is the "Werewolf Leader" enemy sprite. He was just straight lines building his figure. He looked as flatter than a pancake under a semi truck. There weren't many graphics I found, acceptable to this day.

The hero sprites are probably my favorite. Not so much because of their graphical structure, but because of the fact it was a blast designing these characters and then bringing them to life. This is kinda graphics related, but I didn't just make them up in a day. No, I would sit in class all day and design countless sprites. I swear, Josh may have looked a lot different if I used some of those earlier designs of him. But I am happy with the sprites the way they are. I mean, I probably could redesign all of em, but they wouldn't fit the mood of the game. Which I considered to be a very important thing down to the very end.

Maptiles probably are my favorite part of this game. They started out so nice. I can remember how proud I was to show Fenrir Lunaris those screenshots of the first town. I loved those tiles and I still think they are good. Of all the things in this game, I think the maptiles were done the best. I had a fair amount of variety, however I tended to reuse these things quite a bit as the game went on. The deadline got closer and I really wanted the game to be finished so I had to rush the game. I didn't have time to be picky, but that's why I went back and redid some of those wretched areas. I can recall in the first update when you walk through a specific cavern, you fight the Grim Reaper. It was just a full gray tile and some floor tiles. It looked really bad, but after revision of those tiles for that area, they aren't necessarily the best, but they beat the heck out of two tiles for that one area.
 
Storyline
    When I first designed Halloween Quest, I had been into the whole Kingdom Hearts thing. My buddy had let me borrow his PS2 and Kingdom Hearts. So A LOT of that is put into this game. The fact that there are three different classes of characters in this game says a lot about it too. Josh is the main character whom most of the things happen to. Max is his little brother whom he is very defensive over. Max is very young and innocent, lots of things scare him but he knows everything will be all right as long as his big brother and his brother's best friend will be there to protect him. Speaking of the best friend, that's Clyde. The goofy kid who forgot to get a costume for Halloween and then got lost in a big spooky mansion. If you care to know how these three are based off of Kingdom Hearts I will tell you.

Josh, was the typical swordsman, the main character, and overall, had the coolest looking weapons. Max was a mage. Using something I thought to be creative and have him cast his spells with different types of candy. And the hardest character I had to design was Clyde. His designs were so different to the one I finally settled on. I really wanted him to use a shield, like Goofy, but I couldn't think of a good costumed hero that uses a shield at the time. So he got a whip and some spiffy red jacket.

Josh and Max live with their mother alone. And for some reason their father left them and no one has every heard of him again. Josh's mom has to work all the time to pay for the house and to raise two children. So on Halloween night, Josh's mom asked him to do her a huge favor and take little Max out trick or treating. But when you meet up with Josh's beautiful girlfriend Rachel, odd things begin to happen. Finding out Josh's best friend Clyde is lost in a big spooky mansion at the top of the hill would send most people back home and locking the door. But Josh was determined to help his friend in need. Even if he had to bring his whiny little brother with him to do it. That was their big mistake. After the rescue of Clyde, the party then decides to explore all the noises in the mansion, from there the quest becomes fairly linear.

Going from Point A to Point B. Which I disagree with now that I look at it more closely. It left no room for the player to choose their own direction, to explore. It was just one area to one area. However, when you finally reach the end of the game a huge turning point happens and there's a huge surprise awaiting Josh and his friends.
 
Gameplay
    I am no plotscripting master. I admit to that. Heck, when I started Halloween Quest, I had just finished Mr.Triangle's Shitty Adventure 5 and that was the first game I ever put plotscripting into. Halloween Quest had the most amount of scripting I have ever put into a solo project since March of this year. I didn't know very many techniques or what not. I could just make characters move around and show text boxes. Very simple stuff. And it looked simple, too.

I used the basic default battle engine. Because I personally think it looks the best, and if you work your enemies appropriately, the battles can be really fun. I am against the whole idea of having a ton of characters for a short game. So I stuck to three characters. And I tried to make each one as useful as the other one. Josh was your physical man. Max was your mage. And Clyde was your defensive man. Using all of their various techniques against different enemies made the overall gameplay fun to say the least.
 
  Battle
    Every character was different, as stated before. Josh, the swordsman, was also like a thief. He was able to steal various items and later on he could mug the opponent. Dealing damage and still stealing. He was probably my favorite character to use because he was so well balanced in his offensive attributes. Stats were fairly well balanced. When you reached the final boss, it would be a fair fight even if you were five or six levels weaker than intended to be at that point in the game.

One thing that made the battles fun was the fact that all of the enemies looked different. I have this pet peeve about seeing people reuse sprites for battle. Part of the thrill of a battle is encountering new foes and seeing how to take them down. But seeing stupid enemies like slimes and such all throughout the game would have made it quite boring. So I spiced it up and made a large variety of enemies for each area. However, not as large as I wanted. I was limited on time and didn't have a whole lot of time to craft up all of these things at once. However, for the enemies I did program, I think they worked very well.
 
  Map Design
    As said, very linear. Without the maptiles to make the maps look a little prettier I really don't think it would have been as enjoyable as it is. I remember designing the Cornfields and using maybe... Five tiles altogether to make it. I didn't care how ugly it looked, because there was a little hidden joke in it all. I designed that area to be Mr.Triangle. So if you are able to open up the .RPG file go to it and take a look. It's something dumb I incorporated into the game. But I thought it was neat anyways. Maps were almost too straightforward in my opinion.  
  Balance
    I honestly think this area wasn't too bad. There were large varieties of healing items scattered throughout the game and you could get candy from just about any enemy. With that candy you could heal yourself. However, Josh had two different types of attacks, Trick, and Treat. His tricks were basically offensive skills, yet his Treat was defensive skills. However, his defensive skills were hardly worth using. They were programmed far too weak. Yet the majority of the attacks your heroes had were pretty well balanced and nothing was ever what people would call superior. Every character is unique in their own way as said before, and because of this it made a flow of battle and gameplay. Enemies tended to be a little less balanced than I really hoped for. But like I have said countless times already, I was strapped for time.  
Music
    If you've played one of my games, you've played them all. And they all have one thing in common. The fact that all of the music was ripped. I am no musician, so why write music to mess up a game? Most of these tracks in Halloween Quest came from two places. There was this really neat Halloween Midi place and I chose like 20 spooky ones. And then I picked up my old BAM files of a few Final Fantasy tracks. And then I picked a rather neat punk-rock song for the battle theme. It's not exactly the best, but I think it sets an atmosphere to the game that makes it overall enjoyable. If you didn't hear music in certain places in the game I think those places would really have hindered. Several people have told me the Haunted House is really creepy because of the music. So obviously, it fit the mood to creep ya out.  
Enjoyment
    Making games is a hobby. And like most hobbies people have, they do them to relax, escape the troubles of everyday life or just to plain out have fun. With Halloween Quest I was able to parody a world I only dreamed of creating. I was able to make it seem like I drew it by hand. Because I feel it is important to draw in OHR the way you draw in real life to capture your own style and atmosphere. I had a blast making this game, and the sequel has been twice as much fun to create.  
Final Blows
    I have been using the O.H.R.R.P.G.C.E. for about four years. With it I can tell throughout my games that I am getting a little better every step of the way. And every game is like a stepping stone, it helps you get to the prize at the end. I wouldn't have learned anything about tags and whatnot if I didn't set up Mr.Triangle's Shitty Adventure. And I wouldn't have known plotscripting at all if not for Mr.Triangle's Shitty Adventure 5. So as shitty as they are, they are the stepping stones that have brought the world Halloween Quest, Gargan and Troy, and many more along the way. All I can say though, regarding a conclusion, is that Halloween Quest Year 1 is over and the 2nd Year, the Conclusion to the epic story is about to unfold in Castle Paradox's gamelist Halloween. Progress is going well, and it is back on schedule.
Here you see the final confrontation between Josh and his friends with the evil vampire. The vampire had several redesigns before looking the way he does today.

Here you see the final confrontation between Josh and his friends with the evil vampire. The vampire had several redesigns before looking the way he does today.
Final Scores
Graphics: 7/10.0
It's hard to think these were practically a whole year old. Heh.
Storyline: 8/10.0
It's fairly linear, but the characters were fun to design. Especially putting them in specific situations and seeing how their personalities contrasted.
Gameplay: 8/10.0
Upbeat and fun. However simple it is, the default engine is still loved by many.
Music: 8/10.0
Definitely sets the mood for the atmosphere. However, if I had more time to choose music I could have probably selected a few better tracks for certain areas to make specific scenes more dramatic.
Enjoyment: 10/10.0
A blast to make, and even to this day a blast to play.
Overall Grade: B-
Final Thoughts
    The stuff sequels are made from.  


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