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wow, i didn’t try it… sorry, will try the 3rd path later (today or tomorrow)

you know… i like how you take advice and complain into consideration seriously :joy:
and i really apreciate your effort, maybe i’ll make some fanart for this story too :grin:
oh, before that… is it alright with you if i make some fanart ? (its not fancomic though, as i have 2 WIPs in waiting list >.< atm)

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The “third path” is not yet finished (as in, there will be an alternative 3rd path involving studying necromancy spells and filling a mansion with undead in Yokohama, aside from the two available now -going with Arcanus to attack Meiji Shrine- and spending time in Kamakura leaning nature spells with Yuki Up to now there are only some very limited options (two spells) involving the necromancy book in the Diet Library.

Otherwise, I also plan these extra options for Akira, and some extra things to do in Kamakura to fill the “time gap” highlighted by @UmbraLamia, which might also help with the problems highlighted by @ParrotWatcher. at the moment I’m thinking of the possibility of studying a Raise Air Elemental spell, given that this is the one missing, so that the MC can at least take two elementals into battle, if he/she missed the Fire Elemental (I confess I hadn’t properly thought about this…)

After that I reckon the game will be “finished”, though I’m happy to incorporate some other requests? (any ideas?)

Finally, yes, I’m very happy for you to do any fan art! I’m very interested to see how others perceive my game (one of the beauties of writing is that every person can imagine things their own way!)

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That’s not really the problem. The problem is that on super-easy mode, I shouldn’t have to do ridiculous amounts of preparation; I shouldn’t have to select the exact right options. Sure, if I do something stupid like go for him with the knife, maybe that would result in death, but most options should lead to a victory (eventually). If this is how difficult super-easy mode is, I would hate to have to try even “easy” mode. And please add an option to return to the start of the battle, or a similar checkpoint, if the MC does die. (I think there was one in the options at the start, but it seemed to be disabled for super-easy mode, rather counter-intuitively.)

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I took the untie water elemental spell but didn’t see an opportunity to use it. The Kappa liked me enough to recommend me to Yuki but didn’t join the battle. Maybe my Japanese Language or Elemental Creature skills were too low. I only had Yuki with me in the battle and then got one spotted by Lightning

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just trying the flee from arcanus route… found a bit of typo (actually its not typo, just missing something important :

The wont allow pets, so you reluctantly agree that Max will stay with the Kappa, at least for tonight. (i guess its mean the place the MC stay for 2 weeks)

However, it is impossible to cook at the , so you guess that you’re going to have to rely on restaurants and little convenience stores while you are in Kamakura. (same as above… missing the place after the and before comma)

and something else the spell we got from kappa, is it necromancy spell ?? or resurrection spell ?? is MC pet some kind of zombie or the real thing (really come back to life) ?? i’m a bit confused there actually… and before we fight with arcanus, i’m a bit confused when our pet doesn’t involve with fighting… and then i realized that it’s gone with kappa to meet some friendly monkey before… hhaaa XD so, the question is : did our pet doesn’t have any urge to pay back what arcanus did to them before ?. well, thats it for now… coz im not really used to took “un-benevolent” route at games, so i just skip-read some sentences that i though i already read before , and maybe… by that, i miss some typo that i didn’t noticed will tets it again later when i get the mood :grin:

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ParrotWatcher, wow, I was afraid that the game was a matter of “guess the options the author actually likes or die” on normal difficulty.

I never dreamed that could be a problem on super-easy mode.

So first of all let me say that I like the game, I think it has a lot of potential.

That being said, having played multiple times (on normal difficulty), it seems the game devolves into “guess what choices the author likes or die.”

Some people might find that entertaining, and hey, good for them.

I, for one, literally couldn’t care less for that particular game.

Now don’t get me wrong, the former mentor should be formidable, death options are appropriate.

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As far as I can tell, the main difference is that you can’t die before the final battle in super-easy mode, although that was never a problem for my pacifist MC, anyway. But, yes, as far as I could tell, the final battle is just as hard as normal mode.

Looking through the code, I notice that it’s done in a rather RPG-esque manner, and so each attack (except attacking with a non-magical weapon) does damage his hit-points. However, even on super-easy mode, I had only time to cast two spells (and this was with Feline Reflexes), which wasn’t enough. And certain things (attacking with a non-magical weapon, the Mirror Images spell) are basically useless.

I play these things for their plots (and this seems to be a good one), not for the challenge. Ideally, on super-easy mode, I’d be able to make pretty much any choices prior to the final battle, and still have to mess up pretty badly to die. Sure, he shouldn’t be a pushover, but my MC shouldn’t die because he learned Mirror Images instead of Fire Armour.

I also think that the save system should be on by default, especially on super-easy mode.

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[reads “killer turtle”, pictures this] That would be so badass. :slight_smile:

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Just updated the game with the latest feedback. Specifically:

@ParrotWatcher There is a save system, and I’ve now made it the default for Super-Easy mode (as suggested). I made the “not-being able to die” the default for Easy mode, the rest stays the same. I also further reduced Arcanus’ health and damage in super-easy mode (I think it should be very easy to kill him with one blow now? Olso, I noticed that half of the problem was the “strength of the allies” that the MC needs to bring into the battle (basically the strength of Yuki, the Kappa, the elementals, undead, etc, is all taken into account. However, this was not difficulty-specific, though now it is…). So, if the MC doesn’t kill him then the allies should do…

@gamesrgreat you basically need to help the water elemental when you first encounter it, for which you need to have some sort of light source to see what is the problem that it’s having. Then, you need to further help it in the following chapters, meaning that you can finally untie it at the end

@Curious_Boy just realized that this was a problem related to the way the chapters were set up, which originates when the MC visits the temple. This should now be fixed. the resurrect was not meant to be a necromancy spell but a summoning spell (summoning the soul of the familiar from inside the MC’s body, back into the animal body). However, there is now also a “Raise Zombie Familiar” and a “Enhance Zombie Familiar” spells in the Necromancy path, which I’m still working on… I guess the confusion arose because of me talking about this necromancy path? Also, I noticed that there was no text indicating that the Kappa and the familiar do join the fight, so I placed this text there

@stsword thanks for the appreciation (“I like the game, I think it has a lot of potential”), and sorry that you found it to be “guess the options the authors likes or die”). Basically, by introducing difficulty settings I was trying to avoid the later problem (and I do take on board your comments and those of @ParrotWatcher, and I’ve been trying my best to make the game playable by those who are not interested in the RGG-esque mechanics. Basically, aside from a couple of odd points ( Arcanus is immune to normal weapons, which Yuki will explain if asked there damage etc of each spell works based on the type of spell, affinity to an elemental, skill of the MC (so, a Fireball will cause damage proportional to the fire affinity and magic skill of the MC. If you have very low fire affinity then using a fireball would be almost useless… the game doesn’t allow the MC to build a high affinity in all elements, so there is an element of strategy involved, to some extent… or at least that is how I envisaged the game). Now, in “Super-Easy” mode I wanted to make all these almost inconsequential, and I thought the previous settings ensured that. I have further lowered these (Arcanus HP and damage), meaning that I think Arcanus should be killed by one spell, two spells maximum, unless the MC is doing something very strange (casting a FireBall with extremely low Fire Affinity). However, arriving with extremely low stats and/or health will still result in death (i.e. if the MC arrives with 1 HP and low stats you agree that he made poor choices throughout and should still be allowed to die, even in Super-Easy Mode?). Let me know if this feels unfair, and if so I’ll make further changes…

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Element of strategy

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@UmbraLamia I fixed the continuity problem… basically this adds an option of what to do for gap in days when the MC chooses to flee immediately after the death of the familiar. Basically, this open the possibility of learning a couple of new spells, and hopefully adds a little bit of extra replay-ability. This should be enhanced once the Necromancy chapter is finished… . I think this solves the “continuity” problem you highlighted (and thanks so much for pointing it out) :slight_smile:

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This time I had four allies and still got completely destroyed. Honestly can’t even imagine how I’m supposed to beat the last fight. Really fun game until the end which just feels ridiculously unfair

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Maybe you could just remove the RPG aspects entirely, at least for super-easy mode? It’s an overly complicated way of doing it. I admit that I tried something similar when I first wrote a fight scene, but it really didn’t work, and I quickly changed it to a more “tree of choices” style approach. It would require writing more, though, rather than just rebalancing what’s already there, so I can understand if you want to leave it as it is.

Also, could Arcanus’s disspelling of the Mirror Images spell actually take him an entire turn? Because it’s completely imbalanced in favour of the fire/wind armours otherwise (and why doesn’t he try to disspell them?).

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@gamesrgreat Sorry about that :pensive: Can I ask you, were you trying in normal difficulty? I guess maybe this is too difficult still, so I’ve just re-adjusted Arcanus’s damage and HP for all difficulty settings, including the required strength of the companions to bring along (actually, I just realized that the strength of the required companions was still too high)

@ParrotWatcher. As you can understand I’m reluctant at this point to remove the RPG mechanics as it would involve re-writing the entire game (or most of the fight scenes, anyway). But, I’ve just set HP and damage to 1% of their original values, meaning that any attack should win over the final fight in “Super-Easy” mode.

Also, your suggestion of making him lose a turn to dispel Mirror Images is very nice, so I just incorporated that (i.e. you can attack early now by having Feline Reflexes or Mirror-Images, and otherwise most players should have an Armour spell on that would prevent most damage, though Arcanus should only cause 4HP damage at worst in Super-Easy mode).

Bringing any ally (even one zombie) should now allow the player to win by his ally/allies overcoming Arcanus in 2 rounds, or 1 round if a major ally is brought to the fight (either Yuki, the Kappa, the Water Elemental, or a decent size summoned elemental, or 3-5 zombies or ghouls). Or do you think these should be further reduced? Basically, do you agree that even in “super-easy” mode the player should have managed to somehow bring at least one creature along to help him? (and be able to suffer 8HP damage in the worst of cases, if he had brought this one ally?). Basically, if the player doesn’t have this, it would have probably shown poor judgement throughout the game (i.e. arriving almost dead, with no allies, independent of any RPG elements or statistics). By the way, I’m very happy with this discussion and really appreciate your help in trying to set the difficulty of the game, as I realize it’s one of the most complicated factors to achieve…

Otherwise, the new settings ARE NOT uploaded yet, as I’m in the process of trying to integrate and link the Necromancy chapter to the other chapters (Kamakura and Final fight, though it will have it’s own endings to further branch the game out).

But, as a point of interest, did many people (anybody?) try the Meiji Shrine route? How many people stayed with Arcanus till the end? Did anybody battle the Nio? (i.e. did I mostly waste my time coding this section? I’m starting to also wonder whether I’m wasting my time coding the Necromancy chapter, if most people will typically go along a certain path…). Basically, I’m trying to understand if I’m offering options to the player that few/no people will follow, which is clearly pointless on my side…

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Well I for one am excited for a good necromancy rout. It’s always been my favorite branch of magic but is rarely used by the protagonist in most serious stories and games. It tends to be either used by the nemesis or as a plot device for a zombie story.

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Assuming the Nio is the pet. Then no, no idea how to battle it. Though I did try the Meiji Shrine route.

This serves to reinforce the fact that a certain someone is an ass. Maybe even more than during the Kamakura route.

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The Nio is the guardian statue at the temple in Kamakura it will block entrance to the temple if the MC has very low soul values, and can lead to a fight if the MC tries to force his/her way in I guess nobody who goes to Kamakura ends up with low soul values? do many people continue to the fight in the auditorium in Tokyo University AND then escape to Kamakura I guess the most common route is escape after the death of the familiar?

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I did escape from the auditorium the first time.

And if by temple, you mean the one we can use as lodgings, then, dammit, I think I missed it.

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i didn’t fight The Nio… i just bow to it and then it allow me to pass (well, i never did attack anyone beside arcanus :sweat_smile:) and as for the fight in the auditorium, i just ask her and the arcanus backstab her so, no i didn’t fight and just escape to kamakura after that. and i never escape after the death of my familiar, i continue to learn from arcanus but vow revenge if the chance come.

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@UmbraLamia No, basically at the other temple in Kamakura that you can visit…

@Curious_Boy I was thinking of what you said, and basically not wanting to fight during the game (I guess this would be the “pacifist path”, which is possible almost right until the end). However, I’ve struggled to develop a peaceful way all the way until the end (this bothers me, as I would like to somehow offer it to the player, as the basic premise of having to always fight seems wrong? I managed to offer a choice throughout the fight, but not at the end…). Basically, the premise of the story sort of leads to there having to be a confrontation. Any thoughts on how a pacifist path could be implemented all the way until the end would be welcome…

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