[Friend]

Well, it's finally done. After playtesting the game for almost the whole day, I finally finished it. The game is now in the open-beta stage (I figured I'd have to play it throughoutly before releasing it to the public.) The promo gif file is something I made for fun... the logo itself though, is based on Naoki Urasawa's manga called "The 20th Century Boys."

Until I got the chance to learn HTMLing (*sigh* I'm so pathetic), the game and and the info for the game can be found here:
http://www.castleparadox.com/cgi-bin/gamelist-display.php?game=72

comments, suggestions, flames, candies, or even chocolates are welcomed.

[Rainer Deyke]

My first impression:

• The ad is a major turn-off. If I hadn't remembered the game name from a previous post, I might have stopped then and there.
  
• "The Pact" from the website: this is one of those fantasy cliches that makes me cringe in pain whenever I encounter it and interferes with my ability to suspend my disbelief and enjoy the game. If the god are not responsible for keeping sun shining and the wheat growing - in short, if the gods can keep their hands off the world without causing it to collapse - then what good are they, and why would anybody worship them?
  
• When the game starts, I get a black screen. Maybe there's some text on there that is too dark to read; I have no way of knowing. I think I eventually got it to go away by pressing escape, or maybe it went away by itself after a very long time.
  
• After the black screen goes away, my computer goes berserk. First it races through some intro scene that passes so quicky that I can barely make out what is happening, much less read the text. Then the game starts, and I am unable to move. The only button that does anything is the escape key, and that only calls up a menu that navigates itself- quickly. It's like the game is trying to access some non-existant input device (such as a joystick; I have none). Whatever the cause is, it makes the game literally unplayable. I have to ctrl-alt-del to regain control of my computer.
  
• Despite being completely incomprehensible, the intro looks interesting. I would like to play the game, if it ever works on my computer.
  

[Friend]

Hello Reyner,

The overal point of the ads is to poke fun of cultish propaganda ads. If I somehow failed to make that impression, I apologize. (since the game IS about cults and religions)

There's a separate intro included in the game. I didn't include the entire game backstory due to text constraint. In the separate intro, the gods created the worlds; they can destroy the sun if they wanted to and bring rain if they want to. I don't know why you get the impression that they are powerless ethereal beings.

In the Aztec culture, people associated with the supernatural or "divinity" is considered higher in rank than the others, therefore putting the shamans in higher hiearchy than the rest. The Aztec religion also pretty much based on the Mexica way of compherending the world. They described the process of day and night by the conflict of their main god Huitzilopotchli versus the darkness (the sister and the 400 stars.) I believe medieval people in any world, have the tendency to create lies in order to explain the way nature works. Religions and cults were also needed for social divisions to create a sense of "balance." In the case of the game's universe, the gods do exist and since there are no reasons to believe that gods are perfect or good, I'll assume they are just like us. They get crazy when the people they created worship false deities. The reason why they worshipped the gods is the same reason why the Aztecs sacrificed young men during the end of dry season. Because they were deluded and didn't actually know how nature really works. They don't know about the pact of the gods. And also, people worship the gods just for the same reason why people have nonsensical cultural traditions and religions. There were also the opportunists who hope to climb the hiearchical ladder by the use of religious exploits.

The blackscreen crash seem to happen to alot of my colleagues. I'm guessing that the OHRRPGCE engine is incompatible with high-end computers.

Cheers,
Friend.

[Mandrake]

[Adam]

[Friend]

Mandrake: That's also a very valid reason. Thanks for the backing =)

Adam: Good point. Due to the fact that I'm such an imcompetent boob at programming, I'd probably just switch to a better engine later on (ie. Mandrake's GIA edit or... RPGDS.) Also, I'll consider 1.4Ghz PC as a high-end computer, I'm stuck with p2-450 ;_;

Friend,

[Mandrake]

heh, hate to say this (and I really do....) but GiaEdit has been put on indefinate hold for a while since I'm trying to get my life back together (which seems to be getting harder and harder to do as time goes by :() I haven't dropped it yet, just set it aside to work on a few other things.

That's the only thing I don't like about OHR- and probably one of the reasons why ti won't survive is the lack of XP support. Which kind of sucks....

oh well. I like the cult concept....I spent a while studying cults (not too join, but rather, to understand since I was planning on writing a novel where the main character joins a cult), and I find them horribly frightening becuase of the ease of which one can see how anything can be a cult. Anything. It also made me question just how often people actually think for themselves....it seems a rarety....i mean people think they think for themselves....but alot of times they are not. It's hard to explain. Society and culture can be cult like....as well as other things, strangely enough. Oh well. Two good movies on cults that I found while doing research (both staring Kate Winslet) is "Hideous Kinky" and "Holy Smoke".

Really looking foreward to your game- can't wait to play it. And since I have a p300mhz and Win98se, I don't think it will be a problem.

ps- why haven't you added the game to rpgdx yet, eh?

[Friend]

Yeah, the lack of XP support is quite a blow to OHR.

Ooohh, speaking about cults, if you like studying about the cults, you should definitely check out this site: www.rickross.com . The site has a comprehensive list of known cults. Interestingly, North Korea is listed as a cult, along with the teen boot camps.

"Really looking foreward to your game- can't wait to play it. And since I have a p300mhz and Win98se, I don't think it will be a problem."

ooohh, I'm not alone :)

Well, I was going to, but it seems that RPGDX hates my computer. It has the tendency to crash IE randomly X_x same thing happened when I try to post replies or new topic. I managed to post a few replies. Interestingly, the same thing happens in pixelation... I'm suspecting that my computer needs to be reformatted or something.

Anyhow, I'm at the University's comp lab now, and all is well... the game's on the list now :)

Friend,

[Bjorn]

Lack of XP support? I could run it fine on my XP SP1, AthlonXP 2000 (should still be rather high-end). I just wanted to walk around a bit, so skipped the intro rather rudely... didn't see any problems though. Am planning to take a better look at the game later.

[lazee barok]

isn't there a rule that bans advertising on indie-rpg dx? or is that another rule? I think that if people MUST advertise, do it in an advertising part of the forum.

note: no offense, friend. just can't remember.

[Friend]

I've read the FAQ to check if there's a rule against it before posting the ad, but now you got me worried and I checked it again. So far, I can't find anything about it; it might've been included in jonatha.swoo.net FAQ page, but it's down, so I don't have a way of knowing. However, I apologize if I've violated one of the rules.

Friend,

[The Anarchist]

Heh, I think the adverts pretty funney... it looks like one of those cult posters you might have seen around the shadier parts of town, heh.

The game worked fine on the schools xp computers, but theres no sound and i'm in a lesson, so i'll do a proper review on the main site a little later, when i've got the game at home and played it properly. Oh yeah, and I actually hate the OHRRPGCE, cos its so slow and the scrollings rubbish, but if it doesn't detract too much from the gameplay you might as well give it a shot, think how bad the dragon warrior scrolling is, and thats one of the origional greats.

Oh yeah, and Barok, don't you think you're being a little harsh? Nek's been advertising the restart of LostSock a number of times now - and the advert is really pretty good. Can't wait to play this properly.
_________________
Some may know me as MidnightDreamer... time for a namechange.
blackgc.f2g.net

[Mandrake]

Actually, RPGDX is all about promoting your RPG's. That's the whole damn point. The only thing we DON'T want is constant game spamming. If you post 10 times in a row about a game, or a software label, then you're thread will be deleted and you'll get a warning. But, adverts are good. We need more of them.

[Modanung]

But not too much! I don't want to be waiting even longer with every page I load with my crappy modem connection.

[lazee barok]

sorry. just that i was in a bad mood. we just suffered a devistating loss in hockey... lost 8-4. yeah, that bad...

Also, when i first came to this topic, i was on the school's connection. (not high speed) so it took about five minutes for it to load up. i was steamed at that time because i had only about five minutes left...

again, my sincerest appologies.