RPGM Darkstar [v0.3004] [Harold]

[harem.king]

1) The skip jumps over the most difficult and time-consuming parts of the tower. Floors 3 and 4 are not mazes or puzzles.

I literally got lost in the 4th level.
In the 3rd level the door is locked and you need to figure out there is some angel golem you activate to make it break the wall. this is a puzzle.
incidentally I also didn't realize at first that the ladder upwards was a ladder, since it looked like just some light wall texture.
in the 4th level you absolutely have a maze.

also, again, you are already letting people skip most of it, why not the whole thing?
this is literally where I dropped the game. and from other posts seems to be where most people drop the game.

2) Not liking the aesthetic of a 3D pixel dungeon is purely a matter of preference.

A. this is a very misleading statement since the vast majority of human prefers higher resolution.
A more accurate statement is that "a niche market exists that appreciates pixel art".

B. I didn't say that you should never use pixel art. I said THIS pixel art is not good. I have seen good pixel art that I appreciate and like.
C. there are problems with this section that goes beyond "it has pixel art"

It is objective that you have no free camera control. it is always looking at the same angle and just rotating a singular plane to one of the 4 cardinal directions. (which defeats the purpose of having a 3d section in the first place)
It is objective that you got clunky cardinal directions movement. (again, defeats the purpose of going 3d in the first place)
It is objective that you are plonking some 2d assets from RPGM into the 3d environment like people or rocks which looks very jarring and out of place. As well as making their size mismatch to the environment. And their pixel density mismatches the environment.
It is objective that your pixel resolution is very low even compared to other pixel art.

So all in all, this is not just "you don't like pixel art".

 

[harold]

I literally got lost in the 4th level.
In the 3rd level the door is locked and you need to figure out there is some angel golem you activate to make it break the wall. this is a puzzle.
incidentally I also didn't realize at first that the ladder upwards was a ladder, since it looked like just some light wall texture.
in the 4th level you absolutely have a maze.

also, again, you are already letting people skip most of it, why not the whole thing?
this is literally where I dropped the game. and from other posts seems to be where most people drop the game.

A. this is a very misleading statement since the vast majority of human prefers higher resolution.
A more accurate statement is that "a niche market exists that appreciates pixel art".

B. I didn't say that you should never use pixel art. I said THIS pixel art is not good. I have seen good pixel art that I appreciate and like.
C. there are problems with this section that goes beyond "it has pixel art"

It is objective that you have no free camera control. it is always looking at the same angle and just rotating a singular plane to one of the 4 cardinal directions. (which defeats the purpose of having a 3d section in the first place)
It is objective that you got clunky cardinal directions movement. (again, defeats the purpose of going 3d in the first place)
It is objective that you are plonking some 2d assets from RPGM into the 3d environment like people or rocks which looks very jarring and out of place. As well as making their size mismatch to the environment. And their pixel density mismatches the environment.
It is objective that your pixel resolution is very low even compared to other pixel art.

So all in all, this is not just "you don't like pixel art".

The door is locked, and the only other path forward is a room with golems. Upon entering the golem room, your character searches and finds the correct golem automatically. It isn't a puzzle.
The path on the fourth floor takes 60 seconds to traverse when walking on every tile and room available. It's an exploration section that's not meant to be confusing.

You're the first commenter who dropped at the 3rd/4th floors, the ones who dropped did so at floors 1 and 2. It skipped the most difficult of the levels so players could still experience the tower without having to struggle.

Again, this is a matter of your preference. I'm not saying you hate pixel art in general, only that you didn't like this art. Fine, that's a matter of opinion.

The 4 cardinal direction movement is a staple in Dungeon Crawlers, which I was attempting to emulate. I'm not trying to make a free-flowing 3D pixel world like Minecraft.

 

[harold]

That's nonsense. The only reason there are so many absurdly overbudgeted FPS games out there is because it's a super popular genre that can count on selling enough copies to make the money back. Any genre could end up spending as much money if they thought they'd make that money back, and plenty several do. (The "AAA" industry really does restrict itself to only a small number of genres, because that's the only way they can justify the budgets people expect of them.) But there are a lot of first-person dungeon-crawling turn-based RPGs out there with a similar appearance. They're sometimes known as "DRPGs" (the D is for dungeon, which is a bit misleading because most RPGs have dungeons even if they're not DRPGs), and the dev is probably using a plug-in designed specifically to make those kinds of games.

Of course there are plenty of design issues with it, and games that are designed entirely to be played as "DRPGs" tend to do some important things differently (like

You must be registered to see the links

- although the popular Etrian Odyssey series was known for having you fill out the minimap by hand, as a callback to some of the oldest games in the genre that people played while having a pencil and paper on the desk next to them), but the point is that there are plenty of indie games that use a similar style and do it just fine without an absurd budget.

Yeah, I was going for the Dungeon Crawler aesthetic with that using the RPGMZ3D plugin.
Good point about the minimap, I'll look into adding that just to make the first floor more bearable.

Good news! Finished up a basic minimap system along with compass, coming next update. Thanks for sparking my memory!

 

[harold]

Some PVs from latest update:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[DanigamerZX]

the game have animations?

 

[harold]

the game have animations?

Most of the H scenes are animated, aside from a few near the start. You check a few vids in the webm folder and see if you like them, everything's unencrypted.

 

[DanigamerZX]

Most of the H scenes are animated, aside from a few near the start. You check a few vids in the webm folder and see if you like them, everything's unencrypted.

so why the game dont have animated tag?

 

[Razef]

Played this for the first time today, and while I haven't caught up-to-date with it yet, so far I'm really enjoying it. Am particularly enjoying the interactions on the corrupt route, it also has a dynamic I'm pretty sure you don't see often in these types of games. The writing is great; normally in games that offer a pure route I don't even bother considering it but I'm pretty certain that I will play that too once I catch up with the current content on the corrupt route.

Also for what it's worth I do like the tower section, but I can understand that people wouldn't or have frustrations with it. I thought it made for a unique experience. That section combined with the well written dialogue gave me the impression that the dev is pretty passionate about what they're making. Gives me hope that it'll be finished, because multiple routes + variations of multiple events depending on how each character is (potentially) corrupted is gonna be a lot of work.. but if it's pulled off successfully I think it could become an amazing corruption game that could have a spot among my favorites.

The only thing I dislike so far is the lack of free roam, which might just be because of my current point in the story and maybe it'll change as I progress, but if it doesn't then that's fine too.

 

[bitsybobs3]

Darkstar-HAROLD-0.3004

Spoiler: TORRENT 621MB (Windows)

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

rpdl torrents are unaffiliated with F95Zone and the game developer.
Please note that we do not provide support for games.
For torrent-related issues use here, or join us on

You must be registered to see the links

!

You must be registered to see the links

,

You must be registered to see the links

. Downloading issues? Look here.
Want to join the team? Read more here!​

 

[harold]

so why the game dont have animated tag?

I just keep forgetting lol, it's added now.

 

[harold]

Played this for the first time today, and while I haven't caught up-to-date with it yet, so far I'm really enjoying it. Am particularly enjoying the interactions on the corrupt route, it also has a dynamic I'm pretty sure you don't see often in these types of games. The writing is great; normally in games that offer a pure route I don't even bother considering it but I'm pretty certain that I will play that too once I catch up with the current content on the corrupt route.

Also for what it's worth I do like the tower section, but I can understand that people wouldn't or have frustrations with it. I thought it made for a unique experience. That section combined with the well written dialogue gave me the impression that the dev is pretty passionate about what they're making. Gives me hope that it'll be finished, because multiple routes + variations of multiple events depending on how each character is (potentially) corrupted is gonna be a lot of work.. but if it's pulled off successfully I think it could become an amazing corruption game that could have a spot among my favorites.

The only thing I dislike so far is the lack of free roam, which might just be because of my current point in the story and maybe it'll change as I progress, but if it doesn't then that's fine too.

Really appreciate the kind words! Absolutely agree that making multiple variants of an event takes more effort and time, but at the same time I enjoy the process, and sometimes can't wait to open up part of the game and work on it!

Planning on implementing more free roam areas and opportunities, especially for the corrupt route. For now, the pure route has more exploration and optional quests, albeit with fewer H scenes.

 

[DanigamerZX]

help