RPGM Caliross, the Shapeshifter's Legacy [v0.9.11] [mdqp]

[Xaoyu]

But if I don't do it, who will? I mean, I had to pay a bounty to convince someone the first, and he also helps with testing now, but I can't expect him to contribute whenever he can, I am the only one currently getting paid through the game, after all.



I am no sprite artist, so it's outside of what I can do. I'd need to pay someone anyway, and custom spritework can be expensive as CG (the noble carriage sprite used in the game cost me more than one CG). Plus, with the VX Ace style for sprites, it doesn't even look good enough, there aren't enough pixels to make the details make sense, most of the time.

I think if we want to absolutely fill the gaps, a cheap alternative is using "generic" CGs, that can be recycled for the unimportant NPCs, but then I'd wonder if that's any better than a black screen. Still, it's the most likely scenario, unless I magically double my Patreon money and I can hire an army of artists. XD

It's too bad that we got plenty of bad scripted bland games with plenty of CG, but a good game like yours with a big lack of pictures. The main character is not stupid contrary to 80% of the female protagonist games we get. The situations are well scripted with good dialogues and descriptions. The CG you manage to get so far are great actually. You really are on something with this game.

Regarding corruption that you mentioned in a previous answer. I think your game could earn in depth if there were a real "non slut" road. In those kind of game whatever is the choices and personality of your character, it's still about having sex interactions eventually. You let the choice to the player to not let the character become an easy girl, but when we choose that, nothing happens then. It's like you were punished for not acting like a slut. I think that whatever are the choice you make there should be sexual consequences but just not the same or not the same way.

I played a really huge amount of hrpg and what i could advise it's to not underestimate the details : NPJ casual evolving interactions, job system, side quests, secrets, outfit system, outfit breaking system, etc. It's cool when you have a good main quest but in reality it's really just a support to give a start and an end to a game. the important things are everything that is around this main quest.

For exemple, to make players really focus on your game you can integrate a system that imply some kind of grind. Like you need to grind something to make your character career evolve and that way unlocking possible events and for exemple unlocking items or money needed to unlock other event with npc and secret interactions etc.

Without that finally you tend to rush the main story and between two updated you don't play it, eventually you don't think about it anymore and find an other rpg etc...

 

[mdqp]

There another way to write a walkthru, in which I have done a few times, however I can't do it with this game. I can play it out but it's difficult to find everything, and then determine the outcome, does Erica lose INT, Will, INH, ect, which NPC's and their relationship with Erica are of goodwill or is the NPC going to just use her for their own means.

I would need the game to be unpacked to gain access to the www folder. I haven't figured that out, and have tried to on this site with certain RGPMaker games. And I understand the reason for doing this!

Technically, I can't share the open version of the game, because of copyright issues (there is stuff from DLCs and so on I can't redistribute). Of course, nobody is going to chase after me if I share a single copy like that (heck, there is even a decrypter floating around the internet, so it's not as if RPG Maker is very secure). Honestly, I'd be happy to, if that got me a good walkthrough.

The game is made using VX Ace, so there isn't a www folder. (but I must warn you, the game is quite complicated, so don't necessarily expect to have an easy time tracking things down).

How do you enter the secret temple in the forest?

Let's see: do you have the ritual spell? Did you go the temple during a fullmoon at night? Those are the basics. I think the way to get the ritual spell is detailed in the walkthrough, if that's what has you stomped.

Snip

Well, I started with no money to dump into the project (in fact, I went to Patreon because I needed the money, otherwise, I have always released my games for free before), so I accumulated a certain "CG gap" I am trying to cover. I am glad you like the rest of the game! ^_^

I think I get what you mean. It might be too early for me to do a "post-mortem" of Caliross, but I can already tell you how certain things went wrong, and how it affected parts of the game. For the slut/innocent stuff, there are a number of factors: part of it is simply that I wanted to have lowering inhibitions as a good thing (opening up more opportunities and so on), which left the less slutty options simply neglected. Another thing is the open world approach, where I can safely say I went too big too early, and left me struggling to catch up in general. What it means is that potentially "less fun" options got simplified/removed from my plans. I also chased after more fetish content early on, which left little room for less slutty options (certain NPCs would require completely different paths, or at least significantly more writing, to fit multiple those different facets).

I hope the noble content and the two guilds will provide some of that "climbing" feeling, without having to resort to grindy mechanics (which I don't like). Also, Janet should also be an outlet for that kind of experience, once I expand the items she can get you in exchange for collecting mana crystals (of course, I'll also need to add more opportunities to collect said crystals).

The game could have been better. Some other choices affected it negatively (and in hindsight I can see that), but I'd rather not bore everyone with more of my musings on the game. Hopefully, I can improve on the weak points a bit more over time.

 

[Xaoyu]

I think I get what you mean. It might be too early for me to do a "post-mortem" of Caliross, but I can already tell you how certain things went wrong, and how it affected parts of the game. For the slut/innocent stuff, there are a number of factors: part of it is simply that I wanted to have lowering inhibitions as a good thing (opening up more opportunities and so on), which left the less slutty options simply neglected. Another thing is the open world approach, where I can safely say I went too big too early, and left me struggling to catch up in general. What it means is that potentially "less fun" options got simplified/removed from my plans. I also chased after more fetish content early on, which left little room for less slutty options (certain NPCs would require completely different paths, or at least significantly more writing, to fit multiple those different facets).

I hope the noble content and the two guilds will provide some of that "climbing" feeling, without having to resort to grindy mechanics (which I don't like). Also, Janet should also be an outlet for that kind of experience, once I expand the items she can get you in exchange for collecting mana crystals (of course, I'll also need to add more opportunities to collect said crystals).

The game could have been better. Some other choices affected it negatively (and in hindsight I can see that), but I'd rather not bore everyone with more of my musings on the game. Hopefully, I can improve on the weak points a bit more over time.

I don't think you should be afraid to work on the content you already release rather than absolutely wanting to go on with the story and the world. As long as what you add/rework as game mechanics, event, interactions, give to players something to work on for a lot of time. Grind isn't a bad notion necessarily. We aren't talking about pve like in chinese games where you need to rotate for 6 hours a day for 3 months to get one think. But having to farm some materials you find on creature, and get some money or items thanks to jobs and mini quest, mini games etc... that's intelligent grind. Specially if the npc during repetitive quests and jobs have evolutive relation with you (in bad or good), and that even if you don't act like a whore.

There was a 3D hrpg game based on corruption which wasn't bad (i forgot the name), with a mini game when you are barmaid and random erotic events trigerwhere the girl get more and more groped while serving customers… that's not much but that's fun and from time to time you get back to that mini game to get some gold and see the CG.

 

[Re-4Andrew]

The game is made using VX Ace, so there isn't a www folder. (but I must warn you, the game is quite complicated, so don't necessarily expect to have an easy time tracking things down).

I can get to the stuff I need knowing its VX Ace. I'll just have to play around with that since it new to me, With RPG Maker I have figured out how to gain access to everything, then pin down what I'm look for. I can write down everything as far as stats from the script files. Enables you to get detailed information for NPC's, hidden hotspots, ect... YOu have to go thru each 'section' of the map including inside buildings, caves...

It also helps playing out the game first and making notes of the areas, names of towns, buildings, NPC's, other characters who can join the MC.

 

[mdqp]

I don't think you should be afraid to work on the content you already release rather than absolutely wanting to go on with the story and the world. As long as what you add/rework as game mechanics, event, interactions, give to players something to work on for a lot of time. Grind isn't a bad notion necessarily. We aren't talking about pve like in chinese games where you need to rotate for 6 hours a day for 3 months to get one think. But having to farm some materials you find on creature, and get some money or items thanks to jobs and mini quest, mini games etc... that's intelligent grind. Specially if the npc during repetitive quests and jobs have evolutive relation with you (in bad or good), and that even if you don't act like a whore.

There was a 3D hrpg game based on corruption which wasn't bad (i forgot the name), with a mini game when you are barmaid and random erotic events trigerwhere the girl get more and more groped while serving customers… that's not much but that's fun and from time to time you get back to that mini game to get some gold and see the CG.

Grind is just wasting someone's time. You can waste a lot of their time or you can waste less of it, but if the content is rote repetition, or a time sink with no thought or skill involved, I'd rather not have it. Having said that, it's not like I can't have the side quests build up to something more, and we can use small quests that aren't a huge undertaking. Fixing a pacing issue doesn't mean adding needless repetition to the mix.

Well, but is that mini-game any good? wouldn't it be better to have escalating scenes with random gropers, instead of having to move and stop every 4 steps, get a little scene and then continuing? I don't know, I haven't found a way to make such a mini-game interesting so far.

I can get to the stuff I need knowing its VX Ace. I'll just have to play around with that since it new to me, With RPG Maker I have figured out how to gain access to everything, then pin down what I'm look for. I can write down everything as far as stats from the script files. Enables you to get detailed information for NPC's, hidden hotspots, ect... YOu have to go thru each 'section' of the map including inside buildings, caves...

It also helps playing out the game first and making notes of the areas, names of towns, buildings, NPC's, other characters who can join the MC.

Well, if you want to help, you are more than welcome. Do let me know if I can help somehow.

 

[Xaoyu]

Grind is just wasting someone's time. You can waste a lot of their time or you can waste less of it, but if the content is rote repetition, or a time sink with no thought or skill involved, I'd rather not have it. Having said that, it's not like I can't have the side quests build up to something more, and we can use small quests that aren't a huge undertaking. Fixing a pacing issue doesn't mean adding needless repetition to the mix.

Well, but is that mini-game any good? wouldn't it be better to have escalating scenes with random gropers, instead of having to move and stop every 4 steps, get a little scene and then continuing? I don't know, I haven't found a way to make such a mini-game interesting so far.

There is boring grind yes, but there is cool grind too. If you understand the difference you can actually increase your game life time by a lot while not annoying your players. They would even be entertained by this :

Arena system, Alchemy system, Job system, Guild system, classic mobs farming… with difficult mini games and progressive ero events.

Mix what you learned from others games even non hrpg. For exemple you have to "grind" ingredient to craft something with Alchemy, then you have to give that to a specific npc who will give you something else (a banana ! Zelda powa) that you'll have to give to an other npc etc etc.. at the end you unlock a cool outfit or whatever, maybe you can unlock a new battle class or a new job which contains a lot of ero events. That's intelligent grind. And it's not a waste of time.

 

[mdqp]

There is boring grind yes, but there is cool grind too. If you understand the difference you can actually increase your game life time by a lot while not annoying your players. They would even be entertained by this :

Arena system, Alchemy system, Job system, Guild system, classic mobs farming… with difficult mini games and progressive ero events.

Mix what you learned from others games even non hrpg. For exemple you have to "grind" ingredient to craft something with Alchemy, then you have to give that to a specific npc who will give you something else (a banana ! Zelda powa) that you'll have to give to an other npc etc etc.. at the end you unlock a cool outfit or whatever, maybe you can unlock a new battle class or a new job which contains a lot of ero events. That's intelligent grind. And it's not a waste of time.

I don't know, I never had a good experience with any form of grinding, I like it better when new things open up often. I was thinking for my next RPG game to have an alchemy system, and to feature an "optional" grind system. Basically, you'd have to explore new areas to get new materials. You'd go through it the first time as normal, gathering ingredients defeating monsters, and handling a boss fight here and there (or some different main objective). After the first time you complete an area, you can go there whenever you want, or set workers to gather materials in any area you have fully mapped (with a slightly reduced efficiency compared to going there yourself). The game would have multiple systems you can play around with, or leave to your companions (like, raising money by selling what you create, research spells and potions, exploring/gathering as I mentioned, and politics/raising your fortress), basically allowing people to pick and choose the systems they want to engage with if they like them, and what to ignore and leave to my terrible AI/calculations to handle.

Stuff like this is involved though, and I am not sure I'd want to try and tack on any system like the one you mentioned, after all this time in development.

 

[chaseJESUS]

Yes, I have the ritual spell. However, whenever I attempt to transform, it prompts "For what purpose?". I'm forced to say "Nevermind" as there are no other options.

 

[mdqp]

Yes, I have the ritual spell. However, whenever I attempt to transform, it prompts "For what purpose?". I'm forced to say "Nevermind" as there are no other options.

There is a spell literally named "ritual spell", that's the one you need to open the temple.

 

[baneini]

Grind is good since the point of playing games is to waste time until the sweet release of death.
If you just give appropriate rewards for the grind, like a weapon that impresses the npc's or a sex scene it's fine. Cheap option is have money system with a money sink.

 

[anonymous316]

I am one of those weird people that love to grind lol

 

[Scars Unseen]

I don't know, I never had a good experience with any form of grinding, I like it better when new things open up often. I was thinking for my next RPG game to have an alchemy system, and to feature an "optional" grind system. Basically, you'd have to explore new areas to get new materials. You'd go through it the first time as normal, gathering ingredients defeating monsters, and handling a boss fight here and there (or some different main objective). After the first time you complete an area, you can go there whenever you want, or set workers to gather materials in any area you have fully mapped (with a slightly reduced efficiency compared to going there yourself). The game would have multiple systems you can play around with, or leave to your companions (like, raising money by selling what you create, research spells and potions, exploring/gathering as I mentioned, and politics/raising your fortress), basically allowing people to pick and choose the systems they want to engage with if they like them, and what to ignore and leave to my terrible AI/calculations to handle.

Stuff like this is involved though, and I am not sure I'd want to try and tack on any system like the one you mentioned, after all this time in development.

Riffing off what you said, a system that is like a cross between Dragon's Age 2 and Suikoden might work. Instead of repetitively going back and forth to gather ingredients from different areas(ref. crafting focused games like Kamidori), you could find sources of ingredients that have a value indicating how much can be harvested from that location per day. These sources could found through exploration, social interaction(e.g. business deals) and other methods(heck, you could use the pocket dimension spell to set up spawning locations for more esoteric crafting materials).

Once you have access to those sources, you still need to gather them, and contrary to common RPG tropes, activities like mining and lumberjacking are labor intensive, full time occupations. So you need people do do the work for you. Now you could simply make a simple mechanic where you hire laborers and call it a day, but this also presents an opportunity to flesh the world out some. Use the opportunity to create minor(miner) NPCs that you can encounter and convince through various means to work for you. Specialists, pit bosses, etc. It would be a good dumping ground for when you have a fun idea for a character but have no idea where they'd fit into the game. And if you come to like any of them more than you originally thought, you can flesh them out later.

For added depth, create a allocation mechanic where you have to decide how many of laborers you can devote to each resource as a further limitation on how much can be gathered per day. Pit bosses could increase gathering efficiency, and specialists could increase the chance of rarer materials being found.

 

[mdqp]

Grind is good since the point of playing games is to waste time until the sweet release of death.
If you just give appropriate rewards for the grind, like a weapon that impresses the npc's or a sex scene it's fine. Cheap option is have money system with a money sink.

I am one of those weird people that love to grind lol

If I add grind for the sake of grind, and you have enough discipline to wade through it, you might as well play 5 minutes of my game, and then listen to 10 minutes of music and go back to playing my game. You can have a fake mouse to click for added immersion and to train your APM. XD

But joking aside, I'd think the content is what you should play for, no? The grind is mostly a way to pace the content, to provide an easy, reliable challenge to overcome to make the reward a bit sweeter, but I can't imagine the absence of grind would be so damaging as to put people who like it off.

Still, maybe the best is to have some special, optional stuff that can feed a bit into such mechanics, even if I don't like them myself. I could also have some special NPCs that "react positively" to grind-y mechanics (like, a rich, beautiful mistress that only sees you favourably if you keep spending loads of cash on her, or mana crystals gathering for Janet to get her final, top item), which can fit into the world design without needing to re-work things considerably. Maybe a simple, infinite dungeon with random monsters, to gather said crystals and more, with some randomization to the maps to avoid too much repetition.

Riffing off what you said, a system that is like a cross between Dragon's Age 2 and Suikoden might work. Instead of repetitively going back and forth to gather ingredients from different areas(ref. crafting focused games like Kamidori), you could find sources of ingredients that have a value indicating how much can be harvested from that location per day. These sources could found through exploration, social interaction(e.g. business deals) and other methods(heck, you could use the pocket dimension spell to set up spawning locations for more esoteric crafting materials).

Once you have access to those sources, you still need to gather them, and contrary to common RPG tropes, activities like mining and lumberjacking are labor intensive, full time occupations. So you need people do do the work for you. Now you could simply make a simple mechanic where you hire laborers and call it a day, but this also presents an opportunity to flesh the world out some. Use the opportunity to create minor(miner) NPCs that you can encounter and convince through various means to work for you. Specialists, pit bosses, etc. It would be a good dumping ground for when you have a fun idea for a character but have no idea where they'd fit into the game. And if you come to like any of them more than you originally thought, you can flesh them out later.

For added depth, create a allocation mechanic where you have to decide how many of laborers you can devote to each resource as a further limitation on how much can be gathered per day. Pit bosses could increase gathering efficiency, and specialists could increase the chance of rarer materials being found.

Yeah, something like this could work and is kind of what I'd like to do, although I'd prefer to have only major NPCs you can recruit, and giving them overseeing roles over broad categories, for the most part, while reserving some minor NPCs for things like expanding your workforce (say, convincing the head of a group of miners to join your operations). You'd get the info on how much stuff you can gather based on how much you discover yourself when you go directly into these places (so basically, your missions are intel gathering and monster extermination rolled into one), so there is an incentive to exploration and to doing a good job the first time around.

Well, this is the idea, at least, but we might have to wait years to see this game, since the next one I'll make will be a sequel to TOTDC, one of my previous games. XD

 

[Re-4Andrew]

Really the grind is at the beginning, getting the money for both Guilds and to pay for the Dispel Spell. Any weapons you find are going to happen from progressing thru quests (rewards).

And its not really a grinding game since the places Erica has to work have there own unique perks! And you can skip those by choice, if your not happy with the outcome from those perks. I believe there are 2 jobs where Erica works and doesn't have to put up with being used as a tool by the owners or patrons!

 

[Alcesto]

Is there only one ending for "Lost in the woods" quest?(Aria stays in the village)

 

[mdqp]

Is there only one ending for "Lost in the woods" quest?(Aria stays in the village)

Yes. I didn't think about adding a different ending at all, to be honest.

 

[Alcesto]

Thanks, for some reason i thought i missed something.

 

[neospacians]

help! how to access temple 2? thanks

 

[Féanorian]

help! how to access temple 2? thanks

There is a link to a walkthrough in the game folder..

 

[chaseJESUS]

Can someone pass a save where the main character is controlled by the Zanti family?