Others RPGM Should I start over or contunie ?

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

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I'm going to be honest, here. I don't see anything especially wrong with the screenshots. I'll play it in a bit and see if there's anything you're doing wrong mechanically. But artistically? This seems pretty solid. You're going for a clear and strong Arabian theme and tone and flavor. I'm not Arabic, myself, so I can't judge the authenticity of it. But nothing clashes or stands out as an obvious design flaw.

Polish would help, if you can do it quickly enough. Color-correction, de-noising, bloom if your computer isn't good enough for denoising or for artistic reasons. Maybe throw some god-rays in there to really sell the moment.




But I feel like the issue is probably more fundamental, in this case. All I have are vague guesses why it didn't land. Maybe the whole Arabian Nights theme is just a mismatch for the people who've happened to see your thread. Maybe the woman is too similar to the women in other games, or maybe the MC is so distinct that people couldn't relate to him. Maybe RPG Maker is just a bad choice. It's impossible to know, at this point.

I recommend that you keep Flames of Desireon the internet, polish the existing art if you can (even a small saturation boost would be great.) Tie the game's narrative off at a satisfying conclusion of some sort (you can change this later if you decide to revive the project.) But try something wildly different with your next project. Superheroes or College dorm antics or Cyberpunk or something. Get outside your comfort zone. When you've done 3-5 short games in this way, one of two things will happen: hopefully you'll get a hit, but even if you don't, you'll slowly start to attract a following.

Once one of your games surprises you by out-performing the previous ones, it's a hint. It means you did something right. Figure out what it was, and apply that to all your previous games, if possible. (If it would require re-rendering every image from scratch, obviously that's not feasible, so just focus on incorporating it into future games.)

 

[Warthief]

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I'm going to be honest, here. I don't see anything especially wrong with the screenshots. I'll play it in a bit and see if there's anything you're doing wrong mechanically. But artistically? This seems pretty solid. You're going for a clear and strong Arabian theme and tone and flavor. I'm not Arabic, myself, so I can't judge the authenticity of it. But nothing clashes or stands out as an obvious design flaw.

Polish would help, if you can do it quickly enough. Color-correction, de-noising, bloom if your computer isn't good enough for denoising or for artistic reasons. Maybe throw some god-rays in there to really sell the moment.

View attachment 1905173


But I feel like the issue is probably more fundamental, in this case. All I have are vague guesses why it didn't land. Maybe the whole Arabian Nights theme is just a mismatch for the people who've happened to see your thread. Maybe the woman is too similar to the women in other games, or maybe the MC is so distinct that people couldn't relate to him. Maybe RPG Maker is just a bad choice. It's impossible to know, at this point.

I recommend that you keep Flames of Desireon the internet, polish the existing art if you can (even a small saturation boost would be great.) Tie the game's narrative off at a satisfying conclusion of some sort (you can change this later if you decide to revive the project.) But try something wildly different with your next project. Superheroes or College dorm antics or Cyberpunk or something. Get outside your comfort zone. When you've done 3-5 short games in this way, one of two things will happen: hopefully you'll get a hit, but even if you don't, you'll slowly start to attract a following.

Once one of your games surprises you by out-performing the previous ones, it's a hint. It means you did something right. Figure out what it was, and apply that to all your previous games, if possible. (If it would require re-rendering every image from scratch, obviously that's not feasible, so just focus on incorporating it into future games.)

Like i said in other comment here, there is good chance that i will stop with act 1, from what i plan on the story so far that will feel like the 1st movie in trilogy, story is finished but players will feel like there is so much question need to be answered.
my problem with moving to othere themed games is i am working with Daz and i have limited number of assets, i can't change the theme from fantasy to modern or sc-fi with the same assets, also i have 0 experiance with ren'py so that also will be big problem, i was thinking of making small spin off like stories of Flames of Desire other characters background that could work for smaller project and i can use the same maps and characters sprites but i don't know maybe it will not feel liek something new for people.
good job on fixing the render, this by far the best fix iseen in this thread, if it possible can you tell me what software you use to do it ?

 

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

Side-note. Did this image strike anyone else as particularly tricky to color-correct? Normally you can just push the bright parts of the image to yellow and the dark parts of the image to blue and get some kinda improvement out of it, but for a variety of reasons related to the background and the lighting, it seems like everything is backwards here.

• The stucco walls of the palace are brighter than the skin of the characters, and roughly the same hue.
• The sky is so much brighter than the background, it overpowers everything.
• Despite the OP sky, almost nothing in this scene seems lit. The characters would definitely benefit from some spot lights illuminating them.
• The blue tiles in the pool and that curtain on the left have a stronger saturation than the sky. This is true-to-life. However, it makes masking anything by "blueness" less of an option.
• The palace walls made transparent caused some sort of weird reflection on the polished stone surface bottom right. Even if the goal is to make the walls seem polished, turning the reflection off for this render would have been a good idea. Or maybe adding a giant black cube out in the void to block the sky reflection.

Of these, only the reflection in the stone wall and the lack of lighting on the characters are what I would call "design problems." The rest is just random factors that can break "default workflows." Not problems to be avoided, but issues to be aware of. Accounting for it at the design level in the future may make it easier to find a fast, cheap assistant to do color correction, or an automated or semi-automated color-correction workflow.

In general, we want the characters to "pop." Find creative ways to make your characters stand out, even against a background that's similar to their skin color.



Also, consider

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. It's less "physically realistic," and it's extra steps for you to perform, but it makes it almost trivially easy to darken the background or boost the colors on just the characters for emphasis. It may also reduce overall render-times by eliminating lighting interactions between the characters and the environment.

 

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

my problem with moving to othere themed games is i am working with Daz and i have limited number of assets, i can't change the theme from fantasy to modern or sc-fi with the same assets, also i have 0 experiance with ren'py so that also will be big problem, i was thinking of making small spin off like stories of Flames of Desire other characters background that could work for smaller project and i can use the same maps and characters sprites but i don't know maybe it will not feel liek something new for people.

Maybe step away from RPG Maker for a couple of projects, and see what kind of story you can tell with just some character sprites and some blurred, abstract, or free backgrounds.

In fact, I'm just going to say it. Hot-take time. This is not directed towards you, specifically. But anybody who can't tell a satisfying linear one-shot story? That person has no business making a long, branching interactive narrative which emphasizes exploration and world-building. Focus on the fundamentals. Master them. Scope small. Tell a story. Then add pretty pictures. If time permits, add paths.

A world map that only exists to fill space between your story beats is a waste of time and effort and resources, especially for small developers.

It's not that what you're doing is bad, it's that it's too much effort and resources to pivot away from. You can't

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if you're locked into your first Fail's art assets. So rather than buying a whole new batch of art assets, negate the need for them by making a visual novel.

That way, if people don't like your short, linear story, it's fine. You can just start a new short, linear story that's different, and roll the dice again. When one of those short, cheap stories becomes unusually popular, then it's time to start building something more ambitious using the same cast and characters.

good job on fixing the render, this by far the best fix iseen in this thread, if it possible can you tell me what software you use to do it ?

I used

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. It's a good, free tool with some features thrown in specifically for hand-drawn art. It won't single-handedly replace Photoshop or Clip Paint Studio Pro or Painter, but it's a decent open-source middle ground between the feature sets of those programs.

 

[Warthief]

In general, we want the characters to "pop." Find creative ways to make your characters stand out, even against a background that's similar to their skin color.

I don't know if this better or not, but my renders are improved a little, i have some new renders that look bad, and yes the colors i am using are bad, tbh i don't even think about colors when i render.

Also, consider

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. It's less "physically realistic," and it's extra steps for you to perform, but it makes it almost trivially easy to darken the background or boost the colors on just the characters for emphasis. It may also reduce overall render-times by eliminating lighting interactions between the characters and the environment.

I don't know about that, i seen some renders with separating background and characters but my problem with that is also not having the shadows interaction with characters and background.
about colors, yes right now i am not using the "world" colors like the envoirment light but like you said i am using yellow/orange as main light source with blue for dark places.

In fact, I'm just going to say it. Hot take time. This is not directed towards you, specifically. But anybody who can't tell a satisfying linear one-shot story? That person has no business making a long, branching interactive narrative emphasizing exploration and world-building. Focus on the fundamentals. Master them. Scope small. Tell a story. Then add pretty pictures. If time permits, add paths.

I don't have experiance with other tools other than RPG Maker but i can make story focused games like Ren'py using RPG Maker,
also yes i fall in every noob dev mistake by thinking about world building and making something big, i will try to reduce the scope and when i move to next projects i will also try to do linear story without all the mechanics i throwed into the project.

I used

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. It's a good, free tool with some features thrown in specifically for hand-drawn art. It won't single-handedly replace Photoshop or Clip Paint Studio Pro or Painter, but it's a decent open-source middle ground between the feature sets of those programs.

Thank you, i will try to see if i can use it to fix some of my renders,
also thank you for all your feedback !

 

[Cryptist]

Just a personal preference, but I won't even start a game based on clicking a street map to wander around trying to find something to do.

 

[Warthief]

Just a personal preference, but I won't even start a game based on clicking a street map to wander around trying to find something to do.

That sure, everyone have his own preferance, some like VN, other like RPG, people have different opinion on everything,
i know VN are more popular here and not just here, but that dosen't mean that people also dislike rpg style games,
there is also some successful rpg games here.

 

[rayminator]

View attachment 1905345

this looks great

now you just need to use Denoiser to get rid of the little small dots out of the image
https://f95zone.to/threads/nvidia-ai-denoiser-2-4.35677/

 

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

View attachment 1905345
I don't know if this better or not, but my renders are improved a little, i have some new renders that look bad, and yes the colors i am using are bad, tbh i don't even think about colors when i render.

That's much better, yes!

We're still seeing that "window" effect on the back wall. I don't know if it's specular, reflection, glossy, clearcoat, or something else but go into the material settings and just start increasing roughness until it goes away. It looks unnatural and it gives me "modern shopping mall" vibes in the middle of what's supposed to be a historical piece.

In fact, even the rug under the guy's butt is glossy and reflective. Fix that!

Other than that, the lighting looks great. Big improvement. It still feels like it could benefit from a small saturation boost, though.

I don't have experiance with other tools other than RPG Maker but i can make story focused games like Ren'py using RPG Maker,
also yes i fall in every noob dev mistake by thinking about world building and making something big, i will try to reduce the scope and when i move to next projects i will also try to do linear story without all the mechanics i throwed into the project.

Please don't over-value "experience" with any one specific tool. Ren'Py is easier to learn than RPG Maker. Therefore, if you're smart enough to learn RPG Maker, you're smart enough to learn Ren'Py. More importantly, Ren'Py is objectively better for making Visual Novels than RPG Maker. The couple of weeks you spend googling and learning and practicing will return to you 1000-fold as you just plop all your pictures into a folder on your computer. No stages. No parallax. No maps. Just text and pictures. Text and pictures. Until the story is over.

 

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

Oh, one other general tip for working in post.

Sometimes, I will deliberately push an effect too far, just to see what happens. For example, this is probably WAY too much light and color for the tone of the game:



But then you can blend the original image over the top of it to tone everything down again:


Experimenting in this way, you will learn faster than by trying to make each image understated to begin with, because both your mistakes and your successes will be much more obvious to you. (Then you can hide the mistakes under the original image!)

 

[Eezergoode]

Yes, a more free-roam game can be difficult where pacing is concerned. I guess it is really dependent on whether you want to focus more on he story, or on the game-play elements. If your focus is on the quests and mini-games more than story, you should be fine as-is, if you can find a proofreader/re-writer who is either VERY fluent in English or a native speaker. If you want to focus more on story elements, you may want to draw out the interactions and conversations. In my opinion, it would add more substance to the story, but again, that is my opinion.

 

[rayminator]

Hello everyone, i am not sure if this the best place to post this,
anyway i am making this game Flames of Desire and i feel like people didn't like the game so much, this is my 1st project, the game still early in development but my plans for the project are big that why i am confused about should i cnotunie, stop and start over with small project or maybe find some people to help me because the project feel huge for singel dev tbh.

if anyone here is dev with experiance i will appreciate any adviace .

one last response from me is to
but at least you should open a support ticket and ask for developer tag

 

[CurvyLinesEverywhere]

I had something else to say about this, but I needed time to hack together an example...

I don't know about that, i seen some renders with separating background and characters but my problem with that is also not having the shadows interaction with characters and background.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to fake lighting effects in Krita using Layer Styles. Like, they won't be physically-accurate or photo-realistic, at all, but they'll be better than nothing.

Here's an example I made using random images I found online. I chose these images to clash as much as possible:



Looks terrible, right? Like the background and the character were rendered in two completely different lighting situations. We're going to fix it, using Krita.

First, add a "Color Overlay" Layer Style to the character. Sample the most common color in the room. In this case, it's probably that wood color.



(In Photoshop, you can quickly do an Average filter on the background image, sample the color, copy the hex value, undo the Average filter, and paste the hex value into a Filter Effect on the character Layer. This is a little more accurate, and it's useful when you can't decide what the dominant color of a scene is. Basically it just blurs all pixels together until it gets a single color. Sadly, Krita doesn't have an Average method.)

Next, set the Color Overlay's "Blend Mode" to Overlay. (You might be tempted to use Multiply, because that's how light actually works in 3D programs, but trust me here. If it's a bright white room, you want a bright white glow on your character. Overlay "Just Works" on dark and light and everything in between.)



This already looks a LOT more cohesive. But if you want your character to seem to cast shadows into the background, or just want to make them "stand out" more you can add more Layer Styles like Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, and Inner Glow, all set to Black and blended using Normal, Multiply, or Burn. Give them a large Size, Distance, Spread and/or Choke so they make prominent dark smudges around your character, then reduce the Opacity until you get something reasonable.



(Note that the Inner Glow is mostly just to make the edge pixels blend smoothly with the Outer Glow.)

I hope this helps. It's more work than not doing it, but depending on your needs, your workflow, your style and your computer, techniques like this one for faking various systems and effects can save you a lot of time and effort. It also gets you thinking about post-processing in a way that encourages experimentation, since now you can easily put layers between your character and the background.

 

[Warthief]

You'd be surprised how easy it is to fake lighting effects in Krita using Layer Styles. Like, they won't be physically-accurate or photo-realistic, at all, but they'll be better than nothing.

I don't know if i had the skills, all of your renders fix look amazing,
also it possibly will take so much time from me in this ways, i already need to do many things other than renders, but maybe i will give it try someday or maybe find someone to do the job for me .

 

[Warthief]

now you just need to use Denoiser to get rid of the little small dots out of the image

I downloded the software but i have no idea how to use it,

but at least you should open a support ticket and ask for developer tag

I don't really think i am worthy of the title at least yet,
i am just a fan of video games who try to make a game .

 

[Warthief]

Yes, a more free-roam game can be difficult where pacing is concerned. I guess it is really dependent on whether you want to focus more on he story, or on the game-play elements. If your focus is on the quests and mini-games more than story, you should be fine as-is, if you can find a proofreader/re-writer who is either VERY fluent in English or a native speaker. If you want to focus more on story elements, you may want to draw out the interactions and conversations. In my opinion, it would add more substance to the story, but again, that is my opinion.

The game will have story but i can say pacing is controlled by the player if i manage to do it as i plan for it,
here an example of how i plan for the story to move:

The game intro is fixed but how the player move after it open for him,
if you played the game you can see that you are free to follow Zahra and her story,
or work in the warehouse and that will trigger Nabila story,
or cook with Warda and have small scene "still i need to work on her and her story"
this the A B C and i can have more of this and maybe also side events like the one i added with Marzouk
if you finish or do some parts of this A B C "still didn't reach this yet" you can be intrdouced to new characters and events, like Zahra event interdouced the player to Naziha, her father, the clothes shop girl ...
That why i feel making this with the Love and Submission system that will effect story and relation with character not a 1 man job, i will need someone who will focus 100% on story and characters,
Talking about characters i try to make every character feel different and for now i feel i didn't do good job in that.
Overall this one of the big reasons i make this post, i felt all this systems are overwhelming for me and the more characters i will add the more confused i will become.

 

[rayminator]

I downloded the software but i have no idea how to use it,

I don't really think i am worthy of the title at least yet,
i am just a fan of video games who try to make a game .

after you download it unzip it put it somewhere safe so you don't accidentally delete it
this is for Intel CPU's and NVIDIA GPU's only the one I'm showing is for NVIDIA GPU

now create a txt file name it whatever you want it call name.bat now all you have to do setup

SET FILE_EXTENSION=png (you can any image format in here png, jpg)
SET PATH_TO_DENOISER=D:\location\Denoiser_v2.4 (this where you have Denoiser_v2.4 located at )
SET OUTPUT_PREFIX="C:\Pictures\" (this where you want to have the image to go to when it's done this way will have backup )

this part of the code don't touch

for /r %%v in (*.%FILE_EXTENSION%) do %PATH_TO_DENOISER%\Denoiser.exe -i "%%~nv.%FILE_EXTENSION%" -o "%OUTPUT_PREFIX%%%~nv.%FILE_EXTENSION%"

cmd /k

you will need to save as a txt file then rename it DenoiserPng.bat or DenoiserJPG.bat

place DenoiserPng.bat into where you have the image at then double click DenoiserPng.bat it run

example

SET FILE_EXTENSION=png
SET PATH_TO_DENOISER=D:\location\Denoiser_v2.4
SET OUTPUT_PREFIX=

for /r %%v in (*.%FILE_EXTENSION%) do %PATH_TO_DENOISER%\Denoiser.exe -i "%%~nv.%FILE_EXTENSION%" -o "%OUTPUT_PREFIX%%%~nv.%FILE_EXTENSION%"

cmd /k

 

[RUISU9000]

mi aprendiendo no puedo poner un reloj y dias de semana ni tampoco un diario de misiones para que tenga sentido la historia.
si alguien me puede dar un consejo estaria muy agradecido estoy haciendo un tipo mod por el momento no con fines de lucro es rpgmaker mz

 

[RUISU9000]

The game will have story but i can say pacing is controlled by the player if i manage to do it as i plan for it,
here an example of how i plan for the story to move:
View attachment 1907150
The game intro is fixed but how the player move after it open for him,
if you played the game you can see that you are free to follow Zahra and her story,
or work in the warehouse and that will trigger Nabila story,
or cook with Warda and have small scene "still i need to work on her and her story"
this the A B C and i can have more of this and maybe also side events like the one i added with Marzouk
if you finish or do some parts of this A B C "still didn't reach this yet" you can be intrdouced to new characters and events, like Zahra event interdouced the player to Naziha, her father, the clothes shop girl ...
That why i feel making this with the Love and Submission system that will effect story and relation with character not a 1 man job, i will need someone who will focus 100% on story and characters,
Talking about characters i try to make every character feel different and for now i feel i didn't do good job in that.
Overall this one of the big reasons i make this post, i felt all this systems are overwhelming for me and the more characters i will add the more confused i will become.

El juego tendrá una historia, pero puedo decir que el ritmo lo controla el jugador si logro hacerlo como lo planeé.
aquí un ejemplo de cómo planeo que la historia avance:
View attachment 1907150
La introducción del juego está arreglada, pero cómo se mueve el jugador después de que se abre para él,
si jugaste el juego puedes ver que eres libre de seguir a Zahra y su historia,
o trabajar en el almacén y eso desencadenará la historia de Nabila,
o cocinar con Warda y tener una pequeña escena "todavía necesito trabajar en ella y su historia"
este es el ABC y puedo tener más de esto y tal vez también eventos paralelos como el que agregué con Marzouk
si terminas o haces algunas partes de este ABC "todavía no llegué a esto todavía" puedes ser introducido a nuevos personajes y eventos, como el evento de Zahra que entrelazó al jugador con Naziha, su padre, la chica de la tienda de ropa...
Es por eso que siento que hacer esto con el sistema Love and Submission que afectará la historia y la relación con el personaje, no es un trabajo de un solo hombre, necesitaré a alguien que se centre al 100% en la historia y los personajes.
Hablando de personajes, trato de hacer que cada personaje se sienta diferente y por ahora siento que no hice un buen trabajo en eso.
En general, esta es una de las principales razones por las que hago esta publicación, siento que todos estos sistemas son abrumadores para mí y cuantos más caracteres agregue, más confundido me sentiré.
[/COTIZAR]

 

[RUISU9000]

vers en lo personal no se estare bien tenias que pensar en 3 factores principio esta perfecto el medio y el final.
es como un libro te recomiendo lo siguiente usar los factores chantaje aunque se oiga mal sumission dependencia,
tu sabes aqui en este tipo de juegos ahi la tipica que no pero despues no puede vivir sin el.
y el tipico dar todo y de un momento a otro la cambias por otra lo cual hace que reaccione y la inocente que quiere experimentar es una opinion personal