One halloween, you have a particularly vivid dream - so vivid that you'd swear that it seems to be real...
GASP!
At the ghoulish countenace of your guide, Charon!
SHIVER!
At the headless Spirit of All Hallows!
SHRIEK WITH TERROR!
At the nightmarish animals that crawl through the farmhouse that is your mind!
Or, if you're easily scared:
REJOICE!
At your lycanthropine prospects!
CONVERSE!
With Charon! And Aliens! Kind of!
CLAP YOUR HANDS!
If you're happy and you know it!
(No exclamation marks were harmed in the making of this description - although we bullied quite a few during the production of the module)
--- Development Details ----
*Notes*
- Have you downloaded the first version? If you took any of the Archetypes in the very first room, you may have found the mod very easy. If you are replaying the mod, feel free to leave them there to get a better feel for the actual difficulty intended, and just take the 1 alignment-based companion with you. Or better yet - download the new and improved version - the Skullstones are worth it! If you aren't replaying, then thanks for downloading and playing it! :)
- There are a little too many resources (including health) available at the moment, so it's a bit of a hack'n'slash arcade adventure. It will eventually be more of a low-health-and-resource survival/strategy scenario which will take you to at least level 10, and possibly twice as large in playing area.
*Project Statement*
I intend for this module to be fully polished (including all custom content), by Halloween 2010.
By then, I intend for the mod to have:
- Custom music (Already written, learning about hakpaks is my next step)
- Custom movies (With at least two different endings)
- Many converstations (e.g. All of the companions, who I want to have distinct personalities.)
- More interactivity (e.g. Those with points in Spot/Lore should be able to get more details on certain placeables, and XP for it)
- Unpredictable-yet-fair spawns
- No game-breaking bugs/glitches/mistakes
- Less equipment on the merchants
- Less loot/resources per area
- Much more streamlined scripts
*Release Versions*
Beta3 (Version 0.3 - Current)
- Removed all 'stones (Burnstones, Zangstones etc.) and merged/replaced them with Skullstones.
- Made it impossible to enchant two certain weapons with via the 'stones.
- Minor text changes
Beta2 (Version 0.2)
- Removed ability to team up with Archetypes in first room
- Minor typo changes
Beta1 (Version 0.1)
- First release
- Contains bug which will unbalance mod badly (and was a very sloppy inclusion by the author who apologises profusely): Teaming up with powerfully-equipped characters *long* before intended.
The Module itself (version 0.3), an Install & Run FAQ, and a Spoilers FAQ.
(I have removed the ability to talk to the Archetypes in the Prologue area, as it was a bug, and possibly game-breaking. Also, the FAQ implied it was okay to take them, which may have compounded the problem for some people.)
*My sincerest apologies to everyone that found their gaming experience was ruined or lessened because of such an obvious oversight on my part.* - Drazur
Posted by PaulBlay at 2010-10-11 13:18:51 Voted 8.00 on 10/03/10
OK, I've tried this out as it is. Not my sort of thing. Basically I think it should have been entitled "A Massive Heap of Crafting Stuff". The constant random encounters could have been challenging, but my level 5 rogue was too overpowered for them. Especially with the companion(s) as well.
Personally I would take out 95% of the craft stuff, the helpful items and the equipment lying around. I'd also bill this as "Level 1 to 4" (there's plenty of XP being thrown around after all).
Posted by PaulBlay at 2010-10-03 10:28:52 Voted 8.00 on 10/03/10
I have taken the comments in the spirit they were given - you're just trying to give me feedback to help me improve my offering. I think that usage of the word 'potential' is a very powerful incentive, too! :)
I think that I tried to do too much at once and got a little over whelmed.
I put the high end stuff in for myself, and included it in the beta because I thought others might like it - or it might be useful if someone found certain encounters too hard. It's a very good point that a low-level mod doesn't need them.
The 'Risen Demon' WILL make for a very interesting NPC - when I have finished her conversations. She will be a challenge to write, because I want to introduce certain philosophies to the player without clubbing them over the head with a text-book. The Christmas Elf will be fun to write, because he will basically be a font of pop-culture references. The rationale is that he is insane, naturally. :)
You were correct about the little green men - hence the 'saucers' abducting the cows in various places. They are (will be) heavily involved in at least 1 Companion storyline.
If you Charm them and talk to them, they will speak back...
I take your point about the Skullstones being overpowered, and too plentiful.
I haven't updated recently, but I'm actually on track for a full Halloween '11 release. Which I will call Ha11oween. Probably.
Thanks for your kind words about Charon!
And thanks heaps for your feedback - I hope you play it again on full release and are pleasantly suprised. :) _________________________ MOVE SIG!
Interesting module... I just finished it, strating with a lvl 1 rogue. I ended up with about 9 levels, 5 in Rogue and 4 in Swashbuckler, and had +2 gear by the end of it.
I dio have a few observations to make, for your consideration. The first, is that while crafting appears to be more utilized in this offering than most low-level mods, you may have perhaps gone a bit too far in the other direction, thus making completion more a walk in the park, than an adventure. This is further skewed by the Skullstones, which while I believe them to be neat, there were just far too many available which made your gear quite powerful.
In order to keep the idea that you have to prepare from having basically nothing at start, I, were this my module, would only make the most basic recipes available, in all fields. Recipes for Bane weapons, and the addition of elemental damage types really have little use here, as your "craft monkey" NPC isn't going to get the level to be able to use the recipes, at any rate. They could, and in my opinion, should be removed. PCs can get damage enhancements for melee weapons by the Skullstones, which in my opinion, should be the only method in this module to do so.
As to the Skullstones themselves, there are just way too many available, and the damage enhancement should be lowered a tad, in my view, to 1D4, and not 1D6. Other enhancement should likewise be lowered, like say a +1 stat enhancemnet, rather than +2. After all, we are talking low-level here.
I *did* like the "evil barnyard animals" , and they way you painted them. I was wondering if "the little green men" had more of a hand in their nature than actually appeared, making the little green men an oddity which seemed a bit out of place, logically (as if a nightmare even *has* logic LOL!!)
Charon was well-done,and I kind of ended up liking the zombified guide, merchant quest-giver, and question answerer. He was a fairly well rounded-out NPC, wich is a plus in my book.
It is perhaps too bad, though, that the same can't quite be said of the NPC's which ended up travelling with me. Charon said this "Risen Demon" cleric had a "unique" way of looking at moral questions, but that never really made itself evident. Would have been really great if it had, in some fashion. It makes the choice of NPC's a bit less cut-and dried.
I hope you take my comments in the spirit in which they were given. It isn't a bad module, but will need some re-working on several fronts to make it stand out, which it does have the potential to do...
Okay, I'll shake the spawn points up a bit and add a little more 'scariness'. And the ability to team up with the Archetype was definitely a bug/mistake - the player isn't supposed to meet them until just before they go outside for the first time. Sorry about that. :(
Thanks for playing and commenting, Manne! :) _________________________ MOVE SIG!
So far, well done, but not that terrifying. :) You need to do something about the spawn points; some sort of randomness. They are highly predictable.
I enlisted a Archetype Enchanter in the first room? Shouldn't I have been able to do that? The going felt kinda easy, but then since the encounters were repeating itself, I didn't mind.
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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at 2010-10-11 13:18:51
