Posted by testpilot24 3 years ago Report

dropbox link not working

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Sorry about that. I don't know why the drobox link keeps going down. The mediafire one should work though.

Posted by Kasra 3 years ago Report

Excellent, I beat up those stupid plants! Though the Steel Warhammer is still rather infinite.

Oh, and I found the Perfect Hat, which was a nice little diversion I missed before.

Great work! I look forward to going back and finding new stuff in the next patch!

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Ah. Turns out there are two places where a steel warhammer can be found and I fiddled around with the code for the other one before concluding that it seemed to be working fine and completely forgot that I'd put two of them in there.

Also, well done on getting through the plant enemies and on finding that hat.

Posted by hawkeye7513 3 years ago Report

What version of rpg maker is this made on?

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Rpg VX Ace. I probably should have used a more recent one, but that's the one I had access to when I started.

Posted by hawkeye7513 3 years ago Report

Thankyou. I am currently emulating it using JoiPlay on my android device.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 3 years ago Report

I found a bug. In Pacha's den, the money chest doesn't actually give you any money (you get a message, but your total doesn't change).
Also, do you have a clue for the surprise?

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Ooops. Thanks for catching that. I've probably got a few more of those in the game as it's easy to miss when testing it. It should be working now.

And it's a fairly minor change, but getting digested by a naga now works slightly differently.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 3 years ago Report

I haven't really noticed a difference. My experience is that the naga will do small damage until the character reaches it's tail, like before. Only thing I noticed is that a character can't die if they're in the 'upper' stomach, but idk if that's new.
No bugs with the naga though lol, if anything, I've noticed some really good improvements, like the naga doesn't constantly try to eat someone they've already eaten, and Sichi will continue to run for her life after going through a hole

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Characters have never been able to die in the naga’s upper stomach. It was a slight compromise to balance out the fact that the naga’s lower stomach cannot be wriggled out of. Still, the difference now should be that, if you actually get digested by a naga, it displays a unique game over scene instead of the generic one of Pacha sitting in a pool of acids. It also gives the option to escape the fight and return to life instead of forcing the player to reload.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 3 years ago Report

Yea, I just checked it out, it's all working fine. Nice drawing by the way!

Posted by Asrielbend 3 years ago Report

I can't seem to find the diving the second diving helmet that is mentioned. Some context or info at all might be helpful.

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

If you enter the river with just one diving helmet and head down the side route to the east you should find a shipwreck. The second helmet is in there.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

One more playthrough behind, and there's a bundle of new discoveries as expected!

Beside the welcome elimination of the glitches, the Queen's debriefing was some of the most suspenseful, poignant and circumspectly written piece of dialogue in the game so far! Meeri's conversation cache turns out be massive for the second run of the industrial honey-making area, and the reserved royalist KG-bee scribe actually takes over the pep talk role after the Masked Figure's latest stalling trick if Ti is not around! The crossroads confrontation accounts for Martin staying at the inn! The return to the temple is made fittingly ominous!

Thank you for your hard work, once again! The game is already unlawfully high quality in design, writing and engagement, and it keeps getting polished further to perfection with every new update!

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Glad you enjoyed the new details for the queen… although I felt somewhat sorry for Martin while writing that (assuming he was in the party when speaking to her). Huh… I don’t remember Meeri having too much to say while in the hive. A few comments when one of the workers/guards attacks, but not too much else. Hopefully she will have more to say soon though. And yeah… I realized that it was possible that Martin could be neither dead nor still in Pacha’s pantry, but also not be in the party if he was just sitting in the inn after I’d finished writing the other situations so had to add the case where Pacha explains it all to him afterwards.

Glad you are still having fun with this. Hopefully the next update maintains that.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

It was just an impression for Meeri, I guess; it adds up if she's the one who tells the guards outside the Hive entrance to stand down, and the one at the flower farm, warns about entering the honey processing floors again, gets involved (by her pointed non-involvement) in the confrontation with the guards there, disciplines the hiding worker, and then apologizes to the Queen. Besides that, I loved that she can get her fortune read same as everyone else!

Martin wasn't in the party for the debriefing with the Queen, but I felt very sorry for him nearly ending up paying for the crimes of another on top of having endured so much by that point, the poor guy can't seem to get a break.

Meeri's proposal makes me wonder what counterarguments would other non-carnivore communities have to the prospect of siding with the Builder Of Paths; if it is same argument as what Martin the druid makes the about the predators being necessary for maintaining balance, that brings into light the way this analogy to the animal ecosystems work: the reason the predators are beneficial is by keeping herbivores' population in check, preventing the overgrazing resulting from unchecked breeding, and also by removing sick, weakened animals from the breeding population, but I doubt any civilized people in the game world would fail to see the ghastly implications about them being incapable of regulating their birthrates, or caring for their sick and elderly without the predators' involvement.

Perhaps, like the bees, other prey people would find the loss of all their possessions and farms to the time spent in stone too steep a cost; or perhaps, since the gods are getting so involved in the story, some mythopoetic background could be offered about how predators were created after the herbivore people had almost destroyed the world by constant warfare over resources, and there hasn't been a war in centuries since predation became a thing.

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Yeah. I've been going through the hive stuff again as the last character also has some connections to it and affects the dialogue in places, and I'd forgotten how much there was for Meeri in there.

Yep. Poor Martin does not have a very fun time as he goes through the game.

Hmmmm, predators keep things balanced is one of the arguments that comes up from time to time, and both druid Martin and Nahata often view things that way, but other than them it tends to get used by the carnivores more than the herbivores. I think one of the main objections to the plan might simply be that it is completely untested, and there isn't really any way of confirming that the spell will definitely wear off at the right time, or at all. Arven seems absolutely confident that it will work exactly as intended of course, and he should know better than anyone else, but that kind of utter certainty and denial that there is any possibility of it failing is possibly not as reassuring as it could be.

And that is an interesting approach which would explain the existance of predators, and also how The Tunneler has managed to end up in a world full of carnivores while being strongly against that but unfortunately there have been at least a few wars in the area. That's a large part of the reason that the raptors' are pretty much having to start their society from scratch, and also has a little to do with why the memory god is hiding in its shrine away from the rest of the world.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

It's reasonable to expect that the mistrust of other herbivore authorities towards Arven's intentions and abilities would suffice as a force preventing them from allying with him, necessitating a violent application of the spell that's already failed with the Hive.

That mistrust would be even greater if the curse of stone necessitated a deliberate removal from a Tunneler's priest, and if Arven intended to remain unpetrified to oversee the extinction of the predators from a well-protected location -- perhaps the Fire Mountain; that way, those weighing the advantages of Arven's plan will know they'll be entirely at his mercy, which very few would consider acceptable.

As for The Tunneler's suffering of the predators' existence, it could be that the god themself is fairly detached from the goings on in the world, only listening to their high priests in the same way a distracted parent listens to their children's demands and complaints, and occasionally some highly motivated priest may persuade The Tunneler to essentially lend them the deity's credit card, with the god being only vaguely aware of the full range of consequences of that for the world until other gods come complaining.

It's occurred to me that considering the absence of strict taboos regarding predators eating each other, rather than slowly waste away in the absence of prey to hunt, the successful implementation of Arven's plan would result in a burst of pred-on-pred violence lasting since the first group realizes the full implications of the crisis, with the few remaining victorious tribes either turning on each other or starving to death instead of the entire population.

It's also possible that the starving predators would be forced to follow the otters' example and embrace fishing. Or, if that would be unsustainable in a long term for meat-eaters, in their desperation they could either prey on or enslave the otters and seals who presumably could subsist entirely on fish.

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Sorry about the slow reply. It's been a very busy fortnight.

Yes. The rabbits weren't especially unpopular prior to this, but they were also a bit insular and didn't have much contact with other tribes outside the hive. One member suddenly turning up with a plan to save everyone would perhaps be treated with a reasonable amount of suspicion even before he revealed that it involves turning everyone to stone. "I promise you'll be absolutely fine and will wake up again eventually." is not the most reassuring thing he could offer given that there is no way anyone could verify that that would be the case.

Hehe, there will be a little more on gods and their relationship with their followers mentioned after Araya's Temple... although as it will come from Felgate, it's perhaps questionable how accurate the information will be.

Yeah, there will definitely be some pred-vs-pred attacks, but that's why Arven's plan is to freeze all the prey for several hundred years instead of a few months. It is possible that an ever dwindling population of carnivores could last quite some time purely by hunting each other. Still, while it is kind of vague how often each pred needs to eat a human sized meal, they would probably not be able to endure for hundreds of years without any herbivores even with some generous assumptions.

Omnivores and pescatarian predators do pose an additional problem to his plan, but he might have some solutions to that as well, although I'm not sure if they are going to get mentioned in the main story yet.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 3 years ago Report

I see a huge flaw in Arven's plan. What's stopping a bunch of angry starving preds from going around and smashing every statue they find? Unless the gods would somehow protect the statue. I wonder if he's put much thought into his plan, or if it was spur of the moment.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

I'm pretty sure that the remaining predatory people would be clinging to the hope of undoing the petrifying curse to their last breath, and although there may be some individual preds who would be too angry to restrain themselves, the majority of them would work to keep the petrified prey safe and secure.

However, it's true that unless the spell renders the statues indestructible, the fear of being helpless to save themselves from a possible danger, from the weather or the violent attacks by the desperate predators, would dissuade most herbivores from submitting to Arven's plan willingly.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 3 years ago Report

Actually yea, you're right. I assumed there's no counterspell. So with that possibility gone, revenge would be the only option (other then predators that don't want to kill all life, but I feel like they wouldn't care since their survival means they have to be very okay with killing sentient beings), however if there was a sliver of hope, all of the statues would be gathered into a giant cage.

Definitely a plan I don't see many prey subscribing to though, especially compared to 'use your god to make the land inside our walls more fertile' or 'teach us magic so we can win a fight against a pred'. It's interesting to think about, since there isn't really a parallel to real life, so you have to be extra creative.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

Even if they knew for a fact that the petrification was irreversible (in the foreseeable future, at least), the predators would be too busy hunting each other, or scrambling to discover alternative food sources, experimenting with magic and pleading with the other gods for help to have the time or energy for wreaking petty vengeance upon unresponsive lumps of stone; the thing about revenge is it calls for *someone* to witness and register the act (especially the victim) for it to be a satisfying pursuit, otherwise its wasteful and juvenile nature catches up with the revenge-seeker, and dampens the motivation.

That said, I can see some doom priest rousing the remaining predators after every option had been exhausted, and all hope lost, with a sort of a "We will not go quietly into the night!" speech, before proclaiming that it's sledgehammer time, but by then they'd hardly have the numbers and the strength to smash every single one of those statues, considering that herbivore people should greatly outnumber the preds.

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Hmmmm, there might be some magical protections on them. The spell blocks them from being turned back by any normal means, so Arven probably spent at least some time thinking of what the predators might try to do when they realize what has happened. I don't think this plan was exactly a spur of the moment thing, but believing he'd lost Martin may have resulted in it getting rushed a little before all the details were fully in place. And yeah, as Astronommy pointed out, as long as there is at least a slither of hope that the spell might wear off, the majority of the statues will probably survive. So far, the Pacha’s group is the only ones who’ve been given any indication of how long that will take to happen and had he succeeded in stopping them, the other preds would have had no way of knowing that it wasn't likely to wear off any day now.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

Sorry to hear you've been overworked so much! There is never a need for a swift response, especially not when there are pressing matters requiring your attention elsewhere!

It is clear that by reasoning or suspicion, very few people would agree to participate in the predator starvation scheme, meaning that Pacha has a good chance of building a coalition of virtually every type of people to help her stop The Tunneler's priest, something she may have already done by the time of the Fire Mountain showdown with her party and the previously visited communities.

It is not established clearly how many people must a single predator cannibalize to survive, but it's also up for discussion whether they can survive without sentient prey altogether, and how much it would affect them to make that transition. If the obligate carnivores can't do without proper prey, they go extinct by starvation in a couple of months, or start the preying on each other, which means that under ideal conditions, the predator population would be halved every however-long-predators-can-wait-between meals, which at a very generous estimate of one person a month would cut our own world population of eight billion people to a few hundred within two years. That in mind, I'm assuming Arven's and his god's plan accounts for the possibility that the predators will still find some workarounds the nourishment problem, and the extreme length of the petrification curse is to ensure that even those that make it would be weaned off the quarantined herbivores, both physiologically and culturally.

Looking forward to all the godly unveilings! And thanks for the tip to keep Felgate on hand -- I've been meaning to give the game another playthrough with him in the party, anyway.

Best of luck in all areas of life!

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

Thanks. Thinks seem to be sorting themselves out now, but March was not the most productive month in terms of getting stuff done towards the next update.

Hmmmm, if she could prove the threat to everyone then she might have a better chance of gathering more allies, but part of the problem is that a lot of the tribes probably aren’t going to listen to her, especailly the prey ones, and even among the other predators, the stoat tribe doesn’t have the best reputation. Even if they do listen, they might assume she’s exaggerating the problem a little, or that Arven’s chances of wiping out every prey single settlement without getting stopped are not as high as Pacha thinks, especially given that he failed to defeat the bees. There’s a lot of reasons that can be used to justify them taking the lazy option of just letting Pacha deal with it, although obviously the meta reasons are that she’s the protagonist here.

Yeah, they definitely didn’t want to take any chances of the statues waking up too early. Unpetrifying while there are still even a few hungry predators left would be a much worse result for them than almost any other outcome.

Glad you are still enjoying it, and thank you. You too.

Posted by Astronommy 3 years ago Report

The farther from the Rabbit Village her quest takes Pacha and her comrades, the more difficult it would be to convince the locals of the scope and imminence of the threat, true. If the protagonist party keeps tailing the villain, though, there may always be a handy recent statue-littered crime scene nearby to point to; then again, now that they know the face of the enemy, their goal has now become the thwarting of Arven's progress, and they would not be content with picking up the ashes anymore.

And there will always be the fundamental distrust of predators getting in the way of convincing the herbivores her call to action is well-intended.

I wonder if the precedents of herbivores becoming predators won't be a convincing argument against his scheme for Arven, although most likely he would just dismiss it as Pacha's corrupting influence (and rightly so), but the possibility for herbivores turning on each other that way (and the existence of opportunistically predatory bees and other similar creatures) arises the question of whether the new, herbivore-only civilization of Arven's dreams would inevitably produce its own class of predators.

Glad to hear your schedule has cleared up! Don't deny yourself a proper period of recuperation before getting back to work on this project! We are all eager for the continuation, but not at the expense of your well-being!

Posted by slimjam 3 years ago Report

Is there a game guide type thing? i'm not sure how to change the character stats and equipment. the sign in the tavern just goes to the thank you message after the first use

Posted by BizzareBlue 3 years ago Report

There currently isn't a guide or anything like that. I could have a go at adding one, though. For now, the escape button should bring up a menu that allows you to change your characters equipment and use items and abilities like healing spells out of combat.