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Ethereal : Cyberpunk Game


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Ethereal is the primary game we are working on, it could be a hit or a mess, we are going to use this mostly to develop new stuff and try new things.

This is a SciFi Cyberpunk game, based on the well known RPG Maker MV, but rest assure this won't be your usual RPG Maker.
We worked hard to steer away from basic RPG Maker MV features, there will be no boring repeating tiles, no stupid top-down only buildings, no lame 48x48px cartoon character, no stupid endless repeating MV battles.

NO, this game is going to rock, so expect full parallax mapping, diagonal movement, realistic animated characters and events. Custom mini-games like hacking are in plans, and the battles will be something new to the RPG Maker MV scene.


Synopsis:

You are a convicted hacker that returns on Earth after a very long unplanned journey, only to find everything changed.
Seems someone pushed the nuke button, then everyone else got frenzy pushing the same button. The Earth crumbled under the thermonuclear apocalypse and life under the good old Sun became suddenly complicated.
Everyone caring about his own life took a leap of faith and started to live in underground cities, where filtering systems provided clean air, constant temperatures and potable water.
Most people don't leave their underground cities, going outside is only for military, scientists, adventures or thrill seekers.

Changes:
0.6.4
The camera is now following the character when using the keyboard directional keys. [bug-fix]
Scorpion stridulating sound fixed. [bug-fix]
Adult video should play. [bug-fix]
Scrap Scanner works faster.
0.6.3
Two new maps added
New monster: Desert Scorpion
New character introduced: Alia "CherryBomb" Blackwell
Lag fixes.
Quests difficulty adjusted: Only 5 items for mech scraps and scorpion venom required to be found.
Fights menus simplified a little, less repeating actions.
Adult scenes added.
Known bugs:
The character could lag badly on some maps when using mouse (solution: wait a little to clear the pathfinding queue or use the keyboard).
The character could get stuck in some objects/corners etc. As a temporary solution use keyboard directional keys to "escape".




Notes:
In order to unlock the adult scenes, the separate dlc file (extra_dlc.asar) and must be copied inside the EtherealDemo_0.6.4\resources folder near the other asar files.
Download the

Download latest demo from from our Patreon Page:

Screenshots from the game:











 

Nimrod

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Well, I spent 15 minutes in this game, and i rage quit. I would love to be able to express in a polite way how i left your game with anger in my heart, and how hard I find it not to write insulting epitets in this attempt at providing some feedback.

It's hard for me to understand what kind of person would think up, produce, test, and release this junk scanning mechanic, and still be able to believe that the product can be called a "game", let alone enjoyable in any shape or form. It's like you took the collecting quest grind of a korean MMO, made it randomized, gave everything the drop chance of some raid boss loot, and put a 10-15 seconds scanning timer on it. It feels like you are trying to hurt the player on purpose. And after 15 minutes of that bullshit, understanding i would have to do it again and again I simply quit, with a strong desire to find you and hurt you.

Good luck.
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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Thanks for feedback!

Can you please confirm with us that you run on version 0.6.4?

The wait time on scanner is much faster on latest version, not even close to 10-15 seconds. Also did you followed the tips displayed on the screen? Like scanning the upper area for better drop chances?
 

goduranus

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How is the combat? does it have projectiles and real time damage like Diablo? I think this could be a cool game and it doesn't have to be hentai.
 

Nimrod

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Thanks for feedback!

Can you please confirm with us that you run on version 0.6.4?

The wait time on scanner is much faster on latest version, not even close to 10-15 seconds. Also did you followed the tips displayed on the screen? Like scanning the upper area for better drop chances?
Yes it was 0.6.4, and no I didn't pull out a cronometer to time it exactly, but it felt that long.

That said, there is no good reason for there to be a timer at all in this game. Timers are something shitty games, mmos, and mobile time grinders use to increase the time people spend playing and/or paywall content to promote the use of microtransactions. Now, unless you plan to scam people with some ridiculous metacritic review calling your game a 40 hours epic adventure(with 30 minutes of timers) or you are going to implement some form of microtransaction that turns off the timer for the next 50 scans, you as a developer gain nothing from putting timers in your game. Timers provide no challenge, provide no sense of accomplishment, are literally a waste of time, and turn people off to the point they would rather spend hard earned cash to avoid them. People are suckers for instant gratification, people that play erotic content are even more.

There are only a few examples of games where timers work, and all of those instances are games with macro management of resources(strategy games, simulations, 4x, etc...). Even the niche market of survival games like ARK usually grant options turn them off or make them negligible, like one hit mining, and these are built as multiplayers experiences to begin with.

Your scanning mechanic should last as long as a short sound effect coupled with a single quick dialogue box describing drop chance, what you got, and cooldown. It needs to be quick and painless since it seems to be unavoidable. Anything longer than that will hurt the reception of your game. And you don't want that. I've seen a lot of game creators start with something that sound like a cool immersive concept, and later in development realizing the system they created weights down the entire thing, so they are forced to keep going and hurting sales or rework half of what they already made hurting development.

The worst part is that "chores" destroy the replayability factor of story driven games, and since you are releasing various versions of an unfinished product over a relatively long development time, it means that people who have played previous versions are disincentivized from following your project, which obviously hurts a patreon base.

In the end, what it comes down to, is how confident you are in the quality of your product, that you are willing to make bad marketing choices for the sake of personal vision.
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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@goduras: combat should be unique to RPG MV world, but if you are expecting an ABS battle system then you will be disappointed. It will not be an ABS battle system, maybe in the future we will look into something like that. As it is now, we are still in the RPG MV frame, we want to make a nice game, but limits are limits.

@Nimrod: The whole point is to cycle between the map junk piles the top one. Once you scan one of them it will go in cooldown mode of 2 minutes, so you need to move along.


In short... the Junk map is the one that you are supposed to go to get scraps. The scraps at the bottom gives poor results, while the scraps at the top gives high chances of getting something like: 1/3 or 1/4 chance.
All you have to do is to beat the upper map rats then cycle run between scraps until you get the number. The scrap pile protected by 3 rats (non respawning once killed) should drop a barbwire which you could use to enhance the weapon.
For the blackbox, you need to go above DirtyJohnny's fort, one raptor to stay away from and two rats guarding a scrap pile. There is the blackbox.

Is not possible to remove the timer for cooldown because every player will stick to one pile and scan a couple of times until the quest is completed. The whole idea is to move a little, to do some sort of an effort.
 

Nimrod

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Ok...
Maybe...
I...
Was...
Not...
Clear...
Enough...

I'm not talking about cooldowns...
I'm talking about the time it takes for the textbox to process every single dot...
You know, the time that stands between me clicking on a pile of junk and my ability to begin moving toward the next pile of junk...

If this post seems annoying to read, imagine verbally spelling every single dot, and then maybe you might be on the right path to figuring out the apparent riddle I'm speaking of...

I don't want to be an asshole, but you seem to think I'm a moron that can't understand basic instructions, so i'm gonna quote myself to give you one more chance.

Your scanning mechanic should last as long as a short sound effect coupled with a single quick dialogue box describing drop chance, what you got, and cooldown.
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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This will go under review once again in the next version, but since 0.6.4 the scanning time was greatly improved. In previous versions scanning took much longer (more dots).
Every processing dot (not the end line dots) takes about 1/4 a second. We removed a lot of those dots so the scanning is much faster now.
We understand this could still be an annoyance so it will get another chance.
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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Pushing forward with development, just wrote this Friday's game progress, if you have time please feel free to read about and provide feedback.
Don't be shy and let us know what you think, just don't start bashing on everything with the "MV sucks, I hate it" hammer.

 

goduranus

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@goduras: combat should be unique to RPG MV world, but if you are expecting an ABS battle system then you will be disappointed. It will not be an ABS battle system, maybe in the future we will look into something like that. As it is now, we are still in the RPG MV frame, we want to make a nice game, but limits are limits.



Looks like the difficulty isn't trivial, but there's already plugins for making ABS battle system.





 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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Another update on the development progress.
The battle system we are working on is based on the Match3 randomness mechanics, we have a lot of hopes on this one.

 

saviliana

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So.......If any possiblity of making a character editor and female player character?
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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The game will include female characters, at least in some of the missions. Also female characters should be in the player's team.
Character editor like what?
 

lunawuff

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Well, I spent 15 minutes in this game, and i rage quit. I would love to be able to express in a polite way how i left your game with anger in my heart, and how hard I find it not to write insulting epitets in this attempt at providing some feedback.

It's hard for me to understand what kind of person would think up, produce, test, and release this junk scanning mechanic, and still be able to believe that the product can be called a "game", let alone enjoyable in any shape or form. It's like you took the collecting quest grind of a korean MMO, made it randomized, gave everything the drop chance of some raid boss loot, and put a 10-15 seconds scanning timer on it. It feels like you are trying to hurt the player on purpose. And after 15 minutes of that bullshit, understanding i would have to do it again and again I simply quit, with a strong desire to find you and hurt you.

Good luck.
I'm not sure how much of this post was written with tongue in cheek, but if this really got you that angry then you seriously need some perspective in your life.
 

Nimrod

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I'm not sure how much of this post was written with tongue in cheek, but if this really got you that angry then you seriously need some perspective in your life.
Thank you for the feedback.
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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Nice to see so much love floating around, anyway...
The battle engine development was pushed forward, we managed to fix/implement many features, a custom/redesigned UI for the battle system... but at what cost?!? We poured like endless hours, days maybe more than a full month into this development ambition, we are very close to have something releasable for the current progress.

I'll post later a link with the update including a video with latest battle screen mechanics.

With the minimal battle system requirements in place we can resume "real" development, like new quests, characters, maps, and... new Adult scenes. :)
 
OP
FishboneGamingLabs
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Another Friday update, showing the current implementation of the new Battle System (work in progress).
We still to do proper animations/effects/sounds, some UI changes.

 
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