RPG RPG Maker [Ason] The Shimmering Horizon & Cursed Blacksmith

[Aesthetic]

Very few games do the whole item durability thing right and if this very early demo is indication, this also will be more of a pain in the ass than anything else.

Honestly the speed at which you craft and the general unimportance of it all makes it pretty easy. You're expected to craft the strongest weapons, with the best materials you have so the decision making while crafting is quite fast.
It's not like an Atelier game, so I don't think I'll have that many issues with it in this game.

Also the game'll have a story so I don't know how long the average dungeon diving session will be in the end.

The cumpet game they made prior had relatively short dungeon diving sessions early game especially, so if it's paced well, weapon breaking doesn't seem like it'll break my enjoyment of the game.

My biggest problem with the game is how hard it punishes you for having sex. The first time you get caught is always foreplay. The next time is always sex. If you get caught twice you increase your erosion by quite a lot. In fact, the game rewards you for using your dark sword once you get low on health so you don't even get to see the adult stuff if you play well. I really hope they add incentives to have sex like Cumpet.

 

[neutral]

i appreciate the H scenes are animated and have cumshots. Unusually rare in these types of games. Game runs at single digit FPS most of the time though. anyone know how to save? I grinded quite abit and nothing to show for it.

 

[Strange]

so if it's paced well, weapon breaking doesn't seem like it'll break my enjoyment of the game.

My biggest problem with the game is how hard it punishes you for having sex. The first time you get caught is always foreplay. The next time is always sex. If you get caught twice you increase your erosion by quite a lot. In fact, the game rewards you for using your dark sword once you get low on health so you don't even get to see the adult stuff if you play well. I really hope they add incentives to have sex like Cumpet.

+1 to the former. It looks like the game's balance will rely on this mechanic so MC doesn't get too OP. It's a wonderful idea, and the randomness will allow the player to experience various weapons and tactics. I'll repeat myself, but: this. Is. Awesome.

For the latter: that's why I said the game ain't BF; it's RoL, or GoR depending how you look at it. That means I, for one, won't be seeing much H... But I certainly don't mind! After all, if you're just going dungeon delving to get raped, there wouldn't be much point to having a challenge at all
My guess is, they'll set up warp points of sorts, so you can reach every girl's region quickly... In case you feel like doing a quick losing run 'for pleasure'.

The point to making an uber weapon, is to take it out when Sword Maidens and Demonesses pop up. I've reached MC level 18, and probably dungeon level 80-90? on that run, before I gave up (work...). That sword in sc still had 20ish durability by then, 40 floors later. Floors types cycle after a while.


edit: no way to save AFAIK. The good ol' rogue way. At this point of development, that's the right choice. Starting a new run with my 50k souls (ntm having to scroll past my 100+ potions every time I craft) would kinda spoil the fun.
As for the FPS, try my previous advice to nossjob. If that doesn't work: don't get raped; memory starts leaking after a knockdown scene.

 

[Aesthetic]

i appreciate the H scenes are animated and have cumshots. Unusually rare in these types of games. Game runs at single digit FPS most of the time though. anyone know how to save? I grinded quite abit and nothing to show for it.

It's .01 with no plot or anything at all.
There's no save. There's also only 4 girls to meet.

 

[BigJohnny]

What does erosion do anyway? Does it lower your stats?

 

[Aesthetic]

What does erosion do anyway? Does it lower your stats?

I'm pretty sure it's the game over condition.

 

[BigJohnny]

I got it to 100 and not much happened, maybe it's not fully implemented yet.

 

[Strange]

It's .01 with no plot or anything at all.

Sounds like an accurate answer.

To add to that: - at 100% erosion, when you're downed you're down for good
- 100% erosion disables the cursed sword (no more soul to eat?)
- MC's appearance changes the more eroded he is
- there's less and less light the more eroded MC is

From that, I gather:
- MC is in a different world, or limbo of sorts (between life and death)
- his soul lights the way, it's shaved away by the world, and gobbled up by girls/monster/big-ass creepy swords
- MC at 100% erosion is on the brink of full corruption and/or death


Also, I forgot to share the proofread english json (make a bakup of your own in www/data, and rename this one).
There wasn't much to do, and note Ason's English proofreader was away during the last crunch -> we can expect better in the future.
(oh, and descriptions were left mostly untouched. There might not be a way to see all of them in-game yet, anyway)

As a bonus, I've also compiled some data about forging:

Spoiler

Threshold formulas
Knife:                 Mass 3, Power 1, Magic 0    hit&run
Knife of Wind:         Mass 3, Power 3, Magic 3    wind armor
Estoc:                 Mass 4, Power 3, Magic 0    dash strike
Rapier:                Mass 4, Power 5, Magic 0    focus
Rapier of Flame:       Mass 4, Power 4, Magic 3    fire dash
Long sword:            Mass 5, Power 4, Magic 0    double strike
Broadsword:            Mass 6, Power 4, Magic 0    wipe swipe
Scimitar of Water:     Mass 5, Power 4, Magic 3    water blade
Sword of Lightning:    Mass 5, Power 4, Magic 3    thunder strike
Bastard Sword:         Mass 7, Power 5, Magic 0    spin strike
Ebony Bastard Sword:   Mass 7, Power 6, Magic 3    darkness charge
Axe:                   Mass 5, Power 3, Magic 0    all-out slash
Pickaxe:               Mass 4, Power 1, Magic 0    dig
Iron Hammer:           Mass 5, Power 3, Magic 0    brute strike
Scepter:               Mass 3, Power 2, Magic 4    heal

Materials
Weapon's metal Scraps: Mass 1, Power 1, Magic 1
Unknown weapon Scraps: Mass 1, Power 1, Magic 0
Small piece of Ore:    Mass 1, Power 2, Magic 0
Broken metal Scraps:   Mass 2, Power 2, Magic 0
Magic Stone:           Mass 1, Power 1, Magic 2
Copper Ore:            Mass 4, Power 3, Magic 0
Iron Ore:              Mass 3, Power 5, Magic 0
Magic Iron Ore:        Mass 3, Power 4, Magic 2

THERE IS NO GUARANTEED OUTCOME, only weights towards/against your chances
A mix below the weapon's threshold won't yield the weapon
There is a certain point where you can't get the worst weapons anymore

While Enhancing:
Better materials have higher chances to grant 1-2 extra enhancement slot(s)

 

[Aesthetic]

Does anybody know what's going on with this game?

 

[Strange]

Well, 0.03 got out 15 days ago.

Spoiler: changelog

• Add new Enemy girl – Maid (temporary released monster, which might not appear in the first chapter)
• Fast moving in the dungeon by press and hold SHIFT key (shorten the time for walking)
• Auto save when entering a new map / change map (Testing)
• Improve the animation when HP got to 0
• Improve the candle light effect in church
• System optimization
• Slow motion adjustment, and added “Slow Motion” toggle button. (Yes, there were times when the game seems to slow down quite a bit, but those were slow motion effect we did on purpose, not because game was unoptimized. And the old slow motion effect was usually activated by using skills.)
• Fix the H-scene volume that it wouldn’t change according to system volume change.
• Fix BGM error that wouldn’t repeat itself normally
• Fix the bug for Focus Potion that it wouldn’t replenish Block Efficiency to 100%
• Fix some minor bug that wouldn’t effect the game, but was displaying some strange value or visual
• Adjust item UI

New maid girl, incoming fencer. [edited. Reason: goldfish memory]

Whatever; I eagerly await the full thing release next year (hopefully?). I wouldn't mind something like Succubus Cage: few girls, but high game quality & replayability.

 

[Aesthetic]

Well, 0.03 got out 15 days ago.

Spoiler: changelog

• Add new Enemy girl – Maid (temporary released monster, which might not appear in the first chapter)
• Fast moving in the dungeon by press and hold SHIFT key (shorten the time for walking)
• Auto save when entering a new map / change map (Testing)
• Improve the animation when HP got to 0
• Improve the candle light effect in church
• System optimization
• Slow motion adjustment, and added “Slow Motion” toggle button. (Yes, there were times when the game seems to slow down quite a bit, but those were slow motion effect we did on purpose, not because game was unoptimized. And the old slow motion effect was usually activated by using skills.)
• Fix the H-scene volume that it wouldn’t change according to system volume change.
• Fix BGM error that wouldn’t repeat itself normally
• Fix the bug for Focus Potion that it wouldn’t replenish Block Efficiency to 100%
• Fix some minor bug that wouldn’t effect the game, but was displaying some strange value or visual
• Adjust item UI

New maid girl, incoming fencer. Other than that, they seem to have removed the link for 0.01? Not too good of an idea imo, that proof of concept kicked some serious ass.

Whatever; I eagerly await the full thing release next year (hopefully?). I wouldn't mind something like Succubus Cage: few girls, but high game quality & replayability.

Thanks for the info.

I agree I wouldn't mind something more like Succubus Cage. Seems like they got an artist/animator who's super on-board with them though. Succubus cage had multiple artists but this game's only got one, and he's good.

 

[Troana]

Very few games do the whole item durability thing right and if this very early demo is indication, this also will be more of a pain in the ass than anything else.

I dont think it will be that bad. You are given mats to make quite a few weapons. After a few run throughs I could see myself stockpiling a whole bunch of weapons. I do with there was a way to repair instead of having to make a whole new one though

 

[Eminba]

Ok, i don't know if I'm just stupid or what but I can't get past the first screen with enemies. I forget a Broadsword, got into the...dungeon I guess, and immediately got jumped by like 20 monsters and a girl, used the erosion attack, killed a few of them and then died.After that the girl jumped me while all the remaining monsters kept hitting me and I spammed the left-right arrows to recoved or break free or whatever, but no matter how hard i tried I couldn't raise it more that around half bar. Happened twice.

 

[IAmAKi]

Are there any items/accessories that reduce erosion in the newer versions? The RNG for all levels can really bite you in the ass sometimes.

 

[Strange]

Ok, i don't know if I'm just stupid or what but I can't get past the first screen with enemies. I forget a Broadsword, got into the...dungeon I guess, and immediately got jumped by like 20 monsters and a girl, used the erosion attack, killed a few of them and then died.After that the girl jumped me while all the remaining monsters kept hitting me and I spammed the left-right arrows to recoved or break free or whatever, but no matter how hard i tried I couldn't raise it more that around half bar. Happened twice.

No. They were 5, 6 at most. 7-8 with incredible RNG. This is a roguelike, not a FPS xD
"You are in a large room. You encounter the Demon Lord army.
What will you do?"
a) LEEROY JEEEEENKINS!!!
b) retreat to the doorway and take them out one by one
...
Actually, both work while under 99% erosion:
a) lure the girl & as many monsters as possible in range (2 squares) and press D, Enter. They all die. Cost: 10 erosion
b) escape to a corridor, pick them 1 by 1. Choose a) early on

The escape minigame can be won on the 1st part (foreplay) but you're not supposed to. Most fat fingers owners will manage to escape on the 2nd part.
Anyway, if:
- you get knocked out at all
- any monster gets more than 1 hit on you
- you can't heal
- you don't have a confusion, slowing (worst case, sleeping) potion ready for badass girl emergencies
...then you're doing something wrong

 

[batman30655]

At least they added a save feature

 

[Aesthetic]

Am I the only one that thinks they're working really hard on superfluous stuff?
While following the twitter I'm seeing small tweeks to how the shadow pulses and all this other stuff, and I can't see the value of using your time working on it.

Though... if Ason's a relatively large team... then it's probably that the programmer has time on his hands and is working while the artists create the art that everyone cares about.

 

[Green Thoughts]

You must be registered to see the links

. It's 11 minutes long and shows off story, combat, crafting and some H-scenes. The post also has the announcement that demo v0.04 will be released in mid November.

 

[megaman17]

Version 0.04 is out — decent amount of mechanical changes and a story H-scene. There's now a shop for permanent upgrades that aren't lost on death ("soul imprint"), but these can be pretty damn expensive for how little they do.

Spoiler: 0.04 Changelog

• Deployed the opening cut scene and tutorial, and implemented Doloelle’s story and voice
• Deployed Doroelle’s “Soul Imprint” function (increase protagonist’s passive ability, but parts of skills are not open yet)
• Deployed Doroelle’s H-scene
• Adjusted protagonist’s starting stats
• Adjusted Weapon skills
• Adjusted Inventory UI
• Adjusted Forging function
• Fixed Enhance function bug
• Updated game engine, and worked on optimization
• Add in new function: Max carrying weight
Due to tight schedule, we weren’t able to finish the first boss, but we are still releasing the current version as demo. Thus the dungeon doesn’t have much change to it.
There are still some unfinished functions, and using the previous save file can cause problem. We will try our best to solve that issue, but we still recommend that start a new game instead of continuing from your save file.
There are quite a few changes this time, and if you found any bug, please let us know, thank you!
And starting from now, we will also try our best to compile a Mac version, please help us testing the stability for Macs, thanks!

 

[IAmAKi]

Ugh. I wish this guy would put his stuff on ci-en as well.