(DEMO AVAILABLE) Heritage - A Dragon's Tale (WIP)

[CGWorks]

DEMO URL:
https://smbmaster99.itch.io/heritage-a-d...-tale-demo

General plot:

Spoiler

It was a day like any other in the Skybound Isles when a dark mass arose from the clouds that separated the forgotten and dangerous world below from the home of the dragons above. General Mechos, a powerful military leader of the humans launched an attack on the floating islands and abducted the dragoness Crystal for reasons unknown.

Flame, a trainee knight and Crystal's best friend, travels to the forgotten kingdom of Mineria having sworn to find her and put an end to whatever plot General Mechos has planned. On his journey, Flame will face incredible dangers, discover more about the kingdom of Mineria, why the dragons were separated from the earth to live in the sky, and discover his own destiny.

What started as a simple project for a class in school has developed into my first indie game! I've posted a few gifs and short video snippets of this over the last couple years but I'm finally ready to reveal the basic plot and title for the project ^^ It's inspired by games such as Shovel Knight, Zelda 2, and Megaman.

The game ultimately features world exploration, sidequests, light RPG elements, 16 different weapons/spells to use, challenging bosses, a beautiful original 8-bit soundtrack composed by EliteFerrex, and more.

I am about to start my first 40-hour work-week job, so I can't give definite dates for anything, but I hope to release a demo to the public before Fall ^^ I hope you all will enjoy what you see c:

[CGWorks]

https://smbmaster99.itch.io/heritage-a-d...-tale-demo


The demo is now available! Please enjoy! ^^

[King Piranha Plant]

This looks super fun! Those little mushroom guys are adorable, and man I love how the platformer feel and look of the tiled level design brings up feelings reminiscent of building fun Mario terrain out of spritesheets in fangames. I can definitely see the Shovel Knight influence in the gameplay and the little RPG elements look nicely implemented.

I haven't played the demo yet but from looking at the trailer, the one constructive piece of advice I can give (and this is a common criticism I've felt with a lot of cool in-development games, including even TD's Psycutlery) would be regarding the main character. It's kind of hard to make out what they look like or what they are, the sprite feels either too small or maybe like it could use a redesign exaggerating some aspects of say, the face expression. Just to give it a more notable or iconic look. Or possibly recoloring it to pop out more in its world. I'm not sure exactly, there isn't anything particularly wrong with it and it is cute, but if you really want the character to have that, like, popping-out-of-its-world identifiable look that say, Shovel Knight or Hollow Knight has, it could maybe benefit from an extra redesign. The sword animation however, looks great and does that pop-out feel perfectly.

[CGWorks]

Thanks for the feedback! ^^

Unfortunately things such as Flame's design are 100% final.
While I did draw all of his sprites, spriting is my least favorite part of game dev and burns me out faster than anything. Besides that, I recently started working a regular 8-hours-per-day, 5 days-a-week job, and updating the design of roughly 400+ individual frames across 140 sprites is the very last thing I want to do lol xP

[VinnyVideo]

I played the full demo. This was a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to playing the final version. This is the kind of game that could be quite successful if you sold it on Steam or something.

I have a few nitpicks:

• Please add a fullscreen mode! The 3x window size is still small if you have a high-resolution display.
  
  
• I'd suggest playing the intro cutscene whenever you start a new game - instead of when you launch the .EXE for the first time. If you open the game, start watching the cutscene, but don't finish watching it, you'll be taken directly to the title screen next time you play. You'd have to go into the AppData folder and delete your saved data manually if you wanted to watch it again.
  
  
• I mentioned this over IM, but Boomerang level-ups don't display properly on the status screen. The upgraded functionality still works - just the level number may be incorrect.
  
  
• Consider adjusting the penalties for losing a life. Whenever you lose a life, you lose a significant fraction of both treasure and EXP you haven't used yet. This is annoying, since you'll lose lives frequently, and most of the more valuable treasure can only be obtained once per level. However, since the game lets you save your progress up to each level's checkpoint, if you lose a life you can close the game and reload from the last save point, and you won't lose anything. For that reason, I'd suggest removing the penalty for losing a life.
  
  
• I'd suggest displaying the boss HP bar only during battles.
  
  
• Don't forget to update the window caption - "Made in GameMaker Studio 2" isn't too exciting!
  
  
• It's frustrating that you can only carry 1-2 of each recovery item at a time. Specifically, Eldor Temple has tons of enemies that can poison you, and since poison is a very dangerous status, you'll want to heal it whenever you get poisoned. For that reason, you can quickly run out of Herbs, since you can only carry a maximum of two.

Finally, I caught a trio of typos:

• In the first town, one of the townspeople asks "Have the gods abbandoned us?" You should abandon the extra 'b' here!
  
• "Beastiary" is normally spelled "Bestiary" - I assume this isn't intentional.
  
• Grohl's bestiary description has a typo ("susceptible") and is a bit too long.

Keep up the good work!

Course clear! You got a card.

[CGWorks]

Please add a fullscreen mode! The 3x window size is still small if you have a high-resolution display.

I thought I had, but upon checking I clearly did not, my bad XP I'll get this working soon as I can

I'd suggest playing the intro cutscene whenever you start a new game - instead of when you launch the .EXE for the first time. If you open the game, start watching the cutscene, but don't finish watching it, you'll be taken directly to the title screen next time you play. You'd have to go into the AppData folder and delete your saved data manually if you wanted to watch it again.

You can actually see the cutscene again if you stay on the title screen long enough without giving any input. I designed it this way so that players who are less inclined to watch cutscenes don't have to manually skip them every time. I can add a feature that will make it more easy and obvious to re-watch the cutscene though.

Consider adjusting the penalties for losing a life. Whenever you lose a life, you lose a significant fraction of both treasure and EXP you haven't used yet. This is annoying, since you'll lose lives frequently, and most of the more valuable treasure can only be obtained once per level. However, since the game lets you save your progress up to each level's checkpoint, if you lose a life you can close the game and reload from the last save point, and you won't lose anything. For that reason, I'd suggest removing the penalty for losing a life.

Taken care of Deaths now take 17.5% of your gold and 25% of your EXP. Fun fact, the original intended deduction amounts were 30% and 70% respectively

I'd suggest displaying the boss HP bar only during battles.

Def can do

Don't forget to update the window caption - "Made in GameMaker Studio 2" isn't too exciting!

But Game Maker Studio 2 IS exciting but fr I can change that lol

It's frustrating that you can only carry 1-2 of each recovery item at a time. Specifically, Eldor Temple has tons of enemies that can poison you, and since poison is a very dangerous status, you'll want to heal it whenever you get poisoned. For that reason, you can quickly run out of Herbs, since you can only carry a maximum of two.

I'll look into this; I always felt that starting off with more than 1 made it too easy, but of course the dev would think that right XP I'll play around with it.

Finally, I caught a trio of typos:

• In the first town, one of the townspeople asks "Have the gods abbandoned us?" You should abandon the extra 'b' here!
  
• "Beastiary" is normally spelled "Bestiary" - I assume this isn't intentional.
  
• Grohl's bestiary description has a typo ("susceptible") and is a bit too long.
  

HECC

okay they're fixed now lol

Thanks for all the feedback ^^

[Vert]

Oh right, there was a demo out. I loved the artstyle and was curious about the gameplay so I'll be sure to check it out!

[CGWorks]

I've uploaded version 1.3.3 of the game! It includes several small updates, balance adjustments, and minor additions (the game now supports full screen mode ) and punishments for dying have been toned down a little. Default item limits were also increased by 1 and the capacity upgrade now gives you 2 more instead of 1 more. Other feedback will be implemented at a later date

Let me know if issues arise.

[CGWorks]

Demo version 1.4.2 is now live on itch!
https://smbmaster99.itch.io/heritage-a-d...-tale-demo

I haven't posted about demo updates here much so here's the full list of all updates since the demo's launch

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug with Skaltos in the fortress area where it would sometimes get stuck in a retreat animation
  
• Fixed a bug where, if the player died after triggering an autoscroll camera script during boss or enemy encounters (in levels), the camera would get locked in place and wouldn't follow the player
  
• Fixed an uncommon bug where, in "mini-levels" (i.e. caves, hidden overworld areas), if there was more than one section to it and the player died, their respawn position room and respawn positions would be messed up
  
• Fixed a bug where the Thief enemy could get stuck in the wall
  
• Fixed a bug where the down-thrust attack was dealing 5x damage of the sword's level
  
• Fixed a bug where you could "stomp" on enemies that were above you while you were below them
  
• Fixed a bug where the pause menu could display on the title screen or during cutscenes whenever connection to a gamepad was detected/lost
  
• Fixed a minor bug with the Steggyns where they would sometimes be slightly embedded in or float slightly above the ground
  
• Fixed a bug in the Heron Fortress mini-level where jumping off screen would make the foreground re-appear
  
• Fixed a glitch where trying to stab a boulder would cause the game to crash
  
• Fixes a game-breaking bug involving cutscenes
  
• Fixed a minor bug where MP would visually appear not to upgrade within the pause menu and level-up menus (it WOULD upgrade, but visuals wouldn't portray this)
  
• Fixed a bug where the user couldn't skip the cutscene at the end of the demo
  

MISC

• Removed the weapon wheel due to being really finnicky; it was either remove analog stick support for movement and have a very precise weapon wheel select or remove the weapon wheel mechanic. Weapons can still be equipped from the pause menu
  
• Re-worked the Steggyns to function as originally intended
  
• Updated/replaced the original water graphics with new ones
  
• Updated the sword in the logo so that it blends in more with the rest of the logo's color
  
• Made it so that gamepad users can press "B"/Circle/A on the Xbox/PS4/Switch controllers to cancel or say "No
  
• Added an "Options" selection on the title screen that allows the player to adjust the window size, game volume, and view/change the control
  
• QOL adjustments for gamepad users
  
• Added a dodge cooldown indicator to the top-left of the HUD, beneath the player's HP and MP meters
  
• Added the ability to upgrade the dodge cooldown time when leveling up
  
• Added a tutorial that explains how to upgrade your stats after leveling up (this was a common source of confusion I've been told)
  
• Made the "upgrade" text in the stats menu flash gold when you're able to upgrade a stat, making it easier to find for new players
  
• Re-balanced SP needed for stat upgrades so that you don't need to be level 300 to acquire all stat upgrades
  
• Several other gameplay balance adjustments
  

Just did a full playthrough of the demo and everything seemed to be working fine. Please let me know if something wonky happened though between clicking "pack into .zip" and uploading to itch.io XP

[CGWorks]

If anyone's interested, I streamed this game for NCFC this year o3o Here's the vod if anyone's interested:




I just finished the game's next boss today as well as another level. I've fixed several minor obscure bugs and done some balancing to some other levels. I also added some new features:






Damage indicators (or "RPG Mode") can be toggled on and off from the options menu when you pause the game. They show how much damage your attacks deal and whether an enemy is resistant or weak to an attack.

Also made it so you can deflect enemy grenades back at them 👀

[CGWorks]

Demo version 1.4.3 is up on itch.io o3o

• Fixed a bug where, when run for the first time, it would crash on startup but would run fine when restarting the .exe
• Fixed a bug where the game could softlock if the player fell off the bottom of the screen in Khevari Dunes' autoscroll segment
• Added toggleable damage indicators that indicates the damage dealt to enemies and whether or not they're weak or resistant to the attack you hit them with
• Added the ability to deflect soldier grenades back at them

It's likely the last patch i'll release publicly.

I just finished the game's next level and boss, and finished the one of the game's exposition dumps, so a lot of good progress was made i'll say lol

Next on the list is to add the feature that will upgrade the player's spells' strength, then begin working on some more encounter areas and bonus areas hidden in the world map. After that is the game's next level.

[CGWorks]

A sample of a new sidequest 👀

exploration pays off

Also i kept running into the glowing skull because i wanted to show off the game's Curse status debuff, but my luck is too good 😂


Also, since recording this I've added a short, spooky ambient track that loops while in the underground section, composed of course by EliteFerrex o3o

[CGWorks]

It's been a while, but I'm still working on this! Here's a few screenshots of a new level i'm working on:


here's a screenshot of one of the game's spell upgrades o3o


spell upgrades are accompanied by mini puzzles.

I've also fixed several small bugs and added a number of secrets, as well as a new miniboss 👀