Rive the Heartstone (my RPG Maker game)
 

I mentioned this in my quest thread a while back and I got a surprising amount of interest from people, so, by request, I'm putting it up for download here.

For those not in the know, I made this on a program called RPG Maker VX, which is an engine from Enterbrain for designing oldschool RPGs.

The game is nowhere near finished, this is only a beta of the first four chapters, but it's as far as I've gotten in several years of working on it. I've tried to polish up what's there as much as I can, but I'm only one person and there are bound to be things I missed.

And I'll note here that the game is primarily story-driven. There's nothing in the mechanics you haven't seen a hundred times before, though I've done my best to add what creative touches I can. Bottom line, though, expect to read a lot, it's as much a visual novel as it is a game, and I've put the most work by far into the writing.

To start off, some screenshots:



So, with all that said, here are the download links below. Make sure to read my instructions afterward, since it's a tad tricky to install.



Now, installation instructions:



Now that that's out of the way, I suppose I should lay out the controls.



And here is a list of documents that go with the game that I've uploaded to my Skydrive:



And... I think that's about it. I had the game running on my father's computer so hopefully it'll work on everyone else's. It took me about an hour to download all the files on there, for reference.

And, of course, the whole purpose of this isn't for showing off but for feedback. If something doesn't work right, let me know. I've tried to catch all the writing mistakes, but those are bound to crop up here and there. I'm interested in comments on pretty much anything, especially the game balance, the story/characters, my pathetic mapping skills, or the music.

Oh, and credits/legal stuff:

Wheee downloading now :p

I just really hope it works. I've worked so hard trying to get it ready, but... I don't see any reason why it shouldn't as long as you follow the directions (assuming I covered everything).

Uhh, wow I have to wait 100 minutes between downloads >>

What? Seriously? I only had to wait 1,000 seconds.

It's making me wait 3600 seconds :x Maybe because I'm not a member?

Neither am I, though. Weird. Maybe it's just arbitrary and vindictive. :p

Oh, I should probably mention one thing about the game. My towns are seriously betas at this point. I hate towns. I hate townspeople. The big city in chapter 4 isn't even detailed yet, you can't go into any of the houses. Likewise, the first town is just bare bones to tell the story. The second town is fleshed out a bit, but really, only Avalusia Castle is finished (and damn it, if I'm not proud of that place.)

Getting there. It didn't want to accept the font directly from the Win-Rar window so I dragged the TFF to my desktop and then from there to the folder.


It insists you wait to you get bored and spend money on the upgrade.

Well I was unlikely to get to it tonight anyways ^^; I'm trying to at least stay up to start the other download but I'll admit I'm fading kind of quickly here >>

Yeah, I'm right there with you on that. Not gonna be able to stay up to see if it works for anyone (hopefully everyone). I'll be around tomorrow, though.

Suzerain, maybe I shouldn't mention where my mind went with that last comment ^^;

*looks around for a minute, confused*

Oh. That was poorly worded. I blame my poor, over-worked brain.

Haha, it's not that I didn't know what you meant, I just have a dirty mind :p

Alright, round 2 since I botched the first one. It made me wait 740 seconds in between the two attemps. I have patience you money grubbers! Take that!

Still way less than the 3600 seconds I had to wait D: At least I finally finished the download, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try this >>

I'm going to try a theory about the site when I download the sound file. See if it helps anything.