[Suzerain of Sheol]

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.

http://www.dafont.com/cloister-black.font

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JXGB2D2I

(If there's a problem with the above, here are backup links to both of the files in the above)

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ccdc099/n/BGM.rar
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RMWN0Y36

You'll need WinRar to decompress the BGM file and the font, which can be downloaded here if you need it: http://www.win-rar.com/downloadnow.html

Now, installation instructions:

Download both files.

Install the font by dragging it into your My Computer > Control Panel > Fonts folder.

Decompress the game file. This should result in two files, a blue cube called Rive the Heartstone and another WinRAR file called BGM. Decompress both of these, which should create two folders (named the same as the files I just mentioned.)

Open the game folder and open the Audio folder.

Drag the BGM folder into the Audio folder and tell it to Copy and Replace.

You should be ready to play now. Go back into the main game folder and simply click on the Game application to run it. (Note, this took a minute to load up for me, don't panic if it freezes up for a second. It ran fine for me after this.)

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

Select: Z, Space, or Enter
Cancel: Esc, X
Sprint: Hold Shift
Left Scroll in menu: Q
Right Scroll in menu: W
Configure Settings: F1
Reset: F12
Toggle Full Screen: Alt + Enter

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

Main Characters
Equipment List (Skydrive doesn't seem to like the formatting on this one. Hopefully it's still readable.
Boss Bestiary
Treasure List

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:

All visual resources in the game, except for enemy graphics, are either part of the editor's base graphics (permission to which is granted with use of the software for this purpose) or generated through online editors sponsored by Enterbrain likewise for this purpose and freely available to the public.

Enemy graphics are property of http://lud.sakura.ne.jp/index.html and are available for public use.)

The music of the game is not being used in the course of trade, and credit and ownership of respective songs goes to the following artists: After Forever, Flowing Tears, Bal-Sagoth, Dragonland, Rhapsody of Fire, Celesty, Dimmu Borgir, Hammerfall, Summoning, Eluveitie, How Like a Winter, Demons and Wizards, Sirenia, Tristania, Dragonforce, Nightwish, Draconian, Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Stormwarrior, and Theatre of Tragedy.

All writing is done by me and falls under my intellectual property.