Castle Paradox

[Moogle1]

What's all this? A new location? New enemies? A new hero? D-decent graphics?

This is clearly a different game altogether.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[TwinHamster]

Enemies could use a bit more contrast, but it's definitely a major improvement, graphics-wise.

Good Job

Besides that, there's really nothing else to comment about.

Ooh! Whatever happened to the Design monsters for me thingy?
Did you ever put those to use?

[Rya.Reisender]

Could need more colour imo. Less black and white and grey please. ^^'

The animal thingy looks good, though.


Also any more info on the game? Does it have a story or will it be tactical fights only? Does it allow to level up (or gain money)?

[Moogle1]

The original game has a story. Most people who've finished the game have thought the story was quite good. (To be fair, the game really starts springing the story on you during the last battle, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that the game is story-free if you didn't finish it.)

But to answer your question more directly, yes, this game will be much more story-based than the last. The game flow details aren't finalized yet, but here are a few things I'm fairly certain about:

- The generics are back from last game (as evidenced by the screenshot), but there are also more powerful heroes, like Bryan up there. The story centers around these heroes.
- The generics won't be able to level up, just like in the original. The heroes might, but don't count on that, either.
- The number of battles will be greatly increased and not all of them will be "boss battles." Instead of the focus being on each individual battle, part of the challenge will be resource management across battles. Yes, this means you don't get all your HP/MP back after every battle.
- Equipment management will also play a much larger role in this game. Near the end of the first game, some of the battles gave you interesting pieces of equipment. Expect more of that sort of thing.

I still have the entries from the monster design contest and I will use them eventually. Really.

A note on the screenshot itself: I threw it together and it may not resemble the actual game. The background is that of a real location, and those enemies are real enemies, but the enemies may not appear together like that or in that area or with that party. In retrospect, I could've replaced the skeletons with a more colorful enemy, but there are more screenshots to come.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Moogle1]

Arsevus: A Tourist's Guide, pp. 38-40

and the birds can be heard singing from dawn to dusk. Of course, if that's not your cup of tea, you might be interested in seeing the Grimshaw Forest, long believed to be haunted by the restless spirits of the soldiers who died there during the War of the Three Kings.



The ground is littered with fallen leaves year-round, which is a spectacle in and of itself since the trees never seem to grow any. The soil is so remarkably infertile in the forest that researchers speculate there are no actual living trees. Many unverified reports attest to the presence of the undead. This attraction is not for the faint of heart!

If you enjoy the historical attractions but aren't up for the scare, consider skipping straight to the ruins of Old Arsevus.



This is believed to be the site of the castle where the very first King Arsevus personally reigned. The Arsevus Restoration Committee has announced plans to restore the castle as near to its original form as is possible. However, their work isn't scheduled to start until late 2207, so why not take a look at the original stonework? The ancient, cracked stones are sure to be replaced with the overhaul, so this may be your only chance to walk where Arsevus himself walked so long ago.

If you're not familiar with the history, myths, and legends surrounding Arsevus, head over to your local library and read through the Mynorety Whispers saga, an ancient epic that has long been beloved of the Arsevian people.

(continued on page 41)
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Newbie_Power]

Here's an attempt to help with the color issue:




I simply changed some of the lighter/darker shades to desaturated purple. I don't know if your palette has any desaturated purple (incidentally I accidentally messed up the skeletons in the process), but a simple change like this is the easiest way to go about it, probably.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Rya.Reisender]

Also how about making the shirts of the skeleton dudes dark green?

[RedMaverickZero]

Eh, the color looks fine. Overall this looks very promising man.

The grayscale really helps it look like a dungeon. And the foresty area looks great. Really, good job.
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---------------Projects----
Mr.Triangle's Maze: 70%
Takoyaki Surprise: 70%

[Moogle1]

You don't generally find chainmail in green. (Or was that supposed to be scale mail? Maybe it was scale mail.) Anyway, changing that would also make the shield green, which would look odd.

As for the palette changes, the purple hue looks interesting with the sunset background, but the skeletons look a bit odd like that. The palette does not of course have those shades in it naturally.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Newbie_Power]

[Onlyoneinall]

Did you draw the forest stuff yourself, and if so, was it on the OHR or scanned and drawn over? However you did it, I really like the way it looks, despite the obvious tile repetition bit. A bit more variety to it would give that area a great atmosphere.
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[Moogle1]

I don't have any saturated purples, really. Anything of the sort would require some palette modification. Anyway, I'm not unhappy with the look of it right now; an easier way around the color issue would be to avoid grey enemies in that area.

"Did I draw it myself" is a really ambiguous question. I think the answer you're looking for is no to all of it. The background dirt is just fill tool manipulation, the rocks and leaves are from PSP's "picture tube" feature, and the tree is courtesy Google images. The shadowing on the tree is just the tree itself squished down a bit, easy but effective.

Incidentally, the tileset itself predates the layers and today I tried separating them to see how it would work out. I needed to redo a lot of what little map I had to make the trees walk-behind-able, but the effect as you can see looks really nice, so I think it was well worth the effort. Hooray for layers! The rocks are incidentally in front of the shadows, but nowhere is this particularly obvious.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design