Interim

[Lunarea]

--- by Lunarea ---

"Time is a spiral, though She winds in a variable manner. Lest we learn from the Past, we are doomed to make the same mistakes once more. Wars, disease and hunger shall ravage our lands, killing our people and eating away at their very will to live. Put your trust unto me, and I shall bring forth the Golden Age." - His Royal Majesty Shesen, 'eve of the coronation.

The historians of Aurevala discovered that certain key events in history reoccurred within time. Though hesitant at first, the people began to use this information to shape the world into a more peaceful and prosperous one. The key figure in this revolutionary movement was Shesen, a young prince who ascended to the throne of Iomera after the tragic death of his older brother.

With the peace between the nations firmly established, King Shesen turned his efforts to promoting knowledge, understanding and inner power of all the inhabitants of Iomera. He built schools and universities for magea and historians as well as re-established the importance of faith and religion. In return, he was blessed with longevity and good health.

Such a peaceful age was not without heroes. When the focus shifted back to the everyday life, many found profound respect for the strong and altruistic wanderers. More than mere adventurers, these men and women became saints in the eyes of Iomera.

Shall we follow their footsteps?



Asen Ravenbree -
Location: Freas Village, Iomere
Asen is a carefree young man with a lot of imagination. This often gets him into trouble, as he daydreams about fantastic adventures. His greatest dream is to have people look up to him and remember his name.
He is somewhat of a legend in his hometown because he seems gifted with extraordinarily good luck.


Enna -
Location: Freas Village, Iomere
Enna is Asen's childhood friend and sweetheart. She is a very gentle soul who has trouble refusing others. She has never turned away anyone in need of her help, much to the frustration of her friends.
Abandoned as a baby, Enna has been raised by the church. She is gifted in the soothing arts, especially when it comes to creating herbal concoctions and poultices.


Cawan Roselyn Autumndusk -
Location: Arche'Urnll, Iomere
A student of the magical artes, Rose is a very intelligent young woman. At birth, her magical potential was judged as high as that of Prime.
However, she is also impatient and short-tempered, thus her rank at the academy is rather low.


Rex Spirithawk -
Location: Vadar, Iomere
Despite his youth and small stature, Rex is a shrewd merchant. He had a falling out with his father after a difference in opinion about running the family store. He has decided to make his own fortune as a traveler.


King Shesen -
Location: Royal Palace of Umbregard, Iomere
Current monarch of Iomere, as well as indirect leader of Archimere. Though he appears young, he has been leading Iomere for decades.
His youth is attributed to powerful restorative magic; the decision made by the people's dedication to his rule and their desire to never see him grow old or sick.





More to come.






- Unique leveling system which gives player a choice in when and how to gain experience.
- Abundance of side-quests, ranging in difficulty and content.
- Interactive puzzles and mini-games.
- Custom musical tracks
- Custom menu system
- Custom battle system


Known Bugs:
- None Yet!

Userbar:


Thank you Reives for hosting the project!

[Lunarea]

Hints to make the play easier in Chapter 1:
- You get no experience or items from fighting random battles. So, make use of the Clear on sub-floor 3.
- You cannot escape from battles, so save when you get a chance.
- Save points are on sub-floor 1 and sub-floor 6

Have fun!

[Reives]

Play this!  :reivsmile:

Also, just a note that Lunarea is one of the helping spriters who has made many sprites for Quintessence. c: And I had the honor of composing Interim's Title Theme a while back, which is in this demo.

Already downloaded, will play when I get back home. Thanks for posting it here!

[abigailian]

I'm not getting any dialogue. Only the box comes up. Is there a font I have to download?

[Reives]

The fonts are included in the folder named Font. Just put those in WINDOWS\FONTS will do. c:

[Lunarea]

Yep! There should be a total of 3 fonts in the Font folder - Goobascript, Harrington and Steepidien. If you are (for some strange reason) missing these, let me know and I'll post a link where you can download them.

Also, I've uploaded a revised version of the demo for chapter 1(link is still above!). It does a better job of guiding you to solve the cave puzzle.

Thanks! 

[abigailian]

Ok! Much better! Never had to do that like that before, there was just a notice in the summary that there was a particular font to install. I finished the prologue! So far, good stuff!

[Lunarea]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

If you're having trouble with chapter 1, do let me know. Some people have said that the puzzle is a tad too confusing.

[abigailian]

I can't find the third switch. There's a switch over by where you go to the next sublevel, but it's just another switch 1.

[Lunarea]

Yes, Floors 2 and 4 share a switch, but that's intentional! Switch 3 is located on floor 5 (which you access by turning off Switch 1 on the 4th floor). 

[Reives]

I thought that place you're supposed to step over to go down the water-drained area was a glitch, heheh. Seems like it's intended. Trying to get through that part now, will give full feedback when I'm finished.

[Lunarea]

Good luck! It's a tough one 

[Reives]

Okay, whew.

I'll get the critiques out of the way first:

-I did find the puzzle to be quite a headache - mainly because in this case, it seems that the solution can only be reached by pure guessing. It's usually no problem if it's a short one at that, but since there are  tons of walking and trying out involved in this, it's a rather frustrating imo. o:

-Some mapping errors in the cave; but no biggie and you did warn about them.

-The first battle was a bit of a gamble; I once had Rose killed on the first turn when two bat attacked her at once. And I was kind of screwed after that (I might be missing something about the other characters' abilities though).


Now the pros:

-Very nicely done dialogues, with a great touch of personality and a natural, flowing feel.

-Avatars were absolutely adorable. I especially loved Rex's (and his sprite for that matter). The huge luggage with a teddy head popping out is just awesome in both design and concept.

-The extensive amount of expressions worked wonders too, much kudos on those. (I did find it a bit of a mismatch with the sprites though, but no biggie.)

-My stance on HK is neutral, but the graphics in this were certainly refreshingly nice. Excellent job on the sprites and tilesets.

-The journal system was very nicely done/written - must've taken a long time to do all those pieces. 

Overall, its feel improved a lot from the prologue released a few months back - it was worth the wait and I had a good time with it. c:

[Lunarea]

Thanks for the review, Reives!

The puzzle didn't exactly go as I had originally planned. I originally had a scene where you find a journal that essentially tells you the solution, and then you just walk around and get it. However, I ran out of time (and patience!) trying to event it and trying to sprite a skeleton for the scene. I will, however, probably go back to it in a future release.

I will also (hopefully!) have a proper tileset for the place. I was missing a lot of pieces that I wanted to include, but didn't get a chance to sprite, so the mapping is a little lacking in some areas. I might also just do a shorter dungeon. Maybe only 4 floors 

Now, for the first battle ... It doesn't matter whether you win or lose that one. It was really just a way to throw the player into the system itself - the fact that there are specific commands rather than attack/defend/whatever and how quick each character is. If Enna or Rose die, use Rex's Stash command and hope you get lucky enough for an angel feather. Otherwise, just watch them obliterate you. It has no impact on the rest of the events 

-The extensive amount of expressions worked wonders too, much kudos on those. (I did find it a bit of a mismatch with the sprites though, but no biggie.)

I only really just began doing the poses for the characters. The one that's closest to being done is Rose, which is why she's really the only one that's sometimes animated when she talks. I've still got ways to go with her too, as I'd like a lot more movement and possibilities. And while it's not the same as spriting an entire sprite from scratch, it takes forever to get some parts right!

-My stance on HK is neutral, but the graphics in this were certainly refreshingly nice. Excellent job on the sprites and tilesets.

Thank you! The next area to be implemented will probably have 90-95% original graphics, so expect a lot more eye candy! 

-The journal system was very nicely done/written - must've taken a long time to do all those pieces.

It did! But it was also a great way to flesh out the world a little better. I didn't want to have to explain every term and reference, so that journal comes in very handy! 

Thanks again! I will continue to work on it and improve it 

@Pathbinder: Thanks! I've been working on it for a while now, and I'm pretty happy with the result. Hope you enjoy playing  :reivsmile:

[Reives]

Ooh heheh, I didn't know about that battle thingy! I assumed that I was going to die so I restarted the game and continued from before the battle. :p Good luck on getting the real tileset for that place together, I'm sure it'll give it a nice touch. And aye, I noticed the sprite details; very delicate, nice job with those. The poses complements the expressions well, too.

Looking forward to more graphical revamp! c: This certainly made a leap from the prologue.