From Cat
Do you feel like dying today? Would it be best if you could die over and over again in a dungeon setting? I feel pretty confident that the answer is a resounding, “Yes, please!” and so I give you Ernesto RPG. Or at least the first iteration of Ernest RPG.
Daniel Benmergui is an Argentinian developer that appreciates the value of a well-leveled character. You play as Ernesto in pursuit of defeating the dungeon god on level 4. “Level 4” doesn’t sound that far off until you fall about a half-dozen times to lethal bats. Stinking bats.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
Cautious play in pursuit of better weapons and experience is rewarded as you battle spiders and aforementioned stinking bats, avoid traps and survive tunnels. Collect crystal balls to reveal traps, loot corpses, and pretty please acquire a whip so you can tackle snakes without being poisoned every. Darn. Time. Above all: plan. As you progress you leave an uncompromising red trail that cannot be crossed. Backtracking, however, is allowed for the living - at the cost of all loot and XP gathered on that path.
This free version of the game is the result of a week-long project that provided a much-needed break for Benmergui from the long-running work on the anticipated Storyteller. “...Ernesto tapped into an original idea: what happens if a crawler moves just in a grid instead of the usual labyrinth?”, Benmergui wondered, and seeing the value of that idea he is expanding Ernesto into a larger scale game. Identifying and building on these unexplored nooks and crannies of gaming is more than just a proclivity for Benmergui, it’s the core of his game design.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
What if there was a living comic book that told the story of adventure, love and loss - and you were in control? Then you’d have Benmergui’s Storyteller in a nutshell. Storyteller is a game with goals, but without right or wrong moves, a game where you can successfully save or sever, help or hinder, spinning out the fictional world just by moving characters in, out and around a panel.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
”Storyteller is my attempt at making stories themselves a toy and a challenge.”-Benmergui Read the full interview here: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
Each panel presents a setting, a story objective, and a modest choice of characters and dialogue options. Each of those characters is predisposed towards certain attributes - hamartia, even - and hovering over their avatar displays both their trait (of loving faithfully, for example) and their option in the scene as is (“commits suicide”). Moving the characters in, out and around panels alone or with one another yields different narrative results. Add an object like a treasure chest to the scene and the adjacent character will not only be affected (wealth!), placing an additional character nearby can result in emotions like jealousy - and actions like murder. Characters are dynamic, too - extremely dynamic. Dynamic like Tim can turn into a vampire.
http://s2.n4g.com/media/11/...
Deepening the game of plot progression are Stars, which are handed out for different achievements within a level. For example, can you successfully rearrange a series of events but still get the desired result? Will Adam be alone and heartbroken because his beloved has died, or because she chose another man? Both will net you a Star, and Benmergui allows the player to toy with fates in-panel without sacrificing the previously achieved solution.
If comic books are your preferred reading, you have an edge going into Storyteller. Conventions that you take for granted in the space where art and dialog meet are key pieces to successfully completing panels with the natural economy found in comics. It’s an art in itself. It’s, well, storytelling - and if it sounds overly simple then I’m not telling it right. With an open-ended approach to solving each panel’s narrative puzzle, the same story can be told in numerous ways delivering a game based on the art of storytelling that accepts each player’s unique yarn spinning style.
And that's Benmergui's style through and through - a deceptively simple mechanic, an almost supernaturally engaging game.
Storyteller demo: http://www.kongregate.com/g...
Ernesto RPG demo: http://www.kongregate.com/g...
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Day 23 | Daniel Benmergui
Alan Wake, from Max Payne and Control creator Remedy, is a horror classic, prompting one player to buy 4,000 copies that don’t even work.
Kind of a goody story...
On a serious note, that is why I try activating gift cards asap. It's happened to me where the store didnt scan it right where the card was unusuable. Happened at Wally World.
Usually most of those redemption card have an expiry date on them. If they expired all buyer did was buy recycled paper. And some of those codes are country locked to certain countries. I buy a card from the States I can't use it in Canada.
UKIE published its latest Consumer Market Valuation Report, showing that the UK games market was worth £7.82 billion in 2023, a 4.4% increase compared to 2022's revised total of £7.49 billion.
Final Fantasy is a long running series at this point — it's easily one of the most storied franchises in gaming. But when you're up to the sixteenth mainline entry, you must start wondering whether fresh installments still have the power to pull new players in. Indeed, audience growth will be an important metric for the suits upstairs at Square Enix.
Pretty much. It was barely an rpg. Sorry if I like a little rpg in my final fantasy games.
I really hope this doesn’t mean they are going to continue to streamline the games even more going forward
It didn’t even have element weakness and the like during battles. A game with element based Eikons you use in combat and they didn’t include any elemental strategic tactics
I expected fire to burn grassy enemies. That didn't happen.
I also expected to see a "we have to go there!" moment in a cutscene, and have to travel there myself. FFXVI instead loaded the map to one selectable map marker and the next cutscene loaded to us there.
Disappointing as an RPG. Disappointing as even being "open area". I'll maintain that this game would've been best served as a more linear DMC-style experience than what we got, because the core of the combat and story were so great.
Foxtrot
I can't imagine they'd try and go back to a turn based game to see if younger fans would like it. They've really never even tried though. Hell my 13 year old loves turn based jrpgs
I'll always play them because I've played every one, but if 17 goes in the same direction I'm not excited any more. It just wasn't a Final Fantasy game, just a decent action RPG. Thankfully Rebirth had everything that was missing in it.
I'm an old fan who's played literally every FF game (excluding 2) and I *loved* FF16.
I genuinely struggle to understand the mindset of people are who get weird and territorial over JRPG franchises. I think as a whole we should be encouraging developers to try new things. We're the old guard - what we want to see in a game is going to become increasingly irrelevant with time so we gotta change the way we think about this stuff.
Classic franchises thrive on their familiarity. While they can introduce new ideas, it's crucial that these innovations stay true to the essence of the franchise. Otherwise, it might be more appropriate to develop a new franchise or spinoff.
And that's where FFXVI sort of drops the ball for many. It doesn't offer much to old Final Fantasy fans. Honestly, I loved the game, but I feel it might have worked better as a spinoff, a new franchise, or even a reimagination of another classic series like Musashi or Dewprism.
I agree. FF games have always been about evolving when it comes to the gameplay mechanics. Big budget FF games like FFXVI with realistic graphics just won't sit too well with turnbase gameplay. The ones complaining are the old fans that are stuck in a rut or still stuck in the 90s style of gameplay.
It didn't feel rpgish at all. It's not a territorial issue with everyone.
Elda
As much as I like turn based and would prefer that. If that's my only issue with ff16 then why am I loving rebirth, and remake. Truth is to me 16 just blew. Dark, dull, missing so much actual ff stuff, elemental damage non existence. It lacked to much of anything rpg like.
I get innovation but ff16 really didn't innovate anything. They just gave us a mainline title of a straight action game with lite rpg builds.
Sounds exactly what Tales did with Arise. I enjoyed FF16 more than FF13 and FF15 personally. I just hope the next mainline entry Yoshida makes is more party RPG based.
I enjoyed the game but I would like them to try making a turn based FF. It’s been too long. Even if it was a spin-off that would be fine.
For me the Bravely Default series is more Final Fantasy than current Final Fantasy. Since it started its development as a FF spinoff, it even keeps some FF stuff like magic names (Fire/Fira/Firaga etc.).
Unfortunately it doesn't sell that well and we can't be sure Square will keep making them, but I hope they do.
I wish they'd at least take the chance. It'll sell off name alone. Hell at this point try and add both and let it be an option.
"This doesn’t mean that all future Final Fantasy games will take a similar direction to Final Fantasy 16,"
Here is a quote from the article to keep the XVI haters easy .
I enjoyed the game for what it was. What the team wanted to make. And i hadn't enjoyed a mainline FF game like i did XVI since X. Not counting Remake. People say it isn't an JRPG but it's pretty much Kingdom Hearts gameplay wise.
I decided to play some Arcade mode in XVI to get ready for the DLC after 220 hours of Rebirth and i still love the gameplay.
Can't wait for the DLC to hit in less than a week and see how crazy the Leviathan fight will be.
storyteller looks great !!
like i said i love pixel art ! ::3
Storyteller is coming along very nicely, keep up the good work
Both look like great fun, nice read
He's got a different formula to his gameplay design.
Okay, DEFINITELY interested in Storyteller now.