Wyvern Tales

[Ninjabba]

Hi all,
 

Things are moving slowly but indeed work is being done to have a new batch this year.

 

I wanted to announce it once I have a little more to show, but after reading in another thread that people are willing to buy the game at high prices from Ebay, its probably best to announce that you probably want to wait a little longer and buy from the new batch.

[Ninjabba]

Hi all,

 

Got some good news! This week the first games of the new batch are being shipped by Songbird Productions! You can order your copy directly from Songbird Productions, or if you want to save on some shipping costs when ordering from Europe, you might want to wait a few more weeks such that you can buy it directly from me through the mailing list. I will also post updates more regularly on my IG in case you're interested in seeing some progress on the projects I'm currently working on.

 

Cheers!

Jasper aka Ninjabba

[James Vontor]

Very interesting! You use rpg maker to make this? What program?

Edited September 14, 2021 by James Vontor

[Ninjabba]

The game was built in C and Assembler, there is no such thing as RPG maker for the Lynx

 

On a side-note, I screwed up the hyperlink in my previous post... this is the link to get the game: https://songbird-productions.com/product/wyvern-tales/

[Nightlite1999]

This is going to be my first homebrew game.  Can't wait to give it a go.  Love old school RPGs.

[+Pac-Lander]

Ordered mine! Very excited!

 

[Nightlite1999]

Got my copy in the mail yesterday.  Super impressed with the package presentation.  Excellent job.  Immediately put the game in and started playing.  Still learning the mechanics of the game.  Some NPC in the first town warned me about knights in the area.  I thought for sure there would not be any enemies that you would not be able to tackle right away and promptly got my team nearly killed on my first encounter . . . with a knight.  So I guess he was right.  Proceeded back to town, healed up, and am now grinding some levels.  Currently fighting some wasps and blue jelly things and 50% of the time I am not sure I am going to make it through a battle.  My favorite effect is the enemy shrinking down to nothing after you kill them.  Nice use of the sprite scaling.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Thank you for the game!

[Ninjabba]

Hope you'll enjoy it 'till the end!

There's the notion of the grind, but I balanced it based on old JRPGs like early Dragon Quest games and its part of the gameplay

[Nightlite1999]

On 9/22/2021 at 3:47 AM, Ninjabba said:

Hope you'll enjoy it 'till the end!

There's the notion of the grind, but I balanced it based on old JRPGs like early Dragon Quest games and its part of the gameplay

Defeated the first dragon, but Arth died right before the rest of the party struck the final blow!  Really bad timing   Do "dead" characters again EXP?  I did not notice if his EXP changed or not.

 

Also is there a list of enemy names with the accompanying sprites?  Just curious exactly who/what I am fighting.

[Ninjabba]

24 minutes ago, Nightlite1999 said:

Defeated the first dragon, but Arth died right before the rest of the party struck the final blow!  Really bad timing   Do "dead" characters again EXP?  I did not notice if his EXP changed or not.

 

Also is there a list of enemy names with the accompanying sprites?  Just curious exactly who/what I am fighting.

I had to go back into the source code to see what I did there, but looks like your KO'd character still gets EXP! 

 

There's no list of enemies with any information no.. its been in my head for some time to work on a Bestiary together with a collection of the Overworld maps as an extra booklet/strategy guide, but its a lot of work and would also potentially spoil the game.. the Overworld maps are still slowly produced, I'll think about the Bestiary once I have that ready

[phuzaxeman]

Been playing this game for a while. I've got a lot of gold and health plus antidotes extras.

 

Any suggestions on what to get? My friends have up to 2nd level spells too. I think I have a sword. 

[Nightlite1999]

I was searching ebay for any loose Lynx games I need to get to finish the collection and someone is trying to sell just the box and manual for this game for 59 dollars plus shipping. It is the Songbird release. Seems scummy since that is how much the game is to purchase new from Songbird. 

[Ninjabba]

11 hours ago, phuzaxeman said:

Been playing this game for a while. I've got a lot of gold and health plus antidotes extras.

 

Any suggestions on what to get? My friends have up to 2nd level spells too. I think I have a sword. 

without spoiling too much, antidotes will be necessary a lot since you cannot cure from them with the statue, healing/revival spells are also quite good to have around

 

9 hours ago, Nightlite1999 said:

I was searching ebay for any loose Lynx games I need to get to finish the collection and someone is trying to sell just the box and manual for this game for 59 dollars plus shipping. It is the Songbird release. Seems scummy since that is how much the game is to purchase new from Songbird. 

I never understood why people do this, but they will always be around..

[JagChris]

I will be grabbing this as soon as possible. I missed out on Zaku on Lynx and Another World on the Jag. I despise limited runs. 

 

It was interesting to read about the development and subsequent player reaction of this game.  Like the guy who finished the game in 4 hrs? 

 

@Ninjabba I'd like to say congratulations and ask a couple questions. 

 

1. Game engine - you mentioned maybe some sequel work. Will this engine be modified or rebuilt based on what you've learned from the first go around? 

 

2. How much are you learning from testimonials in this thread about the mechanics such as the 4 hour speed run?

 

3. What would you do different if there was a next time?

 

If any of these questions have already been answered somewhere else please point them out as I haven't read all the side off site interviews yet.

Edited October 13, 2021 by JagChris

[Ninjabba]

10 hours ago, JagChris said:

I will be grabbing this as soon as possible. I missed out on Zaku on Lynx and Another World on the Jag. I despise limited runs. 

 

It was interesting to read about the development and subsequent player reaction of this game.  Like the guy who finished the game in 4 hrs? 

 

@Ninjabba I'd like to say congratulations and ask a couple questions. 

 

1. Game engine - you mentioned maybe some sequel work. Will this engine be modified or rebuilt based on what you've learned from the first go around? 

 

2. How much are you learning from testimonials in this thread about the mechanics such as the 4 hour speed run?

 

3. What would you do different if there was a next time?

 

If any of these questions have already been answered somewhere else please point them out as I haven't read all the side off site interviews yet.

@JagChris no problem, I don't mind talking about the game. I appreciate people looking into the whole story, its the best I can hope for.

1. Indeed I'm thinking of reusing the same template for a sequel. To modify the engine to overcome the current limitations of the game has been on my mind, but because I want to avoid another 7 year development cycle, I'm tempted to reuse the same engine with the same limitations. Graphically it will have plenty of differences, but for example the music interruption that has been pointed out as a flaw (its done deliberately) requires a massive overhaul of the engine.

My newer projects are all based on an updated template and a newer compiler version that does this all better, so I might still take a jab at re-implementing the engine, but I also realize how little my spare developer time is.

2. I did miss out on a person playing it in 4 hours, that sounds like I overlooked some possibility.. will have to find it back. I do know some people could finish it in like 8-10 hours with a glass build and a money loophole that I removed. This was done in the testing phase, which took more than a year. Balancing the game took me about 2 years in my spare time with several people involved. I was really happy how this worked out, it turns out to be the best motivator to talk to people enjoying the game (I was heavily doubting and considering to drop the entire project several times).

 

3. I started this project as a "fun" side activity back when I was at university and did not spend much time working on big projects at that time. I probably made every mistake in the book, refactoring the code base several times to make it fit in memory was a nightmare to live through. Figuring out the memory layout for an RPG was achieved by years of trial-and-error.

Initially I worked more towards immediate results which motivated me short term, rather than understanding all the components needed for a proper engine, hence the limitations with respect to the music/interruptions. Now I would start with all the fundamental components in place before drawing a single pixel on the screen, eg. understand better how to manage all the assets. It does help if you actually have the assets at hand, back then I created them as I went forward, adding unnecessary complexity without realizing it.

 

The templates and documentation is all shared on the programming forum here with a ton of extra information. When I started homebrewing for the Lynx the tutorials were a bit more scattered over the web, its great to see everything being collected in one place.

[JagChris]

@Ninjabba wasn't it this fella here who beat it in a couple hours or am I misunderstanding what he's saying?

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/205836-wyvern-tales/?do=findComment&comment=4110205

[PFG 9000]

7 hours ago, JagChris said:

@Ninjabba wasn't it this fella here who beat it in a couple hours or am I misunderstanding what he's saying?

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/205836-wyvern-tales/?do=findComment&comment=4110205

Reading that post, my impression is that Enthusi was just giving a loose estimate.  And if you consider how time flies when you're playing a great game, it's entirely likely his playthrough length was comparable to everybody else's.

[Ninjabba]

Ah yeah I do remember now, I did have the feeling Enthusi played it the fastest of all people I know that finished the game judging from how he managed to exploit fleeing.

I will definitely penalize fleeing more harsh in the sequel

 

But everybody plays different, I also heard people struggling to pass the first dungeon. The beginning of the game might come across a bit more difficult than later on, but that was not uncommon in other games of that era. I wanted to create an experience that was a lot more forgiving than those games though.

[JagChris]

On 10/13/2021 at 5:39 AM, Ninjabba said:

@JagChris no problem, I don't mind talking about the game. I appreciate people looking into the whole story, its the best I can hope for.

1. Indeed I'm thinking of reusing the same template for a sequel. To modify the engine to overcome the current limitations of the game has been on my mind, but because I want to avoid another 7 year development cycle, I'm tempted to reuse the same engine with the same limitations. Graphically it will have plenty of differences, but for example the music interruption that has been pointed out as a flaw (its done deliberately) requires a massive overhaul of the engine.

Do you really think it would take 7 years to overhaul the engine? Knowing what you know now?

 

It would bug me not to do it even if I never used it. In my mind at least the next phase would be done. 

[Ninjabba]

14 hours ago, JagChris said:

Do you really think it would take 7 years to overhaul the engine? Knowing what you know now?

 

It would bug me not to do it even if I never used it. In my mind at least the next phase would be done. 

7 years might be a bit pessimistic, but I notice how quick time passes.. been working on a tiny project that I wanted to finalize in May, now it's October ?

 

Luckily this project is an exercise to improve the tool-chains and workflow that I learned over the years and will be a base for future projects; I'm definitely going to give it a shot. Main reason would be to increase the cart size from 256kb to 512kb allowing for much more content. Nobody has seen it, but originally I was planning to have 3 types of environment, grassland, desert and tundra. Lots of content was removed to be able to finish the game.

[schnuth]

On 9/14/2021 at 7:30 AM, Ninjabba said:

Hi all,

 

Got some good news! This week the first games of the new batch are being shipped by Songbird Productions! You can order your copy directly from Songbird Productions, or if you want to save on some shipping costs when ordering from Europe, you might want to wait a few more weeks such that you can buy it directly from me through the mailing list. I will also post updates more regularly on my IG in case you're interested in seeing some progress on the projects I'm currently working on.

 

Cheers!

Jasper aka Ninjabba

 

 

Just out of curiosity is the version available from Songbird the same as the one previously released?  Just wondering if it's worth picking up the Songbird release if you already own a copy.  Thanks!

Edited October 27, 2021 by schnuth

[Songbird]

No changes were made to the game ROM for this release.

[schnuth]

6 hours ago, Songbird said:

No changes were made to the game ROM for this release.

 

Good to know, thanks!

[JagChris]

On 9/14/2021 at 2:03 PM, Ninjabba said:

The game was built in C and Assembler, there is no such thing as RPG maker for the Lynx

 

On a side-note, I screwed up the hyperlink in my previous post... this is the link to get the game: https://songbird-productions.com/product/wyvern-tales/

Just snagged this! Woo- hoo!

 

Couldn't find it on the website, nearly panicked. 

[JagChris]

I have been getting into this now that my Lynx is fixed.

 

I have some clarity requests for the next game regarding menus, items and inventory.

 

When equipping adventurers its unclear to me as to what that adventurer is already equipped with or not. Because it doesn't say. This goes for excess inventory when you wish to sell it. Such as armor.. What is being used/equipped by who and what's not.

When a task is done perhaps a little prompt for clarity and completion. Game saving do not turn off console... Game saved!  Item equipped! etc. 

 

It's a great game Just some notes for the sequel. 

In the future will fleeing have a chance to fail? Will some monsters have a higher chance of not letting you escape?