General Overview
The map is 256x256 and utilizes the overhead flip-screen grid system which you are likely to know from The Legend of Zelda. The grid is 12x20, resulting in 240 different rooms.
The setting puts you in the role of a peasant, living an ordinary life of innocence and pleasantries. They say appearances can be deceiving though, so perhaps that is not an entirely accurate representation of the situation. Exploring the town, everyone has something to tell you, and although everyone's demeanor is seemingly happy, a few of the comments they make seem somehow... peculiar. A dark storyline begins to manifest beneath the town's blissful surface.
Map Playtime
Playtime: 5+ hours with 2 players.
I have completed this map twice, once by myself and once with a random public player. With 2 players, the map took over 5 hours to complete and we only saved once. He enjoyed the map and especially the ending quite a lot, to say the very least about his reaction
As an additional note, we had 100% of the 240 rooms explored at the end of the game, albeit unintentionally.
The map is easier to complete with the more players you have if they cooperate. However, it is designed to be more difficult if they do not; as in, playing by yourself is easier than playing with uncooperative teammates. The map is nearly impossible if played with 6 players who refuse to act as a team, while being relatively easy with 3 players who work together.
Map Lag
I have done an extensive amount of testing with this and these are the details:
The map will only cause lag for people who have a poor connection or a bad computer, and for people who are in the game with them. If you want to know if your computer can handle this map, make sure you have a good connection by playing some other map, then play this on b.net by yourself. If the map lags, your computer is not up to playing this.
The easiest way to tell if there is lag is to leave the custom BGM running, the music will skip if there is significant lag. If the music plays smoothly, then there is either no lag or very little.
I have played this with 5 random public players and experienced absolutely no lag whatsoever. There was not a single skip in any of the music. If you are experiencing problems, it is an issue with one of the players. If you always experience problems, then it is likely an issue with your computer.
Custom BGM
There is an in-game switch to turn it on and off at your discretion. It will skip if someone is lagging horribly, so I suggest turning it off if you want to play through the lag for some reason, or just remaking and having everyone leave one at a time so you know who the lagger is and barring them from the remake.
I surveyed a number of players (35 responses) and the summarized version was (this was after making sure they used the switch to turn if on/off):
Question:
What do you think of the custom music?
Results:
51% - "It doesn't bother me."
34% - "I like it."
14% - "I don't like it."
This was out of 35 people, and yes I realize the percents add up to 99%, but they all rounded down so that's correct. The reason cited by everyone who said they disliked the music was because of the increased file size. In one game, 2 people said they disliked it because it skipped, then the person lagging left and it went to normal, and then one changed to liking it and one changed to saying (I wrote this one down for total accuracy), "Meh, I don't mind it, I'll leave it on. But I still think it isn't necessary." I counted that response toward the people who didn't like it, though I wrote it down since it could also be considered the first response type and I wanted this to be completely accurate.
There are 7 unique background songs throughout the game. Some are for specific events and others serve as general background music. All of them are taken from other games, and I take no credit for them whatsoever other than the several hours spent converting them to wavs and then formatting them as necessary to work within the map.
Additional Notes
I would have liked to do more with it, but the map was designed from the beginning with a general outline that would allow it to be finished within the 1 week deadline. However, since I have never made any sort of RPG before, this project was a tremendous learning experience. I have gained an enormous deal of insight that will be useful for the next RPG I make, which will certainly be at some point because I significantly enjoyed both creating the map and playing it to completion.
I know a lot more now about how to cause memory leaks in your map and how to repair them (didn't even know such a thing was possible before to be honest), and have taken quite a lot of notes on ways to improve the basic mechanics utilized in the map. Since I won't have such limited time to work on the next map, I'll have a very extensive design and experimentation process before map creation begins to test out the list of ideas I came up with while working on this, and I'll also take a good deal of time refining those ideas.
Contest Details
This was my entry for the most recent weekly map contest. This isn't the version that was submitted to the contest, as I made the following updates after the deadline:
-Optimized a number of triggers to help reduce possible map lag.
-Level information now only appears when you're getting other information.
-Added a toggle for background music.
-Added a sound to indicate when you've made a purchase at a store.
-Fixed possible rare trigger conflict which would have killed you.
-General improvements in trigger design.
-Slight terrain alterations.
-Updated mission briefing.
Download: http://www.staredit.net/files/2207/
Glad you're enjoying it.
