General Overview

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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: File: Autocracy RPG

Could you make a version that doesn't have any BGM and other custom sounds? a 4 MB map is a bitch to download over starcraft...or upload, for that matter.

Quote from Kupie

Could you make a version that doesn't have any BGM and other custom sounds? a 4 MB map is a bitch to download over starcraft...or upload, for that matter.

I'm considering it, I'd probably leave the finale music and the battle music, along with some of the custom sounds. It would still decrease the file size substantially to remove the 3 main BGM themes though, so I'll mess around with that and see just how much it impacts the file size. I'll update this thread with a link when I make a version with less sounds.

This was cool to play.

I found it pretty cool at first, then found it annoying that it became a kill, run back and heal, kill thing, and not to mention the healing was annoying but... unique I suppose.

I hear it's good and all and I wanna play, but can't get a group of more than 3 because it takes over 40 minutes for people to download...

distributing this map to USwest

This is really fun. Reminds me of zelda. I wish i was faster though!

also, is the vespene gained after level up random?

colors like blue and orange don't get any level up gas until level 4. happened 4 times already, i end up just closing the slots for those colors

Tried to remove the main BGM, removed the triggers for it and everything, and the compressor crashes when I try to use it. Not sure what the issue is but I'll mess around with it a bit more. If I can get it to work, I'm going to leave in the finale and ending music as well, and possibly the death music. The difference is, I won't have it split into looping 1 second clips, but rather play one non-looping clip instead, which will be able to be compressed much more effectively.

Quote from Twelve.

distributing this map to USwest

This is really fun. Reminds me of zelda. I wish i was faster though!

also, is the vespene gained after level up random?

colors like blue and orange don't get any level up gas until level 4. happened 4 times already, i end up just closing the slots for those colors

It's a 25% chance every level, blue and oj must have been getting unlucky Glad you're enjoying it.

i don't see how the end is possible.

max ups 3 people can't beat it because we always get caught in ever lasting spawn of enemies and the notorious "can't flee from this battle"

what exactly can we do
none of us have the exp to get the final upgrade, and i don't understand the trigger for enemies respawning (if they're supposed to at all)

is it possible to get level 20 sword upgrade if you're not playing solo

Quote from Twelve.

i don't see how the end is possible.

max ups 3 people can't beat it because we always get caught in ever lasting spawn of enemies and the notorious "can't flee from this battle"

what exactly can we do
none of us have the exp to get the final upgrade, and i don't understand the trigger for enemies respawning (if they're supposed to at all)

is it possible to get level 20 sword upgrade if you're not playing solo

No, you need to be playing solo to get enough experience for that. I'll send you a PM with some tips for the final battle.

On second thought, you technically can get the level 20 sword upgrade with more than one person playing, since there's a permanent respawn in the forest. It's 3 rooms west of the first forest room, filled with trees to the point of having 0 visibility. The units there cloak, so you have to deal with that, but they were removed from the energy cycle that refills everything else, so they can't keep it up forever. When they are killed and respawn, the new ones start with substantially less energy.

That's there more to help a solo player get additional experience/gold for a weapon upgrade before the battle at the castle gate, but since the respawn indefinitely you could technically continue leveling up like that. At later levels you begin acquiring gold at a severely increased average rate, you'd probably be making experience faster by using the gold you earn at the shop rather than with the actual kills.

At any rate, doing that isn't necessary, though it is possible. I sent you some pointers that should help you out with the finale, let me know how it works out for you

ha we beat it

was cool, king shoulda been one hell of a boss fight imo
if there's any way to make the battle a solo between the king and player that'd be epic

pro game
hope you win

Congratulations, and thanks

I have no idea how to get past... well, the first part, and I'm not the only one stuck

I approve of this map.