I’m pretty happy to announce a massive rework/overhaul of my completed fangame Cognitive Dissonance, the story of the Applechasers — a Mook, a Mr. Saturn, a Starman, and an Insectoid UFO pilot who travel through space and time, taking place in between the first two Mother games and interconnecting with many of their plot events through a focus on Giegue (Giygas) as a character and his descent into madness.
UPDATE: The game is finished and released!
Giegue stands at the bridge, staring out into space at the introduction of the game. Aboard the playable team’s ship. It’s a nifty UFO that no longer looks like a clunky factory inside… it can even be upgraded in various ways including a sound system. Thunderton City, a location in Chapter 6.
More has been added to space – much less aimless wandering with nothing interesting in sight, every planet in the solar system will be visitable in some minor form or another, even if it’s just a small side area. Yes, that includes Pluto – CogDis takes place in the late ’80s! A view from Neptune with Niiue in tow. The water spouts and springs can be used to travel? Animating battle backgrounds… are officially a thing now, in case you were tired of the plain black windows of the original.
First try running the game in compatibility mode for Windows 7. Right click the “Mother – Cognitive Dissonance” executable and click “Properties”. Under the “Compatibility” tab, run the game in compatibility mode for Windows 7 and click “Apply”. The game will now run in fullscreen properly by pressing Alt+Enter or F4.
CogDis is back…and looking better than ever.
Handish it’s awesome to see this great game getting a reboot.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
So It’s about Giegue spiralling into madness?Creative!
I’d love to be a tester!
1: All of them!
2: Yeah, I had played it a long time ago, but it seemed kinda Clunky back then..
3: I have tested a few Zelda Classic fan games.
4: I’m pretty good at making Zelda Classic quests..
5: It looks like a really cool concept!
17 Years later and we still can’t Grasp Giygas’ Attack..
He said to send your answers in a private message.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
The battle system itself (in terms of how a fight plays out) is unchanged from the original, though many things have been given a graphical facelift, and all kinds of attacks and enemies have been further balanced.
One difference that is currently in place that I’m unsure about is a change to how the battle menus work – it seems to be controversial among people who have seen it, so perhaps some opinions here would be helpful!
Let’s take Alinivar as an example. The old system had his battle menu as follows:
Bash (Riff)
Powers
Defend
Goods
Run Away
The new system has changed things up a little, to give what I thought would make things easier.
Bash (Riff)
PSI
Limbs (tentacle attacks etc)
Goods
Run Away
Every party member has been given a unique “third command” at this point, so they are all uniform this way except for Niiue, as seen in one of the screenshots above. No one really used Defend very often, however it might be added as an extra option anyway just to have it.
How do you feel about this change? Is it too needlessly complicated to have everyone’s command list like this? I feel like it helps to have less massive lists to dig through in combat.
Um, so yeah. I’ve been helping out with a number of things on this project. Mostly art reasources, but also setting up new systems here and there to help streamline stuff (With the boss man’s approval, of course.)
I think it’s coming together quite nicely.
Oh man this looks great! I recently downloaded the older version of CogDis to play through again for nostalgia and whatnot.
Can’t wait for the new installment, and I’m glad to hear about some enemy balancing, some of the difficulty jumps were kind of ridiculous in some areas (especially since I’m one who tries to use PSI as little as possible unless absolutely necessary, you know, save up for bosses and stuff).
Or maybe I was a terrible grinder in those areas (specifically those ships with the Halberd music and the falling rocks of doom).
Twitter
Andrew: Hahahaha! Screw you all they’re playing Elton John!
From time to time I’m going to try to release small tidbits of info from now up until release.
So without further ado, here’s a gnarly boss fight! It’s Snow & Blaze!
Returning players will find all the battles at the Point of Power locations have been redone, and this is one of them.
These guys are a little preoccupied fighting each other to deal with you.
But if you take one out…
This happens, and suddenly the battle gets much more challenging. Better be glad they both don’t try to fight you from the start, huh?
Looks like I didn’t make it… oh well, I’ll be returned to the last appropriate location I passed, in this case the spaceship, but not kicked back to the title screen or anything like that. That’d be silly.
"You were a great help, my friend. I hope you are well." - CQ
I really just wanted to pop in and say that this looks great. I looked at your final post on the previous topic, and I hope that time you get the attention you deserve. Not only does the game look great, but the fact that you went in a different direction than a normal boy with a striped shirt on a destiny to save the world is unique and great. I wish you luck on this wonderful project, and wish that I was a spriter or a musician or something so I could help you, but I guess I’ll just have to be a loyal fan cheering on the sidelines
Thanks for the words of encouragement. Stuff like that helps too in its own way, since there’s been some rough times in the past month and the project has been moving a little more slowly than I’d wanted. But it’s going to happen regardless in some form, so much has already been done before this snag was hit!
When you acquire a workable spacecraft, a gauge helps keep track of how much gas you’re packing. It has no need to interrupt you periodically with status notices, like older and clunkier ships might’ve.
Though you can hold up to 99 units of spaceship fuel, the bar won’t always be that big. It fits itself mostly to the size you’ll need it to be!
Except when it’s about to go down, that is… which of course invites the question of what happens when your ship dries up, if it doesn’t do anything silly like kick you to the title screen?
Your answer, in two words: tow truck.
Even deep space isn’t without certain amounts of civilization.
How civilized the truck stop is they end up dropping you off at, though… is a little bit questionable.
Here you can get refueled and ready to take flight once again! And if you happen to be completely broke, a kind soul might pitch in and help out a bit, just ask around.
Alright, here’s the deal.
I’ve gone through some nasty experiences in the past few months, and CogDis fell behind as my heart wasn’t in it and I started making something else. I want to make this game the best it can be, and sadly that was the cause of the delay. Production’s picking back up though and I’m happy to say I’ll be more with it once things start rolling again!
Here’s a screenshot just to keep everybody’s thoughts flowing.
I honestly don’t remember much about this game besides having an incredible amount of fun playing it, but I do recall some things that were on my mind when I was playing.
I thought the game could have used more original music in place of stuff recycled from other series. Although I thought the Major Organ stuff was a good idea.
And I’m sure you’ve probably already done something about this, but Zarbol’s entry into the plot was kind of mind boggling and it was like his intoduction was cut from the game or something.
Also, you should be able to name Col. Saturn something custom, and although I’ve never used rpg maker, I wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to code something in that would perhaps ask you a few times if you’re really sure that you want to name him as a joke. Not sure how much time it would take to get the game to reference him as the custom name everywhere, but maybe the custom could appear only in the menus and people would still refer to him formally as Col. Saturn.
The pickle that appears at the start of a new game is really confusing unless you know beforehand that it is your logo.
The part where you travel back in time (or something) and lose all of your items and you have to do something in your base to get something back (dont remember very well) was kind of “huh.”
The guy on youtube who played your game for all of about 15 minutes and talked trash should not be taken seriously because he was just trying to be as much of a tool as possible so his fans could have a laugh.
I think the only reason why your game doesn’t have a reasonably sized fanbase is because you don’t immediately play as a human boy, the battle system is different, the four directional movement is initially disappointing, and the game takes a little while to pick up, and by then, a lot people just turn it off.
I’m not recommending this, but I think if you changed “Cognitive Dissonance” to the tagline and titled it “Mother: Cognitive Dissonance,” your project would get more attention.
And one more thing, since it seems that Tomato’s translation of Mother is now the popular standard, perhaps it would make sense to have all references of Gigue replaced by Gygas. I remember that the plot kind of implied that Giegue physically and mentally becomes Gygas as another being with a different name, but I don’t know if that makes as much sense anymore relative to Tomato’s script.
I don’t really have much to say and all of that was really just off the top of my head; nothing comprehensive because it’s been a while since I played. Just thought I’d contribute to the discussion. Still don’t understand why the only complete Mother fangame, and a damn good one too, isn’t very popular, while the Mother 4 thread remains the biggest piece of tumorous circlej…. Good luck Handish!
I actually had a great big cool post all cooked up in response to that!
Then I accidentally clicked the X on the wrong window. Smooth move, big shot. I feel like that response was better than this one.
But I’m happy to go ahead and mention that many of those issues have been fixed or revised in some way indeed! There’s a whole new intermission-like scene in place for Zarbol’s introduction that I think will hopefully be appreciated, and some clunky issues like the item wipe at the end of chapter 1 have been patched up too. Oh, and that thing in the intro is now more clearly a logo. CogDis is a Giant Space Pickle production.
I thought the game could have used more original music in place of stuff recycled from other series. Although I thought the Major Organ stuff was a good idea.
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a dedicated musician attached to the project, and that’s led to a lot of “recycled” song choices… though a few of course were picked intentionally for their atmospheric qualities, or just to sometimes evoke certain fond memories and associations in players. I’m not much of a proficient sound artist myself, but I did manage to remix a few new things that’ll be showing up.
Also, you should be able to name Col. Saturn something custom…
Well, I don’t think I’ll be doing it in the intro, but this does give me a neat idea of something I might be able to work in. However, most mentions of Col. Saturn in dialogue are spelled out and “hardcoded” in the text.
The guy on youtube who played your game for all of about 15 minutes and talked trash should not be taken seriously because he was just trying to be as much of a tool as possible so his fans could have a laugh.
I think the only reason why your game doesn’t have a reasonably sized fanbase is because you don’t immediately play as a human boy, the battle system is different, the four directional movement is initially disappointing, and the game takes a little while to pick up, and by then, a lot people just turn it off.
I’m not recommending this, but I think if you changed “Cognitive Dissonance” to the tagline and titled it “Mother: Cognitive Dissonance,” your project would get more attention.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking on these sorts of issues, but what really got my attention was the reception of Mother 3 in Japan. Despite being an absolutely fantastic game and some people would call it the best of the series in some ways, it got a very negative reaction from many others. Chrono Cross was the same way in some circles, as another example… the problem is, fans of an established creation are reluctant to see it change. A lot of game series just end up stagnating or being the same every release, because the creators went with the safe option. I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to make something new and different but… perhaps just as exciting in its own way. And that’s part of the theme of CogDis itself. Something might seem strange and alien, but once you give it a solid chance and stick with it, eventually you realize it might be more familiar than you think.
When this game was first concocted in my mind, I decided not to call it Mother for the simple reason that I’m not Itoi, and felt like without his involvement, it wasn’t truly a Mother game. I reconsidered that later on when I realized that I could pick up a hat and call it a fnord, but that doesn’t not make it a hat, regardless of whether I’m some kind of bizarrely licensed hatmaker or it’s not as authentic as an original hat. Truth is, I considered a few titles and they all came out sounding pretty bad. “Mother 1½: Cognitive Dissonance” just doesn’t… work. Or does it? What do you think?
And one more thing, since it seems that Tomato’s translation of Mother is now the popular standard, perhaps it would make sense to have all references of Gigue replaced by Gygas.
Is that the case? I feel like it’d be a controversial change sort of like if someone were to go into EB and changing the text around it so that it refers to Porky instead of Pokey. It’s more accurate, but… is it really what people want to see? I notice lots of people referring to the name Giegue still.
But overall, thanks for the feedback and I hope this game ends up being worth the wait.
Well, my personal opinion is that you should put it as Giygas. Not only I think it has more charm, this is one name different between translations that was actually intentional by the creators. After all, Giyig is right there on the Japanese opening screen. Welp, not even Giegue would be the correct romanization – by what we see here, it is the most wrong and the least official of all iterations!
All in all, this looks like an interesting and relatively original fangame, even with non-original media assets. This approach of yours to a fangame got my appeal. Unfortunately, I’ve got this feeling that you’re losing some potential out of it by using, out of all Makers, RPG Maker, but as long as work is being done I guess it’s better than starting from lower grounds.
I melted away one warm winter day. But I’ll always remain in your memory.
Don’t underestimate what RM2k3 can do. It’s got its limitations, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some of the stuff we managed to squeeze out of it. (Of course, a big reason we’re sticking with it is because this is just a huge update to an already existing game, and to put it out on anything newer would mean starting pretty much completely from scratch.)
Though, speaking as just a fan of the older version, and not as somebody helping out on the project, I think there’s a good story reason to distinguish between Giegue and Giygas. It’s sorta like how the Zelda series makes a distinction between Ganondorf the Thief and Ganon, the Evil Lord. At least that’s how I see it. It’s the story of how an alien became something else entirely and the process that involved.
^seconding this. Giegue is What I’ve been calling him forever and it really puts a solid divider between the first and second mother games for me, as well as the final battle of this game. It really MEANS something when the name changes like that.
the Mother 1 1/2 sounds kinda snazzy though!
I’m what’s known as a sketch artist.
I sketch. a lot.
Though, speaking as just a fan of the older version, and not as somebody helping out on the project, I think there’s a good story reason to distinguish between Giegue and Giygas. It’s sorta like how the Zelda series makes a distinction between Ganondorf the Thief and Ganon, the Evil Lord. At least that’s how I see it. It’s the story of how an alien became something else entirely and the process that involved.
Yes, it’s a very satisfying story element to have them as two distinct beings by name, but it’s also a bit of a plot hole. Mind you, it’s a very manageable plot hole and it still makes for great story, but the Earth Bound Zero translation is not cannon and Itoi did not intend the antagonist to have multiple names. If the name were to be changed to Giygas in all circumstances, I would personally miss that part of the element of transition caused by the “Cognitive Dissonance” because it’s really quite brilliant, but at the same time, I feel that the plot would be more legitimate and fit better with the other games if this change were to be made. I’m cool with it either way because there’s something good there whether the change is made or not.
When this game was first concocted in my mind, I decided not to call it Mother for the simple reason that I’m not Itoi, and felt like without his involvement, it wasn’t truly a Mother game. I reconsidered that later on when I realized that I could pick up a hat and call it a fnord, but that doesn’t not make it a hat, regardless of whether I’m some kind of bizarrely licensed hatmaker or it’s not as authentic as an original hat. Truth is, I considered a few titles and they all came out sounding pretty bad. “Mother 1½: Cognitive Dissonance” just doesn’t… work. Or does it? What do you think?
I don’t think that putting Mother in the title would be too bold. If anything, I think the 1½ part is what would imply that you were trying to be Itoi. Regardless of anything, it is inescapable that this is a Mother-related game and so I think it would make sense for the title to reflect that. As long as you don’t try to number it, I think it could easily stand on its own. Like for example, if someone made a Mother themed Tic-Tac-Toe game and called it Mother: Tic-Tac-Toe, I don’t think there would be any misconception as to what the game would be in relation to the series.
Your game is different enough from the real Mother games to draw an unspoken line. I’m still not suggesting anything, but I’m just saying, if you changed the title to make it obvious that this is a Mother related fangame, I think more people would give it a chance. Speaking without an audience in mind, I like the title better without any reference to Mother because it really is a different experience; I’m just speaking in terms of people playing your game at all. For months while the game was being developed, I never clicked on your original thread because I had no idea that “Cognitive Dissonance: Between Two Times” had anything to do with Mother and I was under the impression that it was its own standalone game, and that had no appeal to me. I honestly believe that the word “Mother” would singlehandedly create subliminal desire in people to play your game.
Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a dedicated musician attached to the project, and that’s led to a lot of “recycled” song choices… though a few of course were picked intentionally for their atmospheric qualities, or just to sometimes evoke certain fond memories and associations in players. I’m not much of a proficient sound artist myself, but I did manage to remix a few new things that’ll be showing up.
Specifically, I was slightly put off when I heard a bit of music from games unrelated to Mother. That was just my experience; I’m not sure if anyone feels the same. I did enjoy hearing most of the unoriginal non videogame related music though. I don’t really have much to say about this because it’s not a big deal, but I’m sure if you wanted a little help with music, someone would contribute.
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On an unrelated note, I think that if the game started out by briefly showing a flashback to the ending of Mother 1, showing Ninten and friends (<— emphasis on that) causing Giegue/Giygas to flee, before introducing the monologue on the ship, I think people would feel immediately more familiar and comfortable with sticking with the game during its slow parts. I may be wrong because I haven’t played for over a year, but I think you already did that flashblack somewhere else in the game? If so, I think it would still be cool having it at the beginning too.
On an unrelated note, I think that if the game started out by briefly showing a flashback to the ending of Mother 1, showing Ninten and friends (<— emphasis on that) causing Giegue/Giygas to flee, before introducing the monologue on the ship, I think people would feel immediately more familiar and comfortable with sticking with the game during its slow parts. I may be wrong because I haven’t played for over a year, but I think you already did that flashblack somewhere else in the game? If so, I think it would still be cool having it at the beginning too.
Funny you should mention this, but… a cut scene like that was added to the intro.
On an unrelated note, I think that if the game started out by briefly showing a flashback to the ending of Mother 1, showing Ninten and friends (<— emphasis on that) causing Giegue/Giygas to flee, before introducing the monologue on the ship, I think people would feel immediately more familiar and comfortable with sticking with the game during its slow parts. I may be wrong because I haven’t played for over a year, but I think you already did that flashblack somewhere else in the game? If so, I think it would still be cool having it at the beginning too.
Funny you should mention this, but… a cut scene like that was added to the intro.
Good because that’s a fantastic idea. Also, with regard to the name of the game, I think they have a point with adding Mother to the title. It’s only on the off chance that I poked my nose into the forum page that I found that the game
Had any relation to the mother series at all. It’s set in the mother universe, so it makes sense to include the name.
Also, Adding “Mother” to the “Cognitive Dissonance” title might make it easier for people to find via Google. I can’t stress enough just how difficult it is to find anything about this game without having to sort through a plethora of irreverent articles parting to the actual mental disorder of the same name (It’s also kind of a pain to spell out sometimes). That said, even if you’re not audacious enough to use “Mother” as the main title with"Cognitive Dissonance" as the tag line; you should at least consider doing it the other way around e.g. “Cognitive Dissonance – Mother 1 1/2”. That way you can get the point across quite nicely without sounding as audacious as you claim it would.
I have to say I’m really looking forward to this release. Despite it’s quirks, Cognitive Dissonance was the game that really pulled me into the mother franchise and even remains my second favorite (albeit unofficial) installment in the series below Mother 3 and slightly above Mother 2. If any fan game deserves carry the title “Mother” it’s definitely this one! _
I never got the chance to play the previous version due to technical difficulties, but even that one looked incredibly good. I honestly can’t wait for this to be finished, you’re making vast improvements.
Hello Handish, poppin in to say loved the original CogDis, even beat it on hard mode! I posted in the original thread (somewhere) but I forgot my username/email (oops) so I re-registered to change my name to be more consistent with other accounts n stuff. Heads up, this is lengthy.
Some feedback on the original:
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1) And I cannot stress this enough: INCREASE THE WALK SPEED. Holy lord almighty does it take forever to walk around places. Perhaps an overall speed increase to both the player and enemies wandering around could help. Alternatively, maybe you could add a “fast forward” button similar to Mother 1 (in that it sped EVERYTHING up, including NPC’s walking around, etc., but letting it go would result in things returning to normal speed)
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2) Despite what some others have said, I did like some of the non-mother music (Smithy’s theme, Thundertown theme (I believe it’s a remix of “Lucky day in Hell”) and the Dr.Mario (in the swamp area) felt particularly well done and really not all that out of place), though some songs did seem a bit odd (such as theme for [spoiler]the rematch against Dan if you don’t take him with you [/spoiler]. For that battle in particular I thought the theme was way to repetitive for how long the battle lasts, so perhaps try to stick with remixes of boss themes for tough bosses/enemies.
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3) As others have said, perhaps adding “Mother” somewhere in the title will help people associate your game with the series and be able to find it a little better (As a psych major, it was hella annoying to google “Cognitive Dissonance game” and still get the psych definition haha).
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4) I have a huge gripe with PK reflect (I forget the skill name, so bear with me) over the fact that it would block attacks against the group entirely (as in nobody would take damage) even if the shield was only on one person, not to mention it would crash the game if you tried to reflect PK Flash (side note: I really wish you could get that power in game, it was one of my favorites ). I vaguely remember you mentioning something about it having to do with the battle engine and it wasn’t exactly fixable, so I don’t know if that has change or not but I figured I’d bring it up.
My other gripe with PK Reflect was that it either made things WAY too easy (despite not always working). On the flip side, Reflect was pretty much REQUIRED in order to beat some of the bosses (optional bosses mostly like Dr. Destructo and Fobbyigig, but still) which is incredibly ridiculous. Perhaps some of these bosses could be a bit toned down so that Reflect just makes things easier instead of being mandatory
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5) Somewhat related to the above, some of the status effects I felt were either redundant or completely broken.
For example, there is not much of a difference between “beamed”, “poison”, and “coughing”. “Insanity” was completely ridiculous as it pretty much guaranteed that somebody (if not the whole party) was going to die since there was no way of curing it. Perhaps toning down and giving some more distinction between the others? Some examples:
Beamed: Increased damage from PSI attacks for the duration, remove damage over time. Alternatively, have it deduct PSI instead of HP over time
Coughing/Winded: Increased damage from physical attacks for the duration and have it deal low damage over time (perhaps by a small percentage like 1/20 of max health).
Poison: Deal damage over time, but on a much higher percentage than coughing (1/10 of your max health maybe?)
Insanity: Completely tone it down. I have no idea on the specifics, but good lord is it ever ridiculous even if only like 3 bosses use it.
Diamondized: Is only temporary instead of permanent (otherwise what is the difference between it and instant death?). Diamonized people take 0 damage from PSI attacks but a physical attack will instantly kill them.
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6) This has to do with the optional dungeon on the moon, so some spoilers.
It would be nice if there was some warning that if you leave the optional dungeon on the moon, you cannot return (or doing away with that stipulation altogether). Was super annoyed that happened to me the first time I played because I went there first (instead of doing the other side-quests) so I had to abuse the heck out of Reflect in order to even have a remote chance of beating the place.
In addition, perhaps add something at the end of the chase sequence to stop people from just simply teleporting out. Why would you bother running for the ship and potentially dying when you can just leave right then and there?
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7) Perhaps find a way to make skills more useful as the game goes on? Alinivar and Col. Saturn’s skills are really only useful in the early game (with the exception of piercing jab and glare/eye beam which is meant to be unreliable but devastating when it works) but are replaced by PSI later on. In addition, Chimera Alinivar is really lacking in the skill department; perhaps he could use a couple extra?
(On a side note, it’d be super duper nifty but totally unnecessary if his guitar case went from the traditional rounded style in his normal form to a flying V style case when he is chimerized (example: http://rockstar150.webs.com/jackson_flying_V_by_skatedevil666.png ). Really unimportant but hey).
… I think that’s all I have to say for now. You seemed to have change most of the other things I had complaints with so that’s good. If I think of more things I’ll post em, so here’s some things I loved!
1) HARD MODE! It was nice touch that you gave all (or at least most) of the enemies a new pallet but new attacks as well. It actually compelled me to play through the game a second time and see all the neat little changes (I liked Dan’s new lines when he talks to you asking to join. Gave me a good laugh )
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2) SIDE QUESTS! I don’t know why everyone hates on side quests, they usually give the best stuff. that said, I loved the ones you put in and would like to see more if possible.
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3) Being able to chimera-ize yourself was one of the things I loved in the original. My only complaint was that you couldn’t do it to Col. Saturn as well (which is ironic seeing as how there is a boss that has this…), but i hope that stays. That said it would be neat if it had an impact on other parts of the game / dialogue (I know it changes up the magicant-esque area and the weapon Alinivar gets at the end, but maybe it could affect some other parts of the game as well?)
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4) Exploring space was another thing I loved despite it being a bit sparse (to be fair, I loved Wind Waker for that reason; being able to find all these cool little small islands with hidden stuff on it). You said you’ve revamped it, so I’m super excited to see that. Hopefully you fixed the infinite item bug from other UFO’s.
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Anyhow, that’s all I have to say for now. Keep on keepin on the good work Handish!
I can answer a few of these, since I’m actually quite good with the program and I’ve been helping out in more than the art assets in a few places. I’m not at liberty to spoil anything new you don’t already know about but if you’ve got any technical questions, ask away. When it comes to custom systems, if it’s possible on RM2k3, I can probably tell you how to do it. shameless bragging
1. Speed commands in RM2k3 are actually one of my mortal enemies. Poor handish has had to listen to a few of my rants on the subject. Basicly, they work perfectly until they don’t. At any time, the game can just decide it feels like ignoring a speed up or slow down command, and then you’re stuck with a character who moves too fast or slow. I’ve looked through a lot of other games and have yet to find a run button that doesn’t eventually break and mess things up. So that’s out.
One of the common bugs in the old version was actually caused by this, so that’s out (we’ve since built in some failsafes to fix the problem if it ever pops up)
As for increasing the overall walk speed I can’t speak for if handish would be interested or not, but it would be a huge undertaking requiring the editting of multiple things on every map in the game. There are nearly 500 maps.
2. Sadly, the battle system is one of the most ridged parts of the engine. There’s nothing we can do to change the way reflect behaves. If it’s any consolation, my first time through, I beat the entire thing without reflect because I misunderstood what it did. (I didn’t touch the second secret boss you mentioned.)
5. Some of those changes would be possible, some wouldn’t. Obviously, it would be up to handish.
I do think I should note that there are a few items that can cure insanity. Always have been.
6. I was unaware you couldn’t return to the moon. (except after beating it and then why would you want to?)
Either way, both of those problems would be really easy fixes.
The good stuff.
2. If you like sidequests, you should like what we’ve done. That is all.
3. Not a new change, but there are a few more lines that change when going the chimera route than you mentioned. Maybe you missed them?
4. If you liked space before, you should like what’s been done. That is all.
Crav addressed some of this stuff pretty well… the impossibility of speed commands in particular at this point in production. Nobody really missed them in EB, and I’ve been trying to make less “empty space” in CogDis so that there isn’t really a pacing issue anymore. There’s also been some early game changes to require less backtracking.
I hate to admit it, but some of those status effects never existed in any form, unless it was one of the earliest versions that I’ve forgotten about… Frozen and Paralyzed just aren’t a thing. There is an effect called Numb that’s used in those types of situations, but it only keeps you down for a turn or two. Insanity is getting a new way to defend against it.
Other things that’re currently being addressed already include lots of balance issues on bosses (including the moon, which got very little testing in 1.3) and normal enemies alike! Reflect will always be an effective skill if you choose to use it, but it should not be a requirement. Many other skills have been retooled or improved to make them more effective, and encourage variety in strategies. Flash is usable earlier than it was before too, since it’s been separated into single and multi target.
Oh, and there is something cooking as far as music goes that I’m extremely pleased with and I really hope it continues to pan out!
Welp, after checking again, you’re right, there is no frozen/paralysis effect but just numb. I have no idea why I thought there were two separate status effects, but I guess it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong haha (I’ve edited my post a bit to fix that).
Also, on the subject of dialogue that changed when chimera-ized, the only thing I could ever remember was Niiue cracking a joke about getting into a fight with a tesla coil and losing when you first re-board the ship on Mars. Maybe I just missed some other stuff, but nothing really notable stood out to me personally in terms of comments on Alinivar’s appearance. I probably should have been more clear in that I wished more characters would make more “obvious” (overt? noticeable? I’m not entirely sure of the right word at the moment) comments about the change (again, unless I missed some really subtle stuff).
Since I’m here, one thing I forgot to mention about the moon has to do with disabling the different units in the one room where you warp around in the diamond ship thing. Specifically, “disabling” some of the units (such as the “star” unit for the star bomber’s) would actually ENABLE them instead. If you ignore them, most of the robots in the following room are disabled. I’m sure you’ve probably already got feed back on this, but just a heads up in case you haven’t.
Anyway, thanks for the quick responses guys! Looking forward to the new version!
Bad Enough Dude
That’s the problem with move speed in RPG Maker engines… To explain why it’s such a pain, you need to know that entity move speeds are pretty much one of 5(?) settings, with 1 being really slow and 5 being really fast. From what I remember about RPG Maker 2003 and earlier, “Normal” (3) felt way too fast, but yet the next step down was way too slow… though I could see why he would opt for the slow option, which then the only problem is the unconcious way we tend to map environments too big with those “empty spaces” mentioned.
When you change move speed for various reasons (cut-scenes, animations, etc) you step up/down the speed 1 to 4 times depending on the need. If he were to simply change the default walk speed (say, increase it by 1), suddenly all those settings will be off by 1. Now imagine how many times move speed is changed in the game… now multiply that by 10 because it’s much more than you think… With 500 hundreds of maps and thousands of events you can see the issue there.
One way I usually got around running into that issue is when I want the player to move a particular speed, instead of having events only go “Player Move Speed +1” because I know “Oh, I just want them to move a tick faster than default” I’ll bring the entity in question to the lowest setting possible, then increase to the desired speed. So let’s say the default speed is (3) but I want them to go (4) for a moment:
Doing it this way seems superfluous, but if I ever change the default speed in the future (or perhaps, the player is currently under the influence of a speed changing status effect or item) the end result will always be predictable.
Rambling aside, I’m really excited to see this revamped. You have my full support.
Yeah, that’s the most reliable method of handling it, and it at least tends to fix problems if something does go wrong, but it still doesn’t fix the core problem that the speed commands are unreliable if the game happens to encounter a hic-up at just the wrong moment.
We included similar “speed checks” at regular spots throughout the game to fix any irregularities that might pop up. The game’s caterpillar system (the thing that makes party members follow behind the main character in a line) make things both more and less complicated in that regard too. On one hand, if their speed gets messed up it fixes itself as soon as the player moves to a new room. On the other hand, you do anything unusual and break the chain, party members will quit following you entirely. I managed to put together a more advanced version of the system that makes the party members play “catch up” and get back into position if they do somehow get seperated, along with a few other tricks, but because events refer to eachother in the order they were placed, it would have been impractical to use them on every map.
Hopefully it stamps out any trouble spots through.
I’m happy to say that CogDis 2.0 is rolling again… again.
I know we’ve dropped off the radar more times than is healthy, but it doesn’t mean anything’s been given up on. Sadly, some technical issues required the development machine to be sent halfway across the country to get fixed. (And it still isn’t entirely fixed… Recommendation to CogDis followers: never buy a Dell or Alienware unless it’s a desktop…)
In any case, I’d like to present a tiny preview of the solar system, and a small request: if there are any musicians out there who might be interested in the project, it’s not too late to get involved! But it will be, because I’d estimate production at somewhere around 80-85%.
). I vaguely remember you mentioning something about it having to do with the battle engine and it wasn’t exactly fixable, so I don’t know if that has change or not but I figured I’d bring it up.
