Fun to play, but needs more polish

I became irritated playing in demo mode, and I know I can't get quite so irritated with a game if I didn't want or couldn't enjoy the game. I hope that Amananth does continue developing this game for a v2.1 or v3 release. I arranged to play the demo a second time so I could record many of my observations.

Doors (at the home village) block movement along walls they face, extending the building's contact zone unintuitively.

Back of a house (with chimney) in home village (with no door) also blocks movement, as doors do but with no door present.

There's an invisible 1x2 block left of the first well in your home village. It's possible to walk around it under the trees.

After getting Lars' clothes from the tailor, that quest disappears from the journal, but killing spiders remains until talking to your mistress.

In Thornkeep there's an impassable horizontal line between the two houses in the NE corner.

In the Mines, when rescuing Gethro, "boulder" is misspelled as "bolder".

The spell "Cipher" is misspelled; a spell that takes spirit & mana away from the enemy would be "Siphon". A "Cipher" spell would decrypt a secret message.

Eldredth: "Anything planted her becomes enchanted." 'her' should be 'here'.

Control keys are configurable, but not direction keys. Why not? I need to hold down a function key to use my cursor keys, and would've prefered to set the direction keys to a more convenient set.

Healer disappears abruptly when she joins your party, rather than merging with your character, leaving the house first, or following your character.

What is that shuffling sound for when traveling between cave sections?

The message "0 more marionbells" looks glitchy.

When Rhen wakes up, she stays in the bed. If the character could move out of the bed automatically, this would reveal more 'life' and follow console convention. Going to sleep immediately as the character walks into her bed is also strange, as is leaving the bed before the nighttime animation is over. Using the bed should suggest the hero going to sleep and waking up, after all, more than a game mechanic for restoring HP & MP.

Regarding hinting, I forgot to talk to the priestess when I got up, and walked around the entire village before visiting the healer who asked me how the visitor was doing. Perhaps Pa could ask, "Have you spoken to our visitor?", if you hadn't already done so?

The movement dashes on the world map are straight, and the angles are sharp. Could the dashes form an arc instead?

Could larger (or different) character graphics be used in combat? In particular, Rhen looks so tiny fighting spiders in her mistress' house, and there's so much room left on the screen.

Could the conversations with your mistress follow each other automatically if you're ready for them? You must talk to her three times before she gives you the quest to tell Lars to return for dinner, even if you killed the spiders and got the outfit before speaking with her the first time.

Why are there save crystals in the game? You can save anywhere without them.

On the field the snow bull appears to have 6 legs, but it has 4 in battle.

Pardon me if some of these appear trivial or unreasonable. I offer these comments only in the hope they may be useful.

Wow, you would make a GREAT tester! I'm adding your notes to my to-do list. I can get some into my next update and some into the next game.

I also wanted to let you know that I've got a really good editor lined up for the next games, so most of the grammar problems should go away.

If you're available for testing, please keep in touch with me. You've definitely got an eye for details. (admin@amaranthia.com)

I NOTCIED THE CRYSTALS ALSO!!!! i saw them and thought, "WTF"

I probably should have added something about them in the game tutorial. I had a lot of people sending me mail because they would go into dangerous areas w/o saving and then get killed. This way, if you see a save crystal, you know that you should probably save before you venture ahead.

:)

Hi. I'm new and found this place searching for information about Aveyond. Like a lot of others, I've gotten stuck in a couple of ways.

But, I wanted to say that I think the game is a great RPG, especially as it is written by non-corporate, unprofessionals. Underground authoring is appealing... it reminds us that entertainment doesn't have to be provided (and profited) by only those recognized by the elitists.

Anyway, I think the save crystals were a great idea, another form of "hinting." They serve as a warning that you are about to enter a territory that can kill you and end your game, losing all progress which was probably unsaved. This happened when I wandered without saving into the Ice Caverns, before properly leveling up, with the version purchased through arcadetown.com (turned out to be a Reader's Digest Condensed Version for the same full price, but was freely upgraded to the "build B").

As for spelling errors.. they have always irritated me, but I learned early.. even with Nintendo games, that the English language is not as universally understood as we seem to expect. Cipher is an interesting point, as it is not just a misspelling.

Some of the conversations were tedious, as the sequence mentioned in your post with Lars' mother.

Rhen's size in battle doesn't matter to me so much as the layout. I preferred the layout provided in the arcadetown.com version, with the top bar for the menu selections during battle play, rather than the small print off to the side of the characters.

The only real objection I have with the game is that the melee attacks are often much more effective than the magic attacks, especially Rhen's magic, and a swordsinger's sword magic (of one who is the most powerful in current history) should be a tad bit stronger...

The easter eggs are great, but easy to over use, making the game less challenging, unless you exercise some willpower.

I won't have a final opinion, though, until I finish the game. A few inconsistencies seem to be tripping me up at the current time.