Heroine's Quest - The Herald Of Ragnarok - Now available on Steam!

[Fizzii]

Thanks for the nice comments!

We do have a Paypal donation button on our website - the button is at the bottom of the page: http://crystalshard.net/hq.htm

[Monsieur OUXX]

Let's be honest: this an amazing game, with a very high level of finish, and very well debugged.

Having said that, I get very frustrated over my non-English keyboard.

Here is my experience (playing on 1.0)
- I don't like playing windowed, so I run the shortcut "run in fullscreen". It fails on my tiny notebook, because for some reason the game requests a 960x600 resolution. Dang.
- I go to the game's folder. No standard setup.exe file. Dang dang.
- I put one here myself. Here I notice that some fancy "nearest neighbour" filter is used. I run the game in regular 320x200 fullscreen, no filter. Crossing fingers and hoping it won't cause a bug later on.
- Combat training : I need a non-English keyboard mapping for my non-English keyboard (A<-->Z, Q<-->W)
- I go to the settings of the game : it's not possible to change the keys. Dang dang dang.
- I decide to use Monkey's trick: just use Windows' language button in the task bar. PROBLEM: the game is full screen. And that button applies to the window that has the focus. When you minimize a fullscreen app, it loses the focus. So I can't play with a non-English keyboard if the game plays fullscreen. I eventually had to look up the Windows' shortcut online: I press Left-shift+Left-Alt in-game, and it works. But not everybody knows that this solution exists.

=============

A tiny unrelated complaint : Everything in the game has a cooltip (when you hover over any button, it tells you what it's for) EXCEPT all the buttons in the main toolbar, at the top of the screen: rest, spell selection, options, etc. And their function is not obvious from the icon (I didn't dare clicking for 10 seconds, thinking: "what if this one is for casting a useless spell that will drain all my mana in the first minute of the game? I'd need to save the game just to test them".

You get the idea. Cooltips would be cool for those. They're not absolutely necessary, but consistency is always appreciated.

[Radiant]

We're working on a v1.1, which (among other things) will allow you to redefine combat keys. Available soon!

[Monsieur OUXX]

We're working on a v1.1, which (among other things) will allow you to redefine combat keys. Available soon!

Really cool. Beause even the Windows Language Bar is not really a solution: the combat keys work, but then the keys are messed up the other way around in the game's notepad.

[Khris]

This mostly the engine's fault: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?issue=471.0

[Radiant]

I loved the visual cameos ... was more confused by the ones I didn't understand and could only guess were cameos, like the interdimensional bard, that... person... with the fishnet stockings, or the Imp.

Most of those are from earlier Crystal Shard games   and fishnet guy is the winner of a contest we ran.

I would have liked an option to discard items

This was intentionally left out, because many of the items have an important purpose later on. So if there was a "discard" button, it would either have to not work on the majority of items, or it would cause walking dead situations.

why can I freeze that ghost's food in Skrymir's challenge yet I could't burn it or put a caltrop in it or other stuff?

Spoiler

Because your eating contest is against the personification of fire. Regin can tell you this if asked.

[close]

PS/ Is it just me? Or was Mojo jojo from PPG an inspiration for Arunvadel?

Believe it or not, Aurvandel was based on a former colleague of mine...! I may have exaggerated him a bit though

[Monsieur OUXX]

Small things that feel weird in this game with otherwise great immersion. They break the suspension of disbelief, and are utterly easy to fix:

- The pick that can't be used for climbing up ice: you have a pick. There are at least 3 places where you'd like to climb up a frozen surface: Below the ice flowers, below the tower on the shore, and (possibly, but less likely) up the boulders where you were left for dead. In one of the cases, the character even says "the places where you could put your hands are made too slippery by the ice". So you use your pick. And you have this utterly annoying message saying "you like to make little holes everywhere?".

- The flame spell that sometimes melts stuff, sometimes doesn't: The same message causes the same confusion: "the places where you could put your hands are made too slippery by the ice". In several other places, the flames spell is used precisely to melt the ice. Here, it isn't. But with no explanation. Just the generic spell animation, but no effect. A clearer message would be cool.

- The starving character who cannot eat meat: When you're a sorcerer, you kill piles of wolves. Yet you can't get any meat. I understand you need a special skill for that. But the message "there's nothing of interest on this dead wolf" is very frustrating. There should be a short explanation, especially when you're about to starve to death. By the way, same thing for the prisoners' food in the keep: "yuck, I don't like that food, so instead I'll just die". Wut?

- The magician who has no interest whatsoever in the progress of the quest he gave you: No matter how close you are to killing the haugbui (and as you know, there are many steps to achieving that), the wizard has no new dialog about that topic, until you actually deal with the "final" object. Even when you give it to him. As you've seen in the hints and tips thread, it confused other people. He doesn't need to give you clues. But as it is now, it's very puzzling.

- The character who isn't able to make a report with words, but only by showing the contents of her pockets: There are several quests that cannot move on until you give the relevant object to the relevant person, even when that object is merely a clue, and you could instead talk about it in the dialog: "Hey, I found this, let's talk about it". Sometimes you even forget that you have the object, and are just eager to report that you found something. But the dialog option just isn't there. But I understand that this could just be a peculiar puzzle design choice, and it requires some work to fix, so it's up to you.

- The confusing prupose of the eitur: There I was, in front of someone who looks like he's almost dead but not completely, incapacitated by a magical spell (the walkyrie lying in the circle of fire). I look at the eitur, and it says exactly: "it's meant for reviving someone who is incapacitated by magical effects, provided they're not dead yet". But not that someone. It's for another someone, who doesn't look like a someone.


All those remarks are to make the game closer to perfection. I could write entire paragraphs about how good the experience is, how much I got immersed into the game's universe, and how at some points I shared the actual feelings of the character (like it should be in every good RPG). Great game.

[Thaumaturge]

First of all, now that I've finished it (as the sorceress, at least), let me say to the developers: As someone who counts the Quest for Glory series amongst his favourite games, this is a wonderful game. It's well-constructed, interesting, with clever and well-integrated puzzles and good use of its character classes. I also love the use of Norse mythology (although I'm a little bit annoyed at one of my favourite undead -- the draugr -- being played as a near-zombie yet again ). Very well done indeed!

Thank you very much for it -- and for releasing it for free! ^_^

I won't say that it's beyond improvement -- I do have a few points that I think could have been handled better (in particular in providing clues to certain interactions) -- but overall it is an excellent game, I do think.

- The flame spell that sometimes melts stuff, sometimes doesn't: The same message causes the same confusion: "the places where you could put your hands are made too slippery by the ice". In several other places, the flames spell is used precisely to melt the ice. Here, it isn't. But with no explanation. Just the generic spell animation, but no effect. A clearer message would be cool.

I agree with this, I believe, and would like to add that I found the Flame Aura's effect to be a little inconsistent: sometimes it acts as a source of heat (as in protecting the player from cold, or in heating or burning objects), but in at least one case it somehow protects the player from heat.

When you're a sorcerer, you kill piles of wolves. Yet you can't get any meat. I understand you need a special skill for that. But the message "there's nothing of interest on this dead wolf" is very frustrating.

Actually, as I recall, you can get meat from the wolves -- you just have to use a tool on the wolf in order to do so. However, I also seem to recall that I only know this because I happened on the information in a forum thread. I think that it would likely help a lot to at the last include a clue in the response given when the player attempts to "use" a dead wolf; something along the lines of: "There's nothing of interest on the dead wolf. The animal's meat looks edible, if you have something with which to cut or hack it apart."

(If you don't have a knife, try the

Spoiler

ice pick

[close]

. )

[AGA]

Quote from the latest Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption backer email:

You will probably enjoy two recently-released games. Heroine's Quest is an adventure / RPG hybrid in the spirit of Quest for Glory, and it's free. Several of our backers have played it. They say it is fun, beautiful, and very challenging. I think I downloaded it, but I haven't tried playing it. The screen shots look amazing. Check out Heroine's Quest at http://www.crystalshard.net/hq.htm.

So the creators of Quest for Glory know about your game.  Praise indeed.

[Fizzii]

Ah, thanks for the heads up! Lori and Corey had known about the game for a while prior to release - it was very nice of them to make mention of it in their Kickstarter update!

[Radiant]

I'm happy to hear that we're getting recommended by the Coles themselves, wow!

Small things that feel weird in this game with otherwise great immersion. They break the suspension of disbelief, and are utterly easy to fix:

That's one of the reasons why we're working on v1.1, yes. In particular, Aurvandel not responding to the Haugbui quest is a bug; there is actually a recorded line for him that doesn't turn on properly in v1.0.

It's interesting how one player comments that an ice pick should be usable as an ice axe, whereas another player comments that it doesn't make sense that a battle axe can be used as a tree chopping axe. Well, we have to make choices somewhere. Sorry, but it just gets too complicated for players if certain kinds of food can only be eaten if you're hungry enough; earlier beta versions had different types of food provide a different amount of satiety, and it turned out that was confusing for some of our test players.

There I was, in front of someone who looks like he's almost dead but not completely, incapacitated by a magical spell (the walkyrie lying in the circle of fire). I look at the eitur, and it says exactly: "it's meant for reviving someone who is incapacitated by magical effects, provided they're not dead yet". But not that someone. It's for another someone, who doesn't look like a someone.

Brynhild is merely asleep; the trick is getting past the flames. That's easily fixed with another message, of course.

I found the Flame Aura's effect to be a little inconsistent: sometimes it acts as a source of heat (as in protecting the player from cold, or in heating or burning objects), but in at least one case it somehow protects the player from heat.

If it didn't protect you, it would harm you whenever you cast it

[Thaumaturge]

If it didn't protect you, it would harm you whenever you cast it

On the other hand, the spell has already been shown to be able to heat to varying degrees -- warming one object and burning another, for example -- and it's a reasonably common trope (I think) that spells don't harm their caster (at least until they're in some way "released" or reflected), just as the lightning spell doesn't burn the caster's hand in battle.

I do see your reasoning, and do feel that it's fair enough -- I just feel that the logic doesn't necessarily apply with magic, and wasn't conveyed in-game, making its use as a puzzle solution a little non-obvious.

Thinking of spells, I'd like to add that I had a ton of fun with the lightning spell in battle once I got it. It's entirely possible that it's overpowered -- I seem to recall that I killed Fenrir in next to no time, for example -- but I don't care. It was late in the game anyway, and it was so very fun to just blast my enemies with sorcerous lightning...

[Snarky]

This is ever so slightly off-topic, but I thought it might be interesting...

I understand and appreciate the choice to make the look of the towns and the general design of things QFG-like (i.e. standard "fantasy", based on late-medieval/early-modern European technology and design), but at the same time it feels a bit odd that these Norsemen, living in a particular historical period and a particular geographical region, don't seem to live the way Norsemen did. So I thought this might be a nice comparison for what a town like Fornsigtuna might have looked like in reality:

[embed=560,315]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BekBcZOiqQE[/embed]

[Monsieur OUXX]

If the Flame Aura spell didn't protect you, it would harm you whenever you cast it

In the hints&tips thread, there is a long post by someone, explaining why it didn't seem immediately obvious to more than one player, and I completely agree with the points raised there. In a nutshell: in every game, magic has its own logic (it's not the real-world logic), and in particular, most offensive spells don't hurt the player -- but that doesn't mean they can protect him. Moreover, one could imagine that the Flame Aura spell used on oneself is just set to "warm", and that the flame animation is just there for decoration.

Ok, that was just to react to the previous discussion, but my reason to post today is: Do you intend on uploading the OST somewhere? (e.g. youtube). I just love the Munavagir tune. It's so relaxing.

[Fizzii]

It's an aura of flame/fire, so when she casts it, the aura around her is hot (or warm). If the heroine made her flame aura strong enough that it was the same temperature as the real fire, and the magical fire isn't burning her to soot, then there's no reason why the real fire will impinge past her magical fire.

But you know, at least the logic in the game is consistent regarding fighting other fiery enemies (I'll check whether we have a proper message for trying to use it on the fire circle in v1.1). Also, magical fire isn't real, so I don't see why the game needs to follow the 'rules' set by other games or stories .

We will be releasing the OST with v1.1.

[Daniel Eakins]

Only ten people have rated this game on the website. C'mon guys!

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1748/

[Thaumaturge]

Also, magical fire isn't real, so I don't see why the game needs to follow the 'rules' set by other games or stories .

But that's just arguing why the game doesn't have to make Flame Aura protect against fire, it doesn't argue that it doesn't make sense that it does.

I didn't mean to imply that it should follow the logic of other games -- my apologies if I gave that impression. ^^;

What I meant, I believe, is rather that since the functioning of spells doesn't follow a single logic (and especially since at least one common thread runs counter to it), the logic that you use -- while quite reasonable, I do think -- doesn't go without saying. In other words, my objection isn't to the logic itself, but that it isn't conveyed to the player.

In all fairness, I feel that I should add -- given how vehemently I'm arguing this -- that I don't think that this is a major flaw in the game at all, which I believe I've already stated that I found to be overall wonderful. It's a small issue, in what I think that I recall to have been a side-quest, and which doesn't apply overmuch to any of the other spells or puzzles (that I recall offhand). Please don't take my arguing as a major criticism of the game, or the puzzles in general (or even the use of the spells, which I very much enjoyed overall).

It's an aura of flame/fire, so when she casts it, the aura around her is hot (or warm). If the heroine made her flame aura strong enough that it was the same temperature as the real fire, and the magical fire isn't burning her to soot, then there's no reason why the real fire will impinge past her magical fire.

That logic doesn't necessarily hold, it seems to me: after all, magical fire might simply not burn its caster, or the flames that surround the character might be at a different temperature to the effect applied to an external object (and indeed might just be for show).

By similar logic, I should be able to use the lightning spell to protect at least my hand from fire -- after all, lightning can get incredibly hot, and the lack of damage to my character when casting it should then imply that the spell protects at least the nearby body parts.

Again, I'm not saying that the logic doesn't hold in this case, just that the fact that it applies isn't necessarily apparent, and isn't strongly conveyed in-game.

But you know, at least the logic in the game is consistent regarding fighting other fiery enemies (I'll check whether we have a proper message for trying to use it on the fire circle in v1.1).

That's fair enough, and I'm glad to read it (given the lack of tone in text, I'll add that I mean that sincerely). In my own case I think that I largely stopped using Flame Aura in battle after a certain (fairly early) point since it didn't seem as useful as I'd hoped (save against vargs, which were weak enough to defeat without it by that stage), and didn't think to try it later. Again, similarly to my not thinking to try it in the puzzle I doubt that I would have thought to try it as a defence against fire attacks. (The placement of the key that activated it may also have played a part in my dropping the spell from my usual oombat responses, I think; but then I may simply have not found a good arrangement for my hands on the key layout.)

[Radiant]

So in other news, we have a release candidate for v1.1 so it's probably going live in a few days. We'll keep you posted.

[Spike4072]

Yay, I remember playing a demo of this from I can't even remember how long ago. Can't believe I am a month late of noticing it was finally released.

[Monsieur OUXX]

So in other news, we have a release candidate for v1.1 so it's probably going live in a few days. We'll keep you posted.

I can't wait.