I have also used the psuedo-acryonym 'rpg.' This usually triggers memories of swords, shields, magics, princesses and princes charming and tedious, mind-numbing grind. Of these, Whisper has but a shield, maybe magic and perhaps a prince, though I find him less than charming. Most importantly, there is no grind. Character growth comes mainly in the form of new abilities that can be used to craft new strategies. There will never be a situation when you feel 'my stats just aren't high enough; I need to go grind 5-10 levels.' Even if you rush through content as much as possible, you will remain strong enough so long as you make use of your head.
Perhaps those of you familiar with the more devious form of the rpg are also accustomed to chore-based combat. Rather than a raging battle, the tank tanks, the healer heals, the token wierd guy does some crazy business and the bad-ass dps blows something up. It is a precarious dance, but lose its luster quite quickly. Whisper features carefully designed classes that can perform familiar roles if you desire, but are fully capable of adopting to far more diverse strategies. Suppose you want a tank one round to turn into a burst mage the next, or want to have one member dealing damage to start the fight and another on clean up. You can make it work.
And of course, apologies to anyone who enjoys drawn-out battles where defeat is all but impossible. Weak, dumb enemies with absurd amounts of damage soak, or worse, whack-a-mole healing jobs where everyone on your party gets hit, but no one is ever in real danger. Whisper delivers a combat experience where prevention (read: strategy) is worth a ton of curaga. Every round is critical, but there are always options on how to respond.
Too hard? While an optimal strategy will end fights quickly, average intelligence is enough to scrape by. There is enough information and optional tippage available so as to help anyone learn the skills necessary to succeed, even a walk-through on a powerful strategy.
Alright, enough jolly woggling. After all, these are just words, are they not? I'm here because I want some fresh sets of eyes to determine if these claims are true. Fresh feet to walk the corners I never thought people would go and fresh hands to break the game in any way possible. Yes, I need testers. Beta 1.0 received very positive feedback and generated a great deal of improvement. With 1.1, I want to hammer out any early kinks to pave the way for an increased focus on content.
You don't have to tap every brick in the wall, though. That sort of testing is largely done. What I need to know is how your experience playing Whisper feels. Pet peeves, irksome design choices, adoration, etc. Depending on your inclination, a playthrough of beta 1.1 will generally take 1-4 hours. There's no rush to finish, though the sooner i hear your feedback the sooner I can act on it. Simply contact me via pm if you're interested, and/or post questions here.
Now, for the fun stuff!
New features in beta 1.1:
-Live combat training now available from Leeland in addition to tips on individual pilots.
-Full set of consumable items added and several equippable items.
-The Vanguard camp is now home to a vendor.
-The Vanguard camp will occasionally be attacked.
-Added pictures to tutorial for more concise explanation.
-Added 14 new goddess statue dialouges.
-Retooled random encounter system to be less frustrating.
-Retooled on-world encounter system to lessen getting locked in place by mobs of enemies
-Added save option after some on-world encounters in case player Leroy Jenkins in and gets locked in place for a while anyway.
-2 new NPCs to help player in creating new consumable items.
-New skill for Pana to increase early game options and make building Adrenaline on her more satisfying.
-Retooled Stone Tail skill to have a better defined strength but cost more Adrenaline.
-Doubled the number of different enemy sets used by the enemies in Forest's Edge to increase variance and encourage strategy shifting.
-Cleaned up Oliver's sidequest. More to be added later.
-Reworked several skills to work more consistently with Sylvanr's Kiss.
And, of course, screenshots~
[Image: http://puu.sh/66ngS]
[Image: http://puu.sh/66ngX]
[Image: http://puu.sh/66nh4]
[Image: http://puu.sh/66ngA]
[Image: http://puu.sh/66neI.png]