Despair Labyrinth (RPG) Latest Release: Ver.0.09 (4/18/12)

[KITAmaru]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. I also highly recommend playing as Thyme if only for her little flashback at the library.
As for the bugs... yes, that teleportation crystal was an oversight on my part. When you enter the 'end of demo' room, it disables your save (because I don't want people saving there, else the wind up at the end of the demo NEXT patch...), so I should've put 'enable save' before transferring the player. Eesh... I'm not sure if I should release an emergency patch for that or wait a little while to make a patch with an H-scene attached

As for Lanie, hmm... haven't received any similar reports yet. Anyone else?
For the record the conditions to get this guy to talk to you are:
-You need to be Lanie (obv)
-Purity must be 65 or higher
-Xanrud arc must be over (as in, he must've ran to the Arcane Division)
-The 3 Sailors in the Bar must be gone, one way or another

[alithanar8]

oooh my purity was -200... that might be the reason.

[sky-eye]

oooh my purity was -200... that might be the reason.

Hearing things like this makes all the effort of beta-testing worthwhile

[Lucky777]

I still actually laugh at Lanie's response to the wine. WINNING.

(Oh, and if Asella hadn't already been in my list of favourites, the wine scene this update would have put her there regardless.
The whole "Chick is uppity, but still can't help the fact that her body is loving it" thing is a REAL selling point for me.
Well I mean, it couldn't have put her above Thyme and Rhiannon, but y'know.)

[ICHIBANnerdy]

it may be just me but when ever i extract the files from the thing it always freezes. any help or you may need to re-upload it again. also i downloaded the file with the rtp in it.

[StarkePT]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. I also highly recommend playing as Thyme if only for her little flashback at the library.
As for the bugs... yes, that teleportation crystal was an oversight on my part. When you enter the 'end of demo' room, it disables your save (because I don't want people saving there, else the wind up at the end of the demo NEXT patch...), so I should've put 'enable save' before transferring the player. Eesh... I'm not sure if I should release an emergency patch for that or wait a little while to make a patch with an H-scene attached

As for Lanie, hmm... haven't received any similar reports yet. Anyone else?
For the record the conditions to get this guy to talk to you are:
-You need to be Lanie (obv)
-Purity must be 65 or higher
-Xanrud arc must be over (as in, he must've ran to the Arcane Division)
-The 3 Sailors in the Bar must be gone, one way or another

KITA I do believe you should do a emergency patch, I didn't see this glitch happen in the beta testing version, but now I do, and it's really heavy.

Can't confirm Lanie but I will get on it right away! Will try to reproduce it exactly.

Also in the version you sent me with the testing tools, I realized there were no caskets for the books in the upper left corner so I didn't play that through with Lanie but will do it now. EDIT: Nevermind, just realized his Purity was -200 lol. Will play it nonetheless.

I still actually laugh at Lanie's response to the wine. WINNING.

(Oh, and if Asella hadn't already been in my list of favourites, the wine scene this update would have put her there regardless.
The whole "Chick is uppity, but still can't help the fact that her body is loving it" thing is a REAL selling point for me.
Well I mean, it couldn't have put her above Thyme and Rhiannon, but y'know.)

Maybe due to overplay, Thyme and Rhiannon been falling from grace for me and Sairyn is probably now my favorite.

Her CG art really appeals to me.

[KITAmaru]

Ah, thanks all!
Sairyn, huh... yes, she has a small but relatively devoted cult following. Of all the forums this game is posted on, I believe Thyme, Cesca and Rhiannon tend to score the top 3 or 4 relatively consistently.
A temporary fix for the 'can't save after using the teleport crystal at the end' glitch is just to make your way back to that room, enter it, then exit it. Once you exit the room it should enable saving automatically (as a game switch that triggers when you use that door on the way out).

[SpectralTime]

...Yeah, I'm still following this. Sorry for dropping away for a while.

I've played through the whole thing, beginning to end, twice so far in the new edition, with Thyme and Irine. Going to keep going with my Sairyn save too, and maybe... Rhiannion?

Anyway, just wanted to say that I actually really liked the Thyme & Irine scenes, from both perspectives. All too often, I find that characters like Thyme end up being great big jerks about how "liberated" and "superior" they are to the chaste and pure ones. I know that I know all too little about Thyme (Is she a vampire? She fits the description in the books...), but when she dealt with Irine, it honestly felt like they were having a genuinely mutually respectful discussion. And that's nice. Their odd sort of friendship is something I'd look forward to seeing expanded on... and not just because it would mean having the two best (and tankiest) spellcasters in the game in one party. Poor Gwen would be even more obselete.

Since they didn't have glitches, I didn't comment on the character-specific scenes before. I'm doing it now.

Thyme's is really long, but really interesting. It's nice to see a younger, fresher, pre-brothel-madame/witch Thyme reminiscing about love, and... well, I don't want to be creepy or anything, but it was also very hot. I'd complain more if there wasn't a skip feature, though, as... well, I've seen it five times now, between testing and playing the game but failing to save properly, and it would have dragged something fierce if I had to mash the "A" button to get through it. Five out a five.

Irine's, on the opposite end of the spectrum... wasn't. I didn't find it very interesting, or very involving. It comes out of left field, and ends abruptly and without explanation. Now, don't get me wrong, the sex itself was, again, not bad, but... it wasn't as emotional as Thyme's, with less context or character. Especially since I feel an opportunity was missed to explore in greater depth Irine's conflicting biological and theological impulses by just plopping some sort of weird brain-sex into the middle that she can't avoid. Fer pity's sake, the discussion with Thyme does that job better a few moments later.

I suppose I'm just spoiled: I KNOW that Irine is a closeted lech who's simply very good at controlling herself and acting ladylike while repressing her urges... and that's interesting, to me, helping her stay that way. But, if I hadn't lost yet, if I was just finding this scene for the first time after never losing and ending up in the Chambers? This would be my first exposure to that fact. And it's not... bad at expressing that view to the player, between itself and the later scene with Thyme, but... well, it's not great at it either. Two outta five for a below average but still passing grade.

...And, yeah, that's that. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to drive my golf cart for my job. Tootles!

...Oh, right. Thanks again, KITA, for all your hard work. As a fellow student, I'm amazed you can find the time to do ANYTHING creative this time of year.

[Cliff Racer]

I found an interesting bug that may just be a quirk of the engine;

During the fight with the two arrogant thugs and two slavers, I found that if an enemy dies while on fire, they'll still get the 'on fire' message, and their sprite will even come back! They, thankfully, were not involved in the combat any longer, so it didn't break the game. Still, it's kinda funny!

[StarkePT]

I found an interesting bug that may just be a quirk of the engine;

During the fight with the two arrogant thugs and two slavers, I found that if an enemy dies while on fire, they'll still get the 'on fire' message, and their sprite will even come back! They, thankfully, were not involved in the combat any longer, so it didn't break the game. Still, it's kinda funny!

Thanks for reporting, those type of glitches are indeed harder to spot!

[Cliff Racer]

I found an interesting bug that may just be a quirk of the engine;

During the fight with the two arrogant thugs and two slavers, I found that if an enemy dies while on fire, they'll still get the 'on fire' message, and their sprite will even come back! They, thankfully, were not involved in the combat any longer, so it didn't break the game. Still, it's kinda funny!

Thanks for reporting, those type of glitches are indeed harder to spot!

Aha! I've found another glitch since- The High Potion, which says it only heals 600, heals 1200! The Higher Potion feels jealous!

[Lucky777]

Thyme has an unlisted bonus called Pharmacology. It makes pots heal her double.

[Cliff Racer]

Thyme has an unlisted bonus called Pharmacology. It makes pots heal her double.

...Oh, goodness. That explains that, then. Very interesting, I didn't know that.

[phoenyxz]

i'm new to this forum and enetered here via a recommendation of your game from a friend kita thnx for the great job on the game, im excited with the new version already played with Asella my number 1 favorite( cuz of my goddammit love for paladins), irine was quite nice in this one in the meeting with thyme i think was good for her to see another perscpectives of how to deal wth her lust loved that. i hopingnow for how it will go on in history. maybe i change my fave later but so far asella, irine, and rhiannon so far i would put thyme on it too but yet to earn her place on my list.

[Athenapurpose]

Hey KITAmaru, I am a lurker's lurker, if you know what I mean. It takes quite a lot for me to actually post something and your project here did it. It's amazingly well put together with a lot of thought and effort put into the entire project not just the sex, which makes the game overall enjoyable. Massive kudos to you. Though to be honest, I am mainly making a post cause I wanted to send you a PM but since I just made the account for that purpose, PMing is still disabled. I was wondering if there was anyway that I could get you into a private conversation? If not I understand, you're probably busy. But if you are wiling let me know. Keep up the awesome work.

[KITAmaru]

Spectral-
Ah, hello again!
And thanks. Yes, I know I'm probably easily turning Gwyn into a third wheel with all of these encounters, but as you can see I am steadily working on certain interactions between the Primary 8, not all of which I am looking to spoil here, mind you. I'm glad you enjoyed the interaction between Irine and Thyme... She actually isn't a vampire, amusingly enough. ;3 But that's just between you, me, and people on this page. Vampires in the game, when you see them, you... will probably know, at least combat-wise. They're damn strong, just as the lore mentions them to be.

Mm, yes. The thing with Irine is supposed to be an omen of sorts, but I will admit it does seem a bit random and short, and has considerably less context, if any at all, at this stage in the game--particularly when compared to Thyme's big flashback and the buildup to her scene with Atreus. Ouh, and good point about the thing regarding the no-Chambers visit; having all the knowledge of DLaby in my head, it's sometimes challenging for me to keep all of that in mind when making scenes like that and considering both high and low-Purity paths, so to speak, so I definitely missed that. Could certainly expand on that next patch.

A golf cart, huh? XD Makes me think of an apartment manager, strangely.

As far as that bug with the 'burning dead guy', it is a quirk of the engine in that I added the 'Burning' state but forgot to go all the way back up to the Incapacitated state to ensure that it cancels Burning, and all the others I made up (like Concentration and so on). Hooooboy... welp, at least that's fixed for next time. I'm surprised that one wasn't caught earlier, since Burning's been around since 0.06 I -think-. But, better late than never.

Don't know if ya noticed, but I've been adding facial expressions to portraits for all new cutscenes and H-scenes, and that's how I'm going to do it from now on. I recently finished adding those to the Enyo and the second Orpheus encounter, and now I'm on the huge task of attempting to finish them for the old H-scenes... soooo that's around 300ish to work on. Bear with me here.

[SpectralTime]

I DID notice the facial expressions, actually. I was impressed. They really do add a lot, though their occasional absence can be... weird.

Didn't mean to make your job that much harder, though. And, hey, like I said, I'm tainted by my foreknowledge too, despite the fact that I've never re-visited the chambers with Irine after that one time.

And, by "third wheel," I meant the fact that she's already considerably less-effective than whoever she's teaming with, and having another person on your power level will only make that hilariously worse.

[StarkePT]

I found an interesting bug that may just be a quirk of the engine;

During the fight with the two arrogant thugs and two slavers, I found that if an enemy dies while on fire, they'll still get the 'on fire' message, and their sprite will even come back! They, thankfully, were not involved in the combat any longer, so it didn't break the game. Still, it's kinda funny!

Thanks for reporting, those type of glitches are indeed harder to spot!

Aha! I've found another glitch since- The High Potion, which says it only heals 600, heals 1200! The Higher Potion feels jealous!

Let me guess, you were playing with Thyme...

Guys honestly, I know I haven't updated the walkthrough yet (sometime this weekend I will with images and all) but: "The effectiveness of all restorative items is doubled when used by Thyme (for example, a Mindpotion will restore 200 MP when used by her, instead of the usual 100 MP). This is a special bonus exclusive to her alone."

You should read the Wiki or the game for the matter.

@KITAmaru: Sorry about not noticing the burn glitch before, I still have no idea how could I possibly miss that! Just generally when I get to that battle, I use AoE spells :\

[Lucky777]

Hey man, even with your thoroughness in beta testing, I'm sure some stuff will slip through. We're just mortals.

A question to KITA though: Is the second maid scene supposed to be a literal copypasta of the first?

[TrainsRunOnThyme]

So I have an issue.

I got a new PC and tried to install the new version on it. The game insists that the RTP is not installed. Checked the file location and windows' list of installed programs and it's there. Tried uninstall/reinstall of the game, the RTP, and both, with and without admin privileges. I also tried the game/RTP bundle, but the unpackager always locks up on "heal2.png".