Peculiar Voyage: Escape from Cute

Peculiar Voyage: Escape from Cute
General
Author	crow (espectraa1s)
Type	Role Playing
Version	0.2
License	Mixed
Last Updated	2009/12/14
Links
Download
Website

Peculiar Voyage: Escape from Cute is a rogue-like mystery dungeon adventure in the same vein as Shiren the Wanderer.

The game is playable from start to finish and now includes a 30 floor classic bonus dungeon "The Path of no Return" which is unlocked after clearing the main dungeon.

Features

• Gamesave. Although there are some quirks when restoring from a saved game (e.g. previously visible items on the heads-up-display may not show up) it seems to basically work. Hit the X button to bring up the status menu, then select save game. After it has saved, you can power off the DS.
• Traps.
• Several item classes (weapon, projectiles/slingshot, shield, herb, magic bead, scroll, food) with a few types of each class
• Monsters (of course).
• "Buddy" NPCs you can recruit to fight by your side.
• A few basic quests to fulfill ("Iya Gorge") where you have to be a hero and save some kidnapped children. (14 floors of dungeon crawling fun?!).
• Score Ranking, Notes (noteable or embarassing achievements), and a "monster menagerie" to show a little info and animations of monsters you've vanquished or NPCs you've talked to.
• A bonus dungeon ("The Path of No Return") that's unlocked after clearing the main quest. This one is 30 floors and has beads, scrolls and herbs unidentified. After reading a scroll or eating an herb, that particular type will be identified. For beads, you have to wave it, figure out what effect it had, and then give it a name through in the menu system.
• A strategy dungeon (like Fey's puzzles in Shiren) to teach you some of the trickier techniques for survival.
• A warehouse (unlocked after certain events) in the first village for storing items.

Installation

Download and extract file.

DLDI patch it if needed (if your card does not have auto-patching) and copy it to the root directory of the card.

User guide

Gameplay

There are a few quests to fulfill in this game:

• Save the kidnapped village children from an evil witch.
• Solve all of the strategy dungeon puzzles.
• Befriend the owl and get him to fight alongside you.
• Find "the Outcast" and solve the riddle of where he came from.
• Find the hero's lost sister and get her to fight alongside you.
• Try to make it to the end of "The Path of No Return"
• Make it through the "Vial Trial" alive.

Beyond this you can also try to collect all of the characters and monsters in your "Menagerie".

After clearing the main multi-floor dungeon, a longer, tougher, more classically hard-core roguelike dungeon "The Path of no Return" is unlocked.

It's 30 floors of roguelike goodness. There's also a scoreboard to try to improve your results, and a few collectables in the form of rare items, embarassing "accomplishments" and the collecting of vanquished monsters (and friendly characters you've talked to) in the "Monster Menagerie".

Playing through the main dungeon (without falling) should give maybe a half hour of play time, the bonus dungeon should yield around one hour (or more??) of "getting-your-butt-kicked" goodness.

Battles are turn based, the player moves or attacks, and the monsters each get a turn afterwards. You basically wander around the dungeon, fight monsters, pick up items and try to survive to the next floor and get as far as possible. Although it's turn based, a hardcore mystery dungeon player often has a style that makes it end up being pretty fast paced.

Training Dungeon

There is an easy, five floor, basic "training dungeon" you can try which will explain some of the items. When you pick up an item type for the first time, it'll give a little info about it. Just tap the A button to continue. In the April '09 release of the game, this dungeon was mandatory at the start, but in this new release (0.2 December 09) it's optional. You can try it by selecting "Training" from start menu, then "Yes" and then "Go Forth" and you'll enter the training dungeon.

Otherwise, the game will always start you in the "Wilderness" from which you can enter the main dungeon.

The Path of No Return

This is the bonus dungeon unlocked after beating the main dungeon (Iya Gorge). For people who want to get a taste of it without working through the main dungeon, I've added an option in the start menu, "Open Bonus", to set the event in the history file saying you've cleared the main dungeon, thus unlocking "The Path of No Return" when you next enter the Wilderness starting village. But by all means, give the main dungeon a try first!

Heads-up-display

This is the blue, semi-transparent layer on top of the main action on the bottom screen. It's basically a map of the whole floor, with rooms and corridors filled in as the player walks into them.

Blinking white dot is the player, yellow dots are friendly characters, red dots are monsters, blue dots items, the blue square is the exit to the next floor, finally a black x marks a trap location.

Controls

A - Attack monsters, Talk to NPCs

B - (tapped and released quickly) Menu for inventory, (menu) Back out

D-Pad+B - Make character run down a corridor, (next to friendly character) Swap spaces with player

L - Shoot equipped projectiles with a slingshot

R - Restrict character's movement to diagonals

X - Status menu

D-Pad+Y - Change directions without moving, (inventory menu) Sort items

Screenshots

Media

Peculiar Voyage 0.2 (espectraa1s)

Path of No Return (espectraa1s)

PVescape (espectraa1s)

Compatibility

Tested on M3 Real (Sakura firmware 1.34).

It's playable on an emulator (No$gba seems to run it best), but saving the game state, etc. won't work, so you'll have to be ultra hardcore and play start to finish each time.

Known issues

Setting the music volume in the Settings menu is messed up. It changes both the music and the sound fx volume, but should only adjust the music.

Changelog

0.2

• Game saves now work when playing on the NO$GBA emulator under Windows
• Bonus dungeon with herbs, scrolls and beads unidentified! This is supposed to be like Shiren's "Fey's Final Problem" dungeon, i.e. fairly difficult. This is the ultimate brutal dungeon in the game no items allowed in, start at level 0, you get the idea...
• Monster item drops (defeating a monster will occasionally cause it to drop an item)
• New monsters, including "item messing" monsters (they have a special attack that can change or weaken items in your inventory) and a new monster family that tosses items at you.
• Added the "Strategy Dungeon", a dungeon with single-floor puzzles (only 8 so far)
• Added the "Vial Trial" dungeon (a specialty dungeon where you use vials to capture monsters' "souls" and use them to take on the monsters' special powers.
• The hero now has a unique attack animation for each weapon equipped
• Improved buddy AI (so the NPCs fighting alongside you will follow you down corridors instead of wandering off)
• Game balance tweaks (Dark Forest isn't quite so brutal now... Beetleshield is a little more buff to match its cuteness)
• All monster families now have 3 levels (namely filled out the Alumibot and Boxer families of monsters)
• Fixed a couple of major bugs with pouches and gamesaves that could lead to crashes.
• Fixed bugs with game save and restore in the training dungeon ("invisible monsters and items were showing up"!?)
• Fixed a bug with the "press A button while holding B to pass a turn" code.
• Removed the start button "feature" where it remade the dungeon floor and allowed the squeemish adventurer to get out of tight spots.
• Added an option in the Start menu to clear the gamesave file. This is just during beta, in case a bug arises where the game crashes trying to restore from a saved game. Restoring a saved game is fairly robust, but just to be on the safe side... ** Note:It won't erase the history file, so any dungeons you've cleared will remain cleared!
• Also added an option in the Start menu to clear the history, if desired.
• Fixed the movement in non-dungeon areas. Now it will remember your location when you enter a building so that when you exit, you'll be standing outside the exit rather than the default location for the village.
• Added the warehouse in the first village ("Wilderness"). It's unlocked after the player completes certain events. You can store items you get from the puzzle dungeons or from a clearing run of Iya Gorge.
• Menu system bug fixes.
• A little better event-based dialogue with NPCs.
• New items, including some diabolical items that show up in the bonus dungeon.
• Music/soundFX volume setting menu, but this is buggy since lowering the music volume also lowers the sound fx...
• You can now use and examine items underfoot (for when the inventory is full or you drop down onto an item at the start of the floor and are surrounded by monsters!) It shows up as a 3rd page in the inventory menu.
• the stones in the Wilderness can now converse with you.
• Oh yeah, survived a move to another country and a fried laptop! Long live the Peculiar Voyage!

Credits

To the PAlib and libnds people, to Danc from LostGarden for the PlanetCute graphics, to Hidden Observer and to the NO$GBA guy.

Also to the devkitpro, devkitARM people and to the EFS guy.

External links

• PAlib - http://palib-dev.com/forum/index.php/topic,56.0.html (archived)
• PAlib - http://forum.palib.info/index.php?topic=7088.0 (archived)