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5th Annual Driftwood Jam

Hosted by Tea, Drifty · #5ADJ
36
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A jam submission

Enchanted MelodyView game page

A short adventure with mystery and intrigue. Demo for a later title.
Submitted by The Wandering Wind (@wanderingwind71) — 11 days, 14 hours before the deadline
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Enchanted Melody's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameplay#302.3752.375
Writing/Story#352.5002.500
Overall#352.3752.375
Creativity#402.2502.250

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • Congratulations on finishing your first game! May there be many more to come. I imagine this game was a good learning experience for you and I hope you enjoyed making it :D
  • Hey there. :) Nice little game. Overall, i liked it. Few things that annoyed me, but hopefully are easy to fix : encounter rate too high, escape chance too low (let the player escape if he want to), game too easy (way too easy, a good thing would be to slow down the progression of the player, the gain of caracteristique when leveling up is way too important). The story is very basic, but well, it work. Combat are a bit boring, mainly because the game is too easy. Thank for your submission, see yea :). Drag

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Comments

RetroKiwiDadSubmitted5 years ago

As a first project, this really has a lot of promise. Well done on getting a full game out there. As you mess around with the maker more, you will learn to balance things out and the little tricks such as conditional branches for the direction the player is facing. It was an interesting story, and I look forward to see what you do with a fleshed out version.

Submitted
Caede's Pendant
Reply
StudioBlueJam Judge5 years ago(+1)

Heya! Don't know if you saw this yet (been busy so I might have lost track), but we did a high level overview of your Game Jam entry last week. Here is a link to the video if you want to see what we have to say: 

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The Wandering WindDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

Thank you for the feedback on the game, I really do agree with the points you made, it was more of just a first complete beginning-to-end project to test what I've been able to develop as my skillset. Unfortunately it wasn't really the style of game I'm used to trying out, as you can see that my other game is more story-driven and has very little in the way of actual gameplay, but again I wanted to kind of branch out from what I'm used to. I think if the contest had allowed it I would have made a visual novel-type game, but Drifty specifically said that it had to have gameplay, and I'm not yet skilled enough at events and whatnot to make gameplay elements outside of what the engine allows by default. Beyond that, I am very happy with where I'm going with my projects, and "average" is actually just fine with me! Thanks again for the review and I wish you the best in your own projects!

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Nowis-337 GamesSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

A fairly standard RPG which I feel could be tweaked in some areas. The encounter rate felt like there were random battles occurring every few steps and soon became an attack spam fest.

Looking at the game as a stand-alone, finding gold was somewhat meaningless as there were nowhere to spend it as you can't seem to return to the village (could be unintended). Not really a big issue if the game is going to be expanded further.

I do quite like the mapping of some areas, especially the layout of the village and the forest. It was nice to be rewarded with the extra treasure when exploring the forest further.

While there are a few things to address, I'd say it's a good start!

Submitted
Mana-Tech Armor Simulator
Reply
AceOfAcesSubmitted5 years ago

Well... it's an interesting game. But it left me wanting more (in a good way). There are some things that hold it back:

  • The mystery was a bit intriguing, but it's resolved way too fast. Granted, there is a time limit in the jam, but I wish the story was better fleshed out. I can see the potential on it, however.
  • The battles were too easy. Once you are properly equipped (and have enough items) you can pretty much send the enemies to the shadow realm without much sweat. I've pretty much speed run the game. Better balancing would be a good idea. Maybe introduce a few wrinkles to the enemies. Beef them up a bit.
  • Maps were... serviceable. I can't say how you can improve them, sadly (I suck at mapping :/ ). The last map would benefit for a bit more complexity.

All in all, the game has potential. Some work needs to be done so it's a polished entry into the full game. Looking forward to your full release.

Submitted
The Price of Freedom
Reply
slimehunter5 years ago

Great start to a new game. 

I felt like Leo's skills were a little underpowered compared to his sword. Plus, the huntsman's skill was a little OP compared to his and Leo's attacks. Maybe this is intended?

I'm excited to see the next part of the story, and I'd like to see more character development.

Reply
PikaMewSubmitted5 years ago (1 edit) (+1)

I see you had a lot of fun to make this and I respect that. However, you game really deserves some polish. There is actually three things that bothered me in this playthrough:

  • The Ghouls. They are slow to take down and deal - literally - 0 damage. Adding the fact they are always in group, make the fight more like taking down a wall than an actually fight. This isn't exactly interesting.
  • Don't forget to reward your exploring players. There is tons of space where you could have reward the player with an information or an item. I suggest you to have a look at this video which explains well what I mean:
  • Now the last thing that bothered me happened right at the end of the game: please do not force the player to do an action when it's not required to get the story after defeating a boss. (On top of that, a new party member clearly joins you, but you don't get to play him because the game throws you back to the title screen right after.)

Anyway, I wish you best of luck with your project! ^^

Submitted
The Escapists
Reply
The Wandering WindDeveloper5 years ago

Oh, OK thanks! I actually didn't really have a lot of playtests for this. That was my mistake. I'm sorry. I'll definitely improve from now on.

Reply
The Wandering WindDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

I took your advice and refined the game a bit. I had intended the party member to join the player towards the beginning, but didn't anticipate the player not taking the path I intended, so I made it an unskippable event where the character joins the party shortly after leaving the village. The Ghouls are now more manageable and I have also made other mechanics more balanced for efficiency. Thanks for the feedback! Have a great night!

Reply
PikaMewSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Hello!

I am glad you took it well. However, there is still problems to check like negative space (always ask yourself: why can the player access this area? May it be a treasure chest, a sign, a trap, or whatever). NEVER expect the players to follow a predetermined path, if there is a place  a player can go, it WILL go there. When something is important, indicate it in some way, may it be the only guy in the room that's different or the little shining star you put on a pot to indicate an hidden reward - especially if you don't want to reward exploration. Also, you should test all your fights and make sure they are interesting. I noticed, playing your update, that the Ghouls aren't the only monster to pose absolutely no threat to the player.

Hope I could help. Have a great day! And good luck for the jam! ^^

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