I am perfectly fine with a high encounter rate as long as it's limited to a grinding area, and especially when it has the right balance between gaining something in return. In areas that are pass-by IMHO the encounter rate should be much lower. If the players likes they can run for and back to force random encounters, but otherwise it's just an annoyance that increases with every step until you are so full that the joy of getting more content no longer outbalances your frustration and you just stop.
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Hero Backers's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| People's Choice | #110 | 1.925 | 2.222 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
I won't spend much time rehashing the things that have already been said, but I also agree that the high encounter rate + high likelihood of escape failing + lower cure percentage definitely left this feeling like more of a grind than I'd like.
The humor is truly what shines in this game. While it's not my preferred humor (I don't really jive with the 4th wall breaking, personally), I can still recognize when it hits its mark and this is certainly doing its job there! Keep leaning into that humor as you work on improving this.
Thanks for sharing your entry! :)
Submitted
The Phoenix ProjectI tried this out, but the humor really did not gel with me (which is completely personal, clearly other people like it). Once I got tot the first roaming area I got sick of the high encounter rate and stopped.
- The mapping is really rough, especially when it comes to overdoing the details. i can kind of see what you're trying to do in some instances, but the overuse of mishmashes tiles makes it hard to parse. You could trim the detail so it's less overbearing or recolor and modify what you're using to make them fit better.
- I'm not personally a fan of the humor in general, but the 4th wall breaking jokes really missed for me, especially during the tutorial. I also kind of hated how I was beating up an innocent sentient creature ASKING FOR HELP with no remorse for a tutorial for a joke :T
- The encounter rate is way too high and the escape having a chance to miss is annoying.
Overall the game wasn't bad, but it definitely was not for me.
Yeah, humor is one of those things that's hard to get right for everyone. I personally don't like gross out humor, but like you said to each his own. I'll definitely have to work on the encounter rate since that's been the main problem people have pointed out. Thank you though for giving it a try and don't worry that little fairy has her own game, albeit looking completely different, where she gets a good ending of living a life of luxury.
Hero Backers by Negative Zero
Hey there Negative Zero, thanks for submitting a project to the 2022 IGMC. I'm Drifty and I was asked to judge your game in round one of the game jam. Here's some feedback about your project.
I enjoyed the humorous writing through-out this game. Although you missed a nice moment when you could have given a Banana instead of a Bandana when explaining the weapon/armor/accessory slots.
I like the idea of resurrecting fallen heroes of a long time ago. Once again the writing is really good and you do a great job in keeping the player interested in the dialog.
I find the encounter rate to be a bit high especially in the first area you get to walk around as a party of three. Consider lowering it? You could also increase the party's escape ratio so that we don't fail to escape so often.
Maybe increase the healing power of the healing spells, they seem more like a waste of a turn.
You could copy paste transfer events to span more than one tile in areas that have large hallways to make a small quality of life polish improvement.
The large maps and high encounter rate combined with the dead ends make this a more grindy experience.
Taking the limited resources into account and low heal power the player winds up soft locked on the exploration map without the ability to easily run from fights.
This game is a slow inevitable 'grind the player down' until there is nothing left adventure.
I find the writing on the descriptions of items and skills to be clever and funny. Nice job with this part of the project.
Keep making games, I hope that you've had a learning experience with the process of making this project and I look forward to seeing the things you work on in the future Negative Zero.
-Drifty
First off, thank you for the feedback. Second, I do apologize for the problems with it. As a creator the one thing you want is for the player to fully enjoy your work. Yeah, stories I've got out the wazoo, but I admittedly have a hard time with enemy stats and the other parts like that. I've tried to do things like take the player class stats and go off of that or group monsters into power categories but it always comes out odd. In your opinion would a percentage based healing system would work better? Like 25% to 50% to 75% to 100%?
Do you have any good formulas or rules of thumb for how you calculate foe stats and encounter rates?
When it comes to determining how much healing to apply you could do both if you're not sure. A 'light heal' would probably be around 25%, regular heal around 50% and a heavy heal would be around 75% if you're going percentages. For the encounter rates I would play test your game a bunch of times and ask yourself how it 'feels'. Does it feel like you get into combat too much? If so, then increase the steps needed for an encounter to happen.
For balancing stats it's the same approach. You will end up playing your game much much more than anyone else if you're doing it right. I like to set one thing in stone and then balance the other around that. For example, decided the actors/classes stats curve and then don't change it much. If the enemies take too many hits to kill, you adjust the enemies hp and defense at that point. If you keep changing actor/class stats and ALSO enemy stats you will balance one fight and break the next.
Anyway keep up the good work.
hey, i played your game and i thought it was pretty funny. however, i couldnt seem to get past the forest since it is a looping map without any way to advance. The encounter rate is also quite high for my liking. And when i went back to town i cant rest in my house or the inn.
There are side paths in the forest but they dont go anywhere so i was hoping to get some info on what to do next?
Submitted
Game for IGMC 2022Yeah....sorry about that. I just noticed that the tree at the end of the forest doesn't respond like it's supposed to due to being below the player or something like that. I don't think I can change anything right now due to it being in the Jam but as soon as judging is over I'll be able to update it and get everything fixed and working properly. Including healing at Goddess Statues, skills for Harpinia and Victoria, and anything else I come across as not working. Again, I do apologize for the trouble my last minute "I guess everything is fine" work caused.
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