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Fantasy Tactics's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #13 | 4.457 | 4.457 |
| Authenticity (Use of resolution restriction) | #36 | 4.714 | 4.714 |
| Gameplay | #137 | 3.257 | 3.257 |
| Overall | #165 | 3.457 | 3.457 |
| Audio | #331 | 1.400 | 1.400 |
Ranked from 35 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
Solo... a hard one to be facing alone but quite happy with the results (even if it is not as complete I would like it to be). I would have loved to have a musician and another dev around
Was the resolution a challenge?
The resolution combined with PICO-8 limitations consumed a lot of my time... UI was particularly tricky as text is not a great option for the resolution
What did you learn?
Apart from the fact I am functional on 4h sleep and a lot of coffee I learnt I am extremely detail oriented (literally I could put hours on fixing 1-2 px in a sprite)... Also learnt that to face such a big project for a jam you need a team and distribute some of the load.
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Comments
For two weeks a lot got done, with some of the nicest looking graphics out of all the submissions. I'm pretty impressed with the iconography and the font, which work very well in the small space. I only wish mine were that nice.
I can tell this is an ambitious project that's going to need a lot of attention to meet all your goals. Keep at it!
Thank you for testing it and the comments. Font is pico’s native font but for the text in the menu so I cannot get any credit out of it (other than how I used it). Low resolution sprites are both hard and easy at the same time, hard on having something very nice and recognizable in place, but easy in size as there’s just not that many possibilites. Working on a good palette is quite critical as color contrast is your biggest friend in up to 16x16 pixels. You have some nice sprites in your game also, I just think the palette is not fully helping out in some cases at least for me… in this low resolution contexts I am more into “clashing” colors all around to make things pop-up.
Gorgeous! Very impressed indeed by the density of information , while still keeping a feeling of character and space. On its current state, the combat was the one thing that did stand out in being a bit difficult to understand, I missed a clear association between the combat icons and the new health of the units.
Amazing job in pico8!
Thnx for trying the game. A lot of things are missing… proper feedback design for actions is fully missing… hit vs def icons are not easily understood… not having the counterattack logic in place but keeping the hit resutls on the defense is not helping also. I will be adding some of those fixes to the prototype, keep an eye on it!
I never thought I'd see a 64x64 iso come into existence, props to you bro. The colors were so vibrant yet they mesh together really well. I loved the design, and the interface. Overall a lovely game.
Thank you! It was really hard to squeeze it in 64x64 ;)
Damn, this has a really cool style. I found the controls a little awkward to get used to, and with so much information packed into the small screen, sometimes the gameplay suffered a little because of it. But you know, on looks alone this is absolutely incredible, and the system feels pretty complex. It must have taken a lot of work to put this together. Great job.
Thnx for playing it and the nice words. It was easily 95-100 dedicated hours… (avg 4-5h on working days and 10-12 on weekends). Too intense :P
Sorry to hear about the controls… tried to follow on standards for directional diagonal moves (like FFTA), but when moving the character I moved it directly and not a cursor to where it will move… at this resolution it was visually more effective.
Information cram… I am with you :P having unit stats, unit selection highlight or target highlight, move or action areas… but now that’s what makes this jam a challenge, the limited space ;)
The graphics in this are outstanding, it's obvious you spent a lot of time perfecting them. The turn-based combat is really fun too, I'd love to see where you take this in future. :)
I streamed my play-through of the game:
Thank you for trying it. You cannot imagine (but if you get a look into pico8’s discrod pixel-art channel you will see my try-and-get_feedback loops there :P) After 2 weeks coding crazy the code needs a massive clean-up but once I have that done I am gonna push on finishing what is pending.
I had not gone through the video… just done that… So first, thank you for your comments there :) And thank you for finding out the end-game check is failing to detect it in some situations. For unmoved units: empty tile menu allows you to jump to “next available unit”. Combat: hit vs defense, you figured it out at the end… att dice is 3 hits, 2 blocks, 1 miss, magic is 5 hits 1 miss. Number of dice is attk vs defense or magic spell level vs defense.
It was overambitious, really was :) but when i got started on it the project sucked me in and I just had to go on ;)
I can play several music instruments, my issue is with trackers… never been the kind of software I’ve been able to handle in a cofortable way.
Hope that at least you enjoyed the game ;)
Don't worry, I very much enjoyed it, I love turn-based strategy games like that. The gameplay reminded me a lot of the Banner Saga, whereas the graphics were straight out of Shining Force. Great stuff. 😀
Really impressed you were able to convey that much information in such a small space. I've played around with building tactics style games in the past, there not easy to make let alone in such a small amount of time. Great job, definitely worth continuing past the jam.
Thank you and for sure I will be doing that (actually I am on it this very miniute… and I’d say I will junk half the code and refactor it to reclaim tokens…) I got really attached to this little game ;)
Looks good. Shame there was no music; and I was also a bit unsure my attacks had done anything at first. Despite a popup showing icons before the attack, a popup showing the modifiers after the attack would have been a nice little touch.
Thanks for playing it… I had a very intense journey through this project… By Saturday I was needing a break… I was missing sound and the AI and code started to be complex to handle so I decided to pull on the brakes. I will be adding the missing parts and yes, the battle result is not obvious (but the UI had not htat much extra space for anything). Will think on how to display that.
This was a really cool concept. I'll have to get a remote desktop going with a friend so we can play this properly. I definitely think you could turn this into something profitable if you're planning to keep working on it post-jam.
Thank you for trying it and glad you had some fun playing it… the RDesktop mode is an easy way to get this as multiplayer :)
The concept itself is nothing new, there’s hundreds of Isometric tactics games out there and you can also throw in the 2d tactics classics and their 3d counterparts (fire emblem series, tactics ogre series, Final Fantasy tactics series and so many many more). Not reinventing anything here. The simplified combat is HeroQuest tabletop’s model approx which I kind of threw in to prevent going the rabithole of complex combat mechanics… I’m kinda crazy to attempt a tactics game for a jam but I am not just so completely insane as to add complex combat into it as well :)
Considering the native platform (pico8) turning it into the kind of poroduct that can make a profit is complex… it is just too limited… I am gonna work on polishing it for sure (most probably at Pico’s native 128x128 resolution and with multicart to support some real depth and try to bypass a bit on the hideus token limitations). Anyway it could potentially be an idea to move that into another engine… the ISO engine is hand-crafted so it could be ported “as-is” almost to any other platform. If things evolve reasonably with the prototype I might consider that and move it to donation-model or even a cheap paid fee. But the important thing here, it’s really encouraging you feel this prototype can reach the potential for a budget indie title, thank you for that!
Great work! This looks quite ambitious for a jam game, I was surprised how well it worked out. The graphics look great!
Thank you for trying it… indeed it was. I was also quite surprised how it felt and looked when I started putting things together, it kind of magically looked like the “right” project to be working on ;)
Undead prevailed! I enjoyed playing this, my kind of game. The controls are intuitive, the "next unit" menu is pretty handy, the icons intelligible and unit & terrain artwork is a pleasure to behold. Good stuff all round!
Glad you liked the game even considering it is not a fully featured one. I tried to balance both sides and been able to win with both (sometimes unexpectedly). Artwork took a lot of time in the initial days but I think it paid off… I started things out with a much more simplistic style buth then I drew the pinkish tree and everything needed an uplift :P
Hope to see this finished one day! this is really cool!
Thanx! So far so good… I really feel compelled to finish it. The scope was to big for a jam I guess and after pushing almost every spare hour into it for 2 weeks I needed a break… coding “on the fly” generates a lot of cruft and to complete things I needed a pull on the brakes and some heavy reordering and cleaning. let’s see… I am now cleaning out code and bugfixing thing I got reported.
Wow, that's a lot of work. I would aprriciate if it had some kind of in game tutorial once it will leave the jam!
Thnx for the comment and for trying the game, I am already working again on it… some bugfixing after a few reports (some issue using potions :/…) and reorganizing code a bit so I can clear the space to implement AI (low on tokens, a pico8 restriction). I will definitely keep working on this ;)
Great to hear that!
the graphics and use of screen resolution are super impressive! i'll admit i had a hard time figuring out what to do, which may be my unfamiliarity with games of this style. it might be nice to have a short in-game tutorial to hold the player's hand getting started. nice work!
Thank you for playing it… I tried to squeeze everything out of every pixel… if you are not used to tactics games (tactics ogre series, final fantasy tactics, fire emblem and such) it can be a bit dauting… I am for sure working on this post-jam to add all that is missing and a couple of bugfixes (been reported some issues drinking potions…). Will consider squeezing a tutorial on it.
Looking at how well the game fulfilled its intention within the time limit and pixel count, this gets a solid 5 stars for gameplay. I cannot fault the graphics, which I think are the game's greatest strength and a real accomplishment. Authenticity is unquestionable . Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is my favourite GBA game so I will very happy to see this game get more development.
Thank you very much for the review. Glad you liked it! Too bad I could not complete the full set of features I wanted, but I promise I will keep working on this one (and on its bigger brother at full 128x128 PICO8 native resolution).
Awesome. *Follows*.
Very impressive! I love how the game displays 5 different stats with only an 8 pixel tall bar!
Thnx! UI was a big challenge… wanted to give back a lot of info but did not want to sacrifice that much space… had to find the right balance there. You went the same way with a tactics game :) but you got further than me… you have some AI and sound. Good job with your entry also… I lacked stamina to complete mine :P
BTW… it is 6 STATS … it also shows the SIDE of the unit
It's impressive you went with a tactics game! Looks great
Thnx! I must admit it was a too ambitious project… ended up falling short and burning my energy… no AI and no sound is a dearly price for the intense 2 weeks investment :P Hope you like it and enjoy some playing vs a friend (or your evil alter-ego :P)!
Yeah I made the mistake of making an RTS for my first two jams... for lowrezjam too hahahaha
It's all a learning experience. Jams are kind of meant to be for those types of projects though. Both to get bad ideas out of your system and come up with better ones too.
I would not qualify that as a “bad” idea… there was time enough… If I had run the extra mile in the last 2 days I could have completed somewhat a crude AI and some basic sound… it was feasible… In there my worst enemy was my perfectionism: it jut kept telling me it would not be good enough and the cumulative tiredness of throwing hours into the project won the battle. Just for you to understand… on the “pinkish” tree sprite I took about over 1 hour to fix the feeling I got from it due to a single stray pixel. I need to reevaluate what is “good enough” over “good” and “great”. As you said… a learning experience altogether! Thnx for the insight
My goodness... Making a strategy tactics game for a two-week gamejam is insane! Very well done. It's unfortunate the lack of an AI opponent to play. Playing this alone feeds off my dual-personality :) Graphics are very very nice for the canvas size and some sound effects would really help for the game feel. Nevertheless, for two short weeks, this game totally rocks. The only thing I would point out is the controls. You went for old school isometric controls where up/down/left/right directions yield diagonal actions. This is a little confusing and it would be nice to have an option to use a more modern control scheme. Other than that, very intuitive single button control, apart from cancel. Overall, an excellent entry.
Thank you for trying the game… I know the uncompleted state of things is a bit shaming but I had so many hours thrown at it in these two weeks I needed a break. Proper AI behaviours other than full front suicide attack were too much for the remaining time I had and my skills with sound would have not added that much (probably the other way around :P). Anyway I will keep working on the idea. glad you liked it!
Totally understandable! AI is a hard thing to do especially for a tactics game!
Iso in 64x64? You loco, bro. :) But you made it work, and that's impressive. Vivid colors and pretty intuitive interface. I think you've got the beginnings of something really cool here. Nice!
I know I’m a bit crazy… Actually I started thinking on something not so elaborate like a HeroQuest clone (the old isometric game from Gremlin Graphics based on the tabletop) but then the Tactics feeling was calling me so hard I went for it. Far from what I wanted to complete for it, but 1.5 days to the deadline I needed a break, the work was quite intense :P
I will be working hard on adding to it :)
Thank you for trying it and glad you liked it!
Amazing, the graphics and interface are just superb! I think audio feedback especially for the Action / Back buttons will go a long way in helping the player understand what's going on. I didn't play co op so just messed around with the controls. There's something very special here and I hope you continue.
Check mine out if you can.
Thanks for trying it and great that you liked it. I will be working on this post-jam (actually on a 128x128 version of it using full pico8’s capacity). I will check on yours ;)
I thought the game, for what it was, was very well put together! I will admit that I didn’t actually read any of the description or control explanation on the game’s page, but was able to figure it out fairly easily… though, a little in game guidance may have been of some help. To be honest, I thought it was a complete enough game that I was a little surprised when the opposing side wasn’t AI controlled… though, I know full well why, lol. One thing I may add is that (maybe I just couldn’t hear any), but a little audio may have been nice, at least during “attacks”. The first couple of times I attacked, I thought I messed something up because I didn’t notice any form of feed back. Also, I wish there was a way to cancel an action… for instance, I would choose to move a character, to then want to not do that and choose a different action, but I couldn’t, and that character’s move was wasted.
All in all a wonderful game! Great work!
Thanks for trying it… AI and sound were too much to add in the last day, after such an intense development so I ended up submitting and taking some rest out of the experience… shame fully on me ;)
About the actions… while you are controlling a unit you can always cancel (with Z or C)… so when you are moving and cancel unit is freed at the original state it was… when you initiate an attack or spell that requires targetting cancel once to get back to pick a different action and cancel again to reset the unit so you can redo your move. Once the unit has ended it’s turn what is done is done… that is part of the tactics component ;)
Glad you liked the game considering how much is lacking!