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Micro RPG's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #120 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Audio | #132 | 3.292 | 3.292 |
| Graphics | #172 | 3.292 | 3.292 |
| Overall | #173 | 3.365 | 3.365 |
| Authenticity (Use of resolution restriction) | #256 | 3.542 | 3.542 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
Ian D'Aprix (me) programmed and did art, Brandon Edwards did art, Edward Beltran did audio, and the combat system is based on mechanics by Chris Cieslik. Very fun, very tiring!
Was the resolution a challenge?
Text was a burden, but doing sprites for text instead of a font allowed me to do interesting things. I avoided text a lot, which is tough for a RPG, and tried to represent relative amounts of XP, money, etc. as much as possible. I essentially tried to make this akin to a single adventure of a tabletop RPG.
What did you learn?
I entered the jam to prove out a game idea, and while I won't be making the game in 64 x 64 pixels in the long run, I definitely found that the cozy nature of this jam suits the theme well.
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Comments
A very nice little RPG game. I’ll be honest, for me, even reading through the manual (which is a nice touch, by the by) I didn’t quite grasp the combat mechanics, so I kept getting killed in the cave.
That said, the game ran well, the graphics were clear, and the sounds and music worked very well, in my opinion.
I'm glad you like the look and sound of the game, and I'm sorry the manual didn't help you out. I know that UI is one of those things I need to focus on next time.
Just for clarity, the idea of this single-round combat system is that you roll dice to form a dice pool, then open the monster's combat card and try to fill in as many "dice slots" as possible. Clicking on a die and then clicking on a slot will fill it; right-clicking a slot with a die will return it to your pool. When you confirm your selection on the monster's combat card, empty slots penalize the player with damage, curses, or less XP or money. The puzzle is to fill as many slots as possible.
You start with one spell called "fuse mana" and you learn more on your adventure. These spells allow you to manipulate the dice in various ways, by spending dice as mana to gain, change, or reroll dice in your pool. Manipulating dice will help you solve the puzzle of filling in the monster dice card.
Old school manual was... hecking cool ! I love to see this kind of details.
The combat system is interesting. The use of dice kinda reminded me of Dicey Dungeon, even though they are using them in a different way than yours.
I think I didn't play enough to see all your work on the game, but I already think it has a great potential as becoming a really cool project !
My only gripe is that the full game is not totally in 64x64 (the character is not snapping to the grid, for example).
But that doesn't alter the experience at all.
So, count me in for future updates (if any) !
Hey, glad to hear you liked it. I love game manuals! I still have my Lords of Magic manual sitting somewhere; it's like 100 pages and heavy enough to hold a door open. As for the pixel-perfect stuff, I did indeed miss some details, but next year my goal is to get that hammered down first, instead of running out of time to do it. And yes, at some point I will be developing Micro RPG into a fuller game experience.
If you like the combat system, check out One Deck Dungeon by Chris Cieslik (published by Asmadi Games). My combat mechanics are based on his excellent game.
This was a very cool game. Kind of difficult as the random battles were very frequent but I like that you put the effort in to make an interesting combat system. Plus you provided a PDF that explains exactly how to use it. Reminds me of those old games back in the day where the booklet told you how to play. Good job with keeping with the retro feel! I hope to see what you can end up doing n the future!
Glad to hear you enjoyed it! The random battles is something I should have spent more time on; it's random enough that you can go a while without seeing enemies, or get bogged down and not make a lot of progress.
Check out One Deck Dungeon by Chris Cieslik (published by Asmadi Games). My combat mechanics are based on his excellent game. I made the manual with exactly the idea of both teaching the game and calling back to older games where a manual was essential.
Combat system is interesting and I like the UI in it! This kind of project would be interesting to follow in the future :)
Thanks for the encouragement! I hope to develop this into a much deeper and expansive game in the future, but still adhere to the "micro" feel.
If you like the combat system, check out One Deck Dungeon by Chris Cieslik (published by Asmadi Games). My combat mechanics are based on his excellent game.
I love that you made an old school manual to go with this! That's dedication! Very cool game, enjoyed this! Vert reminiscent of classic RPGs with an interesting mechanics. An in game walkthrough of the combat system would be useful.
Thanks for your kind comments! If I had one more day I would have gone through and done a tutorial mode. Originally, the Whizard was going to teach the gameplay, but time got the better of me.
If you like the combat system, check out One Deck Dungeon by Chris Cieslik (published by Asmadi Games). My combat mechanics are based on his excellent game.
This is a really sweet little RPG! Nice amount of depth here & good art :)
Thank you so much. I'm pleased that you enjoyed the art; it's my weakest suit but with no sleep, anything's possible!
Surprisingly complex, but in a good way. Impressive this was made for a jam :)
Thanks so much! I was working until the final hour to get it ready.
Wow. There has been a lot of work here. Pretty nice rpg game. This game has so many features that the manual is really necessary to read. -oneak
Thanks, I was working until the last hour of the jam, haha. Glad to see it paid off.
As I mentioned below it's based on a board game by Chris Cieslik, so it definitely needed a manual. I think next time I will make a game that requires less reading!
As someone else mentioned, this is not a micro game. Adding something ingame to teach the player how the combat system works would be great.
Given more time(and maybe pixels) im sure it can be even better.
Thanks! I definitely wanted to have a better in-game tutorial but there just wasn't time or space.
Nice job on the manual. It was a great resource for playing and understanding the dense UI of the game. I had fun with the mechanics. It took me a bit to understand how it controlled, but once it got going I had a lot of fun with the game. I appreciated how you managed to tell a complete story. Great job!
Glad to hear the manual made the game play clearer. The UI was my biggest "if only" for this game, but I had the manual in the back of my mind as a bit of a crutch. As for the story, it was important to me that Micro RPG felt like a complete adventure you might have in any RPG.
If you like the combat system, check out "One Deck Dungeon" by Chris Cieslik; Micro RPG's combat was inspired by that system.
In my opinion the combat system is the strongest point of the game, it is complex but it is designed quite intelligently, a pity that there is no turorial in the game, but with a look at the attached pdf it is explained, nice entry!
Thanks so much! It's no surprise that the combat system works well; it's actually inspired by a tapletop game called "One Deck Dungeon", designed by Chris Cieslik. I like the game and when I was making Micro RPG, I wanted to try a combat system that didn't require a lot of text. Of course I ended up needing a whole manual to explain the game, haha.
It shows that you have experience in tabletop role-playing games ^^
A very enjoyable little game. Looked and sounded charming and the combat system was surprisingly complex and engaging. I'm not sure I actually fully understood the combat, but somehow managed fumble through, and the sweet ending was worth it. The interface felt a bit cumbersome perhaps, but I imagine that the resolution set some limits there. Awesome work!
So glad you enjoyed it! The interface is definitely one of the first things I would have polished if I had more time. I only got people to play test it four or five hours before the submission deadline, and they also said the interface needed work. I think next time I do one of these jams I'll get someone to play test halfway through. That said, I'm glad I managed to get all the nice things in, like that ending.
If you like the combat system, check out "One Deck Dungeon" by Chris Cieslik; Micro RPG was inspired by that system.
this RPG is micro only in resolution. There's a lot to the three elements system and the game here. I hope you learned some great lessons from creating this and I look forward to seeing where this takes you in the game that you are looking to create. Good luck!
Thanks for the words of encouragement! I'm glad the feeling of "tiny screen, big game" got across in some way.
If you like the combat system, check out "One Deck Dungeon" by Chris Cieslik; Micro RPG was inspired by that system.
I honestly don't know how the combat works. I tried for a while to understand it, and unfortunately I don't know where the manual is that was mentioned. I'd like to see more but I keep dying trying to figure out the combat.
Hey Brandon, I'm sorry that the manual wasn't easy to find. I just uploaded a new version of the game that has a copy of the manual included; hopefully you get the time to read it and try again.
Just for clarity, the idea of this single-round combat system is that you roll dice to form a dice pool, then open the monster's combat card and try to fill in as many "dice slots" as possible. Clicking on a die and then clicking on a slot will fill it; right-clicking a slot with a die will return it to your pool. When you confirm your selection on the monster's combat card, empty slots penalize the player with damage, curses, or less XP or money. The puzzle is to fill as many slots as possible.
You start with one spell called "fuse mana" and you learn more on your adventure. These spells allow you to manipulate the dice in various ways, by spending dice as mana to gain, change, or reroll dice in your pool. Manipulating dice will help you solve the puzzle of filling in the monster dice card.
Hope you get the chance to pick it up again!
background music in the overworld ruled.
Thanks so much! Ed Beltran, my music man, will be thrilled to hear that.
This is a fun little adventure and I liked the combat system! On the down side, the interface wasn't very intuitive and there were definitely subpixels.
Thanks Nyeti, glad you enjoyed it! You're right that the interface could use some work; that's number 2 on my list of "things I should have prioritized." The subpixels were a result of not being careful enough when composing the graphics in Unity, and not doing enough test builds to check the graphics.
If you like the combat system, check out "One Deck Dungeon" by Chris Cieslik; Micro RPG was inspired by that system.