game feel is good/some rules for the game is interesting
This is a very ambitious game with a varity of skill designs. I see its protential to be a completed strategic game.
This was very impressive for a game made in 1 week! There was a lot of visual feedback from the point and click to transition into the next scene. The controls were simple enough to understand.
The battle system is wellmade. The different skils each character has allow a lot of strategical play. The art style also cooperate well with the game system
This game did really well in terms of the game feel, music, and core RPG environment. Good assets, great attack effects and animations, and overall good game.
The game has all kinds of RPG mechanics. The game has very simple controls.
The art style is nice.
I like how you get more abilities as you get further into the tutorial.
The turn based battling system is cool and well done, seeing all the enemies take turns was nice. The variety attacks also made the game have a lot of depth since I had to choose which attacks to use.
the graphic is nice, and the level is fun to play if I get to understand the control
Very fun mechanic for old RPG fans. The title feels like a good old easter egg. I like the mageman approach on designing the combat system.
What could this game have done better?
relatively unclear tutorial not very distinctive from other rpg games
The normal attack seems to be useless with the existance of skills. Currently skills do not cost any stamina, players will always choose to use the most powerful skill in this case. The player’s HP is too much compared with the damage that enenmies cause, making the player never lose. Hope you can do better in balancing if you decide to extend this game.
For a person who does not play RPGs often, I found it a bit hard to follow how to play especially because a lot of it came in the form of text in the first part with the character, Enovia. Because of my lack of experience, I was also very lost on what was happening, even in the first level. While fighting the chickens I couldn’t figure out how to move or sttack correctly. I was also a bit confused about how to fight because I wasn’t clear about these instructions/how to play.
Personally I’m not so into turn-based stragetic games, so I feel a bit boared while playing it. To me it feels like this game needs more story telling to enhance immersive experience
The player is thrown into a world with no context. Though I figured out what is to be done, a newbie would have no idea what can or should be done, such as what a mouse click is going to do, that the mouse click will interact with not only movement but also with the environment, that you should enter the cave that’s ‘not blocked’, that you should click on certain things twice for it to ‘confirm’, and several other things. For a person with RPG experience, they’ll be able to manage their way through the game. However for a person starting off, they will be left clueless. Therefore the point is that there should be a learning experience or an appropriate tutorial that actually guides a player that doesn’t know what to do.
Tutorial is a bit confusing.
Wall of text!
Maybe it was in the stuff the tutorial lady said but I was a little confused about the warp mechanic and also friendly fire.
A lot of good RPGs I’ve played tend to slowly add more features to the game using text-based tutorials rather than one long wall of text. So maybe add some brief info about newly added mechanics at the start of a battle or right before it. For example, right after the player learns how to warp, the first battle starts with something like ‘let me tell you about the warp ability…’.
An improvement I can think of is the tutorial system. There was a lot of text that appeared and I’m not an avid turned based RPG player so I skipped all the text, which ended up with me struggling on how to play the game. It was very information overload in the beginning as a newcomer to this type of game.
it not obvious on the first part to speak with the npc, and the name is too long
Maybe shrink the tutorial level to three waves of enemies that each introduce the player some new mechanics. Some more visual indicators on what the player need to do, like placing some yellow arrows or ‘!’, I think that way the players feel less lost.
The tutorials kind of suck ass and they really feel like they only appeal to those who are willing to play around with tools. While the first level being risk free is totally fine (also they should have been training dummies or targets instead of chickens), it’s a bit of a slog as there’s too many targets to kill and there’s not a lot of mechanics to play with. Each successive tutorial gets more interesting solely due to the additional tools the player is given. I appreciate the attempt to start demonstrating Line-of-Sight mechanics starting the second tutorial, however I think it’s a little too open that a lot of people could miss that.
I don’t really remember if the other tutorials had any teaching gimmicks, so I will not talk about them other than to say that if they had a point, it should have been more obvious as to be memorable. I will admit I still had fun during the tutorials because of the addition of tools as I mentioned before.
No complaints about the controls, they follow conventional JP indie game and Newgrounds Flash game standards. Extra mouse control is also pretty cool, however I barely used them.
The setpiece (Cloud Strive from Final Fantasy 7) was very fun, I think it took me many minutes to send him back to Sephitoth because he hit Luckyfer for like a billion damage in one hit and I got real scared and started playing careful. That setpiece also drove in the importance of the movement skills, mainly using Redondo’s Capture skill to stick Cloud in a bush and lock him in with Octopus’s Ice Wall which is definitely unintentional but very, very cool.
Do not like being unable to pass through my teammates. I understand not being able to occupy the same space at the same time, but it’s a little too restrictive.
The menus covering the battlefield constantly was also quite frustrating. I understand that this is most likely a limitation of the engine, but it still kind of sucks.
I think the overworld was unnecessary. I feel like the team could have avoided breaking the “only two levels” rule by just putting all the tutorials in one mega-long fight joined by dialogue boxes, and just having the second level be the final boss with a screen saying “level 2”.
Some issues feel like they’re engine or plugin level, and if this game becomes final project material (which I think it has MASSIVE potential for), I think that they would be better off writing their own extensions to RPG Maker to give them more control over the battle system.
also maybe make the grid a little bit bigger so warp has more relevance, the grid doesn’t necessarily have to be a square either (they could rock a 6x5 grid or something)
Comments
What did this game do well?
game feel is good/some rules for the game is interesting This is a very ambitious game with a varity of skill designs. I see its protential to be a completed strategic game. This was very impressive for a game made in 1 week! There was a lot of visual feedback from the point and click to transition into the next scene. The controls were simple enough to understand. The battle system is wellmade. The different skils each character has allow a lot of strategical play. The art style also cooperate well with the game system This game did really well in terms of the game feel, music, and core RPG environment. Good assets, great attack effects and animations, and overall good game. The game has all kinds of RPG mechanics. The game has very simple controls. The art style is nice. I like how you get more abilities as you get further into the tutorial. The turn based battling system is cool and well done, seeing all the enemies take turns was nice. The variety attacks also made the game have a lot of depth since I had to choose which attacks to use. the graphic is nice, and the level is fun to play if I get to understand the control Very fun mechanic for old RPG fans. The title feels like a good old easter egg. I like the mageman approach on designing the combat system.
What could this game have done better?
relatively unclear tutorial not very distinctive from other rpg games The normal attack seems to be useless with the existance of skills. Currently skills do not cost any stamina, players will always choose to use the most powerful skill in this case. The player’s HP is too much compared with the damage that enenmies cause, making the player never lose. Hope you can do better in balancing if you decide to extend this game. For a person who does not play RPGs often, I found it a bit hard to follow how to play especially because a lot of it came in the form of text in the first part with the character, Enovia. Because of my lack of experience, I was also very lost on what was happening, even in the first level. While fighting the chickens I couldn’t figure out how to move or sttack correctly. I was also a bit confused about how to fight because I wasn’t clear about these instructions/how to play. Personally I’m not so into turn-based stragetic games, so I feel a bit boared while playing it. To me it feels like this game needs more story telling to enhance immersive experience The player is thrown into a world with no context. Though I figured out what is to be done, a newbie would have no idea what can or should be done, such as what a mouse click is going to do, that the mouse click will interact with not only movement but also with the environment, that you should enter the cave that’s ‘not blocked’, that you should click on certain things twice for it to ‘confirm’, and several other things. For a person with RPG experience, they’ll be able to manage their way through the game. However for a person starting off, they will be left clueless. Therefore the point is that there should be a learning experience or an appropriate tutorial that actually guides a player that doesn’t know what to do. Tutorial is a bit confusing. Wall of text! Maybe it was in the stuff the tutorial lady said but I was a little confused about the warp mechanic and also friendly fire. A lot of good RPGs I’ve played tend to slowly add more features to the game using text-based tutorials rather than one long wall of text. So maybe add some brief info about newly added mechanics at the start of a battle or right before it. For example, right after the player learns how to warp, the first battle starts with something like ‘let me tell you about the warp ability…’. An improvement I can think of is the tutorial system. There was a lot of text that appeared and I’m not an avid turned based RPG player so I skipped all the text, which ended up with me struggling on how to play the game. It was very information overload in the beginning as a newcomer to this type of game. it not obvious on the first part to speak with the npc, and the name is too long Maybe shrink the tutorial level to three waves of enemies that each introduce the player some new mechanics. Some more visual indicators on what the player need to do, like placing some yellow arrows or ‘!’, I think that way the players feel less lost.
The tutorials kind of suck ass and they really feel like they only appeal to those who are willing to play around with tools. While the first level being risk free is totally fine (also they should have been training dummies or targets instead of chickens), it’s a bit of a slog as there’s too many targets to kill and there’s not a lot of mechanics to play with. Each successive tutorial gets more interesting solely due to the additional tools the player is given. I appreciate the attempt to start demonstrating Line-of-Sight mechanics starting the second tutorial, however I think it’s a little too open that a lot of people could miss that.
I don’t really remember if the other tutorials had any teaching gimmicks, so I will not talk about them other than to say that if they had a point, it should have been more obvious as to be memorable. I will admit I still had fun during the tutorials because of the addition of tools as I mentioned before.
No complaints about the controls, they follow conventional JP indie game and Newgrounds Flash game standards. Extra mouse control is also pretty cool, however I barely used them.
The setpiece (Cloud Strive from Final Fantasy 7) was very fun, I think it took me many minutes to send him back to Sephitoth because he hit Luckyfer for like a billion damage in one hit and I got real scared and started playing careful. That setpiece also drove in the importance of the movement skills, mainly using Redondo’s Capture skill to stick Cloud in a bush and lock him in with Octopus’s Ice Wall which is definitely unintentional but very, very cool.
Do not like being unable to pass through my teammates. I understand not being able to occupy the same space at the same time, but it’s a little too restrictive.
The menus covering the battlefield constantly was also quite frustrating. I understand that this is most likely a limitation of the engine, but it still kind of sucks.
I think the overworld was unnecessary. I feel like the team could have avoided breaking the “only two levels” rule by just putting all the tutorials in one mega-long fight joined by dialogue boxes, and just having the second level be the final boss with a screen saying “level 2”.
Some issues feel like they’re engine or plugin level, and if this game becomes final project material (which I think it has MASSIVE potential for), I think that they would be better off writing their own extensions to RPG Maker to give them more control over the battle system.
also maybe make the grid a little bit bigger so warp has more relevance, the grid doesn’t necessarily have to be a square either (they could rock a 6x5 grid or something)
good game