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F.u.F Alpha 2.1 Review

A topic by Deimos created Jan 02, 2018 Views: 231 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Hey man, so I played your game, and have decided to write a review on it thus far:

First impression

Immediately entering the game, I liked the story book for the intro. However, some of the pictures looked kind of cheaply edited (this being an alpha, however, isn't a big deal).  It wasn't until I spawned in my room that I noticed that the heights of the house were skewed. Some roofs were one tile high, some were too.  An easy fix, but just an annoying mapping error. After interacting with a few NPCs, I noticed the game was littered with spelling and grammar errors. Like, an uncomfortable amount. A lot of the dialog made the characters all feel the same, and that they were generic. Even the playable characters felt generic. These, paired with the broken spawn points for some houses, killed the immersion. Just exploring Hometown, I was tempted to enter the cave where the "Karrah in the Caves" quest is, since there was nothing stopping me. I didn't have any starting gear, or tutorials, or anything. But nothing was stopping me.  Instead, I went back, got my gear, and entered the tombs to kill some rats.

Infinite grinding

Entering the tombs, I fought two rats. Then another two. Then one. Then three. And so on. The rats were ridiculously easy, to the point where I got to level 8 in about 4 minutes by grinding. After the rats were only hitting zeroes on me, I decided to claim my reward.  As soon as I got my first partner, Chrota, we went back to the caves, and hit levels 9 and 8 respectively

Onward, to the plot.

Moving along, we enter the cave to kill a Karrah. The problem here? The slimes are OP. To a point where they were almost a challenge, compared to the rats. ALMOST. If it wasn't for the ridiculous grinding I did, the quest would have ended right there. Get into the basement, and get stoked, cause i'm about to fight my first Karrah! Except, there's no epic music, or anything. Just a normal size sprite. Enter the battle, it's the default mob battle music... Talk about a total let down. Oh well, I kill the Karrah (who was easier than the slimes, btw), and claim my reward. Alright! Time to take on Fort Gragovile!

It falls apart...

On my way to Fort Gragovile, I stopped in a corner to watch a Karrah that was out of bounds. Then, another one approached me, and stared at me. He stared at me and did nothing until me and Chrota swapped places. Why have battles like this in the "world map", when you could easliy use random encounters? If you run from these encounters, you end up at the Hometown gates. Anyway, easy battle, let's continue. Get to the Fort, and I enter the church. And walk through the pews. (Bow down, NPCs, I am your new god). Exploring the fort, i'm able to get Chrota to learn the elemental spells via plot, kicked some cocky guy's ass, stole 2000 G from an NPC, and met an NPC who literally only says "Side quest 105 start". Yeah, exhilarating dialog. Anyway, I talk to Token, get the swords, and immediately fight the bags. Or whatever those things were. I attack one, and my character runs off screen. Oh. Okay then. Beat the bags, and then get told by Token I have to beat the bags. Whoops. Talk again, and complete the quest. Run and get Chrota back, who now has the spells. Between all the grinding and questing, I bought a diamond ring for my character, and a emerald ring for Chrota. With these stat boosts, we became incredibly O.P. 

And now, we break the game.

So with our new elemental powers, talk to Fraxis who tells us to go to the library. Inside, some of the graphics are completely wrong. Like half shelves and such. Even interacting with a wall gave me battle advice. Talked to the guy in the library, talked to Fraxis, walked past him via walking through walls, found the unfinished Monster Arena, and then went upstairs. After battling a couple of Karrah, the quest log stopped updating. Kill the last Karrahs, and talk to Fraxis. Complete the quest, and check the log of where to go next. Looks like my next quest is taking me to "Next Town". What do I do there? I do "next step". Essentially, the quest log isn't completed or entered. But whatever, I continued, got a ton of musical and graphical glitches, as well as broken collisions on almost every map. Got to Fort Ghunim, and got told to "go sail the sea's". Board the boat, and that it. That's the game.

Conclusion:

Seems like a game with an interesting story, and has a ton of potential. The combat with elements, and premise are great. But, with broken maps, dialog, and other factors, this game is nowhere complete as a demo, or even an alpha. Some items don't have descriptions, the map and dialog need major reworking, and for caves and such, you can disable lighting effects. About 50% of the events are broken in one way or another. On top of that,  the collisions were worse than a Bethesda game. With 10 years experience in game development, I'd be glad to help you turn this game into something playable. You can contact me on the RPG Maker discord, my tag being ItsMeDeimos#6031.

I look forward to what this can be, but for now, it's not even in pre-alpha.

Final rating: 4/10

Developer (1 edit)

hello.


Sorry for the late reply. I have been out of action the last month. I have not been able to make any progress with the game.


First all. Thank you so very much for taking the time to do a review. Reading this has helped fuel the flame to want to get back on track and it’s this.

2.1 was not exactly ready for the public. But seeing as I am a no one I figured I would upload it for family and friends to see what I was working on.

I have added you on discord and would love to talk to you more about things that can be improved.

I am currently at work right now by when I get home tonight I am going to reply and address some of the points you raised. Mainly to document what I was thinking when I done that so I can try see trends on what bad thinking is.

I look forward to seeing whatever progress you make! The game has great potential, but needs a lot of polishing!

Developer

yeah as this is my first ever rpgmaker project I have not tried to polish too much in fear of it still subject to so much change. Once I lock down the story I’ll have a lot more room to play with stuff such as better textures. More diverse bgm and se.  Overall I think the entire game will be recreated with 100% my own textures music sprites etc. so for now my focus is getting to a stage where I am happy to sit down and do all that work. But fir now, still learning what I can and how I can add to the game. This has all been from YouTube research lol. So I know I got ways to go.

Developer (3 edits)

1. Story pictures are dodgy. - As this is alpha, I see these images as placeholders. They are there to allow me to move past the road block of not being good at graphic design.
2. Heights of the house skewed roof too high. - I didn't notice this. Have made changes to buildings now.,
3. Spelling / grammar errors. This is a ongoing issue with me but as this is my 1st attempt i have learnt the importance of spellcheck.
4. Generic npc’s who feel the same. - this is done on purpose, As i found coming up with new and cool NPC's was a difficult task. So rather then sitting there trying to come up with these characters i have just used NPC's to push the story along. My main intention was to learn how to do things, Not how well i can do them. ( for the Alpha )
5. Player char too generic - As above.
6. Broken spawn points. Please go into more detail on these so i can fix.
7. Linear path broken. Hometown cave. - Ahh good find, i have placed others around but not at the cave. Updated.
8. Rats are very easy to kill and do no damage. I have not really worked out balance yet.
9. Too much xp, too fast. As above.
10. Slimes are op. Haha never realized the scale was off so much, Fixed to be more inline with other mobs.
11. Boss fight has no impact. 100% agree, i am going to look into some more mucis and effects but for now these are place holders.
12. World map NPC battles are clunky. Agree now you bring it up. Removed.
13. Side quest 105 start. This is as far as i have code'd into the game. I am making it up as i go but following a overall structure.
14. Bags are.... yeah. Again, when i was working on this rather then using the default images i wanted to learn how to import my own, i didn't care what it looked like, and from the bags being over sized it helps shine a light on the Fight animation. So again placeholders.
15. Rings are op. These stat values were added just so i can put them on and speed up testing, will be balanced.
16. Half shelf’s in library - Again the textures are the default from RPG maker, once i make my own will be replacing. However for now,

17. Unfinished monster arena.  the monster arena is going to be cut from the game as the idea is cool, But the scope is too large.

18. Mapping behind Fraxis. I had not finished the polish on the 2nd town for this version. please more detail of what and where and i will fix.
19. Quest log stopped updating 20. Next town, no info. End of the finished story, rest is still in draft.
21. Music graphical and mapping errors to fort gunhim. This town has only had minor mapping done, no where near finished. More detail would help though.
22. Go sail the seas. This was me testing how to add a boat and force it to spawn. Will be edited out.

Again thank you very much for your feedback and more is very welcome.