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I think the concept is pretty cool. I like text adventures, and the idea of stripping another genre down into a text adventure was definitely intriguing. That said, the RNG was incredibly frustrating to me to the point that it kind of ruined the experience of the game for me. I feel like while I might fail a lot in a Metroidvania, the failure is based on my own agency of e.g. lining a jump up right or not, and not just a random dice roll. I know there's a hidden skill system, but I didn't really feel the effects of it enough to make the random failure on e.g. the boss not so frustrating. I'm not sure if the formula could be reworked to not rely on RNG so much, it's possible this game just isn't for me, but it did kind of sour my experience with a game I otherwise liked the concept of a lot.

Hi there, RNG is really key in the game I want to make.

I think the reason it frustrated you is because it is unexpected in games presented like this, and the odds are not indicated.

Let's break it down (without taking the skill into account):

  • jump over spikey creatures 70%, failure still puts you on the other side of the room >> frustration should be low
  • jump to get the gun 40%, failure has no consequence >> frustration should be low
  • jumping over boss projectile 40% the first time, 45% after that, failure means -15 HP >> it is there to limit the number of tries to attack the boss. can be frustrating
  • shoot the legs 60%, belly 65%, head 55%. >> the goal is to mess with your head trying to understand pattern. can be frustrating.

So to summarize, I think those are pretty good odds for the player, if you know what you are doing against the boss you have almost 0% chance of dying.  And even so, the consequence in case of failure is low.

I can think of tons of examples where players accept very bad odds: loot boxes, drops in diablo or wow, bosses in many RPGs. So my guess would be that you got frustrated because of the unknown (or you just don't like RNG at all ;) )

Lining a jump etc, is exactly what I don't want, I want every player to have the same chances playing the game, weither they are good at controlling a character or not.

To be honest, I am surprised I has as much positive feedback, because I figured that people that are skillful enough to play a metroidvania wouldn't accept to swap their skill with an unknown dice, and people who are not would not really know the genre.

The skill boost is very subtle, and I want to avoid it being gamified, at least at this stage of the game. If I keep working on the game I want the skill to offer options if it is very high, damage boosting for a fake speedrun time etc ;)

Thanks for playing and your feedback !