Post by Tomo in Echoes comments

Viewing post in Echoes comments

First of all, thank you for your feedback - it truly means a lot to me !

Btw, I’m French and our keyboards are set up in AZERTY here, so we often have to change the controls settings for most of the games we played haha. And yes, the prototype does indeed conclude with the “On the making…” screen.

Regarding the counter part, your suggestions have been incredibly helpful. I was somewhat uncertain about how to give it a purpose beyond rolling, but your idea of deflecting projectiles sounds fantastic.

As for the boss fight, my intention is to make it a scriptable impossible battle. However, I wanted to gather feedback on what I’ve already created to mesure it was a good prototype. So yeah, the boss wasn’t quite ready for the battle - perhaps I was a bit impatient haha.

To be completely honest, I introduced the idea of the protagonist getting defeated because I felt the character’s moveset was somewhat limited. Given my constraints in obtaining assets from various talented artists, I thought this would be a better way to introduce a new character with a wider range of gameplay possibilities, rather than just replacing the original protagonist.

Now about the next character, I’ll give you more details. Currently, the spell incantation system is rather basic, involving magic attacks that consume the character’s mana or energy. But I would like to make it a more complex mechanic, with both “offensive” and “defensive” modes where spells can change, and successful defensive incantations might even replenish energy. I thought that it would be a cool way to differ from the typical “cast a spell, run out of mana, drink a potion” routine.

I’m making note of the bug report; it seems to be related to the WebGL build, as I haven’t observed it during the development phase. However, I appreciate your attention in spotting it – thank you!

By the way, I’d love to continue discussing the ideas you mentioned earlier. It seems like you’re coming with fantastic concepts, and that’s precisely why I’m here!

Again, I thank you for your feedback and seeing you appreciating the prototype gives me a lot of motivation actually, hope you will be there for the next update :)

zera0243 days ago(+1)

Aye~ I hope everything goes well for the game's development.

I agree with the fact that perhaps the swordsman's moveset would be pretty limited, unless he gets RPG-style attacks like fking "Tornado Slash" or "Sword Flurry", lmao. In any case, unless the swordsman can use a bit of magic, has magic equipment, or is really good with the sword, his attacks would be kinda plain.

As for the idea I had, I think it clashes with your "unlock spells by using points" system, so I understand if it doesn't fit into your vision of the game. This also got very long and detailed, so apologies for the wall of text:

Basically, I imagined the "incantations" as a moveset-building mechanic. It would involve 2 or more types of magic (I'll use the 4 classic elements as an example here) and a strong attack option (either a "Skill" button or holding the "Attack" button). Maybe the character begins with all the elements acquired, or he has to learn them during his journey.

Either way, aside from the elements, the character could also acquire "incantations" from certain areas:

Learning from certain mages along the way
Reading certain books in different places; or
Creating them himself based on an attack from the boss he just defeated

The incantations would be different methods of using his magic. Examples would be a "Dash" incantation, a "Summon Familiar" incantation, a "Crowd Control" incantation, a "Multi-Hit" incantation, etc. Basically, spell chants that any type of magic can do. Then, you can mix and match the elements and incantations to create a spell, while assigning the spell to (Spell attack), (UP + Spell attack), (DOWN + Spell attack), and, if you want, (LEFT/RIGHT + Spell attack). Pretty much like Hollow Knight's fireball, shriek, and dive spell, but customizable.

Each element would create a completely different version of an incantation spell, which essentially creates several unique spell combinations. That means players get to customize their skills based on how they wanna fight/play.

Example spell combinations:

Water + "Dash" = leaves a slippery trail behind
Fire + "Multi-Hit" = flamethrower
Air + "Crowd Control" = small tornado that sucks enemies in
Earth + "Summon Familiar" = summons a slow golem who can fling enemies airborne

The downside is; this is probably very complex and would take forever to implement properly. There's also the balancing for each spell so that there aren't any single overpowered/underpowered spell. The amount of animations would also increase. Overall, it's a biiit overambitious of an idea for a first game, but yeah, that's the idea I had from seeing "spell incantations".

Tomo243 days ago(+1)

Hey ! No need to stress about the length of the explanations they’re actually just what I was hoping for. You’re making my day.

About the firs protag, I should mention that with the set of animations I have for this character (thanks to oCo, by the way), it’s a bit tricky to incorporate magic use without it feeling out of place.

Actually we pretty much had the same ideas about the spell mechanics, and I already made a good part of what you proposed. At the moment the new character has a 3 step attack combo like the previous protagonist, crouch attack and jump attack and a dash. She also has “Special Attack” which is assigned to a button, and then two types of magic attack. One with a fast incantation which target the closest enemy if in range, or a charging spell with multi-hits kinda like a flamethrower.

My plan was also to include elementary spells in the game, with like Earth and Air as a defensive/crowd control style and Fire/Lightning offensive style ( didn’t find too much cool water spells ). And if I found a way to make some particular spells like familiar summon ( first protagonist could maybe make an cameo, who knows ? :) ), I think I would let the player assign them to the special attack.

Regarding the implementation, it’s true that those ideas are quite ambitious but the fact is that I’m having a lot of fun doing it so I’ll give it a shot haha.

By the way, a big thanks once again for all your help and suggestions, I’ll make sure to add you in the credits section haha. If any other ideas come up or you’d like to chat in the future, don’t hesitate to add me on Discord at “indie_tomo” – it might be a better place for a chat, haha ( you can ignore this of course if you don’t feel like it ).

itch.io

Viewing post in Echoes comments