We made a turn-based RPG for this jam and it was extremely ambitious. While we did manage to balance the game as we went, there were a lot of things that we really wanted that we simply didn't have time for.
Suns, Moons, and Boons Feature Graveyard:
- Spend dragon scales to purchase boons/upgrades after each boss level
- Perfect hits: timed user input to cause a critical strike on your attack
- "Belly Bump" final boss ability that would move his teammates to the front of the turn order
- Special Attack animations. Our artist created awesome effect animations for special attacks and ultimates that would have felt really good visually when activated!
- General boons/upgrades that applied to all heroes: Hit Chance, Crit Chance, Crit Bonus, Armor, etc
- General juice. There were many visual elements that we would have liked to choreograph better if we had the time. It felt pretty polished even without giving ourselves time to take a pass at things aimed solely at game feel.
- Variable difficulties with tuned enemy stat sheets and more intelligent enemy/ability selection for the monsters
- The "you win" screen could have used some love. We went with a Star Wars scroll at the end, but would have loved to put some time into a cut scene and art.
- Sound FX: We managed to sneak in the essentials, but our designer had a lot more in store for SMB. If only!
- Battle Chant: After boss kills, we wanted characters to have some dialog that went with their "Victory" animation. A couple examples:
- Pally: your scales will adorn my body as armor! Rogue: It sounds creepy when you say it like that.
- Warlock: My eye enjoys watching your defeat! Rogue: Your eye sees defeat, my daggers ensure it!
- Some items that were a little too ambitious and we realized quickly was out of scope for a 30 day jam:
- Quests and Achievements
- Overworld Map and levels
- Discoverable new heroes to add to the party
If we had one more week, we'd likely have rounded out the Sound FX and added the Special Attack animations first. Those were top of the backlog when we called it a jam. The jam was great, we had a lot of momentum, but tying it up at the end was bittersweet.