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Interesting Idea, Poor Excecution

A topic by Marcantorous created 20 days ago Views: 111 Replies: 2
Viewing posts 1 to 3

Obviously, a vore themed turn-based rpg is a great idea - and the idea has proved successful in the past. However, on a fundamental level, this project is lacking *many* things - but you probably already know that.

Number 1 thing though is that in concept, there is zero complexity or nuance to the battle system. Characters each have 2 skills and a normal attack, but there is very little difference in the way that each character functions. Not only that, but there are zero unique mechanics here. A simple toughness bar would've added a lot here: Each attack deals damage, but also deals "toughness damage", when an opponent's toughness is depleted, you can eat them. 

Number 2 thing that I find actually more important though, is that there is very little personality to this little project. Sure, the characters are all unique and interesting designs, but there is no context given by the game as to who they are, or why they are here. Even if you wanted to keep the scope small, adding simple lines of dialogue unique to each ability for the characters would add a lot of personality to the project. Not only that, but there are somehow zero combat animations. An important part of any rpg is animation, as it gives you immediate feedback on what just happened, and if it was successful. Even a simple teleport-and-punch animation would help a lot for the feeling of this project.

Number 3 is definitely the most important though. The gameplay of your project is not fun, nor interesting. There is no strategy here. All you need to do is click the attack button until the enemy dies. But then there's a bigger problem: number scaling. The characters simply have too much HP. If we were working with smaller numbers, an attack or defense buff could actually be interesting. Healing too.  But because the HP pools are so big, the strategy is removed, the gameplay suffers, and worst of all, it takes FOREVER to even win. I tried and I tried, but I really could not bring myself to play more than one "battle" because it took me literally 10 MINUTES of mashing the attack button until I got a guaranteed win because the enemy barely hurt me.

Really, all of these problems come up likely due to a lack of playtesting. I get that creative works are meant to be created for  fun, and the art is actually pretty decent for this project - but it fails fundamentally as a game.  I just think it's important to remember that it doesn't take much effort to turn something fun to make into something fun to enjoy, just by thinking.


Sorry, I am just really peeved at the fact that this project exists in this state. There's a lot of potential here, but as a person who plays *actual* video games, it really hurt me to have to suffer through playing this to sate my curiosity. That's all. Bye.

Developer

Hello Marcantorous and thank you for you detailed feedback

I am sorry that the game truly lacks of gameplay, and i am aware of that, i am slowly working my way onto it to make it as good as possible, but it's my first real game that i am doing from scratch. Your toughness idea is quite interesting, i might use it, and for the combat animations, it is planned for the future already, i am working onto it so it won't be an issue for too long.

My goal is to reach a nice game with maybe a 5v5 team battle system, with passives and synergies between characters, but for that i want to do it myself, learning along the way.

Ah, that makes a lot of sense,

Lots of the game's design choices only make sense in the context of a 5v5 team battle, but I think it could be pretty cool.

Also sorry if my wording was too harsh, I was just really passionate, since truly want to see this project grow into something cool.

Though I would like to reiterate that one of my biggest problems with the game was that it just takes too long to complete a match, even on easy mode. I really suggest either adding a speed up / skip turns feature, or scaling down the HP and damage to smaller numbers to raise strategy and risk - while also making the gameplay less slow.

Since you mentioned one of your goals was to have synergizing characters, I have a few ideas that might give you some inspiration: taunting, damage redirection, thorns effect, giving turns to another character, gaining ability stacks from being healed or taking damage, enemy immobilization (voring opponents?), and having more AoE damage.

Those are just a few ideas I came up with quickly, you can think about them if you want. I would suggest looking at other turn based RPGs though if you want another look for inspiration or game design. I know it may sound silly, but my "toughness bar" suggestion actually comes from Honkai: Star Rail. Different attacks do different amounts of toughness damage, and when the toughness bar is broken, the enemy takes more damage for a while. An important part of game design is looking at other people's projects in order to understand what works and what feels good. There's lots of RPGs to pull ideas from.

Take everything I said with a grain of salt though, I don't know your project or vision as well as you do, but I can playtest and give suggestions. But at the end of the day, the thing that matters most when making a game is actually getting it finished, and getting it playable. And more importantly, a good time. Don't get too caught up in adding too many things at once, since too much overcomplexity can easily lead to a project falling apart. Just do whatever you feel like, and have fun making it. That's what matters most.

I'll be eagerly waiting to see what you do with your game moving forwards.