Hey man thanks for trying. I feel your frustration, I was cringing a little bit for all the bugs you've encountered, it really needs more work. Great suggestions I will incorporate into future versions, good advice for the turn indicator, it really is not clear how the combat works now (and it's also bug ridden). Some bugs I never saw before, like having no spells at all and what the hell happened in the shop?!?!?! lol
After like 20 mins you got smarter to not run into encounters all the time, that's good I guess.
Really nice C64 graphics, trying to make a C64 is really cool.
I played it windowed as it seemed the best fit for the game, window is always on top though (actually when I started it a second time it was not always on top, then starting it a third time its always on top again. I don't know).
I think the biggest problem with it is that its really obtuse when starting out and hard to know what you're even looking at. I wish you could right click anything and get a quick tooltip text of what it is, I think it would fix a lot of problems I had. When I started it up I had no idea what I was looking at and what the icons were. Or where I were, just a grey dot doesn't seem like enough when you're just starting the game. Clicking random buttons will eventually let me figure it out. Maybe a small icon over where you are on the map or something, some outlines or glowing when you hover over some UI elements like the compass. I'm still not what the 'search' icon is supposed to be, a river?
Some bad text kerning sometimes.
The battles felt pretty confusing and weird at first. Again, hard to know what the icons are so I'm just clicking them all to find out what does what. So you can only move/attack with one character per turn and after that they have to rest one turn? Really hard to know where characters are on the grids with them moving around so much and the grid size being uncertain when you first start playing.
Is the fox supposed to start half injured?
What's a brut? Brute?
The game plays fine once you know how it all works but its a bit rocky to get there. I think the right click for a short description suggestion could help a lot with it though. I hope you have some sounds for next time!
Hey thanks a lot for your feedback, I hear you on the lack of player guidance, I'm working on that right now.
The window mode is set now to "always on top", there will be a option for that. It's easier for me to test things that way. You're right it's best to play in window mode on a standard PC's, it's not meant to occupy all of your attention but run on the side of the screen while you watch a video or work or whatever. I'm toying with different ideas when the player wants to use it fullscreen, maybe keep it a certain size and then have different kind of borders, different layout, idk.
Music is kind of a problem right now because it's such a important aspect of any game and I still haven't found someone I can work with reliably, I don't want to resort to downloading free music but I guess I have to because no sound at all sucks.
Glad you like the art style, I'm not a artist myself so it takes a lot of iterations to get the sprites right, but once it looks ok, it's very rewarding. I'm happy people still can appreciate this style.
Regarding the grey dot on the map, it was a blinking dot before and I broke it in the rush while getting this out, sorry about that. Thanks for catching the typo too!
Lots of work ahead, I keep pushing to implement all the feedback I got for the next version. Really appreciate your time and honest thoughts.
The Graphics are nice, but theres nothing at that Path yet. Content seems to just be walking and fighting the same Goblin Group at the Moment. Once dead and restarting, you don't seem to get your Spellbook or initial Rations back, and you almost immediately starve to Death. Or at least I did. It shows me having 5 Rations tho, but I still starve when moving once, which is a Shame, because I suspect theres more out there somewhere. Had to restart the entire Game to fix it, managed to get to the Shop, but without Money, couldn't do anything there. You need Sound, and maybe some inverted Colors when clicking on something and/or hovering over something interactable, the UI and being able to interact with the Stuff in the Shop is nice, but you don't really have any Feedback on what you can/can't do and/or are doing. Maybe a small Window somewhere that shortly describes the Action you're about to take on hovering, like "poke the Spider?" when hovering over it etc.
Combat is rough, Enemies just beeline to you and attack, ignoring your Wolf, and with the turns set up as they are, the Wolf becomes majorly useless for pretty much anything. Also I wasn't really sure when I was able to control the Beastmaster, and when the Wolf. Or whats up with a Quickcasting Phase in the beginning. Overall the Combat is a bit confusing, it took a while to figure out some Things. The Game itself could be pretty charming tho, and the Art is simple but great.
Hey thanks so much for your honest feedback. Yes the content in the map is very minimal at this point, I was focusing on the combat in this version. I have a tutorial on the top of my list. I had this mindset that a game does not have to use tutorials but it really is necessary to get players going and not frustrate them with such a niche game. I will look into the ration issue you had, seems like a bug on restarting the game. Great Idea with the inverted colors to signal what is clickable.
In combat you are able to choose the character, if he's not exhausted. Meaning you can choose to act with the Beastmaster or the Fox ( it's not a wolf) in each turn until all your creatures are exhausted. I will put all this info and more in popup windows in a tutorial mode.
I work alone on this game and it's getting harder to see the things that are annoying or make no sense, I'm really grateful for this Jam and the AGDG community as I always get great feedback from you all. Thanks again for your time !
Neat! I had a bit of a rough time understanding what was going on in combat at first, but it looks like a decent little game. Very nice spritework considering the constraints you're putting on yourself.
I had what I think is an encounter with the "character exhaustion deadlock" you mention on your main page - after the fox attacked, the turn didn't pass on properly. I was probably clicking all over at the time.
I found some Alraune when searching the starting area, but I never found a use for them, or even how to open the inventory; is it implemented yet? Game could definitely use a tutorial. Maybe mention here that there's an explanation of how the game works on the main page.
Another minor thing that bugged me was not being able to scroll back up the text window.
Comments
here's a video of me trying out your game:
https://mega.nz/file/bEkG1K5L#gg96k85B35JaqxywvIAz0rSxpOWtYiAx_veiZrcB5EU
I hope my commentary and feedback is going to be helpful.
Hey man thanks for trying. I feel your frustration, I was cringing a little bit for all the bugs you've encountered, it really needs more work. Great suggestions I will incorporate into future versions, good advice for the turn indicator, it really is not clear how the combat works now (and it's also bug ridden). Some bugs I never saw before, like having no spells at all and what the hell happened in the shop?!?!?! lol
After like 20 mins you got smarter to not run into encounters all the time, that's good I guess.
Thanks again for your time.
You're welcome, and I hope you are going to be able to improve the game for next DD.
It's good that they happened, and I could record them for you, so you can fix all the bugs.
Really nice C64 graphics, trying to make a C64 is really cool.
I played it windowed as it seemed the best fit for the game, window is always on top though (actually when I started it a second time it was not always on top, then starting it a third time its always on top again. I don't know).
I think the biggest problem with it is that its really obtuse when starting out and hard to know what you're even looking at. I wish you could right click anything and get a quick tooltip text of what it is, I think it would fix a lot of problems I had. When I started it up I had no idea what I was looking at and what the icons were. Or where I were, just a grey dot doesn't seem like enough when you're just starting the game. Clicking random buttons will eventually let me figure it out. Maybe a small icon over where you are on the map or something, some outlines or glowing when you hover over some UI elements like the compass. I'm still not what the 'search' icon is supposed to be, a river?
Some bad text kerning sometimes.
The battles felt pretty confusing and weird at first. Again, hard to know what the icons are so I'm just clicking them all to find out what does what. So you can only move/attack with one character per turn and after that they have to rest one turn? Really hard to know where characters are on the grids with them moving around so much and the grid size being uncertain when you first start playing.
Is the fox supposed to start half injured?
What's a brut? Brute?
The game plays fine once you know how it all works but its a bit rocky to get there. I think the right click for a short description suggestion could help a lot with it though. I hope you have some sounds for next time!
Hey thanks a lot for your feedback, I hear you on the lack of player guidance, I'm working on that right now.
The window mode is set now to "always on top", there will be a option for that. It's easier for me to test things that way. You're right it's best to play in window mode on a standard PC's, it's not meant to occupy all of your attention but run on the side of the screen while you watch a video or work or whatever. I'm toying with different ideas when the player wants to use it fullscreen, maybe keep it a certain size and then have different kind of borders, different layout, idk.
Music is kind of a problem right now because it's such a important aspect of any game and I still haven't found someone I can work with reliably, I don't want to resort to downloading free music but I guess I have to because no sound at all sucks.
Glad you like the art style, I'm not a artist myself so it takes a lot of iterations to get the sprites right, but once it looks ok, it's very rewarding. I'm happy people still can appreciate this style.
Regarding the grey dot on the map, it was a blinking dot before and I broke it in the rush while getting this out, sorry about that. Thanks for catching the typo too!
Lots of work ahead, I keep pushing to implement all the feedback I got for the next version. Really appreciate your time and honest thoughts.
The Graphics are nice, but theres nothing at that Path yet. Content seems to just be walking and fighting the same Goblin Group at the Moment. Once dead and restarting, you don't seem to get your Spellbook or initial Rations back, and you almost immediately starve to Death. Or at least I did. It shows me having 5 Rations tho, but I still starve when moving once, which is a Shame, because I suspect theres more out there somewhere. Had to restart the entire Game to fix it, managed to get to the Shop, but without Money, couldn't do anything there. You need Sound, and maybe some inverted Colors when clicking on something and/or hovering over something interactable, the UI and being able to interact with the Stuff in the Shop is nice, but you don't really have any Feedback on what you can/can't do and/or are doing. Maybe a small Window somewhere that shortly describes the Action you're about to take on hovering, like "poke the Spider?" when hovering over it etc.
Combat is rough, Enemies just beeline to you and attack, ignoring your Wolf, and with the turns set up as they are, the Wolf becomes majorly useless for pretty much anything. Also I wasn't really sure when I was able to control the Beastmaster, and when the Wolf. Or whats up with a Quickcasting Phase in the beginning. Overall the Combat is a bit confusing, it took a while to figure out some Things. The Game itself could be pretty charming tho, and the Art is simple but great.
Hey thanks so much for your honest feedback. Yes the content in the map is very minimal at this point, I was focusing on the combat in this version. I have a tutorial on the top of my list. I had this mindset that a game does not have to use tutorials but it really is necessary to get players going and not frustrate them with such a niche game. I will look into the ration issue you had, seems like a bug on restarting the game. Great Idea with the inverted colors to signal what is clickable.
In combat you are able to choose the character, if he's not exhausted. Meaning you can choose to act with the Beastmaster or the Fox ( it's not a wolf) in each turn until all your creatures are exhausted. I will put all this info and more in popup windows in a tutorial mode.
I work alone on this game and it's getting harder to see the things that are annoying or make no sense, I'm really grateful for this Jam and the AGDG community as I always get great feedback from you all. Thanks again for your time !
Neat! I had a bit of a rough time understanding what was going on in combat at first, but it looks like a decent little game. Very nice spritework considering the constraints you're putting on yourself.
I had what I think is an encounter with the "character exhaustion deadlock" you mention on your main page - after the fox attacked, the turn didn't pass on properly. I was probably clicking all over at the time.
I found some Alraune when searching the starting area, but I never found a use for them, or even how to open the inventory; is it implemented yet? Game could definitely use a tutorial. Maybe mention here that there's an explanation of how the game works on the main page.
Another minor thing that bugged me was not being able to scroll back up the text window.
Hey thanks a ton for your feebdack!
Super good info to receive, especially with the inability to scroll the textbox, I never thought of that lol.
Inventory is not implemented yet, a lot that happens on the map is placeholder built up for future parts of the game.
For the battle, I will put the player aid/tutorial on the top of my list.
Thanks again