I recorded playing games with commentary, and your game was one of the games I wanted to give feedback on.
I use linux and I tried to run it with Wine, but it did not go well, so I tried to improvise. I hope you are going to find my video useful. I actually think it might be a better way to get my points across, but it is still a shame I did not get to really play the game.
It seems heavily WIP so I don't think I can talk about much other than the visual presentation, which looks pretty good. I'm interested in seeing how well these models do in more varied environments though as this scene is a bit one-tone.
On this regard though I hope you plan on redoing the party info menu because I like the tube screen tv style of the commands menu quite a bit.
No Mouse support and no Controller support? Also unbeatable, starts in the combat System with Olivia having no Attack Option, and running out of Energy before even one Enemy dies, at which Point you're stuck with Olivia. (Remembered the Partymember swapping in Time, but its still stupid. Leaves you with having to constantly swap away from your 0 HP 1EN Olivia who can do nothing to use the other two.)
Enemies also seem to be unbeatable, so I guess its just a combat system Demo with Punching Bags at this Point.
Excellent and soulful graphics. I have no idea what is even going on with the combat system. It needs more indicators of what is happening and what you're supposed to be doing. It doesn't seem to be fully functional anyway though, since I could not get the battle to end.
I played your demo and I had problems trying to know which character I'm in control. There's no visual clue for that neither. Maybe you can put a colored circle bellow the character in control like this edit I made:
With something like this, its visually clear which character is at your command. There are other ways like for example a triangle in the head, but as long as it is something that pops out visually, it will be fine.
Gameplay wise, the combat feel too fast, but maybe it's because I'm not used to this type of RPG. I read the story premise on the game page, and I like the idea of a RPG in a city/school setting.
For the moment, I don't have more things to say, I hope you keep working and polishing your game. Keep the good work.
Obviously this is a very rough prototype so I won't be too critical but the biggest problems I see here are the lack of telegraphing and the combat moving too rapidly.
I can't tell when or which enemy is going to attack, and they attack extremely quickly. Realtime combat can work but I think the enemies have to give you some breathing room, and knowing what the enemy timers are is important to keep the player informed for decision making, and also to make it so the enemies dont just feel like they are randomly hurting you and not obeying any rules.
Related, it's impossible to know which character you have selected, which makes the telegraphing even more confusing. I'm also not sure what the point of a character who has no skills when they are out of energy is. If she can't attack she should at least have some kind of weaker free ability so she remains relevant.
The visual style is nice but I'm not a huge fan of the shading model on the characters, feels more appropriate to have some kind of stepped shader or a cartoony phong effect. Stealing TF2's shader model would work nicely with these designs imo.
The environment is a little bit drab, I think more contrast on characters could help them pop. Perhaps lighting them separately to the room lighting so their colors show up better?
Overall there's a foundation here but it needs a lot of work to get off the ground.
P.S. bug report: the tall guy pathed outside the map and was no longer able to receive commands even though his charge meter filled.
the atb battle system feels a bit weird, i think its mostly cause im so used to the wait mode in old final fantasy's atb where the game actually waits until u pick your move
a few complaints about it:
- there is nothing that indicates which character is currently active - olivia doesnt have an attack for some reason - the damage numers are small and float way above the characters, ideally u should draw them right on whoever is takin the damage - really needs some sfx
game looks really good and that enviroment is p nice, keep up the good job!
Not sure if I played the game right. I started in combat, fighting an enemy and mostly just hit attack and switch character in Olivia's turn when her energy ran out.
- The general 3D style is interesting and works.
- The demo didn't convince me of the real-time system with passage of time during command selection. I think it can work but it feels like it turns everything into a game against the UI (rather than the enemies) and quickly for navigating to commands. I'm not sure if that's really a promising core gameplay mechanic. If you want to stick with this, I would recommend playing around with different UI concepts than a traditional command list based UI.
- Minor bug: Olivia got KOed but I could still switch to her since he had a queued up turn.
Gameplay is very fast without any sort of tutorial. Might be nice to be able to pause while menuing.
I'd really like a way to tell which character I have selected. Just their name at the top of the selection menu would be fine.
Olivia ran out of energy and now I can't do anything with her and I can't tell the other characters to do stuff. Is there no "skip turn" button?
Everyone's at 0 HP and they don't seem to be dying or anything.
I got onto a "tactics" menu and I can't figure out how to leave.
Second try, I see it's "C" to swap active unit
I think I managed to beat the poltergeist into submission this time - at least, it's stopped attacking - and now it's just the phantoms doing eternal 0-damage attacks
Punch guy can't seem to damage them and no matter how many times I give them the bat it doesn't seem to kill them.
Love the look of the game. It's a really nice blend of styles with a lot of personality. But the combat can still be improved by a lot, I think. It's a good start on the core systems, but it is lacking in clarity. I just attacked over and over while getting bashed into the ground. I couldn't tell if I had almost killed anyone or not, and eventually my team just died without ever killing anyone. Sometimes the menu would only come up with a "skills" option, which had a greyed out "Great job team" or something, and the items menu, which didn't do anything. It took a minute to figure out I needed to hit C to switch, meanwhile everyone is getting bashed. The semi-real time combat system is not great in my opinion. The way I've seen these work is that when your meter fills up, the game pauses and lets you select your action for that character, and then continues when you are done. Menu navigation is not something that is enjoyable to do in real-time, because every moment you take clicking through it, is more damage you're taking.
Keep going though, the style and atmosphere is killer. It takes quite a few iterations to get these sort of systems really smoothly working and enjoyable, but you are well on your way. Don't take my criticisms as a negative, I just want to see this get to where it deserves to be.
Comments
I recorded playing games with commentary, and your game was one of the games I wanted to give feedback on.
I use linux and I tried to run it with Wine, but it did not go well, so I tried to improvise. I hope you are going to find my video useful. I actually think it might be a better way to get my points across, but it is still a shame I did not get to really play the game.
Here's the link to the whole DD50 folder:
https://mega.nz/folder/GclCXISL#gwE9S1kRTbe6amYLH2RiYA
Your characters are really nice by the way
It seems heavily WIP so I don't think I can talk about much other than the visual presentation, which looks pretty good. I'm interested in seeing how well these models do in more varied environments though as this scene is a bit one-tone.
On this regard though I hope you plan on redoing the party info menu because I like the tube screen tv style of the commands menu quite a bit.
Looking forward to whatever comes next!
Don't bind to Z/Y, thank you.
No Mouse support and no Controller support? Also unbeatable, starts in the combat System with Olivia having no Attack Option, and running out of Energy before even one Enemy dies, at which Point you're stuck with Olivia. (Remembered the Partymember swapping in Time, but its still stupid. Leaves you with having to constantly swap away from your 0 HP 1EN Olivia who can do nothing to use the other two.)
Enemies also seem to be unbeatable, so I guess its just a combat system Demo with Punching Bags at this Point.
Graphics are nice.
Excellent and soulful graphics. I have no idea what is even going on with the combat system. It needs more indicators of what is happening and what you're supposed to be doing. It doesn't seem to be fully functional anyway though, since I could not get the battle to end.
I played your demo and I had problems trying to know which character I'm in control. There's no visual clue for that neither. Maybe you can put a colored circle bellow the character in control like this edit I made:
With something like this, its visually clear which character is at your command. There are other ways like for example a triangle in the head, but as long as it is something that pops out visually, it will be fine.
Gameplay wise, the combat feel too fast, but maybe it's because I'm not used to this type of RPG. I read the story premise on the game page, and I like the idea of a RPG in a city/school setting.
For the moment, I don't have more things to say, I hope you keep working and polishing your game. Keep the good work.
Obviously this is a very rough prototype so I won't be too critical but the biggest problems I see here are the lack of telegraphing and the combat moving too rapidly.
I can't tell when or which enemy is going to attack, and they attack extremely quickly. Realtime combat can work but I think the enemies have to give you some breathing room, and knowing what the enemy timers are is important to keep the player informed for decision making, and also to make it so the enemies dont just feel like they are randomly hurting you and not obeying any rules.
Related, it's impossible to know which character you have selected, which makes the telegraphing even more confusing. I'm also not sure what the point of a character who has no skills when they are out of energy is. If she can't attack she should at least have some kind of weaker free ability so she remains relevant.
The visual style is nice but I'm not a huge fan of the shading model on the characters, feels more appropriate to have some kind of stepped shader or a cartoony phong effect. Stealing TF2's shader model would work nicely with these designs imo.
The environment is a little bit drab, I think more contrast on characters could help them pop. Perhaps lighting them separately to the room lighting so their colors show up better?
Overall there's a foundation here but it needs a lot of work to get off the ground.
P.S. bug report: the tall guy pathed outside the map and was no longer able to receive commands even though his charge meter filled.
the atb battle system feels a bit weird, i think its mostly cause im so used to the wait mode in old final fantasy's atb where the game actually waits until u pick your move
a few complaints about it:
- there is nothing that indicates which character is currently active
- olivia doesnt have an attack for some reason
- the damage numers are small and float way above the characters, ideally u should draw them right on whoever is takin the damage
- really needs some sfx
game looks really good and that enviroment is p nice, keep up the good job!
Not sure if I played the game right. I started in combat, fighting an enemy and mostly just hit attack and switch character in Olivia's turn when her energy ran out.
- The general 3D style is interesting and works.
- The demo didn't convince me of the real-time system with passage of time during command selection. I think it can work but it feels like it turns everything into a game against the UI (rather than the enemies) and quickly for navigating to commands. I'm not sure if that's really a promising core gameplay mechanic. If you want to stick with this, I would recommend playing around with different UI concepts than a traditional command list based UI.
- Minor bug: Olivia got KOed but I could still switch to her since he had a queued up turn.
I gave it a shot and took some notes.
Very appealing visuals.
Very abrupt intro.
Gameplay is very fast without any sort of tutorial. Might be nice to be able to pause while menuing.
I'd really like a way to tell which character I have selected. Just their name at the top of the selection menu would be fine.
Olivia ran out of energy and now I can't do anything with her and I can't tell the other characters to do stuff. Is there no "skip turn" button?
Everyone's at 0 HP and they don't seem to be dying or anything.
I got onto a "tactics" menu and I can't figure out how to leave.
Second try, I see it's "C" to swap active unit
I think I managed to beat the poltergeist into submission this time - at least, it's stopped attacking - and now it's just the phantoms doing eternal 0-damage attacks
Punch guy can't seem to damage them and no matter how many times I give them the bat it doesn't seem to kill them.
Love the look of the game. It's a really nice blend of styles with a lot of personality. But the combat can still be improved by a lot, I think. It's a good start on the core systems, but it is lacking in clarity. I just attacked over and over while getting bashed into the ground. I couldn't tell if I had almost killed anyone or not, and eventually my team just died without ever killing anyone. Sometimes the menu would only come up with a "skills" option, which had a greyed out "Great job team" or something, and the items menu, which didn't do anything. It took a minute to figure out I needed to hit C to switch, meanwhile everyone is getting bashed. The semi-real time combat system is not great in my opinion. The way I've seen these work is that when your meter fills up, the game pauses and lets you select your action for that character, and then continues when you are done. Menu navigation is not something that is enjoyable to do in real-time, because every moment you take clicking through it, is more damage you're taking.
Keep going though, the style and atmosphere is killer. It takes quite a few iterations to get these sort of systems really smoothly working and enjoyable, but you are well on your way. Don't take my criticisms as a negative, I just want to see this get to where it deserves to be.
A lot of work has been put into this I see. Seems like an ambitious project, little steps everyday, keep at it!