The writing is funnier than I expected. The theme of the game (Santa and reindeer and such) seems completely asinine, so I was expecting something pretty crude. You got a few chuckles out of me though. The combat system is actually pretty smart too. I haven't played a lot of RPGs in the last 15 years or so, so I don't know what's out there. But having to dodge around when the enemies attack is a hell of a lot more fun than just clicking through menus every combat like in a lot of games. It's nice that the enemies can attack at the same time too, so you're dodging multiple things at once.
Keep it up. I don't really know why you chose the theme you did. It doesn't appeal to me at all. I assume it is some sort of furry thing, and if so, then I guess it would appeal to that niche. But I can see a lot of people dismissing it out of hand as a game for little children, unfortunately. Don't know who it's aimed at, I guess is my point. So that doesn't put me in a position to give a lot of useful feedback.
The game seems well polished and juicy though, so nice work there. I'd just be careful about instances where you warp a sprite around (like when the dodging phase starts. You warp into the square area. Or when a cutscene starts). Tweening a sprite into location is a lot better, because it maintains the illusion that you're controlling a physical thing.
The theme was to try to be novel and sarcy about the premise, but with strong gameplay underneath it. Usually a Winter or Christmas themed game tends to be a bit throwaway or dismissed titles like you mentioned. However I was thinking if I delivered something of quality it could hit a niche that might not be covered by other games(I think the only other one in a similar setting is Cthulu Saves Christmas). The main target audience I envisioned would be some of the Mario RPG or Undertale/Deltarune players who'd be more receptive the cuter character designs, and non-standard RPG settings.
Re: the warping, yeah fair enough, I've gotten quite a lot of feedback on that so I'll look into making it so the characters move into position instead of warping.
Ah ok, I see. In that case, I would strongly suggest changing the name of the game. Because "Reindeer Story" reads as completely sincere. Something like "Cthulu Saves Christmas" instantly reads as wacky, you can tell the tone from the name alone. Something like "Super Reindeer RPG" could work, because it's so obviously ridiculous. Naming a game is really hard but really import, imo
Gave it a look. It's not really my thing I think, but I took some notes.
-Sideways and vertical movement look like completely different forms of locomotion in the overworld
-The teleport into the middle of the combat area when it's time to dodge feels really jank, but I love the way the music changes gears.
-I turned on my nose by tapping c and the effect stayed where it was when I entered an encounter
-Jumping downwards onto a platform makes your shadow twitch all over
-I hoped that ramming into enemies would start the encounter differently. Shame it doesn't seem to.
-I don't really see why you would ever use melee attacks 90% of the time? There's free specials that do just as much damage, and some enemies hurt you when you try, so the only use seems to be enemies that are strong against your special's element.
-Having to ram the candy-stealing bird's tree several times wasn't very intuitive. I thought I was doing it wrong the first couple times.
-Partridge and Chestni are a helluva difficulty spike. But I didn't interact much with the RPG mechanics so maybe I was underpowered due to lack of equipment and levels.
-Is there a way to bypass these iron turtles' armor?
Dropped it in the abandoned factory. Combat system just isn't very interesting to me.
The dialogue seems really awkward. Like the characters are making one liners and jokes and if they're supposed to be cool or funny, it's really not landing with me.
Bit weird that the manual is a separate download when it's already included in the .zip
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll take a look at the bugs.
I see regarding the locomotion, in practice they're basically the same. Maybe it's just the animation and the nature of Lux's sprite being longer from the side view.
If you stun an enemy with the nose blast and then ram into them with the horns it destroys them in the overwrold.
Regarding the combat Upgraded equipment boosts the power of your standard attacks. The melee moves scale a bit more with the boosted equipment. There's a few skills that you can pick up to make Partridge and Chestni easier. The shelled enemies defence can be overcome via Z-Skills which always deal 1 damage, getting the Timed Hits which boosts damage by 1.5x and always deals a minimum of 1, or equipping more powerful skills.
The story and dialogue of the prototype is wholey tongue-in-cheek tbh, to avoid needing to commit to main story elements while I was still designing the games systems.
Yeah, I mean the animation. Going up and down it looks like a cartoony trot with the legs crossing, but in side view it looks more like a proper deer gallop/bounce with a lot of air time and the legs moving in synch. It feels a bit weird when you switch directions imo.
I'll try and find time to give it another shot where I pay a little more attention to the mechanics.
Fair enough on the story and dialogue being placeholders, but it might be a good idea to take it seriously, even for a prototype; comedy is really hard to write and it'd be good practice and allow you to get feedback on the tone and writing without spoiling the main game. (well I say that but I'm a terrible writer, what the hell do I know)
Comments
The writing is funnier than I expected. The theme of the game (Santa and reindeer and such) seems completely asinine, so I was expecting something pretty crude. You got a few chuckles out of me though. The combat system is actually pretty smart too. I haven't played a lot of RPGs in the last 15 years or so, so I don't know what's out there. But having to dodge around when the enemies attack is a hell of a lot more fun than just clicking through menus every combat like in a lot of games. It's nice that the enemies can attack at the same time too, so you're dodging multiple things at once.
Keep it up. I don't really know why you chose the theme you did. It doesn't appeal to me at all. I assume it is some sort of furry thing, and if so, then I guess it would appeal to that niche. But I can see a lot of people dismissing it out of hand as a game for little children, unfortunately. Don't know who it's aimed at, I guess is my point. So that doesn't put me in a position to give a lot of useful feedback.
The game seems well polished and juicy though, so nice work there. I'd just be careful about instances where you warp a sprite around (like when the dodging phase starts. You warp into the square area. Or when a cutscene starts). Tweening a sprite into location is a lot better, because it maintains the illusion that you're controlling a physical thing.
Thanks for playing the game and the feedback.
The theme was to try to be novel and sarcy about the premise, but with strong gameplay underneath it. Usually a Winter or Christmas themed game tends to be a bit throwaway or dismissed titles like you mentioned. However I was thinking if I delivered something of quality it could hit a niche that might not be covered by other games(I think the only other one in a similar setting is Cthulu Saves Christmas). The main target audience I envisioned would be some of the Mario RPG or Undertale/Deltarune players who'd be more receptive the cuter character designs, and non-standard RPG settings.
Re: the warping, yeah fair enough, I've gotten quite a lot of feedback on that so I'll look into making it so the characters move into position instead of warping.
Thanks again.
>novel and sarcy about the premise
Ah ok, I see. In that case, I would strongly suggest changing the name of the game. Because "Reindeer Story" reads as completely sincere. Something like "Cthulu Saves Christmas" instantly reads as wacky, you can tell the tone from the name alone. Something like "Super Reindeer RPG" could work, because it's so obviously ridiculous. Naming a game is really hard but really import, imo
Rightio, that's a pretty good point regarding the name.
Gave it a look. It's not really my thing I think, but I took some notes.
-Sideways and vertical movement look like completely different forms of locomotion in the overworld
-The teleport into the middle of the combat area when it's time to dodge feels really jank, but I love the way the music changes gears.
-I turned on my nose by tapping c and the effect stayed where it was when I entered an encounter
-Jumping downwards onto a platform makes your shadow twitch all over
-I hoped that ramming into enemies would start the encounter differently. Shame it doesn't seem to.
-I don't really see why you would ever use melee attacks 90% of the time? There's free specials that do just as much damage, and some enemies hurt you when you try, so the only use seems to be enemies that are strong against your special's element.
-Having to ram the candy-stealing bird's tree several times wasn't very intuitive. I thought I was doing it wrong the first couple times.
-Partridge and Chestni are a helluva difficulty spike. But I didn't interact much with the RPG mechanics so maybe I was underpowered due to lack of equipment and levels.
-Is there a way to bypass these iron turtles' armor?
Dropped it in the abandoned factory. Combat system just isn't very interesting to me.
The dialogue seems really awkward. Like the characters are making one liners and jokes and if they're supposed to be cool or funny, it's really not landing with me.
Bit weird that the manual is a separate download when it's already included in the .zip
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I'll take a look at the bugs.
I see regarding the locomotion, in practice they're basically the same. Maybe it's just the animation and the nature of Lux's sprite being longer from the side view.
If you stun an enemy with the nose blast and then ram into them with the horns it destroys them in the overwrold.
Regarding the combat Upgraded equipment boosts the power of your standard attacks. The melee moves scale a bit more with the boosted equipment. There's a few skills that you can pick up to make Partridge and Chestni easier. The shelled enemies defence can be overcome via Z-Skills which always deal 1 damage, getting the Timed Hits which boosts damage by 1.5x and always deals a minimum of 1, or equipping more powerful skills.
The story and dialogue of the prototype is wholey tongue-in-cheek tbh, to avoid needing to commit to main story elements while I was still designing the games systems.
Yeah, I mean the animation. Going up and down it looks like a cartoony trot with the legs crossing, but in side view it looks more like a proper deer gallop/bounce with a lot of air time and the legs moving in synch. It feels a bit weird when you switch directions imo.
I'll try and find time to give it another shot where I pay a little more attention to the mechanics.
Fair enough on the story and dialogue being placeholders, but it might be a good idea to take it seriously, even for a prototype; comedy is really hard to write and it'd be good practice and allow you to get feedback on the tone and writing without spoiling the main game. (well I say that but I'm a terrible writer, what the hell do I know)