This is super cool, and has tons of potential. Once I figured out what I was doing, and that I could group my people up, the game opened up a ton which was really cool. I will admit I gave the PDF the briefest of scans before starting the game up, but I did figure it out quickly.
- Bugs
I had a bug where the "back" button didn't appear after a combat. I had to quit the game and reload. A player had joined another players combat, then leveled up if that helps.
- Feedback
The dice animation is cool, but I wish I could skip it after a bit. This actually goes for most of the damage pop-ups, I wish I could click and make them speed up. But that could be a me thing.
Too much combat. Fighting an enemy every turn in the wilderness gets tiresome, especially with how much clicking you need to do. You could maybe pick which tiles have enemies and which don't every 2-3 days or so, and lets players walk to them, instead of having seemingly random encounters.
Graphics/sound could obviously be better, but I get the game engine is the point, not frills, which I completely respect and can get past if the gameplay is good.
For future expansion, early goals and direction would help. Similar games like For The King give you a first quest to walk over to the nearest friendly town, with the option to search for a lost supply delivery. Stuff like that would definitely engage players more.
Personally I have fond memories of playing a game called "Dokapon Kingdom" as a kid, where players worked towards a common goal, but also competed against each other. You could also do childish things like change a players name to "poopface" or draw on their avatars face. I think stuff like that could be really fun here, especially if you ever end up wanting to put randoms in a lobby together.
Anyways, that's the end of my ramblings. I hope some of it's helpful. This seems like a great foundation to start building content on, and I'm excited to see where it goes.
Pal, thanks for taking the time to give my demo a try. I don't think I'll forget what was my very first feedback and who wrote it so soon!
Yes, 18-28-38-48 is a Dokapon-like, only toning down the luck-based elements and mean-spiritedness of the interactions between players a bit. I was watching some videos of the recent Dokapon Kingdom Switch port, though, and I couldn't help but notice that screwing other players over has the streamers in a frenzy. So, there IS a demand for all that mean-spiritedness. You see, I have this feature in the works... ngh, I have no one else to tell this, so I'll have to dump it on you, OK? I have this feature called "Reality Bend" in the works. These are toggles that change the core game rules in a session, but you must unlock them beforehand. In the future, then, I'll add something like, uh, "Discord Mode", which will allow players to go full Dokapon on the others. Contracting a hit, sabotaging cities, changing other players' names, going Darkling... I even have an unlock condition planned already: slaying another player in PvP once.
Speaking of PvP... BUG REPORT: dam, there's one that I've never got before. Going by your description, there were three groups fighting each other on the same tile, right? Well, I call this feature multi-PvP on the devlog, and there, I warn the player that the function is currently unstable. The code governing it is being held together by spit and chewing gum; I still haven't had a chance to refactor it since migrating to the new GameMaker version. I decided against locking it out of the engine because other kinds of problems might have arisen if I did, and I honestly expected to fix that sooner. Here's hoping I can patch it up by DD56. However, I've just remembered something. When you defeat a team in multi-PvP (even monster troops) but there are other parties present in the engagement, "< Back" really isn't supposed to appear. You have to click the "Change" button below the name of the opposing team and pick another party to engage. Only when there's a sole surviving party in the tile you're given the choice to leave the battle screen. Maybe that happened to you. But I'll take another good look at this feature and >go back to the drawing board ASAP.
FEEDBACK (UNEXPECTED): welp, boi... not gonna lie, visiting the engagement screen once per in-game day is a big part of my vision; if not to fight, to interact with resources and treasure chests. I can't and won't ignore your feedback, though. In fact, you've just given me two new Reality Bend ideas: a mode where you can freely opt out of all map events (you can already do this normally, but you need a whopping 80 Search) and another where the monster-infested areas are predetermined and tagged on the map. I think this may answer grievances a player might have against fighting every day. I'll have to do some planning first, but I think I can implement this soon enough, right in the first wave of Reality Bends. By the way, judging from the bug you've come across, it seems you were playing a game with multiple teams on the field, am I correct? The optimal single-player experience is deploying a single team for yourself. You can even fill the team with companions if you wish. If you were trying to manage four teams before, then you will have eliminated 75% of clicks between in-game days :) Noted the feedback on the dice animation and battle speed. I'll add an option to play them at 2x or to skip the dice roll completely.
FEEDBACK (EXPECTED): yep, the game will have story content and quests... soon. I want to perfect the engine before focusing on that, you know. The same goes for shaders and music (I have an idea of what the battle theme will be like). Verily I say unto you that I've already completed an importer/parser script for .txt files since submitting the DD55 build. Together with an interpreter, which I'll be working on, this feature will handle all of the text boxes in the game, allowing players to make their own custom quests too. It will also help me with localization woes. As I refactor the dialogue system (jank), I'll be integrating this new storyline handling paradigm at the same time; this is kinda high-priority rn.
Comments
This is super cool, and has tons of potential. Once I figured out what I was doing, and that I could group my people up, the game opened up a ton which was really cool. I will admit I gave the PDF the briefest of scans before starting the game up, but I did figure it out quickly.
- Bugs I had a bug where the "back" button didn't appear after a combat. I had to quit the game and reload. A player had joined another players combat, then leveled up if that helps.
- Feedback
The dice animation is cool, but I wish I could skip it after a bit. This actually goes for most of the damage pop-ups, I wish I could click and make them speed up. But that could be a me thing.
Too much combat. Fighting an enemy every turn in the wilderness gets tiresome, especially with how much clicking you need to do. You could maybe pick which tiles have enemies and which don't every 2-3 days or so, and lets players walk to them, instead of having seemingly random encounters.
Graphics/sound could obviously be better, but I get the game engine is the point, not frills, which I completely respect and can get past if the gameplay is good. For future expansion, early goals and direction would help. Similar games like For The King give you a first quest to walk over to the nearest friendly town, with the option to search for a lost supply delivery. Stuff like that would definitely engage players more.
Personally I have fond memories of playing a game called "Dokapon Kingdom" as a kid, where players worked towards a common goal, but also competed against each other. You could also do childish things like change a players name to "poopface" or draw on their avatars face. I think stuff like that could be really fun here, especially if you ever end up wanting to put randoms in a lobby together.
Anyways, that's the end of my ramblings. I hope some of it's helpful. This seems like a great foundation to start building content on, and I'm excited to see where it goes.
Pal, thanks for taking the time to give my demo a try. I don't think I'll forget what was my very first feedback and who wrote it so soon!
Yes, 18-28-38-48 is a Dokapon-like, only toning down the luck-based elements and mean-spiritedness of the interactions between players a bit. I was watching some videos of the recent Dokapon Kingdom Switch port, though, and I couldn't help but notice that screwing other players over has the streamers in a frenzy. So, there IS a demand for all that mean-spiritedness. You see, I have this feature in the works... ngh, I have no one else to tell this, so I'll have to dump it on you, OK? I have this feature called "Reality Bend" in the works. These are toggles that change the core game rules in a session, but you must unlock them beforehand. In the future, then, I'll add something like, uh, "Discord Mode", which will allow players to go full Dokapon on the others. Contracting a hit, sabotaging cities, changing other players' names, going Darkling... I even have an unlock condition planned already: slaying another player in PvP once.
Speaking of PvP...
BUG REPORT: dam, there's one that I've never got before. Going by your description, there were three groups fighting each other on the same tile, right? Well, I call this feature multi-PvP on the devlog, and there, I warn the player that the function is currently unstable. The code governing it is being held together by spit and chewing gum; I still haven't had a chance to refactor it since migrating to the new GameMaker version. I decided against locking it out of the engine because other kinds of problems might have arisen if I did, and I honestly expected to fix that sooner. Here's hoping I can patch it up by DD56.
However, I've just remembered something. When you defeat a team in multi-PvP (even monster troops) but there are other parties present in the engagement, "< Back" really isn't supposed to appear. You have to click the "Change" button below the name of the opposing team and pick another party to engage. Only when there's a sole surviving party in the tile you're given the choice to leave the battle screen. Maybe that happened to you. But I'll take another good look at this feature and >go back to the drawing board ASAP.
FEEDBACK (UNEXPECTED): welp, boi... not gonna lie, visiting the engagement screen once per in-game day is a big part of my vision; if not to fight, to interact with resources and treasure chests. I can't and won't ignore your feedback, though. In fact, you've just given me two new Reality Bend ideas: a mode where you can freely opt out of all map events (you can already do this normally, but you need a whopping 80 Search) and another where the monster-infested areas are predetermined and tagged on the map. I think this may answer grievances a player might have against fighting every day. I'll have to do some planning first, but I think I can implement this soon enough, right in the first wave of Reality Bends.
By the way, judging from the bug you've come across, it seems you were playing a game with multiple teams on the field, am I correct? The optimal single-player experience is deploying a single team for yourself. You can even fill the team with companions if you wish. If you were trying to manage four teams before, then you will have eliminated 75% of clicks between in-game days :)
Noted the feedback on the dice animation and battle speed. I'll add an option to play them at 2x or to skip the dice roll completely.
FEEDBACK (EXPECTED): yep, the game will have story content and quests... soon. I want to perfect the engine before focusing on that, you know. The same goes for shaders and music (I have an idea of what the battle theme will be like). Verily I say unto you that I've already completed an importer/parser script for .txt files since submitting the DD55 build. Together with an interpreter, which I'll be working on, this feature will handle all of the text boxes in the game, allowing players to make their own custom quests too. It will also help me with localization woes. As I refactor the dialogue system (jank), I'll be integrating this new storyline handling paradigm at the same time; this is kinda high-priority rn.
Peace out, godspeed. WAGMI.