Not sure if someone already said that earlier but mixing terrorists and magical girls sounds unconventional. So unconventional that I started questioning for who the game is aimed. I'm not fond of the writing - shady man shows up from nowhere, then suddenly this daughter of CEOs of the top corporation comes for rescue and scares him away and now you're best friends with her? It's too convinient, my suspension of disbelief is already stretched thin. And what's with MCs response? "I need to talk to my magical cat first... or my dad". The next thing is a timeskip to the gala and the terrorists show up with guns blazing? I don't know, it's too abrasive, there's not enough build-up. Stories grounded in reality with fantastical elements can work but the fantastical elements shouldn't be introduced like it's the most obvious thing and expect the player to just accept it at face value. I'd call the scenario as it is now a rough draft that still needs to be reworked.
The gameplay in the dungeon is decent. There could be an indication that when you face an enemy in straight line with two spaces between you'll attack. My initial thought was that I needed to use my spells and then I wandered around waiting for cooldown. I experienced the same bug as Lowell, you can't have your magic attack selected and then walk around attacking with normal attacks as then the enemies turn won't start and you can't do anything as well. Fortunately you can save a game at that point, quit and reload it so the bug disappears. Balance of fights was mostly fine,fighting melee enemies one on one wasn't a problem, I disliked ranged enemies as they could always shoot me once but at least you can heal with time and somehow I managed to have enough resources to last me till the end. I found pretty good gear as well. I managed to start second run for the same dungeon when exploring the area at the end. There's a question if you want to start dungeoning, but you can't get out from that area once you cross the broken wall. I had to finish it second time to go to school.
Graphics could also use a little brighter palette. For a game with magical girls it's a little too spartan. Grass is too dark, houses too mundane, roads too grey. Pastel colours would work much better in that setting, take a look at Umihara Kawase, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Yoshi's Island or Needy Streamer Overload. Also I have a feeling that low resolution is limiting the details too much. I really liked the music for the bossfight.
Overall a decent roguelike with a weird setting that'll struggle to find audience.
Thanks for playing. My intent for the story was to make it like a typical superhero story but with magical girls instead of superheroes, which is why you're fighting normal humans instead of monsters. I might rework some of the story to have more build up. The bug you found is because you're not supposed to be able to walk around while in "targeting mode" for your spells; I guess I didn't account for that. Luckily it should be a quick fix.
Alright I gave it two good goes, but wasn't able to get to the end, in my first run I died because I didn't understand the wait mechanic at the time but after I figured it out I was on a roll until my game bugged out. The bug seemed to happen after I went to cast a spell, changed my mind and then attack, everyone including myself froze in place and I couldn't do anything. I like the environment and combat, I like the quick pace it has over some more traditional turn based rpgs which is great. I would for sure explain waiting somewhere, and the combat was never explained but it's pretty intuitive so that's fine. I liked the different spells and the spell tree seemed cool. I would love an autosave feature, I forgot to save the first time and had to replay the prologue again, which wasn't terribly long but still. A lot of asks, but I can see you've made a good bit of progress so great job, I will give it a whirl next submission! Also what are your current plans for the game?
Glad you liked the game. I plan to add a tutorial to tell players about waiting and other mechanics. Also looks like you ran into the same bug as Madness Inside did, which is caused by moving and targeting a spell at the same time.
My plans for the game are to finish up the story obviously, but I might also add a "roguelike mode" where you just go through all the dungeons without any story, for those roguelike purists. Kind of like how Lufia 2 has the main game and the Ancient Cave.
This is a fun rogue-like and I found the gameplay to have a good balance between risk and reward, but it needs a lot more features. For example, no hotkey to open the inventory right away is somewhat inconvenient for a rogue-like. I thought the same about the lack of diagonal movement and no option to move with the keypad. I feel embarrassed about complaining about this, but I forgot to save twice (actually, I forgot the save feature even existed) and got sent right back to the beginning after dying, so an auto-save feature would be very helpful. While I was playing I found three bugs. One is that if you're moving down or up and press left or right subsequently, the game will override your input, but not if you're moving left or right and press up or down. Not exactly game-breaking but it makes movement inconsistent. Second is that when you sell or buy or something in the shop the confirm message says "the string wasn't found" (yet surprisingly still works). Third one's less a bug and more simply something that bothered me but, in the hotel, you can't go all the way to the edge of the veranda. Also, battle UI should probably go away outside of the dungeons ( especially during the cutscenes).
Thanks for playing. I watched your video and saw you did a "moonwalk" at one point lol. Not sure how you did that but this should be fixed (or maybe I should leave it in as a feature?)
Unfortunately diagonal movement would be too hard to implement as I would have to draw a bunch of extra sprites for each character for the diagonal directions. There actually is a key to open the inventory - it's 'C' (for character menu). Maybe I can make 'I' work as well. I can add the option to move with the keypad (and eventually you will be able to rebind the controls). I do plan to add autosaves and maybe have it save on exit too. Also, nice catch on the bugs.
Made some changes to the story and introduction cutscenes. (The story has a bit more yuri now cause I realized that's what magical girl games need lol)
The demo ends shortly after the first dungeon now. You can now explore the town but it's mostly empty since I didn't have time to add NPCs yet.
Other changes
-Shops now working
-Bugfixes like camera stuttering fixed, words in dialogue no longer "jump" to the next line anymore, etc.
-Rare equipment now gives elemental damage bonuses
Comments
Not sure if someone already said that earlier but mixing terrorists and magical girls sounds unconventional. So unconventional that I started questioning for who the game is aimed. I'm not fond of the writing - shady man shows up from nowhere, then suddenly this daughter of CEOs of the top corporation comes for rescue and scares him away and now you're best friends with her? It's too convinient, my suspension of disbelief is already stretched thin. And what's with MCs response? "I need to talk to my magical cat first... or my dad". The next thing is a timeskip to the gala and the terrorists show up with guns blazing? I don't know, it's too abrasive, there's not enough build-up. Stories grounded in reality with fantastical elements can work but the fantastical elements shouldn't be introduced like it's the most obvious thing and expect the player to just accept it at face value. I'd call the scenario as it is now a rough draft that still needs to be reworked.
The gameplay in the dungeon is decent. There could be an indication that when you face an enemy in straight line with two spaces between you'll attack. My initial thought was that I needed to use my spells and then I wandered around waiting for cooldown. I experienced the same bug as Lowell, you can't have your magic attack selected and then walk around attacking with normal attacks as then the enemies turn won't start and you can't do anything as well. Fortunately you can save a game at that point, quit and reload it so the bug disappears. Balance of fights was mostly fine,fighting melee enemies one on one wasn't a problem, I disliked ranged enemies as they could always shoot me once but at least you can heal with time and somehow I managed to have enough resources to last me till the end. I found pretty good gear as well. I managed to start second run for the same dungeon when exploring the area at the end. There's a question if you want to start dungeoning, but you can't get out from that area once you cross the broken wall. I had to finish it second time to go to school.
Graphics could also use a little brighter palette. For a game with magical girls it's a little too spartan. Grass is too dark, houses too mundane, roads too grey. Pastel colours would work much better in that setting, take a look at Umihara Kawase, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Yoshi's Island or Needy Streamer Overload. Also I have a feeling that low resolution is limiting the details too much. I really liked the music for the bossfight.
Overall a decent roguelike with a weird setting that'll struggle to find audience.
Thanks for playing. My intent for the story was to make it like a typical superhero story but with magical girls instead of superheroes, which is why you're fighting normal humans instead of monsters. I might rework some of the story to have more build up. The bug you found is because you're not supposed to be able to walk around while in "targeting mode" for your spells; I guess I didn't account for that. Luckily it should be a quick fix.
Alright I gave it two good goes, but wasn't able to get to the end, in my first run I died because I didn't understand the wait mechanic at the time but after I figured it out I was on a roll until my game bugged out. The bug seemed to happen after I went to cast a spell, changed my mind and then attack, everyone including myself froze in place and I couldn't do anything. I like the environment and combat, I like the quick pace it has over some more traditional turn based rpgs which is great. I would for sure explain waiting somewhere, and the combat was never explained but it's pretty intuitive so that's fine. I liked the different spells and the spell tree seemed cool. I would love an autosave feature, I forgot to save the first time and had to replay the prologue again, which wasn't terribly long but still. A lot of asks, but I can see you've made a good bit of progress so great job, I will give it a whirl next submission! Also what are your current plans for the game?
Glad you liked the game. I plan to add a tutorial to tell players about waiting and other mechanics. Also looks like you ran into the same bug as Madness Inside did, which is caused by moving and targeting a spell at the same time.
My plans for the game are to finish up the story obviously, but I might also add a "roguelike mode" where you just go through all the dungeons without any story, for those roguelike purists. Kind of like how Lufia 2 has the main game and the Ancient Cave.
Sounds great! Best of luck devving, I'll see you next submission
This is a fun rogue-like and I found the gameplay to have a good balance between risk and reward, but it needs a lot more features. For example, no hotkey to open the inventory right away is somewhat inconvenient for a rogue-like. I thought the same about the lack of diagonal movement and no option to move with the keypad. I feel embarrassed about complaining about this, but I forgot to save twice (actually, I forgot the save feature even existed) and got sent right back to the beginning after dying, so an auto-save feature would be very helpful. While I was playing I found three bugs. One is that if you're moving down or up and press left or right subsequently, the game will override your input, but not if you're moving left or right and press up or down. Not exactly game-breaking but it makes movement inconsistent. Second is that when you sell or buy or something in the shop the confirm message says "the string wasn't found" (yet surprisingly still works). Third one's less a bug and more simply something that bothered me but, in the hotel, you can't go all the way to the edge of the veranda. Also, battle UI should probably go away outside of the dungeons ( especially during the cutscenes).
Thanks for playing. I watched your video and saw you did a "moonwalk" at one point lol. Not sure how you did that but this should be fixed (or maybe I should leave it in as a feature?)
Unfortunately diagonal movement would be too hard to implement as I would have to draw a bunch of extra sprites for each character for the diagonal directions. There actually is a key to open the inventory - it's 'C' (for character menu). Maybe I can make 'I' work as well. I can add the option to move with the keypad (and eventually you will be able to rebind the controls). I do plan to add autosaves and maybe have it save on exit too. Also, nice catch on the bugs.
Changes since the last DD:
Made some changes to the story and introduction cutscenes. (The story has a bit more yuri now cause I realized that's what magical girl games need lol)
The demo ends shortly after the first dungeon now. You can now explore the town but it's mostly empty since I didn't have time to add NPCs yet.
Other changes
-Shops now working
-Bugfixes like camera stuttering fixed, words in dialogue no longer "jump" to the next line anymore, etc.
-Rare equipment now gives elemental damage bonuses