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Sub Mare Imperium - Tragedy of the Uncanny's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Art / Graphics | #36 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Controls / UI | #45 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall Fun | #54 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Sound/Music | #80 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Genre #1
RPG
JRPG | CRPG | MMO| RPG
Strategy
Turn-based | Card Games | RTS | 4X
Rating #2
For adults
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Yeah, I remember now, I was supposed to write my feedback on this game.
For context, I am too young to have played any of the game's inspirations, so it is my first time playing something like this.
I played this game on three occasions, once with the initial browser build, once with the gba version on an emulator and once on the updated browser build.
The initial browser build was unstable as it was easy to lose the focus of the game. It is how I ended my first playthrough early.
The gba version was functional but was quite slow after having played the quite faster browser build. Also for some reason, something like one input on four wasn't registered at all (maybe an emulator bug?) which made the game feel even slower. Despite having save states, it is not on this version that I finished the game.
The updated browser build worked well. This time I used the ultimate artefact of any Etrian Odyssey game: paper and pencils. With a map,I was easily able to beat the game.
The game has two main gameplays exploration and combat:
Exploration:
Exploration was at first uninviting, as everything seemed the same and I was easily lost. However, after using the legendary map, exploring isn’t actually that hard. Without the anxiety of being lost, it actually gives the opportunity to contemplate the scenery a little more, and notice that rooms are actually less similar than they first appear. There are also secrets hidden (I found a second party member and two medic packs).
Combat:
There may be a pretty complex battle system out there, but if it is the case, it is very obscure. From my observation, attack does sometimes a few damage, defend may reduce incoming damage, special is similar to attack, run gives roughly 50% chance of escaping. The best way to deal with battles is, well, to run away, as winning doesn't seem to give any advantage. The second best way is to mash the attack button. The current system is quite similar to what you could find in the very early game of a dragon quest, which means it isn’t very engaging. It really needs a boss or something to raise the stakes.
There are a lot of things that could be added to this game, like sounds to begin with, but given the game is supposed to work on very limited platforms, I don’t know how relevant my suggestions would be.
Feedback fairyloading.
You are the chosen one. The prophecy is true!
*Bows before you*
I'm not worthy!
Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 7! My name's Hythrain and I'm one of the hosts and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!
So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.
I'm not going to comment on the visuals since when attempting to play this I did learn you were going for something specific. However, that doesn't mean I can't speak on gameplay.
So first, I think a map would be a good idea. This place is a maze and I kept getting lost. You can make it where you have to explore an area to put it on the map, but once you do it'll label things if you open the map. Otherwise, it can be pretty easy to get lost.
Second, there needs to be a reason to engage in combat. Beyond characters having a kill counter, fighting provided nothing it seemed. Alternatively, the length of battle and how things are programmed means RNG can really rake you over the coals. I got to a point where I just ran from battle because I had no reason to do it.
Lastly, please add sound. It's so quiet and lonely. D:
Hello Hythrain, thank you very much!
I would like to have the Youtube link, please.
As for your feedback, thank you for pointing out those things.
The map is something that's been pointed out before, but I'm unsure if that's a matter of bad level design or if I should really add a map (something I believe might take the player out of the context of the simulation...but the prequel to this game had a map).
As for the motivation for the combat, it is a very fair question and one I've been considering even before I first released this demo. The prequel didn't have combat, only puzzles, and I felt like it missed something, but I didn't stop to properly craft into the narrative for a reason for this combat to happen.
My previous games (such as Dungeons of Noudar and The Mistral Report) had combat quite woven into the level design, almost like a environmental storytelling and without a "combat screen". This time I decided to try something different, but I kind of prefer the other way - I totally understand why older games required this kind of separation, but I honestly don't need it (even with the meager 288KB of RAM on the GBA).
On my way forward, I want to add more life into to the world and have the player interacting and conflicting with other characters. This might even help making the places more memorable and easier to navigate without a map.
The saddest part is that this combat screen took me a long time to code :(
Regarding the sound, I'm still trying to find my way around the GBA sound hardware in way that makes it compatible with my other systems. Right now, the DOS version has *some* sound, as well as my (still unreleased) native MacOS version.
Here is a link to the VOD.
I will say, one of the things I wanted to make sure of when I played this game was I kept in mind the intended limitations of the game. I'm a proponent that old hardware doesn't mean bad game, and that games designed today on retro hardware should still meet with today's standards. When in doubt on what the real problem is, this is a good question to ask yourself: is this to modern gaming standards and sensibilities? If not, why? Once you know why, ask if that reason why is intentional on your part? If it is, ok. You're trying to reflect an aspect of older gaming. In that situation, you should implement a tool that is designed to help people deal with it but make its use optional. A map in this scenario would work.
As for combat, you can save that combat so long as you put it to good use. So let's change a few things.
First, we need a reason to participate in combat and not just run. The answer is to make it that killing enemies gives something to the player. What could that be? Up to you if you want to add an RPG leveling system or an item drop system or something else. However, whatever the case may be you need to ensure that the value for victory is greater than the cost of fighting. You want people to engage in fights.
Of course, you can't make rewards way too strong or it'll break things quickly. The level of reward depends on how long a fight takes, so an easy way to ensure you don't give an OP reward is to make sure fights are shorter. This just involves changing some numbers and making it that enemies have less HP or you deal more damage to enemies. Not too hard to fix either way.
These two things alone will fix the "why fight" problem.
I think there is a typo given the controls, as 'Strafe Left' was on S not on A.
Maybe adding a kind of minimap could improve the overall experience, as I stopped playing once I felt completely lost searching for that terminal next to the green key card, which was somewhere near the start.
I also missed a tutorial and it took some time to get everything right.
All in all I think you have a solid foundation which could be really fun if you built on top on it and add more features.
Keep up the work and good luck with your game!
Thanks, another nice catch!
As the map, the previous game with this engine actually had a minimap - I might add it back, now that I figured out how to free up some more memory on the GBA.
As for a tutorial...hmm, IDK - I might add some onscreen indicators, but a full blown tutorial would consume memory and time to create which I'm not sure people would appreciate that much. But one thing for sure - I need to improve the level design, to make things a bit more conducive.
Thanks for playing!