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Single Armed's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Design | #1218 | 2.828 | 4.000 |
| Adherence to the Theme | #1558 | 2.828 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #1575 | 2.687 | 3.800 |
| Originality | #1786 | 2.404 | 3.400 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Nice game. I included it in my GMTK Game Jam 2019 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :)
I can't believe this game does not have more ratings. A triple 5/5 from me on this one, this game was really good! For a game made in 48 hours, having about an hour of content to go through is really cool, and the little mechanics such as the Charge system is something I wish was in more games!
The RPG Maker stock assets are used really well here, everything has been presented really well and it tells a nice little story.
Your take on the battle system and adaption of the default RPG Maker battle system is really something quite different and I really like it! The idea of only being able to use one ability and having to change that through the equipment screen is a really nice idea!
It would be really interesting to see this game be made into a full RPG with more different areas and a larger story. You've really shown that RPG Maker, even with its original stock assets, can be used really effectively to make something super nice looking and fun. (One suggestion, maybe add more text boxes and prompts for literally every prop in the game - I love mashing space and seeing what the game says about, say, a table, as it can be a great way to develop the characters by showing what they think about the table - I use the example where instead of "A table" as a text prompt, you could do something like "This table could use a few drinks!" to show some playful character)
I found the difficulty to be just right, with the battle system really being a puzzle game, however you may want to think of some ways to describe what you're facing beforehand or give the player a chance to react to what enemies they are facing, instead of having to either use trial and error initially, or run away after seeing they're not well equipped for the battle ahead. Perhaps that's a limitation of RPG Maker, and it doesn't hinder the experience, but it's an interesting game design thing to think about.
Please keep making more RPG Maker games! I like 'em! A lot! Perhaps if you made your future games all take place within the same universe as this one/Magicless' one, that could be really interesting.
Thank you so much for your comment! I truly believe my games to be very niche (given the current status of turn based RPGs), but I knew there had to be people like me who would love it and make it worth.
The charge system is one of my earliest inventions (you couldn't know since I never upload my games), and I've come up with a lot of mechanics since. Fire mechanics revolve around status that get worse by themselves over time on their own, and they can spread to other members of the party. Wind mechanics revolve around controlling the turn order like you saw, with some creative mechanics like Trick Room from pokemon, or very strong buffs that apply to the next attacker, *whoever it happens to be, ally or not*, so you have to control turn order carefully to make sure the next attacker is an ally.
Then there's mechanics that only exist in one orea. For example, there's an area where you can change between different parallel universes where there are slightly different versions of the enemies (they share HP). You can be in a dimension where the enemies have low attack and high resistances, tank their weak hits, and after they have attacked change to a dimension where they have high attack and low resistances and blast them. And there's one time mechanics like a boss that's two enemies, one of them is invulnerable on even turns and the other on odd turns.
I will absolutely continue to make RPGs and I intend to make it my career. I'm writing large stories and learning programming so that one day I can fully dedicate myself to this.
I do intend to drop RPG Maker: the problems you mentioned, the unability to know what you're facing before it's too late, is one of many things that I want to change, and it would be so much work to bend RPG Maker to do that that it's just simpler if I learn to program from scratch. There's also a ton of mechanics that would be very hard or impossible to implement in RPG Maker. I need a system that allows for much more creative freedom.
About text boxes for literally everything: I wanted to do that, but the deadline was real close and I didn't want to miss it. I rushed the text boxes. But I do want to do things like that since Undertale is one of my greatest sources of inspiration (perhaps not mechanically). I want to make that kind of playful and subversive game that's always trying to amuse you and playing with your expectations.
I'm talking too much, this is an enormous post! Just wanted to say thank you for your comments and stay tuned for more!
Definitely a cool concept, though by the third level (the four jellies), I got lost in the interface and couldn't keep track of who has which charge. :-(
Apropos of nothing, I made a (much smaller) game in RPG Maker for the jam, too, and would appreciate any feedback for it. :-) https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/461219
Did you finish it? If you're having trouble with the states, you can see the state under the enemy's name.
If I could use something other than RPG Maker I'd create tools to communicate the mechanics much more efficiently. Unfortunately, that's not the case yet. Thanks for playing! I'll play yours soon.
Thanks! I've just beaten the jellies, and can now hopefully progress through the game.
I must say, your experience with RPGM shows in how detailed the level are. My own levels are very desolate by comparison. ^^
So, now I've beaten it, and except for that jelly hiccup, I didn't have much trouble until the final boss. That one was tricky, but in a good way (it's the final boss, after all), though I had to retry it at least half a dozen times. Towards the end, it got really frustrating because I had to do the same starting steps over and over again manually, and the RPGM interface makes it easy to make mistakes (e.g. casting a buff on an ally instead of selecting him for the next action). That gave me an idea, however: I think that this game would be much better off as a programming game, where you would select your weapons, write out a sequence of actions, see how far it gets you, and debug it as you go.
That would actually work really well. I kinda love your idea!
Thing is, if I were to make a full game with RPG Maker, I would make it so long that you would get very used to the interface. It would also reach a point where the fights, although increasingly complex and hard, would have much more room for player creativity rather than allowing for 1 or 2 different answers. And you would come very naturally to these solutions due to being very used to the main mechanics.(Which isn't to say there wouldn't be new temporary mechanics unique to each area.)
I don't think that having many solutions is a problem for a programming game. The last one I played, Opus Magnum, had countless solutions for every level, and it was part of the appeal of that game. :-) I think the real problem would be implementing the programming game controls and mechanics in RPG Maker. From what I've seen in my time with it, it is not particularly flexible in regards to the interface unless you go really deep into scripting.
Oh no I wouldn't even try that. If I were to do what you suggested, I'd use a totally different engine.
I think the idea of having an RPG game simplified a bit and more directly made into a puzzle game is pretty cool.
You may like Magicless, the other game I've submitted.
Great idea and execution, puzzles truly fit RPG games. I found it more enjoyable than the previous game, Magicless.