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Mystic Chronicles: Dawn's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| People's Choice | #85 | 2.733 | 2.733 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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I was one of the official judges this year, and now that the results have been made public, and I'm free to do so, here is my score and thoughts on this title:
Overall score: 8
A solid game, with only a few issues. However, more of my personal gripes come from the game and design choices. I don't mind games that use gear as the main progression system (opposed to levels) but usually they actually give you gear to progress with. This one did not (at least I didn't play enough of it before I hit the hour mark to get any noticeable upgrades). Also, I felt the fights were a little bland as far as depth. There really wasn't any need to use magic (aside from the fire spell for one boss) and you could do just as much damage as a regular attack. The combat felt a little more like padding. Still, not a bad game with a neat little story.
I got assigned to play this game in round 3 of the IGMC. First congrats on making it this far! Here are my thoughts as I played it. First I'll list the suggestions of things to fix:
-Opening text really hard to read due to being red and blends poorly with the pictures.
-Opening battle probably could be shorter as you have no skills yet.
-Need to tell player its an ff2 type system earlier and not depend on them talking to one random man to learn it (tutorial perhaps?). Some feedback on when skills improve would be nice, I did the entire first dungeon and thought there was no point to battles so I just ran from them all, as I got no feedback that my skills went up.
-Narheim is bugged, can't enter the item shop.
-If you leave the 2nd dungeon the way you come in, you end up on the 1st dungeon's entrance.
Overall: Decent story overall, wish I had more time to play it (ran out of time after getting the root in the 2nd dungeon). Using an ff2 style battle system is different though needs more polish and player feedback. With more time to polish and fix bugs this could turn into a really decent game. Though I imagine most of what I noticed was due to having one month. Overall, nice job!
Thanks for playing!
The text is the first thing I will fix up in the next update, especially the scrolling text at the beginning.
In general, the whole thing does need a tidy-up, since I ran short of time submitting the game to the jam before I was away from my PC for a week or so, it was quite nerve-wracking!
I am glad you like the story, it will be more developed and fleshed out in the next episodic update.
This game definitely reminded me of the NES-era games from the title card, to the music, to the art that you used!
Be careful with your scrolling text at the opening for a couple of reasons -- one, it's hard to read with that size / color / speed. But also because it drops a lot of information on the player right at once that they're unfamiliar with, so it's harder to get engaged with than if you'd included it in pieces within the progression of the game.
I LOVE your world map! I find them very difficult to do well, and yours is really lovely. :)
I'm definitely interested to see more from this world after playing through this game. Thanks for sharing it with us! :)
Thank you for playing!
For sure the scrolling text will be improved in the next update, since it is the main bugbear people have and I can see why :)
Yes, the world map making is something that comes with practice but I have a good tip for you:
Have an existing JRPG world map open in your browser and overlay your editor screen so they sit side by side.
The trick is not to copy exactly of course, but it will give you a nice idea where to plonk the grass and where best to have forested/mountainous areas etc. Remember, geologically speaking, coastlines are more mountainous than inland areas but of course you have to mix it up.
Thanks for commenting and good luck with your projects!
Hey there NinthNei, I got your game for judging so here are some of my thoughts. You definitely nailed the retro aesthetic with the art, music, and story. I understand that this was just a single chapter of a larger story, but I wish there was more happening with the Sunflame and that mysterious evil figure.
The battle system where you power up depending on what attacks you use is a great idea and rewards fighting mobs instead of skipping weaker enemies in search of ones that give more experience. However, I think having some physical skills from the start could be enjoyable over just having magic skills. I'm sure it was due to the time limit of the contest, but since there are different weapon types it would've been cool to learn physical skills the more certain weapons were used. I kept Alex as a physical attacker with an axe, which meant he didn't have anything special he could do in battles. If he had gained a double attack or some like an 'Axe Smash' skill it would've made it worth it to leave him without magic.
The mapping worked well, but the first dungeon felt pretty large. Especially since I was unlucky and kept fighting the 3 bat enemies which almost wiped my team out repeatedly while I tried to find my way back outside to safety. The battle troops would have used some variety when it came to number of foes, it seemed like all the troops had three enemies. The different types of enemies was nice to see, but for certain foes like the bat I would've like to face just one or two at a time while I was still getting stronger and figuring out my team's fighting styles.
Overall, good job on the game! With some more work I can see this being an amazing RPG.
Thank you very much for playing!
Since the meat of the battle mechanics revolve around a 'use resource to strengthen it rather than getting umbrella XP', my main difficulty was trying to keep things balanced and I know for sure I can and will make improvements on those. I don't know if you tried it, but each character can equip any weapon or learn any spell, giving it a feel of Dark Souls where you can experiment with different builds.
I am glad you enjoyed it, I very much had fun making it and the jam gave me motivation to get it done to a playable point but for sure it does need some tidy-up and revision in future updates.
Really enjoy the retro aesthetics and the general feel of the game. Well done!
Thanks very much for playing the game and I am glad you enjoyed it!
The artstyle from this game really remembering me to playing final fantasy classic sega retro version. Seems I wasn't paying much attention to deep with the story! 😅 But enjoyed the gameplay anyways!
Thank you for playing!
This is just the first chapter but hopefully I can pick this game back up soon and balance it, sort bugs and expand on it.
Good job! :D
Thanks! All the best for your projects too.
Oh wow! This is fantastic. I really love the look and feel. Did you make the art and music yourself??
Thanks!
I wish I was this talented to make pixel art, but it is a new resource pack that I purchased to replicate the feel of the NES era.
I do design and format my own art and include them in most of my projects but not in this one.
I am releasing another short game for a game jam very soon whereby I have created my own characters, enemies etc. It will have a very different feel to this game though, so please check it out later.
this looks beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaut
Thank you!
I am also a fan of your work too.
Fantastic game!
Thank you!