Post by PJOZeus in Aldren's Quest comments

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-Softlocked in the fire fight as it wouldn't reset to the monastery
-Near impossible to pause exploration, not enough time
-No way to farm an area at the end of a path
-Messages vanish far too quickly when transitioning between areas
-Where you have the player characters? Keep all interactables there, leave text stuff below - perhaps a line between text to differentiate areas but then keep all messages on the list (at least the last like 15)
-Maybe being able to farm the highest tier area you can manage would help but it felt like such a grind and a slog to try and grind out potions and would've needed so so many more to beat the final boss - needed a lot of farming to get anything at all, seems like there's no skill check for harder difficulties, only a gear check, a gold check, a potion check

Obviously some hover tool tips as to what exact effect the attributes have would be nice, not a bad game although even after a year it feels in its infancy (using the available space on pc would be nice, perhaps for that message log) but yeah, hope development continues

Oh, and something or other mentioned equipping potions? Presumably to auto use? It's not a thing in the game, can use manually in fights but no equipping them

Whimsical Wyrm35 days ago

Hey, thanks for playing and taking time to write those points down, it's really helpful. I didn't have much time last year so it was mostly mobile UI work. I hope to do more now but I the same time I would love to jump into the next game so we'll see how it goes.

I'll address what I can soon (especially bugs) but wanted to ask about the softlock - do you mean that you're not taken to monastery if you die?

On farming potions - the assumption was that players would buy potions and dropped ones would be kind of a bonus. I'll try to revisit it but I'm worried that more drops will make everything too easy.

PJOZeus34 days ago

For the bug, somehow got into the jankiest save state
Died to fire man (ignisar was it?), got taken back to the monastery, and like a fucking div, went 'back' to the fire pyre (trying to farm pilgrims pathway), assuming i'd have to pick up the artifact again not be immediately locked in - surprise, was immediately locked in, died from having no potions and less health from pilgrims, and.. Simply got 'respawned' at the pyre, except with 1 health on all characters, and no way to leave (presumably it didn't register me at the monastery, had no respawn point in memory, and just revived me at the brink of death where I stood- which is fine.. when you can leave)

Also somehow restarted the game but it didn't save so next day wanted to complete it, got loaded into the bugged state rather than a fresh save, at full health, and with a different approach cleared it (still don't think it would have been possible unless at more health after pilgrims)

It's less about more drops and more so just kind of needing more gold, even if it was only right at the end due to the exponential potion cost
The natural drops do quite little in big fights as you waste so much time healing and being one shot
A full heal away from rest (especially after passing out and then not having potions) is so expensive - you're sort of building up a stockpile of natural healing items throughout the entire game (assuming you don't just sell them which is possible) and you get one well funded attempt - if it fails, all your stockpile is gone and it takes a very long time to earn enough to get anything back

Whimsical Wyrm34 days ago

Thanks again for the reply. I managed to find the issue and deployed a fix - player should be taken to monastery now after failed fight with Ignisar.

The other bug with restart and botched save might be harder to find but hopefully that's very rare case.

I think I understand the problem with potions better now. Making them cheaper might throw of the balance too much but I have another idea - adding the "Tent" item. You would buy it in the shop and could use it outside of fights to rest/heal.

PJOZeus34 days ago

While I was thinking of commenting about some sort of balm that heals more for cheaper outside of fights, I'd also like to point out the issue of someone can 'stop' exploring at any point and use it to somewhat cheat through the area - go halfway, stop, 'tent', carry on at full health with no downside
Especially if pausing and stopping became easier which I would like it to

Do agree making them much cheaper would throw off balance a little, could maybe reduce the scaling a little but it's a bandaid fix
What about an alchemy book or something - combining bought potions with found natural materials (such as the sand heart or whatever it was, from the desert, 70 health) to create either singular stronger potions, or a number of smaller potions although they restore more health
Just a thought, and requires more thought before implementing (if so- 3 enchanted leaves for one minor healing potion? more profitable than selling and buying, but less profitable than buying and making instead of just buying a minor)

I'd imagine the save issue was just it didn't progress far enough to overwrite - even if it's not rare, if someone's trying to restart anyway, lost progress for the first bit isn't *that* important

Anyway, good luck with development

Whimsical Wyrm34 days ago (1 edit)

That's a possible downside but maybe rest in tent would only be offered after player finishes an area? I have to implement it and then test to see what feels better.

Combining potions is a neat idea but that would require craft system of some kind which would need some significant amount of work. I think I would like to put the time into the next game instead - I see more and more downsides in my current approach to map/areas so my next game , while similar, will probably have an actual map where player can click on a point to move there. This would allow adding some additional places of interests, stuff like chests or places that would trigger some actions?

PJOZeus34 days ago

Sounds promising although always sad to (reasonably) put a project down when it has more to give, as necessary as it is

We'll see how the next games goes eventually, as I said- good luck

PJOZeus34 days ago

Sounds promising although always sad to (reasonably) put a project down when it has more to give, as necessary as it is

We'll see how the next games goes eventually, as I said- good luck

itch.io

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