Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(+1)

Hello there! Welcome to Feedback Quest RPGs! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the streamer's for Feedback Quest and also a host for mini events like this. I'm writing this feedback after having played your game live. If you'd like a link to the VOD when it's posted, just let me know.

I want to start by saying I liked the pixel artwork for the cutscenes. They felt pretty detailed, especially considering the two colour nature of them. At one point, I had a little difficulty discerning what was going on, though, due to the lack of sounds and other elements to give a better sense of what was happening. I also liked the general idea of how combat went, though I can for sure see improvements that could be made.

Right now in combat, when you are selecting your attacks and such you're using the menu on the right side. However, you then change to needing to click on the target directly before continuing to use the menu. If the plan is that you'll have no more than three targets at a time, I would recommend just keeping it all in the menu and instead labeling enemies to choose who you attack. So for example,  a soldier with the wind element would be labelled Wind Soldier (with A/B/etc or 1/2/etc for when there's more). These would also be in the menu and on the health bars. Speaking of health bars, it would be better to attach them directly to the enemy rather than on the side.

Next, there's how attacking works. When you're attacking, you select light, medium and heavy attacks. However, there's nothing else given about what any of this means. By this, what I mean is there's no indication of damage or accuracy. Such information would be useful to the player (especially with health bars giving more info) for making their decisions. I would also say the player should be able to see how many attacks the enemy can do too. Finally, in terms of attacking you shouldn't just lose your entire turn if you miss on the first attack. If you're unlucky and miss on the first strike multiple turns in a row, it can make the combat feel unfair. Let each attack continue on. You can even do this on enemies, which would let you better balance how many attacks they can even do.

I spoke on the stream about what I felt regarding combat challenge and the use of the elemental system, so I won't repeat it here. Instead, I will note that it's important to give the player as much information as possible. By this, what I mean is knowing how to use Absorb and how often it can be used. I got to a point where I was trying to avoid using items (for testing purposes) and rely on absorb for healing, only to realize I can only absorb an enemy so many times.

There are other things I could comment on, but right now I feel it's better to focus on the gameplay so I'm going to keep my comments in that area for now. The concept being put forward so far is good, it just needs adjustments to make it more player friendly. That said, since it was brought up to me I should leave comments so everyone on your team can have something to work on I'll be sure to leave a few things.

Visually, I don't think the combination of 2D and 3D works well given how the sprites look. I would recommend going all in one direction to keep a cleaner aesthetic. If you really want to keep both directions, you'll need to make sure the two styles work together.

Sound wise, adding more sounds and music in general will be nice. There are some silent parts that just feel off without sound. Also, it'd be an idea to make variations of sounds for certain things. You don't want to hear the same attack sound every single time you do a light attack. You might even be able to do this in programming by adding a random pitch to the sounds every time they're played.

Lastly, one thing I want to note is the progression of gameplay.  I noted this in the stream, but there should be a general progression of difficulty. Starting off, fights should be relatively easy and not really require a lot of mental thinking. However, as time goes on the player will want to incorporate the elemental attacks. What I recommended was using the first two fights as an overpowered introduction where Arkanos just wipes the floor with the traitors. Then the first area sees his weakened and you begin the game proper, with fights starting off easy and not needing to use elements... but the player can still explore it and play around with it without it affecting their progress. However, by the time you get to the boss of the first area (which should generally be bigger), you would want the player to be using it more smartly. A great way for me to explain this is to use Super Mario RPG. You start the game in Bowser's castle. Enemies you fight don't require timed hits to kill nor timed blocks to reduce damage. You then fight Bowser, which is fairly simple. Then after the game's intro plays through and you're on Mushroom Way, you start getting enemies that are a bit tougher. This also coincides with when the game teaches you about timed hits anyway. Finally, when you reach the boss of the first area you're in a position where you need to be trying to use timed hits if you're going to defeat the Hammer Bros before they beat you down.

I want to see this again in future events. :)