I'm going to give you the #1 reason why a focus on story is more important for your demo than the mechanics: because you're limited to the RPG Maker engine, the gameplay and mechanics won't be all too different. There is another RPG Maker game in this jam that puts that focus on story in. It has its own small mechanic changes, but it makes sure the story is there to get the player involved and then brings those mechanics in. Sure, it's important to test your mechanics but turn based RPGs can only do so much in terms of gameplay and mechanics to differentiate themselves from other turn based RPGs, especially when in the same engine. It's story where these differences will exist. This isn't to say you should make a tutorial and change it over and over, because you're right about how that wastes time. However, you SHOULD still give the player more about the story so they can get invested into things, and then use the story itself to introduce base mechanics. Doesn't need to be everything, just the things you know will remain.
Viewing post in Asqueria: Origins of the Dream (v0.2.7) jam comments
Hi again! Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, I am new after all. I see you are listed as the host for this event. I assume that means you know all the rules that are written there (https://itch.io/jam/feedback-quest-rpg). Can you tell me the which one of the judging criteria that covers story?
🔥RATING
Your game will be rated on the following criteria by your peers and the public. The judges will also pick their own favorite games
- Overall Fun
- Controls/UI
- Art
- Sound / Music
So, Which one of those 4 relates to story and writing? Is it "Fun", or "Art"? If that's the case, shouldn't that be described somewhere?
BTW, I also searched that page for the words, "Story", "Lore", "Writing", "Script", "Plot", "Dialogue", "Conversation".... not one of these concepts was mentioned anywhere in the rules or the judging criteria. I assumed the judging criteria was in fact the criteria we were being judged by. Is that not how this works? Because you wrote so much about story, which isn't even part of the criteria, and you've flatly refused to give feedback about anything else even when specifically directed(per rule #7), I'm quite confused as to what we're doing here.
Could you clarify - What are the official judging criteria? Is there another page where you are using a different set of rules?
Thanks again.
You're mistaking my feedback for being the rating itself.
Written feedback like this can cover whatsoever the writer wishes to cover. It's not part of the actual rating criteria, though it can give an idea of where someone scores the entry when the feedback and the ratings align.
That said, I will admit that I should've changed the rating criteria rather than keep the default line up (something like Overall Fun, Story, Art/UI, Music/Sound) but this still has no bearing on written feedback. So don't look at my feedback as any basis for how I rated you (and generally you should assume this of anyone who gave feedback).
That makes sense - thanks for clarifying!
And don't worry, My poor submission is locked from updates for a whole month on this double game jam tour (well, only 8 more locked days now), So I know it's gonna take a beating while it's out here and I can't change anything, that's what it's for XD Behind the scenes I've got a bunch of little things fixed up already.
Looking forward to posting a nice little v0.0.2 update/patch notes when it unlocks and then digesting some official judgements.
Thanks for spending the time with me!