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(+2)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

I'm a lover of turn based RPGs, even when they feel so generically RPG Maker. So I had fun playing this. However, I also felt like because it's RPG Maker, I should let myself get more specific with things. You also plan on "remaking" this, so I'm more invested in helping you make it better it all regards. Some of this may seem as nitpicking, but I promise it helps to fix things up.

First, I want to know what you're doing to differentiate yourself from other RPG Maker games in terms of gameplay. A prime example of what I mean is in this event: Moonfell. It uses its own distinct art style and makes a UI that doesn't feel like RPG Maker, though you can tell it has RPG Maker roots when you look very closely. It does its own thing to stand out as unique. Its developer also has another RPG Maker game that ALSO feels unique and not at all like RPG Maker. So what are you doing to be unique? If nothing, you need to think in terms of gameplay as well as story for your remake.

Here are a few things I noticed during my playthrough that should also be avoided or addressed in a remake that (I hope) aren't repeats of Moogle's.

1. Eliza gets her next turn much faster when using attack at level one, to the point where she's better off not using magic at all for the first few levels. If someone is intended as a mage, they should benefit by acting as a mage.

2. There are a lot of sounds going on in the first area, with fire burning and sword clashing on top of the music. I would absolutely say you should remove at least one, if not both of those additional sounds as they're just not necessary. If you do add it, make sure it's not too loud either. ideally, you should be able to hear music first and then the sound effects for those consistent ones. If it's one time and short, then it can be louder.

3. One of the first chest items you can get is a Small Sword. It's weaker than the starting weapon for all characters. Just... why? Chests should always be upgrades, unless you've been able to buy better. Speaking of, limit what the first stores can sell instead of giving them everything. This will make more sense later.

4. I was confused when I got my first random battle, since it seemed to be a set battle game. Outside of the world map, it didn't make sense to me to do both outside of boss fights. I'd say you should remove the random battles from in-area places, keeping instead only set battles. You could do random battles on the world map if you really want to, but if you don't then you can more easily control experience gain and thus always have an idea what level the player should be at. This lets you plan boss encounters around whatever skills the characters will have at minimum by then.

5. So while I love when something is more clearly told in the environment, the massive swing between finding the secret staircase and being told the exact ways to go in the maze to save you time just felt widely different. You need to find a balance in this. On one hand, you want something to stand out enough for the player to know it's what they're looking for, which nothing really did for the stairs. For a prime example, you can check LTTP just before the Agahnim. On the other hand, you don't need such an obvious tell as arrows that point the efficient way right when you need them. Instead, what you could do is something more subtle like showing a certain number of tiles in a way that indicates if it's first or second. If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll happily make an example image.

6. So when I was trying to buy items from the shops after getting out of the cave (which was also the first time I had bought anything), there were a LOT of different items. There were two swords that had no description to them, but based on power and money scaling they looked to only be upgrades of the previous swords. However, it turned out they were 2H swords. This leads me to a bigger issue of every character being able to equip a lot of similar gear with no uniqueness to them. Not only does this make decisions less meaningful, but it means when you offer a TON of gear options it gets very confusing. Think of it like this: you don't need to have weaker versions of weapons if the player is likely just going to go for the strongest thing. Similarly, when you limit gear you only need to put up what should be the minimum gear baseline for the next area. That way, items moving forward also remain upgrades that may or may not be beaten by items the next time you get the chance to upgrade. This is why I suggested limiting what the first stores can sell.

So those were the things that felt important to address. These will make your area design and your gameplay just a bit more unique. Now this is only just for the gameplay. I also wanted to speak about story, as a hopeful writer myself and absolutely want to help.

At no point did any of the dialogue give any sense of character personality. Like, if you had told me the personalities and behaviours of each character, I would not be able to identify any of that in the dialogue. Every statement and question was very much next on the "let's keep pushing the story" side, which never allows for personality. I think the only thing that ever gave me that sense was when the Queen of Termerkia said their daughter should stay, since it'd be a learning experience. This one line gives a LOT of personality, but whether it's intended or not is another question. It makes her seem as a strict and pissed off type, who has a bit of cruelty to her. If that's your intent, cool. If not, welp, ya done goofed. Overall, because of this matter-of-fact style of talking, it also means the story gets rushed. There's no room for discussion or questioning of things that ultimately don't matter for the sake of the story but should be to be realistic like who the heck is Terence and why was he listening in and trusted so immediately?

As such, if you want me to I would be happy to help you flesh the story more into something far stronger. It'll still be you writing it, but I'll help you work in the personality more. This will make your story stick out more, as well.

(+1)

Delayed reply, but no excuses.

Firstly, I want to thank you for hosting the gamejam, and for playing/reviewing my game.

If you have a VOD, as I missed the stream... It will be very appreciated if you can link it to a reply.

I'm going to answer your question(s)/provide context.

Yes, I do plan to remake the game, it never reached what I envisioned for it. The problem was my skill-set and experience with the engine.

But it's already been 4 years, and that's more than long enough to improve on all fronts.

And yes, lol. The difference between "playing a game" and "reviewing a game" is one you play to have fun, the latter you play to find problems.

0. I'm glad you did enjoy the game to a degree, and thank you for the offer. If I ever do need it, I will remember to reach out.

0/2. So, when originally making the game, I did not know what a "generic RPG Maker" was. Everything was "new" and "it's own style" when making it. Until I really got into the culture and can now agree that my game is indeed as generic as it can be (without the story).

0/3. I have everything (mostly) figured out, this update isn't good enough to show my "full power". Fixing a 4-year-old game was way harder than I thought, lol? Can't really know what will break if I touch something, the problem with working on an already "solidified" game.

1. I've never really hard-tested the basic-attack, so I don't have much to say. But it's probably connected to the plugins I'm using, which use Agility for turn-order, and if I remember right. Attack is usually treated as a "fast attack" in vanilla RPG Maker thus giving it a boost of some sort. This problem would lie with unbalanced Agility, something never properly balanced in this game.

2. I do agree with you with the audio-direction. Basic audio-design, lol? I've tried adding proximity to the fire sounds which really fixed that and made the game sound 100x better, but that destroyed the game in framerate, so I decided on the little time I had to just revert back and keep both sounds as they were.

3. "Chests should always be upgrades" is something I've heard quite a bit throughout the feedback period of this game. There are two reasons why the original didn't do it: I didn't want to make the player OP, and I didn't want to make 100 unique items.

The reason why the update did not fix this was: I did not have time, 2 months was surprisingly not enough to finish the update. And I switched the characters starting items to things that "fit them better" but did not rebalance the chests. So, I kind of made things worse in that regard.

3/2. I can't agree with the shop more than I already do, lol. But I slightly disagree, it would be good to keep a small range of "tiers" in case the player wanted to grind or not before the shop.

But I agree that the first shop, has way too much in stock. But the problem is, there's only like 3 shops? In the current game.

4. Random battles are used so when you "touch" an enemy, it uses that to randomly pick a "troop" for you to fight. Problem is, I found no way to disable this. So, I just made it "very rare" for it to happen, by maxing out the maximum steps needed to trigger one (7000 steps), but Vanilla system does it as 1-7000 steps can trigger one, so the maximum was a band-aid on a bullet-wound.

4 years later though, I have a fix. But had too little time to implement it for the update.

But I do agree with you with how it should have been designed.

5. The maze is an abomination. I wanted to rebuild it, but time constraints... The "arrows" was added because people I know got stuck in the maze... A stupid fix, really.

Why did the maze exist in the first place? The original game, I gave myself a strict deadline. And I "had to" follow it. Even if that meant having this abomination exist.

6. I was sure I gave every weapon a description, but maybe when I got into "grinding mode" I skipped over some without thinking.

I both agree and disagree with you. I believe there should be at least 3-tiers available for purchase (all being an upgrade of some sort), so players who did want to hoard gold before the first shop, would have a little more options.

6/2. The story is what is called "lightning-fast" at its current state. The good? It's not dragged out at all (except a few scenes I can think off...) while the bad, no character development, nothing...

The Queen has then come off as the way I wanted then, so I'm glad I did something right.

"Need to be intimidating, and authoritve as a political leader." is what I imagined her to think.

---

So, I do want to know if a VOD is available, if not. I would like to know where you stopped, I want to know what reaction my "plot twist" gave people, if they get that far.

Thank you again for the review, I hope my reply was informative and helped provide context and/or answer questions.

My wishes for a good day to you.

(+1)

So first, it's cool man. Like, the VOD for your part won't be up for, like, 3 more days even. I'm not worried.

Second, I was not expecting you to give so much. I was never worried about context, but I do understand how time constraints can lead to shortcuts. My goal in mentioning the oddities is to ensure they are issues of time constraint, because so long as you acknowledge them then it's all good.

That said, in the end the one thing I wanted to know wasn't truly answered. XD What do you plan to do to stand out? This is the most important part, since as you go forward you need to have this already in your head so you're working to that goal.

Lastly, I want to cover something with you to explain my reasoning on one thing...

I both agree and disagree with you. I believe there should be at least 3-tiers available for purchase (all being an upgrade of some sort), so players who did want to hoard gold before the first shop, would have a little more options

So as someone who knows me quite well, this is the bane of my existence with RPGs for two reasons:

1. If a game has random battles, I will grind currency until I get the top equipment.
2. If a game has fixed battles, I will hoard until I deck my team the top option then hoard again until I can afford the next top option set.

And I can't fix this problem. I try not to and my brain doesn't let me. I don't feel okay doing it. Reason why is because I'm neurodivergent (depression, anxiety, ADHD, likely autism) and I'm very rigid with things like this.

So for me, it makes RPGs more of a grind for me than they should be. The more that I feel the grind, the more I dislike the game. Right now, there is no grind. The shop-related issues I had were a result of missing descriptions primarily, but I had the money to get what I wanted from it.

Lastly, what's the difference? Like, all you're going to do each new "tier" is shift things up one or two levels, making the old top item now the mid or low tier. It's the same idea, only allowing someone to hoard for some unknown reason instead of just being "Okay, here's the new minimum level. Everything ahead will be stronger."

Looking back, I think I've misread your thoughts on shops. I think I understand what you were trying to say now.

I know that I haven't exactly answered your question, but I can't/don't want to go to any specifics.

Too early, and I don't know what works and what doesn't (technically), don't want to make promises I won't keep.

But to vaguely answer it, a combat system I made up on my own, trauma(wounds) system, etc, etc.

Basically, I'm "abandoning" this and making an entirely new game with the same concept of lore.

Well, I'm glad there was no need for "a grind". But many have told me that the current game has "too many enemies".

Mainly because the current game-loop is run-fight-trigger_cutscene, and the story/combat isn't good enough to make up for it.

I mainly updated this game, so I had an excuse to have it in this jam. To gain feedback. Now that I have gained said feedback, I'm satisfied and can move on to remaking the entire thing.

I don't regret not touching it for 4 years or releasing a semi-broken update now. Because I've gained necessary experience and feedback.

I suppose what would be best, is to finish the current update so it won't be left half-finished and fix the major issues found with it.

Then I want to move to a new project, I'm burned out with this one. lol?

Well, thank you again for the feedback. It's been thought-provoking and quite useful because of it.