itch.io

speaking of readability, you are using pixelated font, but unfortunately vx ace has built-in anti-alising for fonts, so font will be blurry anyway. but i think i found pretty good solution to increase readability in this game:

set default outline to true,

add this string to main script: 

 Font.default_out_color.set(Color.new(255,255,255, 125))

#values could be ajusted

and decrease tone of your green, yellow, blue etc. in window.png

something about #588a00, #aa7700, #0073b5 respectively.

edit:

well, actually readability could be fixed even without adding outline, just by ajusting tone color of font.

Yo! I was surprised when i get notification from you. It's been awhile since i left a comment about your game, it's nice to see that you didn't abandon your game!

Well, now about the game. This comment below is loosely structured, and can be approximately split by 3 parts:  general expression, notes, suggestions.

I just finished my second playthrough, it took me 2 hours. This time i chose archer as my character. Since she's quite weak at start, after losing my first match i decided to farm some level at training grounds. After getting lightning arrow game becomes too easy since paralyze is almost endless. I would say arena 1 and 2 are mostly finished, but arena 3 is very rough (i really like the concept though).

Last time i suggested to fix upgrade system by addid upgrades to monster drop and removing items from shops. Now i changed my mind a i think getting upgrades in shop is find, and collecting upgrades from monsters may make leveling system too grindy. I think better solution would be adding stock count to upgrades in shop. Basically adding a level cap per arena zone. Or increasing the price of upgrades,  In general stat upgrades are usually is better idea for late game rather than early game. And in early games stats could be gained by getting new items. And not gonna like current items are meaningless, it's not worth to buy items, since upgrades are cheaper and add more stats.

Gameplay notes:

1. unreadable main menu, unreadable colored text. (read comment below)

2. save cancel after choosing save. it's possible to skip save by pressing x and lose access to save in item vendor menu, since it limited to 1 per zone.

3. why archer's quiver does reduce armor by 1 ?

4. missing wall in tavern stairs

5. goblin shop chestplate tab also contains helmets.

6. wrong match information on silver arena. i noticed it after killing a cryomancer, but it could appear earlir.  it   seems like index of messages is -1, i.e instead of showing an info of next match it shows info of previous match

7. rapid fire is the worst skill in game? it seems like it misses with 100% chance.

8. i dont this troll needs bloodshed skills he's already have triple slash and double slash, blodshed is excess

9. arena 2 is still accessible after beta's match, and it breaks the game.

10. goldbolt is op, i think it should spent money on usage.

11. lightning arrow is op. paralysis is almost everlasting.

12. items on arena 3 is just a placeholders?

13. why beta is the last boss of arena 3? also arena 3 is still accessible after win, and it breaks the game.

14. equipment feels meaningless

15. why i can't talk to loot goblins in goblin cave even if i had goblin translator?

Things i like and suggestions:

-npc's in tavern reacting to alpha, instead of talking the same thing. cutscene.

- characters ethnicity remind me about salt and sacrifice. does it give any perks or somehow affects the story?

it could be interesting to make every arena in it's own region. Arena 2 already feels like it belong to Pharum region.

- it would nice to have some explanation dialog about what happened to beta

- it would be nice if tavern folks react to conquering arena 2.

- introducing teams, choose character before fighting on arena. similar to yuyu hakusho, or shaman king.

ok, i feel sleepy now and this comment is already pretty long,  hopefully something of these notes will be helpful. Bye.

Nice game!  I spent about a hour to gather full party.

I think it would be better to increase health gain by level, and remove Fitness.

Congrats!

Hi, I'm glad my comment was helpful. Just a small clarification: i think 50% buff of money is not neccessary, in my opinion changing existing crates and maybe adding a couple of extra ones in empty rooms(or in those staring corpses) or even add an item drop from mobs would be a better solution. Buffs such as +3 stat is good for late game, when characters already have a full slots of equipment, on early stages it would be nice to find equipment instead of buffs. If i get a whole item that means i don't need to farm gold for this item, also items buffs stats more than +3.
And it would be nice to find a gun in dungeon, since i can found ammo in there.

Speaking of RTP, why not just provide it with a game as full package. I think idea of downloading some additional soft for the game is repelling players.

Update: actually, money problem could be solved in easier way just by adding some treasure room somwhere on floor 1 or 2, and maybe even adding a treasure room in every dungeon. it will stimulate player to explore dungeon. and treasure should contain some significant amount of gold about ~1000 or more depends of dungeon. Also first quest for diary could be simple as "go to catacombs to find treasure", it can also be pygmy's treasure and maybe she gets angry when she finds out that her money were stolen. i mean this treasure room could also contain some plot twist.

Hi, i just finished the first dungeon here's some of my thoughts. English is not my native language, so bear with me.

It took me 2 hours to explore all floors and all rooms in first dungeon. I don't know what exactly did you mean by "fairly short" experience, maybe it's in comparison to smt and dragon quest series. If i get it right it will be 5 dungeons in this game, if every dungeon will take 2 hours it will be 10 hours, and i think it's pretty long actually.

I almost didn't use run function, i don't think it gives any noticeable boost of movement speed. Also after a few minutes of exploration i was always staring at minimap instead of a corridor. I don't think enemies rewarding enough on first floor, and even on floor 2-3 big pack of monsters gives about 30 shinies, that means i still must to grind money for equipment 320 for taurus, or 180 for gladius, including all armors and consumables.

Well, taking to account all that stuff from above, i think it would be a good idea to make dungeons shorter (or first one at least), delete minimap if possible (there is a big map anyway), make enemies drop more currency, or add some chest with equipment in dungeons as reward for exploration, instead of buffs.

Combat 1.

Well, underdog status is imbalanced, it doubles all stats, including defence. Couple of times i died in this scenario, and it was really annoying:

encounter 5 bats > i use aoe spell to quickly kill of them > i miss/ or bat was faster and used underdog before my turn > i killed all bats without underdog and got killed by buffed one.

I can see the problem in here: since mana potions is very rare in this game, i can't spent more mana on this encounter, since it will slow down my progression/exploration later. In this situation i can also fight this bat, escape, or die.

in first case i probably lose my party member and that means i must return to town, since my party is weakened and this party memeber doesnt get exp

escape means i already spent my mana, and didn't get any reward.

death, no comments.

in all of those scenarios my progression is slowed down, since i must to return to town for some reason. in any case my progression/exloration would be slowed down.

This problem can be solved by plenty of ways: changing underdog status, changing gold this battle to high risk/ high reward scenario by adding more gold for this encounter in exchange of spending more mana/time, adding resurrection items, adding more mana restoring items.

Some other things that i thought worth to mention:

1.I think you should add somewhere in description this game requires rpg maker vx rtp.

2.Imo, controls explanation could be simplified, or even added in game desription on itch.io. I don't think it's neccessary to inform the player about arrows  movement over over again, but map key is really important.

3.Diary doesn't work at the beginning, i think it would be nice to add some short explanation about the ancient catacombs and what exactly i must to find in there.

5.I really hate those one way doors, especially that one in the middle of second floor. I was in middle of exploration, and i spent my crystal link before. Going back through 2/3 parts of map was really annoying, not gonna lie i almost dropped the game after it. Personally i don't think this is a good idea to prevent player from exploration, there is nothing fun to return back in already explored area, especially when you find just 2 empty rooms.

6.Shop in pair with merchant girl pose looks more like toilet room, rather than shop lol.

Well, i feel sleepy already. In general i like your game, i think it's nice and deserves more attention, hopefully my comment will be somehow useful. 

Good luck!

Epic!

If you are looking for similar games, then check my Collection of Arena games. https://itch.io/c/3906412/collection-of-arena-games

Thanks for your reply! I just added a few missing files, Everything should work now!

hm... that's strange, since all rtp files are included in project.

Do you get any errors?

Happy birthday!

Hi, first of all i really like this game! Last update was 93 days ago, but hopefully you will continue to develop it.

Here's some of my thoughts about current build:

1. Font is too blurry, especially when playing full screen. Fortunately it can bee easily fixed by adding these 2 strings in Main script:

Font.default_shadow = false

Font.default_outline = false

2. I only played a knight and a little bit valkyrie, so i could be wrong, but it knight feels overpowered due to his high defense and hp. Pretty much nothing can hit him, even casters. I made knight/sorcerer hybrid and overhead slash still hits harder than battle magic and costs less mp.

3. I don't really get the idea of training grounds. Farming at training grounds feels like waste of time. Random encounters on world map are much more rewarding. For example goblin in training grounds give you only 50G and about 200xp if i remember correctly, and goblin on world map give you 5000G and 1-2levels.

3. Teleporting to training grounds is too slow. Wizard's spell dialogue takes the same amount of time as running to training grouns through the world map. It would be nice to get teleported immediately after choosing a location.

4. I don't think it's a good idead to give a Manaskin to the first Arena boss. Once he cast it he became literally invincible, regaining 350hp every turn, while i was hitting him by 325. I think manaskin should be removed from him, or got reduced to 3-5 turns instead of infinite. My first restart happened here.

5.After fighting first match on silver arena i decided to go to second training grounds. I found a secret passage, and killed the boss. Then returned to second arena and game crasshed with missing BGM error. After reloading i got instant win against second enemy. At first i thought it was a part of Alpha's quest, but apparently it's just a bug. Also later i killed training grounds boss again, and got the same missing BGM crash when tried to leave the dungeon.

6. Guard doesn't provide any information about enemies after match 1.

7.When Second boss is dead, you can still go the arena. It causes a black screen. Self-switch is missing.

8.Aqua spells doesn't have a mana cost.

9.Alpha's ressurrection doens't work on allies, but heals enemies instead.

10.There is a passable cliff corner below the second arena.

11. Stat boosting flowers are nice, but first of all they are too cheap, second of all they are infinite. I think it would be better to delete them from shops and add to training grounds common drop.

Well, i finished the game with knight, Alpha and found a 3d party member. I like how my party is the strongest on this part of the map, and it would be nice to see some challenge on next parts of the world.

I'm curious to know what happens next, personally i think you should to focus on finishing arena part before adding any additional side dungeons/content. Thanks for the game!

If you are looking for similar games, then check my Collection of Arena games.

https://itch.io/c/3906412/collection-of-arena-games