Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

SchwerMuta

9
Posts
8
Followers
1
Following
A member registered Mar 22, 2020 · View creator page →

Creator of

Recent community posts

Utilizing the power of the editor itself to change the gameplay into something closer to classic RPGs, maybe closer to Live A Live, was definitely a twist I wasn't expecting but had a lot of good fun with. Every battle felt engaging in a way much different from traditional SRPGs. It was just satisfying seeing numbers fly and engaging in fast and violent battles. A stark contrast to the normally careful and calculated way I play SRPGs.

The method of grinding was fairly fulfilling too, watching the allied unit grab you treasure while you dealt with monsters was exciting in a way, and dealing with a horde of monsters kept the action going, though it did get quite repetitive very quickly. Due to the system, though, making it more interesting would be tough.

I really enjoyed the 'support' option here, as trading skills between Roland, the MC, and his friends felt very exciting, though it did lead to me breaking the game as Pursuit is an absolutely busted skill to have in a system like this, and when I gave it to my mage and archer, the game was essentially over. I utterly curbstomped the final boss, though it was still at least very satisfying to do so, so even though there was basically no difficulty once I got the right skills on the right members, it was fun all the same.

The story, however, was probably my personal highlight. You captured the theme well, the characters were all very likeable, and the twist at the end got me excited. There's nothing really exceptional or mindblowing here, but executed the story well enough that it got me interested. Having all that exposition at the end was a shock, and could have used some foreshadowing, but every tidbit, from Roland and Gwen's relationship to Perceus' stock in the events had good hooks that make the reader want to know more, which is a good thing. If this part ever got expanded upon in a larger scale creation, I'd be interested, absolutely. Your writing got a thumbs up from me.

Overall, this is probably my favourite submission so far. As of this writing, I have not yet played BTrain's submission or Tournament of Kings, but I think for me, your submission might still be my winner at the end of the day, as it's a very solid entry that just does not have many flaws. Good job.

In spite of it's name, it wasn't very quick. Quite meaty, in fact. Maps were long winded and full of combat. It was nice at first, but the enemy spam quickly made itself apparent in the later parts of the game.

The system itself was bogstandard, maybe missing a couple features, albeit unnecessary to the enjoyment of the game. The class structure for the villagers definitely was intriguing and made the potential of replayability real, though the rest of the game unfortunately dissuaded me from doing so. While the maps themselves were fun, the intense enemy density made each map a slog, especially as I tend to play carefully without losing a single unit, and the massive amounts of threats in each part of the map made even small skirmishes take forever. That said, there were a lot of points in each map where I had fun strategizing each move, so it wasn't all bad.

The story was somewhat intriguing, but the self awareness and humor was definitely the highlight of the dialogue. Jermie, in particular, was a fan favourite amongst me and my friends, who I streamed this game for. It was very hard to take the game seriously, but I suspect that was not the point. Completely missed the theme for the jam, but since it wasn't mandatory, it didn't affect much. The item descriptions were also hilarious... 'citrical sword' is going to forever be a meme amongst my community now, thank you.

Balancing was definitely the weakest point of the game though... some classes felt unnaturally strong, while some felt uselessly weak. Axes just didn't feel satisfying to use, until Nemo got his prf weapon. Magic was unusually even more overpowered than it usually is in games like this, where enemies just did not have any res but plenty of def. Finally, there were too many times where I decided to just 'maid blender' the enemy force because it felt more productive than trying to tip toe dance around threatening enemy ranges, as Jermie is so nigh and utterly overtuned that she could very well complete the game on her own with little trouble and a bit of luck. I had fun finding out how strong the villager units could get, as one in particular turned into an assault paladin with absurd burst potential, but in this game, units felt like they lagged behind a lot harder than usual and it ruined the experience in the latter half of the game I'm sad  to say. The final map in particular just stopped being fun part way into it because the enemy spam and the really unfair condition change at the end hit my enjoyment pretty hard. With a lot of tweaking though, I feel like this could be a really good game.

I had just finished the quarter finals and found the monsters there too much for my team, who I had quickly gotten tired of grinding up after spending about a hundred runs in the goblin cave. My highest level at that point was 15, and my stat growths had been so poor, I couldn't get through the semi finals without losing the entire army I had grinded up and spent so much resources on, which made me have to grind more if I wanted to get any further, prompting me to restart and do the whole process all over again. I'm probably just really unlucky, but that's also my life.

So... as someone who has played a lot of mobile games (or mobages) and gacha games, this entry hurt me. Congratulations!

That said, I'm afraid I didn't enjoy this entry. The lack of decent movement soured my ability to strategize and without the ability to counter attack, every map kind of boiled down to 'let someone tank and go to town.' Which wasn't easy due to such a wide variety of reasons.

First... the gacha mechanic. I understand why it's popular, but I didn't particularly enjoy being subject to random chance and getting three Rodneys in a row. Hits a little too close to home if you read my first line. As well, in order for a gacha mechanic to be successful, it needs to have some sort of higher return value or at least the suggestion of something the player wants. Having it be completely opaque meant I never felt like rolling the gacha was really any worth it once I got my team of Rodneys. Sure, I got a magic caster after that, but they didn't have the same range of movement as my cavaliers, who quickly became my most important units because, well... they could actually move.

That's my second misgiving. Two to three movement isn't bad. But you need to design your maps around this gimmick. Maps felt like a slog just waiting for units to approach each other with obstacles that all may as well have been walls for how well one could move through them. Any map with obstacles just felt very 'chokepoint-ey' and not very engaging. It didn't feel like I had an army, more like I had a stationary turret. There was no real option to disengage and rearrange my army. Once I committed, that was it. The lack of free movement meant it was too difficult to restructure my approach and made it very dependent on my initial formation. Which, to be fair, isn't always a bad thing, just not my style.

The third though. Another pitfall of the gacha mechanics. The grind. Oh my lord, the grind. You did level up very fast, that I will admit. Gold was frequently not a problem. So much so that I hesitated to think it mattered. Maybe making the drawing currency much more plentiful and giving the summoning mechanic the ability to give you weapons to distribute would have made the gacha more enticing, and thus allowed you to raise the price of simply purchasing the weapons to skip that facet of the gacha also enticing. Rather than just something you had to menu through because why even think about gold when you have to struggle through leveling up so much to get anything done?

But still, the grind was unfun. I do not like grinding the same thing over and over and over again. At all. I did that enough in my time spent playing awful mobages. You ever played Phantom of the Kill? I was really reminded of that, but this just had more mechanics that I couldn't reconcile with. Between the awful, awful hub town UX, the constant grinding, and the unsatisfactory numbers in every respect, I just couldn't stick through with this game to even half way. I will, at least, note that the idea has merit if executed a lot better, though. The dialogue was also pretty on point as well, if kind of sparse.

What a game. You'd hardly tell this was made in SRPG Studio and certainly highlights the power of the engine.

The way you summon units was clever and very neat, and the idea of there being a whole host of features and things you could do that all depended on the luck of the draw felt exhilarating. Unfortunately, the whole 'luck' part was absent, as everyone's decks were predetermined. This made it less of a versatile feature of the game and more like a puzzle you had to solve. A puzzle wherein you didn't know where all your pieces were or what they did. It was aggravating in the first battle as there were a whole host of mechanics I had to trial and error into. A short tutorial battle before that one would have made it a lot less of a blind mess. The first battle also felt a lot tougher than the second, as the first you just could not brute force unlike the second if you played your cards right. Heh.

But I don't think I could comment without bringing up the game's aesthetic charm, which you nailed handily. It goes so well with the theme of card playing that it really sold the package. The map, the backgrounds, the units, the UI, down to the font you used, indeed, all wrapped up the mechanics in such a coherent way that it felt natural to just behold. The visual design you chose absolutely set it apart from the rest.

The system itself, I feel, could be pushed much further, but that might not be suitable for a quick jam entry. If this idea ever gets explored, I would like to be one of the first to see it, because it definitely pushes the envelope on what you can do with SRPG Studio.

First and foremost, let me say that I absolutely adored your turn style implemented in the game. I did not grow up on Fire Emblem in spite of the design of my own projects, but in fact, I grew up on Shining Force! It's another SRPG series that orders it's unit turns by individual units rather than faction, much like this game does, and it introduced such a vastly different kind of depth to the strategy that I felt like a kid again. And much like when I was a kid, I kept getting my tail handed to me on a silver platter. :P

The initial encounter wasn't difficult, but the escape sequence I had to try multiple times before I was able to successfully flee and I felt like I was only able to do it by cheesing the system. It brings to mind how much my friends hated it when I did reinforcement spam in my own project when it was much younger. At the very least, you can still capture the feeling of escaping if you laid off on the skeleton reinforcements or made them much easier to blow past. Especially in games like Shining Force, unit retention is utterly important and it did not feel good to sacrifice my entire army to get past the map even if that map was technically the last.

I noticed there is also the bug of my units not gaining experience points upon defeating an enemy, which made getting levels awkward as it made more sense to draw out the battle, which in concept doesn't actually make much sense.

The story definitely could use a lot of improvement, but you did set the scene up pretty all right, the mood was there still. The final battle, while could have been more coherent, was pretty awesome, I'll admit. I also liked the characters, though there wasn't a whole lot to them.

I think what I liked most apart from the turn order system was the map tiles. They were absolutely gorgeous. Helping it, the map design for the one map that mattered was concise, full of life, colorful and well plotted out to help players design strategies for dealing with the initial group of enemies. I liked it a lot. I think first and foremost, your map was on point.

While the story didn't really impress me, the system was really fun, the map made me want to keep playing and your design sense shone through, so I can safely say that if you ever made something serious using this system, I would play it. Good job!

This was honestly really fun! The replayability is pretty substantial, though it can be pretty depressing to get a lot of good stuff at the very end and then lose all of it without getting to make much use of it. The map always being the same in terms of the enemies was kind of disappointing too; use of the Probability condition together with variables in eventing might have made the enemy variety more engaging on repeat playthroughs rather than having to get your replayability purely from different player comps, especially for those that will min-max.

That said, what you got down during the jam was perfect for it I felt. A well placed combination of all sorts of assets that come together without any clash whatsoever, along side a fun and engaging concept that certainly stands the test of time. The map as a whole can definitely feel samey after not too long though, and certainly grating after a while, and the enemy design absolutely gets in the way of certain builds when they all have to pack  long, powerful range to offset your own ability to be strong. That said, there was never a point where it felt like it was too difficult or too easy. A very coherent gameplay experience, all things considered.

You definitely got me to laugh at the party though. You took the mick out of them in just the right way I felt.

So, your project had some good ideas. The fist weapon type was interesting. The balance, barring one particular aspect, was actually pretty good, and the actual map shapes lent to decent strategizing.


There were a lot of low points, though. One of the biggest is that reinforcements should be very carefully designed, as in chapter 2, there is a very long string of fighter reinforcements in the top left and it quickly becomes grating and/or overwhelming. The entire staircase map definitely could have been constrained to a cutscene as well, using just the Move Unit event at Super Low speed for that dramatic flair you were probably going after. Finally, there was a surprisingly low amount of items for the player units... I quickly ran out of tomes for Hadrian and he was mostly a set piece until I claimed the Reap from the chest... which he used all of once on the boss because the map was basically over at that point. Your actual map aesthetic design also needs a lot of work, as there's graphical nitpicks all over the place--might I suggest looking at the Map Design channel in the SRPG University discord?


I could certainly feel your effort and heart though, and I look forward to seeing you improve if you continue using SRPG Studio!

You got the game to still be mildly fun to someone who normally hates bullet hells so you got good marks from me!