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[Feedback Needed] Natureify - my work-in progress RPG pokemon style game

A topic by Simulation Edge created Apr 16, 2021 Views: 537 Replies: 11
Viewing posts 1 to 6
(2 edits) (+1)

Hi. Im making a Pokemon style game and need feedback for the first bit of my game. Every little thing is helping me. 

What do you think of the game design? How is my UI setup? Size of UI? If you think my story could use some work, please let me know. And is there something that seams off while you play it, something missing or wrong? Leave a comment if you have a change to test it, so i know what to work on. 

This is my first game so check if out. Thank u so much.

Note: The game is only playable to after the dialouge with the sensei. 

https://kristiangitar.itch.io/natureify

Moderator moved this topic to Get Feedback
(+1)

Hi kristiangitar, I really like the retro vibe of the game. If you wanna dial it up, I think finding a retro color palette would be a nice idea. I also like the premise of the story, a coming of age RPG with good, simple writing.

I think the player movement is too smooth, feels like he's on rollerskates. Also, I think binding the 'E' key for interaction has become a norm. I think that would be better than having to switch to the mouse to click the button at the bottom. Moving into spaces with furniture and rocks feels weird haha. Also, slightly tweaking the dialog box colours would be nice - towards the browns and oranges. 

For combat, I chose Air but all the skills I have are Water. Not sure if it is a bug or design choice. Smoothing out scene transitions would also be nice. A white flash is quite jolting lol. I couldn't get past the Sensei Liu dialogue btw. I escaped the combat and I was just repeating the conversation with him whenever I talked to him.

In any case, just gotta polish it up more! All the very best!

Thank you for the feedback. To answer the story havent yet been created past the sensei dialouge. I will try to look into the comments you made. 

(+1)

Hi kristiangitar! I'm a big pokemon fan, and I liked the idea to mix it with a medieval-like theme. ^^

I agree with what wolf said, the movement is a little off from what you'd expect from a RPG. Also, using some pixel snap would help align the pixel art graphics so they all fit the same scale, which looks nicer. This might be very early in development, so you might have not worked on it yet, but I'd love to see some variation between different places, like maybe a different color scheme or different building types between the starting town and the second one. 

As for game design, I can't really opinate because the game kinda glitched on the first battle ^^; so you should get to fixing that before anything else, if the battles are going to be the main gameplay focus that is.

Hope this gave you any insight. Wish you the best! :3

Thanks for the feedback. I havent done much work on the battle systems yet. It is still early in development , but that is the next big for the game. I have also been looking into other themes for the different cities.

Hello. I have made som changes to the game and would like someone to give some feedback. 

The changes I have made: 

  • Added a leveling system
  • Added a win condition
  • Improved the main menu and added some features there
  • Added fire as a element which works (will add earth and air over the next week, sorry for the delay)
  • Added weakness and strength system for elemental battles
  • Minor bug fixes

Thanks for trying it out! The link is in the top of the feed.

Note: only water and fire works as elements right now, will add earth and air soon. The game also ends after the first battle with Peter.

(1 edit)

Hey. For anyone following this feed and updates on the game I am currently making, i am sorry for the lack of updates. I have the last few weeks been practicing for my exam and haven't been able to work much on this game. I will have an update out in about a week. 

Here is a newer version where I did some bug fixing and small improvements. Hope you enjoy it and if you want to, I would love some feedback about the UI of the game, the battling and leveling system, and the general movement and flow of the game. 

https://kristiangitar.itch.io/natureify

Stay tuned, and thanks for the patience.  

(+1)

I'm glad there have been updates, cool that it has already a saving system. Unfortunately, I'm getting stuck in the stairs of the bedroom, so I can't play the rest of the game :c

Thanks! I thought a save system was necessary early on. I have now fixed that bug and finalized the battle system. Please have a look at the battle system in the fight against Peter. (NOTE: Earth and Air is not playable elements for now. Select Water or Fire when choosing from the Sensei.) 

(+1)

Ah it works now! Ok so a few things that could use some polish.

I think I've already said this before, but this will add a lot to the aethetic of the game: variation. Since the game is inspired by Pokémon, I'll take it as an example. Imagine Pewter City from the original Pokémon Red and Blue (not the remakes). Now imagine Viridian Forest, or Cerulean City, or Mt. Moon. Even though that game relied on 1-bit graphics, it was able to use it to make highly memorable places, such that just looking at the layout of those places is an orientation compass for the player, the player can recognize where they are instantly. The general shape of these places, the layout, the style of the buildings, the props, the trees, the NPCs, and the ground tiles all variated from one place to the other, and worked together to building a memorable location. Pedro Medeiros, one of the artists for Celeste, talked about how they were finding the levels too repetitive and uninteresting in the visual sense. To solve that, they created a lot of "decals", which were basically a lot of useless background props, like torches, stop signs, broken huts, and whatnot, and those gave the levels very distinct personalities. If you're able to, if that won't be too much deviation from your focus on the moment, I'd love to see more variation on that and, a bit more polish on the ground tiles maybe.

In that sense, the music could use a bit more of variation too. I like the instruments and the general feel of it, maybe it was just me but the rhythm feel a bit off. But what's lacking really is a bit of variation on the music loop, maybe make it longer, with more sections, maybe make it so the music changes from town to town. It would be a great addition to the game!

For bugs, even though I choosed fire, I could only use water moves on the battle. I felt that the Wave attack was too op, and I was kinda confused about the difference between each attack, maybe there could be a tutorial or some help box explaining what each attack does. The dialogue also broke when the battle ended. I found a bug too where I spoke to Sensei Lin before Peter when I arrived at the new town, and that kinda broke the progression.

Last thing, though it's more of a question than anything: have you considered using or at least prototyping your game in RPG Maker? It seems the game you're trying to make would be way easier to do in that engine than in Unity, since it's got all the tools for making a Pokémon-esque RPG, like isometric view, turn-based battlingmechanics, XP and leveling... Maybe you just feel comfortable using unity and that's fine, but you should take a look on that too, because the particularities of that engine might allow you to focus on the parts you really wanna work on in your game (which, if I'm not mistaken, is the story) and get through everything faster.

I think that's about it. Cheers, love to see your progress ^^

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't looked into RPG maker yet, but I will give that a watch. As for the city themes, I have made one for the next city, and will implement that one next. Will also try of make more variation, as the games move to different areas. 

The game is far from done and will make all the music and stuff greater as I go along.  

Thank you for the feedback once more. Have a lot of work to do for the next week.

Anytime bud. Hope to see more of your progress! ^^