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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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 Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:50 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for your review, Moogle1.
I guess I have a foible (soft spot) for maze-like dungeons. I personally am really really disappointed that most new RPGs have very easy dungeons. I wish there was another game that has an awesome dungeon design as Phantasy Star 2. Man, that game had awesome dungeon design, you needed like a whole month to figure out the correct path and find all treasure chests without a guide sometimes. I can somewhat understand that more different maptiles would be better, but I somewhat wanted to concentrate on the dungeon design itself without having to worry about making many different maptiles.
Yeah, the time gap in the music bothered me too. For some reason all the music I got from my old midi/bam folder had that time gap, very weird. Honestly I wasn't really trying hard enough to put in good music because each time I found a good midi on the internet I thought to myself "I better keep it for my next game". ^^'
But the boss theme is good. =)
What you said about the enemy variety, I would have done that if I had added more floors, but then decided not to make the game too long or it would get too boring.
Actually I thought the boss was too very easy, when I firsted played the game I think I was level 21 at the boss (fully healed, but no potions left) and after 30 attempts I could beat him. After I knew the perfect order to kill the monsters I managed to beat him every second attempt.
If you still have problem killing him, I give you a hint: Fight robots until you get a full potion from them (30% drop rate). If you have a full potion it'll make the battle a lot easier.
If you beat the game, please tell me.
Yeah, my enemy graphics, heh. The Magician is supposed to wear an mask that makes him ugly. :p
But yeah for some reason I can't really draw human characteristics too well, I never know where to put all those arms and legs. 
On the other hand I like how I drew some of the other mobs...
I wonder which enemies you think don't resemble what they're supposed to be?
My art teacher always told me I'm a genius abstract artist, but this also makes it impossible for me to draw anything realistic, I think that's why the enemies look different from what you would imagine. ^^'
Is that so bad? |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The goal is to defeat the final boss at the end. Do I need to add that to the readme? I know many arcade games that don't tell you your goal and I never felt that I needed to know. |
I don't know. Ask those that feel there is no goal.
| Quote: | | It's not bad. I'm not sure why people are saying they hate it because it's better than most OHR releases. The battle system is interesting and it's not long enough to be boring. |
I still think the Pickup system can be improved, though. I am fine with using items to attack and power up, but the actual method of getting these is slightly annoying. I mean, heck... Even just adding a couple of party members would automatically make this better, because of how many enemies there are in battles and because one character could pickup while others take out enemies that aren't going to be Pickuped from.
If there are enemies that require some strategy to beat, I wasn't motivated to play until getting to them.
I have no other inherent problem with the game (such as music or story).
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN? |
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:34 am Post subject: |
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Um, there's no difference between having 4 characters at speed 10 or one character at speed 40. Seriously whether you pick up an item and use it with the same character or pick up an item with one character and use it with another doesn't matter at all...
You might as well suggest to raise the speed of the battles, but I think they are already very fast paced.
| Quote: | | If there are enemies that require some strategy to beat, I wasn't motivated to play until getting to them. |
All enemies require some strategy to beat effectively. Even the slimes take long to defeat if you don't use the power rod you can steal from them at the beginning. In fact if you attack them without a power, there will eventually be only one slime left and he'll get really mean and can kill you if you don't kill him with one attack at that point.
The strategy for bats is also to use a power rod usually. However you can also use a defense beforehand (they'll do 1 HP damage instead of 4 HP damage each hit then). The defense rod is mainly helpful to reduce the enemy damage to 1 HP so you can pickup various items without having to worry too much.
Magicians are quite annoying because of their stun ability. If you encounter them and aren't prepared for them yet, it's a good strategy to just run. If there's only one Magician in a formation it's you're opportunity! Kill all the other mobs first, if I remember correctly, Magicians only use sleep if they are not alone (correct me if I'm wrong). So if you now only have one Magician left, you are saved from the constant sleeping. So now use defense to reduce their damage to 1 HP and start on stealing sleep rods. In the next battles against them, you can use a sleep rod right away (if you are fast enough or lucky they won't stun you at the same time), it will give you some time to either kill them or plan a different tactic (depending on battle formation).
See, even the first enemies have gotten quite some thought put into them.
I didn't want to make the battles as complicated / difficult as in Darkmoor Dungeon, simply because I found it really frustrating in DD when I couldn't win a battle even after the third try.
Actually I would say my game is somewhere in the middle between "Bashing enter" and "Tactical boss battles". This just mirrors my personal taste because on the one hand just bashing enter is too simple to be fun, but on the other hand if it gets too complicated I don't like it either. |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:29 am Post subject: |
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Having three characters instead of one is a suggestion of flexibility rather than purely for speed.
I think it's just me, but something like the Draw system from FF8 was actually a step backward for me when it comes to doing the same thing over and over in a battle. At least you don't have to pickup 100 of something in the game, but some flexibility would make things a bit nicer, while barely changing the battle system. Plus, unlike FF8, the items are universal and not character specific so that frees up a character or two, depending on how much you've already collected.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN? |
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Moogle1
Scourge of the Seas
Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 3377
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:51 am Post subject: |
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| Rya.Reisender wrote: | | Actually I thought the boss was too very easy, when I firsted played the game I think I was level 21 at the boss (fully healed, but no potions left) and after 30 attempts I could beat him. |
| Quote: | | I didn't want to make the battles as complicated / difficult as in Darkmoor Dungeon, simply because I found it really frustrating in DD when I couldn't win a battle even after the third try. |
...What?
First of all, if it takes you 30 tries, it's going to take other people more than 30 tries. They didn't make the game. It was your job while making the game to consider all the different strategies available to the player. The player hasn't spent hours doing that by the time he gets to the last boss.
Second, why is it okay to have to try 30 times here? Your stated tolerance level is three tries. I think that's adequate, by the way. If I can't win a battle after three to five tries, I start looking for a walkthrough. I'm not going to try your boss 30 times. I'm at level 15, by the way.
| Quote: | | I wonder which enemies you think don't resemble what they're supposed to be? |
The bats, for example, don't look like real bats. That's fine, though, just saying.
| Quote: | | My art teacher always told me I'm a genius abstract artist |
I'm not sure this really means anything.
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The Drizzle
Who is the Drizzle?
Joined: 12 Nov 2003
Posts: 432
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, 30 tries is a pretty ridiculous amount of tries.
| Quote: | | Um, there's no difference between having 4 characters at speed 10 or one character at speed 40. |
Actually there's a pretty huge difference, even if they all have the same moves and all their stats are the same. For one thing, if one of them loses all 30 of his HP and dies, you've got 75% of the damage output you once had, if all things are equal. Another things is, an enemy move that puts a character to sleep for 10 seconds is much more devastating to a single character than to a group of four. This also applies to other status effects, stat-affecting attacks, instant death attacks, whatever else. Thirdly, in the same way, bonuses are less effective. A 10% attack increase means much more to 1 character than to 1 of 4 characters. And also, healing. A 100 HP potion is always going to recover 200 HP but means something entirely different to a group of 4 characters with 30 HP than to one character with 120. So there actually is a world of difference. But as far as the difference in time between attacks, then, barring any speed altering effects, you're right.
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Onlyoneinall
Bug finder
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 746
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Rya.Reisender wrote: | | Um, there's no difference between having 4 characters at speed 10 or one character at speed 40. |
This was just a really poor argument (or possibly poorly worded).
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Onlyoneinall wrote: | | Rya.Reisender wrote: | | Um, there's no difference between having 4 characters at speed 10 or one character at speed 40. |
This was just a really poor argument (or possibly poorly worded). |
No. It's an awful argument. He assumed I was complaining about the speed of the battles, but adding just a couple of characters and re-balancing everything would change the game quite a bit.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN? |
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RedMaverickZero
Three pointed, red disaster!
Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner
Joined: 12 Jul 2003
Posts: 1459
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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30 tries is absurd.
When I made Mr.Triangle 5 and I programmed the final boss (which everyone said was way too hard), I beat him on like the 3rd try at the most. And I had like 5-6 team arrangements to choose from. Wheras you only have 1 with Fatal Maze.
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Moogle1
Scourge of the Seas
Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 3377
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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For reference, it took me about five tries to beat the last boss. I have no clue how it took you 30, nor why you kept trying 30 times. After the 10th attempt or so, I would've ratcheted down the difficulty a few notches.
The Sleep item is overpowered, since it targets all enemies. This compensates for the enemy's Sleep attack being so totally dominating in the last battle. Entering the battle with a good stock of items and killing the magician quickly ensures that you will win.
The ending is awful. You could at least have included a game over script.
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 4:49 am Post subject: |
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Um, it's really no difference to have 4 heroes with speed 10 or 1 hero with speed 40. The only thing that changes is that a different hero bar will light up. This is assuming all 4 heroes have the same 3 battle commands and they are all targeted together by each attack and always take the same damage (these are factors unrelated to the initial argument that it's too boring to stuck up on items). And that's a fact.
Also you did it again, taking my sentence totally out of context. >_>
I said it took me 30 tries to beat him WITHOUT potions. A single full potions already makes him very easy. No need to reduce the difficulty. Also the "maximum 3 tries" rule doesn't apply to the final boss in a game.
| Quote: | | I'm at level 15, by the way. |
Wow you must have run from many battles then. I was level 15 at then end of floor 1 already and I didn't even walk through every room. ^^'
I was actually assuming that other players will be a higher level than me because they need to find the correct path first.
| Quote: | | For reference, it took me about five tries to beat the last boss. I have no clue how it took you 30, nor why you kept trying 30 times. |
I knew I could win if I managed to kill the snail before it poisons me. That's why I retried until I was lucky. :p
Besides the battle was so fun that I wanted to redo it again and again. ^^'
Even after I beat it I continued doing it with different tactics and stuff.
| Quote: | | The Sleep item is overpowered, since it targets all enemies. This compensates for the enemy's Sleep attack being so totally dominating in the last battle. Entering the battle with a good stock of items and killing the magician quickly ensures that you will win. |
I don't think sleep is too overpowered, it was actually too weak so I made it target all. The reason why it isn't overpowered is because it fails if the target is already sleeping. You can't make anyone sleep permanently, if you're good with timing you can reduce their speed by 60%, but just for using it and stealing a new one you would need 2 turns, so this balances it out again.
But yeah magicians are always nasty so killing them fast is quite smart. Actually I first killed the Snail and then the Magician. After that the order depends a lot on the current battle situation (for example who got power, defense and speed cast on them).
| Quote: | | The ending is awful. You could at least have included a game over script. |
I didn't really wanna use plotscripting since I would have to learn it first (I'm working on it, though). I like how simple the ending is, it fits to the non-existing story. Actually what kind of ending would you expect? |
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Newbie_Power
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Posts: 1762
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Um, it's really no difference to have 4 heroes with speed 10 or 1 hero with speed 40. The only thing that changes is that a different hero bar will light up. This is assuming all 4 heroes have the same 3 battle commands and they are all targeted together by each attack and always take the same damage (these are factors unrelated to the initial argument that it's too boring to stuck up on items). And that's a fact.
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I'm not asking for it to be faster, I just care that it would make the Pickup system less boring since you can attack with other party members.
| Quote: | | Actually what kind of ending would you expect? |
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN? |
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:32 am Post subject: |
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Well, almost. I just wouldn't call my own game "great". ^^'
Did you finish it btw? |
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Moogle1
Scourge of the Seas
Halloween 2006 Creativity Winner
Joined: 15 Jul 2004
Posts: 3377
Location: Seattle, WA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:08 am Post subject: |
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It would've been nice for the game to at least take you back to the title screen after you win.
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Rya.Reisender
Snippy
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 821
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:27 am Post subject: |
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Unfortunately that doesn't work without plotscripting very well or does it? The only thing I can imagine is letting the boss use an instant kill spell when he dies. xD
Also there's a point in continueing after beating the game still (check your pm). |
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