I enjoyed the Final Fantasy games I played, VI,VII, VIII and X, but the random battleshave always been annoying. FFVII onwards kinda made it less annoying by having spectacular battles, with the cool looking magic and stuff.
Thought I'd do the AsparagusTrevor thing and give everybody some individual feedback:
Power Quest: Obviously, the graphics were rushed, but it had a pretty good battle system, although my chick ended up dying and enemies still attacked her. I appreciated the directness of the game, as some others felt pretty pointless. I mean, I think it was the only one I bothered to finish, which must count for something.
Shattered Lands: Good graphics, good presentation, very clear-cut quests. It even has a radar thing, but I followed it and nothing was there. Perhaps I misunderstood something, but with the frequency of random battles, I didn't really like wandering around much. Good variety of abilities for the characters, though.
Beanboy RPG: Nice overworld graphics, good battle system. Travelling was a little glitchy, and I would have perferred not to have to keep tapping the arrow key to move. One of the "I'm a wacky guy in a weird world and I can't be bothered with a plot so just play" games, the battles became tedious pretty quickly and I couldn't see much point in continuing. Would be better with more of an objective-based plot, and maybe a way to avoid enemies on the overworld map.
Randomness RPG: Great graphics, seemed to be nice battle and inventory systems, but it was too dark to see much on my monitor (not the author's fault, of course), and the frequency of random battles and the fact that I couldn't last for more than 2 fights without going back for healing made bumping my way through the overworld map tedious. I found myself not caring whether or not King Peanut (or whatever his name is) kept all of Snerlin's games. Maybe a plot with broader appeal would help. And give me some healing items, dammit. Let me fill up some bottles with spring water or something.
Only in Your Memories: The graphics were okay, but the game tried too hard to be zany without trying hard to do anything else. The plot was pointless, the delivery was dull, movement was slow, and combat was repetitive. I did enjoy the author’s self-portrait, but the game itself was not much fun. That probably isn’t too harsh of an assessment since it didn’t seem like the author killed himself making it.
Ballstick Adventure: Not an RPG, really, but it had sort of an interesting battle system. Then came the walking. It lasted forever and seemed to lead nowhere. Yes, you can shoot spikes that bounce off of the ground and air. But that’s not going to be enough to keep me playing. Needs graphics, a plot, and some freedom to explore, rather than simply moving to the right.
Koinion: Cute characters, took some getting used to where to go and how things worked. I couldn’t find the cave I was supposed to go to, even though there’s only three screens, but I did fight some guy who kicked my ass until I noticed the apple icon and decided to bring one into battle with me. Good thing there wasn’t a flower icon. Anyway, there didn’t seem to be much to do besides pick up and apple and fight the same guy over and over again.
Arthur Smith: One of the more enjoyable submissions gameplay-wise, this game allowed the player to see enemies and avoid them. Smart move. The graphics weren’t great, but it appeared that the author spent some time on them, so I appreciate them. They do the job. I beat the first quest, but died in the first fight of the second, and was told I needed to do the first quest over again in order to play the second. No, thanks. It would have been nice if I could have healed in between or something. Anyway, the audio was pretty good and the presentation was decent. There were a good number of abilities and the quests were direct. Pretty good game, all things considered.
Abandoned RPG: Compile your game next time. Nobody wants to go hunting down extensions to play a contest entry.
Insect Invasion: I didn’t realize that the graphics were library. I thought they were just downloaded from someplace, because they seemed to be considerably advanced beyond the engine. Literally a completely linear game, you walk right and fight monsters while you waste your MP looking for hidden goodies. And innovative twist, but I died too easily and got bored with it. Maybe separate the battle and exploration experiences a bit?
Finally, so no one thinks I’m just being a cruel bastard, I realize that my own submission did not even attempt a plot. The battles are probably too boring to keep beginners playing and the equipment system needs to be reworked to make it worthwhile. There’s no sound, no animation, and no effects. It might really make one wonder what I spent all my time on. Well, I’ll work on it.
Anyway, it was pretty interesting to see what everyone came up with in such a short amount of time, considering how little I can seem to get done with an endless amount of time. Pressure is good, I guess.
Next time, it might be nice to have 2 weeks to work on something, unless it’s a simple action game or something. Also, it would be a good idea to announce ahead of time that there will be a contest. Like, “There’s going to be a contest in two weeks. Details will be on the front page on such-and-such date.” Aside from that, thanks to Shab for the contest, and congratulations to anybody who was able to finish anything for it.
On the Abandoned RPG note, I'd like to point this out - It was NOT A SUBMISSION. The guy posted it because he wasn't going to get it finished, and was just sharing the work he did on the engine and was hoping someone could help him fix some glitches.
It wasn't an entry. Just FYI.
Current Projects:
Bomb Squad (Total Progress - 3%)
:: Current Task Progress: 40%
:: Current Task - Level Editor Shell
yeah, it's not going to up for voting. It kinda got added into the mix when I rushed to get all the entries together last night when my cable came back on (and left shortly thereafter).
@Defen - Ya, there will be an announcement next time to prepare ppl in advance. I honestly didn't expect the comp to get this big (almost as many entries as the christmas comps) I figured a majority would talk out there rear, post a few shots, then give up on it. I'm pleasantly surprised (it's been a long time since anything on TDC was a pleasant surprise) and with the interest shown, I'm going to keep having these comps. Maybe I'll fire an email over to clickteam and see if they'd like to provide some prizes for future comps.
Edited by the Author.
Craps, I'm an old man!
Peblo Custom ratings must be 50 characters or less
Registered 05/07/2002
Points 185
30th May, 2005 at 21:28:53 -
Unfortunatly, I now have like 50 mail from people that i should compile my stuff. Really, would I send someone the source, what all the values in the Data Object were, what all the AV's meant, and naming it abandonedrpg if I were really submitting it? BTW, anyone know whats wrong with it, besides it not being finished?
Edited by the Author.
"Isn't it always amazing how we characterize a person's intelligence by how closely their thinking matches ours?"
~Belgarath
Yeah, I ran into that problem with Shattered too, except with the enemies. Tracking multiple enemies in an FF-Style battle engine is annoying and messy.
Current Projects:
Bomb Squad (Total Progress - 3%)
:: Current Task Progress: 40%
:: Current Task - Level Editor Shell
I want to know when the actual voting will occur. I'm pretty positive I lost, but still - the competition is over, its time to wrap up the challenge and declare a winner. When do we get to start voting?
Current Projects:
Bomb Squad (Total Progress - 3%)
:: Current Task Progress: 40%
:: Current Task - Level Editor Shell
So far I tried Shattered Lands, Power Quest, and RandomnessRPG.
Shattered Lands is easily my favourite, despite a few floors:
* navigation - the compass thingy doesn't work too well, and the pile of rocks representing a city wasn't exactly the sort of thing I was looking out for.
* random scenery - it's a little disconcerting when trees and rocks start moving around, I find.
* difficulty - I think it's a bit too easy to level-up later in the game, when it becomes easy to kill stuff. You quite quickly become invincible. Maybe you just recover health too fast.
* killer bug - I got to the dungeon level 10, skill level 30, killed a few dragons, and then inexplicably got dumped on top of a wall after a fight, meaning I couldn't move or anything. That annoyed me quite a lot actually.
Good idea, this mini-comp. I'd definitely have had a go at if I wasn't so busy.
You got on top of a wall? O.O - Wow, I played the whole game through and never had that happen. I'll have to look into that one. And your right on all of that, those were all glitches I hated myself (except for the Wall thing, never noticed that). The compass had something to do with the 'Look At' instruction, but when I tried to fix it I made it worse.. so I just put it back and left it alone.
The difficulty does drop off very steeply, and the end boss ended up being terribly easy to kill. And, uh.. for some reason killing him doesn't trigger the jump-to-end-of-game-frame. Worked in MMF, stopped working after I compiled it.
And the random scenery was easily the crappiest decision I made. I should have taken an extra thirty minutes and atleast used an array to record the random layout so it stays consistant.
It needed saving/loading, music and a lot more too. But I had never done anything close to an RPG in MMF or TGF, so I was kinda breaking new ground personally. Aside from the city sprites though I was quite happy with the way the art turned out.
I'm going to start over from scratch and build another RPG from the ground up with a few friends of mine. Even if i don't win, I sure learned a lot from this competition. I really appreciate all the feedback everyone is giving too. Thanks!
I can't wait for the next comp.
Current Projects:
Bomb Squad (Total Progress - 3%)
:: Current Task Progress: 40%
:: Current Task - Level Editor Shell
Just thought id mention, my game was amazingly crap simply due to the fact i spent a grand total of 6 hours working on it, i completely forgot about the comp and whipped up that little stick idea real quick. It was fun none the less and i enjoyed playing every1 elses games. Especially Arthur Smith, although the selling point for me in this game was not the gameplay at all but the music, it was some rock'n'novelty random coolness. Oh and the business man game was a really good idea, the shop attendant and his sensual prices is pretty funny.
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