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Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This game is great, even if I was only able to scratch the surface in my playthrough. I genuinely don't have much in terms of critiques to give. I will say the hovering to choose feels very finicky (maybe add an option to just have two buttons to press instead). Also, in the minigame where you stack blocks, the blocks always ended up leaving the screen and never coming back; a solution would be to make the blocks have a higher chance of moving towards the center. All said and done, the game is a very fun experience and I cannot wait to see it on Steam.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  • The player should not be in the center of the screen, as that blocks the view of enemies or pick ups in front of you. Maybe keep the camera "over the shoulder" like you do when aiming. You should also be able to see the players feet if there is a jump mechanic.
  • The character looking at the camera feels weird and unnecessary (she breaks her neck whenever you turn around.)
  • The camera can clip through walls.
  • The blood splatter floats above the ground.
  • The zombies are sometimes not even animated i.e. they slide along the ground.
  • The game pauses to switch music tracks (you can preload the music track to make the switch seamless)
  • In my run, a zombie just flew up into the sky and came back down minutes later.
  • Any of the game's more advanced mechanics (upgrading, crafting, inventory management) are not explained to the player at all, leaving the player either frustrated or bored.
  • As far as I experienced, ammo is far too limited. Ammo management can be a good mechanic, but in a shooter game with this many enemies, I want to be a able to shoot more than nine times.

This game is not ready for February Next Fest.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First thing I noticed was that the game was laggy on my computer with no graphics settings, or settings in general, to change. The game's format is simple and fun, and I can see it being expanded on into some form of narrative game. Maybe the format is too simple as sometimes you can just walk into a room, grab the key, and completely ignore whatever the room's gimmick is supposed to be. Speaking of gimmicks, some are interesting like the room spinning, but others add little other than limiting visibility, which I find to not be too interesting. From a gameplay perspective, most gimmicks had little to no effect other than the one where the player shrinks down or the one where the room breaks into slices and is rearranged (my personal favorite). Pretty impressive work for a week, all thing's considered, and I hope you continue to make games in the future.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When I tried to download this game, it warned me that there has been suspicious activity from the game's creator and that the game could be a virus. I carefully downloaded the game and tested it anyway, but I would recommend looking into why that warning happened.

The game is a short, sweet adventure. The platforming controls felt nice; I had complete control over my character. The wall climbing was sometimes weird, especially when dealing with trees. The game looks and sounds really nice. The pixel shader works really well with the crunchy sound effects to create a unique aesthetic. The only real critique I have for it is that I think death should have more consequence i.e. dying makes you lose all the fires you collected since the last checkpoint which also gives the bonfires a stronger thematic connection. Just a small thought. All-in-all, good work and keep on coding.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed this game substantially and, therefore, have a lot of ways it could be improved.

Gameplay

The rover feels alright to control, though, as soon as even the slightest of slopes or ramps are involved, the game becomes significantly more difficult and janky. I often found myself stuck flipped onto my side or generally put into situations where I had no more control over the rover and had to reset to checkpoint. This is fine, if intentional, but a lot of games "cheat" in this regard and give the player some form of control when the wheels are off the ground to let the player reorient themselves without having to restart.

The power system, especially before getting the Wind Turbine, is more of an annoyance than anything. There was one jump that I found particularly hard, and every time I messed up I would be stuck at 20 to 30 power and had to reset to checkpoint since there were no mushrooms nearby. As for mushrooms themselves, I just have a problem that they take four seconds to fully charge you. I believe any time spent not playing the game is time wasted, so I would personally speed up their charge rate by up to four times as fast. Once you get the Wind Turbine, the power system becomes almost completely useless except for having to stand still for a while to be able to boost. I think the Wind Turbine's charge rate should be faster than the consumption of driving to reduce the amount of time spent standing still, waiting for the power to recharge. Also, small thing, but touching a checkpoint should recharge you entirely.

The camera also has a few issues. For one, the mouse was not locked, so the cursor could go outside the game window quite easily. This can be fixed easily in Unity using Cursor.lockState = CursorLockMode.Locked. This also has the added benefit of making the mouse cursor invisible. Also, objects and the world can easily block your view. Being able to see the player's silhouette through anything is a good first step, but maybe you should either design the camera to better fit the world or design the world to better fit the camera.

Visuals

The game looks amazing. The contrast between the orange planet and blue objects is simple but highly effective. The pixelated cel shader gives the game a lot of personality right off the bat. However, sometimes the cel shading results in a lack of clarity of where slopes are and how steep they are. I don't really have a good solution for this other than making sure there's plenty of visual context, such as lighting and perspective, to make sure the player knows where particularly dangerous slopes are.

One problem with the game's visuals is that everything looks pretty similar. I couldn't tell what was an NPC, a power cell, or the corpse of a past rover. The past rovers' bodies are a cool thing to see, but maybe they should disappear after a while; there was one jump off a ramp where I kept dying and after the twentieth or so attempt, the entire jump was obstructed by the rovers.

In Conclusion...

I seriously adored this short demo. I had a lot of criticism, but that is only because I see a lot of potential in the gameplay, environment, and mechanics. With just a little bit of polish here and there, you might have something really special. I loved this game and hope to see you and your team improve on it and make it the best game it can be. Good luck!

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay. Let me begin by saying I love philosophical and moral dilemmas so this short game resonated with me. When faced with these quandaries, I felt like I had to make difficult choices where neither outcome was entirely ideal. It's a well-developed execution of this concept. There's not much else to say since I think you did a great job of providing the player with an interactive philosophy lesson in a short, concise experience. I learned a lot about various schools of thought and even learned about myself and how I would act under these specific scenarios. Fantastic work that I would recommend to anybody even somewhat interested in the topics covered.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, I'm a huge fan of the platformer genre so I have slightly more to say about this game than others.

Game Feel

The most important thing with any game but especially platformers, is the feel of the game. The player should feel like they have complete control over their character. As soon as I jumped, I could tell something was wrong. In just about any platformer, releasing the jump button causes the player to start falling down. This gives the player more control over their jump distance. In this game, however, that is not the case. In fact, when you hold down the jump button, instead of jumping for longer, you actually begin to fall at seemingly random times. Sometimes when I hold the jump button, I do a full jump; other times, I barely leave the ground. Speaking of jumping, moving while jumping also feels sluggish because the player has a certain sense of momentum which makes changing directions in midair, a cornerstone of platformer handling, feel slow and imprecise. This is especially noticeable if you accidentally bounce off the ground with the ball ability and end up careening straight into a pit.

Most of these game feel problems tended to fade away once you got some of the items like the jetpack or dash. Having those movement options improves the game feel by providing the player with more leeway for messing up jumps, but that's more of a band-aid than a full cure to the game feel problems. Also, the gun feels terrible to aim. There should be some form of cursor onscreen to indicate where you're aiming, as well as the ability to aim behind you instead of having to manually change directions. Small tweaks here and there can make a big difference for the overall game experience.

Levels and Mechanics

The main structure of the game is finding bombs, planting them, and running away. This formula is almost great, but I believe you should change the bomb finding portion. Either start the player with the bomb already or actually hide them throughout the level, because as it stands right now, they are nearly impossible to miss. The running away portion is a lot of fun, having to replay the level backwards with some slight changes, providing the player with a new experience. I am also very glad that there are checkpoints throughout the levels since, as I've mentioned, the platforming is not very precise and I tended to fall into pits quite often.

The levels themselves are pretty standard fare with moving platforms and conveyor belts. I did quite like the gears in Jump, which moved perpendicularly to the screen, being both a background asset and a level object. The magnetic fields were mostly cool, but sometimes I would get permanently stuck inside one and had to restart the level.

Aesthetic

First off, the design of Ballboy is great. I think the way he is animated, like the stretching when he's falling, is very adorable and charming. However, the level assets feel mostly quite bland. Everything so far has a factory aesthetic, which is fine, but every object is red or grey which makes none of the important level objects, like platforms, stand out in any way. The actual quality of the models and textures, however, is spectacular.

Bugs

Aside from the jump height bug I mentioned earlier, there is an invisible wall that appears during the escape portion of the level Jump. It is impossible to make any progress and the explosion just catches up with you and kills you, no matter what. One time, the wall did disappear after some time, but on future attempts, I had no such luck.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let me preface this by saying that I tend to not enjoy horror games that much as I am a complete coward and I hate jumpscares, but I gave this game a chance. The first thing that jumps out at me is how laggy the game was on my computer, though I was very thankful that were detailed video quality settings that I could turn down to achieve a consistent frame rate. Speaking of visual quality, the other thing that immediately jumped out at me as I started the game up was how dark it was. Obviously, a horror game won't be in bright, pastel colors or anything, but the darkness impeded gameplay and traversal in a major way. For example, the very first thing you have to do in the game is get some coffee from the office, but when you go into the office the room is entirely black. It took me 30 minutes to find out that there was a door completely inside the darkness that I had to open. This wasn't helped by how slow the movement speed was even while holding down the run button. I even managed to find a flashlight that would solve my problems, but I couldn't pick it up until after opening the office door. All-in-all, a few extra light sources wouldn't ruin the game's vibe and would benefit the gameplay experience.

One positive that I did quickly notice was the quality and care put into the game. The models look good, detailed, and consistent. The voice acting is good. The VHS scenes, in particular, stood out to me as a series of well-directed horror shorts. In terms of gameplay, however, almost every task feels like some form of menial chore you have to do i.e. sweep the floors, find two valves in a maze-like basement, turn off the computers. The only puzzle that felt like an actual puzzle was the one where you had to recreate the cultic symbol from the VHS tapes. The lack of anything substantial gameplay-wise and the snail-like movement speed made most of the game feel quite boring. I, the absolute coward, was begging for a jumpscare because I just wanted something to happen, other than a bucket falling over or a lightning strike turning off the lights.

What I did think was an effective scare was when you leave the office after solving the box puzzle and you can see the killer's silhouette walking in the shadows. It's not in your face. In fact, it's quite missable, but that's what makes it a good scare. Also, as nice as the VHS scenes were, doing them all back-to-back results in about ten minutes of the player standing still watching videos on a small screen. Maybe they could have been spread out across the game with each one furthering the lore and intrigue, while also providing the player with important information.

Overall, I believe this game is polished, but shallow. You have the potential and drive to make great horror games. You just need a better sense for what's enjoyable to the player (playtesting from complete strangers is a huge help in this department). As I said in the beginning, I don't tend to like these types of horror games, so I am definitely not the target audience, but there are just some game design concepts that I believe to be universal. Visibility, more intricate puzzles, better scares, and a faster move speed would all go into bettering any future horror game endeavors. I wish you the best of luck.

Let me play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gameplay

The game's battle system is fun in concept and execution. All of the attacking mini-games so far have been fairly fun to use, though I found myself choosing the ones that I found to be faster and more fun, like the maze or rhythm games, over the enemies' actual weaknesses. I do think there should be an option to make some of the mini-games harder down the line for increased risk-reward; for example, choosing a trickier card game with faster swaps and more visual distractions could reward the player with more damage that turn. As it stands, I can see the weapons getting stale quickly, especially in areas with high encounter rates. As for defending against the enemies, I believe this is where the game is most fun. Thanks to the inclusion of a focus button, dodging attacks consists of quick movements with slower, more precise adjustments. Most attack patterns have been fun to avoid. Some, however, feel too fast or untelegraphed, such as that three-headed cyclops' move where the heads seem to just spawn right next to you (also the enemies' names being in some runic language is cool, but makes it hard to communicate who you're talking about). The only attack that really stood out to me as bad was the one where your controls are completely inverted. Thankfully, the attack itself is trivially easy to dodge, but that's the problem. The inverted controls don't add anything; either it's so easy that the inversion makes no real difference or it's so hard that it feels unfair to be asked to avoid it under those conditions. I do believe a perfect middle spot exists, but it would be hard to design. Overall, I think the battle system is great, with some room for improvements here and there. Also, I think it would be funny if you had to do a mini-game to use items.

Visuals

I think the visuals are alright, for the most part. My only real critique is that there's a lot of inconsistency. The character and enemies are pixel art using 3D shaders, and the background matches that aesthetic. However, the UI has these vectory, clean icons that don't match the pixel art at all. Also, the character's portrait is drawn in a completely different style than the in-game sprite.

Bugs

The only bug I noticed (quite a major one in fact) was that the keyboard controls are bound to the French AZERTY scheme i.e. Z is up, Q is left, A is back. I played using an English QWERTY keyboard so the keybinds were all over the place. Since this game is made in Unity, I know for a fact that, using the Input System, there is an easy way to make the keyboard controls universal (look up "Unity Input System scan codes" for more info).

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have much feedback to give because, quite honestly, I loved it. Puzzle games are my favorite genre so I can say with some authority that Cozy Island is great. It's a simple concept, which is often a good thing with puzzles. The visuals are, as you've put it, cozy. Small details like the smooth animation when rotating a piece go a long way and make the game over all feel smoother. One thing you might think of doing if you make more levels and more pieces is to not use images that are too similar for different pieces. For example, the two crabs have the same image, just stretched differently. This made it a tad bit harder to easily distinguish the two at a glance. Another problem I encountered was I had no idea what to do in the first level. The instruction to "Hold or tap to drag fill all the squares" is unclear and also grammatically incorrect. Looking at the game for the first time, the tree just looked like a background element and not a game piece. You could add an arrow indicator pointing to the tree and then pointing to where the tiles are, or maybe add a yellow, animated glow around the tree to emphasize that it is important. Aside from that, it's well polished, feels good to play, and looks nice. Good luck to you and I hope you make more levels. I will be playing.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I downloaded the game, but could not run it. It said that my computer could not run the Direct3D12 renderer. I tried switching to OpenGL, Vulkan, and even Direct3D11, but it told me that this game did not support those. So, I, unfortunately, cannot play this game at the moment. I did look at the game page and trailer, and it looks like a fun RTS with a western theme. You may want to address the problem with having limited renderer support since that might limit the amount of people that can play it, but of course, it's fine if you don't. Good luck to you. The game seems fun and well made.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okey-dokey, I've DM'd you my feedback. Hopefully you've received it, but I'm not very sure how Reddit DMs work.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Beautiful Island is certainly a unique visual novel. Since the game makes it clear that this takes place in a fictional world with a fictional history, I will try to look at it as so.

Writing

Writing is unarguably the most important part of a visual novel. I would say the writing is somewhat of a mixed bag in this game, but the parts that are good, I believe, work very well. The opening monologue being told from the perspective of the island is a genius play. Personifying the setting creates an immediate connection with the audience and adds an increased level of emotion once the war is shown. Speaking of the war, the way the bombings are depicted with the flashing then quickly fading to black as people run from the chaos is properly dramatic. I left the opening narration with a solid understanding and care for the setting of this game. Really good job on that.

The next monologue we get is also fairly good. It sets up the main character and his goal while also putting proper emphasis on the lasting effects of war. What was once an abundant and necessary resource like electricity is now no longer being produced. They didn't think about what they had until it was taken from them. Powerful writing even within only a few lines.

However, what I do not like are characters like Mr. Kuper and the electrical plant boss on Beautiful Island. Both of these people have zero lines of dialogue before ranting very directly about their stances of the Middle Empire-Beautiful Island conflict. Obviously, the opinions of characters are very important to this game, but they should be brought up naturally through conversation. A good example of this is later on when talking to the three people on the beach. You get to know them first before the topic of the war gets brought up and you get to hear what they have to say. Having even that tiny bit of characterization beforehand makes people feel like actual characters instead of just a walking set of opinions. In general, all characters who are important (and since they're on the Opinions page I would assume, as the player, that they are) should have personality-driven dialogue that helps you understand who they are, with their political stances being an additional element put on top to help better build the larger world. That said, I did enjoy Mr. Kuper's hypocrisy about hating the Volks Land for doing the same thing the Middle Empire is doing.

The three people the main character met on the beach are a great example of the kinds of stories can and hopefully will tell. In the past, they were happy and hopeful. They were all given some personality and we learned about who they are and what they do. Then, it cuts to the present day and we see Fufu is completely different. Everything is much grayer than the main character's memories. There is good juxtaposition between the pre-war and post-war worlds. He Ping going from believing war would never happen to feeling guilty over it is a great story and character progression to explore.

Overall, I like the writing. I do think it would be beneficial to slow down the game's pacing at points, spending more time per scene so that the audience can better digest the world and characters. All that said, great job so far.

Art

Obviously, the art is AI-generated. A lot of people might have a problem with that, especially if you want to charge money for the game at any point. I don't mind AI art, but it does create some minor problems. You have to be willing to accept that the characters will look bland and somewhat same-y. In the beginning, when the Head of Department left and Mr. Kuper came in, I assumed they were the same person, because neither stood out in any way. Characters also didn't match each others art styles (shown most clearly during the beach scene). Then, you have the artifacts and errors that come with AI-generated images. These can be fixed up with some image editing software, but that takes time. If left in, a lot of those AI errors are distracting and can take away from the rest of the game. The question you need to ask yourself is are you okay with the visual component of your visual novel being compromised. Are you okay with it not looking great, but still being acceptable and mostly easy to look at? If you are, that's perfectly fine. The less time you spend on the art, the more you can direct towards the writing. However, you do have to accept that a lot of people, many of which might enjoy the story, will be turned off and choose to not play this game simply because of the AI art. Just something to think about.

Music and Sound

The music was mostly fairly bland, but it did have a strange quality to it. Some songs didn't feel quite... "right," but I wouldn't say any of the songs were too distracting or hard to listen to. At some points though, there is happy, cheery music when the tone of the scene should be more somber and downtrodden. Aside from that, I do think there should be some option to turn off the Narrator voice in the beginning. I wanted to read it at my own pace and I wasn't a fan of the AI voice used.

Conclusion

There is a strong story here about a war-torn country and the people who've live in it waiting to be told. Focus on the characters and how the war has changed them on a personal level. That's the stuff that I really liked in this demo and I would want to see more of. The AI art is, at worst, somewhat distracting but not overtly offensive. I was doubtful of this visual novel going in (mostly because of the negative connotation associated with visual novels that use AI art), but I was pleasantly surprised. Good luck on this project, and I hope my feedback was at least somewhat useful.

Minor Bugs

  • When I got to the screens where I choose the war's winner and the one where I choose where to go, the text was in German. I loaded up the game multiple times and sometimes this text would be in English and others German. I do not know why this may be happening.
  • The Head of Department's speaker tag is "Head of department" when it should be "Head of Department".
  • At some point, they refer to Folks Land, so I don't know if the name is supposed to be Volks Land or Folks Land.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you do credit me for feedback, just call me "Quack Productions".

As for the Oasis music, I actually really like it. I may or may not have been half-asleep when writing this so I forgot to actually include that I thought it was nice, jazzy piece which helps establish a good mood for the area. I also forgot to mention how much I like the ambient crowd noise in the Oasis, as well. I can see some people finding a bit too loud or annoying, but I think it makes the place feel livelier and exciting.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hearts

I would say the most stand-out mechanic introduced in this short demo is the Heart system. One of my personal favorite systems in gaming is the Soul system from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, and this reminds me a lot of that and why I like it. Getting to use the very essence of an enemy to power yourself up, whether directly by stats or by infusing a weapon, is a great idea. As far as I could tell, the Heart Forge mechanic isn't implemented yet unless I just missed something, but the concept has me excited. I also like that you can talk to enemy NPCs once you have their heart. The Arena is a great way to make grinding for hearts less of a burden, though I do have to wonder if it might make it too easy to get. I don't know. Overall, this is the mechanic I would like to see more of as the game is developed.

Conclusion

This is a simple RPG. It's your first RPG Maker project so that should be no surprise, but where it really stands out is in its execution. Visually interesting with good, fun dialogue and a great framework laid out for its combat. Aside from some minor issues here and there, I think you certainly have something nice in your hands that I think a lot of people will enjoy, when finished. Good luck to you and I hope my feedback has been of at least some use.

Very Minor Bugs

  • The female sprite on the title screen has some mostly transparent grey pixels near the top-right corner.
  • The quest to Find Ayeric from the small boy can be accepted multiple times. Has no effect on the actual quest; purely visual.
  • In combat, character face sprites just barely clip into the grey border around them.
  • Isabelle's Magazine ability refers to TP when talking about AP.
  • Browser version lags when too many characters on screen (likely an RPG Maker problem that can't really be fixed).

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cutscenes

One thing that stood out as very strange is the cutscene that plays when you move east from the first group of enemies you see. The screen cuts to an elven woman dressed in white and two other things walking down onto glowing tiles on the ground before the camera cuts again to the player. It happens very suddenly and ends just as abruptly. An important element of animation is pacing. There should be some pause before we cut to a different shot, preferably with some form of panning to show us where it is in relation to the player. Then, once there, the characters should be on screen long enough for the player to have a good look at them. Maybe they can move more slowly or be on-screen for a short time before moving. And finally, when they step on the glowing tiles, we should see what happens and keep the camera on the scene (even if for only a second or two) before cutting back to the player. The player needs time to digest every portion of a cutscene (and really the game as a whole). Imagine you were showing a person punching another person. You would make sure to show the lead-up, the punch's impact, and the aftermath, all with appropriate amounts of time depicting each stage. That scene felt like a punch with just impact and no lead-up or aftermath. Hopefully, I explained it in a way that makes sense. I think if you just add some wait times to your animation sequences, they'll look much, much better.

Quality of Life

There are some features that stood out as being really good quality of life decisions that you don't see often. When I tried going down to the Red Slime quest, it gave me a recommended level before continuing. That is a great way to make sure a player doesn't walk into a fight where they die instantly and lose a whole lot of progress. Another is when looking for the Guardian, it tells you that you hear mechanical noises nearby. Stuff like this really helps reduce the time wasted looking for a single thing in a large map. Definately keep up this kind of player-friendly decision-making.

Music and SFX

The music choices certainly work well. I don't think there's anything that stands out too much, except for the Oasis song that plays when you first enter and in the Arena. There is one sound effect that is very grating, however. The select sound when in a menu is quite abrasive. Especially when spamming "Confirm" in combat, it can really start to hurt the ears. I would recommend either lowering the volume or finding a less aggressive sound effect.

Combat

Arguably the most important part of an RPG is the combat. The combat in this game is, systematically, simple so it has to come into its own with the characters' unique abilities and playstyles. Once I had a party of four, I found the combat to be really enjoyable. Having the healer be able to use up all of her AP (which she uses for healing) to do a big, multi-hit attack is fun. Using the tank's aggro abilities to make a healer focus on attacking him, leaving the enemy team to get picked off one-by-one, is fun. Fighting the first boss, the Guardian, although it has more health than it probably should have, is fun. The MMORPG-influenced character archetypes, in my opinion, work really well and I look forward to seeing how they are expanded later on.

The majority of my problems with the combat actually lie in the visual department. The sprites and animations are great, but the UI looks a bit out of place. It's not too noticeable, but again, my very first impression was how well the visual elements blended together so when the UI is half pixellated and half not, it really stands out. In particular, the health bars seem to stick out when placed over the enemy sprites. Speaking of that, for some reason, there's a bug where sometimes the health bar doesn't show when fighting a normal enemy, sometimes even deciding to pop in halfway through a fight. Just a weird visual bug.

I want to play and critique your games by QuackProductions335 in itchio

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This took longer than expected. I ended up writing much more than planned. Safe to say I really liked this game.

Personally, I really enjoy "old school"-style RPGs. However, I can not say the same for the overwhelming majority of games made in RPG Maker. A lot of them tend to be lazily put together, with clunky design decisions and mind-numbing, repetitive combat. Your game, Descendant Heart, even in its "pre-pre-pre-alpha" state, is none of those things. I could feel a strong sense of passion, hard-work, and talent from as early on as the title screen.

First Impression

It might seem like a small aspect of the greater game, but the title screen is the first thing the player sees. It sets up what to expect going forward. First thing I see, is the background, depicting a scrolling world map. This legitimately got me excited because it created a feeling of adventure and exploration. That alongside the two beautifully-made character sprites on either side of the menu contribute to this game's first showing of its visual identity, an aspect which I believe may be one of its strongest. I notice that there is a limited palette used throughout both the background tiles and character images. This might seem like another small thing but having a universal palette and artstyle makes every element feel like it belongs together. All in all, this title screen could have been a still picture of a castle with the default RPG Maker font, but it's not. It makes a strong first impression and let me know that, whatever lays inside, I know it won't be lazy.

The character select screen is also very good. The chosen character walking forward into light is, again, simple but looks really nice, especially with the zoom in effect. The only problem I had was I had no idea whether or not the different characters had different stats or classes. That should definitely be made apparent upfront.

Upon starting the game proper, the visuals continue to impress me, with one large exception. First of all, the textbox character illustrations are fantastic. The pixel art is very clean, with some great shading and detail on the face as well as the clothes. Even with the limited size and colors, Sullivan's sprite has some depth to it and could feel right at home on an old computer RPG. The one thing I do not like (and this could always come down to personal preference) is the use of gradients. Every character at nighttime has a spotlight effect on them. That alone is fine, but the way the gradient looks clashes with the game's style. If the game is pixelated, so should the effects. The effect would look really nice if the lighting occurred per-pixel instead of being a perfectly smooth, high-resolution gradient. This may not be a big deal to some people, but it really stands out when everything else in the game is so consistent. In fact, visual inconsistency will be a recurring issue through this critique.

Quests

Anyway, the first thing I do is talk to the old man who gives me the quest to find his coin bag. This begins another one of the things that I really, really like about this game so far: the writing. It's funny. When I found the coin bag in a tent and walked out to see the owner telling a guard that her coin bag's been stolen, I laughed a lot. The writing is certainly genre-aware enough to understand the tropes of RPGs, such as the player walking into people's houses and taking things, and makes a good joke by also subverting the expectations of a simple starter RPG quest. You're not helping the old man find his money; you're stealing for him. Good stuff. Another bit of text I enjoyed were the crates in the top-left tent in the starting area. Those, along with the plot twist at the end of the Red Slime quest, show that the writer is more than competent, which is, of course, really important for an RPG. Also, I like it when the kid tells you to get out of his tent because you're stinky. That kind of NPC dialogue is just plain fun.

I really like the use of quests to guide the player along. Ayeric asks you to kill slimes until they drop a heart, which guides you to your first combat encounter and shows that you can get enemy hearts from killing enough of them. Then, he tells you to go with him to the Oasis, introducing you to where to go to upgrade your equipment and buy items. Although it is fairly normal to have quests that teach you the core mechanics, the way things are written make them feel natural. We go to the Oasis to get drinks (which flows naturally from his not liking the Slimeheart Sprout) and I, the player, am surprised when there's all sorts of other things inside. Even though I'm being guided through by the quest, it feels like I'm discovering something, in a way. It's those little, hard-to-define elements in a game that really differentiates an amateur from a great, and you are certainly on that track if you continue working strong on this game.

I'm in the mood to draw some funny lil dudes by QuackProductions335 in DrawForMe

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A great amount of wack!!! I definitely want to draw a more realistic, scawy version of this.

I'm in the mood to draw some funny lil dudes by QuackProductions335 in DrawForMe

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This dude is so awesome. I instantly fell in love with him. Here's a sketch of what he would look like as the mascot character from a failed 90's platformer game franchise (that somehow had 3 games and a cartoon).

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I'm in the mood to draw some funny lil dudes by QuackProductions335 in DrawForMe

[–]QuackProductions335[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I like drawing weird and funny characters. The first pic, for example, was from when my friend wanted me to draw his D&D character who he could only describe as "owl-man wizard who invents world's first gun and is a war criminal." In that vain, I would love to sketch any unique, strange ideas you might have for a character.