I have been making an oldschool retro RPG (western, not jRPG) and now I have a very early alpha available. I need some feedback plus some ideas/suggestions for certain things (these are listed in the second post).
What the game is about:
- retro, oldschool, classic RPG, for those who liked the PC/Amiga games from the late DOS era (90s)
- it is NOT a remake, it's a fully original game, just stylized like the old games
- first person perspective, 90 degree rotation
- simple and pure fun, you go around slaying monsters and having various quests and adventures
- non liner, not storyline driven (the main storyline is very simple), the game allows you very high freedom in terms of where to go (few locked locations, most are "if you can survive the monsters there, you can go there immediatelly")
- the world is relatively small but rich (no huge empty areas); random, completely unrelated to the main storyline NPCs inhabit wilderness
DOWNLOAD:
NA
(early alpha, unplayable, many things do not work yet, but you can get the feel of it from this)
Oldschool retro RPG - feedback and ideas needed
Author
Author
In addition to usual feedback (please, don't focus on things not working or about bugs too much, I probably know about most of them) I have several things yet to design, that's I would like to get the most suggestions about (since we are on a Game Design forum so most of us here is proficient on this part 
What kind of suggestions I need the most:
- I'm still to decide on how attributes work, resistances, how it affects combat and what happens upon level up
- The whole inventory/item system is not designed yet
- How spells are acquired?
Note that these are not tricky nor hard questions at all. Everyone know how these can work. The whole trick is to KEEP IT SIMPLE. As simple as possible (still, within the RPG genre which is not the simpliest one). Please, please, please, constantly remember about my development time. I'm doing the game mostly alone and I need it fully finished in 3 months at most in the worst case scenario.
What kind of suggestions I need the most:
- I'm still to decide on how attributes work, resistances, how it affects combat and what happens upon level up
- The whole inventory/item system is not designed yet
- How spells are acquired?
Note that these are not tricky nor hard questions at all. Everyone know how these can work. The whole trick is to KEEP IT SIMPLE. As simple as possible (still, within the RPG genre which is not the simpliest one
). Please, please, please, constantly remember about my development time. I'm doing the game mostly alone and I need it fully finished in 3 months at most in the worst case scenario.
Someone on here recently mentioned that "beholder" is trademarked by Wizards of the Coast (a few other monster names too), so you might want to avoid using that name.
Author
Someone on here recently mentioned that "beholder" is trademarked by Wizards of the Coast (a few other monster names too), so you might want to avoid using that name.Thanks. I guess I will change the name of the game...
That looks awesome! What's happening to the party's faces in the pic with the Beholder?It's damage (from fire).
Hi Acharis.
I downloaded your game and gave it a whirl.
And i really like this.
Everything ran smoothly and was really easy to pick up and play without instructions.
The only thing i felt was lacking was the sound effects and possibly some music to help generate some more atmosphere.
I contemplated writing something similar a while ago, more along the lines of the 'Ishar' games but instead decided against the step movement idea.
But it works really well in your game.
I can see this working really well on mobile devices.
Might be worth considering porting it to mobiles when you've finished the PC version.
The graphics have a real old school charm about them.
Keep up the good work.
KJM
I downloaded your game and gave it a whirl.
And i really like this.
Everything ran smoothly and was really easy to pick up and play without instructions.
The only thing i felt was lacking was the sound effects and possibly some music to help generate some more atmosphere.
I contemplated writing something similar a while ago, more along the lines of the 'Ishar' games but instead decided against the step movement idea.
But it works really well in your game.
I can see this working really well on mobile devices.
Might be worth considering porting it to mobiles when you've finished the PC version.
The graphics have a real old school charm about them.
Keep up the good work.
KJM
What kind of suggestions I need the most:
- I'm still to decide on how attributes work, resistances, how it affects combat and what happens upon level up
- The whole inventory/item system is not designed yet
- How spells are acquired?
I think you have to start with the question why those elements should be in the game at all. "Because other games had them" is not good enough answer. Once you answer that question, it will be clear enough how to implement them.
ummmm...
I think as the game is not driven by the story-line, and lore done by one creator is limited too, the core of an entertainment should lie in the possibilities for tweaking the characters. I think this should match with the target group for the retro game well. IMHO it doesnt have to be balanced perfectly, I find it interesting to search these gaps to acquire some advantage :-).
Resistances: Honestly I am not a friend of this concept (% of resistances). Edit:{to be more specific about % resistance- it worked good in hack'n'slash games I know and in fantasy stragies as well as it is "easy to read" and map the progress. But to me % resistances represents magic the way that I don't like- just another damage throwing class.}
The other approach could come from breaking down the casting into mana channeling, formation of the spell and targeting the spell. And those "resistant" creatures could be kind of inert and thus more difficult to target (and the caster can learn to target them based on the encounters he experienced them). Or magically active creatures can compete with characters about mana when channeling or "attack" the spell when it is formed.
I think as the game is not driven by the story-line, and lore done by one creator is limited too, the core of an entertainment should lie in the possibilities for tweaking the characters. I think this should match with the target group for the retro game well. IMHO it doesnt have to be balanced perfectly, I find it interesting to search these gaps to acquire some advantage :-).
Resistances: Honestly I am not a friend of this concept (% of resistances). Edit:{to be more specific about % resistance- it worked good in hack'n'slash games I know and in fantasy stragies as well as it is "easy to read" and map the progress. But to me % resistances represents magic the way that I don't like- just another damage throwing class.}
The other approach could come from breaking down the casting into mana channeling, formation of the spell and targeting the spell. And those "resistant" creatures could be kind of inert and thus more difficult to target (and the caster can learn to target them based on the encounters he experienced them). Or magically active creatures can compete with characters about mana when channeling or "attack" the spell when it is formed.
Author
I think you have to start with the question why those elements should be in the game at all. "Because other games had them" is not good enough answer. Once you answer that question, it will be clear enough how to implement them.Reasons:
- mood (AKA: "because other games had them"
), I think games should not be all about logic only, about how it fits into mechanics only, it should also have things that are "fun" or because we are used to them and we want to see them again. That reason should not be discarded.- progress, probably the most important one, the player needs and wants to feel some progress, getting stronger, more powerful. Attributes are a nice tool for this.
- rewards from exploration (AKA "The potion of fire resistance"), similar to progress, but more like a sort of treasure you find.
- in case of spells, more tactical options during combat (what kind of spell to select against whom and when and if), also some basic resource management (MP conservation)
the core of an entertainment should lie in the possibilities for tweaking the characters.No... I wanted to focus it on exploration. You can go where you want when you want, explore dungeons and ancient ruins, find many NPCs (not in cities but in wilderness) with tiny quests to give. This would mean it's quite unbalanced in terms of difficulty level (you can go from the very beginning to areas where you have no chances of surviving at all if you choose so), also I need the character development options as rewards for exploration (you have these crystals in dungeons, when you find one it disappears and you get a bonus to an attribute (you select which character get's it)). I simply can't/shouldn't make it "get X attribute points to distribute after level up" for this kind of game...
As for resistances I thought of numeric 1-X random damage reduction. Let's say you have 260 fire resistance, it means it reduces damage from fire by a random number between 1 and 260. This would prevent making characters immune to fire after some point.
Generally, I was thinking of making level up as a source of HP & MP (plus some base damage bonus maybe) while attributes and resistances would be rewards from exploring the world (which means your attributes could be quite uncolerated to level, unlike in majority of RPGs).
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