Mini demo of a game I'm making

[danzibr]

Greetings fellow Playgrounders!

A new year is upon us, and I told some people I'd upload the progress I made on a game on 1 Jan. I did indeed upload it. If you have a few minutes to kill and wouldn't mind giving me some constructive feedback (or finding bugs), here's the link.

If you want to see what the game is about but don't want to run an untrusted executable (I don't blame you), I plan on uploading a video later.

It's got pixel art, you make a party, can fly around the world, talk to people in a town, buy some better gear, beat some monsters. Pretty standard from when I was growing up. Huge WIP though, lots of things left to do. I'm *almost* to the point where all the base systems are done and I can start adding content. Almost...

EDIT: Video, as promised (link).

Spoiler: Video

Show

[endoperez]

Greetings fellow Playgrounders!

A new year is upon us, and I told some people I'd upload the progress I made on a game on 1 Jan. I did indeed upload it. If you have a few minutes to kill and wouldn't mind giving me some constructive feedback (or finding bugs), here's the link.

If you want to see what the game is about but don't want to run an untrusted executable (I don't blame you), I plan on uploading a video later.

It's got pixel art, you make a party, can fly around the world, talk to people in a town, buy some better gear, beat some monsters. Pretty standard from when I was growing up. Huge WIP though, lots of things left to do. I'm *almost* to the point where all the base systems are done and I can start adding content. Almost...

You're marketing your game poorly by not having any screenshots or videos or a proper description up when you post things like this. I mean, there's no name, no visuals, nothing that would stick to mind.

It's great that you're making a game, but this post didn't tell me anything and that's a pity.

[danzibr]

You're marketing your game poorly by not having any screenshots or videos or a proper description up when you post things like this. I mean, there's no name, no visuals, nothing that would stick to mind.

It's great that you're making a game, but this post didn't tell me anything and that's a pity.

Thanks for the feedback :P

Yes, I fully intend to upload a video. Tomorrow morning. I’ve been very busy, very tired.

[Amechra]

The one thing I noticed immediately after watching the video: you're going to have to increase the speed a little. I know you'll probably get to that as part of optimization later, but right now it looks like the game is lagging a bit as you're walking around.

I find the art style endearing - keep up the good work there. My only issue is that the Farmer looks a little weird - is that supposed to be a pipe in their mouth?

It feels like there's a lot of information being front-loaded on the player (which I think I commented about on an earlier thread you started about this game's design) - it might just be me, but I know that having to pick classes for five characters from a list of ten would give me a horrible case of decision paralysis.

[danzibr]

Thanks for the feedback! I was hoping you’d appear in this thread :)

Speed issue is actually in the recording software. The game runs totally fine.

For the farmer, it’s straw.

As for choosing a party, I imagine people will go either by the class itself (like wanting, say, a rager), or choose based on primaries. Makes Icewind Dale come to mind (or several other games which give you tons of options from the get go). Still, I see your point.

[thirsting]

Why can't all the dialogue text just appear instantly? Would be much less annoying than this slow reveal. And no, having to push button to make it go faster is not the solution.

[KillianHawkeye]

Here are my initial impressions just from watching the video:

• You need some kind of cursor or highlighting to show what is being selected in the menus (both in the main menu and for the shops). I see there's some in the combat screen, but it could be more pronounced.
• I know it's supposed to be straw, but the farmer just looks like he has a weird muppet nose. It's kind of distracting. While we're on that subject, having a bunch of NPCs that look exactly the same as PCs is mildly confusing and makes the PCs feel unspecial.
• The music is delightful!
• Do you actually have to walk around all that floor clutter in buildings? If so, have a little less of it.
• That inner tube graphic for wading the waters cracked me up, but you should probably make sprites that show the different characters using them.

Seems like a good start. I'm curious how much work it was to make an RPG engine in GameMaker rather than using something pre-built for it like RPGMaker?

[danzibr]

Why can't all the dialogue text just appear instantly? Would be much less annoying than this slow reveal. And no, having to push button to make it go faster is not the solution.

It can.

Here are my initial impressions just from watching the video:

• You need some kind of cursor or highlighting to show what is being selected in the menus (both in the main menu and for the shops). I see there's some in the combat screen, but it could be more pronounced.
• I know it's supposed to be straw, but the farmer just looks like he has a weird muppet nose. It's kind of distracting. While we're on that subject, having a bunch of NPCs that look exactly the same as PCs is mildly confusing and makes the PCs feel unspecial.
• The music is delightful!
• Do you actually have to walk around all that floor clutter in buildings? If so, have a little less of it.
• That inner tube graphic for wading the waters cracked me up, but you should probably make sprites that show the different characters using them.

Seems like a good start. I'm curious how much work it was to make an RPG engine in GameMaker rather than using something pre-built for it like RPGMaker?

Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely consider these things.

To answer the question at the bottom, a *ton*. Making every system (not that I'm even done making systems) has taken way more work than I first thought. Like for the inventory system, need to code the stats of the items, how many you have, make an inventory screen, make stuff display properly, make an equipment screen, make stuff display properly, make the equipment selectable, when you equip it you need to change the inventory quantity and actually add the gear stats to the character stats, then a ton of stuff that goes into shops.

Oh yeah, the NPCs. The first city is the City of Guilds. All the people are guild members. Future cities will have little to no guild members.