Wonder's War Alpha 0.1 Thoughts

[Ardaceus 21]

If you haven't played the actual game yet, I would appreciate if you did and gave me your thoughts on it.

 

Choose all the answers above you like most, and would like to see in the next Alpha... which is going to be 10x better.

 

I'm adding in for the next Alpha:

 

• The School
• Fixes to the Battle System
• New Graphics (Such as trees and decorations)
• New Character Skins
• Dialogue Fixes
• 2% Smaller Intro
• Less Scrolling Text
• Like Way Better Dialogue
• I Spent 29 Hours reviewing all the dialogue okay
• More Items
• Few More Abilities
• Balanced Weapons and Armours
• More Money
• Foreshadowing Events...
• Fixed the Bugs Below

Bugs in Alpha 0.13

• Some Fences Can Clip the Character
• Dialogue Cut Offs
• The Script Screwed Around Some Parts of the Battle System and Variables
• The Lock On Ability Crashes the Game
• The Music in the Sewer gets Weird at some parts
• Lag
• Birds Fly too slow
• Other Ghosty Stuff Behind the Scenes

 

I'm proud with what I've done so far... and I want to get out Alpha 0.2 out soon :)

 

And I promise it won't be the same as the first time I tried to get out the game.

[Bob423 52]

When download link?

[Ardaceus 21]

When download link?

 

When I get the new alpha ready, I'll release it and do a post on it.

But tell me in the poll up above what you think of the current version available.

[Flytrap 1]

Alright I played through the version 0.13, and wrote a review...

Um, I just want to preface this with: My criticisms are purely constructive, I do not intend any direct insult to you as a person, your character or your abilities as a designer, I am seriously just trying to help people advance as artists. Please don't take it personally when I tell you something is good or bad with a game.

 

[spoiler=That being said...]

This is chronological, so each bullet point will correlate to a section of the game as it would be played organically.

 

Good

Bad

Mixed

Advice

• The title soundtrack sound like "my country 'tis of thee", scored really slow. Not negative, just curious if that was intentional.
• Great map, I hate VX/Ace's map makers but you definitely used it to its limits. (With this first map)
• Character icons could be touched up a bit.
• The movement is very organic, I like it.
• Title image was a little sudden. Reminded me kinda of Dark Cloud 1
• Event placement could be revised, as well as their stagnant movement. Everything looks way too organized and lined-up.
• Animations were really cool. :D added a little more depth to the crappy chibi sprites.
• That opening lasted a little longer than I'd like, but that would've been fine if it were actually delivering some story. It was just frame after frame of the same, tired phrases. "A tale of x" over and over again without giving away any actual story.
• Like almost every single game I've ever played in the RPG Maker franchise, the music is insanely loud in areas. Never have it set to 100%, ever.
• The text stopping every sentence is really annoying. Just have it display it slowly, but continuously so the reader can keep up without having to press enter every five second.
• That crystal cave scene was pretty cool but it was insanely cluttered, and didn't seem very thought out.
• I know we shouldn't take the opinions of GameInformer very critically or seriously, but they were right when they listen unskippable cutscenes as one of the most annoying things in games today. Food for thought.
• The narrative is a little confusing, first, it was a woman talking, then it seems to be an enigmatic narrator that is spouting details as if they were fact and had experienced them firsthand. You can't switch perspectives like that, it's bad writing. Not to mention that constant stopping of the text, it's like Bill Shatner is reading this to me.
• Holy crap bro. This isn't star wars. I'm not reading all that.
• Dude, Ardi, you need to compress that, or present whatever details were in there in a WAY more interesting format. This isn't 1989 where you didn't have to try very hard to get people interested, there were like eight games back then. This is 2016, I can go online and get a $60 game that took 1000+ people over three years to make for FREE. You gotta try a lot harder than a scrolling wall of text.
• From the fragments I skimmed over, it seemed like you changed perspectives again AND repeated the line "once upon a time". I have to really emphasize the importance of planned writing.
• The maps became increasingly less thought out and became MORE organized, this is lazy map making even for RMVX. The maps that were good weren't particularly interesting, either.
• wat (picture 1) EDIT: I forgot to save the screenshot, but there was a kind of amusing, possible typo during one of the first scenes with that demon king, or whatever he was.
• Dialogue isn't very impressive, either. Your age is showing very brightly through the script.
• You stole "Evalice" from final fantasy.
• Those cutscene were REALLY drawn out. Don't have the readers watching a stagnant screen for that long.
• Is the original narrator also the main character? It's been like ten minutes since that first scene. Her speech is extremely annoying, too.
• That dragon was cool as hell, I might have to steal and recolor that thing...
• The floating crystal (I'm assuming its a save point) doesn't do anything when touched. It makes a noise like its flipping the page of a book, blurrs the screen for a second, then goes back to normal.
• The fighting was decent, not my cup of tea per se, but objectively it was pretty smooth. Now I don't really use RMVX so I'm not sure if that's RTP or what, but I definitely liked the fact you changed her expressions with each different action, even if the emotion images were juvenile.
• This is my PERSONAL PREFERENCE, and this is prefaced as not being objective, But I don't like random encounters. They're as tired as Christopher Lloyd.
• I'm sure there's a reason they're talking like five year old foreigners, but it's extremely annoying. Make them talk normally and have some other character comment on their accent, or have a recurring theme of their accents being made fun of/referenced. 
• LOL at the gameover graphic. That made me laugh.

 

I died when facing the rat and spider, and I'm NOT going through the cutscenes again, so, you're on your own after that. Maybe nerf the mobs a little, they killed me pretty easily. Granted, I was pretty much just mashing the space bar.

 

EDIT: Evidently the crystal DID save my progress, I'll continue a little later, I've sunk almost three hours into this as of this moment.

 

Things to consider when developing your game are typically:

1. Writing. Writing is extremely important, I don't mean to sound condescending but it just doesn't seem like you are taking this fundamental rule of thumb into account when considering how your players will react to in-game storytelling. 
2. Taking your own game seriously. It might not seem very important with indie games, but taking your game seriously inspires others to take your game seriously, having a joke or two thrown in with seriousness helps to abate the intensity of overly obtuse events, but constantly barraging the readers with jokes and slapstick gives the impression that you're not serious about your project, which makes other people think it's not a real game and ignore the hard work you've poured into it. 
3. Anticipating Reaction. It takes a while to anticipate how an audience will react to something you present to them, even some of the veterans in the gaming world (*cough*Activision*cough*) have difficulty with this, but it's really just about making educated, objective leaps of faith when playtesting your own game. Think about it like this: If you can't sit through it and read it all, what's compelling your audience to do so?
4. Visual Aesthetics. You're sort of being given a relaxed critique from this, considering RMVX mapping is garbage. Now, that doesn't give you license to be lazy, you are still obligated, as an artist, to do everything in your power to make that fucker shine like a diamond. Maps are almost 50% of the game, so don't be lazy!

Honestly, you have a lot of real talent, but your major areas of flaw are revealing. Work on your writing, make the narrative clear and concise, get rid of that stupid accent, don't be such a teenager, and take pride in your work. 

 

I sincerely look forward to version 0.2 Ardaceus.

 

[Ardaceus 21]

Alright I played through the version 0.13, and wrote a review...

Um, I just want to preface this with: My criticisms are purely constructive, I do not intend any direct insult to you as a person, your character or your abilities as a designer, I am seriously just trying to help people advance as artists. Please don't take it personally when I tell you something is good or bad with a game.

 

[spoiler=That being said...]

This is chronological, so each bullet point will correlate to a section of the game as it would be played organically.

 

Good

Bad

Mixed

Advice

• The title soundtrack sound like "my country 'tis of thee", scored really slow. Not negative, just curious if that was intentional.
• Great map, I hate VX/Ace's map makers but you definitely used it to its limits. (With this first map)
• Character icons could be touched up a bit.
• The movement is very organic, I like it.
• Title image was a little sudden. Reminded me kinda of Dark Cloud 1
• Event placement could be revised, as well as their stagnant movement. Everything looks way too organized and lined-up.
• Animations were really cool. :D added a little more depth to the crappy chibi sprites.
• That opening lasted a little longer than I'd like, but that would've been fine if it were actually delivering some story. It was just frame after frame of the same, tired phrases. "A tale of x" over and over again without giving away any actual story.
• Like almost every single game I've ever played in the RPG Maker franchise, the music is insanely loud in areas. Never have it set to 100%, ever.
• The text stopping every sentence is really annoying. Just have it display it slowly, but continuously so the reader can keep up without having to press enter every five second.
• That crystal cave scene was pretty cool but it was insanely cluttered, and didn't seem very thought out.
• I know we shouldn't take the opinions of GameInformer very critically or seriously, but they were right when they listen unskippable cutscenes as one of the most annoying things in games today. Food for thought.
• The narrative is a little confusing, first, it was a woman talking, then it seems to be an enigmatic narrator that is spouting details as if they were fact and had experienced them firsthand. You can't switch perspectives like that, it's bad writing. Not to mention that constant stopping of the text, it's like Bill Shatner is reading this to me.
• Holy crap bro. This isn't star wars. I'm not reading all that.
• Dude, Ardi, you need to compress that, or present whatever details were in there in a WAY more interesting format. This isn't 1989 where you didn't have to try very hard to get people interested, there were like eight games back then. This is 2016, I can go online and get a $60 game that took 1000+ people over three years to make for FREE. You gotta try a lot harder than a scrolling wall of text.
• From the fragments I skimmed over, it seemed like you changed perspectives again AND repeated the line "once upon a time". I have to really emphasize the importance of planned writing.
• The maps became increasingly less thought out and became MORE organized, this is lazy map making even for RMVX. The maps that were good weren't particularly interesting, either.
• wat (picture 1) EDIT: I forgot to save the screenshot, but there was a kind of amusing, possible typo during one of the first scenes with that demon king, or whatever he was.
• Dialogue isn't very impressive, either. Your age is showing very brightly through the script.
• You stole "Evalice" from final fantasy.
• Those cutscene were REALLY drawn out. Don't have the readers watching a stagnant screen for that long.
• Is the original narrator also the main character? It's been like ten minutes since that first scene. Her speech is extremely annoying, too.
• That dragon was cool as hell, I might have to steal and recolor that thing...
• The floating crystal (I'm assuming its a save point) doesn't do anything when touched. It makes a noise like its flipping the page of a book, blurrs the screen for a second, then goes back to normal.
• The fighting was decent, not my cup of tea per se, but objectively it was pretty smooth. Now I don't really use RMVX so I'm not sure if that's RTP or what, but I definitely liked the fact you changed her expressions with each different action, even if the emotion images were juvenile.
• This is my PERSONAL PREFERENCE, and this is prefaced as not being objective, But I don't like random encounters. They're as tired as Christopher Lloyd.
• I'm sure there's a reason they're talking like five year old foreigners, but it's extremely annoying. Make them talk normally and have some other character comment on their accent, or have a recurring theme of their accents being made fun of/referenced. 
• LOL at the gameover graphic. That made me laugh.

I died when facing the rat and spider, and I'm NOT going through the cutscenes again, so, you're on your own after that. Maybe nerf the mobs a little, they killed me pretty easily. Granted, I was pretty much just mashing the space bar.

 

EDIT: Evidently the crystal DID save my progress, I'll continue a little later, I've sunk almost three hours into this as of this moment.

 

Things to consider when developing your game are typically:

• Writing. Writing is extremely important, I don't mean to sound condescending but it just doesn't seem like you are taking this fundamental rule of thumb into account when considering how your players will react to in-game storytelling. 
• Taking your own game seriously. It might not seem very important with indie games, but taking your game seriously inspires others to take your game seriously, having a joke or two thrown in with seriousness helps to abate the intensity of overly obtuse events, but constantly barraging the readers with jokes and slapstick gives the impression that you're not serious about your project, which makes other people think it's not a real game and ignore the hard work you've poured into it. 
• Anticipating Reaction. It takes a while to anticipate how an audience will react to something you present to them, even some of the veterans in the gaming world (*cough*Activision*cough*) have difficulty with this, but it's really just about making educated, objective leaps of faith when playtesting your own game. Think about it like this: If you can't sit through it and read it all, what's compelling your audience to do so?
• Visual Aesthetics. You're sort of being given a relaxed critique from this, considering RMVX mapping is garbage. Now, that doesn't give you license to be lazy, you are still obligated, as an artist, to do everything in your power to make that fucker shine like a diamond. Maps are almost 50% of the game, so don't be lazy!

Honestly, you have a lot of real talent, but your major areas of flaw are revealing. Work on your writing, make the narrative clear and concise, get rid of that stupid accent, dOon't be such a teenager, and take pride in your work. 

 

I sincerely look forward to version 0.2 Ardaceus.

 

 

I laughed when I saw you didn't understand how the save crystal worked. The reason why it looks the way it does is it just lagged whenever it brought the screen up because of the heavy eventing and the script that made 1 save file, so I took the whole screen out.

 

[spoiler=And now I" mma be frank...]

• (Title Soundtrack) No it is not. Though I like the resemblance though. I wouldn't know for I am not an American, I'm Canadian. Actually, the name of the main title theme is called "Castle in the Sky" by Murray Atkinson, he's one of the main composers in my game.
• (VX Ace Maps) Thank you, I made them better in the new version I'm working on.
• (Char. Icons) Yeah... I completely took those out and switched them for something wayyyyyyyyyy better. I agree with you.
• (Movement) Thanks.
• (Sudden Title Screen) I can't fix the title screen, RPG Maker being how it is :/
• (Organized Eventing?) I'll need some examples. I think you are referring to the city scene and the forest scene with the witch and wizard.
• (Animated Chibi Sprites) Animations and the art style is why I don't like the Mac sprites. I also added in a lot more sprites and animations for the next alpha.
• (A Tale of x) It was more meant to introduce you to the main characters...  I can't change that without taking away something later in the story that is very important to the plot of the whole game. Sorry if you don't like it :/
• (Loud Volume) Good point, I'll see about tuning down the volume a bit, I did it for the sound effects already because I found them way too loud.
• (Text Stops) Dangit, I thought I got all of it.
• (Crystal Caves) That is just a prototype for now, I'll be building that area myself and animate and draw in all the crystals when I get to that part of the game, then I'll change that whole layout in the scene, BECAUSE THE CRYSTAL CAVES IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST AREAS IN THE GAME!
• (Unskippable Cutscenes?) :P Never will happen. Sorry.
• (Switching Perspectives) Yeah, those are two totally different perspectives. But those perspectives are people that know eachother. And yes, the narrator of the second part does know what's about to happen, the narrator did experience it firsthand and knows it as fact. And actually, Enigmatic is the perfect word to describe the narrator, this sounds more like a positive to me to be honest. :|
• (Star Wars) I personally love star wars to be honest, and put a secret eggs to Star Wars in the game if you notice them... but yes, the long text is gone. I removed it because even I agreed with many people who told me it that it sucked.
• (Scrolling Text) I agree. It's gone forever, but not the map you saw in the background, that can stay.
• (Changed Perspectives? Once Upon a Time?) I didn't change perspectives, still same narrator, but a long time later after that first narration happened. And about the 'Once upon a day, from once upon a time', I like this cliche a lot to be honest. So my apologies if you don't like what I like. (But I guess it doesn't matter anyway because that stuff is out of here)
• (Maps become more organized) Let me tell you a story... that tower and the inside of the tower... and that bit of forest that the main protagonist runs through... are the first maps I made in RPG Maker... I haven't touched them for a long time... about 9 months I haven't touched a single tile, and I'm going to change them for the next alpha.
• (Demon King Typo)It was splendor, wasn't it? I've already been told that 50 times. My father, my sister, my mother, my brother, my best friend, Bob, some others... even my dog would likely tell me that.
• (Wait did you call him demon king?) That's kinda funny.
• (My age is showing) So yeah... I made that scene like a year ago... I took it out.
• (YOU STOLE EVALICE) ........................... Umm, I didn't know what Ivalice was until today. I can't believe I'm the biggest Final Fantasy Otaku on this website and I didn't know that. And if you want to know where I got inspiration for the name Evalice, I didn't steal it from Final Fantasy, I just spent a whole day while in Edmonton, Alberta just writing a bunch of names on a sheet of paper, like Hinetsu, Bejebave, and Constallos... But Evalice beat all of them... but I liked Hinetsu and Rendric out of all the names on the list and made those into smaller cities. I'm actually rather surprised because I thought somebody would say that Damsca = Damasca. But hey, that's just me.
• (Long Cutscene) I took out the long scrolling text, and the scene with, 'The Demon King', and improved the text to be a little faster... hope you like.
• (The Main Character) The first narrator is the main character. I improved her text a little bit, but she is still annoying.
• (Dragon) THANK YOU! I've always wanted someone to say that the dragon is cool. And in this new alpha, he looks even better.
• (Save Crystal) It works just fine... Like I said, just touch it and it automatically saves to a single file. I actually changed the sound it makes, and put in a text that says "Recorded Story".
• (Battle System) The 1.3 version is rather crap to what I now have, but let me go through the changes.
• (0.1.3) It's using the aetelier rgss battle screen. But hell I don't like the faces. Most of the graphics used came with the script. Victory screen looks too generic.
• (0.2.1) It's using the aetelier rgss battle screen. But man do I love the face sprites. All graphics are custom. Victory screen looks awesome.
• (Random Encounters) I warned that the encounter rate either loves or hates you. But in the new version, I've increased the amount of steps it takes in every area... so they are less likely to occur. Though this makes grinding a pain.
• (Annoying Accents) HAHAHAHAHAHA you didn't get far enough in the game to know how much truth is in that statement.
• (Game Over Screen) The graphic actually changes depending on some circumstances... and also, I changed the theme that plays in the background to something rather cool.

Afterthoughts​

-1. I prefer to not follow the norm when I creatively write. I prefer to have people not understand what I'm writing at first, then completely destroy all their funny thoughts of my work when they see just how much work I put into something.

-2. About my sense of humour, you'll find that I put more jokes into areas that are not a part of the main story. While I can't help myself  if I'm a joker, I do put a lot of thought and serious devotion into my work. I just do what I want to do. But yes, maybe I should tone down a little bit... Or maybe not.

-3. ._. I don't know how to reply to that because I agree with it.

-4. You need to get to the city to understand how much work I put into the mapping.    ... or just wait until the new alpha comes out.

 

 

 

 

So thank you for the critisismasimum. It gave me a few things to think about.

[Flytrap 1]

I'm aware how... hostile I might sound, but seriously, I really liked the potential the game had. You seem heavily dedicated to the project, despite what I might have said pertaining to the jokes in the demo, but this was a commentary on 1.3, not your new alpha, which I am eagerly awaiting.

[Ardaceus 21]

I'm aware how... hostile I might sound, but seriously, I really liked the potential the game had. You seem heavily dedicated to the project, despite what I might have said pertaining to the jokes in the demo, but this was a commentary on 1.3, not your new alpha, which I am eagerly awaiting.

 

It's alright, that version had a loooooootta problems with it, I would like to define as many problems as possible with that game version.