Help with a game that focuses on story and wit.

[Gnome de plume]

Hi people,

So myself and a few friends have made a demo of a satirical computer RPG.
It's loaded with puns, and what we hope is entertaining banter. That said, it's made on RPGmaker which can be a turn off for some people.

We're trying to make the story so good that people will overlook it's RPGmakerness.
With that in mind, we'd love to get any feedback from this forum, it seems to be populated with people of discerning taste.

Any criticism, dislikes, or suggestions will be taken openly, telling us our dialogue stinks is an opinion and useful for us to know.

Anyhoo, a link to the game is here (http://https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BxTXi4YH2VuFS21MYmthQW5tZEU&export=download)

There's a few hours of gameplay if you're interested.

Hope to hear from you soon,

The Gnomes.

[Fri]

I'm actually interested.

I'll check it later :)

[Gnome de plume]

Hooray!

Feedback so far is that the generic graphics of RPGmaker makes possible audiences dismiss it before trying it.

[dinovo29]

Interested! The link is bad though, I can't get to it, it needs (:) after the https.

[Gnome de plume]

Sorry about that.

Here's the link (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxTXi4YH2VuFS21MYmthQW5tZEU) again.

[danzibr]

I'm in the process of playing it! Well, sort of, started last night. I'll have a bunch of comments to make when I finish it (currently just "met" the dwarf).

[Fri]

Okay, I played it eventhough just a tiny bit, and if you don't mind I can tell you my opinion for now.

Also question, are you meant to sell this or put this in steam or something like that? Because if it's just for free randomly distributed game it's actually pretty good already.

1. Yeah, rpg maker is a real turn off, or to be proper, unedited rpg maker. I know it's unfair, but it make people think you're not bothered to make effort at all. If you at least change the resources to custom things, usually people would be more easily overlooking it. Though, one good thing is that it catches you up that it's "different" right up, so at least that'd help people to notice that they might need to overlook the rpgmaker part.

2. Weird design choice on point and click interface, but I can dig it if only just to differentiate it even more than ordinary rpgmaker games. The flashing light where you click is annoying though. You might need to cut back on that.

3. Humor is subjective, but it's funny enough and not too in your face for me. You might need to cut back on multiple exclamation mark though. At least for me, there's nothing that makes things looks more amateurish than multiple exclamation mark!!!!! Except if that's the point. Anyway, it has its use, but I'd rather people use it very sparingly.

4. Also it's subjective, but I think the point and click interface would work better if everything is more zoomed out, but not sure if it's workable in the engine.

Anyway, it's up in the air if the masses would be able to overlook its rpgmakerness enough to see the funny writing inside. The masses is a fickle bunch. But I really suggest to put custom assets.

[danzibr]

Alright, I played all of (I think? I'm past the forest). Some comments:

Criticisms
1) Bork the Unspeakable doesn't fit in the menu.
2) You can't see all your buffs and debuffs.
3) When you start a sentence with "aaahhhh," it should be capitalized, right?
4) The start was really slow (and, not to be rude, that made it boring).
5) I set the difficulty to the second option, and found combat to be a drudge. I'd toss up my buffs and *still* miss a frustrating number of times. So much missing...
*As a counter to this, perhaps as you gain levels and get more buffs, this becomes more bearable.
6) The characters seemed pretty bland.
7) At least at the beginning, when you go to select something from a menu, like a response in a conversation, it doesn't start on the first option. You have to hit down once to get there. Maybe this is intentional, like not misclicking or something.
8) It takes forever to level up, and there are no random battles. Now, no random battles isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I like to farm money and exp.
9) I felt like I was constantly hitting up the inn, which was a whopping 100g a pop when you get 100ishg per battle. You start with such an extremely limited number of spells and abilities.
*As a counter to this, near the end of the game I was able to go longer before resting.
10) You can get the bow in the forest over and over. I snatched like 30 and sold them, broke the game.
11) A lot of the decorations seemed out of place.

Praises
1) I liked a good bit of the humor.
2) You definitely caught a lot of the tropes.

As far as the RPGMaker stuff goes, I prefer the 2k/2k3 art/style to the XP (are you using XP?). But I agree with Fri on the out-of-the-box stuff. Some custom art or packages could really spruce it up.

[Fri]

Alright, I played all of (I think? I'm past the forest). Some comments:

8) It takes forever to level up, and there are no random battles. Now, no random battles isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I like to farm money and exp.


As counterpart, I don't mind random battle in limited amount, but I prefer no random battles, and I think it's a good way to prevent you from being overpowered and set up a game pace, as long as there's no need for it (like no need for farm for item or skills). I guess maybe you could give option to grind or whatever.

[danzibr]

As counterpart, I don't mind random battle in limited amount, but I prefer no random battles, and I think it's a good way to prevent you from being overpowered and set up a game pace, as long as there's no need for it (like no need for farm for item or skills). I guess maybe you could give option to grind or whatever.
Yeah. I agree (not to contract what I said earlier). Rather under a criticism, that could've just been a general comment (in fact, that's how I first structured my post).

I've played games I really like with no random battles, with story battles that are repeatable, and with story battles that aren't repeatable. I like to be able to get overpowered, but that's definitely not a deal-breaker for me.

[hustlertwo]

If you want help with a RPG Maker game, I post at a forum that caters specifically for it and could provide lots of feedback and pointers. The Pav. (http://www.pavilionboards.com/forum/index.php)

[Gnome de plume]

Thank you so much for the all the feedback people.

Constructive, and you weren't afraid to say bad things, which I really appreciate. We've already decided to customize the graphics, (although all those free to use enemy resources are difficult to give up on).

Special thanks for finding the repeatable bow, no one else found that.

As you level up you do increase your chance to hit, and spellcasters become more useful.

Bland Characters. Any ideas about character development would be great, I know they're all pretty toony at the moment...

Thank you again for doing this, and anyone else who wants to check out the game

Here's the link. (http://gamejolt.com/games/rapture-at-pale-gate/209805)

[danzibr]

Thank you so much for the all the feedback people.

Constructive, and you weren't afraid to say bad things, which I really appreciate. We've already decided to customize the graphics, (although all those free to use enemy resources are difficult to give up on).

Special thanks for finding the repeatable bow, no one else found that.
Here's the link. (http://gamejolt.com/games/rapture-at-pale-gate/209805)
Glad to be of service! For some responses...

As you level up you do increase your chance to hit, and spellcasters become more useful.
Now that's handy. I can see how you tried to emulate D&D. Start with an average character, whiff a lot, have like no spell slots. I just don't think it translates well into an RPG. I stuck with it and started enjoying myself more, but I'm afraid you'll lose people.

But then again, it really does give a satisfactory sense of getting stronger. I'm torn, but as a whole, I think a game needs to start strong.

Bland Characters. Any ideas about character development would be great, I know they're all pretty toony at the moment...
Right now they seem all tropey and little more than vessels to deliver puns. To be fair, they're excellent at those two things, and if that's how you like them, by all means, no need to change it.

But also, as the game goes on, maybe they get more depth and personality and whatever. I mean, you can't put forth the entire character upon meeting them.

[Gnome de plume]

Thank you all for your input.

We'll be attempting to speed up the start of the game via consumable items,
the whole thing is being visually remastered (to get rid of the RPGmaker judgement)
and as to character development, well, that's going to be the hard one but we'll give it a shot.

We've decided to release the game as free to play in chapters, once the first chapter has been remastered and polished.

I'll let you guys know when this is done (about 4 weeks), and if you're still willing to donate some of your time, your feedback would be treasured.

Cheers for all you've done already.

[Fri]

where are you planning to release it? If you're releasing it on steam, one thing I saw people doing is releasing the game as free, but have a dollar or half dollar dlc titled "pay the dev some coffee" or something like that and put a bit of something there, but the basic point is as something people can buy if they feel like tipping you or something.

[Gnome de plume]

First Chapter (pretty much what you played with one extra dungeon) should be released by end of Jan. All the graphics will be customized to try and get rid of that obvious RPGmaker look, which will take the time until then. I think I'll build a website and have it downloadable that way. Greenlighting a game takes time and you need a certain amount of internet presence which I don't think I have at the moment. As to the donate option... I might put a paypal link for a few bucks, not sure yet.