Castle Quest Demo

Ah Castle’s Quest! This one is promising! The retro look gives it an old school feel and uniquely uses field abilities for you to continuously solve puzzles and traverse through the castle.

Gameplay: 3. It’s unique, its fun, but it needs work and a difficulty increase

The gameplay is very unique and full of potential ideas. Through your adventure through the castle you will come across some people who will help you in your journey. Each person acts as a separate character in battle, and has their own life bar. They also have their own unique ability, to help get through certain obstacles in the castle. This is quite unique, and while it could provide for some interesting puzzles, all the ones thus far have been relatively simple. (But of course, how complicated can you get? Plus it was the beginning of the game as well)

The maps generally contained many obstacles for you to use each character often, allowing you to feel that every character has its use and purpose. The ranger can jump over obstacles, the thief can steal keys from sleepy guards, the cleric can heal itself. Looking at it now, the skills do seem quite simple, and once you recognize what skill you can use on what, the game seems relatively simple. A suggestion would be to somehow find ways to bypass the skill’s obviousness… like maybe don’t make every area that you can “jump” over look the same? Or maybe don’t just have spikes, but also traps etc that you can avoid. I think these things might make people think harder about the puzzles.

Battles. This is the one thing that I think could use the most work. While the fighting is really a cool idea and something different you see from other rpgmaker games, I’m not sure it has much purpose or benefit. When monsters appear on the screen, they move around randomly/closer to you at their own speed. They never strike unless you strike them first, in which case they will always retaliate. While I think this is creative and different, I don’t think it makes monsters very dangerous or purposeful. You could simply walk away from the monster. Even if you do choose to fight the monster, you don’t get anything afterwards. The only real purpose for fighting seems is if the monster is in your way, or multiple monsters trap you when you’re trying to run from them.

Each character has their own health and range of damage as well; some guys are better at fighting than others. Though the only thing you can do is attack; there are no other skills to use of this moment. It would be nice if each character had some battle skills as well, to help differentiate them more and make battle feel more dynamic. Though, the battling is indeed flawed. The fact that monsters don’t attack on their own means that the Cleric is the ultimate fighter, even if he doesn’t hit the hardest. His heal spell will always save him. Though this is understandable, perhaps showing that battle can be eventually won when all your other characters are dead, but I think it would be better to make battle more dangerous and that you actually game over once in a while. Battles seem to also be a test of endurance as well because of the current system. Monsters don’t attack, you choose to attack them and when. Thus if there’s a tough monster, you can heal all your characters to full, avoid all the small enemies, and make it to the boss at 100% each time and just throw each character you have at it and inevitably defeat it. Since the monsters can’t choose who to attack, no one will die off quicker than you choose, and you can simply swap characters to easily win the battles. Not to mention the invincible cleric, once again. :P

My suggestion is to somehow make battles more dynamic, purposeful and have more choices. I think maybe making the monsters attack you might be a good idea, but I think it would be really cool if you could work something into the current system you have. Maybe make it that monsters drop gold? And you need the gold to buy certain items needed to continue your quest? Like keys or something perhaps. Regardless, what you currently have in terms of gameplay is creative, but could use a little renovation.


Graphics and Mapping: 4. It’s good and does well for its purpose, but could use some personal touch and aesthetics.

The graphics are old school on purpose to give that type of console feel. The colors are only black and white, though the custom charactersets are creative. The king looks like a king, the ranger looks like a ranger etc. Although some charactersets were confusing and I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. The thief for example, I had no idea what that was on his head or whatever. Sometimes using this style can be difficult for visual interpretation; maybe you could refine the thief’s design? Although I guess that’s actually the only real problem I had visually, so it’s not really that much of a problem.

The mapping was intentionally dumbed down a bit to resemble the older console games. I thought this was unique, but personally I would want something different. I think it would be good to at least add some subtleties. Sure you may be trying to recreate a game based on the old console games, but you should add in bits of your own flair as well; make the game your own. Maybe you could add in a few visual attachments nothing too big; like perhaps little lanterns on the walls? Or stones on the floor, little cracks on the floor, or more statues to decorate the rooms. Just small things perhaps? I think it would make things more interesting to look at. Otherwise the mapping in terms of gameplay elements is fine, you can see the specific areas where you need to use skills clearly and nothing is ever confusing.

Well one thing that got to me was the map transitions. There were none. When you go through a door or up stairs it happens instantly, and the movement can still happen, and it confuses you sometimes especially when the door you just entered is in the same spot on the map you teleported, and if you were still holding up during the transition then you would end up going backwards by mistake. Personally, either have some sort of transition, or halt player movement for about one second after entering a door, so they don’t go backwards by mistake.

Also there aren’t any on screen animations aside from the not so often screen flash. It would be nice there was some little sword slash or something going over the enemy when you attack them or something. Just more aesthetics.

Music and Sounds: 3. Could use more, but the ones currently fit the games.

What can I say; it’s the old type music yet again. :P Its 8 bit sounding, and it fits the mood. Although I think I only ever heard 2 or 3 musical pieces. (Maybe it was my volume) I think it would be good if you could utilize more, although I think that one tune was decent, for some time at least.

One thing I have to say about sounds is the one that occurs when you talk to people or search things. Like when you talk to the king in the beginning for example, that sound that plays is the most annoying thing I ever heard. It hurts my ears. And the sound plays whenever you move to the next screen of dialogue. Please shorten the sound or use a more pleasant one please. Otherwise I don’t think I heard many other sounds, but I don’t think there were many areas where you could have used them; maybe you could use sounds for when you step on the spikes or open a chest? Not just the generic sound (aka the noisy one) but like sounds of a chest opening or a puncture sound for spikes. Also maybe you could make some of the monsters make noises? Like when you strike them they make a hiss or an ooooo sound or they make noises when you get near them.

Atmosphere and Setting: 3. Eh I know this is supposed to be old school, where everything is really vague; its ok how it is now, but some more info about the setting would be nice.

The atmosphere that the game is supposed to be old school (ha I’ve said that so many times!) is quite pungent. The music and graphics combine to give that feel, as well as the addition vague and straight-to-point type story and dialogue. Although I think it would be good to have certain areas of the castle stand out more. The entire time I felt like I was just in “one” area (even though technically you are) mostly because of the music I think. I think maybe you should at least implement more music at some spots to make it feel like you could say “oh this area feels different who knows what I’ll run into in this spot.”

The setting is very basic. You are in a castle and you must explore it. I don’t think you ever will go outside it, (although I think that might be an interesting possibility) but you’re in a castle no less. Hopefully the maps will get more creative instead of the standard “podiums” and brick walls. In fact I’m certain the author is going to add in more themes. :D Although, not a whole lot is told about the castle. Or the land it exists in. It’s just simply told some evil dude has stolen the princess. I think at least a small amount of info should be provided, to inform the player about the world and still keep the retro feel.

Story: 3. The demo doesn’t go far so I don’t know what might happen, but what I saw currently didn’t progress the story far, or hit any marks.

Like I’ve said in previous paragraphs, you kept the story minimal and straight to the point to hold that old school feel. But personally, just because its old school doesn’t mean you can cut the story off. (I’m not saying you are, I’m just stating an opinion) Not a whole lot happens in terms of learning about baron or the princess thus far in the demo, but hopefully there will be some info provided, or some events that will cause some story to be revealed or told.

One thing that I think could have been better as well was to give more info about each character that joins your party. I’m fine that they don’t have names, but in the least you could explain what they’re doing in the castle. At least make some sense of this. Like why is there a thief in the castle? Has the king imprisoned him in the castle? Or did he sneak in looking for treasure? I think when you first meet the character he should at least say a little bit about himself or why he’s in the castle, and then join your party. It would keep the atmosphere of the game while being informative and more interesting.

What I liked: I really like the graphics on some of the monsters, they looked really neat. I enjoyed the concept of having to take out different characters to solve different puzzles; it made every character important and made the field more dynamic. I also liked the capture of that old console retro game feel (last time I’ll say it I promise :D) everything seemed to collide together to give that feel.

Closing Statements: Personally I think the things that are flawed in this game are easily fixed, and once you revise and review your ideas and concepts you might want to work into the game gameplay wise, I think everything will be set, and you will just need to finish the game content-wise. Regardless, its still very retro, fun, and creative.