Ruby Radiance

RUBY RADIANCE was one of the entries for the IGMC (Indie Game Making Contest) for 2014. As one of the judges for the RPG portion of the competition it is my pleasure to share my thoughts on the game. This review will basically just be the notes I took cleaned up. It will be based on the competition version of the game, so certain aspects of the game may have been changed.

Presentation
Graphics are basically RTP with some graphical resources from other places - the buildings of the town look great, though they're pasted on a bland, empty map which really does them a disservice. Mapping is quite large and bland all the way through - solid, with no errors, but unimpressive. Toning down the size of the maps a little, especially the town map which is far too big for such a small settlement, could help a lot in making the game look better.

Music is RTP and fits well with the various scenes in which it was used. It was also randomised quite a bit - that is, during battles random battle tunes were used each time, which was nice. Sounds were well used and fit just fine.

Writing is bland but solid. What little was there was decent and set up the story well enough. The characterisation is almost non-existent. Each NPC has the same dialogue no matter how far you progress.

The story revolves around going through a multi-floor dungeon in order to stop something disastrous from occurring. Unfortunately, due to the sparse characterisation, you have no real connection to the town or worry about the dire consequences of failing. It's something I would suggest working on, as making the player care about those who could die if the character fails would help a lot in making the game more immersive.

The HUD for both battle and the menu is rather different in style to the RTP and the graphical differences are pretty jarring and rather ugly in comparison. They did do the job in dispensing information, though a little more detail in certain parts would have been appreciated.


Gameplay
The game revolves around gathering resources to update your armour/weapon/tools to get farther into the dungeon with the goal of reaching the end. You are given a sword, armour, pick, health and mana potion and three spells to help you in your quest.

Each NPC does something for you - whether it be refilling your potions, enhancing your magic, upgrading/fixing your armour/tools/weapon or allowing you to sleep and heal. In fact, that's all the NPCs you have in the game - four total.

Dungeons hold a set amount of resources. Some are held behind locked doors that require the best magic to open. Others need mining. Each interaction with enemies or resources depletes your tool/weapon durability. When it reaches 0 you have to get them fixed back in town.

Items heal all of your health/mana depending on said item. You can craft more flasks using resources, and they can be restored in town for free, infinite amount of times.

Battles are a case of finding the weakspot of the enemy and hitting it until they die. Every three floors there's a boss battle. They have some strategy and challenge, but not much.

Each third floor will open a spirit walk alter that allows you to teleport straight to the town. You also have an item that can be used in and out of battle that will teleport you to town.


Fun factor
The nature of collecting and making progress though the dungeons is pretty fun. Upgrading weapons, armour and spells is useful and picking which you upgrade first helps. It's a pity that upgrading doesn't actually mean much - you always get 30 points and the lowest it can go is 1 point per item, even if you're using a high-end tool.

It's a huge pity there wasn't more characterisation or NPCs. That would have helped a lot in selling the whole dire situation and making you care about the plight of the town and townspeople. More non-essential NPCs could have made the town seem more like it was an actual town and not a small caravan of merchants who just happened to set-up shop on a blank piece of land.

Even if those few NPCs that did exist had interactions outside of their Jobs, or changed what they said depending on how far you progressed, that would have been a lot better than just the same words said over and over again every time you talked to them.

There were some annoyances in avoiding enemies but for the most part it wasn't hard to do. That said, the menu was bound to an odd key (a) and the in-battle menu was a little clunky.


For the competition I gave Ruby Radiance a score of 46/60. On RMN I'm giving it a 3.5 star rating. It's a decent game and has a lot of potential but it would be nice to see a bit more added to it.