Ploe

Intro

"Ploe" is an action platformer that was being developed by hiromu656 using Game Maker Studio that was created for the No-RM event. An event held back in October of 2015 in order to counter-balance the amount of big news we got for RPG Maker that year with the official release of RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 as well as the announcement for the release of RPG Maker MV. As such developers were tasked to create a game with one of the other engines out there. After all, they deserve some love too every now and again. At any rate this entry for the event didn't meet the base requirements for all entries being at bare minimum 10 minutes in length. In fact, this project only contains around 2 to 3 minutes worth of content and feels more like a tech demo than anything else. A rather buggy tech demo at that.

Story

As far as the demo itself goes it doesn't have a story. There is a story mentioned on the game's summary page that centers around Ploe exploring an old fortress in search of an ancient treasure in order to prove herself. Though whose she proving herself to isn't particularly clear. Though I suppose it really doesn't matter since it's highly unlikely this project is going to see any updates.

Gameplay

Sadly the fundamental gameplay in this game is both super basic and extremely buggy. On the super basic side we have the platforming sections of the demo where the most diverse option we get from the standard jump option is a running jump. A jumping technique you'll be using all of the time anyway since if your going to jump you usually want to cover a lot of distance. On the buggy side of things we have the combat system where the player's punch doesn't always register when you hit an enemy. In fact, I've had half a dozen hits in a row go undetected before and was simply pushed over the edge of a platform to my doom by an enemy because of it. Continuing our discussion of wonky things if you try to walk to the left and cross a map transition point you seemingly just fall to your doom like you stepped into a bottomless pit.

Graphics

I'll admit the choice in starting slime being purple is interesting. This is because in most games the starting slime is usually green or blue while purple is reserved for something like a poison slime. At any rate the game is decent in terms of visuals and is probably the best aspect of this game. Albeit I'm still scratching my head over one of the slimes being able to walk on air.


Maybe you've seen a dragon fly, maybe even a horse fly, but I've bet you've never seen a slime fly!

Sound

On the sound side of things the demo is almost entirely quiet. In fact, the only sound programmed into the demo is a sound effect that triggers when you successfully hit an enemy. A sound effect you could entirely miss if you simply skip past the enemies by jumping over them and just take the hit from the one enemy you can't avoid. It's not like it's going to kill you and defeating monsters in the demo is rather pointless.

Conclusion

This project needs a lot more work on the gameplay front in my opinion. This is because the project is both too basic with the only advanced jumping mechanic being the most basic of options with the running jump. There is also the wonky hit detection issues to fix as well. To be fair, the developer is well aware of how wonky the hit detection is considering he made it impossible for the player to die in the demo because of it. Though I imagine these complaints are kind of pointless considering this game hasn't been updated since the event. So I'm guessing hiromu656 has decided to move onto bigger and better projects. It's just sad to see such a short tech demo with so little to offer the player or even other developers in terms of ideas. As it stands this project really isn't worth checking out in my opinion unless your planning on reviewing this old demo project.