NCP_PRODUCTIONS'S PROFILE

author=Amy
Hi guys, issue 1 is out now. I excitedly anticipate your hate mail / frownfaces.

Comments so far range from "wow this is super useful great tutorials A++++" to "I don't get this".

Issue 1 - April 2014

PDF Format | PNG Format

author=unity
Ah, that makes sense. I think with a bit more dialog to get the player invested in the characters, and some tweaking, the experience will be much improved.

Best of luck in the conference! ^_^

author=unity
I apologize if my feedback came back as negative in tone. That was not my intent. I was more baffled that there was a trailer, full of swelling orchestral movie-teaser type music, proclaiming the virtues of the game, and then I played the game and none of that ("Epic Adventure, Intense Battles, Engrossing Story, Realistic Characters") was on display.

If you're willing to go to all the trouble of making a big trailer, it seems like you'd wait until the demo actually has the qualities in it that you're boasting about. Otherwise, the big trailer is just a setup for a letdown, and honestly comes off as a little arrogant.

author=unity
I've played your demo. I'll leave my comments below this hide tag:

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I downloaded the game after looking at the trailer. Honestly, after seeing the words "REALISTIC CHARACTERS" and "ENGROSSING STORY" in all caps in the trailer, what we actually get in the demo doesn't even start to live up to that.

We're thrown into the world with just a few scant lines from the two lead characters. I have no idea who they really are or exactly what they're doing in this tower, or what the tower even is. Why not allow us to walk around the tower, talk to NPCs, and get to know the world and the characters a bit before everything starts to fall apart?

Before we get any further, let's talk about the system menu graphic:

That bright yellow really hurts my eyes. Am I the only one? That seems excessively eye-stingy. You may want to consider changing it.

When we head downstairs, we're told that the whole place has changed and it didn't used to look like this down here. It would have been especially effective if you'd actually shown what this place looks like inside before telling us that it had changed.

And we've been dropped into a labyrinth, with a timer, and random encounters right away. First off, you may want to lower the encounter rate a bit. That's way too often for encountering enemies.

Second, while I think the idea of finding different keys to progress was kind of neat, it loses its effectiveness when you have to traverse a huge area filled with random encounters to find each of the keys just to get to the next area.

Third, I didn't notice anywhere I could go to heal my character. Neither of them had any healing magic either. And we get a few potions, but new players who have trouble finding the keys may run out of potions and be doomed.

Now, on to the mapping. Take a look at these screenshots:

This entire map feels barren and empty, lacking in details. While I think you did a neat job of making plenty of stuff to climb and take bridges over, the dungeon is still really visually boring. You'll need to add a lot more details! Making different areas look unique will also help keep players from getting lost.

Now, let's get to the battles. First off, both of our characters are physical-based fighters. Put that with the fact that most of the enemies (including the boss) have moves that blind, and that slimes have a move that blinds the entire party, the battles become bouts of pure frustration. It's not helped that we have no items that heal blind, and we have no spells that cure it either. So I sat there in plenty of battles with both of the heroes blind, hoping that one of their physical attacks would finally connect so I could win the battle. This is not good battle design.

After fighting more random battles than I care to count, I finally collected the keys and made it to the next area. Here's the first screen of the next map:

There's... nothing here. Just walls and tiles. Granted, there are other parts of this map that do have details on them, but why nothing here?

After that, we face the boss, which, as stated before, can blind you and you can't do anything about it.

Afterwards, Samnil is gone. I didn't have time to get invested in him as we only heard a small handful of lines of dialog from him, so it's honestly hard to care that he's missing. And that's the end of the demo.

I hate to be so negative on this but there just wasn't much here. Nothing stood out and the characters didn't grab me. You seem to have put at least a decent amount of time into putting that trailer together. Maybe take some of that energy and put it in to the actual game?