NTC3'S PROFILE

author=Fisherolol
Can you tell me if l lost 1.5 stars due to the shitty story and graphics or you got bothered due to the boss not being hard enough?

The former; after all, I've seen plenty of games where latter battles were less challenging then some of the preceding ones, and like I said before, having such control was actually fun in a way. For me, the game had a very promising system and was quite enjoyable to play through, but there wasn't anything else memorable to it, so I wasn't really invested in anything that went on. To me, a game that gets 4 stars and higher should a) lack significant, persistent flaws and be memorable (for the right reasons, that is), and other then unusual combat, there wasn't much worth remembering. Hence, a 3.5 star rating, which still indicates a pretty good and enjoyable game in my reviewing system.

author=Fisherolol
Also, l don't understand this sentence:

"It’s a little weird that you can’t do either from the middle: the game will essentially choose for you whether to provide moving forwards or moving backwards ability."

I meant this:

They are both in the middle of the field here, yet they are only allowed to move backwards. Perhaps the Heavy Trooper blocks them from moving forwards, but right now, I cannot recall any instance in the game when there was both a "Move Forwards" and a "Move Backwards" ability available. I might've missed that one, in which case I'll correct it. Either way, it's just a minor immersion thing, much like W's weapon one: I understand why it was there, and thought it was a fine design decision, that worked for this kind of game. In a larger project, though, I think it might've been even better if the game checked your weapon loadout when it first spawned W as an enemy, so that W the enemy would have the same equipment as W the ally, maintaining the immersion. These are just the kind of things that mark the difference between 4.5 and 5 stars for me.

author=Fisherolol
How do you feel that besides enemy AI and targeting you can see in advance, the game has 0 RNG?

I think that it was a good call in general. In particular, because the damage numbers stayed consistent, each battle really felt like a contest where you truly needed to outsmart the enemy to win, with no hope that you'll get lucky and they won't. Similarly, it's your fault when losing, and you can't blame it on a bad crit or the like, like it often happens in Darkest Dungeon. Of course, that game is all about risk management, during battles, during exploration and when deciding what to upgrade/where to embark on, so its more randomised system fits what it's going for well. So well, in fact, that I don't think there's room for another game exactly like it.

A system like yours, though, with its determinism, fits a plot-driven game much better, which is what needs to happen. To me, the next step where your system should be taken is enemy morale/stress and in-combat dialogue. Both are the things Darkest Dungeon omits because of its premise. Here, though, I did wonder whether a nearly dead Heavy Trooper wouldn't have just surrendered or ran after seeing her allies killed, for instance (and I's dialogue encourages such thoughts). Make the pre-combat dialogue non-linear, the overall story better, with possibility of multiple endings and such, and something really awesome may happen.

Very nice interview! In particular, the story of Kellan's Taunt reminds me of Sore Losers, where the protagonist Markus could shout "WTF Are You Doing?" and get every enemy Berserk and unable to use skills. It was really fun and useful, but it both made the other two Berserk-causing skills irrelevant, and broke the game quite badly (though the weak balancing where latter-game armour reduced enemies' attacks to around 5 damage while you could exploit Taser's +25 attack bonus to deal ~60 had a lot to do with it as well). It's good that you've managed to iron out stuff like this, eventually.

author=Aquablue11
That and also the story for a game based on the rtp characters lol

Don Miguel's Adventure 3: rm2k16 - a dark n' gritty reboot made with the legal version of rm2k, where the wizened Don wanders the rtp halls, sternly reflects on his known life and hacks the US election.

This means that the rooms will all be designed by hand, but will be connected differently to each other to ensure that all playgames will be different. This way I avoid level problems like Spelunky,The Binding of Isaac, Shiren the Wanderer, which all are good games, but terribly bad when it comes to level design.

That...is exactly the approach The Binding of Isaac uses.

author=DocSpacebar
It's been just under a month now since the last update and I'm feeling like writing out a status report.

While college work is more frequent than last semester, I've still found plenty of time to add to the Barrier Wood. It'll connect to three different parts of the world map- a port town, the Scaldmont region, and the Frozen Reach are all going to be connected to it, and it'll have another village inside it with a quite unusual population!

In the meantime, I've also done a little work on the Castle Town and a dungeon connected to it, as well as squashed a few bugs (mashing confirm at a certain point in the opening sequence currently causes Brill's sprite to fall through a wall and take four more points of damage before snapping back to the right position; the next version will fix this bug).

And I've worked quite a bit on something called the Challenge Tower, a continuous battle arena where you're given a separate inventory and three samples per run to fight waves of different monsters that slowly get tougher as you climb; most likely, the Challenge Tower will be the first thing I finish, and will be released as soon as possible. There are a variety of new mechanics for enemy attacks in the Tower- watch out for enemies that reflect specific elements, take hits for allies, linger at 0 HP to get in one or two more moves, and other tricks- and doing well in the Tower will net you Tower Points that can be traded in for extra crafting ingredients and unusual equipment.

This all sounds quite promising! I think I might review that next build once you get it done!