TDS'S PROFILE

author=Clareain_Christopher
I was talking about the demo. Just gotta find the time, and kill off a few other projects.

I see. Well let me know what you think once you find the time to test it out and if it helps, it's a very short demo so I think you might be able to tackle it in 10~15 minutes.

Thank you for trying the demo.

author=Avee
Battle system:
Even at normal speed I find it impossible to read the text during battles. Witnessing the damage I take and deal is only possible by looking at the sprites. I like the battle speed though, so I think it should not be reduced. Actually I think that the text is unnecessary.

Since I can't see the enemies' HP gauge, I can never tell if I'm close to winning or losing. The only way to make some assessment would be to always fight new groups of enemies at full health and keep in mind how much I lose. That isn't very player-friendly in my opinion.

That text is unnecessary, it's been left there mostly for debugging purposes and because I could not think of something to replace it.

I do like the idea of replacing it with enemy HP bars although I don't really like that it might become more player friendly or easier to survive, I'll see if adding bars instead of text doesn't rile up more complaints about not being able to follow them either.

author=Avee
The lead character's gauges extend horizontally while the allies' extend vertically. I believe the party's gauges placements should be the same for everyone.

That being said, a better design for the battle HUD could be:
-Faces and gauges at the top.
-Menu on the bottom left.
-Rush gauge and enemies' gauges in place of the text.

I've already changed the character HUD 7 times because there is always a new complain like the bars are too short, bars are too long, bars don't have numbers, bars have percents "Why not numbers?". I will not be able to please everyone with the HUD so it's not going to change very much unless I find a way that it doesn't bother anyone.

author=Avee
Difficulty:
At Level 1 I can't beat a group of Rafflesias, and I can survive one or two groups of Slimes without healing.

I've mentioned this on the blog post about the demo, "You are not going to win all battles like a typical RPG". This is why there is a huge wall of fire in the demo preventing you from going into the desert, people kept going to the desert and dying a horrible death and then complaining they could not defeat anything in the desert.

You are meant to use your items and keep your HP up and also save often when going to new areas.

As for the rafflesia, they are meant to drain you very fast of your resources. That is why they drain HP on every hit and their only skill is "Drain Whip", it's not very subtle but it should be very clear they are not enemies you should be fighting unprepared.

However you can beat them at level 1 with very little item loss, if you watch how they attack they will always try to drain HP from whoever has the most HP, using this knowledge and the very clear fact that one character takes a whole lot more damage than the other, you can keep the HP of the character who takes less damage up and this will make him the target while the weaker one can keep attacking. This of course still requires a few items, but it does allow you to win with relative ease and with both characters alive.

I did not come up with that strategy, it was a friend who enjoyed playing the demo and she figured out the AI on her third fight and took advantage of it.

author=Avee
Monster Map:
As fun as it is to actually see the encounters, this mini map is the only thing I feel forced to look at when traveling. I can't pay any attention to the actual world map and enjoy the walk because it seems of critical importance to find hearts and avoid the huge amount of encounters.

I do enjoy the battle system though and will definitely play some more.

You are not meant to look at the enemy radar constantly, it is meant to help you chart a course through the map. You don't drive and read a map at the same time, you briefly stop look at the map then see how to proceed. I thought this would be more natural to people since looking constantly at the radar means you are not looking at the map which means you have no idea where to go since your directions are based on where there are no enemies.

Thanks again for trying the demo and posting your thoughts on it, although I wish you would have posted on the blog post about the demo.

Have a nice day.

You know what, I would bother with a better response, then again I can actually make my scripts and I don't go around begging scripters for their work.

Trying really hard to replicate an old system I barely remember anything about.

Thanks.