WIP'S PROFILE

Man, I remember ONE of these you had sent me. Wonder if I can still find it somewhere.

Glad to see the progress.

author=Darken
What I'm really getting at is there isn't really a perfect platform for indevelopment RPGs yet but that might require some pioneering from someone's part. It's definitely a problem that should be solved.

I'll see what I can do.

I wanted to mention that while Shovel Knight has a lot of nostalgia in it, its gameplay is far more refined than the games from the era it resembles. It mostly looks like an NES game, but doesn't play like one.

I honestly feel like that's somewhat the problem Shadows of Adam has. It plays far too much into the hand of nostalgia for its gameplay.

author=Feldschlacht IV
-Quasar
-Starlight
-Shock Wave
-Acid Rain (Water obviously, yes. But it's also a Poison attack)
-Atomic Ray
-Diffuser
-Mirror Orb
-Flash Rain (Water and Ice, not just Water)
-Raid
-TekLaser

Some of those seem quite non-elemental (Quasar, TekLaser); others I could possibly pick out if I could remember their visuals (Starlight). Poison isn't an element; telegraphing statuses is gonna be difficult regardless. Mixing elements is much trickier, to be sure. I think it's bad design to do in general, but to each their own.

Truth be told, FFVI has some awesome spell effects. But you're chasing the wrong end of them; the ones that you can't discern what they are doing are bad visuals. They did a pretty good job overall, but missed the boat on a few of them. You are trying to account for intentionally bad visual designs later on.

Icons are not as good as telegraphing. Depending on what you want the player to feel, it absolutely can cost the player. If where the game actually tells me what's happening is the icon, that's where my attention will be. If the elemental type is not that big of an impact in battle strategy, I'll ignore the icon.

It was mentioned before, but probably bears repeating: how many spells will actually have disjointed visuals? If you have 100 spells and 10 of them are disjointed, the obvious answer would be to fix the 10.

author=Feldschlacht IV
I agree with the sentiment, but I can just as easily put icons (which for my game, would be two at most) in the attack names so I can make my energy rays look however I want them, right? Like, what if I want a bunch of funny ass energy rays? Creative direction shouldn't suffer if I can properly convey information at the same time.

Granted, I'm not saying I MUST do this and I insist on having weird confusing looking energy rays, but I don't want to get too complex into solving a simple "problem" that may not even be much of a problem.

If you want a bunch of funny ass energy rays that are inconsistent with all the others, it'll be noticed. Don't sacrifice game fluidity to suit creative direction; you're still making a game that needs to be played. Embrace consistent game design and don't swim against it. Just as you are designing rules for the player, you need rules to follow while making it.

Sure, you COULD make a spell that trips a player up. But breaking your own visual design rules only hurts the player and experience.

Again, icons are okay. They are easier to understand than long text, but not as good as a full visual. The visual is what sticks in the player's mind.