The Pale City--A Nontraditional, Story-Rich RPG

[kylemuntz]

https://thepalecity.com

 

[Darth Canoli]

Looks good for a RPGMaker creation and i can see a lot of work went into battle animations and sprites, i could go for it if it was party based (there's a couple of suikoden-like RPGMaker CRPG which are quite good) but it seems you only control a single character.

 

[Owlish]

Another Ultima Online expansion?

 

[frajaq]

for some fucking reason I cant buy the game for now (BoaCompra on Steam being buggy as usual) but will get later for sure

Game and style of sprite reminds me of some game I played when I was a kid but cant remember the name so there's a bit of nostalgia involved in this

 

[AdolfSatan]

"with a focus on well written prose"

Doesn't show a single excerpt. Come on, my dude. I really wanna believe you, but why should I?

Edit: it's dirt cheap tho. Gonna buy it later and come back with impressions.

 

[AdolfSatan]

Alright, played for about an hour, first impressions and critique. Don't wanna be harsh since op's place seems in the right place, but then again, gotta keep a codexian standard of grognardism after all.


WRITING/SETTING

-Now, some might call this a matter of taste, but I believe there are some principles one should adhere to when writing, and one in particular is the need of a balance between all things. The world is presented in a manner so grim that it looses all impact and verisimilitude. Every piece of dialogue or description seems hellbent on reminding the reader that this [the game's] world is a most dark and perverse one in quite a preachy manner to boost. Which comes across as too fanciful to be believed; the real world isn't like that, and even if you wanted to argue in favour of this being fiction, the truth is that the human experience has to remain close enough to the universally known one if you're reaching for any kind of emotional impact.

-If you wanna introduce a player to the mechanics of the game, then do so right away. Or better yet, give him a manual, because having in-world characters tutoring you on how to play is quite grating, it breaks all the immersion you seem to be striving to build.

-You know the whole show, don't tell thing? Exactly the opposite is happening here. The game is too verbose for its own good. Even if the quality of the prose isn't offensive on itself, it seems to have missed the fact that games aren't books. Seize the tools of the medium, you've got more than words to play with here.

-On that very subject: rpg maker, like gms, has a very particular way of presenting text that makes it quite a slog to read. How do you deal with this? Either you get a better engine or give me less to read. LISA is an example of a fantastically crafted game using such a shitty tool.


GRAPHICS/ART
-Serviceable, but while this is precisely one of the points where I believe more license is to be warranted towards unorthodox means —even moreso if the game is built around story-telling—, the game doesn't. Instead it falls into the trap of having everything be black, brown, and grey to seem dark and it doesn't really work. Again, the crappy rendering provided by the engine makes a mess of what would be detailed tiling.

SOUND
-Sound design is just poor. Music is sort of alright, but could be doing so much more for the ambiance. The audio effects are of very poor quality and rather detract from the experience.

C&C/CUSTOMIZATION
-Light to none as far as I've seen, but then again I didn't play that much.

COMBAT
-Unexpectedly, this seems to be the most fleshed-out part of the game. A lot of care has been put to design a system where every movement should be considered as there's little room for fuck-ups. I finished all of my fights quite close to the edge, which made for some satisfying victories indeed.
And yet again an aspect hurt by the engine's short-comings. If the very same principles applied in here where to be reworked into one that allowed for character positioning for extra tacticool points I wouldn't even mind the fact that there's no character creation or customization at all.

FINAL WORDS
Will play some more this next days to see if it picks up, but I don't think it's made for my tastes. Still, kudos to the author for actually taking and finishing a game; it looks like it was made with a lot of dedication notwithstanding the outcome, and I can respect that.
Also, I would promote this in jrpg rather than wrpg forums, it seems to stray much closer to their design basis.

 

[Smoker]

suikoden-like RPGMaker CRPG which are quite good) but it seems you only control a single character.

Which one besides City of Chains?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Which one besides City of Chains?

Exit Fate & Last Scenario, didn't know city of chains, how good is it ?

Those two are good except for too many random encounters which seems to be usual suspect as far as RPGM cRPG go.
I'm not going to put any link here but i could pm you the official website if you can't find it.

 

[Smoker]

ah I've played Exit Fate. City of Chains is good for a rpgmaker game but it's futuristic (took like 4 hours). I was thinking you meant tall spirtes when you said Suikoden style.

 

[Darth Canoli]

4 hours + futuristic ...
Took a look, might have tried it, some features look interesting but 4 hours, it's over before you even get into it.

 

[kylemuntz]

Hi AdolfSatan, thanks for playing! I appreciate the feedback. It's good to get thoughts on the game from every angle, both the positives and the negatives. It's especially cool of you to take the time to comment on the game despite some of the reservations you have about it. I appreciate that you're planning to keep going, and I hope you enjoy the rest!

I noticed there were some questions about what kind of game it is, so for anyone interested, it might be worth checking the early reviews at Bago Games (which focuses on the game design), Sleepy Toadstool (which focuses on the writing and atmosphere), or Lovecraft Video Games (which touches on some of the Lovecraft influence). There's also been a negative review at HeyPoorPlayer, which echoes many of Adolf's criticisms.

Also, since play-time came up in the thread, The Pale City generally takes between 12 to 20 hours. My proofreaders and testers tended towards the higher end, but that was while talking to everyone, doing everything, etc.

 

[kylemuntz]

Looks good for a RPGMaker creation and i can see a lot of work went into battle animations and sprites, i could go for it if it was party based (there's a couple of suikoden-like RPGMaker CRPG which are quite good) but it seems you only control a single character.

Thanks for your interest, Darth Cannoli! I appreciate you like the look of the game. Though... I'd be lying if I said the game was party based. It's actually probably the least party-based rpg I know. People do occasionally join the player character, but they almost always leave, and a lot of the gameplay revolves around coming up with strategies for fighting groups of people while solo. (The game is balanced so that human opponents are leveled on the same scale as the player character and have very similar stats, so going three on one can be quite tough.) This is one of the main design decisions of the game, but definitely one I could see pushing certain people away.

Anyway, thanks for participating in the conversation!