Vapourware Game I've been working on for a while

[Hundredth_Idiot]

I've never shown this to anybody. It's turn based, it's got hexagons, that's about it. The player will be able to create a character and collect party members along the way.

I'm planning on making it episodic in a sense so I can release it in stages. Players will have access to self contained world maps they can travel between.

What's done: map editor, travel, combat system (melee, ranged, magic, modular character sprites), quest system, journal, progression, inventory management, trade, overworld area effects, Windows/macOS/iOS/Android compatibility

What's not done: actual content, polish

So basically I have a mostly feature-complete prototype. I've done everything myself (except overworld map tiles which I've... borrowed). Sometimes I look at the game and think it's pretty neat, other times I think it's utter dogshit. I'm not sure whether I should keep working on it though. It will take at least a year of full time work to release the first stage and it might not be worth it.

I've tried to punch up the static images with weather effects and layered parallax (on a phone it will subtly shift the layers based on the accelerometer) but that's about as good as I can make it look and it's taking a long time.

One thing that I've kinda innovated is the fear/dread mechanic or at least I haven't seen it in a game that I recall. The way it works is on overworld map every enemy stronghold radiates dread that degrades the abilities of the party, so players will be incentivized to think about the best approach to the final objective. Sure they can go straight to the bad guy castle and throw down but they'd have an easier fight if they take out minor enemy strongholds one by one until they're comfortable with attacking the main one. So they can choose the tradeoff between grinding and difficulty.

There's no mana or whatever, magic straight up reduces the caster's health.

The health replenishes between battles, but not between levels in a single battle. So if the enemy tower has 4 levels, you'll have to survive all 4 in a single go.

If a party member gets knocked out in combat, they get a wound which halves their starting health in subsequent battles until they get healed. If they all get knocked out, the game loads the last time player was in a friendly settlement. Otherwise the game is played ironman style.

 

[Tyranicon]

Just by looking at the screenshots alone, I'd say you did a good job and it looks more interesting than 75% of new "RPGs" that come to market.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Looks like a more complex Occidental Heroes

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Do you have any gameplay to show?

 

[ExposedBrainMatter]

Mite b cool.

There's no mana or whatever, magic straight up reduces the caster's health.

Especially this. Mana often feels like a cop out to avoid truly balancing the tradeoffs you should expect with magic, so nowadays we have a bunch of willy nilly wizards casting meteors in heavy armor with no consequences.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The non-combat interface seems like it might be too simple, but otherwise this looks very promising.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

The non-combat interface seems like it might be too simple, but otherwise this looks very promising.

Yeah there does seem to be a lack of options which suggests its too simplistic. But looks very interesting otherwise.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Thanks for sharing man. Make sure to stick around to get solid feedback.

 

[curds]

So basically I have a mostly feature-complete prototype. I've done everything myself (except overworld map tiles which I've... borrowed). Sometimes I look at the game and think it's pretty neat, other times I think it's utter dogshit. I'm not sure whether I should keep working on it though. It will take at least a year of full time work to release the first stage and it might not be worth it.

Don't give up, bro. Seems like you've done a lot already, may as well keep chugging away on it. Maybe it won't be amazing but at least you can still say you've made a video game, which not many people can say. My point is it will be worth it even if the game isn't good. At least you will have accomplished something.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

So basically I have a mostly feature-complete prototype. I've done everything myself (except overworld map tiles which I've... borrowed). Sometimes I look at the game and think it's pretty neat, other times I think it's utter dogshit. I'm not sure whether I should keep working on it though. It will take at least a year of full time work to release the first stage and it might not be worth it.

Don't give up, bro. Seems like you've done a lot already, may as well keep chugging away on it. Maybe it won't be amazing but at least you can still say you've made a video game, which not many people can say. My point is it will be worth it even if the game isn't good. At least you will have accomplished something.

Most of us have accomplished nothing.

 

[curds]

So basically I have a mostly feature-complete prototype. I've done everything myself (except overworld map tiles which I've... borrowed). Sometimes I look at the game and think it's pretty neat, other times I think it's utter dogshit. I'm not sure whether I should keep working on it though. It will take at least a year of full time work to release the first stage and it might not be worth it.

Don't give up, bro. Seems like you've done a lot already, may as well keep chugging away on it. Maybe it won't be amazing but at least you can still say you've made a video game, which not many people can say. My point is it will be worth it even if the game isn't good. At least you will have accomplished something.

Most of us have accomplished nothing.

Exactly. Myself included, lol.

 

[aeternalis]

Sometimes I look at the game and think it's pretty neat, other times I think it's utter dogshit.

This is the opinion of all honest, serious creators about their creations. Whether it's game dev, writing, music, whatever.

Your prototype looks very promising and you've clearly put lots of work into it. If you've come this far, you obviously gained some satisfaction from the work, otherwise you would have stopped by now. I agree with what others in the thread have said.

 

[Quilty]

I too can only agree with what others have already said. This looks like a solid prototype and with some polish in the visual (and audio?) department and with the addition of some interesting game mechanics I'm sure it would only improve. Keep going!

 

[Lord of Riva]

That does not look bad at all. And it's good that you are showing it now to get feedback that is a great milestone and far from what most manage to reach, so good on you.

Some live gameplay would be nice to see but in any case you can be proud of what you can show thus far.

 

[Falksi]

All I see when I look at that board is Blockbusters......

Spoiler

I'll take an "E" please Bob

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Looks pretty good. Keep working on it.

 

[Hundredth_Idiot]

Thanks everybody for the feedback and encouragement. The reason I'm not all in on continuing development is the timeframe needed for making the game and the opportunity cost. I have a bunch of game ideas and 2 other solid prototypes, but RPGs are the best Gs so I want to work on this even if it'll take the longest. So far I've worked on this game for 1120 hours, or around 7 months of full-time work. I run a timer for everything I work on so I'm always aware of how much time everything takes.

The non-combat interface seems like it might be too simple, but otherwise this looks very promising.

Yeah there does seem to be a lack of options which suggests its too simplistic. But looks very interesting otherwise.

Could you elaborate on this a little bit?

I'm not too worried about the game systems despite their importance. The original Fallout went from GURPS to SPECIAL in one weekend, so I figure I can change things quickly if I change my mind (or something proves to be a bad decision) later on. The biggest problem in that case will be test players complaining but testers can't leave reviews so...

What I'm most concerned with at this step is the amount of writing and art that's going to be needed. I know that's not the kind of thing that people who hang around here are concerned with, but I have to think about the overall audience for the game. And the tricky thing about art and writing is they're not systemic so if it turns out I made the wrong choice, I'll be stuck with it for the rest of development.

The art is pretty much all static. I can't animate characters on the tactical map because they all have their own sprites and layered on top of that whatever armor/weapons you have them use, and I can't have a million frames of animations, so they're going to be like figurines.

The art on background images can be layered with movable layers (good for mixing and matching layers to add a little variety) and can have weather and lighting effects but it's still static and takes up a lot of time.

I can't afford to pay literally anything for art, so it's going to be whatever I can do with whatever free models I can find. Last week I've done these two:

This one took 22 hours.

This one took 33 hours.

That's more than a full-time work week for two images. I obviously need to work faster, although with some mixing and matching and changing the positions of props and camera and varying lighting and colors, I can make similar areas in less time.

A while back I made portraits for possible companions. These took 40 hours total (full-time week)

All white guys for now because for women I'd need different tactical sprites and for black guys I can't figure out how to do the hair and skin in the portraits. My best effort:

Yeah. So either the game will be set on planet Caucasia where everybody reproduces asexually or I'll put in more effort. Nothing against wider representation and all that, but it's just a lot more work.

At the start of the game the player will choose a class and then depending on that the other two characters they'll get will be complementary classes to start with. Later the player can ditch them and get other classes.

There's going to be 5 classes, defensive (shield+heavy armor), offensive (polealrm or long sword), ranged, spellcaster and rogue/skirmisher/duelist (two weapons).

As for character progression, my initial plan is that when you reach a level you get a skill point that you can use to improve a skill. I want these improvements to make a difference, so there won't be many levels but every skill improvement will be immediately noticeable and useful. The player character will also spontaneously learn skills when they do something meaningful like an important quest or whatever. There will be as many skills as I can make use of in the game, which is to say not a lot. I'm thinking four for now: combat, speech/guile, lore/wisdom and artifice/handiness. There won't be multiple combat skills as each of the classes will have a distinct play style so the character will improve along the lines appropriate for that class. The other skills will be used in conversations and interactions. When the player doesn't have enough skill to pass a skill check, that option will be greyed out so they know they're missing out.

Ok, that's all I have for now.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Could you elaborate on this a little bit?

In the infirmary pic you have, the player is given two options after some flavor text. One that presumably heals their character, the other that automatically takes them out of the infirmary. This feels from my point of view weirdly simplistic. You went to the trouble of making a dedicated screen for the place, but because its a text choice, it feels cheap. Perhaps its different in-motion, but seeing it like this really makes the limited choices stand out more, from a limiting perspective.

 

[Darth Canoli]

It looks decent, could even be quite good with some work on battle-scapes and encounter design.

 

[aeternalis]

So either the game will be set on planet Caucasia where everybody reproduces asexually

codex-approved

What I'm most concerned with at this step is the amount of writing and art that's going to be needed. I know that's not the kind of thing that people who hang around here are concerned with, but I have to think about the overall audience for the game. And the tricky thing about art and writing is they're not systemic so if it turns out I made the wrong choice, I'll be stuck with it for the rest of development.

I can 100% empathize with these concerns. especially with the art, where I am truly hopeless, while I at least have some idea of what good writing is.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Could you elaborate on this a little bit?

Whilst I like the overall aesthetics, the text & control elements are a a red flag.
It looks like there's not many options to control whats happening, simplistic mechanics.
The big chunky icons give me the impression that there's very little depth to the game.

This is a big turn off for me, and it happens all too often with noble intentions one man game devs.
Of course, some dev go the other way and make it too convoluted with unnecessary detail but this simplicity will probably just annoy me within 10 minutes.
So often there is great stylistic potential but the gameplay just isn't there.