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Wannika is a 25 minute linear semi-cinematic experience inspired by the pinky violence films of the late 60s and early 70s. An unaired pilot of a tv series that never happened. While it deals with some serious subject matter, it's perfectly acceptable for kids in a similar vein as Final Fantasy 3/6. There's some light narrative reactivity; enough to make it qualify as a genuine RPG by Avellonian standards. The combat's likely not going to give anyone here any trouble, but I hope I made it interesting and tense enough to hold your interest.
I'm interested in thoughts and feedback of all kinds (additionally, tell me which choices you made at the beginning and end, for curiosity's sake). This is my first serious attempt at a game, so I'm sure there are many things I can try to improve if I ever try to do something more ambitious. I hope some of you are able to enjoy it.
I don't believe it needs one, unless there's some huge issue that needs addressing. I played it safe and stuck largely to RPG Maker's default templates, though I heavily nerfed values of some of the spells I gave to some enemies, because their default damage values were extreme. If one were to make a RPG Maker game with unaltered out-of-the-box spellcasters, they'd pretty much demolish everything, an odd decision unless you get your first level one spellcaster like 10 levels in or something.
Advertised 25-minute game actually a 6-minute game. Second fight 4 to 1, focused on killing the buffer/healer first, using my only special attack option over and over, and was whittled to death by tanks. No continue available, must start over from beginning. Not that I can see doing anything differently anyway. Quit.
Advertised 25-minute game actually a 6-minute game. Second fight 4 to 1, focused on killing the buffer/healer first, using my only special attack option over and over, and was whittled to death by tanks. No continue available, must start over from beginning. Not that I can see doing anything differently anyway. Quit.
Also, did you talk to the mom after you confronted Phil? There's a line of dialogue that suggests you do something that will help you a lot.
Edit: I just beat the fight on the first try, solely attacking the mage first (though tbh that is really not the wisest thing to do. People have guards for a reason.
Edit: I just beat the fight on the first try, solely attacking the mage first (though tbh that is really not the wisest thing to do. People have guards for a reason.
Tank, DPS, healer. Try to kill the tanks first and you'll lose. Kill the healer. Everyone knows this.
Anyway, felt bad for ragequitting so tried it again and did it the wrong way attacking tanks first. Made it to the end without another party wipe, though I had a lot of knockouts, soooo I guess you could say the numbers are rather
Well done!
As for the rest, this is certainly a JRPG that is there; a functioning, unambitious* game that can be played beginning to end with no glaring flaws.
*I absolutely do not mean unambitious in a bad way. The clear intent here was to make a very basic game for the portfolio and to learn the building tools. Success. Any time I ever try to put together anything similar it grows out of control and never gets finished. Seriously, good job.
If I have any criticism, it's that a piece this short doesn't need two stories. I was looking forward to going after everybody in the gang who beat up Christine, but instead that turned out to only be two people and then suddenly there's this plotline about ghost murders. Well ... OK. Then Emma's minions didn't have a theme and the battle through the hotel felt disjointed. Does she have well-paid security guards, or an army of possessed zombies? And where did that second spirit come from? It just kinda showed up. Again, a piece this short should be more cohesive. I get it that you probably felt compelled to cram in several different enemy types to stretch your versatility, but a single strong theme would have been a better choice imo.
Lastly, I just now looked up "pinky violence" and I'm glad I didn't look it up beforehand as I would have been on the lookout for erotic elements of which Wannika had none.
She's not a healer, she's a buffer. I designed this with verisimilitude in mind. Imagine yourself as a not-quite-21 year old girl in a fight with another not-quite-21 year old girl, her scrawny bookslave, and two beefy guys whose purpose there is to kick the crap out of anyone who causes trouble.
Originally I only had one guard there, but I added another because it didn't feel like the knock-down drag-out I wanted it to be.
If I have any criticism, it's that a piece this short doesn't need two stories. I was looking forward to going after everybody in the gang who beat up Christine, but instead that turned out to only be two people and then suddenly there's this plotline about ghost murders.
I was taking heavy influence from Rica (and other movies, shows) which follows a similar structure, i.e. there's this opening vignette to introduce you to the main character, then the real plot starts. Additionally, both incidents were drawn from real life. That incident with Christine is something a former classmate of mine did to someone (with a friend and his mom watching). He received 8 years for it, the mom copped a plea.
Well ... OK. Then Emma's minions didn't have a theme and the battle through the hotel felt disjointed. Does she have well-paid security guards, or an army of possessed zombies?
Kinda both, but not really. The security guards in the lobby are the hotel's, so they're her father's. The two by her side are her personal bodyguards. Perhaps I should have given them separate models to clarify this. The zombies belong to the spirits. They have a common goal (more sacrifices), but they're not "hers", since the spirits have their own agenda.
And where did that second spirit come from? It just kinda showed up.
Spirits are everywhere. I intentionally used "spirits" plural to try to get across that she was dealing with more than one. That one in particular shows up because it's incredibly upset you're destroying its family of minions.
Again, a piece this short should be more cohesive. I get it that you probably felt compelled to cram in several different enemy types to stretch your versatility, but a single strong theme would have been a better choice imo.
Understood, but I felt that "a police officer and a gang of thugs beat up hotel security without your actually seeing the scope of the horror that has been wrought" didn't have the impact I wanted.
Lastly, I just now looked up "pinky violence" and I'm glad I didn't look it up beforehand as I would have been on the lookout for erotic elements of which Wannika had none.
A while back I went through a bunch of short stories I wrote a decade ago, and was disappointed that none of them were suitable for younger people, so I resolved to make at least one thing that was. I did include some hints though. Wannika's in a relationship with John (an incredibly subdued romance, very Roguey) and then
That thing with the bottle rocket that was alluded to? Those two guys stuck a firecracker with a long fuse in her vagina, lit it, counted down loudly, and then extinguished it shortly before the flame went too far.
Additionally, the two month coma: Cat was gangraped into it, which is why she refuses to discuss the details and gets curt when alluding to it.
In the jail fight, having enemies of different size was a little jarring. And I don't understand who the jailbird are supposed to be. Are there just girls in jail that get attacked to bring the cop in?
John doesn't seem worried that his girlfriend fought her way out of jail.
I don't really understand what Emma wanted: she's doing all that just to replace her father? But she loves him so much she won't do it directly, but ruining his company would work?
Regarding balance,
I found that John was a little too strong with his special attack, since he can one-shot the zombies.
Also the optional fight in the hotel with the second spirit makes the final fight much harder, since we're pretty much guarantee to lose some HP to the mob of zombies; or I'm just bad at this game. On the other hand the group can be avoided, so there's that.
In the jail fight, having enemies of different size was a little jarring. And I don't understand who the jailbird are supposed to be. Are there just girls in jail that get attacked to bring the cop in?
Yeah, unfortunately the person who created the sprites didn't make battler versions of every possible sprite you could use, so I had to use regular-version sprites in some cases. I suppose in that one fight I could/should have used the regular versions across the board and then used the battler versions for the next one.
And yeah, they're just people arrested for some unrelated shenanigan Wannika assaults to get the cop to unlock the cell
John doesn't seem worried that his girlfriend fought her way out of jail.
He knows she's a criminal thug and accepts that this is her way. Their relationship is a homage to the one Rica has with a cop in the second two Rica films even though she herself is a criminal delinquent frequently getting into and breaking out of detention centers.
I don't really understand what Emma wanted: she's doing all that just to replace her father? But she loves him so much she won't do it directly, but ruining his company would work?
Yeah, she doesn't want to kill/hurt him, but she does want to damage his business just enough to make him resign in disgrace, leaving her in control of the Hotel Empire.
Regarding balance,
I found that John was a little too strong with his special attack, since he can one-shot the zombies.
By design, since I wanted the gun to feel powerful, significantly more than hitting someone with your fist.
Also the optional fight in the hotel with the second spirit makes the final fight much harder, since we're pretty much guarantee to lose some HP to the mob of zombies; or I'm just bad at this game. On the other hand the group can be avoided, so there's that.
Yeah, had to have an optional much-tougher-than-the-rest encounter in there somewhere. The reward is that you can loot the contents of the chest in relaxation, and what's in there will help quite a bit for the final battle. And yes, I intentionally made it possible for you to outmaneuver it and loot the chest anyway, since I believed it would feel comparably rewarding for those who don't want to deal with the anxiety of losing more health.
He knows she's a criminal thug and accepts that this is her way. Their relationship is a homage to the one Rica has with a cop in the second two Rica films even though she herself is a criminal delinquent frequently getting into and breaking out of detention centers.
Well it is balanced in the sense that you only ever get to use it in the final area and only one character has it. If I wanted to have this kind of gun-feeling in a longer more-nearly-full-scale RPG, I'd look into additional ways to restrict their use. Bullet economy would be the obvious first thing to look at, then there are some things one can potentially try to do with variables, switches, and conditional branching (e.g. using a gun causes more creatures to spawn in, or if you've already wiped them out, another battle to immediately start or even a series of battles back to back until the entire level is "clear"; maybe even a "murderer" reputation that results in more hostile cops spawning in to the world).
I was taking heavy influence from Rica (and other movies, shows) which follows a similar structure, i.e. there's this opening vignette to introduce you to the main character, then the real plot starts.
Yeah. That's a great device in fiction and the intent was clear, but Wannika is far too brief for an "introductory episode" to be appropriate, certainly not one that spans two scenes in a five-scene game. When you see this in a film it doesn't take up 40% of the runtime, with good reason. Here it makes the pacing of the arc very awkward imo.
Yeah. That's a great device in fiction and the intent was clear, but Wannika is far too brief for an "introductory episode" to be appropriate, certainly not one that spans two scenes in a five-scene game. When you see this in a film it doesn't take up 40% of the runtime, with good reason. Here it makes the pacing of the arc very awkward imo.
The Earthworm Jim cartoon did it. It'd have an opening segment that lasts one or two minutes or so, the opening would play, then the episode. If I had the capability to do so, I would have had starting a new game without any save files dump you immediately in the street, with the title screen showing up after you leave the library. I could have showed the title after that scene anyway (you can have pictures pop up), but I believe it would have felt redundant.
I'd admit it's also the bane of Zombie Simpsons which fell into this formula back in the 00s (every episode starts with one story, then it derails into something else entirely). I hope I did better than Zombie Simpsons.
Edit: Spoiled to be on the safe side, but early draft details
I remembered that my first draft of this outline had three vignettes: Confronting Phil, getting into a turf war gang fight with Cat (which ends with the cops showing up, and everyone who's conscious beating it while those who aren't get arrested), then the hotel business and what follows after. I wasn't satisfied with the pacing and how the three linked together, but during the course of designing maps, it occurred to me that I could just link the Phil plot to the Cat plot, which resolved that issue to my satisfaction.
There's an even earlier draft than that which had a remarkably different tone and an entirely different protagonist, but that's a story for another post.
Wannika is a 25 minute linear semi-cinematic experience inspired by the pinky violence films of the late 60s and early 70s. An unaired pilot of a tv series that never happened. While it deals with some serious subject matter, it's perfectly acceptable for kids in a similar vein as Final Fantasy 3/6. There's some light narrative reactivity; enough to make it qualify as a genuine RPG by Avellonian standards. The combat's likely not going to give anyone here any trouble, but I hope I made it interesting and tense enough to hold your interest.
I'm interested in thoughts and feedback of all kinds (additionally, tell me which choices you made at the beginning and end, for curiosity's sake). This is my first serious attempt at a game, so I'm sure there are many things I can try to improve if I ever try to do something more ambitious. I hope some of you are able to enjoy it.