9 replies to this topic

[mlogan]

Here is my first-ever game! I'd love feedback, but please be kind. And sorry I don't have all kinds of fancy graphics. Hope you enjoy playing anyway.

Summary

Leo VanHauk is starting another day helping his father out in the lab. The day quickly turns from ordinary and it is up to Leo to prove himself to his father once and for all.

Setting
The Alchemist's Son takes place in teh town of Danili, in a coastal country of Padonia.
It is an Arum World Game.

Features
Make your own potions!

Characters

Spoiler

Screenshots

Spoiler

Download

Spoiler

Taking down the download for now, as I obviously have so much to work on! I appreciate all the feedback, and look forward to improving this so maybe it can be a bit enjoyable to play!

Awesome logo courtesy of Reisen

Edited by mlogan, 04 May 2012 - 11:56 AM.

[Velex]

I'm going to download and play this tonight. I'd like to play as many of the other Arum contest games as I can. Should be fun!

[Velex]

Hey mlogan, I played through your game last night and thought I'd give you a rundown of what I thought. So I really liked the way you did the introduction, the music choice was lively and it built up my excitement for the game. But when the game started, the music stopped. There were a couple of spots where you put music, but the silence certainly made walking around feel very awkward. Definitely put in music pretty much everywhere because it really adds a lot of texture to a game. The actual mapping I though was done well. The overworld map was flushed out nicely, especially for such a wide open space. There were a couple of pathing issues I noticed, one where in the stable cellar you could walk through some boxes and get onto the ceiling tiles and also with some of the tree tops having X pathing rather than STAR pathing.

The quest log was a nice touch. I think collecting the Vitrosol? for the first quest didn't check off in the quest log though. Also there was a part where I found some money in someone's house and it showed Tor talking, even though he wasn't in my party at that point.

I think what could use some work is the combat balance. At the beginning of the game I was killed twice by rats because they were able to do 60 damage with bodyslam, when I only had 40 health. Its frustrating to the player to die this way. I had to grind up to level 2 on bees and then to level 3 on rats before I was able to beat the white haired man, which wasn't too bad if just a tad repetitive.

As for some general tips; you can add affirmation sound effects when making quest progress to let the player know he/she is making progress. For instance, when I pick up the empty buckets for the first quest, a nice little ding would let me know that that I'm doing good. Music is a must have. Some of the people, especially in the first lab, didn't say anything when you tried to talk to them. Be careful doing this because it makes the world seem a lot more dead than it otherwise would. You might also want to consider adding more description events for when the player looks at different objects. Especially in the lab where there is a lot of interesting stuff and people, it seems weird that you can't interact with any of it.

Overall, the game had a lot of good points, weighed down by some of the aforementioned issues. It certainly it shows a lot of promise for your first game and I do look forward to what you can do in the future as you hone out your skills.

[mlogan]

Thanks Velex! A lot of things (aside from errors such as walking on tiles and such) were things I ran out of time on (like finding better music for the majority of the game, and adding more NPCs).

I will definitely make notes on the battle stuff - this was the first time I'd dealt with all that and really struggled with it. I was having a hard time balancing too easy (walk up to the first and enemy and kill without a weapon) to too difficult.

Thanks for playing it through and giving such thourough feedback!

Adding a question: As far as the music, one of the reasons I changed it to no music is that I had the same intro music playing most of the time. But after they got attacked it seemed too peppy and upbeat for the change in the feel of the game. Do you think that music would be okay? Is it that music too annoying period to be playing the whole time? I struggle with this because I usually don't play these games with the volume on because the music gets on my nerves after a while, so it's hard for me to know what's in the realm of normal and not.

Edited by mlogan, 01 May 2012 - 02:13 PM.

[Deckiller]

Alrighty, here's my play-by-play feedback. I'm going to be firm but fair with my feedback. Some of this might be beating a dead horse, but oh well:

- The intro is...definitely a little different. In hindsight, I liked it and thought it was cute. The music is a little "meh" to me, but I can see it being liked by most!
- I can't talk to the first NPCs!
- Picking up the buckets is a little clunky; they just disappear.
- Teleports need work - the two-tile-wide western exit of the first room has only one teleport event.
- Hallway maps need some detail and excitement.
- I like the quest log, but I'm not sure if the quests themselves will be very interesting. We'll see!
- All of a sudden there's no music
- Heading outside...and I notice there is smoke but no chimneys!
- The exterior mapping isn't terrible, but it could stand for some more details and organization.
- When I fill the empty buckets, I don't get a sound effect - just a text that says "splish, splash". It's a good idea to clearly articulate any inventory changes to the player (e.g. "got an empty bucket!" and "filled a bucket with water!")
- Chicken doesn't make any noise
- None of the NPCs in the house kitchen talk either
- I'm examining some books in a house and the PC goes, "that's not it..." My question is, "not -what- exactly? I haven't received a quest to read/find some books."
- The entrance warp to the alchemist building is sort of tough to find. It's along the side and the only thing giving it away is that the dirt path terminates in front of it.
- When returning the buckets of water, it's a good idea to clearly identify where to place them. Some players may forget/not realize that they have to set them down on the same tile that
they grabbed them from.
- I highly recommend grabbing a script that makes run the default option; holding down 'shift' can get tedious.
- Balancing is a serious issue. I start with no skills, and I died on the first fight (vs. 1 hornet), losing all my progress.
- Died on the second fight, as well. Battles are thus unplayable.
- Accidentally ran into two rats...and stopped when I found out I couldn't escape.

Well, that's my play-by-play. Obviously it's your first game, and it needs extensive work, but it's still better than most first attempts. The NPCs should be engaging, there should be music/sound, and fights should be tough but winnable. Mapping is not horrible - the exteriors and some of the interiors are almost average, except for the hallways. For a first-time game, the maps are better than most! And looking through the maker, it does seem like your maps improved with each town.

Keep up the hard work and you'll get to where you need to go! Time crunches can drag down games; I understand all about that.

Edited by Deckiller, 01 May 2012 - 05:47 PM.

[Indrah]

Welp, played it, took notes, gonna dump them here~
I'm sure the others have already said most of this.
And please keep in mind I don't MEAN to be harsh, I just see potential here, and if harsh criticism is what it takes to help that grow, harsh criticism you will get XD

Spoiler

-Right away: Ow, that message window tint OTL Too bright, with a white type it’s hard to read and harsh on the eyes.
-I liked the intro style. The text and tone was good, but the images themselves were a bit stale and repetitive. Something like actually displaying a background on some messages or screenshots of the maps would work better.
-The music stopping is a no-no for me. Music in games shuld only stop to enhace ambience (suspense, etc).
-Even if you can’t talk to the npcs, a simple repeated message of “this person can’t talk because they’re busy” would be infinitely better than just silence.
-Some tiles have their passability wonked up. (the pile of wod, the fireplaces, candles, etc)
-The outside of the house is…confusing. Sideway doors are near impossible to see in RM style games.
-Some messages upon inspecting events like doors or books make no sense, I’m guessing they respond to things I’ll be looking for IN THE FUTURE, but from the start they make no sense.
-It took me a while to notice I HAD to look at my quest log to ind the next step. In my head, logs are for REMINDING. It should not be a forced step to finding out your next objective. To solve that, simply EXPLAIN what you’re going to have to do, then REMIND the player they can check the list again in the log whenever they want.
-Sound prompts when getting items are actually imperative. It makes the difference from thinking “I got an item” from “damn, this thing has disappeared! Must be a glitch”.
-How the shop owner tells you his life story is…a bit abrupt. BAM! Information, whether you want it or not, on first meeting. If you want to expand on a npc or a character, don’t do it in their first appearance
-If you go into the supply room again, you see your clone. Simply close the room off.
-Overall, there’s a severe LACK OF CONTEXT. So supposedly there’s this dude (maybe?) Velenos? Or this Master book? Overall it’s a problem of lack of previous reference. It was never implied anywhere that there was an important book around, or a rich and bad guy in the village, so when the game suddenly starts referring tot hat information, I just stare blankly at it.
-The horse girl will crash the game if you talk to her from the righ, since she leaves that way. Put her on “through”, or she will prevent players from continuing.
-When I finally arrived to the dungeon, I’m sorry, I had to switch to playtesting and use the debug, because I was not enjoying the game (but I wanted to finish to give feedback).
-A thug should not kill you in one hit from full hp. A rat should not take away half your health. Healing items are WAY too weak (healing 10 hp per item? I have 70hp!)
-It’s DOWNRIGHT CRUEL to have beds in the dungeon but not letting me rest there OTL
-He mapping overall needs work. It’s not a bad start, but there’s lots of space to improve. The alchemy house is without any decoration and has smoke but no actual chimneys
The outside maps lack detail and variations.
There are mapping errors in the stairways and no decoration in the corridors.
The outside of the town is…confusing. There is no “road”, and suddenly youre bam wilderness :I I’d recommend making a clear road leading to the important locations so people don’t get lost, or putting a directional signboard somewhere.
The “linking” in the outside areas is especially frustrating. It took me a while to find the place where I could move to another map, since a lot of areas had open spaces touching the edge of the screen.
Some winding roads lead to…absolutely nowhere. If there was an item at the end of the road it would be fine, but nothing is just trolling the poor player XD
The houses you can go in are pretty arbitrary, as they’re the same as the rest and don’t’ actually have nothing inside, which is confusing.

So, how do you go about fixing all this stuff? Here are a few tips:
-Rework your sound completely. Add music everywhere, add sound to finding items!
-Rework your maps! The interiors are okay, if some of the houses lack detail. The exteriors, however are WAY TOO LARGE for their purpose and use: you don’t NEED the maps to be that big, they don’t HAVE that much stuff in them.
-Events: This needs WORK. Not the plot ones, the exploratory ones. If you can go into some doors and not into others, give some sort of signal of what doors can open. If some characters do not talk at all, give them at least a “He’s quiet” sort of generic message”. If some tiles yield items when explored, give them a visual signal.
-Plot: What I had to do at every moment was rather confusing. Having a quest log is no use if YOU DON’T TELL THE PLAYERS WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO NEXT. As I already said before, logs are for reminders, not first info givers.
- Overall, the linking in maps is…confusing, to say the least. Right off the bad, side doors ARE NOT OBVIOUS in RTP graphics. I strongly recommend going for normal doors. Map linking is also hazy, since there is only ONE spot to move you, no matter how the empty side to the other map is.
-Fight overall is in heavy need of balancing. It’s unrewarding and hard as it is.

Despite all the criticism, the GAME CONCEPT wasn't bad. Has the maps been smaller and the battles more balanced, with a bit more fleshed out field events, I would have enjoyed it as a short story.
However, in execution the maps were too large, for a short game there were TOO MANY DEAD ENDS (be it empty areas in the map, silent Npcs I try to talk to, etc). If you can take that sort of thing out, this is a short, sweet game.

All said, if this is your first game compelted, congrats! You've managed to do something not 99% rmers do, finish a game. Now you only have to polish up, and you'll be good to go. (Plus you already had all the harsh criticism you could want, so next time you won't be fazed by it XD)

Good luck and I'm looking forward to see what you come up with next.

[mlogan]

Indrah, none of the criticism so far has been harsh. Perhaps a bit painful but not harsh. Harsh would be "You moron, this is trash, how could you ever think you could make games?!?"

And honestly, I'd rather hear the concept is good with lot's of technical errors (that can be fixed) over it's a stupid dumb concept, you know?

If you remember specifically where the tiling issues were, could you let me know? I've gone over the database tilesets and am not seeing what's causing the problem there. Thanks.

[Indrah]

From the top of my head:
The pile of logs can be walked over.
The candle stands (two tile high) are not passable on the second tile (you should be able to walk under them)
The chair "tops" are not passable
You can walk over the chimneys/fireplaces (the steel ones in the lab and such)

Those are the few I remember :/

[Dactrius]

I think the other players have covered all the pros and cons of your demo, but just for clarity sake I'll offer up my list from my gameplay experience. I did not finish your demo, I couldn't defeat the two mobs at the end. There are more cons than pros in my list unfortunately because I felt this demo was either incomplete or rushed. However personally I prefer criticism and critique as it helps a game grow and improve.

+ The intro was good. I felt it introduced the characters well enough.
+ The opening music was well chosen. Very fitting.
+ Your interior mapping is very good. You definitely have an affinity for it.
+ Your mapping in general is good. You make some odd design choices (Like some buildings being quite wide, but some are very thin) but overall you have some real raw talent. With more practice you could become a very skilled mapper.
+ The quest log is clear and concise. A good addition.
+ I like the characters. Leo is suitably timid (Due to his strict father) and Tor is brash and direct. In fact, even though Tor is meant to be a bully, I liked him most of all.

- The lack of music in the demo and only a handful of sounds left your game feeling empty and devoid of personality. Even standard RTP music would have been an improvement.
- Combat is extremely imbalanced. You do too little damage and take way too much of it. I like how there's an emphasis on alchemy, yet you take too much damage to make any use of the healing potions.
- You can talk to a few people, but most people have nothing to say. This is confusing and inconsistent. The same applies to the environment. It's not clear what I can investigate and what I can't.
- When I picked up some gold in one of the houses, Treya and Tor spoke even though I didn't have them yet.
- Many mapping pathing errors (Can walk on windows, fireplaces, etc).
- If you return to the supply room after being knocked out, Leo and Treya are still there.
- It's very difficult to figure out where anything is. I couldn't find Tor's house in the demo at all and I thought I searched everywhere. When Tor recommends you go to his house to pick up a weapon, he should give some vague directions as to where it is.
- When talking to the girl outside the stable, if you talk from the right, the game freezes because she can't move through the player.

Overall this is a promising title, but suffers heavily from a feeling of emptiness. If you make sure all the NPC's have something to say and make it more clear what the player can interact with, your game will improve a lot. You should also focus on your combat as it is crippling the rest of the game as well as ensuring the player doesn't feel so lost in regards to objectives. I wish you a lot of luck with this game as it has some big potential. I look forward to an improved demo or the full release.

[mlogan]

I think the other players have covered all the pros and cons of your demo, but just for clarity sake I'll offer up my list from my gameplay experience. I did not finish your demo, I couldn't defeat the two mobs at the end. There are more cons than pros in my list unfortunately because I felt this demo was either incomplete or rushed. However personally I prefer criticism and critique as it helps a game grow and improve.

+ The intro was good. I felt it introduced the characters well enough.
+ The opening music was well chosen. Very fitting.
+ Your interior mapping is very good. You definitely have an affinity for it.
+ Your mapping in general is good. You make some odd design choices (Like some buildings being quite wide, but some are very thin) but overall you have some real raw talent. With more practice you could become a very skilled mapper.
+ The quest log is clear and concise. A good addition.
+ I like the characters. Leo is suitably timid (Due to his strict father) and Tor is brash and direct. In fact, even though Tor is meant to be a bully, I liked him most of all.

Thank you so much, I needed to hear all of this. And you know what, I liked Tor a lot too. I tried hard not to make Leo too whiny, just lacking self-confidence, but I don't know how well that came across.