RMMV A short dungeon

[GhastlyEster]

I'm new to RPG maker so I tried making a dungeon as practice. Using the standard assets while I get a hang of the editor and everything.

I would love to get some feedback on what worked and what didn't work about the dungeon-y things. Like, pacing, puzzles, navigation, mapping, and the boat.

I am not looking for feedback on story, dialogue, characters, or combat encounters.

The following link leads to the game. The password is mononoke.

https://ester-olsen.itch.io/great-forest-spirit

 

[GhastlyEster]

By the way, does anyone know if you can embed stuff in forum posts?

 

[standardplayer]

So I just played through it, took me about 10 minutes.
The dungeon layout wasn't bad, the mechanics were cool, but some of it just felt pointless. Having to cross water just to get to the other side made the boat feel a little cumbersome.
I also didn't like that since I had to use the boat so often, I had to go into my key items to get it.

Overall I liked your maps. I'm interested to see what you do in the long haul with it.

The pacing was hard to judge, because the experience was so short.

For puzzles, I would mix the maze/boat and torch aspects together.
I liked that the spikes came up behind me in a room with a puzzle, it reminded me of old Zelda games.
But maybe try to mix some of it together, so that since using the torch is obvious, getting the torch would be more fun to figure out. Especially if it was only one part of a larger puzzle.

All in all, I'd play this again, later when it had more content.
Good job

 

[Marquise*]

The torches and keys were easy to use enough but the boat... I've tried to no avail.

But it was a nice intriguing lil story/game ^^

 

[GhastlyEster]

Thanks for the feedback! I wrote down some things I learned from this game. Here's a summary.

• Vertical paths in the middle of the screen require you to reach your thumb over real far on mobile. It's easier if the way forward is clickable on either the right half or the left half of the screen.
• A screen resolution of 960x540 makes tiles and menu items too small to press on mobile.
• Going into your inventory to use puzzle items is kind of a hassle. Could've made it so that walking over to the water prompts you to summon the boat instead, the same way the plant obstacles prompt you to use torches.
• Music takes extremely long to start on mobile. Gotta look into how to optimize that part.
  
• This is kind of a personal taste thing, so I don't know how useful it is for others. But I learned that I don't like the engine's DnD-style combat, so I don't want to use it again.
• Wanted to practice dungeon design, so I could've skipped all the dialogue and the game still would've done what I wanted it to.

I hope this is useful to someone else too