RMMV Copierre - Tower Defense RPG (Playable demo)

[Yukinose]

Project description
"Tower defenses" are games where the player stops monsters from reaching the goal line by building towers to defeat those monsters. The player chooses which towers to build, and where to place them. Different enemies require different configurations, and it'll be up to the player to optimize their tower defense. Though really, these "towers" are just clones of the playable party members.

Characters
Swordsman - attacks nearby enemies with a circular AoE
Archer - shoots at single targets from a distance
Mage - casts long range nukes
Bard - buffs nearby units, and generates resources over time

Plot/Setting/World
The human kingdom defends against monster invasions with the aid of the Copierre spell, a spell which duplicates anything. And.. crystals need to be protected for some reason. Maybe the provide mana/energy for the human magicians or something.

Video

Development progress
Programming: 90%
Art assets: 40%
Music: 40%
Plot/Scenario: 0.1 ~ 100%
Playable Content: 20%

Links
Download
Development blog
YouTube
SoundCloud
Twitter

 

[Yukinose]

Demo release

It's got very little polish, presentation-wise, but I believe it should be playable through to the first boss. Hoping to get feedback on things.

 

[hiddenone]

I gave your demo a go and had quite a bit of fun! It definitely does need more polish but you already know that, so apologies in advance if I mention something that you're already planning on changing.

Spoiler: I apparently can't give short feedback...

I do want to mention that I found starting the player in fullscreen is a bit annoying, especially since there's no easy way to quit and close the game (I prefer windowed mode, so I ended up flailing on my keyboard until I figured out f4 would change it). Starting in windowed mode and then giving the option to go to fullscreen would've been nicer.

First thing I noticed while playing is that nothing's really explained. Archer may go over some things when you talk to her, but I would've really appreciated some more details on how the parameters affect things (maybe a display like the equipment scene) since I was never sure which parameter to increase to really help. Placing fighters on the map also could've used a quick tutorial, I ended up losing the first mission because I kept trying to put the characters on the paths... Though that may speak more about how little I play tower defense games than anything. I also wasn't sure how useful promoting fighters would be because I couldn't judge how much better the fighter would get.

I ended up focusing on using archer and swordsman because I wasn't sure how good mage and bard were. Bard in particular confused me, since she didn't seem to do anything, so I ended up just ignoring her. Of course, it didn't help mage and bard's chances that most of the items I crafted ended up being only able to be used by swordsman and archer. Which reminds me, some more details on the armor equipment about who can use them would've been nice, since the only way I could find out who could equip what was to check each character's equip slots. The prices for both shopping and crafting seemed really high, I assume you want the player to replay and grind on the levels to be able to get new stuff.

The actual game part of the demo was pretty fun, figuring out who's the best fighter to put where is a nice brainteaser. But I do wish there was a way to either withdraw or give up early, since there were a few times when I realized I messed up early in the first wave but had to sit around until enough enemies finally hit the crystals. This may be more of an issue with me than the game, but I kept thinking the swordsman I controlled was one I put down, I would appreciate if the player-controlled sprite was different than the placed ones. I also had a problem remembering which fighters I had promoted, if there was a way to just look at the fighter on screen and tell (like fancier clothes/aura or even just a little 'LVL _' above their heads) it would've helped a lot.

Graphically, I enjoyed the cute style. There were some issues with some of the sprites (the fairies in particular have some stray pixels near their wings), but overall they were adorable. The passability seems like it may be off with the tiles, as I could walk on water but not go near the bases of the trees, which made placing fighters where I wanted to a bit difficult. Having the trees block parts of the path, especially on 1-8, wasn't great since it made it hard to judge if I'd beaten things or not before they hit the crystal, perhaps replacing some of them with shorter bushes would work better. I also noticed the gold and luck icons in the menu tended to blend into the window background, adjusting those to be darker and more clear may be a good idea.

Overall, it's clear that you've been working hard on this, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses.

 

[Yukinose]

Nah, while it is a lot of stuff I've already been pondering about, that's definitely the kind of feedback I've been hoping for!

Introducing the game to an actual audience hasn't been part of the development at all. Honestly, the only reason the archer even provides any info is for the Effectiveness stat.

I agree there should be more visibility than what's provided so far. I've been putting off doing any "pictures attached to events" related features, because I haven't been sure whether or not I'd be sticking to events for the map units. It would be really useful to know the player units' promotion levels, or having health bars for enemies. The bard is lacking in visibility on almost every front. Her effect is shown when opening the summoning menu, but you can barely tell which units are affected by the buff, and by how much, etc. She also generates mana passively, but there isn't any animation for it atm.

For a lot of the graphical criticisms, it's mostly just because it's currently in development, yeah. The pixels are left there from when I had to reposition the sprites into MV's grid. The tree blocking the path problem is a more interesting point, though.

In a good game, you definitely do not want to block the view of the most important locations, the enemy paths. I think I'll still stick to "doodads" that block the view of the enemy paths, but I think I'll reduce the offensiveness of them, like in 1-8. In 1-8, it feels annoying to have them block the view, for sure, but I think practically, it doesn't mean much. If enemies reach that point, they're likely going to hit the crystal, and there isn't any response you can give to them reaching that point to really stop that.

The reason I'll be keeping the path-obscuring doodads, though, is because I'm planning to pollute the screen even more later on. Right now, I'm personally really disappointed with the visual feel of the battle effects. The screen's already spewing lots of numbers on screen, and you can barely see things already, and you can barely see the battle animations. I'm planning to have, for example, the mage's spells be large enough to obscure a fourth of the screen, or something. Enemy sprites already get covered by flying numbers, but they're 100% going to be completely covered by vfx later on.

 

[hiddenone]

I figured you were focused on getting the gameplay working and hadn't gotten around to creating introductions to mechanics for the player. But I know how easy it is to get used to a mechanic you make and end up thinking that it's obvious how it works (I've done that plenty of times, and my friends always have to remind me that they have no idea how my mechanics work), so I wanted to comment on it.

Personally I disagree with your point on 1-8, though that may be because I have a tendency to place the fighters oddly. I stuck a mage on the last path for that level and she could finish off almost all the slimes that snuck past my archers, but since most of the path was blocked from sight I couldn't tell if it was worth putting another fighter there or if I should put them somewhere else.

I'd be careful about overdoing the visuals. There's a fine line between "hey, this looks great, I can see exactly where my fighters are hitting!" and "oh man, there's so much going on I have no clue what's happening". I found the numbers above the enemies to not be very helpful, especially since I didn't know how much health the enemies actually had. Having hp bars on the enemies would be quite nice if you decide to implement them, and I think you could drop the numbers entirely because you can judge how much damage you're doing with the hp bar. All that said, seeing mage blow up a quarter of the screen will be pretty cool.

 

[seaotter]

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