RMMV Princesses of Public Domain

[Fleas]

Princesses of Public Domain

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This is a quick beginner RPG I built for my 8-year old daughter as a way to introduce her to the genre. It can be completed in about 3 hours or broken into roughly 4x 45 minute chunks. Collect princesses, help them with their own fabled story-line, then get them to help you in defeating the Evil Queen!

You begin as Princess Snow. After being rudely awakened from your late morning slumber, you start to seize the day in your usual lazy fashion. The picture of your father reminds you of his recent disappearance, and leaves you wondering if you will ever see him again. In the meantime, your step-mother oversees the kingdom. There is something very off-putting about her, and you find out very soon why.

This game was sitting on the backburner for a few months, to the point where my daughter stopped asking if the game is ready... Then, I came across FFSjam 2020, and used the contest as a perfect opportunity to finish up the final pieces and push against the jam's deadline. Out of 300 entries it ended up placing 8th overall, and 1st for mood. If you have kids aged 7-10, I'd be really interested in knowing what they think!

FEATURES
Many of the components of traditional RPGs have been stripped down and simplified for kids. Combat numbers are small, not many status effects to deal with. No fumbling through equipment as the best gear auto-equips. No exp to grind but you do level up and learn more skills when you gather more party members. I didn't want my daughter to get frustrated with item management so there are rest camps every few zones, and you regain mana by getting hit by mobs as opposed to looking through menus to pop potions.

PROGRESSION
You can free-roam 75% of the world from the start and you can collect the princesses in any order you wish. Some zones allow you to run past the bad guys without having to fight them, while other zones lock you in.

BALANCE
Since the 3 zones can be completed in any order, I needed a way to scale the difficulty as the party members grew in number as well as skill. Each troop runs some algorithms and gets a little tougher if you have more princesses in your party. However, the solo difficulty isn't a walk in the park either, so there isn't necessarily an advantage to pre-clear the zones alone before picking up the party members. I'm sure there are still some mobs that could use some tweaks depending on the situation.

TREASURE
There are 16 treasure chests; some in plain sight, others well hidden. Each chest contains a specific item upgrade for a princess (one weapon, one dress, one head piece. one accessory - per princess).

CONTROLS
Arrow keys to move
Enter or space bar to interact
Shift to run (disabled in some zones)


SCREENSHOTS

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DOWNLOAD LINK

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Princesses of Public Domain by CouchSpring

A beginner RPG for kids 7+

couchspring.itch.io

MEET THE PRINCESSES

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• Winter Princess - The main playable character in the game. After living the cushy castle life, she discovers quickly just how evil her stepmother really is.
• Summer Princess - Confined to a life of cleaning up after her evil step-sister, this Princess has picked up a few peculiar behaviors.
• Autumn Princess - Stranded at the top of the Dragon Tower, the Fall/Autumn Princess discovers how her powers can greatly help her friends.
• Spring Princess - From the kingdom in the Sleepy Swamp, this headstrong princess is a skilled fighter and an even better friend.

MORE INFO

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For walkthroughs and spoilers, I've set up a game site at https://popd2020.blogspot.com/

 

[HotAndColdAF]

What a charming, silly little game! That 1st place for mood is well-deserved.

 

[KazukiT]

I play through your game and I thiough it was quite a charming game. However, the battle seem llike a bit of a slog to play through. Here's some other things I would like to bring to your attention.

• I like the retro look of the tiles and characters. The sprites look small, but it looks good none the less.
• The beginning happened went way too quickly. You should confront the stepmom right away, you could have Snow look for the flour grinder first then one of the guards or castle residence tell her that the stepmom may know where it is
• You are missing a Battle Background in most of the beginning areas
• The pixilated effect on the damage numbers makes it harder to see the numbers but, I can still see them though.
• You could enable the escape option, it doesn’t seem optimal to block it off just in case the player’s party is in rough shape.
• The lack of equipment or experience makes playthrough battles almost not worth it other then to progress the story, even if it’s for a younger audience.
• I like the art style of the battlers it does well to fit with the game’s ascetic.
• The character motivations may be simple, but there is quite a lot of charm to it.
• I like how the princesses save themselves in this game, it defies standard conventions.
• The common enemies have too much HP, it seems very tedious to fight them and/or the characters don’t enough substantial damage .
• I liked that you were able to tackle the princesses in order, but having the princesses interacting would add more them to depth to the characters
• All of Ella’s Defense Skills don’t cost any thing. I was wondering if that was intentional.
• Ra doesn’t seem very strong in battle and she doesn’t have a lot of Princess power.
• You should have Snow state in the beginning she is going to gather her group of Princesses to fight at her side
• When you enter the tavern the first on the mountain turn on a self switch so you go in the building without going through the cutscene more than once