Uniques United: Search for Lost Family

[Blinn]

I've almost got it finished. How dark was the screen tint?

a deep blue.

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

Can you go to the event and give me the exact tones? 

 

[Blinn]

Can you go to the event and give me the exact tones? 

No, but I can show you the color I'm looking for:

That kind of deep, ominous blue. I don't know how to tint maps using events, otherwise I would have done it myself.

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

How's this? I was trying to match the tint on your game, but you said blue, so here's this. If I make it too dark it starts to look weird.

 

[Blinn]

How's this? I was trying to match the tint on your game, but you said blue, so here's this.

That is gorgeous! That will fit the tileset I have planned perfectly. The castle is made of a dark-colored stone, so just imagine the bluish tint on dark rock.

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

I can go ahead and remap the other areas if you want. PM me your email and when I'm done I'll compress the files and send it to you.

 

[Blinn]

I can go ahead and remap the other areas if you want. PM me your email and when I'm done I'll compress the files and send it to you.

PM sent.

Also, here's a creature I drew a while back that will be a monster at some point in Uniques United. It's called a Shelek, and it's like a walking statue made entirely of steel. It's going to make an appearance inside the later part of Crolock Castle, as it is a really tough monster. It has cone-shaped spikes for arms to attack with and is very heavy:

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

Attack and stats planned yet?

 

[Blinn]

Attack and stats planned yet?

it's mostly going to use physical-type moves and attacks, and while it's very slow, it hits very hard. Definitely use Shadowmeld when facing this guy.

 

[odinnightowl]

Uniques United Review

 

Overall View of the game:

The game seems to be a fun game over all with simplistic gameplay with a few more complex things tossed in. With out any read-mes or information in the game specifically telling you or even hinting to th euse of a specific move to use ,this game can be very brutal and death is a rather common thing. This game start off well with the 4th wall breaking aspect tossed at you many times when it could simply be shown as Miranda talking to her self about maybe i should check everything for hidden goodies. The first and 2nd weapons are given within 3 second ro so of walkign distance with no combat in between. The item empty bottle which it is supposed to be filled there is no direct thing saying how to do that and infact i passed that up for most the demo as is. The tutorial for doing so is rather comfusing and ends with a choic eof yes or no in which you as a player have no idea what you are agreeing to. There needs to be a more direct tutorial here and perhaps after you fill the bottle by selecting yes, a text box sayign "received 1 mystical water". Next comes to the scrolling text between area 1 and 2 whihc is voice acted and just lovely. The voice actor has a beautiful voice and it suits the character well. Though the text needs to be a little more in sync with the voice. Once you reach the next floor you have another scrolling text item which is better suited for text boxes instead. Then here comes teh "fun" part grinding. I honestly hate pointless grinding in rpg games. Here not only do you have to do it for a while with just teh main character , you have to repeat it with the 2nd character added to you party. THis seems to be the biggest thing to the game. Grinding needs to be fixed or the level scheme changed. When you have to grind that much it takes away from wanting to play the game and in turn makes it rather boring. Also once you have the 2nd character to around level 5 ,unless you go in the harder rooms meant for level 10 or 15, the brutality of the game goes away and is replaced with a level of easiness which just seems out of place. 

 

Over all the game has potential to be something good but with the grinding and many things easily missed by the normal player it makes for a hard and not so fun to play game. 

 

Things i would change:

 

Breakage of the 4th wall.

Sheer amount of grinding.

Empty bottle tutorial.(make miranda mention something like "O, Maybe i can fill these bottles in this pool of water.)(also the 2nd area has water but the water is useless which is confusing.)

Flavor text for moves so the player might know the move grants a 2nd turn. (players like me just want to attack or use spells not use stat boosts and waste a turn.Which out having read your Dev page i had no idea the move granted a 2nd turn and thus never would have used it.)

What is teh point of neil? HE starts with all the gear that miranda had which is OP now due to grinding but is a spell caster and should have higher MP as well as spells should be more powerful then reg attacks and should have more then the learned fire bolt.

 

Things i would keep:

 

The layout- it is nice and makes one feel they are in a rather large stoe building.

The voice actor-whoever they are they have a lovely sound and i hope you use them ruther.

 

Rating 4.5/10

Challenging but if you don't know you need to use a certain move you are screwed and the game makes you not want to play."

Lack of tutorials-it wasn't till i got neil that i even was able to figure out the use of empty bottles.

 

[Blinn]

@ odinnightowl

My heart sank when I read this review...I'm embarrassed.

I appreciate your honesty, and I'll share mine, I've got some gripes of my own with this game, mostly due to things I don't know how to fix yet, like the transfer of gear from Miranda to Neil. I've been developing this game entirely on my own for the past month and really only for the past month. I began the project back in January and many, many things are about to be changed in the near future. It's really hard work when something goes wrong and you're stuck solving it on your own - everyone else has to live with it during gameplay and that doesn't sit well with me.

As far as your review goes, one thing I am disappointed with though is the fact that most of my time spent making this game went into the visual/audio aspects, and I felt with your review that it got no attention whatsoever, and that was the most important part at this stage.

Many of your points are legitimate, especially with the lack of tutorials and the brutality of the game in the beginning if you don't know what to do, but I feel that the only thing you really focused on was the gameplay mechanics, and that's one of the least developed aspects of this game and prone to issues at this point.

The sad thing is the only thing you really liked about the game itself was the voice acting and yet the person who did Miranda's voice left Uniques United a long time ago and I haven't seen her since. I knew there were some problems with the current build, but I didn't think it was gonna get a 4.5/10. You didn't enjoy this game at all, did you? 

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

I appreciate your honesty, and I'll share mine, I've got some gripes of my own with this game, mostly due to things I don't know how to fix yet, like the transfer of gear from Miranda to Neil. 

I don't know how you have the character change set up, but the inventory can be changed with events.

EDIT:

You would have to do it for every possible item they could have. Set the decrease number to something ridiculous like 90. I tested it and it worked

 

[odinnightowl]

@ odinnightowl

My heart sank when I read this review...I'm embarrassed.

I appreciate your honesty, and I'll share mine, I've got some gripes of my own with this game, mostly due to things I don't know how to fix yet, like the transfer of gear from Miranda to Neil. I've been developing this game entirely on my own for the past month and really only for the past month. I began the project back in January and many, many things are about to be changed in the near future. It's really hard work when something goes wrong and you're stuck solving it on your own - everyone else has to live with it during gameplay and that doesn't sit well with me.

As far as your review goes, one thing I am disappointed with though is the fact that most of my time spent making this game went into the visual/audio aspects, and I felt with your review that it got no attention whatsoever, and that was the most important part at this stage.

Many of your points are legitimate, especially with the lack of tutorials and the brutality of the game in the beginning if you don't know what to do, but I feel that the only thing you really focused on was the gameplay mechanics, and that's one of the least developed aspects of this game and prone to issues at this point.

The sad thing is the only thing you really liked about the game itself was the voice acting and yet the person who did Miranda's voice left Uniques United a long time ago and I haven't seen her since. I knew there were some problems with the current build, but I didn't think it was gonna get a 4.5/10. You didn't enjoy this game at all, did you? 

I did enjoy the game to a point actually ,once i had read up on the forums and found out what to do,  Just with all the grinding it took away much of the fun. The sound i din't really comment on because to me it didn't really stand out as great or horrible but more of just fitting in there and working with out being over the top and note worthy. The setting though i did comment on saying that it makes one feel that they are in a rather large stone building ,likely a castle or mansion of some sort. So it is not just th egame's text saying you are in a castle but also the visuals showing that as well. Back to the sound though , While it is a haunted castle the wind seems to play no part as normally a castle would not be that windy sounding unless it was ran down which the visuals do not show that. 

The game did get a low review based on what a person who first gets the game would feel when they have not researched the game in any manner. They would encounter the grindfest and the brutality and still unless they happened to click on that particular set of water , have no idea how to use the water bottles. While i did touch mainly on game mechanics i felt a good reason to do so. That being while a game can be the most beautifully drawn and have the most stunning audio , game mechanics make or break a game. Even if the game is as mentioned if th emechanics are faulty the game ends up becoming junk.

I know how you feel trying to make a game alone , as i am doing the same thing, all i can say is take the reviews as a grain of sand. Fix the things mentioned and try to do what you can as best as you can. If you need help the forums are here and while resource requests may not be answered or done fast or really ever unless you offer money,help topics are usually answered with in 24 hours. So if you need help like with the gear post there what you don't understand and some one will be there to help eventually.

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

A suggestion for the difficulty getting easier later on, since you're changing the enemies as you level, change the stats too. It doesn't have to be insane, but it should fix your problem. Open up the database and go under the Enemies tab to change them.

EDIT:

You'll have to make a new version though. Name it so you can tell what level it corresponds with. Ex: Slime Lv 5

Just kidding, put it in the notes.

 

[Kes]

I think one point which odinnight did not take into account, even though it was plainly included in the opening post was the declaration that this is a pre-alpha build.  Giving any sort of score in those circumstances is, therefore, probably inappropriate.  Also, at this stage, it cannot possibily be called a review.  It can be feedback certainly, but you cannot possibly 'review' a game that is still in pre-alpha.  it is a category confusion.

 

[odinnightowl]

I think one point which odinnight did not take into account, even though it was plainly included in the opening post was the declaration that this is a pre-alpha build.  Giving any sort of score in those circumstances is, therefore, probably inappropriate.  Also, at this stage, it cannot possibily be called a review.  It can be feedback certainly, but you cannot possibly 'review' a game that is still in pre-alpha.  it is a category confusion.

All my reviews get a rating no matter the stage of completion. that is how i do my reviews. It is also a review instead of just feedback because simply that is how i do them. Feed back would simply be me mentioning what i found wrong or such and both could be classified as either. I call it a review based ont he fact i played the game went over the things i saw and reviewed it. simple as that. Also if you would refer to my tester of games service post i clearly mention i would give a rating to all the games i test.

 

[Kes]

But unless you are using a totally different scale, with a clearly differentiated rate, how can you compare a pre-alpha and a completed game?  Even comparing a beta game with a pre-alpha game is highly problematic, and if you are marking all 3 types on a scale of 10, the difference between each point on the scale must be huge to allow for the vast difference that one would expect between these different stages.

By definition a pre-alpha game cannot get a decent score; it seems to me that it is, therefore, misleading to give one.

 

[odinnightowl]

But unless you are using a totally different scale, with a clearly differentiated rate, how can you compare a pre-alpha and a completed game?  Even comparing a beta game with a pre-alpha game is highly problematic, and if you are marking all 3 types on a scale of 10, the difference between each point on the scale must be huge to allow for the vast difference that one would expect between these different stages.

By definition a pre-alpha game cannot get a decent score; it seems to me that it is, therefore, misleading to give one.

The scale is a simple 1-10 scale and games can be rated on it in any form be it pre-alpha or completed. The game can go up or down from there during the various stages of completion ending in a final rating upon completion. Thus the current score while low can still go up or down depending on the changes the creator adds or takes away from the game. A game in pre-alpha can get a good rating as easily as a completed game can get a bad rating. It is there to be just another part to show the dev they need to improve. Even if i were handed a 15-20 min pre-alpha demo it can still get an excellent rating if the story is strong,the visuals are nice and the game play mechanics work without being boring or seemingly out of place. that all with things being place holders and if only so little has been made it can be nothing more then a pre-alpha or alpha as the game has a long way to go. Pre-alpha and alpha are the core of the game and if you can't give a games core a rating then the whole game deserves no rating at all for if the core if junk the rest of the game will be junk. Not saying this one is junk it needs improvement to the core before the rest of the game is developed.

Also i saw earlier on in this forum a person offered to do voice acting. Why not give them a try on a portion of the game already made to see how they do and sound since the original voice actor is gone.

 

[Blinn]

I should have just waited until I had more of a game to show. v_v;

I've got a huge mess to clean up now and I'm starting to burn out.

Anyhow, I'm going to be releasing less alphas and more game. I'm currently swamped with things to fix and I need to take a break from this for a day or two. I am really stressed out right now and I shouldn't be dreading the next post on my own thread.

I'll see you guys later.

 

[Blinn]

All right, time for some community input:

I'm going to be building the actual storyline soon, would you like me to start with a specific character or give players the choice of who to play the tutorial stage as first? (The latter will take longer).

It will be one of the six mice:

Neil - Daniel - Andrew - Stanley - Simon - Miranda

Which one should I prepare first?

I'm also using Crolock Castle as a testing map since that really was its original purpose since the beginning.