By Any Means Necessary - 2D RPG for Windows

[tgramsus 0]

Hey guys!! I've been working on a 2D rpg for Windows. I would appreciate any feedback you guys can provide.

 

The game follows a group of warriors investigating the appearance of a portal. They've been sent to an island to follow up on a lead.

 

 

Some of the game features:

 

* Turn based battle system. Trigger additional round actions by meeting battle requirements.

 

* No items can be used in battle or menu.

 

* Scroll system to enhance character stats and abilities.

 

 

Some screenshots:

 

 

 

You can disable random battles by pressing the 7 key.

 

The game can be downloaded from Gamejolt and Indiedb.

 

You can follow the game @bamn_game

 

Just unzip and run.

 

Any feedback is appreciated.

[zahraa 26]

Hello tgramsus! Unfortunately I don't have time to play it but I wish you luck with your game. I like to suggest you to work a lot more on your maps. Check GDU gallery for great mapping examples. Also I need to mention that the spider battler doesn't match the game...I think VX spider battler is better, If you have VX though. And make sure to have a gamepage here when you made some progress in your game:

http://www.gdunlimited.net/games

Have fun!

[tgramsus 0]

Hey, thanks for the feedback. A lot of the graphics are not final, so I'll definitely look to improve them.

[Flytrap 1]

I'm gonna post these in spoilers, since it reveals a bit about the story.

 

 

(*) - The oppening dialogue thing (The black screen with white lettering) was a bit
fast-paced in its storytelling. It doesn't offer much depth and seems more focused
on churning out details. That's not always a bad thing, but when you're making a
game based on a specific storyline and not plyability or some other drawing factor,
its best to put some effort into the depth of the story, even if it detracts from the
game flow. Try not to include so many specific names and places all at once, if the
reader doesn't have time to absorb the details, they're not going to put forth the
effort or have the willingness to care about any details that happen later in the
game, especially if those details aren't repeated to them in some way.

(*) - It's not a huge deal, and I see it a lot in almost any indie game I test,
but the audio level is really loud. My speakers were at roughly 30% and the music was
very overpowering. Again, I see this a lot and it doesn't really matter in the end,
but it can throw the atmosphere of the setting off and will lead to players rushing
through dialogue to get the music to turn off.

(*) - Almost instantly after reading through the character dialogue, I have to
reiterate the need to pace yourself when writing. I know how appealing it is to
simply produce details about the story, but doing so without introducing any depth
seems rushy and just uncomfortably quick-paced. Especially since the main character
doesn't seem to talk much.

(*) - It's a small detail, but making the characters names a different color than
NPC's can help diferentiate their dialogue from others, and helps to establish
conversational flow in the absence of voice acting.

(*) - The tutorials aren't really introduced well... having Yusef say all of them
is the videogame equivallent of looking at the forth wall. You should try your
hardest to maintain a sense of fantasy so the player isn't painfully aware he or she
is playing a game. Not to mention you rushed the explainations as well, space them
out so the players will retain the information.

(*) - The battle sprites for the enemies are awefully large. Try making them out of
pixels instead of having realistic images, it bridges the gap between normal gameplay
and combat so the player becomes slightly more immersed and the fights aren't so
removed from normality.

(+) - The attack animations are pretty cool, I really liked the variety.

(*) - I ran away from the "Enemy inside the Treasure chest" and still got the item.
I'm not sure if this was intentional, I'm just bringing it to your attention.

(*) - The enemies seem strong for the beginning. I turned off the random encounters
(Mostly because I hate games with that feature) but before I had, in the very first
engagement, one of my allies died. Like I said, I'm not a fan of final fantasy style
games where you don't see the enemies coming, but I know making them too strong right
off the bat dissuades players from finishing the game.

(*) - The corners of the dungeon are pretty tight, open them up one or two spaces.
The little archways over the celieng was kind of annoying too, I couldn't see my
character most of the time and it made me feel claustrophobic, especially since there
were VERY few garnishings in the caves.

(+/*) - The puzzle was nice, it broke up the monotony of dungeon crawling, but again,
include some garnishings. The caves are GREY. The people were GREY. The background
was BLACK. Put in a bush or vines or something, its seriously a visual turnoff.

(*) - Same details for the save crest, don't have Yusef say those things. It would
almost be better if the game itself said it.

(***) - Alster was game-breakingly overpowered. I'm aware that if I had grinded a bit
in the dungeon, he probably wouldn't have been OP as fuck, but that's an unrealistic
expectation to have for a new player. Nerf him down a bit so that a starter group
can kill him and access the rest of the dungeon. I mean seriously, he one-hit my
entire party.

(*) - As far as levels and leveling go, lower your caps. 1500 exp should not be a
typical haul from killing mobs, that's a high number no matter what game you look at.
I don't want to have to grind 1,500,000 exp to get form level 20-21, you know?

(+) - The Golems look pretty cool. Again, it'd look cooler in pixel art form.

 

 

I could NOT get past Alster, not unless I sat there and grinded for like an hour. So I can't review whatever is beyond that little fight. I'm following this thread so let me know if you update it at all.

 

[tgramsus 0]

Hey Flytrap, thanks a lot for all the great and deep feedback. I have already incorporated some of your suggestions in version 4.30, which I uploaded to indiedb. I'm going to work on the other points.

 

- I lowered the starting sound levels.

- Pretty much all the enemy sprites are temporary. We started with that style but they are going to be redone.

- I reduced Alster's stats, so he can be defeated without gaining any levels. Yusef's Deliverance ability and Gedge's BioArrows help a lot.

- When I was doing the level caps, I was always thinking that I wanted the party to start as a experienced group, that's why the experience points given by enemies seem a little higher. I'll definitely look into it.

 

Thanks again for all the feedback. I would definitely appreciate it if you can play past the Alster fight and give me feedback about the rest of the game.

[Flytrap 1]

Sure, I'll give it a go again during the weekend.

Check back for my next review around Monday evening.

 

Another major point I'm remembering was the distinct lack of impression the story gave me. I don't remember anything about the story other than that you and your party were sent to investigate monster portals.

Having a memorable story and being able to deliver it in a way the players will remember and appreciate is what gives a game replayability, or, at the very least, appeal to finish. At this point, you need to work more on the immersion factor of your game rather than the bells and whistles. Work in small parts, fine-tuning the beginning, then continue on to the next chapter/part/etc.

[Flytrap 1]

Version 4.30 From indieDB is corrupted, I'm getting the error "Cannot load library MSVCP140.dll"

[tgramsus 0]

Sorry about that Flytrap. I uploaded 4.31, that one should be ok. Thanks again.

[Flytrap 1]

Sorry for the late reply, I had a lot of work scheduled this week. Here's my review of 4.31!

 

 

BAMN Version 4.31 Review:

 

Red = Bad.

Normal - Suggestion/Etc.

Blue = Both Positive and Negative.

Green = Positive.

•  Make the opening skipable... that took forever.
• I dunno what you did but my sidewinder gamepad no longer works with 

  BAMN. I use it to play almost every indie game ever and hate using the 

  keyboard. >:x Fortunately I have XPadder.

• I can no longer maximize the game (pressing alt+enter)
• Escaping from battles are much harder now.
• Give the treasure chests some kinda positive sound effect, that feature has been drilled into gamers' heads since the dawn of the NES, its makes them feel more rewarded when they open a chest and find something relatively inconsequential.
• Still had difficulties beating Alster, he killed me the first 

  time around. I was only able to defeat him by loading my old save where 

  I'd spent time and grinded for about half an hour.

• The area just after Alster is incredibly barren and devoid of any 

  kind of detail, you really should work on improving the atmosphere of your

  maps.

• The transparency of the crystal is a little funky, it's showing black

  like its got some kinda absence of tileset there. (Picture 1)

• During the cutscene your characters kept referencing "Magic" as though 

  it were synonymous to electricity, I think if you changed the words to 

  "Energy" it could be interpreted as Magic while still maintaining a level

  of realism that would be refreshing to people who've been constantly 

  encircled with the concept of "magic this" "Magic that"

   

  Like, in the context of how they're discussing the crystal, it makes it 

  sound like a machine rather than some magical conduit like a soul gem. "Energy"

  would have a more relatable connotation as opposed to "Magic" where its

  more fantasy-esque and abstract. Just a suggestion.

• I didn't realize it until other music began, but there's no BGM while

  the cutscene was playing. It kinda killed the mood your dialogue was creating.

• I really liked your dialogue, but Yusef could use some more personality.

  Don't be afraid to try and coax your players to fall in love with the characters.

• The maps are REALLY open and devoid of pathing markers, you need to 

  make the story points easily followable, I kinda got lost and anxious that I 

  was going to lose my bearings so I deliberately neglected to explore. 

  I like the openness, but you need to make the environment prettier. 

  Also, don't make magic, invisible pathing blockers, have the environment 

  be your pathing blockers and allow the player to feel some level of choice 

  instead of being forced to go a different direction instead of the one 

  he/she thought was an opening but had invisible pathing blockers keeping 

  him/her from advancing.

• Make a sprint function. The movement speed is killing me.
• There's a shadow for a tree but no tree. (Picture 2)
• On the same subject of making the environment your pathing blockers, avoid

  doing exactly this: (Picture 3)

  It is lazy and breaks any kind of immersion in the game. Allow the

  footpaths to steer people in the direction you want them to go and 

  have trees, shrubs, bushes, etc, to block them from going where you 

  don't want them to go.

• Layering glitch. (Picture 4)
• I would tell you to go into more detail on how to use the scrolls and 

  other items, but they're both fairly straightforward systems... so I'm kind of

  conflicted. Maybe give a small option for tutorials right before the game starts?

• Yeah, the lack of pathing or any kind of markers is more than a little 

  frustrating. If your goal was to force people to find their way to the thingie, 

  then I accept it, but if you intended them on going a certain direction, this

  is far from organized. I'd really consider on using footpaths or roads. Or at

  least devising some kind of map.

• Apparently I got lost so badly that Yusef was sent back to the start. 

  I'm not sure why that little pathway is there, but that was very frustrating,

  knowing I had to go all the way back through all the maps and (even though I disabled it)

  Random encounters I had up to that point.

• Another huge thing that ties into making your maps better are

  landmarks that help players navigate the world. If you intend on keeping

  this apple-forest area as open as it is, I'd suggest heavy updates on the 

  mapping. As of now I'm giving up on finding the way out, especially given

  the lack of a sprint feature.

I really suggest you halt progress of the story or whatever you're doing right now and update your maps with better detail and pathing. It's an often overlooked detail in a game, but it's very critical to maintaining proper flow for your players to move through the story. You can't expect player to want to progress if they're struggling just to find out where they are.

Bullet Points for my review:

• Improve your maps with more detail and structure.
• Fix the small glitches.
• Put in a sprint feature.
• Alter the dialogue.
• Include cutscene BGM.
• Improve your pathing in open-world areas.
• Tweak the battle system some more.
• Sort of a non-essential, but make your game able to be played with plug-and-play devices like my sidewinder or an XBox 360 controller.

Hope I helped, please let me know when your next update is.

 

Picture One

 

Picture Two

 

Picture Three

 

Picture Four

 

 

Holy jesus christ the BBCode in this forum is so damn broken.

Took me an hour to do what I wanted and it still looks bad because it won't do everything I'm telling it.

[tgramsus 0]

Hey Flytrap, thanks again for the great feedfack, again.

 

• Sorry for breaking the pad support. I was compiling the game in Windows 7 and now I was compiling in Windows 10, so have to check what got lost there. I ordered a Sidewinder controller, so I definitely hope to have proper game pad support in the next version.
• I have been thinking of making the Run command succeed 100% of the time, so maybe that is the way to go.
• I have been working on the forest maps, so hopefully they'll be a lot better.
• I hear you on the need for a BGM for the cutscenes.
• The crystal is temporary art which I hope to replace with a machine holding the crystal.

Hopefully I can upload the next version in a week or so.

 

Thanks again for the feedback. It really helps a lot.

[tgramsus 0]

Hello everyone,

 

I uploaded version 4.35 of BAMN. This update includes:

• New battle spell animations.
• Better game pad support.
• Easier to run from battles.
• Balance adjustments.
• Several bug fixes.

Hey Flytrap, if you can give it another go, I would really appreciate it. Your feedback has really helped improve the game. There's still some stuff I haven't gotten to, like the initial intro text, but it's on my to-do list. I also added a shortcut to reduce all enemies HP to 1 by pressing the 6 key in battle, so no grind is necessary. Thanks again.

[Flytrap 1]

I recently lost access to computers, so for now I'm stuck with a windows phone... I'm not gonna be able to test out your game but I'll keep a watch for new updates and play them when I save up for a new PC.

 

Keep at it, tgramsus.

[Flytrap 1]

I'm playing through your newest patch, I'll edit this post when I'm done and have written my review.

 

-EDIT-

 

Okay, so here it is:

 

 

Once again:

Good

Bad

Mixed

Advice

 

 

• Something I noticed was the constant changing of party members. I didn't like that, I'd given some of the others special items and was focusing on their level expansions, only to have them taken from me when I needed them. I think you should start off with a core group, and only add characters to the roster, never take them away. While it might be counter to the story you're cultivating, it's a little upsetting to have my hard-earned items taken from me.

 

• The HP Plus 200 scroll doesn't give you the 200 hp, it just raises your max hp by 200, leaving an enormous gap. Have it heal the player 200 and damage the player 200 whenever its put on or taken off, that way I don't waste MP healing whoever I give it to.

 

• Same with the MP plus.

 

• You were giving the player WAY too many opportunities for items. I understand that you might want them to be stocked up so they can handle the enemies you throw at them, but I'd recommend tapering the amount of treasure chests down considerably, or at the very least, awarding shittier items. You gave me some pretty decent equips right off the bat, if I were really focusing on min-maxing, it'd be pretty OP

 

• There's so much clipping with the maps. I'd been experiencing it since the start, but here's a good example. (Picture One)

 

• It's kinda petty, and I might be a little too hypercritical against your story writing, but there was zero explanation as to where Yusef, Juba and Gedge were when they came under attack, or where their friends went between the moments there were 6 people in the party and the next scene where there were only 3.

 

• The dialogue got kinda rigid and cookie cutter during the reunited scene, again, I might be hypercritical but I kinda just skipped through it. It was really boring dude.

 

• Also, why was I only able to have three members in my party once they became reunited? That's annoying.

 

• Found this completely by chance. I love this kinda shit. (Picture Two)

 

• THERE WERE SO MANY ENEMIES, and they were all extremely powerful, you need to rework your battle stats for pretty much everything, it's way too difficult to mow through the hordes of monsters you send at the player. I'm not even joking, I was using the reduce HP shortcut and a couple of my guys died every time I fought.

 

• Oh man, that ship is gonna need to be redone. Looks like a floating lego, bro.

 

• Absolutely no way I would've been able to beat the Wyvern at the front of the ship. He one hit my whole crew.

 

• Bro, I almost want to map these places for you, they're SO bad.

 

• The legless ghouls have legs.

 

• The exp is awarded to the inactive party members as well, this is unbalanced.

 

• This was massively annoying, you had a much better puzzle down in the cave at the start. (Picture three)

 

• I think Gedge was permanently confused or something, he never did what I ordered him to.

 

• Bro... (Picture Four)

 

• I liked your character sprites, they're all really individual.

 

• Didn't realize Arlou was a guy, though.

 

 

 

Okay, I gave it an hour. I'm tired now.

 

Bulletpoints:

 

• FIX
• THE
• MAAAAAAPS
• It's really annoying man, they're horrendous, and maps are (In my opinion) like 50% of the game.
• Fix the dialogue after the very first ship scene, it gets really vague, boring and confusing after that point. Beforehand is passable.
• Nerf EVERYTHING, all the monsters are too strong, there are too many of them, and none of them drop anything. Items drops are what compel the player (Or at least, this player) to grind and look for rare shit.
• Get rid of some of the chests, there are too many and it's less impactive whenever I find something I think might be good. I actually started ignoring chests because of how many there were. They just weren't worth my time.
• Make the character lineup much more consistent, it bothered me how often it changed, it makes me identify less with the characters, too. Like they're replaceable.
• Fix spelling and layering glitches littered throughout the game. Once the HUGE issues are addressed, I'll help you find all the little ones.
• Have the players enter an explorable town soon, the rapid change of scenery is making it difficult to establish some kind of headquarters in my mind, it's kinda making me anxious in a bad way.

For some reason it alphabetized the images, the order is as follows: 4, 1, 3, 2

 

 

 

Keep going at it man, I'm starting to get interested in your story a little, sand down the edges and this game is looking promising!

 

Edited April 3, 2016 by Flytrap

[tgramsus 0]

Hey Flytrap,

 

Thank you for all the amazing feedback, even though I'm late with my reply. I'm close to releasing the game and I hope I fixed everything in your last list. I sent you a PM.

 

Here is the link to the Steam page for anyone interested.

 

Thanks everyone.

[Flytrap 1]

Just had to post the steam link before it was released. XD

Now I have to wait for the full release.