Tales Of Steel And Mana: Empire's Birth

the-triumvirate 2018-08-16 15:39

Nice game, had a lot of fun playing through it. It has neat animations and some good graphics. I really like the gamemechanics, too! Three things: - the enemies are ridiculously weak. I mowed down any ambush in one round, even the bosses. If you are able to get a lvl 5 wizard, you shouldn't meet goblins with 2 hp any more... - Speaking of lvl 5 wizards: the buy-menu still says they cost 500 gold, and I can buy them, but the game subtracts more than that (supposedly the actual price) and leaves me with the OP wizard and some debt. - Furthermore, the main menu button in the endscreen isn't working.

But all in all, if you did some balancing to make the game harder, it would be very interesting to play it again. The concept has a lot of potential!

gilgusmaximus 2018-08-16 20:47

The game itsself is very fun to play =) I like the animations and the big map with the different places and landscapes. But as @the-triumvirate pointed out, the enemies are ways too weak. And in my opinion the bilinear interpolation the sprites look very bad, because tehy are so small. Changing them to Point (nearest) would make them nice and crisp (maybe something to patch).

dreamingdice 2018-08-17 08:12

Thanks @the-triumvirate and @gilgusmaximus for your comments. We did not make the Art and opted out of being rated on it (dunno why ludum does not show that) But we have both set images to be Point (no filter) and did some slight balancing to increase dificulty a bit. We left it easy as it is usually better for ludum games to be easy as those who play it dont tend to do so for too long. Thank you both! We will be pushing the image fix on monday and the deficulty patch is already up!

join our discord to share more games, thoughts and ludums in the future! https://discord.gg/BFqVG5C

gilgusmaximus 2018-08-17 09:29

Ok cool, i'm definitely going to take a look onto the server =)

max-cahill 2018-08-20 00:30

Quite interesting, if a little samey after a while. This kind of party management exploration game without traditional rpg crawling is a fun little genre that I'd like to see more of - I think that you probably "just" (haha) need more "interactions" to have staying power.

avon 2018-08-20 15:36

Cool game, I liked the music and the art was very nice. The gameplay is simple, but I liked it as well, though I would have preferred if it was a bit more difficult, none of my party members got close to dying. Balancing difficulty is always hard under the time constraints though, and I agree with you that its better to make it a bit too easy than too hard. Overall this felt like a very polished game, great job!

hermeses 2018-08-20 22:04

The game is pretty good, it's well designed and easy to play and understand. It's a little easy but you need time to get to the right level to defeat the bosses. I really like the concept of the game, it reminds me a little of Fire Emblem but without the strategic part. One thing I would add is a music for the battle, that would make the game to have a different feeling. Great work!

nnnikki 2018-08-24 18:21

Nice entry! This looks more like a prototype though. Here's what I would change/improve:

-The graphics. Most of the graphics are blurred/scaled/low resolution and they just look rushed and poorly made. The GUI, too, is inconsistent (the pause button is a clear resolution icon but the menu buttons are pixelated) and sometimes just hurts the eye. I'd recommend watching [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_ZuNp1CTI) for help.

-The fights. They aren't really a tactical challenge, all you can really do is attack or defend, and by just attacking, I got through a lot of fights. I really would recommend a fighting system like in the Heroes of Might and Magic series (I espacially love [HoM&M III](https://store.steampowered.com/app/297000/Heroes_of_Might__Magic_III__HD_Edition/), I play it all the time :heart: ).

-The audio. Sounds would help immerse the player a bit more and the music could change according to the environment. One track just playing through the whole game gets quite tiring to listen to.

I really liked the whole idea, though. Making an RPG for Ludum Dare? Great work! :smile:

PS really sorry for my generic comment. I will try to restrain from writing such comments.

chrissx2 2018-08-26 11:13

Really fun game with some visual inconsistency. I wouldn't mind playing a more polished version :)

rahim-pxr 2018-08-27 01:07

Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner. If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42

crafty-mine 2018-08-27 20:19

Hello!nice RPG you got!the gameplay elements are addicting and the fighting mechanic is good.not too good at grammering tho XD Try resizing the pitures in photoshop so it wouldnt be blury Good Luck :four_leaf_clover:

lamossus 2018-08-27 21:27

The art is inconsistent, often blurry, some textures that should be transperent are not. And since you opted out of graphics I assume you didn't make them, but authors of the artwork aren't mentioned anywhere, the credits button in the game doesn't work. The gameplay feels really slow and stamina system only makes it worse. I'm not even sure how the battle system works and there is no in-game explanation, I thought that amount of damage dealt is the difference between attack and defence values but sometimes enemies attacked more than the difference. The text has some typos and the font is hard to read sometimes

dreamingdice 2018-08-30 19:03

@lamossus First off thank you for playing our game. Id like to address your comments in order:

1) We opted out in art. As per the rules this indicates both that we did not make the assets in the Jam and do not wish to be judged by it. The reason for this is we intend to continue this game. We mainly used this jam to get feedback on the combat system (which is bones here) and the over world (party management and stamina system). We also wanted to get a feel on how intuitive these elements were. The art we have here are either purchased or the artist do not require mentioning. There are three exceptions that are in the itch.io page. We included this post launch (as originally it was in the credits screen but said screen had some graphics issues so we deactivated that button and forgot to update this) so I will assume we included it after your review. Just as I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you should do the same in the future as your comments may have some nasty connotations. I admire your intentions of protecting artists, and share your concerns.

2) The game in its current form is a strategy and party management game. Its meant to be slow and deliberate as games in this genre tend to be. Stamina limits your daily actions and misusing it will lead to wasting days. Enemies grow stronger every certain amount of days so managing your income and stamina while you hunt the two bosses is key. Its fine if you didn’t enjoy it and we will definitely look into ways of speeding things up as I agree some aspects may be a little sluggish, like movement time.

3) Combat Is partially explained in the images and in the stats of your party members. Some people got it, others didn’t, we now know what we need to improve for the full game, if you come into our discord il happily explain but wont do so here as it would spoilt the test for any new players

4) We kinda of wrote things quickly and didn’t proof read, if you could point out some of the typo mistakes it would mean a lot. We tested multiple fonts and agree that some of them are hard to read Thank you for your feedback, it means a ton. The rest of you I have yet to address, some of your comments are responded here and some I have talked to on our discord. https://discord.gg/amwhTDX

jonathan-lorenz 2018-09-04 13:03

I have to say, it is a pretty ambitious game for a jam!

I liked the adventure / rpg mood sprinkled with strategy elements! There are some elements of gameplay that remained mysterious to me (like the speed stat). I also would have loiked and indicator showing me when the monsters are gonna level up so I can make my route knowingly.

But overall I think you have a solid basis for a good game! Good work! (The Undead Lord kicked my entire party's ass!)

EDIT : Also, a short tutorial would be welcome. Maybe a short first level with only few encouters, a boss and a town. The game isn't that complicated but it can help players enjoy the game quicker.

dk5000p 2018-09-04 13:14

I liked the management of the party. At first I thought my party was leveling up like a traditional RPG, but it seemed you had to swap out your lower level members for higher level members. The music ended up getting a little annoying and a few different sounds maybe even just sound effects during the battle would have been nice. I enjoyed the overall play and feel the game.

andrei9 2018-09-04 18:49

Coool! Nice game :thumbsup: +++++