Unstabled

knipsch 2021-10-04 04:57

It's awesome that you implemented a JRPG-style battle system!! Also, I loved all the horse puns. Great job.

mike-burns 2021-10-04 04:58

I like the cute vibes; a JRPG is definitely an ambitious project!

qthree 2021-10-04 05:48

Eh, after fight starts (HP bars show up) controls stop working: space, enter, arrow keys - nothing works. That's if you listen to all messages.

But if you spam click spacebar from the start it manages to show action menu. After that it seems to work, but if mouse leaves game screen it sometimes loses focus and became unresponsive (though it starts to work again after random presses and mouse moves).

Also, if battle ends in a draw (both HP bars reach 0) game won't progress any further and won't restart/show gameover.

pennycook 2021-10-04 14:00

@knipsch, @mike-burns: Thanks very much!

@qthree: Thanks for the bug reports! I think I've fixed both of those issues, now.

This is my first Godot game with such a heavy UI component, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more asynchrony/signal/yield bugs lurking in there... and I never even thought to test what would happen if a battle ends in a draw. :sweat_smile:

shadowmyst 2021-10-05 02:42

Love the dialogue UI and the humour is on point! The J-RPG vibes is a great idea. Kinda wish the combat wasn't just pure RNG though

pennycook 2021-10-05 05:20

@shadowmyst Yeah, the code there says "TODO: Sophisticated AI". :laughing: Thanks for playing, and for the feedback!

irvia 2021-10-05 09:06

Nice graphics and vibes! Dialog UI is super cute and funny :)

zackavelli 2021-10-05 17:10

Dialogue was funny and charming, UI is very clean and reads well. From a game design standpoint, I would have liked to see some more interesting variations in combat.

pennycook 2021-10-05 22:21

Thanks @irvia, @zackavelli!

I actually started sketching out a much more complicated battle system based on the concept of balance/stability, but knew immediately that I'd have no time to implement it. I think it might be a good idea, though, so watch this space...

fabioecco 2021-10-05 23:21

Is there a way to win that fight?

sprunth 2021-10-05 23:28

I thought the dialogue was great!

destroyertech 2021-10-05 23:29

I enjoyed this, dialogue is really great, funny, and the gameplay works. It would be good if HP reset after each fight, I couldn't get past the Knight because I always lost too much against the farmhand. Great job though!

pennycook 2021-10-05 23:31

@fabioecco: Yes, the game has two fights and you're supposed to be able to beat them both

@sprunth: Thanks! I'm slowly learning that humour and dialogue are the things that typically score me points, so trying to lean more heavily into genres that provide more opportunities for text. Glad you enjoyed it.

marc-jones 2021-10-05 23:32

A nicely presented game, and I liked the pun-y take on the theme. I think the enemies' actions were telegraphed by the text, which means that although the combat isn't pure chance it would require a few playthroughs to make informed decisions. The UI was really well implemented.

pennycook 2021-10-05 23:39

@destroyertech Thanks for the feedback. I was torn on the HP-refilling question for a long time, and didn't leave enough time for balancing. I wanted to implement a retry option for each individual battle, but it ended up being too hard to implement (because of poor decisions made earlier in scripting the fights)!

It should be possible to learn the correct actions for the farmhand... I'll add some spoiler text at the beginning for people who want to see the ending but get stuck.

@marc-jones: You're right about the telegraphing. The intent was that you wouldn't have to *completely* guess, and there is some logic behind the mappings. If possible, would you mind saying a bit more about any dialogue-attack combinations that were particularly confusing?

sestren 2021-10-06 00:48

Fair warning, my review contains spoilers!

I enjoyed the Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic, and figuring out that their dialogue actually indicated what kind of action they were going to take made it fun to map out. The music and the graphics were extremely well-done, also! For anyone that is having trouble getting past the Knight, here's a hint. If he says "...", you should use your Special.

marc-jones 2021-10-06 09:32

Oh, I just found it difficult to know / remember what phrases were "Attacks" and which were "Specials", as I thought the dialogue was quite similar.

gdman 2021-10-06 10:31

Beautiful pixel art, funny dialogues. Simple and understandable mechanics. Good luck.

pennycook 2021-10-07 23:30

I've added a walkthrough of sorts in spoiler tags at the top, to help those who get stuck.