next »

[Banov.]

Check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeK8Ep9d4AI
Or, screenshots (Click):

View the website @phantasmaburbia.com

This is my current major project, a mouse-controlled RPG adventure game that takes place in an American suburban town. It's lot like another game of mine called Dubloon, but with a number of improvements.

Ghosts and evil spirits begin to appear all over town, corresponding with the impending rise of a powerful demon. A group of teens, armed with weapons found in their homes and assisted by spirits of their ancestors or former residents of their homes, set out to destroy this dark being before he is fully formed.

Get it at GameJolt!
Or... Get it at YoYoGames!
It's approx. 30 minutes of gameplay @ 20.4MB

For now you can play the game for free, but when it's all finished up I'll be selling the final product for $9.99. I'm looking for reactions and opinions on what I have so far so I can improve the game, so please leave feedback!  Thanks very much!

[swordpond]

Wonderful! Glad you found your way here, finally, Mr. Lebanov.

I had my fair share of doubts for this one in the beginning, but after trying the demo I'm all for it. I also tried to change your mind to "Specterhood", but Phantasmaburbia is really growing on me.

[Destral]

Interesting premise. I always like to see RPGs in modern settings. I'll definitely be checking this one out, hopefully over the weekend. Will post some actual feedback then.

[LaserBeing]

This is cool but I feel like the ghost samurai talks too much. It kind of ruins the mystery of having supernatural entities suddenly overwhelm the town when your magical buddy explains everything within the first three minutes.

Also I have never been a super huge fan of Active Time Battle style systems. Battles would be much snappier and more pleasant if I didn't have to waste time waiting for the metre to fill. But that's more of a personal preference thing.

[Banov.]

@swordpond Glad to see you're turning towards the dark side I really like the title, myself.

@Destral Looking forward to it!

@LaserBeing Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to defend my decisions now!
I was afraid that the samurai was a bit too talkative--but I think it's all pretty important stuff, just sort of getting out the basics of how this "world" works and setting up the main storyline so you have a direction. There is some loss of that sense of mystery, but that's less important to me in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps I can make it up with future characters, once the basic exposition's all on the table.

And if the battles feel slow, I invite you to hit ESC/P and jack up the battle speed to something more comfortable for you. I think you'd find that as the game progresses and you're selecting attacks for more characters, each wielding a larger array of spells while targeting more enemies, that the pauses allotted by the battle timing will become a huge help. But yeah, for these early parts it might feel like it's holding you back.
EDIT: I think I'll play around with scaling the speed based on the number of characters in your party, see how it feels.

[Paul Eres]

i feel that the art isn't good enough for it to pass as a commercial game (even at 3-5$) -- i'd recommend revamping the art if possible

that said it's great to see more rpgs in general and in particular more non-fantasy rpgs

[Banov.]

i feel that the art isn't good enough for it to pass as a commercial game (even at 3-5$) -- i'd recommend revamping the art if possible

that said it's great to see more rpgs in general and in particular more non-fantasy rpgs

I'm sorry to say that the graphics represent more or less my best effort--I'm still going back and tweaking and adding and fixing effects and details all the time, but my sprite artwork is pretty much what it is.

That said, someone volunteered to contribute improved portraits for characters when they speak. Check these out:



An improvement, yeah?
I've been working hard at the next segment to the game, but don't have anything in particular I'd like to share from it quite yet. Thanks everyone again for the helpful feedback and encouraging responses!

[Ichigo Jam]

Well, you say you want to sell it, so I'll fire away with my criticism  

I think the biggest problem with the graphics is that all your detail objects are decent (like the potted plants in your house), but they're overwhelmed by masses of boring empty space.

I think the simplest way to improve it would be to reduce the size of all your locations, and switch to a lower resolution so the interesting stuff takes up much space on screen.

Example:



OK, I also changed the colours to make it more interesting, and made the dialogue box more standard JRPG style (because I wasn't feeling very imaginative, but I think it's nicer than the big white rectangle you're using at present.)

Look at real rooms too - your windows are tiny, and have no blinds/curtains! The record player has no wire, and his record collection appears to only consist of the 3 LPs on the floor  

Combat currently suffers the same problem - the sprites are tiny considering how few of them there are.

I liked the examinable objects in the bedroom, as they gave a little bit of personality to the main character. Although I wasn't clear what he'd been doing before the game started - standing in the middle of his bedroom with the lights out?

As an aside, I dislike the added ellipses you use for lighting (e.g. from the lampposts) - they look very pasted-on. Again, look at reference - real photos of streets at night do not look like that (e.g. google image search "suburbia at night")

Gameplay comments:

I want faster combat - even at maximum speed it takes a bit of waiting for my turn, and the enemy attack animations could be faster. An option to make time pass much faster when I have no input might be nice.

Seeing how it's largely a tradition JRPG in design, I'd rather play it with just keyboard (well, joypad ideally) so the way I have to use the mouse so much is kind of annoying.

When I tried using the mouse for movement it felt a bit clunky - if he walks into a wall whilst going right, but the mouse pointer is up-right of him then I think he should start walking up rather than stopping dead.

Also, why would I ever not run? Apart from the slightly irritating sound effect, that is... Maybe make run the default speed, and hold shift to go slowly?

OK! I hope some of that was helpful - I'll be interested to see what you do with the game.

Edit: Oh, and yes those new portraits are quite nice. (They'd look nicer if they weren't on a solid white background though!)

[Doktor_Q]

Just something to note- the two character's expressions look pretty much identical. It might be good to try and make them a little more distinct.

[PsySal]

Banov you are the master and your graphics are just fine. Reminds me of Earthbound without being derivative. I remember not liking Earthbound's graphics at first, comparing to FF3 and CT. I understand the critique of empty spaces but not ever game has to be as detailed as every other game. Terranigma is plain compared to FF7, but nothing wrong with either game's graphics or art.

Portraits are also great, do keep that person making them!! Work them hard!

Phantasmaburbia will surely surely rock.

[Banov.]

Really interesting to read some of these comments.

@Ichigo
I think on some level you're right about the space of the game, and I'll look into going into those rooms and shrinking them down to make it eel a bit more streamlined and tight. Though I don't think that's the "revamp" people are asking for. Will reexamine my mouse movement stuff as well. I'd scale the battle speed so you can go even faster, though I think you'll find that as battle get faster, enemies will attack at faster rates which can make the attack selection process more and more stressful--an "instantaneous" timing scheme would be absolutely hellish, especially when you're controlling 4 party members. I've added some things with timing that make it faster when you have fewer party members; these changes haven't yet made it to online versions, but will hopefully address your problem when they do.

On your textbox suggestion(s)--many of the textboxes in the game can get a few sentences long and I like to have a large white box to display it in readable chunks, so that the player doesn't feel overwhelmed by a never ending series of boxes. The colors I chose were chosen carefully and frankly some of the ones you chose don't look very good (I'm looking at the neon teal bed). The white textbox background in particular is used to A) create a hueless background on which the slight character-specific text coloration is more visible, and B) one which has a very visible inversion for when the spirits speak.

The lighting you see in the room is due to a graphical glitch (which I've fixed but not yet uploaded!), you can see in my screenshots that his room is lit, and the objects strewn about his room might suggest he was playing his guitar or listening to vinyl music (and his collection, by the way, extends to the shelf in his room which you can examine in-game).  I did follow your advice looking for similarly lit night scenes in suburbia, and while it was hard to find an example image that had a visible demonstration of lighting, the one I did find was surprisingly reaffirming of my lighting decisions. Finally, I consider the mouse stuff to be a really crucial part of the game and designed a lot of the elements around that theme specifically. I'm sorry if it isn't your cup of tea!

Thanks you very much for the time you took to write so much for me!!

@Kikaru
This is something which I struggled with a bit as we developed the portraits. Initially they started out with more varied expressions, and you could pretty quickly tell "this character is more grumpy," "this character is more happy," etc. The problem that arose was that their lines did not always necessarily reflect their "default" mood that well by necessity, so I opted for a more "muted" set of default expressions that I could use for most lines. The variance you're looking for will come out as you see their other emotional reactions, I think.

@PsySal
You're too kind, sir Thanks for the encouraging response, though I do think my more critical responders have a lot of good points...

[Ichigo Jam]

an "instantaneous" timing scheme would be absolutely hellish, especially when you're controlling 4 party members.

A misunderstanding here; I was trying to suggest a system where the bars fill up faster (maybe instantly) but only when the player has no-one to give orders to.

The colors I chose were chosen carefully and frankly some of the ones you chose don't look very good (I'm looking at the neon teal bed).

Sorry, the bedroom colours I used were exaggerated to try and make a point (obviously I failed at this ). Your colours are good, but I think you don't have to go as dingy as that to get the impression of night-time across.

The white textbox background in particular is used to A) create a hueless background on which the slight character-specific text coloration is more visible, and B) one which has a very visible inversion for when the spirits speak.

I still think that the big area of solid white is too garish against the dark environment, though.

I did follow your advice looking for similarly lit night scenes in suburbia, and while it was hard to find an example image that had a visible demonstration of lighting, the one I did find was surprisingly reaffirming of my lighting decisions.

I have to disagree - the lighting in that photo is not a multiplier on top of the basic colours of objects! The whole colour balance is totally different to a photo in daylight. For example, the grass is not green!

(This effect looks exaggerated in photos; if you were actually there your brain compensates somewhat for the yellow tint of everything.)

A slight tangent: have a look at the colours in the night-time screenshots of Seiken Densetsu 3 here. Look at the actual colours they're using for the grass - the darker shades are more blue than green. This is because the main light source is the night sky. This also allows it to look like nighttime without making the colours really dark. And see what a nice contrast it makes with the yellow light inside the houses!

Finally, I personally think the smooth gradient lighting clashes too much with your simple pixel art style. I realise that other people might not mind this, though!

Finally, I consider the mouse stuff to be a really crucial part of the game and designed a lot of the elements around that theme specifically. I'm sorry if it isn't your cup of tea!

That's cool, as long as you know what you want!
I could probably get used to using the mouse for everything if the walking around with it was improved (and I didn't have to hold down the right mouse button to run)

Oh yes, in the demo, is it possible to get the chest on the little lone island in the tunnel? I spent a while poking around but couldn't find a way to get there.

Edit: Check out the screenshot of Mother 2 on this page for another example of how a heavily blue-tinted palette sells the nighttime idea (exaggerated, of course!)

[Banov.]

A misunderstanding here; I was trying to suggest a system where the bars fill up faster (maybe instantly) but only when the player has no-one to give orders to.

How did I not think of that before! Implemented and working beautifully, thanks for the idea!

Also, I was inspired by your diatribe on lighting and revamped how I did a lot of things. It took a lot of head-scratching with blend modes, but here's where I am now...


Key things are A) Better black night blending makes things look more colorful without diluting outlines, B) Lights take on more obvious tints, C) Adjustment in quality algorithm makes consistent "bands" of light in each ellipses, making it feel closer to the style of other art and less "gradient-y" on smaller lights.

Still some things to tweak and work on, but I it's shaping up to have a bit more punch than what I had before. So, thanks for your suggestions! Do let me know what you think :}

And @mooosh:
Good call with Homestuck.

[Ichigo Jam]

I think that's a big improvement! Much more interesting to look at than the old one.

Maybe also consider making the bigger drop shadows soft around the edges? The tree shadow in particular is awfully hard-edged considering they're not in the light. (And they're perfectly round, which seems improbable)

Oh, and make the actual lights themselves bright! If you look at the top of your street lights, it looks like they're off. (The bedside lamps in your other screenshots have this issue too.)

I got a bit carried away with this edit, but I think it's interesting to see what it would look like with very few bands of lighting (I don't know if this is possible with how you're implementing the lighting)


Anyway, I should let you get on with actually making the game!
I'll look forwards to playing more.

[SundownKid]

My thoughts:

The Good
This is a great idea for a non-traditional RPG.

Battle speed seems fine to me. The battles flow well.

Background sprites look Earthboundy, so the lack of detail isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Music is good as well.

The Bad
Movement irked me, I wish there was an all-keyboard or controller movement setting instead of the mouse and keyboard setup. Pixel movement would be nice too, instead of the 4 direction movement you have now.

The UI needs major work. The HUD in battle is a bit too small, and utilitarian but bland. Also, the dialog box is just a color rectangle, with the text being way too small. There are more inventive ways to show dialog, for example, a text bubble coming from the character.

IMO, the Ghost Samurai should not know everything, you should have to find the Demon's plan out yourself. More mystery is always a good thing.