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[MattEbbs]

pictures upload

My brother and I have been working on this game for several months now, using Stencyl. It is a top-down action RPG, inspired by things like Zelda, Diablo, and Final Fantasy, among other things. So far we've made the first introductory chapter, and we are hoping to get a workflow going where we can release the game in relatively short episodes, with each episode containing new areas, quests, characters, and so on.

Since my brother is handling basically all of the game logic, dialogue, and music, so I took care of all of the art and animation.

And we are very happy to say that we finally published a demo! It is on itch.io -- you can find it here:

https://itch.io/embed/72050?linkback=true

It is currently a mac-only app. Sorry! But we are working on getting it going on other platforms.

Here is the most recent trailer:





If you have time to give it a try, we appreciate any feedback.
The thread we started on is over at the Stencyl website, if you're interested in seeing the art asset revisions: http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,48119.0.html
Thanks!!

[Jalapenosbud]

Hey! I unfortunately cant try the demo as i dont own a mac :/ i would love to though.

But i watched the trailer and i have some feedback on it.

I dont know the main direction of the game, if its story driven or combat driven.
If it's the first, then i find the trailer fitting, because it shows more story elements. If it's the second, i would love to see some more combat'y action. Because you show like 5 seconds of combat out of 1½ minute.

And then i have some feedback on the combat from what ive seen, maybe make the hit feedback abit more obvious? like i can see the purple smoke when it gets hit, but its not that big, maybe make it larger so its more obvious u hit it? more flashy.

Anyways, it looks cool and i like the art style, also the reflecting back the spell looks cool too!

Keep it up dudes

[Crovaxus17]

@Jalapenosbud:
Hey, thanks for the comment. (I am the other main developer of 10,000 Dragons, btw.)
First, you can still play a trimmed down version of the game here: https://crovaxus17.itch.io/10000-dragons-flash-version

To make it work as a browser game I had to cut some of the final content, as well as some of the visual effects. Even with that, it does not run as smoothly as the desktop app, but we wanted to give people without a mac a way to try the game. We are currently in the process of optimizing and doing some cleanup, and in that process we aim to make a smoother-running browser demo.

As for your point about combat vs. story-telling, you really nailed the crux of the game for us. In short, we think of the game as being story-driven. But, we also wanted to make the combat fun and dynamic, without being overly complex, because we want the play experience to be exciting in a way that compliments the story. We don't want the details of combat to suck up all of the player's attention, though the player ought to be able to enjoy mastering the fight mechanics. The game concept revolves around two main pillars: story and exploration. Because the exploration element is so important to us, we see combat as part of the exploration process: the world of the game is intended to be beautiful and interesting, but also dangerous, and that, along with discovering lore and story, is what makes exploring that world fun and exciting. At least, that is the theory.

You are probably right about the trailer: it is focused mostly on the story. I probably ought to make a second gameplay trailer focused more on the combat the exploration mechanics.

And finally, I think I agree with you about the hit feedback. I'll look into making the on-hit particle effects flashier. Thanks again for commenting! And I hope you get a chance to play the flash demo at least. Cheers!

[MattEbbs]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to iterate on the game icon, and I could use your help:

          

I'd love to get some feedback if you have any thoughts or preferences. Thanks!
-Matt

[Panurge]

The far right one for me - I like the flash of white in the eye. Also, I didn't initially read the '10,000' - my brain instead saw it as a row of boxes which seemed kind of odd and intrusive. That's probably just my problem though!

Game looks great, by the way.

[MattEbbs]

The far right one for me - I like the flash of white in the eye. Also, I didn't initially read the '10,000' - my brain instead saw it as a row of boxes which seemed kind of odd and intrusive. That's probably just my problem though!

Game looks great, by the way.

Thank you very much and I appreciate the feedback, I think you're right, I was being ambitious and broke my own rule to never add text to an icon lol

[SolS]

I like the art style! For the icon I think spelling out ten thousand in japanese would look nice over it

[MattEbbs]

I like the art style! For the icon I think spelling out ten thousand in japanese would look nice over it

Thank you SolS! And I appreciate the feedback, would you have the Japanese character be subtle or bold compared to the other elements? Thanks again!

[flipswitchx]

Cool style ^_^

[SolS]

Hmm it's hard to say without seeing it but I'd think either could work

[MattEbbs]

Cool style ^_^

Thank you! I dig your twitch channel, btw

[MattEbbs]

Finally got the audio files in the final fight. Unfortunately so far the web (flash) version is trimmed to not have the final scene. So if you have a Mac, I'd love some feedback on the boss fight, it took forever. Cheers!

https://crovaxus17.itch.io/10000-dragons

[safaaris]

Hey I like what you guys have so far. One thing I did notice was that sometimes the purple orbs wouldn't go to your current location. At some points I would run around a bit and just stand there waiting for the attack and the orb would just fly right past me, sometimes pretty close other times further away. There were definitely times where it was on the money, but every now and then... But really, great job guys. The look and feel to it is just so cool. Can't wait to see more stuff from this project 

[Crovaxus17]

Hey I like what you guys have so far. One thing I did notice was that sometimes the purple orbs wouldn't go to your current location. At some points I would run around a bit and just stand there waiting for the attack and the orb would just fly right past me, sometimes pretty close other times further away. There were definitely times where it was on the money, but every now and then... But really, great job guys. The look and feel to it is just so cool. Can't wait to see more stuff from this project  

Hey Safaaris,

You have actually hit on a problem that bugs me, too. I have toyed with various ways to fix it, but so far nothing I have come up with has worked well enough. What follows is a somewhat technical answer, so if you aren't interested in that much detail, skip to the end!  

In the current version, all the actors have 8-directional animations. I basically had to choose whether to have the bullets fly in a straight line in the direction the monster is facing (either N, S, E, W, NE, SE, SW, NW), or to have them fly at the player's current location (basically your exact X,Y coordinates when the bullet is created would be set as its target destination). At the scale we are using, the second version really looks funny: the monster shoots E, say, and the bullet goes SE...

Another option would be to tweak the monster AI so they only shoot when they are in a direct line of sight to the player, but that so far has proved cumbersome, and it only seems to work some of the time. Alternatively, we are thinking about scaling the project down a bit (so the graphics would be about half the size); this would make the logic easier to reprogram because we could reduce it to only 4 directions and it would still look good.

Sorry for the long answer! But the short answer is that it is a problem we are working on. Thanks for the feedback! And I'm glad you liked the demo.

Cheers!

[Crovaxus17]

@safaaris:

Also, one other way to think about it: maybe it's a feature, not a bug

[safaaris]

Exactly

Lol anyway, because the boss pauses a bit as he begins to cast the spell, maybe you can change the direction the boss is facing as the spell is being cast to the location of the player.

Ex. The player is to the N of the boss. As the spell is being cast the player (bc of his speed) can only get as far as either W if he goes left, or E if he goes right, to avoid the orb. That leaves only 3 potential directional animations for the orb to be cast from (N, NW, and W if left; N, E, NE for right), which shouldn't look too awkward if there was a directional change animation wise.

So maybe change the directional animation of the boss as the spell is being cast? 

[Manaflow]

Just took a look at the trailer. The game looks somewhat interesting and the art style is a nice choice. But the game play portions of the trailer feel very boring. There is a certain build up with the dialogs that is lost when showing the game play after. Just a guy standing there or walking. Nothing really interesting going on. I saw you mention that the trailer is mainly focused on story which is fine. Use the game play to support this. The game play should reinforce what the dialog before it just declared, otherwise it breaks the immersion. The animations and poses for the character also feel very stiff.

Keep up the good work though!