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[Christian223]

Hi, please see this video of an early game prototype. It's a beat em up "mini" game for a Princess Maker inspired game.

I'm intereseted in all kinds of feedback, I want ideas, advice, I want to know what players expect from this kinds of games, I want to make a game people will enjoy.

[PsySal]

The art is cool, and the concept as per the YouTube description sounds good. But is it really like Diablo? (I haven't played Diablo...) Keep at 'er!

[Christian223]

It is like Final Fight/Streets of Rage/TMNT/Knights of the Round but with mouse control and the rpg elements into it.

The art is placeholder, it wont be in the final version.

[alspal]

I love beat 'em ups, I'm looking forward to seeing more. The art seems quite nice, obviously.

[undertech]

The alien guy is being way too nice here. He's got a built in minigun for goodness sakes.

[FiaStarta]

It is like Final Fight/Streets of Rage/TMNT/Knights of the Round but with mouse control and the rpg elements into it.

The art is placeholder, it wont be in the final version.

I thought you were showing the art. Because if the idea is the control/gameplay, that doesn't look promizing. What exactly do you want to show in that video?
Plus you mention Final Fight, Diablo & RPGs which doesn't help.

[Christian223]

I know what I show it's not much and that the gameplay right now is very basic, but I think that with the info I give it is enough for people to imagine on the kind of direction I am going so that they can give me ideas to add to the game, or even tell me if what they see so far fits the direciton I am going, even though is not much.

The idea to show the video is to capture interested people, followers, and to recieve ideas I did not thought of so that I can make a better game than If I did it with only my ideas.

What do you think I should do to achieve this?.

Edit: I had another idea, to make this like a beat em up with a mix of Final Fantasy tactics but in real time and pause capabilities to be able to give orders to your team mates, what do you think?.

[gunmaggot]

Well, I think the idea of combining a beat 'em up with Diablo is the best idea ever - but the vid isn't winning me over.  It looks like it's very much in a state of 'way too early to be shown and expect any useful feedback', so I'll just tell you what I think of what I'm seeing:  it looks bad.  You should have waited til you had a bit more progress.
But!  If you can make it basically a cross between Monster Hunter and Capcom's D&D slash 'em ups, nobody will have any excuse to play anything else, so I can't say this shows no promise.

[gunmaggot]

Wait, I'll just add that I think a mouse-driven beat 'em up seems like it could be dangerously close to missing the point of beat 'em ups (unless you do it like Noitu Love 2, which would be great).

EDIT: I like the idea of the characters being made out of component parts like Odin Sphere or Muramasa.  A great way of visualising armour upgrades on a 2D character model.

[Christian223]

Gunmaggot: thanks a lot, I really like the clarity of your post.
But could you please elobarate more on the danger of making a mouse driven beat 'em up?, I really cannot see how could that go wrong.

Noitu Love was one of my inspirations too

[gunmaggot]

I dunno, this is gonna sound kind of waffly and hand-wavey cause I'm not really sure I had a point, but thinking about the pure beat em ups I've enjoyed (Aliens vs Predator, The Punisher, Violent Storm, Knuckle Bash), there is a fair amount of joy in just mercilessly pounding the buttons and caving a dude's face in, whereas with a mouse-driven interface people generally whine like children if they have to keep tapping the attack button.  So it may be tricky to strike a balance when you're combining genres like that.  otoh I don't know of any Diablo-likes with a fun combo system like Noitu Love 2 or AvP, so as long as that part is robust you will probably be ok.

[Christian223]

Thanks, I think you have a point, not all games that make you click your enemies to attack are fun in that aspect.

I have been studying those kinds of games and I have found out that the best of them have you hit enemies 3 times and then they fly away leaving you time to move to another place, go near them to grab them or hit them on the ground, or attack other enemies, this is a very important thing to make them fun, besides having lots of weak enemies that are quick to kill.
Which is quite different from Noitu Love because you often have to click much more than 3 times in the same place, which means that you don't move, you just click like crazy in the same place, which I find not very fun.
I have more fun when in that game you have to click in many different places very quickly, enemies in the air, then in an enemy in the floor, at your back, then at the front, that's more challenging that clicking lots of enemies that appear in the same place over and over.

[gunmaggot]

Yeah, I think you are looking at this in a smart way.
Not really my place to offer specific ideas but I just came up with one after reading your post so I thought I'd share: on the third hit of the standard three-hit-combo, you could grab the opponent -  while you're grabbing them you can click anywhere and launch them in that direction as if they were a projectile. 
I dunno, seemed to fit all your objectives and make the most of the mouse-based system.  You probably have a different idea for grabs/throws though.

[Christian223]

I'm going to try that. Thanks a lot.

[Christian223]

Here is a new video showing how I implemented combo hits :D





Feedback, brainsorming, new ideas, anything is very welcome, thanks a lot.