Ok so I installed your game and I played it for a couple of hours.
Here’s what I think of it
First off, the negative points.
The first thing that strikes me is that I feel like the tutorial of the game doesn’t give me the right information at the right time. When you first start off a new game, you are asked to fill up a form without being informed what are the actual details of the attribute. I feel like you should tell us exactly what we’re doing before doing it. You can access the details of the attributes when right-clicking them but I feel like this information is too crucial to be placed on a second stage. I believe that you should give us the a quick explanation of every trait before we choose between them. Just one little pop-up going like “This trait means more damage. This one means more spells, this one mean less casting time, etc…”
Speaking of the tutorial, I felt like it was too laborious. At some point, I just didn’t want to read it anymore and just wanted to get on with the game. Your tutorial should focus on key elements. I want to be told, what’s my attributes and how they work, what’s the school, how to cast, what are the channels and how do I win/loose. Here’s a proposition of a tutorial. It’s not polished or anything, just quick ideas…
New character screen
1-“Welcome”: just like you have there
2 “Attribute explanation”: Quick explanation of what we are choosing
3-“School”: Just like you have there, perhaps explaining very quickly the schools.
4-“Proffesion”: Same thing
In game
1-“Welcome” Like you have there. I would drop the “I’m confused thing”. I can’t be confused at this point of the game because I just created a character with a very easy and accessible screen.
2-“Personal info” I’d start off by going with something very easy and very vital to the player: it’s status. The first thing I have to know is where to look to know if I’m winning or not.
3-“Days left before I die”; This is also a very important info and I feel it fits very well with the health. Feels like the remaining health gauge of the game.
4-“Channels”: Before I can cast, I need to channel energy so the next step is obvious.
5-“Casting”: Now, I know my status in the game, where my avatar is, how to enable my actions. All that’s left is learning how to use those actions correctly.
6-“Let the player play”: last words before letting the player go, such as “Remember: right-click for help” or anything like that.
So, tutorial’s over and the player knows what to do but still has to experiment a bit, and most important, before any dangerous encounters. I’ve actually died during my first tutorial because A) I didn’t pay attention to the tutorial and B) I clicked everywhere. I didn’t know what to do and I died before the game had officially started.
With the proposition I have shown you, you also have something shorter. Between 12 and 18 pop-ups if you include text padding such as “Ok then let’s take a look around” (which is very important to make things flow). In the present demo, I’ve counted over 70 pop-ups in the tutorial. That’s quite a lot, especially since it stops the flow of the game every time.
Anyway, I'm not saying my idea is better than what you got, only that I'm going for another way of looking at your tutorial. I believe that a simpler introduction would be better for your game because of all the details we can find playing the game. As long as the crucial information is passed to the player before the actual encounters and it's short and sweet, the tutorial will work.
Let’s move on to the GUI. One of the worst flaw I find in the GUI is that one of the most important, if not the most important information in your game, is not well represented. Timing your spells and managing your casting time is crucial yet we don’t have a clear view of this information. Most of the time, our eyes focus on the top right corner of the screen and the pentagram representing the time passed casting is located at the opposite. Also, I feel like the pentagram is not precise enough for your game. We can’t tell exactly how much time is left before the spell is conjured. Maybe trying to place the pentagram nearer to the spells would help a lot. Also, the open channels spheres are also far from the channel icons. Perhaps placing the sphere on each corner of the icon would be better? I’m not sure because it might crowd the icons too much.
I was thinking that maybe if the pentagram was closer and that it would fill up completely every time you cast/channeled (the rate at which the pentagram fills up would depend on the spell), it would be more obvious to the player when the spell/channeling is going to be completed. It would be a very minor change in the game and it would give more precise information vital to the timing of the spell casting.
Another factor that may fix your GUI trouble is the ever present ring of fire. When you start channeling or casting spells, the ring of fire places itself on the chosen icon but after the action is finished (for example here, casting a shield, the ring remains on the icon. At first I thought it was because he didn’t finish casting it. Its quite useful for attack spells like “Magic missile” but I feel this is pointless for shields, summoning (since you can only have one) and curses. If the ring disappeared, the player would have a visible cue that the spell has been casted and it’s time you do something else.
A thought occurred. Perhaps you could have the traits information hidden during battle and put a bigger pentagram and the channel sphere there. When the battle is over, you simply put back the trait info, hide the pentagram and the channel sphere. It would leave more room to breathe in your health and power section and put all the battle information in the same region.
Now, about the game in itself. Since this is the demo, some of my comments might be pointless but here we go nonetheless…
First, it would be nice to be able to select the spells we would like to have. It seems to me that all characters have exactly the same spells, except the ultimate one, and the main difference between them is their ability to cast them quickly or not. It would be nice to have different spells from one class to another, even at the very beginning, and to be able to choose from different types of the same spell. For example, one class could have a poison curse. You could decide to build you poison curse over time but you could also decide to specialize your poison curse into a sub category. This poison curse could have two sub categories: cripple or damage. If you choose one category, you cannot go back to any other. This will make the game more adaptive to the player. It would also mean more spells but they won’t be accessible by all. This could enhance the player’s experimentation and elevate the replay value.
If possible, a good thing would be able to show the possible ranking within a profession. An interesting thing to do would be to be able to decide what kind of ranking or title you would like to have. For instance, for two different titles you would need the same amount of XP but one would require a str stat of over 16 (let’s call it berserker to be old fashioned) while the other (let’s called it wise man since we’re in the clichés) would require a int stat of at least 16. You can’t be both, you have to choose between either one of them or simply not choose either one. This would also help to make the game more adaptive and more “re-playable”.
I would add more specialized spells, like anti-shields, anti-curse etc… But there might already be there, just not in the demo so I can’t tell. If there are no such spells, it may be a good idea to consider them. Right now, the strategies become a bit repetitive: summon shield, summon creature, shoot shield of other, re-summon shield when it’s gone, re-summon creature when it’s dead, and so forth until you win. Sure there are other things around this but it’s pretty much the same basics.
Technically speaking, I would add a “back” button in the “grimoire” or something to tell us that we need to click to exit. It’s not much but it helps to make the game clearer. It would also fit with the main menu.
Well, that’s all I can think for the moment… On to the good part!
The game looks good and plays very well once you understand where to look at. The game also seems to offer a lot of strategy. I didn’t play much but every time I made a new character, I tried new traits and balance. No game has been the same. Too bad I couldn’t save
I like the overall representation of the game. Simple but effective. Sober yet a touch of fantastic. It makes the game more realistic than if there were too much stuff going on. The music is also very interesting and fits the game like a glove.
I love the concept of the fixed life span. This is something I feel we should see more often. I like the philosophy behind it: you can do what you want but you will come to an end no matter what. It’s quite interesting. It gives a good long-term motivation to the player: survive past those 90 years.
All in all, a bit repetitive but interesting game. I hope to hear more about it. This has a lot of potential!
Well, I hope I’m not to harsh with you! You did some nice job and I wish to see you doing some more!
Take care!
Guert
Developer
