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[jewelsrpg]

Hi!

First time game developer here, with quite some experience programming but really green in the gamedev area.

My first game is Jewels RPG a simple jewel matching + RPG (heavily) inspired by Puzzle Quest. I will first publish it on mobile (Android first).










Vidia:



For those who have not played a similar game it's a typical RPG but you resolve fights with enemies matching jewels in a board.

Right now development is about 90% (with another 90% of work remaining) so maybe the best is show this to people and see how they like it. You have a little tutorial and 2 maps with a shop and some nasty enemies.

Basic battle rules:

- Match black jewels to damage enemy
- Match purle jewelsto heal
- Color jewels are for filling spells' requirements
- Matching or more in a move gives an extra turn (cascading matches don't count)

DOWNLOAD

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jewelsrpg


PS: I'm tempted to create dev journal to have some public accountability and finish it

[Aldinas]

I gave this a try on a galaxy S3 (Yes, I know, old phone is old!) and was pleased to find it ran rather smoothly, so you're off to a good start in my book!

The tutorial level is pretty straight forward and covered the basics, though I must admit I had a few issues with interacting with people and items on the overworld view.

It's very hard to tell if you've tapped on a person/opponent immediately, I found there was a few seconds delay between tapping and something happening, if I actually did manage to tap on the person.

Considering how smooth the rest of the game loaded and played I'm assuming that the delay may well be a design or optimization thing, in which case some small audio feedback when you tap on a person or item to interact with would be helpful, or even a visual indication (I.e. the person scales up in size slightly then back down, or flashes briefly)

I also had issues with the overworld as my character wandered off the top of the first scene and it took several swipes to make the map  move. It also wasn't completely obvious that that was what I was meant to do, I sat there for a few seconds waiting for it to automatically move up a screen (like the old school zelda games). Maybe just have it auto progress when your character reaches the edge? Or an arrow indicating a swipe is needed?


In the matching mode I had no trouble, the game was responsive, I shifted the jewels I wanted in the direction I wanted 99% of the time, and the ones I didn't felt more like it was my fault for being indecisive with my swiping rather than anything on the games fault.

I did feel there was a wasted bit of screen real estate along the top of the battle board, its only really used for spells. I'd love to see two sprite characters duking it out with each other as you do damage!
The spells themselves felt a bit costly at first, but when used correctly the cost actually makes sense. You can do a lot of damage with a board filled with red squares and fireball!

One downside to the combat stage is that the AI seems to take forever to make its move. I spent more time waiting for the AI to complete its moves than I did making mine. I found myself waiting for the sounds to stop, taking my turn(s) then putting the phone down again while the AI did its thing. Speeding up the enemy turns would be make waiting for my turn feel a lot less like a chore!

I guess thats pretty much it. The sounds are nothing amazing but they serve their purpose. Wouldnt say no to some cool battle music though! :D

[jewelsrpg]

First of all, thanks Aldinas for taking the time to try and write your impressions. It's really appreciated 

It's very hard to tell if you've tapped on a person/opponent immediately, I found there was a few seconds delay between tapping and something happening, if I actually did manage to tap on the person.

Weird, when tapping on a enemy/shop the dialog should show instantly... When you touch "Accept" there there are some state saving that could slow things but not on the dialog showing. I will look carefully into this with a slower device (I'm testing with a Nexus 5).

some small audio feedback when you tap on a person or item to interact with would be helpful, or even a visual indication (I.e. the person scales up in size slightly then back down, or flashes briefly)

Adding sounds when touching things on the map sounds great (no pun intended), good catch!

I also had issues with the overworld as my character wandered off the top of the first scene and it took several swipes to make the map  move. It also wasn't completely obvious that that was what I was meant to do, I sat there for a few seconds waiting for it to automatically move up a screen (like the old school zelda games). Maybe just have it auto progress when your character reaches the edge? Or an arrow indicating a swipe is needed?

The autoscroll following the player it's something I have thought about. It makes a lot of sense (your experience tells me so) but I would like for the player to be able to interact with shops or other things you have passed before when walking.

So maybe when the player is walking camera follows and when he stops you can scroll freely. What do you think about this?

I did feel there was a wasted bit of screen real estate along the top of the battle board, its only really used for spells. I'd love to see two sprite characters duking it out with each other as you do damage!

I would like to have the sprites battling on the upper screen, problem is that I don't know where to put the spell buttons... Think that there are 4 spell buttons per player and it's important seeing them all the time because then you can control if the enemy (or you) has a spell ready to use.

One downside to the combat stage is that the AI seems to take forever to make its move. I spent more time waiting for the AI to complete its moves than I did making mine. I found myself waiting for the sounds to stop, taking my turn(s) then putting the phone down again while the AI did its thing. Speeding up the enemy turns would be make waiting for my turn feel a lot less like a chore!

I understand you but personally I like seeing how the enemy moves (sometimes I'm seeing a possible move and the AI misses it). To accommodate both it would be nice to have an option to speedup the enemy move phase (imagine 3x speed). This way if you are tired of waiting you can almost skip the waiting.

I guess thats pretty much it. The sounds are nothing amazing but they serve their purpose. Wouldnt say no to some cool battle music though! :D

Music is in the TODO file (or Trello board, in this case) ;-)

THANKS again for your feedback, it helps a lot!

[Aldinas]

Weird, when tapping on a enemy/shop the dialog should show instantly... When you touch "Accept" there there are some state saving that could slow things but not on the dialog showing. I will look carefully into this with a slower device (I'm testing with a Nexus 5).

I've done a bit more testing on that, I think its just the fact I'm not hitting them all the time. When I use a stylus there's probably around half a second before the text window appears, its harder to tell with fingers as I'm not 100% sure I'm touching it.

The autoscroll following the player it's something I have thought about. It makes a lot of sense (your experience tells me so) but I would like for the player to be able to interact with shops or other things you have passed before when walking.

So maybe when the player is walking camera follows and when he stops you can scroll freely. What do you think about this?

That works, or even just some indication that you can scroll the screen manually (slide bar down the side, arrow marks at the edge of the screen, or maybe mention it in the tutorial?)

I would like to have the sprites battling on the upper screen, problem is that I don't know where to put the spell buttons... Think that there are 4 spell buttons per player and it's important seeing them all the time because then you can control if the enemy (or you) has a spell ready to use.

Ah I've only got two spells at the moment, I can see how four would fill that space up fairly quickly.

I understand you but personally I like seeing how the enemy moves (sometimes I'm seeing a possible move and the AI misses it). To accommodate both it would be nice to have an option to speedup the enemy move phase (imagine 3x speed). This way if you are tired of waiting you can almost skip the waiting.

Yeah an additional option for AI speed or something similar would be cool. I'm not too fussed on watching the enemies moves, but I get that some people would want to.

Music is in the TODO file (or Trello board, in this case) ;-)

I thought that may have been the case, I've not even looked at music yet, I figure that's a whole new kettle of fish!

[jewelsrpg]

Hi devs!

I have published a new version of the game fixing the reported thingies.

If you would like to playtest now it's public:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jewelsrpg

Please let me know how it works for you (any feedback is appreciated).

[Highsight]

I'm going to start out by saying, this is EXACTLY what I need to scratch my Puzzle Quest itch on the Android.  The combat is smooth and animates beautifully, I ESPECIALLY like the Fireball spell, seeing all those blocks WHAM your opponent is brilliant.

That being said, the game absolutely has some weakpoints that I believe could be addressed to make it a stronger game.  Hands down I believe that the weakest point of this game is its overall sound design.  The first thing you are greated to in the game is a score that sounds very flat.  You've gotta draw them in at the start, and the music chosen just feels very MIDI-esque and somber.  Think GRAND EPIC CONQUEST!!!

In addition, the map music is way too repetitive and generic for my taste.  While the battle music is enjoyable, it doesn't seem to loop, or move on to another song.  I would really enjoy some calm puzzle concentration music that fits the theme of the universe you set this game in.  Think strings, woodwinds and light chimes.  I know you based this game alot around Puzzle Quest, and they are a PRIME example of how to nail music design for this game, don't be ashamed to work off of them a bit in this department.

If you wanted to go one step further, your game could be a wonderful candidate for Adaptive Music.  This would be exceptionally challenging to get right, but if you are very careful with it, you could create songs that blend into different moods depending on how the fight is going.  You could make songs that have an underlying melody and have them shift into different transitions depending on your and your opponents HP.  Is someone getting close to death?  Maybe get some triumphant drums start up an intense beat to strengthen your resolve.  Perhaps the opponent has you on the ropes, get a few horn stings thrown into the song to increase tension.  It would be ALOT of work, but it is absolutely doable.



As for the sound design itself feels a little off as well.  With the biggest offender being the White Skulls.  That "pop" sound just doesn't inject any sort of malice into the situation, if anything it detracts it.  I'd love it if each match of a gem made a different type of sound to signify what got matched.  Random thoughts, but stuff like a flame whoosh for red, coin drop for yellow, passing breeze for green, that "pop" sound for blue, choir "ahh" for heart, etc...

The menus and popups feel extremely detached from the rest of the game.  Can you think of a way to make the shop menu not black out the entire screen behind it?  If you could make it a pop-up and allow me to tap out of it instead of hitting a "back" button, it would feel way more streamlined.  The "Enemy!" popups feel unnessicary.  Maybe instead of generic "interact" diamonds above things heads, you can make them specific, such as two swords clashing if they are a fight, a dollar sign if they are a shop, an exclamation if it is a quest or a question mark if it is an unknown thing (special event).  This way, if it's a battle, you can just tap the enemy and get right into the action instead of having to hit another button.

I'd say out of the whole thing, the thing that needs the most examining in your game is the world map.  Watching your hero travel from point A to point B is boooooooring.  Try to keep your players in "waiting" states as much as possible.  As an excersise, I want you to go through your game and actually count how many times you find yourself waiting on something for no real reason.

All that said, I really like this game, you've absolutely got a great game here, it's just in much need of some polish.  A bit of a spit-shine though, and this game could easily top the charts.  Keep going with it man, I like it alot!

Bugs I found:

If you tap a shopkeeper repetedly while your character is traveling, you will go into the shop menu.  When you come out of it, your character will start traveling from where he started again.

Music didn't start for me when I fought the witch.

Stay Thoughts

• Why does an Orc know heal?
• The "You Win" message really doesn't fit the overall graphical aesthetic.  Keep a consistant aesthetic!
• Can we get multiple songs for battling?
• I hate waiting on the "You Won" screen before I'm allowed to move on.
• I like that Skulls auto equipped when I got it.
• Can spells be tapped once to show a description of what they do somewhere, and then tapped again to cast?  This would double nicely as a "Confirmation" system.
• A background for the battle screen would be nice, especially if it changed dynamically to what/where you are fighting.
• Can I have a roguelike mode, like with FTL style encounters?
• I'd love to have more control over where my character goes/what he does.

[jewelsrpg]

Thanks for taking the time to play and writing your thoughts!

That being said, the game absolutely has some weakpoints that I believe could be addressed to make it a stronger game.  Hands down I believe that the weakest point of this game is its overall sound design.  The first thing you are greated to in the game is a score that sounds very flat.  You've gotta draw them in at the start, and the music chosen just feels very MIDI-esque and somber.  Think GRAND EPIC CONQUEST!!!

In addition, the map music is way too repetitive and generic for my taste.  While the battle music is enjoyable, it doesn't seem to loop, or move on to another song.  I would really enjoy some calm puzzle concentration music that fits the theme of the universe you set this game in.  Think strings, woodwinds and light chimes.  I know you based this game alot around Puzzle Quest, and they are a PRIME example of how to nail music design for this game, don't be ashamed to work off of them a bit in this department.

I see what you mean with the title music, will look for a more epic music.

The battle music should loop, but there is some kind of problem with how libgdx plays mp3s loops. I will look into this to make it loop without glitches.

If you wanted to go one step further, your game could be a wonderful candidate for Adaptive Music.  This would be exceptionally challenging to get right, but if you are very careful with it, you could create songs that blend into different moods depending on how the fight is going.  You could make songs that have an underlying melody and have them shift into different transitions depending on your and your opponents HP.  Is someone getting close to death?  Maybe get some triumphant drums start up an intense beat to strengthen your resolve.  Perhaps the opponent has you on the ropes, get a few horn stings thrown into the song to increase tension.  It would be ALOT of work, but it is absolutely doable.

I love adaptative music and it would be awesome to implement, but right now maybe it's a prioity to have a clean looping

As for the sound design itself feels a little off as well.  With the biggest offender being the White Skulls.  That "pop" sound just doesn't inject any sort of malice into the situation, if anything it detracts it.  I'd love it if each match of a gem made a different type of sound to signify what got matched.  Random thoughts, but stuff like a flame whoosh for red, coin drop for yellow, passing breeze for green, that "pop" sound for blue, choir "ahh" for heart, etc...

Right now sounds (and some ui graphics) are a bit placeholder-y, but you are right about the white skulls.

I hadn't thought bout giving each match a sound deending on its color. This goes to my TODO on the first place.

The menus and popups feel extremely detached from the rest of the game.  Can you think of a way to make the shop menu not black out the entire screen behind it?  If you could make it a pop-up and allow me to tap out of it instead of hitting a "back" button, it would feel way more streamlined. 

The shop is something that should receive more work, will do some thinking and try to make it prettier.

The "Enemy!" popups feel unnessicary.  Maybe instead of generic "interact" diamonds above things heads, you can make them specific, such as two swords clashing if they are a fight, a dollar sign if they are a shop, an exclamation if it is a quest or a question mark if it is an unknown thing (special event).  This way, if it's a battle, you can just tap the enemy and get right into the action instead of having to hit another button.

The different icons thing sounds nice, I will think about it.

About the battle dialog: I understand your viewpoint I will try to give an alternative without using a ui dialogs.

I'd say out of the whole thing, the weakest element of your game is the map.  Watching your hero travel from point A to point B is boooooooring.  Try to keep your players in "waiting" states as much as possible.  As an excersise, I want you to go through your game and actually count how many times you find yourself waiting on something for no real reason.

Yep, the walking thing is a in a first version there was no walking animation, you just "jumped" from enemy to enemy (didn't liked the feeling of that).

I'm thinking bout having some kind of free walking mode in map, that is, you touch where you want to go and enemies just appear when you are ner them. Of course this would be more implementation work (pathfinding, non-walkable tiles...) but it would make the map kind of a roguelike (a favourite genre of mine).

Or expanding on this what about the map/enemies/shops being generated in a roguelike fashion. This would create some replayability but would be quite some work to implement and balance right. I previously thought about this but concluded that maybe it would detract from the main gameplay (the jewel fighting).

What do you think about this?

(I hope this answers last 2 thoughts from the list below)

All that said, I really like this game, you've absolutely got a great game here, it's just in much need of some polish.  A bit of a spit-shine though, and this game could easily top the charts.  Keep going with it man, I like it alot!

Bugs I found:

If you tap a shopkeeper repetedly while your character is traveling, you will go into the shop menu.  When you come out of it, your character will start traveling from where he
started again.

Yep, this is a known bug

Music didn't start for me when I fought the witch.

Will try to replicate the error and fix it.

Stay Thoughts

• Why does an Orc know heal? Hehehe, good catch
  
• The "You Win" message really doesn't fit the overall graphical aesthetic.  Keep a consistant aesthetic! Ok
  
• Can we get multiple songs for battling? Will add more songs
  
• I hate waiting on the "You Won" screen before I'm allowed to move on. Ok will look for alternatives
  
• I like that Skulls auto equipped when I got it.
• Can spells be tapped once to show a description of what they do somewhere, and then tapped again to cast?  This would double nicely as a "Confirmation" system. Nice, will change it like you say
  
• A background for the battle screen would be nice, especially if it changed dynamically to what/where you are fighting. Ok, will try some options here
  
• Can I have a roguelike mode, like with FTL style encounters? (See above)
  
• I'd love to have more control over where my character goes/what he does. (See above)
  

[Highsight]

Glad my feedback could help a bit!  There is one more thing I noticed.  The more I play the game, the more I realize that I HATE the pink jewels.  To me the healing really detracts from the game because you might set up a great combo to really hurt the enemy, and then suddenly they get blessed with a few healing jewels.  The next thing you know, all that progress you made is completely reversed.  It seems like it unnecessarily draws out the fights and overall makes for a bad play experience.  I realize that they are a main feature of the game, so removing them may be tough, but this is just my opinion on it.  In addition, their removal would would incentivize you to keep some form of defensive spells on hand, or play it risky and go all offense.

[jewelsrpg]

I have tought about this before and your comment reinforces a feeling I have.

Pink jewels & the heal spell tend to make battles longer which is a thing I don't really like (mobile experience == shorter play sessions).

Problem is I can't reduce the number of jewels' colors because then there would only be combos after combos and that is also boring. Combos (and spells) should be somewhat special events, not the common ones.

So maybe I will do some testing changing the pink jewels to be a normal jewel (i.e. replacing yellow ones in spells) and then making yellow ones give you money when matching.

This way I have an aditional way to adjust difficult battles. Imagine fighting a difficult enemy that you can't win but you are getting gold every lost battle (because you matched yellow jewels) you're able to buy that great sword that gives you a better chance of winning.

Just thinking out loud...

[Highsight]

That sounds like a good plan to me!  I was kinda wondering what the yellow gems were doing before exactly.  I just figured you were bribing god to let you break the laws of nature or something. 

Reading further up, I just want to put my bid in and say I LOVE Aldinas' idea of having your character and the monster fight on screen while you trade blows.  If you can make the space for it, I'd love to see that happen, instead of having the Fireball Gems targeting their portraits, you can have them target each other on a field of battle.