next »

[IvorEvilen]

Reia Cubed is an active turn-based roleplaying game that I am currently developing for the PC.  Originally conceived as a strictly personal, for-fun project, the game has slowly become more to me.  At the moment I am currently finishing up my masters degree, and I decided to implement my game into my research.

I come to you all for suggestions/feedback of the game in its current form.  I have two version of the game that I am torn between, which is a 3D over-the-shoulder camera or a 2D top-down camera.  As part of my research, I developed the two styles to test the impact that form has on the overall experience (there are also two more versions testing the impact of color)... but as the game was intended to be in 3D, I was surprised to find myself torn between the two.  I don't know which I like more, and I could really use the help deciding.

If you have time, I would ask that you participate in my research study (trying to investigate that there statistical significance), but if you don't have the time or desire, I will provide alternate links:

Research Study: https://purdue.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8wynA5CVBjyAivr

OR

3D Version: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~sgarver/3D_Color.html
2D Version: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~sgarver/2D_Color.html

The game is built at the lowest settings (I've only seen it chug on a six year old low-end laptop), but I don't know the specific specifications (KNOWN ISSUE:  It appears that web player renders the text differently from a normal build, which causes the text to wrap wrong on occassion, resize browser if this ever happens).

Let me know what you think below.  Thanks so much everyone!




EDIT:  Totally forgot to mention the disclaimer (can be read in more detail in the game), that all music is stand-in to convey the style.  The build won't be hosted for very long and any copyrighted material won't be in an official release.

[Quicksand-S]

I tried 3D first.

-Nice to see text/dialogue done right. I always like it when I can hit a button to load it all at once, although I felt the need to do that almost every single time. I think the default speed could maybe be a little faster, but that's just me.

-The animation seems surprisingly good for a blocky game. I mostly like the look of it, too.

-I'm glad that music is temporary. It's good, but I recognized it right away.

-The first thing I did when I got control was, naturally, to turn toward the door. That didn't give me a good first impression. I really didn't like that, in a game where the camera is behind the player, you can't just rotate without moving. It means I'm constantly walking into things that I want to look at or walk around.

-That first hallway is weird. The stairs really shouldn't be cutting across the corridor like that. I guess that's part of the 8-bit inspiration?

-The character jitters a lot when turning.

-I like to be able to admire my surroundings in RPGs. A less restrictive camera might be nice.

-I'm not sure I like "CQB" as an acronym, considering it already means something completely different when it comes to combat ("Close-Quarter Battle").

-There's way too much tutorial text. I could've guessed everything they said about combat, so just going through page after page of text really ruined the pacing of the game for me. I felt like I hit Enter about thirty or forty times in that combat tutorial. I would've expected maybe four.

-The battle camera was annoying. It moved around too quickly and my view of the characters was often obscured.

-I liked the battle interface a lot, though. The separation of instant and delayed actions was nice.

-It is a bit weird that the list of actions doesn't disappear after you've queued something. I guess that's to let you change your mind while you still have a chance?

-After the battle, the normal view of the world showed for a frame or so before the dialogue started again.

-The writing is really good, but after the first battle, I just started skipping through everything as fast as I could tap the button. Pausing for dialogue every few seconds destroyed the pacing completely.

-It seemed like skills and magic were practically the same thing, and it wasn't clear what most of them did. I can understand that magic can have strange names, but I feel like skills should be easy to understand at a glance.

-It's unclear what they actually do to the first two templars. They kind of breath heavily and then the templars are down?

I quit after the first battle against the soldiers. The battle just went on and on, and then when I finally finished it, I got attacked by two more within about two seconds. I'm already not a huge fan of turn-based battles, but I can deal with them if they're good. That wasn't fun at all.

I briefly tried the 2D version after, but I much preferred the 3D. In both, though, the movement controls were a big problem for me. In 2D, it feels more exaggerated. The slow rotation of the character when changing directions drove me crazy.

I did go and see if I could get through that templar area, but it was really dull. Some magic or skills that hit multiple enemies at once would help a lot. It would also be a good idea, I think, so keep the target set to the last one that was attacked (or maybe the last one attacked by that character). That way, I don't have to constantly keep re-targetting enemies I'm trying to take out first.

I did end up finishing the demo (the combat against the boss had almost no challenge, which surprised me a bit). I think it's got potential. The graphics are pretty nice. The interface is good. The writing is high-quality. I just wish the dialogue (especially the tutorial stuff) didn't drag on and on and that the battles were more interesting. I'd also love to see the movement controls overhauled.

I liked the 3D version a lot better, personally. In order for the 2D one to work well, I feel like it'd need more standard 4- or 8-directional movement. The 3D visuals felt pretty good to me and I liked the idea of the battle camera even if the implementation bugged me. I can see myself enjoying exploring an RPG world that looks like this.


Note: This is a little more disjointed/disorganized than most of my posts. I kind of jumped around a lot. Sorry about that. Not sure what happened, but hopefully it's not too hard to read through.