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I took time during the last days to play a bit through all these games. Obviously I haven't finished them all, and some I didn't like much so I only played a bit at the beginning. But I feel ready to give a vote since there are only 3 days left.
Most of them I consider pretty good on an average basis. Choosing only one is a bit difficult, since there are multiple criteria to select over. By theme / genre / environment, No More Villains was most to my liking. But by quality, immersion and "best game", there are two I found impressive; Dungeon Men and Legacy. I believe both deserve saluting for the amount of work and quality put into them, as they felt like the largest OHR projects so far. If I was to vote one game as best, I believe that would be Legacy by BMR overall.
Anyway, here are my rankings and a short opinion on each:
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Universal Wars by jcenterprises: 3 / 10 - There wasn't anything that attracted me about this one. Simple graphics, and not a very happy and entertaining theme either. I played a bit at the beginning but not more.
Illusions by MasterK: 6 / 10 - Nice looking and nicely done. Still didn't have the element to make me keep playing much, but I liked the idea and what I saw at the beginning.
DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons by KF Harlock and Shizuma: 8 / 10 - I didn't get to play it a lot, but what I saw seemed very impressive. Great sprite quality, and a lot of complexity and detail especially in the castle. It also has a nice hero customization screen at the beginning. Totally a good one.
Reign of Grelok by misac: 4 / 10 - Seemed pretty dull and plain, so I didn't play this one much either. Nothing that felt interesting or special to me however.
Legacy by BMR: 9 / 10: My favorite in terms of size and quality (though the theme isn't necessarily my style). The unique mechanics, amount of choice, dialogues, etc. are unique and very eye-catching for an OHR game. Total salutes for the work done on this one! At the same time it's also very buggy, and only a few areas are finished... but what's been done has been done very nicely.
Super Penguin Chef by Mogri: 5 / 10 - Good I guess. Graphics don't look too bad, though there's nothing very entertaining and special about it either for me (at least not to the point where I played). Seemed like a nicer theme however.
AR-PUH-GUH! by Meowskivich: 4 / 10 - Tried it a bit, but nothing seemed special once again. It looked ok though.
Kinvesard: Epilogue of the Princess by Spoonweaver: 7 / 10 - The theme and style aren't my favorite, and it also seemed pretty small at first. But the graphics and mapping are pretty good. It also has some nice mechanics. Sadly I couldn't get too far due to the big difficulty.
Dreg Sector: The Tract by Willy Elektrix: 7 / 10 - I like this one! An original idea for OHR, and pretty well done at it too. Didn't play it much due to high difficulty either though.
NO MORE VILLAINS by Fenrir-Lunaris: 7 / 10 - I would lie to say there's something special in terms of mechanics and immersion here. Most of it is also a movie and you don't get to play a lot. Still, I liked it... and in terms of theme and style it was really amazing. Half of it was a hilarious parody... half was quite impressive and well thought of. I couldn't give this any less than 7.
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw by The Wobbler: 7 / 10 - Not my style. But it has some pretty good visuals, and what I saw of Beta City looked pretty alright.
The K'hyurbhi Lands by FnrrfYgmSchnish: 7 / 10 - Graphics are just enough to be considered decent, but it is pretty playable and solid. Haven't played a lot through it yet, but I like it and might continue it soon. The style it went for is pretty interesting and nice too.
Silhouette by Mystic: 3 / 10 - Sadly no for this one. It looks pretty simple from the start, the theme isn't very interesting, and I also don't like the custom battle mechanics at all. But it is an attempt at doing something different.
Abel by BlastedEarth: 7 / 10 - The theme felt pretty depressing so I didn't spend a lot of time in it. But what was done looks of very good quality and in good order, so it deserves a good mark.
Final Dragon Legacy by mjohnson092088: 8 / 10 - This one is very nice too! Quite good looks and everything seems very solid as well.
Legendary Heroes by Spoonweaver: 5 / 10 - Didn't have an element to make me try it a lot, and it's not my style. But it looks ok.
Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:28 am 
Sat Jan 12, 2013 1:14 am
I haven't played most of the games, and I don't expect to do so by the 15th, but I have really enjoyed the ones I've played.
DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons: 10/10. All of the points. This game is riddled with bugs, but it's also incredibly ambitious and manages to accomplish most of that ambition. Particularly relevant to this contest is the fact that it manages to make the ~MP stat a useful and important mechanic across the entire game. What other game can make that claim?
Dreg Sector: Chick Tract: 8/10. While the execution wasn't perfect, the joy of discovery abounds in this game if you're willing to stick past the first ten minutes. It suffers from poor pacing, but manages to be compelling anyway.
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw: 6/10. I want to give this more points. The short demo teases at some really cool ideas, and the game is stuffed with character. But I have to vote for the game that exists, not the game that this game suggests will exist, and there's just not enough here to follow through on the promises the game makes. Props to Mr. Harrington for putting this out the door anyway; I'll definitely be anticipating a larger release. (P.S. Where is my Village People RPG?)
...And that's it, sadly. I'm sorry I haven't played your game!
Note to Pepsi Ranger: It looks like some people have edited additional votes into their posts, so if you're tabulating this as you go, you'll need to go back and re-check.
Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks
DUNGEONMEN: Men of Dungeons: 10/10. All of the points. This game is riddled with bugs, but it's also incredibly ambitious and manages to accomplish most of that ambition. Particularly relevant to this contest is the fact that it manages to make the ~MP stat a useful and important mechanic across the entire game. What other game can make that claim?
Dreg Sector: Chick Tract: 8/10. While the execution wasn't perfect, the joy of discovery abounds in this game if you're willing to stick past the first ten minutes. It suffers from poor pacing, but manages to be compelling anyway.
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw: 6/10. I want to give this more points. The short demo teases at some really cool ideas, and the game is stuffed with character. But I have to vote for the game that exists, not the game that this game suggests will exist, and there's just not enough here to follow through on the promises the game makes. Props to Mr. Harrington for putting this out the door anyway; I'll definitely be anticipating a larger release. (P.S. Where is my Village People RPG?)
...And that's it, sadly. I'm sorry I haven't played your game!
Note to Pepsi Ranger: It looks like some people have edited additional votes into their posts, so if you're tabulating this as you go, you'll need to go back and re-check.
Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks
Sat Jan 12, 2013 3:52 am
MASSIVE REVIEW / VOTE DUMP!
I've now managed to play through all the games, and voted on all of them here. I've also tried to give each game as detailed of a review as I could. I really enjoyed playing some of these, and it's been a lot of fun taking part in this contest. Without further ado...
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AR-PUH-GUH!!
By Meowskvich
My initial impression of AR-PUH-GUH!! is that it would be a joke game; a genre which I’m not totally into. This impression was based upon the title, which I assume to be a spin on the pronunciation of “RPG”, as well as the title screen, which seems like it’s drawn in an intentionally bad way.
Fortunately, once I did start playing, I realized that the game itself seems to have a more serious intent than the title and title screen conveyed. I have to say I really enjoy how the game opened, with the ability to choose between a fairly wide variety of classes, broken down into broad categorical combat roles. I feel like a good amount of thought was put into the game’s underlying mechanics, and I really appreciate something like that.
That said, however, the finished work could definitely use some polish. For instance, while there seems to be thought given to some kind of class system, the actual battle system itself, where these classes have the opportunity to distinguish themselves from one another, is sorely lacking. In general, the game falls into the usual OHR trap of having battles that are far too long. This isn’t to say, of course, that there is an objective “right length” for battles, but rather simply that if battles are going to last more than one or two turns, there should be some tactical element to what’s going on, so that the player doesn’t find themselves holding down the space bar, choosing the default attack over and over until the enemy runs out of HP. Unfortunately, that’s almost exactly what I was doing here (in principle anyway; in reality, you do have to choose the default attack from a menu rather than simply hitting the space bar, but the point still stands). There was only one attack to be utilized, so options in combat were entirely limited, making me wonder how truly differentiated the classes are. Moreover, on the few occasions the enemies were given tactical maneuvers, they made no sense. For instance, there is one enemy, the Pixlor, that can hit you with a stun attack. However, that is it’s only attack; it cannot damage your HP at all, but only stun you. Since the Pixlor is only ever fought in isolation and not with other enemies that CAN harm you, this is senseless, and serves only to make the already long battles longer. The game’s first boss battle, against the Tob, amounted to more of the same.
In short, there are some solid concepts here that are, at present, failing in execution. My recommendations to Meowskvich would be to expand the repertoire of skills available at the beginning of the game, and to more importantly make sure that these skills are actually necessary in order to win combats against more strategically challenging enemies. The battles should be fun, not an unbearable slog. Less important than that but still worth mentioning is refining the graphical style a bit. The simplistic graphics and animations are fine and for the most part work well, but with just a bit more detail, the environments could be more differentiated from one another, while retaining the same sense of clarity they currently have.
RATING: 3
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COOL GUY BOB SURLAW
By “The Wobbler”
Here was an entry that I enjoyed quite a bit. Within the first few seconds of the game, I was already shown what the game in its entirety would be like: a funky, quirky adventure with the much-loved Walthros crew. The wonderful scrolling tiled background lifted out of Earthbound, the way the opening narration is presented, and the bouncing bassy music all combined to really hook me within the opening moments, and to accurately represent the game at the same time.
Once I was into the game itself, it didn’t disappoint. Being presented with the option to turn battles off entirely indicated to me that the focus of this game was going to be the story and characters, and in most cases, this would worry me, as I don’t find too many OHR games that I consider to have particularly good writing or characters. That said, all of the characters in this game are very well-represented by their dialogue, and deliver the comedic goods as well. Most every textbox in the game is simultaneously a joke, as well as something that tells you more about the characters themselves.
The appeal of the writing, however, isn’t just that it’s well-written, but that it drives the main mechanic of the game: the branching dialogue and its endemic “alignment” system. I played through the New Beta City area enough times to realize that the options you choose really do make an impact on the game, and there are actually a number of “joke endings” that you can achieve by doing scummy things like hitting on Super Walrus Man’s underage daughter. It seems like the full version is going to be a lot of fun when it comes to trying to locate all of these endings. It also seems as if your alignment is eventually going to make a major impact in terms of allowing you access to different areas of the map, which is also exciting.
Notably, even though the battle system is entirely optional, what is there is quite good. The battles are for the most part snappy, and where they aren’t, it is for good reason: many of the enemies have some unique tactical trick that has to be employed in order to beat them. For instance, an enemy that is wreathed in flames isn’t able to be damaged normally until the Czarina uses her water magic and extinguishes them. This kind of tactical complexity is one of the first times I’ve seen the OHR’s “Transmogrify” function used to its potential, and it really pays off in terms of keeping the player engaged in combat.
I’m not particularly well-versed in musical theory and don’t have a lot of meaningful things to say about it, so I don’t frequently discuss it in game reviews, but in this case I have to make a small exception. The game’s music is excellent throughout (although I may be a bit biased, since Glock and Mr. 8-Bit also provided the soundtrack for my Dungeonmen: Men of Dungeons), and the New Beta City track is one of the best original OHR tracks I’ve ever heard in any game.
If I had to come up with something to complain about in this game, I would have to say that the disparity in graphics is sometimes jarring. The characters are, without exception, EXCELLENT, and generally have a great deal of characterization conveyed through things like eyebrow raises and other tiny details. As well, many of the maptiles are quite excellent; all of the details in the surgery scene in the beginning, as well as in Bob’s house are really charming and well-done. However, some of the maptiles are merely serviceable, such as those on the mountain. This is, I stress, only a problem because the rest of the game looks so good. I understand that the game is going for a simplistic and cartoony look, but I think there’s a way to achieve this and still have some necessary details incorporated, such as shadows and depth cues, which would be particularly helpful in the mountain stage.
All in all, I thought this was one of the better games in the contest. It’s rare that an OHR game’s music, writing, and gameplay all work together so harmoniously, and I definitely look forward to seeing more of it.
RATING: 8
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SILHOUETTE
By Mystic
This was another one I liked quite a bit. My first impression was that it was going to be a unique presentation of the usual OHR mechanics, and it really delivered on that.
Virtually every aspect of the engine has been tweaked or overhauled in some sense to work more seamlessly with the author’s vision, and this is something I respect a great deal. From the truly top-down graphics, to the scripted battle system, to the reworked menu system which shows you in a more clear way how different equips are affecting your stats, everything feels unique and fresh in spite of using our beloved old engine.
The real question, then, is does it all work? For the most part, yes! The text was snappy and compelling, and the dungeon was designed in such a way to keep you moving forward towards increasingly complex goals. The way that you were given items at different points in time and then had to utilize them in combat was very elegantly handled, and serves as a good introduction to the combat system. If it were not handled so well, I might have been overwhelmed by the first tough enemy, the crawler, and not bothered to advance any further. However, because I’d already been trained that equipping orbs in different areas has different results, I knew it was simply a matter of adopting a different equipment setup, and so it was. In this sense, all of the battles in the game are quite well-balanced.
The game isn’t without its problems, however. After beating the Shield Golem and depositing the seed and water in the soil patch, I felt like I had done everything I could in the game, but couldn’t see where to advance from that point forward. I backtracked 3 or 4 times but couldn’t find anything else to do, despite that I only had two orbs, and the readme said that there were four total orbs that could be acquired. A friend of mine was playing along with me over Skype, and he said that for some reason, there was no Shield Golem at all for him; the room with the soil patch was totally unguarded. After hearing this, I began to assume that perhaps some bug had happened and I was supposed to have been able to acquire an item from the soil after watering the seed? I’m not sure, but I was eventually forced to reluctantly quit.
The good thing is that I *wanted* to see more! Ultimately, this was a very compelling game, and one of my favorites in the contest. I was disappointed when I couldn’t find anything further to do, and definitely want to see more of it in the future.
RATING: 7
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NO MORE VILLAINS
By Fenrir-Lunaris
Let me preface by saying that I don’t think I’m the right audience for this work. Upon loading it, I was immediately struck by two things. One was how good Fenrir’s sprites are, which is something I feel we’ve all come to expect at this point, and I absolutely have to give him credit as far as that is concerned. The second thing, however, was how much text there was. The textboxes were laden with jokes, but I didn’t really get too many of them, and the rest were just references to like… six year old internet memes, so it wore thin really quickly. It wasn’t a good sign to me that by the time I actually had gained control of my character, I was already lightly skimming the text instead of truly reading it.
From that point on, I found it very hard to follow the narrative, as I felt it was mostly a loose collection of discordant scenes held together by joke references to things like Nyan-Cat or ARFENHOUSE or Fist of the North Star. I understand that the characters are supposedly being forced through some kind of discordant world, so I *get* that aspect of it; what I didn’t get was *why* they were being subjected to this, or who the characters were, or what the overall purpose of anything was. To be frank, it seriously felt like the locations and “plot” were just an excuse to have a frame to hang the jokes and references on. I just found it very hard to enjoy anything that was going on.
In the end, my primary experience with this game was that I didn’t feel there was much of a game to it at all. It was more like a scripted movie with a few interactive scenes where you buy equipment from a shop (there’s only one choice for every character, so it’s a fairly rote process) or fight battles (it is virtually impossible to lose them, so I’m not sure what the point in making them interactive is). I don’t really have anything against this approach, in theory, but if I’m being honest, I have to say that I feel like it didn’t really live up to the point of this contest, which was to create a pure RPG using the core mechanics of the OHRRPGCE. As it stands, it’s hard to find where the “game” is in this work at all, and as for what *IS* there… again, I guess I’m just not the right audience for this.
RATING: 3
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LEGACY
By BMR
This is a game where I’ve been following the development since BMR first posted on these forums. I’ve been excited about it since, as pretty much everyone around here knows, it’s one of the more ambitious projects to be attempted in the OHR. My first impression of the game was that it is a project that takes itself very seriously, with a very methodically timed introduction, and fairly serious dialogue that is no real hurry to do anything except flesh out the world in which the characters live. This is usually a good sign to me, as I enjoy projects that seem to have some honesty or sincerity behind their production more than I do joke games. I was willing to play along!
The problems with the game quickly became evident, however. For every aspect of the design where the game reaches for new heights and tries to achieve something out of the ordinary, there are other aspects where basic details were overlooked by the author. For instance, BMR has put the “tall walkabouts” scripting to good use, but there are consequently a ton of issues with basic things like walking on top of crates or parts of a floor appearing on top of the characters in a nonsensical way. He created scripts to do naturalistic things like cause the heroes to follow you outside the “follow the leader” mechanics of the engine’s built-in caterpillar party bitset, but the sad reality is that this script causes the following heroes to get stuck on walls constantly, to obstruct your passage at other times, and to generally run about spastically whenever you’re standing still. In other words, a lot of effort was put into creating a new type of effect that just plain isn’t as good as what the engine can already do natively.
Herein, I think, lies my main problem with the game as a whole. There is a great attempt to be naturalistic with the presentation of this world because the author takes it seriously and wants to convey the sense that you are in a “real” world. I respect this intention, but when every aspect of a game is executed in a naturalistic way, the result is just tedium. For instance, of course an Imperial dungeon would be large and sprawling and contain rooms that are just empty cells or large piles of unimportant supplies, crates, barrels, sacks, etc. However, to integrate all this into the game results in a map that is much too large, boring to maneuver around, and frustrating to navigate. Of course there would be dozens of soldiers on hand to guard the Empire’s most feared prisoners, rather than just one or two. But to actually have to FIGHT through several dozen soldiers at the very beginning of the game? Especially with an extremely limited number of abilities, and no variation whatsoever in enemies? The result is, again, just boring and tedious; there’s too much asked of you and the lack of tactical depth does not warrant being forced to endure that many battles. Of course, if you had a conversation with a townsperson in real life, it would branch out organically instead of having them repeat the same information over and over. However, in practice in a game, this quickly resulted in every NPC I found having a massively unwieldy menu that I had to navigate in order to even acquire basic information. Again, it’s “realistic”, but it’s just not fun.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that I think the game is reaching too broadly and not deeply enough. There are a lot of little things that are neat, such as watching chickens run away from your character, but they ultimately don’t do as much to immerse me in the world as would a well-written scene of character development. There are huge walls of text, such as the conversation on the pirate ship, which seems to contain literally over one hundred text boxes, and they are dense with backstory, but with the way it’s presented, it serves to take the player out of the game with tedium and frustration more than it does to immerse them. In both of these cases, the game is committing the same basic error: it’s trying to do too many things, instead of trying to achieve more with the basic mechanics that are already there. Consider that an RPG is something like theatre, or like an opera. What is more important to a production of the Ring cycle; that there are realistic diegetic details in the background of every scene, or that Brunhilda sings with passion and fire?
Still, this is a respectable work, and it is by no means my intention to discourage BMR from continuing it. I simply think the game would benefit from a realization that the best artistic decisions are often as subtractive as they are additive.
RATING: 5
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ILLUSIONS
By Master K
My first impressions of this title were that it looked very much “like an OHR game”. I love the OHR a great deal and don’t mean this as a slight at all; in fact, I think you can make a fantastic game just by adhering to the OHR’s most basic mechanics. As such, I was excited to play through this one and see what it did to really push the OHR’s internal features to the limit.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized that it was also “very much an OHR game” in its negative aspects as well. As long-time users of the OHR know, there are certain flaws that are very common to OHR games, and for some reason, virtually every one of those showed up here. Battles were overly long with minimal tactics depth (I found myself holding down the space bar a great deal). The graphics were serviceable but could have benefitted a great deal from just some minor touches. The maps were large and featureless, with the player often walking through wide expanses of nothing for long periods of time. In short, nearly everything about the game was just very underwhelming. Coupled with these basic mistakes of game design, there were some scripting errors as well, such as the need to have to scroll through the decorative part of the opening menu instead of actually starting on the first selectable caption, or the fact that if you type an “F” while trying to enter the password on the chest in the hero’s bedroom (a neat touch, incidentally), it triggers another script altogether.
What this all adds up to for me is that Illusions isn’t necessarily a “bad game” by any means, but it’s certainly a work that is in need of some polish. With a great deal of work and some study of how other OHR games have gone wrong over the years, this one could eventually shape up into something nice.
RATING: 4
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REIGN OF GRELOK
By Misac
I have a special place in my heart for games like this. There are, to be sure, deep technical flaws in nearly every aspect of its presentation, but they are all delivered with such honesty and sincerity that I found myself having fun the entire time in spite of it. My dominating first impression was “hey, this guy really wanted to make a game!”, and hey, so did I, which is why I downloaded the OHR in the first place all that time ago. Maybe it’s simply nostalgic, but I basically found it impossible not to like this game.
However, in the interest of objectivity, let me outline the actual technical problems that do exist. The game is rife with language errors, ranging from simple misspelled words to names that change spelling at various times to outrageous run-on sentences. The town, such as it is, consists of a person too afraid to leave their house, a blacksmith who threatens to murder you for talking to him, and a mayor and priest who are getting drunk together. You can trigger the first “boss” encounter an infinite number of times. There’s a sprite ripped from somewhere (the drunken mariner). The graphical errors are numerous; you frequently find yourself walking on top of walls, or under grass. There is no way to heal outside of battle, or to ever save the game, as far as I could find. The game abruptly ends after the last battle, booting you back to the title screen where you have to start all over again due to the lack of saving. It’s not “Magnus”, but it’s not far from it either.
In spite of all this, however, the game conveys a sense of enthusiasm that I have to respect. It’s all about fighting zombies in a church and then, oh hey, here’s a red crystal I bet the wizard knows what it is, oh man I got the magic sword, oh hey a magical tome I wonder what this does, oh I gotta kill the demon lord? I’m on it. As flawed as it might be, what is here is presented in a totally sincere and loving way, and I played through the whole thing twice just because it was refreshing in a way. Maybe outside the HotOHR contest, I would rate this lower, but if you want to see the heart of the OHRRPGCE, in more ways than one, it’s on full display here.
RATING: 5
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UNIVERSAL WARS
By JC Enterprises
My first impression of this game is that it was going to be a unique approach to the typical OHR RPG, and it turns out I was quite right. The whole game is fairly quirky and it does a good job of being humorous without being cloying.
I greatly enjoyed the fact that you could name all of the heroes, as well as their hometown, and all the other towns you come across. It really helps you invest yourself in the game, in the kind of way that Earthbound tries to do. I liked the extremely atypical graphical presentation of some things, like a bull made entirely out of crude geometrical shapes. I also liked the fact that the story involves one of the party being bitten by what is for all intents and purposes a were-cow.
If the above paragraph seems disorganized and all over the place, that’s because the game itself is. You’ll rapidly jump from fighting a bull to encountering a mysterious swordsman, to watching a guy stuff himself with so many burgers he turns into a cow. That said, while this degree of tenuous freedom is funny in the narrative, it causes the rest of the game to break down. Combat is handled just as loosely as the plot, and the result is long tedious battles of holding down the spacebar to use the same attacks over and over (there is no option in battle other than “Attack”). Map construction subscribes to the same theory and consequently, you often find yourself wandering across huge expanses of nothingness, or going from the first floor to the fourth floor of a dungeon by taking a single staircase. The actual textboxes that convey the humorous story are overstuffed and there are too many of them, and by the time I reached the first boss, I was skimming them.
In short, this is another game that has some promise, but which could do with some definite polishing. There’s a quirky and original adventure to be had in here somewhere, but to draw it out is going to acquire approaching some aspects of the design with a tighter vision and greater seriousness.
RATING: 4
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THE K’HYURBHI LANDS
By FnrrfYgmSchinish
Another favorite. My first impression of this game is that it looked downright professional, like a true forgotten NES RPG title, and it never let up with that level of quality.
What’s not to like about this? The graphics are tightly put together and full of amazing 8-bit detail. The characters are all well-designed and differentiated both in the narrative and in combat. The world is detailed and complex, but it lets you discover that in a natural and organic way rather than forcing it on you all at once. The dungeons are concise and straightforward without being overly simple in terms of how you navigate them. I wish I could say more about this game, but frankly, I find very little to criticize. It was a joy to play, and I really appreciated the depth inherent in it, with such features as having to choose what order in which characters partake in training, or all the differentiated combat abilities. There are some battles that seemed a bit unfair in terms of not being able to heal yourself adequately with just one party member, but this isn’t even necessarily a flaw, as it pretty accurately replicates the NES RPG experience. I also wish that it was longer.
On the whole, this is my very favorite kind of game for the OHR. It’s indicative of a deeply personal project on the creator’s part, and has no trappings at all of being something made by a committee; it may not be the kind of thing that would ever see a wide professional release, but isn’t that the point of indie games in the first place? In addition to its originality, it’s plain that there’s a great deal of care put into every aspect of its design, from the perfect graphics to the atmospheric music, to the thoughtful combat design. I would really love to see more of this.
RATING: 9
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KINVESARD
By Spoonweaver
I really enjoyed this one a great deal. My first impression was that it was going to go the route of a classic dungeon crawler when I was asked to assemble a team of warriors from a multitude of races and classes, and on this front, it did not disappoint at all.
The overall design of the game is simple, but it’s clear a lot of work and thought was put into it. The races were all distinct from one another and easily distinguishable in terms of how they differed statistically, and all of the classes had a very clearly delineated combat role. Once the game proper started, I was actually stunned by how good the environmental graphics are, and how atmospheric the dungeons managed to be.
One positive thing I really want to emphasize about this one is just how good the dungeon design itself is. There’s only one dungeon, but it really delivers. There’s pretty much some kind of compelling gimmick to every room you find yourself in, and even with just a few rooms, there are already branching paths that you are only able to access based on what classes you have with you. Moreover, one of the optional puzzles, a large room of switches that alternately illuminate and de-illuminate tiles is one of my favorite things I saw in the entirety of this contest. It’s just a damn great RPG puzzle; simple enough to learn in a matter of seconds (WITHOUT an interruptive tutorial) but frustrating to master, and finally rewarding when you do.
That’s not to say the game is without its drawbacks, however. The character and enemy graphics are nowhere near as good as the environmental graphics, and this creates some sense of discordance within the project. The combat itself is somewhat unbalanced, with skills that seem to do nothing worthwhile (such as the healer’s mana drain) and enemies that are powerful enough to force you into a strategy of pure attrition. In a game with selectable classes, you almost expect to have a viable chance of victory regardless of your party arrangement, but in this case, I don’t think it would be possible to win without a healer in tow. This isn’t necessarily a flaw, per se, but it is almost worth questioning why the game allows choice of class at all if it adopts this approach (choice of race has more obvious benefits and isn’t in question). Also, the game is extremely short. You can see everything there is to do in about half an hour (or much less if you already know how to solve the aforementioned puzzle). This won’t be an issue if the project is actually continued in the future, but for a contest that was literally over a year in the making, I just kinda expected a bit more content.
All things considered, however, this was one of the better entries in this contest. I appreciated the atmospheric graphics, the brooding music, and the serious approach to dungeon design. I really hope Spoonweaver chooses to continue working on it.
RATING: 7
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SUPER PENGUIN CHEF
By Mogri
Any time I play a game by Mogri, I know I’m in for something with unique mechanics that push Hamsterspeak to its limits. Super Penguin Chef is no exception to this, and it was consequently one of the games I enjoyed the most in this contest.
The mechanics of the game are quite complex, but to Mogri’s credit, he introduces them to the player very eloquently. For instance, recipe combining is introduced at a time when you really only have one viable option. Resource acquisition is introduced in such a way that you can control how much combat you have to endure, if any at all. It’s only after you start making money through the restaurant that the loan shark appears and introduces a new (and excellent) mechanic. It’s a game that very expertly combines a gentle learning curve that doesn’t leave you overwhelmed, with a constant sense of tension and urgency due to looming debts and deadlines. Most importantly of all, it’s actually quite fun to play, with funny characters and dialogue that ensure that everpresent tension never gets to interfere with the simple enjoyment of the game.
There are certain flaws, however, that are worth mentioning. The first is that, while the character graphics are all quite good, the environmental graphics are, in many places, somewhat lacking. I understand that the style is supposed to be simple and cartoony, but I feel like the environments tread the line between simplistic and broken-looking just a shade too closely. Also, while it’s clear thought was put into the battle system with its customized leveling system, I kind of felt like combat was just a distraction from the parts of the game that I was really interested in. These are minor complaints, ultimately. More serious are a few devastating bugs, such as the fact that several times I entered hunting locations only to have no way back; there were no doorways by which to head back to town, and the merchants seemed to randomly not be present as well. This caused me to have to resort to debug keys a few times in order to avoid being stuck.
Ultimately, this was a game I got a great deal of enjoyment out of, and which I intend to play more of in the future. I almost feel like the combat is superfluous to the rest of the title, but the actual resource management, cooking, investment, and showdown parts of the game are amazingly well-done and fun to take part in. One of my favorites in the contest.
RATING: 7
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DREG SECTOR: THE TRACT
By Willy Elektrix
Willy Elektrix continues to be one of my favorite developers for the OHR. His “Castle on the Night Land” was the best debut I’ve ever seen and I’ve been engaged in one way or another with everything he’s produced since. As soon as I saw the title screen for Dreg Sector, with its bold colors and sinister spacey music courtesy of SDHawk, I knew I was in for more of what I always love from this guy.
Dreg Sector is an extremely well put-together game, in that all of the systems are elegantly introduced just after a basic exploration of the planet Heap, where you begin the narrative, and that all of the game’s separate components work together to produce an outrageously strong sense of atmosphere that is by no means common to the OHR. Think “Super Metroid” levels of atmosphere. The sparse graphics that Willy is known for find their perfect home in the inky void of space, and the color choices, slim as they are, perfectly convey a neon 1980’s sci-fi aesthetic. The combat is slow and ponderous, but this is actually to its benefit as it manages to fit perfectly into the feel of a space adventure, and also because every single encounter is heavily tactical and strategic in nature. You will not be winning any battles here simply by holding down the space bar. The music also fits perfectly, and basically announces to the community that our slim stable of musicians has gained a new major talent in Hawk.
This is another entry where I struggle to find anything to really criticize. The combat is, make no mistake, brutal and unforgiving, but I hardly consider this a fault. If anything, it’s the limitations of the engine itself that sort of get in the way. For example, you can recruit a fleet of ships from a wide selection of ships that all have different abilities. Any one of these abilities might prove absolutely crucial in any given conflict. Unfortunately, once a combat begins, you’re stuck with the fleet that you have, and you can often end up in situations wherein the mechanics work against you, such as ships that relentlessly regenerate their health, while you don’t have the one-shot firepower necessary to take them out. If there was some mechanic by which you could choose your line-up from your stable of ships at the start of each combat, after you see what enemies you’ll be facing, it may not only get rid of this frustration, but actually enhance the tactical value of the game.
All things considered, this was one of my favorite games in the contest as well. It’s easy to approach but has a great deal of depth, and the atmosphere is so compelling it just draws you in and really makes you want to explore every inch of this galaxy. Another one I’ll be returning to in the future.
RATING: 8
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DUNGEONMEN: MEN OF DUNGEONS
By KF Harlock and Shizuma
Obviously, this is my own game, so I’m not going to sit here and talk about it in the third person, as that would be weird. Instead, I’ll just give what I hope is an objective(-ish) bullet point review of what I think worked and what didn’t work.
What worked:
- I’m really happy with the graphics in this game, and how the environments and characters mesh together.
- The abundance of flavor text has been pretty well received and I’ve heard several people talk about how it relieves the monotony of dungeon-crawling and helps create a deeper sense of world.
- I’m happy with how the introduction and ending cinematics turned out; I’ve been wanting to do cutscenes that use slices for a long time now and was able to mostly achieve what I wanted with this one.
- I’m happy with the dialogue presented by NPCs; this is, like Spellshard, a game that I don’t think necessarily has a great or complex plot, but which I tried quite hard to instill with GOOD WRITING even in the context of a sparse plot. I tend to smile when I read through the game, and I think that’s something of a sign that I succeeded.
- I think the classes overall are very good, and the three layers of skills (spells, free skills, and dungeon skills) add a lot of differentiation.
What didn’t work:
- There should have been less randomization; too many people have complained about Ninja’s disarm traps skill having to pass two checks: a check to find the trap, and then a check to disarm it. Should have simplified some in cases like this.
- Too many bugs! Permanent diseases, issues with the weapon system, mismatched “Look” command descriptions, etc. It’s possible to beat the game, but it could have stood to have a few more rounds of playtesting.
- While I like the weapon system, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat too complex to deal with using the OHR’s default shop system, since it doesn’t immediately show you what the bonuses of a given piece of equipment are. I include the old man next to the weapon shop who gives you the manual to address this somewhat, but I recognize that it’s problematic to ask people to refer back to this so often.
On the whole, I still need to do some revisions to this, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I was proud of what we accomplished already. Much (not all) of what I originally envisioned came through in the end, and that’s a hard thing to achieve.
RATING: 8
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RERELEASED GAMES
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ABEL
By Blasted Earth
At first, I was quite thrilled with the way this game presented itself. The green terminal lettering? The rusty metal borders? I’m a huge fan of the cyberpunk genre, and as such a seemingly well-made game that used a great deal of cyberpunk concepts and idioms was highly appealing to me. I went into it quite excited.
That said, I quickly realized that the game is at odds with itself. It’s another title where, for everything the creator got right, there’s some associated drawback as well. For instance, as good as the colors and fonts and overall cyberpunk look are, there are fundamental errors in perspective that make the maps hard to navigate. As cool as the concepts behind equipment are (Armitek! CEB! Swords and guns!), the actual combat isn’t terribly nuanced and comes across as rather dull, even by OHR standards. Once again, tactical depth is required here. I really enjoyed being able to assign my character a trait at the beginning, but its actual implementation in the game was lacking; the iaido strike I learned from taking the Eastern Swordsmanship trait was worse than my regular attack, and roughly 1/200 as powerful as the “Bash” command. As much thought seemed to be put into the conception of the world, much of it is conveyed in overlong textboxes full of misspellings and bad grammar.
In the end, this came across as a real mixed bag to me. I feel like it could be a very good game with some more polish, but as it stands, the experience was just kind of middling and average. I rated it a bit higher than average simply to reflect my bias for the lovely cyberpunk aesthetic it’s working at. I am disappointed to find out the project has been abandoned, because I’d love to see more of this.
RATING: 6
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LEGENDARY HEROES
By Spoonweaver
This is, unfortunately, another of the games that I just simply don’t think is for me. I knew I was in trouble when one of the very first textboxes in the game informed me that I have to go find some rats. You see, I hate MMORPGs. I hate every one I’ve ever tried to play. My girlfriend loves them. So, we have this running joke between us about that, and I frequently refer to MMORPGs as “hog-slaughtering simulators” or “pants-collecting games”. When the first thing I’m asked to do in a game is to go kill a swarm of rats, it immediately puts me in the mindset of a hog-slaughtering simulator, and at that point, I’m just taken out of it. I’m sure that at some point, the tasks given to the Legendary Heroes of the title become more befitting a group of Legendary Heroes, but to me, opening a game with killing rats or pigs is something I just can’t recover from. I know it’s silly, and I know it’s biased, but that’s how I feel.
I did keep playing for some time, however, in an effort to be more objective about it, and I never really felt like the experience came together. The graphics are all fairly lacking, and the narrative is presented in a very amateurish fashion, with a great many misspellings and grammatical impairment. The combat was, for the most part, not engaging to me and I didn’t feel like the heroes were really all that distinct from one another, either mechanically or plot-wise.
For what it’s worth, everything I don’t care for about this game I felt was improved upon substantially in Kinvesard, which is by the same author. Like I said, I think it just ultimately comes down to this not being the game for me, while Kinvesard surely was. I just can’t rate it very highly.
RATING: 4
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FINAL DRAGON LEGACY
By Mrjohnson092088
With a name like Final Dragon Legacy, you expect a throwback to classic RPGs going in. What I didn’t expect was for it to be handled so well. Nearly everything about the game is quite simple, but executed in a supremely competent way that made it quite fun and engaging for me.
I’m not sure if the entire game strives to emulate retro NES graphics perfectly, but it doesn’t matter too much, because what is there seems quite visually consistent. Everything about the game feels right. The three-color heroes are all very distinct looking and iconic in their color choices. The combat is nuanced and full of abilities and options that keep things strategic and interesting. The maps are compact and arranged in such a way as to be intuitive to anyone who has played classic RPGs such as Dragon Warrior. The way the narrative is presented, with a number of small quests gradually coalescing into a larger meta-quest, is very true to form. Perhaps it is nostalgia talking, but I had a great time with this one.
In the end, this game is certainly nothing new, but it really takes the old material it’s emulating and works it to a high polish that results in a truly finished-feeling project. Even if it’s not terribly innovative, it’s a tightly developed and well-put-together game, and I found it a worthy entry to the contest.
RATING: 7
BEST DUNGEON
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KINVESARD
I’d love to see more of it, but what little is there is tight, controlled, looks good, and has at least one very cool puzzle.
BEST VILLAIN
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DREG SECTOR: THE TRACT
I’m a sucker for villains that take the form of giant faceless power structures, and this game really speaks to that sensibility.
SPELLSHARD: THE BLACK CROWN OF HORGOTH now COMPLETE! Grab it today!
I've now managed to play through all the games, and voted on all of them here. I've also tried to give each game as detailed of a review as I could. I really enjoyed playing some of these, and it's been a lot of fun taking part in this contest. Without further ado...
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AR-PUH-GUH!!
By Meowskvich
My initial impression of AR-PUH-GUH!! is that it would be a joke game; a genre which I’m not totally into. This impression was based upon the title, which I assume to be a spin on the pronunciation of “RPG”, as well as the title screen, which seems like it’s drawn in an intentionally bad way.
Fortunately, once I did start playing, I realized that the game itself seems to have a more serious intent than the title and title screen conveyed. I have to say I really enjoy how the game opened, with the ability to choose between a fairly wide variety of classes, broken down into broad categorical combat roles. I feel like a good amount of thought was put into the game’s underlying mechanics, and I really appreciate something like that.
That said, however, the finished work could definitely use some polish. For instance, while there seems to be thought given to some kind of class system, the actual battle system itself, where these classes have the opportunity to distinguish themselves from one another, is sorely lacking. In general, the game falls into the usual OHR trap of having battles that are far too long. This isn’t to say, of course, that there is an objective “right length” for battles, but rather simply that if battles are going to last more than one or two turns, there should be some tactical element to what’s going on, so that the player doesn’t find themselves holding down the space bar, choosing the default attack over and over until the enemy runs out of HP. Unfortunately, that’s almost exactly what I was doing here (in principle anyway; in reality, you do have to choose the default attack from a menu rather than simply hitting the space bar, but the point still stands). There was only one attack to be utilized, so options in combat were entirely limited, making me wonder how truly differentiated the classes are. Moreover, on the few occasions the enemies were given tactical maneuvers, they made no sense. For instance, there is one enemy, the Pixlor, that can hit you with a stun attack. However, that is it’s only attack; it cannot damage your HP at all, but only stun you. Since the Pixlor is only ever fought in isolation and not with other enemies that CAN harm you, this is senseless, and serves only to make the already long battles longer. The game’s first boss battle, against the Tob, amounted to more of the same.
In short, there are some solid concepts here that are, at present, failing in execution. My recommendations to Meowskvich would be to expand the repertoire of skills available at the beginning of the game, and to more importantly make sure that these skills are actually necessary in order to win combats against more strategically challenging enemies. The battles should be fun, not an unbearable slog. Less important than that but still worth mentioning is refining the graphical style a bit. The simplistic graphics and animations are fine and for the most part work well, but with just a bit more detail, the environments could be more differentiated from one another, while retaining the same sense of clarity they currently have.
RATING: 3
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COOL GUY BOB SURLAW
By “The Wobbler”
Here was an entry that I enjoyed quite a bit. Within the first few seconds of the game, I was already shown what the game in its entirety would be like: a funky, quirky adventure with the much-loved Walthros crew. The wonderful scrolling tiled background lifted out of Earthbound, the way the opening narration is presented, and the bouncing bassy music all combined to really hook me within the opening moments, and to accurately represent the game at the same time.
Once I was into the game itself, it didn’t disappoint. Being presented with the option to turn battles off entirely indicated to me that the focus of this game was going to be the story and characters, and in most cases, this would worry me, as I don’t find too many OHR games that I consider to have particularly good writing or characters. That said, all of the characters in this game are very well-represented by their dialogue, and deliver the comedic goods as well. Most every textbox in the game is simultaneously a joke, as well as something that tells you more about the characters themselves.
The appeal of the writing, however, isn’t just that it’s well-written, but that it drives the main mechanic of the game: the branching dialogue and its endemic “alignment” system. I played through the New Beta City area enough times to realize that the options you choose really do make an impact on the game, and there are actually a number of “joke endings” that you can achieve by doing scummy things like hitting on Super Walrus Man’s underage daughter. It seems like the full version is going to be a lot of fun when it comes to trying to locate all of these endings. It also seems as if your alignment is eventually going to make a major impact in terms of allowing you access to different areas of the map, which is also exciting.
Notably, even though the battle system is entirely optional, what is there is quite good. The battles are for the most part snappy, and where they aren’t, it is for good reason: many of the enemies have some unique tactical trick that has to be employed in order to beat them. For instance, an enemy that is wreathed in flames isn’t able to be damaged normally until the Czarina uses her water magic and extinguishes them. This kind of tactical complexity is one of the first times I’ve seen the OHR’s “Transmogrify” function used to its potential, and it really pays off in terms of keeping the player engaged in combat.
I’m not particularly well-versed in musical theory and don’t have a lot of meaningful things to say about it, so I don’t frequently discuss it in game reviews, but in this case I have to make a small exception. The game’s music is excellent throughout (although I may be a bit biased, since Glock and Mr. 8-Bit also provided the soundtrack for my Dungeonmen: Men of Dungeons), and the New Beta City track is one of the best original OHR tracks I’ve ever heard in any game.
If I had to come up with something to complain about in this game, I would have to say that the disparity in graphics is sometimes jarring. The characters are, without exception, EXCELLENT, and generally have a great deal of characterization conveyed through things like eyebrow raises and other tiny details. As well, many of the maptiles are quite excellent; all of the details in the surgery scene in the beginning, as well as in Bob’s house are really charming and well-done. However, some of the maptiles are merely serviceable, such as those on the mountain. This is, I stress, only a problem because the rest of the game looks so good. I understand that the game is going for a simplistic and cartoony look, but I think there’s a way to achieve this and still have some necessary details incorporated, such as shadows and depth cues, which would be particularly helpful in the mountain stage.
All in all, I thought this was one of the better games in the contest. It’s rare that an OHR game’s music, writing, and gameplay all work together so harmoniously, and I definitely look forward to seeing more of it.
RATING: 8
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SILHOUETTE
By Mystic
This was another one I liked quite a bit. My first impression was that it was going to be a unique presentation of the usual OHR mechanics, and it really delivered on that.
Virtually every aspect of the engine has been tweaked or overhauled in some sense to work more seamlessly with the author’s vision, and this is something I respect a great deal. From the truly top-down graphics, to the scripted battle system, to the reworked menu system which shows you in a more clear way how different equips are affecting your stats, everything feels unique and fresh in spite of using our beloved old engine.
The real question, then, is does it all work? For the most part, yes! The text was snappy and compelling, and the dungeon was designed in such a way to keep you moving forward towards increasingly complex goals. The way that you were given items at different points in time and then had to utilize them in combat was very elegantly handled, and serves as a good introduction to the combat system. If it were not handled so well, I might have been overwhelmed by the first tough enemy, the crawler, and not bothered to advance any further. However, because I’d already been trained that equipping orbs in different areas has different results, I knew it was simply a matter of adopting a different equipment setup, and so it was. In this sense, all of the battles in the game are quite well-balanced.
The game isn’t without its problems, however. After beating the Shield Golem and depositing the seed and water in the soil patch, I felt like I had done everything I could in the game, but couldn’t see where to advance from that point forward. I backtracked 3 or 4 times but couldn’t find anything else to do, despite that I only had two orbs, and the readme said that there were four total orbs that could be acquired. A friend of mine was playing along with me over Skype, and he said that for some reason, there was no Shield Golem at all for him; the room with the soil patch was totally unguarded. After hearing this, I began to assume that perhaps some bug had happened and I was supposed to have been able to acquire an item from the soil after watering the seed? I’m not sure, but I was eventually forced to reluctantly quit.
The good thing is that I *wanted* to see more! Ultimately, this was a very compelling game, and one of my favorites in the contest. I was disappointed when I couldn’t find anything further to do, and definitely want to see more of it in the future.
RATING: 7
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NO MORE VILLAINS
By Fenrir-Lunaris
Let me preface by saying that I don’t think I’m the right audience for this work. Upon loading it, I was immediately struck by two things. One was how good Fenrir’s sprites are, which is something I feel we’ve all come to expect at this point, and I absolutely have to give him credit as far as that is concerned. The second thing, however, was how much text there was. The textboxes were laden with jokes, but I didn’t really get too many of them, and the rest were just references to like… six year old internet memes, so it wore thin really quickly. It wasn’t a good sign to me that by the time I actually had gained control of my character, I was already lightly skimming the text instead of truly reading it.
From that point on, I found it very hard to follow the narrative, as I felt it was mostly a loose collection of discordant scenes held together by joke references to things like Nyan-Cat or ARFENHOUSE or Fist of the North Star. I understand that the characters are supposedly being forced through some kind of discordant world, so I *get* that aspect of it; what I didn’t get was *why* they were being subjected to this, or who the characters were, or what the overall purpose of anything was. To be frank, it seriously felt like the locations and “plot” were just an excuse to have a frame to hang the jokes and references on. I just found it very hard to enjoy anything that was going on.
In the end, my primary experience with this game was that I didn’t feel there was much of a game to it at all. It was more like a scripted movie with a few interactive scenes where you buy equipment from a shop (there’s only one choice for every character, so it’s a fairly rote process) or fight battles (it is virtually impossible to lose them, so I’m not sure what the point in making them interactive is). I don’t really have anything against this approach, in theory, but if I’m being honest, I have to say that I feel like it didn’t really live up to the point of this contest, which was to create a pure RPG using the core mechanics of the OHRRPGCE. As it stands, it’s hard to find where the “game” is in this work at all, and as for what *IS* there… again, I guess I’m just not the right audience for this.
RATING: 3
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LEGACY
By BMR
This is a game where I’ve been following the development since BMR first posted on these forums. I’ve been excited about it since, as pretty much everyone around here knows, it’s one of the more ambitious projects to be attempted in the OHR. My first impression of the game was that it is a project that takes itself very seriously, with a very methodically timed introduction, and fairly serious dialogue that is no real hurry to do anything except flesh out the world in which the characters live. This is usually a good sign to me, as I enjoy projects that seem to have some honesty or sincerity behind their production more than I do joke games. I was willing to play along!
The problems with the game quickly became evident, however. For every aspect of the design where the game reaches for new heights and tries to achieve something out of the ordinary, there are other aspects where basic details were overlooked by the author. For instance, BMR has put the “tall walkabouts” scripting to good use, but there are consequently a ton of issues with basic things like walking on top of crates or parts of a floor appearing on top of the characters in a nonsensical way. He created scripts to do naturalistic things like cause the heroes to follow you outside the “follow the leader” mechanics of the engine’s built-in caterpillar party bitset, but the sad reality is that this script causes the following heroes to get stuck on walls constantly, to obstruct your passage at other times, and to generally run about spastically whenever you’re standing still. In other words, a lot of effort was put into creating a new type of effect that just plain isn’t as good as what the engine can already do natively.
Herein, I think, lies my main problem with the game as a whole. There is a great attempt to be naturalistic with the presentation of this world because the author takes it seriously and wants to convey the sense that you are in a “real” world. I respect this intention, but when every aspect of a game is executed in a naturalistic way, the result is just tedium. For instance, of course an Imperial dungeon would be large and sprawling and contain rooms that are just empty cells or large piles of unimportant supplies, crates, barrels, sacks, etc. However, to integrate all this into the game results in a map that is much too large, boring to maneuver around, and frustrating to navigate. Of course there would be dozens of soldiers on hand to guard the Empire’s most feared prisoners, rather than just one or two. But to actually have to FIGHT through several dozen soldiers at the very beginning of the game? Especially with an extremely limited number of abilities, and no variation whatsoever in enemies? The result is, again, just boring and tedious; there’s too much asked of you and the lack of tactical depth does not warrant being forced to endure that many battles. Of course, if you had a conversation with a townsperson in real life, it would branch out organically instead of having them repeat the same information over and over. However, in practice in a game, this quickly resulted in every NPC I found having a massively unwieldy menu that I had to navigate in order to even acquire basic information. Again, it’s “realistic”, but it’s just not fun.
Ultimately, what it comes down to is that I think the game is reaching too broadly and not deeply enough. There are a lot of little things that are neat, such as watching chickens run away from your character, but they ultimately don’t do as much to immerse me in the world as would a well-written scene of character development. There are huge walls of text, such as the conversation on the pirate ship, which seems to contain literally over one hundred text boxes, and they are dense with backstory, but with the way it’s presented, it serves to take the player out of the game with tedium and frustration more than it does to immerse them. In both of these cases, the game is committing the same basic error: it’s trying to do too many things, instead of trying to achieve more with the basic mechanics that are already there. Consider that an RPG is something like theatre, or like an opera. What is more important to a production of the Ring cycle; that there are realistic diegetic details in the background of every scene, or that Brunhilda sings with passion and fire?
Still, this is a respectable work, and it is by no means my intention to discourage BMR from continuing it. I simply think the game would benefit from a realization that the best artistic decisions are often as subtractive as they are additive.
RATING: 5
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ILLUSIONS
By Master K
My first impressions of this title were that it looked very much “like an OHR game”. I love the OHR a great deal and don’t mean this as a slight at all; in fact, I think you can make a fantastic game just by adhering to the OHR’s most basic mechanics. As such, I was excited to play through this one and see what it did to really push the OHR’s internal features to the limit.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized that it was also “very much an OHR game” in its negative aspects as well. As long-time users of the OHR know, there are certain flaws that are very common to OHR games, and for some reason, virtually every one of those showed up here. Battles were overly long with minimal tactics depth (I found myself holding down the space bar a great deal). The graphics were serviceable but could have benefitted a great deal from just some minor touches. The maps were large and featureless, with the player often walking through wide expanses of nothing for long periods of time. In short, nearly everything about the game was just very underwhelming. Coupled with these basic mistakes of game design, there were some scripting errors as well, such as the need to have to scroll through the decorative part of the opening menu instead of actually starting on the first selectable caption, or the fact that if you type an “F” while trying to enter the password on the chest in the hero’s bedroom (a neat touch, incidentally), it triggers another script altogether.
What this all adds up to for me is that Illusions isn’t necessarily a “bad game” by any means, but it’s certainly a work that is in need of some polish. With a great deal of work and some study of how other OHR games have gone wrong over the years, this one could eventually shape up into something nice.
RATING: 4
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REIGN OF GRELOK
By Misac
I have a special place in my heart for games like this. There are, to be sure, deep technical flaws in nearly every aspect of its presentation, but they are all delivered with such honesty and sincerity that I found myself having fun the entire time in spite of it. My dominating first impression was “hey, this guy really wanted to make a game!”, and hey, so did I, which is why I downloaded the OHR in the first place all that time ago. Maybe it’s simply nostalgic, but I basically found it impossible not to like this game.
However, in the interest of objectivity, let me outline the actual technical problems that do exist. The game is rife with language errors, ranging from simple misspelled words to names that change spelling at various times to outrageous run-on sentences. The town, such as it is, consists of a person too afraid to leave their house, a blacksmith who threatens to murder you for talking to him, and a mayor and priest who are getting drunk together. You can trigger the first “boss” encounter an infinite number of times. There’s a sprite ripped from somewhere (the drunken mariner). The graphical errors are numerous; you frequently find yourself walking on top of walls, or under grass. There is no way to heal outside of battle, or to ever save the game, as far as I could find. The game abruptly ends after the last battle, booting you back to the title screen where you have to start all over again due to the lack of saving. It’s not “Magnus”, but it’s not far from it either.
In spite of all this, however, the game conveys a sense of enthusiasm that I have to respect. It’s all about fighting zombies in a church and then, oh hey, here’s a red crystal I bet the wizard knows what it is, oh man I got the magic sword, oh hey a magical tome I wonder what this does, oh I gotta kill the demon lord? I’m on it. As flawed as it might be, what is here is presented in a totally sincere and loving way, and I played through the whole thing twice just because it was refreshing in a way. Maybe outside the HotOHR contest, I would rate this lower, but if you want to see the heart of the OHRRPGCE, in more ways than one, it’s on full display here.
RATING: 5
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UNIVERSAL WARS
By JC Enterprises
My first impression of this game is that it was going to be a unique approach to the typical OHR RPG, and it turns out I was quite right. The whole game is fairly quirky and it does a good job of being humorous without being cloying.
I greatly enjoyed the fact that you could name all of the heroes, as well as their hometown, and all the other towns you come across. It really helps you invest yourself in the game, in the kind of way that Earthbound tries to do. I liked the extremely atypical graphical presentation of some things, like a bull made entirely out of crude geometrical shapes. I also liked the fact that the story involves one of the party being bitten by what is for all intents and purposes a were-cow.
If the above paragraph seems disorganized and all over the place, that’s because the game itself is. You’ll rapidly jump from fighting a bull to encountering a mysterious swordsman, to watching a guy stuff himself with so many burgers he turns into a cow. That said, while this degree of tenuous freedom is funny in the narrative, it causes the rest of the game to break down. Combat is handled just as loosely as the plot, and the result is long tedious battles of holding down the spacebar to use the same attacks over and over (there is no option in battle other than “Attack”). Map construction subscribes to the same theory and consequently, you often find yourself wandering across huge expanses of nothingness, or going from the first floor to the fourth floor of a dungeon by taking a single staircase. The actual textboxes that convey the humorous story are overstuffed and there are too many of them, and by the time I reached the first boss, I was skimming them.
In short, this is another game that has some promise, but which could do with some definite polishing. There’s a quirky and original adventure to be had in here somewhere, but to draw it out is going to acquire approaching some aspects of the design with a tighter vision and greater seriousness.
RATING: 4
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THE K’HYURBHI LANDS
By FnrrfYgmSchinish
Another favorite. My first impression of this game is that it looked downright professional, like a true forgotten NES RPG title, and it never let up with that level of quality.
What’s not to like about this? The graphics are tightly put together and full of amazing 8-bit detail. The characters are all well-designed and differentiated both in the narrative and in combat. The world is detailed and complex, but it lets you discover that in a natural and organic way rather than forcing it on you all at once. The dungeons are concise and straightforward without being overly simple in terms of how you navigate them. I wish I could say more about this game, but frankly, I find very little to criticize. It was a joy to play, and I really appreciated the depth inherent in it, with such features as having to choose what order in which characters partake in training, or all the differentiated combat abilities. There are some battles that seemed a bit unfair in terms of not being able to heal yourself adequately with just one party member, but this isn’t even necessarily a flaw, as it pretty accurately replicates the NES RPG experience. I also wish that it was longer.
On the whole, this is my very favorite kind of game for the OHR. It’s indicative of a deeply personal project on the creator’s part, and has no trappings at all of being something made by a committee; it may not be the kind of thing that would ever see a wide professional release, but isn’t that the point of indie games in the first place? In addition to its originality, it’s plain that there’s a great deal of care put into every aspect of its design, from the perfect graphics to the atmospheric music, to the thoughtful combat design. I would really love to see more of this.
RATING: 9
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KINVESARD
By Spoonweaver
I really enjoyed this one a great deal. My first impression was that it was going to go the route of a classic dungeon crawler when I was asked to assemble a team of warriors from a multitude of races and classes, and on this front, it did not disappoint at all.
The overall design of the game is simple, but it’s clear a lot of work and thought was put into it. The races were all distinct from one another and easily distinguishable in terms of how they differed statistically, and all of the classes had a very clearly delineated combat role. Once the game proper started, I was actually stunned by how good the environmental graphics are, and how atmospheric the dungeons managed to be.
One positive thing I really want to emphasize about this one is just how good the dungeon design itself is. There’s only one dungeon, but it really delivers. There’s pretty much some kind of compelling gimmick to every room you find yourself in, and even with just a few rooms, there are already branching paths that you are only able to access based on what classes you have with you. Moreover, one of the optional puzzles, a large room of switches that alternately illuminate and de-illuminate tiles is one of my favorite things I saw in the entirety of this contest. It’s just a damn great RPG puzzle; simple enough to learn in a matter of seconds (WITHOUT an interruptive tutorial) but frustrating to master, and finally rewarding when you do.
That’s not to say the game is without its drawbacks, however. The character and enemy graphics are nowhere near as good as the environmental graphics, and this creates some sense of discordance within the project. The combat itself is somewhat unbalanced, with skills that seem to do nothing worthwhile (such as the healer’s mana drain) and enemies that are powerful enough to force you into a strategy of pure attrition. In a game with selectable classes, you almost expect to have a viable chance of victory regardless of your party arrangement, but in this case, I don’t think it would be possible to win without a healer in tow. This isn’t necessarily a flaw, per se, but it is almost worth questioning why the game allows choice of class at all if it adopts this approach (choice of race has more obvious benefits and isn’t in question). Also, the game is extremely short. You can see everything there is to do in about half an hour (or much less if you already know how to solve the aforementioned puzzle). This won’t be an issue if the project is actually continued in the future, but for a contest that was literally over a year in the making, I just kinda expected a bit more content.
All things considered, however, this was one of the better entries in this contest. I appreciated the atmospheric graphics, the brooding music, and the serious approach to dungeon design. I really hope Spoonweaver chooses to continue working on it.
RATING: 7
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SUPER PENGUIN CHEF
By Mogri
Any time I play a game by Mogri, I know I’m in for something with unique mechanics that push Hamsterspeak to its limits. Super Penguin Chef is no exception to this, and it was consequently one of the games I enjoyed the most in this contest.
The mechanics of the game are quite complex, but to Mogri’s credit, he introduces them to the player very eloquently. For instance, recipe combining is introduced at a time when you really only have one viable option. Resource acquisition is introduced in such a way that you can control how much combat you have to endure, if any at all. It’s only after you start making money through the restaurant that the loan shark appears and introduces a new (and excellent) mechanic. It’s a game that very expertly combines a gentle learning curve that doesn’t leave you overwhelmed, with a constant sense of tension and urgency due to looming debts and deadlines. Most importantly of all, it’s actually quite fun to play, with funny characters and dialogue that ensure that everpresent tension never gets to interfere with the simple enjoyment of the game.
There are certain flaws, however, that are worth mentioning. The first is that, while the character graphics are all quite good, the environmental graphics are, in many places, somewhat lacking. I understand that the style is supposed to be simple and cartoony, but I feel like the environments tread the line between simplistic and broken-looking just a shade too closely. Also, while it’s clear thought was put into the battle system with its customized leveling system, I kind of felt like combat was just a distraction from the parts of the game that I was really interested in. These are minor complaints, ultimately. More serious are a few devastating bugs, such as the fact that several times I entered hunting locations only to have no way back; there were no doorways by which to head back to town, and the merchants seemed to randomly not be present as well. This caused me to have to resort to debug keys a few times in order to avoid being stuck.
Ultimately, this was a game I got a great deal of enjoyment out of, and which I intend to play more of in the future. I almost feel like the combat is superfluous to the rest of the title, but the actual resource management, cooking, investment, and showdown parts of the game are amazingly well-done and fun to take part in. One of my favorites in the contest.
RATING: 7
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DREG SECTOR: THE TRACT
By Willy Elektrix
Willy Elektrix continues to be one of my favorite developers for the OHR. His “Castle on the Night Land” was the best debut I’ve ever seen and I’ve been engaged in one way or another with everything he’s produced since. As soon as I saw the title screen for Dreg Sector, with its bold colors and sinister spacey music courtesy of SDHawk, I knew I was in for more of what I always love from this guy.
Dreg Sector is an extremely well put-together game, in that all of the systems are elegantly introduced just after a basic exploration of the planet Heap, where you begin the narrative, and that all of the game’s separate components work together to produce an outrageously strong sense of atmosphere that is by no means common to the OHR. Think “Super Metroid” levels of atmosphere. The sparse graphics that Willy is known for find their perfect home in the inky void of space, and the color choices, slim as they are, perfectly convey a neon 1980’s sci-fi aesthetic. The combat is slow and ponderous, but this is actually to its benefit as it manages to fit perfectly into the feel of a space adventure, and also because every single encounter is heavily tactical and strategic in nature. You will not be winning any battles here simply by holding down the space bar. The music also fits perfectly, and basically announces to the community that our slim stable of musicians has gained a new major talent in Hawk.
This is another entry where I struggle to find anything to really criticize. The combat is, make no mistake, brutal and unforgiving, but I hardly consider this a fault. If anything, it’s the limitations of the engine itself that sort of get in the way. For example, you can recruit a fleet of ships from a wide selection of ships that all have different abilities. Any one of these abilities might prove absolutely crucial in any given conflict. Unfortunately, once a combat begins, you’re stuck with the fleet that you have, and you can often end up in situations wherein the mechanics work against you, such as ships that relentlessly regenerate their health, while you don’t have the one-shot firepower necessary to take them out. If there was some mechanic by which you could choose your line-up from your stable of ships at the start of each combat, after you see what enemies you’ll be facing, it may not only get rid of this frustration, but actually enhance the tactical value of the game.
All things considered, this was one of my favorite games in the contest as well. It’s easy to approach but has a great deal of depth, and the atmosphere is so compelling it just draws you in and really makes you want to explore every inch of this galaxy. Another one I’ll be returning to in the future.
RATING: 8
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DUNGEONMEN: MEN OF DUNGEONS
By KF Harlock and Shizuma
Obviously, this is my own game, so I’m not going to sit here and talk about it in the third person, as that would be weird. Instead, I’ll just give what I hope is an objective(-ish) bullet point review of what I think worked and what didn’t work.
What worked:
- I’m really happy with the graphics in this game, and how the environments and characters mesh together.
- The abundance of flavor text has been pretty well received and I’ve heard several people talk about how it relieves the monotony of dungeon-crawling and helps create a deeper sense of world.
- I’m happy with how the introduction and ending cinematics turned out; I’ve been wanting to do cutscenes that use slices for a long time now and was able to mostly achieve what I wanted with this one.
- I’m happy with the dialogue presented by NPCs; this is, like Spellshard, a game that I don’t think necessarily has a great or complex plot, but which I tried quite hard to instill with GOOD WRITING even in the context of a sparse plot. I tend to smile when I read through the game, and I think that’s something of a sign that I succeeded.
- I think the classes overall are very good, and the three layers of skills (spells, free skills, and dungeon skills) add a lot of differentiation.
What didn’t work:
- There should have been less randomization; too many people have complained about Ninja’s disarm traps skill having to pass two checks: a check to find the trap, and then a check to disarm it. Should have simplified some in cases like this.
- Too many bugs! Permanent diseases, issues with the weapon system, mismatched “Look” command descriptions, etc. It’s possible to beat the game, but it could have stood to have a few more rounds of playtesting.
- While I like the weapon system, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat too complex to deal with using the OHR’s default shop system, since it doesn’t immediately show you what the bonuses of a given piece of equipment are. I include the old man next to the weapon shop who gives you the manual to address this somewhat, but I recognize that it’s problematic to ask people to refer back to this so often.
On the whole, I still need to do some revisions to this, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I was proud of what we accomplished already. Much (not all) of what I originally envisioned came through in the end, and that’s a hard thing to achieve.
RATING: 8
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RERELEASED GAMES
----------------
ABEL
By Blasted Earth
At first, I was quite thrilled with the way this game presented itself. The green terminal lettering? The rusty metal borders? I’m a huge fan of the cyberpunk genre, and as such a seemingly well-made game that used a great deal of cyberpunk concepts and idioms was highly appealing to me. I went into it quite excited.
That said, I quickly realized that the game is at odds with itself. It’s another title where, for everything the creator got right, there’s some associated drawback as well. For instance, as good as the colors and fonts and overall cyberpunk look are, there are fundamental errors in perspective that make the maps hard to navigate. As cool as the concepts behind equipment are (Armitek! CEB! Swords and guns!), the actual combat isn’t terribly nuanced and comes across as rather dull, even by OHR standards. Once again, tactical depth is required here. I really enjoyed being able to assign my character a trait at the beginning, but its actual implementation in the game was lacking; the iaido strike I learned from taking the Eastern Swordsmanship trait was worse than my regular attack, and roughly 1/200 as powerful as the “Bash” command. As much thought seemed to be put into the conception of the world, much of it is conveyed in overlong textboxes full of misspellings and bad grammar.
In the end, this came across as a real mixed bag to me. I feel like it could be a very good game with some more polish, but as it stands, the experience was just kind of middling and average. I rated it a bit higher than average simply to reflect my bias for the lovely cyberpunk aesthetic it’s working at. I am disappointed to find out the project has been abandoned, because I’d love to see more of this.
RATING: 6
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LEGENDARY HEROES
By Spoonweaver
This is, unfortunately, another of the games that I just simply don’t think is for me. I knew I was in trouble when one of the very first textboxes in the game informed me that I have to go find some rats. You see, I hate MMORPGs. I hate every one I’ve ever tried to play. My girlfriend loves them. So, we have this running joke between us about that, and I frequently refer to MMORPGs as “hog-slaughtering simulators” or “pants-collecting games”. When the first thing I’m asked to do in a game is to go kill a swarm of rats, it immediately puts me in the mindset of a hog-slaughtering simulator, and at that point, I’m just taken out of it. I’m sure that at some point, the tasks given to the Legendary Heroes of the title become more befitting a group of Legendary Heroes, but to me, opening a game with killing rats or pigs is something I just can’t recover from. I know it’s silly, and I know it’s biased, but that’s how I feel.
I did keep playing for some time, however, in an effort to be more objective about it, and I never really felt like the experience came together. The graphics are all fairly lacking, and the narrative is presented in a very amateurish fashion, with a great many misspellings and grammatical impairment. The combat was, for the most part, not engaging to me and I didn’t feel like the heroes were really all that distinct from one another, either mechanically or plot-wise.
For what it’s worth, everything I don’t care for about this game I felt was improved upon substantially in Kinvesard, which is by the same author. Like I said, I think it just ultimately comes down to this not being the game for me, while Kinvesard surely was. I just can’t rate it very highly.
RATING: 4
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FINAL DRAGON LEGACY
By Mrjohnson092088
With a name like Final Dragon Legacy, you expect a throwback to classic RPGs going in. What I didn’t expect was for it to be handled so well. Nearly everything about the game is quite simple, but executed in a supremely competent way that made it quite fun and engaging for me.
I’m not sure if the entire game strives to emulate retro NES graphics perfectly, but it doesn’t matter too much, because what is there seems quite visually consistent. Everything about the game feels right. The three-color heroes are all very distinct looking and iconic in their color choices. The combat is nuanced and full of abilities and options that keep things strategic and interesting. The maps are compact and arranged in such a way as to be intuitive to anyone who has played classic RPGs such as Dragon Warrior. The way the narrative is presented, with a number of small quests gradually coalescing into a larger meta-quest, is very true to form. Perhaps it is nostalgia talking, but I had a great time with this one.
In the end, this game is certainly nothing new, but it really takes the old material it’s emulating and works it to a high polish that results in a truly finished-feeling project. Even if it’s not terribly innovative, it’s a tightly developed and well-put-together game, and I found it a worthy entry to the contest.
RATING: 7
BEST DUNGEON
------------
KINVESARD
I’d love to see more of it, but what little is there is tight, controlled, looks good, and has at least one very cool puzzle.
BEST VILLAIN
------------
DREG SECTOR: THE TRACT
I’m a sucker for villains that take the form of giant faceless power structures, and this game really speaks to that sensibility.
SPELLSHARD: THE BLACK CROWN OF HORGOTH now COMPLETE! Grab it today!
Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:21 am
Was reminded this thing was going on, so I just wanted to make some stuff clear...
I know I created Dungeonmen with Harlock, but I did not enter this contest with him. I'm fine with him entering and I approved it and I thank everybody for playing Dungeonmen. But I was never involved in HotOHR, and beyond this message I don't plan to be.
But you shouldn't think of this like, that I'm not willing to play/vote on your games, the matter is just I was never involved in this contest and haven't been involved with the community for months. I've been busy with other things and not sure when my priorities will shift. But let me make two things clear that'll hopefully be some consolation:
1. I will play every single game from 2012 eventually, just like I have every year recently in this community, I will be providing feedback in the normal ways in due time, and rating them.
2. Dungeonmen is really mostly Harlock's work. I came up with the concept and a lot of the ideas that make up Dungeonmen, and I drew the sprites, However I did very little work on the game compared to Harlock. I would estimate he put 200 hours into it and I put 20.
Thanks, good luck to everybody.
I know I created Dungeonmen with Harlock, but I did not enter this contest with him. I'm fine with him entering and I approved it and I thank everybody for playing Dungeonmen. But I was never involved in HotOHR, and beyond this message I don't plan to be.
But you shouldn't think of this like, that I'm not willing to play/vote on your games, the matter is just I was never involved in this contest and haven't been involved with the community for months. I've been busy with other things and not sure when my priorities will shift. But let me make two things clear that'll hopefully be some consolation:
1. I will play every single game from 2012 eventually, just like I have every year recently in this community, I will be providing feedback in the normal ways in due time, and rating them.
2. Dungeonmen is really mostly Harlock's work. I came up with the concept and a lot of the ideas that make up Dungeonmen, and I drew the sprites, However I did very little work on the game compared to Harlock. I would estimate he put 200 hours into it and I put 20.
Thanks, good luck to everybody.
Sat Jan 12, 2013 6:58 pm
Was a choice made on extending the voting deadline? Last time I made a point of finishing each game so I could write full reviews; I may do that again this year, but first I hope to get small impressions of each game so I can actually vote. I just managed to start today, going in alphabetical order.
Ar-Puh-Guh (Meowskivich)
Quick Notes From ~45min:
-Oops, intelligent misspelled in first text box
-Was the chemical blob thing first, didn't last very long (bad balance?)
-Does battle wait-mode not persist through savegames?
-Too complicated too early - too many different stats and elements, with too little money to experiment properly. Upon reaching fields, freedom was nice but I could not survive a single battle. All of the weapon upgrades for my blob affected Power, which didn't help me at all.
Quick Thoughts After Playing:
Graphics and music are both nice. Overall the aesthetic presentation is solid. But the gameplay is a jumbled mess. I started as the Mage Melter, because it looked the coolest, and I didn't know what 'E' foes meant. I also didn't know that I'd have to fight a boss with just this hero, where levelling up would take way longer than it should. That said, I did manage to beat the boss without dying (still on level 0).
I picked the Berserker after that solely because I had an item in my inventory that said it could be used on a Berserker. Simply put, if certain classes are meant for more 'advanced' purposes, these classes shouldn't be available from the beginning of the game.
As I said, once in the field, the world felt like a cool place to explore, but I couldn't survive a single battle. I did far too little damage and took too much. Plus, the Berserker couldn't use apples once he started attacking. My blob's ability to lower the aim of the enemy's didn't seem to matter at all. Unfortunate.
RATING: 3
EDIT - RATING LOWERED TO BETTER ALIGN WITH MY OTHER RATINGS
I am Srime
Ar-Puh-Guh (Meowskivich)
Quick Notes From ~45min:
-Oops, intelligent misspelled in first text box
-Was the chemical blob thing first, didn't last very long (bad balance?)
-Does battle wait-mode not persist through savegames?
-Too complicated too early - too many different stats and elements, with too little money to experiment properly. Upon reaching fields, freedom was nice but I could not survive a single battle. All of the weapon upgrades for my blob affected Power, which didn't help me at all.
Quick Thoughts After Playing:
Graphics and music are both nice. Overall the aesthetic presentation is solid. But the gameplay is a jumbled mess. I started as the Mage Melter, because it looked the coolest, and I didn't know what 'E' foes meant. I also didn't know that I'd have to fight a boss with just this hero, where levelling up would take way longer than it should. That said, I did manage to beat the boss without dying (still on level 0).
I picked the Berserker after that solely because I had an item in my inventory that said it could be used on a Berserker. Simply put, if certain classes are meant for more 'advanced' purposes, these classes shouldn't be available from the beginning of the game.
As I said, once in the field, the world felt like a cool place to explore, but I couldn't survive a single battle. I did far too little damage and took too much. Plus, the Berserker couldn't use apples once he started attacking. My blob's ability to lower the aim of the enemy's didn't seem to matter at all. Unfortunate.
RATING: 3
EDIT - RATING LOWERED TO BETTER ALIGN WITH MY OTHER RATINGS
I am Srime
Sat Jan 12, 2013 7:47 pm
Quote:
The game isn’t without its problems, however. After beating the Shield Golem and depositing the seed and water in the soil patch, I felt like I had done everything I could in the game, but couldn’t see where to advance from that point forward. I backtracked 3 or 4 times but couldn’t find anything else to do, despite that I only had two orbs, and the readme said that there were four total orbs that could be acquired. A friend of mine was playing along with me over Skype, and he said that for some reason, there was no Shield Golem at all for him; the room with the soil patch was totally unguarded. After hearing this, I began to assume that perhaps some bug had happened and I was supposed to have been able to acquire an item from the soil after watering the seed? I’m not sure, but I was eventually forced to reluctantly quit.
Oh man this worries me. I have no reason why the boss might not appear. Did you send your game + savefile over to him after? It's possible that saves are "infecting" each other somehow (I use global variables for some things so that I can read data in the save menu: perhaps I made a mistake somewhere and this is actually overwriting live data.) I'll have to look into this because I'm dumbfounded.
I'm going to overhaul one of the puzzles (most people playing this game missed it, I think only one person figured it out so far) to make it a bit more intuitive, especially because the next two orbs both rely on it.
Thanks for your review though, I'm glad that you liked it. I hope to have a new version with a LOT MORE soon. The actual programming work took up all my time and I couldn't implement all the fights I wanted to.
Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:22 pm
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw (Wobbler)
Quick Notes Through To Completion
-Great style
-Battles moved at a great pace, and good balance
-The boss was well-balanced, maybe a little bit difficult but I hadn't spent any time levelling (or buying healing potions) at all
-Dialogue was good, a few jokes less funny but never overstaying their welcome
Quick Thoughts After Playing
Graphics and music both fit well. Plays very 'smoothly'; no noticeable bugs (except mirror, which I can't even reproduce), battle balance is good, and I was never wondering what to do or what was going on. Humor is over the top but usually in a good way, and the characters have consistent voices. I'm glad I got yelled at over and over for calling Super Walrus Man's niece sexy, especially when I have no idea how 'young' she actually is. I'm also glad that checking the toilet after the letter produced the new response.
Too little content to say much more, and this stops the game from garnering a really high rating from me. Hopefully some of the indications towards more gameplay (getting 'points' for your responses leading to accessing some areas, I think?) pan out well. Also, PLEASE DON'T CHANGE THE WALRUS-NIECE'S REGULAR ATTACK SOUND!
RATING: 7
I am Srime
Quick Notes Through To Completion
-Great style
-Battles moved at a great pace, and good balance
-The boss was well-balanced, maybe a little bit difficult but I hadn't spent any time levelling (or buying healing potions) at all
-Dialogue was good, a few jokes less funny but never overstaying their welcome
Quick Thoughts After Playing
Graphics and music both fit well. Plays very 'smoothly'; no noticeable bugs (except mirror, which I can't even reproduce), battle balance is good, and I was never wondering what to do or what was going on. Humor is over the top but usually in a good way, and the characters have consistent voices. I'm glad I got yelled at over and over for calling Super Walrus Man's niece sexy, especially when I have no idea how 'young' she actually is. I'm also glad that checking the toilet after the letter produced the new response.
Too little content to say much more, and this stops the game from garnering a really high rating from me. Hopefully some of the indications towards more gameplay (getting 'points' for your responses leading to accessing some areas, I think?) pan out well. Also, PLEASE DON'T CHANGE THE WALRUS-NIECE'S REGULAR ATTACK SOUND!
RATING: 7
I am Srime
Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:34 pm
Reign of Grelok 6/10
I encountered the same problems as KF Harlock above, I also noticed that sometimes the roofs in town don't return when leaving a building.
I did very much like the choice offered as how to deal with Grelok, as well as the design of the swamp trees and the completion percentage feature.
I would add that perhaps adding another pattern of floor or wall tile, or using a variety of room shapes might be helpful in navigating the cave on the mountain. The empty rooms and halls are just a bit too similar.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8.
I encountered the same problems as KF Harlock above, I also noticed that sometimes the roofs in town don't return when leaving a building.
I did very much like the choice offered as how to deal with Grelok, as well as the design of the swamp trees and the completion percentage feature.
I would add that perhaps adding another pattern of floor or wall tile, or using a variety of room shapes might be helpful in navigating the cave on the mountain. The empty rooms and halls are just a bit too similar.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8.
Sat Jan 12, 2013 10:01 pm
Mystic wrote:
Oh man this worries me. I have no reason why the boss might not appear. Did you send your game + savefile over to him after? It's possible that saves are "infecting" each other somehow (I use global variables for some things so that I can read data in the save menu: perhaps I made a mistake somewhere and this is actually overwriting live data.) I'll have to look into this because I'm dumbfounded.
I'm going to overhaul one of the puzzles (most people playing this game missed it, I think only one person figured it out so far) to make it a bit more intuitive, especially because the next two orbs both rely on it.
I'm going to overhaul one of the puzzles (most people playing this game missed it, I think only one person figured it out so far) to make it a bit more intuitive, especially because the next two orbs both rely on it.
Heya. We didn't send any files back and forth to one another; we were playing separate installations while talking over microphones. As for the puzzle, is it the "compass room"? I messed with that for so long, but couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I knew it must be significant that the "needle" was following me, and that the dungeon is "powered by walking around", but I couldn't get anything to activate. Want to spoil that part for me so I can get the last two orbs?
SPELLSHARD: THE BLACK CROWN OF HORGOTH now COMPLETE! Grab it today!
Sat Jan 12, 2013 11:53 pm
No More Villains 7/10
Cutscenes very good, Game parts rather limited, but puzzly bits to some battles.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8, apologies.
Cutscenes very good, Game parts rather limited, but puzzly bits to some battles.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8, apologies.
Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:10 am
msw188 wrote:
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw (Wobbler)
Quick Notes Through To Completion
-Great style
-Battles moved at a great pace, and good balance
-The boss was well-balanced, maybe a little bit difficult but I hadn't spent any time levelling (or buying healing potions) at all
-Dialogue was good, a few jokes less funny but never overstaying their welcome
Quick Thoughts After Playing
Graphics and music both fit well. Plays very 'smoothly'; no noticeable bugs (except mirror, which I can't even reproduce)
Quick Notes Through To Completion
-Great style
-Battles moved at a great pace, and good balance
-The boss was well-balanced, maybe a little bit difficult but I hadn't spent any time levelling (or buying healing potions) at all
-Dialogue was good, a few jokes less funny but never overstaying their welcome
Quick Thoughts After Playing
Graphics and music both fit well. Plays very 'smoothly'; no noticeable bugs (except mirror, which I can't even reproduce)
Glad you enjoyed what's there! The mirror bug occurs if you tap a direction for a very, very brief second, and not a full press. Pepsi suggested a fix I'll try to implement.
Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition
Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:28 am
KF Harlock wrote:
There was only one attack to be utilized, so options in combat were entirely limited, making me wonder how truly differentiated the classes are.
There was only one attack to be utilized, so options in combat were entirely limited, making me wonder how truly differentiated the classes are.
Something I will definitely improve upon. It was already in the plans for 1.0gamma to have each class start with a minimum two moves (save for Berserker), but I suppose I'm not the only person who sees this as a necessary thing.
KF Harlock wrote:
Moreover, on the few occasions the enemies were given tactical maneuvers, they made no sense. For instance, there is one enemy, the Pixlor, that can hit you with a stun attack. However, that is it’s only attack; it cannot damage your HP at all, but only stun you. Since the Pixlor is only ever fought in isolation and not with other enemies that CAN harm you, this is senseless, and serves only to make the already long battles longer.
Moreover, on the few occasions the enemies were given tactical maneuvers, they made no sense. For instance, there is one enemy, the Pixlor, that can hit you with a stun attack. However, that is it’s only attack; it cannot damage your HP at all, but only stun you. Since the Pixlor is only ever fought in isolation and not with other enemies that CAN harm you, this is senseless, and serves only to make the already long battles longer.
Um, not quite. Pixlor is incredibly weak and can be taken out in one shot (though it's stun does draw out the battles a tad), but it DOES appear with other foes, just not in the starting area. On the overworld, and in the Mud Heap, pixlor will occasionally be in battles. In version 1.0gamma, some foes will be able to summon them too. Pixlor will be a semi-reoccurring foe for the early parts of the game, for nothing more than something you need to swat before it gets ya.
Thanks for playing, though! It means niceness to me to see someone try it out.
dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x
Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:37 am
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw 7/10
ABEL 7/10
Good graphics. I like the perks and traits system. Characterization reminds me of "fallout" games.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8, apologies.
Edit: Converted to whole Numbers
ABEL 7/10
Good graphics. I like the perks and traits system. Characterization reminds me of "fallout" games.
Edit: Redid votes, I don't seem to have been using 1-10, more like 1-8, apologies.
Edit: Converted to whole Numbers
Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:49 am
Drag Sector (W Elektrix)
Quick Notes from ~1:30
-Too much info to digest
-Oops, should have read "hints"
-Okay, somewhat addicted now; not sure why it's fun to go back and forth scamming these two planets to rack up money, but it is. Rare but very tactical battles help enjoyment
-(about an hour after previous note) Okay, too many 'hidden' areas, and gameplay has grown stale
Quick Thoughts After Playing
This game has a way of drawing you in. At first it just felt frustrating, but once I realized that ALL battles were going to be long, drawn out tactical affairs, I was able to start over with a better setup (the key for me was picking the 'damage of over time' flagship). At that point, the game became addicting, planning for battles made sense, and I happily went back and forth racking up money and strengthening my little fleet.
After a little while I felt strong enough to start exploring, and at first it seemed pretty grand. There was a (invisible) hidden place very near the starting spot! Who knew! But as I started to explore more, it became clear that:
1. There were actually LOTS of (invisible) hidden places, and finding them seemed to be key to making good progress.
2. The battle balance, already well-established in the beginning, had no intentions of letting up, and all battles were going to require careful management.
3. In addition to 2, the battles only get harder in the sense of having stronger enemies. Since my own fleet wasn't looking like it was going to be gaining new ABILITIES any time soon, the battles were starting to get monotonous (but not easy - actually, I should praise the gradual growth in difficulty of enemy formations as the game went on).
4. The actual extent of the galaxy was actually quite small; exploring was more about combing the screen for invisible things, and less about traversing over vast distances.
Those four things together? Not really my style. Not really what I'd call a 'classic' RPG either. But I have to admit that number 3, in particular, might be just because I quit too early (I want to rate as many of these as possible this weekend). Plus, this is certainly a very professionally handled game, and I couldn't stop playing during that one hour or so.
RATING: 7
I am Srime
Quick Notes from ~1:30
-Too much info to digest
-Oops, should have read "hints"
-Okay, somewhat addicted now; not sure why it's fun to go back and forth scamming these two planets to rack up money, but it is. Rare but very tactical battles help enjoyment
-(about an hour after previous note) Okay, too many 'hidden' areas, and gameplay has grown stale
Quick Thoughts After Playing
This game has a way of drawing you in. At first it just felt frustrating, but once I realized that ALL battles were going to be long, drawn out tactical affairs, I was able to start over with a better setup (the key for me was picking the 'damage of over time' flagship). At that point, the game became addicting, planning for battles made sense, and I happily went back and forth racking up money and strengthening my little fleet.
After a little while I felt strong enough to start exploring, and at first it seemed pretty grand. There was a (invisible) hidden place very near the starting spot! Who knew! But as I started to explore more, it became clear that:
1. There were actually LOTS of (invisible) hidden places, and finding them seemed to be key to making good progress.
2. The battle balance, already well-established in the beginning, had no intentions of letting up, and all battles were going to require careful management.
3. In addition to 2, the battles only get harder in the sense of having stronger enemies. Since my own fleet wasn't looking like it was going to be gaining new ABILITIES any time soon, the battles were starting to get monotonous (but not easy - actually, I should praise the gradual growth in difficulty of enemy formations as the game went on).
4. The actual extent of the galaxy was actually quite small; exploring was more about combing the screen for invisible things, and less about traversing over vast distances.
Those four things together? Not really my style. Not really what I'd call a 'classic' RPG either. But I have to admit that number 3, in particular, might be just because I quit too early (I want to rate as many of these as possible this weekend). Plus, this is certainly a very professionally handled game, and I couldn't stop playing during that one hour or so.
RATING: 7
I am Srime
Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:58 am
I haven't played everything yet but I'm doing what I can bros. I'll update this post as I can. Some of these are stream-of-consciousy. I don't know if I'll have time to play enough of Dungeonmen to really go through everything worth saying, but I will play through it even if I don't make the voting deadline on that one.
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw - 9: Giving it this score entirely on 8bit's work and not my own. I love what you did bro.
No More Villains - 3: Pretty much Harlock's review. The graphics are great but I think they're mostly reused from other Fenrir projects. The text is way too wordy for what the game is, and the jokes feel dated. I wanted to like this one more but it just didn't do it for me. I barely got to the battling before I felt worn out.
arpuhguh - 3: The battles are way too slow and the class I picked (Mage Melter) seemed stupidly underpowered against the very first enemies in the game. It would feel better if class selection were menu driven. I appreciated the weirdness of the world, and the art, while very simple, works. The writing didn't do much for me.
Super Penguin Chef - 8: I love the writing here, on the other hand. The menu noises are way too loud compared to the music. Snout Magic is the best name for a category of magic I've ever seen. The beaver shop keeper walks away after I talk to him and then I feel sad. The map graphics are cute but feel too simple, but the battle graphics are great. Love the Killer Persimmon. I'm glad you start with a full party and all abilities seem useful. I like the ability learning system. I really like this game and will definitely play more. This happened:
Kinvesard - 6:
The ability/stats text on the character creation screen that doesn't use the default font is really terrible looking but I like the strangeness of the races you can choose. Character designs are great, perspective on the dungeon walls is great. It's weird not having any introductory text explaining why I'm here and having nothing in the readme either. Battles aren't super fun, but the difference between classes and races is well done and everyone feels unique. Demo's too short to really say much else. This one I imagine getting a lot better in the next version.
Illusions - 3: The introduction goes on too long for what it is but I appreciate that it's there. I tried mashing keys on the password for the chest and got a confusing "Fix Player" text box. The tree graphics in themselves are fine but they blend in way too closely with the grass. The cutscenes play out way too slowly, both in dialogue pacing and in the pauses between some text boxes. I like the mechanic of identifying mists to form enemies, but man are these battles way too long. I got a good laugh from the BOSS!! alert that popped up, not sure if it was intended to be funny or not but it was great. Why did a fight trigger with a tree? It lessens the threat of the illusion monsters when a swarm of normal bees is way, way more threatening. There was no music after the first screen and no way to revive a dead ally. Second boss was literally unbeatable since my girl character was dead from bees.
Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition
Cool Guy Bob Surlaw - 9: Giving it this score entirely on 8bit's work and not my own. I love what you did bro.
No More Villains - 3: Pretty much Harlock's review. The graphics are great but I think they're mostly reused from other Fenrir projects. The text is way too wordy for what the game is, and the jokes feel dated. I wanted to like this one more but it just didn't do it for me. I barely got to the battling before I felt worn out.
arpuhguh - 3: The battles are way too slow and the class I picked (Mage Melter) seemed stupidly underpowered against the very first enemies in the game. It would feel better if class selection were menu driven. I appreciated the weirdness of the world, and the art, while very simple, works. The writing didn't do much for me.
Super Penguin Chef - 8: I love the writing here, on the other hand. The menu noises are way too loud compared to the music. Snout Magic is the best name for a category of magic I've ever seen. The beaver shop keeper walks away after I talk to him and then I feel sad. The map graphics are cute but feel too simple, but the battle graphics are great. Love the Killer Persimmon. I'm glad you start with a full party and all abilities seem useful. I like the ability learning system. I really like this game and will definitely play more. This happened:
Kinvesard - 6:
The ability/stats text on the character creation screen that doesn't use the default font is really terrible looking but I like the strangeness of the races you can choose. Character designs are great, perspective on the dungeon walls is great. It's weird not having any introductory text explaining why I'm here and having nothing in the readme either. Battles aren't super fun, but the difference between classes and races is well done and everyone feels unique. Demo's too short to really say much else. This one I imagine getting a lot better in the next version.
Illusions - 3: The introduction goes on too long for what it is but I appreciate that it's there. I tried mashing keys on the password for the chest and got a confusing "Fix Player" text box. The tree graphics in themselves are fine but they blend in way too closely with the grass. The cutscenes play out way too slowly, both in dialogue pacing and in the pauses between some text boxes. I like the mechanic of identifying mists to form enemies, but man are these battles way too long. I got a good laugh from the BOSS!! alert that popped up, not sure if it was intended to be funny or not but it was great. Why did a fight trigger with a tree? It lessens the threat of the illusion monsters when a swarm of normal bees is way, way more threatening. There was no music after the first screen and no way to revive a dead ally. Second boss was literally unbeatable since my girl character was dead from bees.
Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition