2014 Indie Game Development Contest

Post by **TMC** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:09 am

Saw this on CP so posting it here too. June is apparently National Game Development Month and RPG Maker are hosting an indie game making contest with a number of large cash prizes.
http://contest.rpgmakerweb.com/
Might be of interest to people around here! It's not restricted to RPG Maker (you can use any engine), there's no theme, games must be complete, there are separate categories for RPGs and non-RPGs, and you should not have started on your game before May 29th. The judges for the contest also won't evaluate more than the first hour of the game.

Post by **Mogri** » Sun Jun 01, 2014 11:07 pm

If you do want to use RPG Maker, you should grab the Humble Weekly Bundle, where you can get a copy for as little as $1.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Mon Jun 30, 2014 6:14 pm

http://contest.rpgmakerweb.com/game/vie ... 7Gn_bGFdQU

Wish me luck

Post by **TMC** » Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:41 pm

Holy crap that's a lot of entries! Over 670! Mostly in the RPG division.

So this is what those tiles were for. I'll try to give it a go.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Tue Jul 01, 2014 2:00 pm

Thanks!
Yea, when you offer 10k you're going to get a few entries. I'm actually glad it wasn't more.

I have no delusional hopes of actually winning this contest. I just hope I make it to the second round of judging.

Post by **TMC** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 10:17 am

I played version 1.1. Fun, simple, polished game; nice work!

On the first map with octopii (where they walk through a log) they walk right through you without triggering battles.

Autoequip is nice.

It took me a while to realise that some of those stones in that combination-puzzle area were invisible. I managed to open that secret by accident. I imagine the game is much harder without having that weapon, which concerns me a bit.

Argh, I KEPT dying and forgetting to save my progress.

Fiendish turtles are overpowered. They take forever to kill even if you use up all MP. And there's no way to keep your sanity without expending all your MP, so if you come up turtles you should turn around, get some rest, and try again! On the other hand the squidbats (which I fully thought were Cthulhuspawn) are pretty easy but also give a huge amount of xp.

Is it intentional that ghosts miss 95% of the time when attacking Krud? That was nice, actually, because they dispatched everyone else easily.

Battles are simple and not too bad but I think could be a lot better. Magic is overpowered, but the spells other than Fire and Web are unlikely to be used because they're too costly and there are no MP recharge items. Bash/smash/thrash is cute but I couldn't really tell the difference. They're probably elemental attacks but usually there doesn't seem to be much difference, and I had a lot of difficulty remembering which seemed to be better. That might just be me. It would be nice if there was some link between the sound effect and the effectiveness (I don't pay enough attention and miss the damage numbers). Other than that, there aren't really any other in battle options. That's not good.

Was that a rabbit behind hackbone? First time I tried hackbone I got wiped out immediately; then I came back near the end and managed to kill it before it even got a chance to attack, actually. Fire is overpowered.

There were a number of enemy types in the long grass I only ever saw once. It's nice that there was that much variety.

Typo: "Please present you invitations". A message different from "you don't have enough" would also be nice if you don't have any. Another "back if this is a bad time" (double space). Another: "A glove for denfense" (item description). Another: "seeing what see had become".

After you get past the goblin minion you can present your invites to him a second time, although nothing seems to break aside from the dialogue.

It's too bad that if you don't talk to the princess before the warlord you don't even find out that there is a princess until the epilogue, which would make no sense. I thought the one in the crown was the warlord at first.

If you go to the warlock and refuse to fight the warlock it bugs out, with Troll and Steve and possibly Krud vs Malikia. Doesn't matter whether Krud is in the party. That battle seemed pretty difficult even with Steve due to the insta-kill fire attacks; it must be nearly impossible without him.

On the other hand the battle against the Warlock was also impossible! Seriously, tornado simply wipes out the whole party immediately. Beating him is a matter of extraordinarily good luck to not get tornado or heal to full for however long it takes to defeat him. After probably nearly 20 attempts I gave up.

Maybe that was the point of the title. The final boss is a joke?

Post by **Bob the Hamster** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 5:14 pm

I didn't have much trouble with either of the boss fights... but I may ave been grinding for exp more than I realized.

Also, I did sell my soul, and I can't tell if TMC, did or not. That may have made all the difference.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Thu Jul 03, 2014 9:19 pm

I played version 1.1. Fun, simple, polished game; nice work!

On the first map with octopii (where they walk through a log) they walk right through you without triggering battles.

Yea, I fixed this in the current version.

Autoequip is nice.

thank you

It took me a while to realise that some of those stones in that combination-puzzle area were invisible. I managed to open that secret by accident. I imagine the game is much harder without having that weapon, which concerns me a bit.

They aren't actually invisible They are scattered around the rest of the game. I'd spoiler this but it's not really meant to be a huge secret.

Argh, I KEPT dying and forgetting to save my progress.

Fiendish turtles are overpowered. They take forever to kill even if you use up all MP. And there's no way to keep your sanity without expending all your MP, so if you come up turtles you should turn around, get some rest, and try again! On the other hand the squidbats (which I fully thought were Cthulhuspawn) are pretty easy but also give a huge amount of xp.

Well I did do a bit more balancing before releasing ver 1.2. Not sure if I changed the turtles much. They are actually suppose to be really hard to kill and not worth it, it's their little gag.

Is it intentional that ghosts miss 95% of the time when attacking Krud? That was nice, actually, because they dispatched everyone else easily.

Well, yes and no. It wasn't intential for the ghosts to miss him specifically. However I gave the ghosts a slightly low aim and krud does have a high dogde. So it does stand to reason that he would be missed a lot.

Battles are simple and not too bad but I think could be a lot better. Magic is overpowered, but the spells other than Fire and Web are unlikely to be used because they're too costly and there are no MP recharge items. Bash/smash/thrash is cute but I couldn't really tell the difference. They're probably elemental attacks but usually there doesn't seem to be much difference, and I had a lot of difficulty remembering which seemed to be better. That might just be me. It would be nice if there was some link between the sound effect and the effectiveness (I don't pay enough attention and miss the damage numbers). Other than that, there aren't really any other in battle options. That's not good.

Spells are meant to be overpowered because you have to go all the way back to rest in order to get them back. As for only using web and fire I'm actually surprised. None of my testers seemed to care much for web at all. As far as the low costing fire, that's actually on purpose too. I did that because it's normal for players to go straight for the newer more powerful spells. So fire is there to reward the strategic player.

The Bash Smash and thrash attacks did end up being a bit upsetting. They are indeed elemental-like. A number of goblins in the game try to instruct you on their use, and I also tried to have them make sense. But since people seem to be missing the hints the goblins give out I'll just say it here.
Bash is better versus bigger harder type enemies ( turtles )
Smash is better versus smaller vermin enemies ( rats and spiders )
Thrash is better versus squishy enemies ( squid and slime )
This extra damage is doubled in many cases and tripled in a few.

Was that a rabbit behind hackbone? First time I tried hackbone I got wiped out immediately; then I came back near the end and managed to kill it before it even got a chance to attack, actually. Fire is overpowered.

A rabbit? You mean the upside down skull? I'll have to go back and look at that. And again, good job spotting the fire spell's benefit.

There were a number of enemy types in the long grass I only ever saw once. It's nice that there was that much variety.

I wonder, did you spot the unicorn?

Typo: "Please present you invitations". A message different from "you don't have enough" would also be nice if you don't have any. Another "back if this is a bad time" (double space). Another: "A glove for denfense" (item description). Another: "seeing what see had become".

Darn... I'll need to keep these in mind. Thought I had gotten done a good job proof reading. And yes havign him say you don't have any is a good idea.

After you get past the goblin minion you can present your invites to him a second time, although nothing seems to break aside from the dialogue.

Ah, yes that is a problem. No one had gone back to talk to him when testing :P

It's too bad that if you don't talk to the princess before the warlord you don't even find out that there is a princess until the epilogue, which would make no sense. I thought the one in the crown was the warlord at first.

This is actually on purpose. Instead of doing the hip thing and expanding the female characters role in the game I chose to do the exact opposite here and have the princess not even matter in the slightest. I'm not anti-female or anything I just thought it would be funny.

If you go to the warlock and refuse to fight the warlock it bugs out, with Troll and Steve and possibly Krud vs Malikia. Doesn't matter whether Krud is in the party. That battle seemed pretty difficult even with Steve due to the insta-kill fire attacks; it must be nearly impossible without him.

Yes, this was fixed in the recent version, and also the steve fight is actually suppose to be harder in a way.

On the other hand the battle against the Warlock was also impossible! Seriously, tornado simply wipes out the whole party immediately. Beating him is a matter of extraordinarily good luck to not get tornado or heal to full for however long it takes to defeat him. After probably nearly 20 attempts I gave up.

I did end up balancing both the warlock and steve/malikia fights after ver. 1.1. Mostly the warlock though, as I left Malikia pretty hard to punish people for joining the warlock and going evil. It's hard to be evil. Hopefully, it's a little less harsh, but then again I did make it really hard and a bit unfair on purpose. He's the final boss and I've always thought final bosses should be way harder then everything else and even a bit unfair at times. But yea, hopefully he's less of a jerk now.
However, as James pointed out you seem to have tried going without the last party member.(the lich that buys your soul, and tries to kill you every battle) It's totally possibly without him ( though the troll only run is pretty hard ) however I would guess you'd need more grinding without atomisk.

Maybe that was the point of the title. The final boss is a joke?

Well I'll admit, at first it was going to be. I was going to make a troll game for this contest. But then it turned into that being more of a pun. Now the game is really more about playing an rpg with an a-moral main character instead of.. well, steve.

Anyways, I'm glad you seemed to enjoy it to some degree.
Thanks for playing.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 3:43 am

Actually, after going back and testing it some more, I'll likely take tornado away from the warlock (and malikia). I'll be doing hat and a few other re balancing changes for the post rpg maker contest release. As well as fixing those typos and maybe adding some more items and areas.

Post by **TMC** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:51 am

Argh! I thought I was playnig the latest version. I also thought that I didn't miss anything significant; I only skipped a couple maps at the beginning because I found the correct way through to Krud's camp on the first try. (Reminds me of something)

They aren't actually invisible They are scattered around the rest of the game. I'd spoiler this but it's not really meant to be a huge secret.

Oh, that's pretty clever. But I didn't suspect it because I never saw any of them lit.

Spells are meant to be overpowered because you have to go all the way back to rest in order to get them back. As for only using web and fire I'm actually surprised. None of my testers seemed to care much for web at all. As far as the low costing fire, that's actually on purpose too. I did that because it's normal for players to go straight for the newer more powerful spells. So fire is there to reward the strategic player.

Web was almost useless because battles are turn based. However I used it on a couple bosses because by using they get their turn last instead of first, which equates to getting an extra turn, making up for casting it. But now I have the chance to use items before they attack, so a net gain.

The Bash Smash and thrash attacks did end up being a bit upsetting. They are indeed elemental-like. A number of goblins in the game try to instruct you on their use, and I also tried to have them make sense. But since people seem to be missing the hints the goblins give out I'll just say it here.[/quote]
What?! I never saw those either.

A rabbit? You mean the upside down skull? I'll have to go back and look at that. And again, good job spotting the fire spell's benefit.

Yes, the skull. Was it weak to fire? I just used fire because it was cheap compared to the others.

I wonder, did you spot the unicorn?

Yep. But mostly I avoided the grass. Better to kill an enemy once than have to walk back and forth through the grass many times. Getting a choice was nice design, but unfortunately the grass was generally seemed a worse option so that's too bad.

Spoonweaver · Post by **Spoonweaver** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 8:50 am

TMC wrote:Getting a choice was nice design, but unfortunately the grass was generally seemed a worse option so that's too bad.

That was actually not by design. The grass fights were meant to be slightly easier. However because I limited each npc battle to 1 monster and scattered several monsters around for the grass battles, things got unbalanced.

Argh! I thought I was playing the latest version.

Yea sorry about that. I really rocketed out a couple updates due tot he nature of the contest.