Dear Laura,
As I've promised, I shall give feedbacks beyond the technical feedbacks I gave. Since the structure of this forum requires me to create a separate thread for these, I created this new thread. Note that in some cases it is not evident whether something should be categorized as gameplay, technical, or storyline related feedback.
GAMEPLAY FEEDBACKS1. Enemies reappear very soonSeveral enemies reappear after the player has defeated them. It's OK, the only thing that's annoying is that they may reappear
very soon. For example, you've defeated a group of soldiers, just move off the screen for any reason for a few seconds, and the soldiers are waiting for you again. It has an advantage, though, that it is much easier to look for battles to increase your experience. For example, I've sweeped the soldiers next to the Leeble Village again, after I've already saved Aero, before moving to the world map. But overall I've found the frequent rebirth of enemies annoying. I think it is nice to have enemies respawn, but I suggest them to reappear after longer periods of time. It's just not fine to fight the enemies again after I moved in and off a screen for 2 seconds. I think at least you should have a minute passed to respawn them.
2. Jumping characters are very cuteThere are occasions when characters jump up, mostly because they are excited about something. I really like that!
First, it expresses their excitement well; second, it makes them cute. But really, even soldiers are cute when they are jumping. And Leebles especially, of course!
3. Characters tell to press keysSometimes characters tell hints how to do certain operations in the game. Like "
stand in front of the Silaberries and press ENTER to collect them", "
sometimes you can find useful things in vases if you press ENTER when you are standing in front of them", etc.. I think they shouldn't say things like that, because characters are supposed to live
inside the game's world - i.e. they don't know that actually there is a player with a computer that has a keyboard... they only know about the characters they interact within their world.
Also it wouldn't be strange, if
all kinds of such hints came from characters. But it seems you use several other ways to give hints to the player. Like in the very beginning of the game, when you tell the player that "
This is only a sample pedestal...", there you use an untitled dialog box (note that this particular hint could be said by the teacher as well). In other case, you fade the screen to tell the player how to save. I think you should always use these methods to tell something to the player that is related to the usage of the game interface; and never have characters to say such things, for they don't even know what
ENTER is.
4. Capitalizing the names of racesYou consequently write "
Leebles" capitalized and "
humans" not capitalized throughout the game. I don't know why do you capitalize one, and not the other, since both are common names and denote races. So they should be written the same way. According to the grammar, you wouldn't capitalize any of them (i.e. write "
leebles" and "
humans" consequently), but because you want to put attention on them, you may rather capitalize both. The point that they shouldn't be written differently.
How do you pronounce "Leeble" anyway? Please say it in your next video.
5. Going back to Leeble VillageAfter I've adventured through several areas, I thought it would be just funny to visit back to our sweet home, the Leeble Village. Not like I was expecting to do anything useful there, I just wondered what happens. All the Leebles was nice there, but it was a bit strange that they were still saying farewells, as if we have never ever left, while in fact we have spent several days away.
First of all, it's obvious that the player is not supposed to go back there, therefore I don't suggest you to define new states for the Leebles to behave appropriately after you visit them after a long time. It would be more clever, if the player physically couldn't go back to the village for some reason. Not immediately after you left, though, because the player should have the chance to change his mind, and go back to the village for a little time. I suggest the divide should be the first night you spend elsewhere - particularly, the night you spend in a little farm where people are unfriendly, where you meet Andy. Before that night, you could walk back to the Leeble Village without any problems, but in the morning you couldn't go back there anymore.
Also I wonder what would happen if I decided to go to Basho or Dolby's place before I went through the small farm. Or go to Dolby's before checking in Basho and getting poisoned in Dabonet. But I didn't try these scenarios so I can't tell anything about them.
6. Leeble school - reading booksI've found the Leeble school pretty cute. I must have made a screenshot of it, I remember this was the very first screenshot I've made.
Just an idea - it would be fun to read those books (maybe the homeworks of students?) on the tables. It would be just cute, like "
My dream about the Hornback Turtles", "
How I met the tallest 'Leeble' in town", "
My frog ate my homework yesterday", and things like that.
Though in that case you should consider making all other books readable throughout the game. But it works for many games to spread little backgound informations on the storyline... though you already have enough channels for such informations... Well, just think about it, you must know it better.
7. Battles are too easyI must confess I'm not so much into battles. Well, yes, as I said, I've sweeped the Ciro soldiers next to the Leeble Village twice to increase my XP, also I've run into more-than-necessary battles in Dolby's cave, then I realized that I win all battles anyway. After all, I think I wasted my time with them.
I can't tell you how to improve battles, because I'm really more interested in the storyline. If the game wouldn't involve any battles, maybe I would have enjoyed it as well. Nah, I must admit, battles are necessary, because somehow you need to have a risk - otherwise you couldn't lose the game, and it's important that the player could lose sometimes.
The only thing I can tell, is that something is wrong with the balance. There were some lengthy battles, but I never ever lost any of them. I don't even know what happens when you lose a battle. For battles didn't mean challenge, I didn't really have to buy and use items, or equip new weapons. Actually, I've forgot about the "
Equip" menu entirely, and noticed it in the middle of the game, and then forgot about it again. Funny thing, since Achaius was ill that time, I couldn't equip him anything, so as you see on the screenshots below, he still has the bamboo net equipped.
Since I didn't really need to buy things, I've managed to collect a hell lot of money. So because of the not-well-balanced battle system, the entire trade and equipment functions get unused, therefore you've made your awesome items in vain.
Here are the screenshots of my stats and inventory at the end of the game:
But please please don't make the battles so much difficult that I won't be able to play the game!
Generally I'm suck at battles, really. (Actually, I tell it because it has already happened to FreeDroidRPG - once I've played it, it was nice. Then I started to play it a year later, it was much more designed, much more beautiful and all, but a dungeon was made too hard with hundreds of droids swarming it, and so I couldn't pass through it...)
8. Overall experienceI really liked Melolune, and I'm looking forward its release, or at least, the releases of further demos. It is fantastic, I really didn't regret taking the time to play it!
This "little" demo gave me
7 hours of gameplay experience! WOW! I really didn't expect it to be that long. I thought it would be 1 or 2 hours, or less, as average demos. I can't even imagine how long will be the full game then! After all, I hope it'll be more than 24 hours.
What more to say - it is totally enjoyable, it has an interesting storyline, it sucks the player into its world. The music is also awesome, fits to the game well.
That's all for my gameplay experiences. I'll continue by evaluating the storyline tomorrow - wow, it's being late now. I'm sad that I couldn't finish it today. :'(
All the bests,
Unnamed
