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Castle Paradox
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Camdog
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 606
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 Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:45 am Post subject: Re: OOIA's review of The Ritual |
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First, thanks for the review. I'm glad you took the time to check out my game, and reading your thoughts was enjoyable and informative. I just wanted to point out a couple of minor errors in the review and talk about a couple of things that your piece made me think about.
First...
| Quote: | | If you have played Bliss, another game by Camdog, you will note there are many elements derived from it – namely graphics and music. It seems many maptiles, enemy graphics, songs and even the main hero have been recycled. This detracts from the game’s originality factor if you have played Bliss and will bring back memories of the older game. |
It's true that I shamelessly ripped off Bliss for this game (ripping yourself is ok, right?), I just wanted to point out that all the hero graphics are new. (Believe me, the hero graphics for Bliss were MUCH more heinous).
| Quote: | | The music is as mentioned before, original. While nothing outstanding, but some of the pieces are rather well done and it is good to hear something composed by an OHR game maker that doesn’t sound like a cacophony. It fits the game mood and atmosphere appropriately though some pieces that were used for Bliss reappear in The Ritual. |
This is actually incorrect. All the musical pieces in The Ritual are brand new.
| Quote: | As you progress further into the game however, the difficulty increases and the skills and equipment you get aren’t enough to keep you alive. At the final area everyone in my party was a brute fighter, more or less, due to the fact that if they weren’t they would probably have been slain in an instant. Rounding out my characters would have probably just set them up for a quick death. It is biased and lacking in perspective to say making them specialized in attack, accuracy and defense is the only way to go since only one character was given strong abilities in magic on top of making them durable for physical fights. However the fact that even then, and with strong equipment, enemies could hit me for over a quarter of my life indicates that making characters with even abilities would just make them walking corpses.
The further I progressed the more the battles became frustrating, and at an exponential rate. Enemies deal harsh damage to you and you cannot even escape. I’m sure this is for a reason, perhaps to add a realistic sense of being cornered and unable to run, but this came to be a… rather annoying annoyance and I don’t think I can bring myself to fight all those stressful battles again for another ending. |
Admittedly, difficulty is always something I struggle with. I remember when I released Bliss, I was terrified it would be lambasted for being too easy since I could breeze through it, then when Shadowiii reviewed it he said it couldn't be beaten without cheating (of course, when I nudged him in the direction of the readme file, he replayed and rereviewed it saying he loved the gameplay). I feel like balancing in the Ritual was doubly difficult, since I needed to predict how a player would customize their characters. For instance, I find it interesting that you basically made all your characters warriors, since that's a sub-optimal way to play. Why didn't you try to emphasize magic for someone? A lot of the high level magics are insanely good. For example, poison 4 can paralyze and weaken on a successful hit. Also, a powerful buff like a highly leveled bless can do wonders for warriors in a party.
Also, did you go through any of the side quests in the game, like the haunted mines or the sylvan challenge? Did anyone? (And did anyone figure out how to get into Amos's home town?) I wanted to make most of the stuff you can do in the game optional to really give agency to the player, but unfortunately that means if a player does none of the sidequests, they get to the endgame underleveled and without really great equipment. I've been thinking about adding more sidequests and more endings to the game, but I've been a little disheartened by the fact that no one so far seems to have played any of the sidequests or tried for the second ending. Any thoughts of making these optional parts of the game more attractive to a player?
| Quote: | | Perhaps if Camdog feels a visual makeover by someone more artistically inclined would improve the game feel, he could give that a go. |
Hells yes. If anyone is interested in doing this, I'll award you 500 awesome points. |
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TwinHamster
♫ Furious souls, burn eternally! ♫
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 1352
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 7:59 am Post subject: |
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I actually liked how the graphics of Bliss and The Ritual were identical, as it created a sort of unison between the two.
And if you would be willing to accept me, I'd be glad to spiffy up a few of the graphics in the game. |
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Onlyoneinall
Bug finder
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 746
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| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry about the mistakes. I finally got around to looking over Bliss and realized the hero graphics were different. My memory didn't serve as well as I thought, although I could SWEAR the forest music was in Bliss. It just sounded so familiar.
I did go through the Sylvan mines and Amos's hometown (Well, the other way around anyway), but I think that's all I've been through for sidequests. I had a really rough time in the mines and barely made it out, and I forget what spell it was exactly at Amos's hometwon but I remember it cost 1000 gold.
I think graphical appeal would increase players interest in the game. I'm stuck on whether I should try improving for Bliss or the Ritual though, as I enjoyed Bliss more, but the Ritual is more of a recent release. I'll think of it as a sidequest from Bloodlust. 
EDIT: To be honest, I started out improving whatever stats I needed more of in the beginning and it ended up so that I just made my hero a warrior. At that point, I just made everyone warriors. I can replay and try it differently I suppose, and let you know how that goes then.
EDIT: Here is my take on the ghost graphics for the game:
_________________
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00
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Camdog
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 606
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 5:19 am Post subject: |
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Woot! That's like a trillion times better! Thanks! Do I have permission to use this? Now, of course, the only problem is getting all the enemy graphics up to this caliber so it doesn't look like a random mishmash.
Twinhamster:
I'd totally love it if you'd be willing to contribute a few graphics as well. Here's a list of graphics that I think the game is really hurting for (broken down into current graphic replacements and potential additions to the game).
Current
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* Dactyl (Flying thingy on mount fate)
* Orc
* Imp
* Maybe the goblin too, though since he comes 'equipped' with other enemies, the proportions would have to be exactly the same
* I've been working on new graphics for the monks, but I have no doubt someone else could do better.
* I think the lizard and sewer rat graphics are ok, but feel free to contribute something better
* New backdrops, especially for the mountain and for underground sections
* Maybe even a title screen if you're feeling especially ambitious?
future additions
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* An enemy graphic of a 'crazy old man'
* New versions of imps, like an imp mage, imp warrior, and imp king
* Maybe new versions of orcs, too?
Ok, I know that's a lot, but pick and choose what you like if you're still interested. Thanks again! |
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Onlyoneinall
Bug finder
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 746
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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Go ahead, although I was planning on revamping all the graphics for you and then sending it your way, unless you have updated the game file since you last released it.
_________________
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00
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TwinHamster
♫ Furious souls, burn eternally! ♫
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Posts: 1352
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| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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Allrighty! I've been playing around with poses, and here's my first batch of images.
Please comment/complain on any one of them.
These are still 24-bit, but I can get them into 4-bit mode whenever you approve of them.
Rat
Iguana
Naked Goblin
Armed Goblin
Armed Goblin's Stuff (These will be separate sprites when finished)
Dactyl
Imps
I can get the rest of the enemy sprites in the next day or so, and expect backdrops in by the end of the week.
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Camdog
Joined: 08 Aug 2003
Posts: 606
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:22 am Post subject: |
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| Wow, you guys are my heros! All this stuff looks really great. Thanks a lot for the help, I'll definitely be using these for the next version of the game. |
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