Alpha In the Mind (Alpha) - NEED FEEDBACK

C

Caden Black

Guest
For for exactly one week, I have been working on a simple Visual Novel/RPG. It will be broken up into four different levels. Each I hope will end up resulting into a 1 hour game run time to tell the story. Which goes as follows -
Four Emotions - Fear, Confusion, Sadness, and Anger take over Zack's life one day.
To try and overcome these emotions, Zack imagens a different world. Only this world isn't quite
what he hoped for. In order to abandon this world and forget the past, Zack
must travel through this world. Learning a thing or two along the way while uncovering the true past.
Color is HUGE and I mean HUGE in this game, color represents emotion, Fear being Orange Confusion Green so on. I've replayed part one, Fear, 10 times now with an average of 8 - 10 minutes of gameplay. Graphics are OK I'll put the Tile sets in a picture. There's not much story in part one, two little bosses (Beware RNG) the "Fear" in Fear is going to school, witch goes into part two. The bosses are incarnations of emotions and things. This game is not good in my opinion so I'm only letting it out to get general feedback. The text may be small to because the screen is small. Just don't expect much from it. I want honest feedback and help if you decide to play it. Thanks in advanced.
- Caden

Video Teaser -

Link to In the Mind (New) - In the Mind (0.1.6.1)
 

Attachments

Last edited by a moderator:
Seems like a good start. I also wouldn't be afraid to start putting your games out there early on in the process. I encourage it actually. I like that you drew inspiration from Undertale's combat but didn't straight up rip it off. It could probably use some tweaking to differentiate itself a little more but its a great place to start. I would focus on giving your text either a designated place with a text box or adding some kind of effect to make it stand out from the background a bit. The other bit I would focus on is clearing up how the combat works. I honestly don't know if I ever quite figured it out. While fighting the darkness I had no idea if I was making progress. A health meter, some numbers, or screen shake would provide some feedback to the player and let them know if they were making progress or not.
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Sorry I'm late to respond! I had school today and I just got back. I had my sister play it yesterday to and she said some stuff to. Yes TOTALLY agreee with the health bar and text. In fact I have an idea for it :) So for combat (not sure if you noticed) The color of your heart makes you "act different" on stuff, but YES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PLAYING! It means a lot to get awesome feedback to make it better. Also to Rich I'll put some gifs up later today. Now also, some questions to you people,
1. Is one hit good for the player or should it be higher?
2. Controls at the menu, is that enough to explain?
3. Should it be more clear where to get the key to the locked room (Laundrey Room)
4. Is the art style good for what the game is (simple and straight forward)
5. Yes I did get inspiration from Undertale but how exactly could I change it up a bit, I don't like revealing lots about story but the character (Zack) has a disability which is the same as mine and I want the battle to represent this world and things he imagens.
Thank you!

Edit - I'll let you know when I finish the tweaking, on it.

- Caden
 
Before I can offer an opinion on 1,4, and 5 I need to know the tone your going for. Are you going from low to hope or hope to low? Is the player supposed to be frustrated like dark souls leading to the rush of success? 2. Your explanation for in game controls are fine. Your menu operation for the second screen could probably benefit from using arrow keys and highlighting the level that will start. 3. Maybe a timer that gives a hint if the player is struggling for a while.
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Again, late to respond, school, working on some tweaks for images, so I made a newer version (0.1.1) which includes the following
1. Health for enemies is now displayed in the top left corner (number)
2. Text now has a color to represent the current emotion/feeling (Red = Anger, Blue = Sad, etc.)
3. When selecting Fear at the Title Select you'll now be prompted the controls (Pressing Enter continues you to the next room)

Those are the BIG changes, a few more dialogs were added and (I'm colorblind a little so I'm not sure) but you SHOULD be able to read certain texts now.
Here are a few images (I'm not able to do gif's) -
New.PNG New2.PNG New1.PNG
Also, I didn't really think (my opinion) I needed a text BOX but to make it colorful and around the general area to read, let me know if you think other wise.

So that's it! Here's the link to 0.1.1 (Let me know if it doesn't work)
Thanks!
- Caden

Link - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r-ARNJRKw0v72jg_m7SYPAgt082ywpAs (Windows ONLY)
 
Good progress. If your not going to do a text box than a good option is dark text with a white outline. Visible on almost any surface. Sorry I've been busy with my project lately so it took me a while to get back to you.

The number feed back for enemy health really helps. Is the player on a timer once they grab a yellow heart? I think letting a player know how long they got to get a hit once they catch a heart would be a good addition.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
L

Lambda01

Guest
Looks promising, but i the combat gamleplay is not explained and is confusing to me.
Keep it up !
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Sorry again, late to respond, Church Retreat. Yes, Text boxes seem a little overused to me so I'm trying something different. Also, should a "Test Battle" be placed with the Bear to help the player understand more? And yes, darker text is also a good idea. Timer for Invincibility to me is a little strange (Like Super Mario with a star you don't see a timer) let me know if I over did that. Work will continue, Thanks as always for your help!
- Caden
 
Last edited by a moderator:
C

Caden Black

Guest
New Update! 0.1.3!
- Tutorial Fight that will hopefully help the player understand battles!
- Video of Gameplay
 
Sorry again, late to respond, Church Retreat. Yes, Text boxes seem a little overused to me so I'm trying something different. Also, should a "Test Battle" be placed with the Bear to help the player understand more? And yes, darker text is also a good idea. Timer for Invincibility to me is a little strange (Like Super Mario with a star you don't see a timer) let me know if I over did that. Work will continue, Thanks as always for your help!
- Caden
A good option would be to add in a flash similar to how Mario lets you know when your star is going to run out. Better than a number and most gamers understand it as its a common design choice.
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
I'm back, I've been making some tweaks to the project. I'm curious to know though, how well is this game constructed? As you know I've been needing feedback to make this project great! I don't expect it to blow up but I want a nice solid game. So if you've played my game I would love some honest feedback! I know I've already gotten a ton of good ones. But I want to know what I can do better while I continue to work on this project! Thanks!
- Caden (Windows ONLY)
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Update 0.1.4.1 -
  • New dialog's to provide tips/hints for Fear & in tutorial battle.
  • Battle Transitions!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
D

Devant

Guest
Hey there, just played In the Mind, I think I looked everywhere, unless you got anything that requires special actions. There was that black room, that seemed like it was unfinished. The clipping was horrible, probably you want to customize your stationary objects collision box. At first it felt like it's too spacious, then I realized that the entire prospective of the game is from a kid's eyes, and made me think that being spacious actually frames that prespective. Everything feels larger for a kid, including distances. Nice one.

About the minigames, they were more enjoyable than what their looks betray. The pace is right at that point that it feems challenging for a minute or so, but is pleasantly solved before it becomes a nuisance. Relative to your initialy stated goal, I think you should take the one thing that was "more good", and focus the experience on that thing, your strong card. You know better than anyone what is good about your game, but I can tell you what felt good to me: the pace of the minigames and the idea of searching minigames in a place. So, I'd say, make more minigames. Try to improve the enemy logic, make it more complex and reactive. The pacing was good, but the enemy far too predictable. Add more randomness to that.

Finally, a note about the texts: get a background in there, and fix the grammar, capitalization and points.
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Yes, I'll let you know now that "spacious room" is leading to a secret room. Where a character is that is like the FNAF golden Freddy, basically a character that means more to the game then it seems. Just keep looking at the pictures ;)
Yes actually I'm working on better text & grammar isn't my strong suite so I'll use a grammar website. Yes I was also worried about the text visibility. (I'm trying something new which is no text boxes) so I'll work for a solution.
Thanks for the feedback! It's really appreciated!
- Caden
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
Update 0.1.5 - New boss.
Probably the last update for a little bit due to school. Will continue! :)

5b5b55eb-0355-4a14-8f4f-0f064ddcaa73.png - Russ the Ruler
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
I had two snow days so I was able to work and do some new things for In the Mind!

-Update 0.1.6
1. Text Boxes! (Highly requested)
2. Minor graphical details

Want some feedback on the text boxes though. I think they're alright for what I want.
 
C

Caden Black

Guest
- Update 0.1.6.1
1. Graphics update (The floor may need to be changed)
 
Top