Lovely game so far! The art + animation is great, and I do like that this has actual proper RPG mechanics other than just the basics. I have some thoughts though after playing the Demo. (Didn’t play the other demo, just this one)
Readability
Unfortunately the combat flow can be very hard to follow, and it’s not always obvious why certain things happens/works/doesn’t work. For a game that’s supposed to be challenging, I think it’s important to gear the player with the necessary knowledge and information to properly act on things, lest it just becomes a guessing game. Here’s a bit of a wishlist for things I think would improve readability for the player:
1. Show Information button
So whilst in Combat, and choosing what ability you want to do, I think it’d be a great help to have a simple button that opens up a little window that tells you what the thing does. I know that you can check this outside of combat, but it can be hard to remember what everything does when you have 20+ abilities across all characters.
2. Option to set combat speed
The combat flows very quickly in this game, which is nice for when you know everyone’s deal and what to expect out of combat, but it’s very confusing when you’re new at it. A lot of the time it was hard to follow what exactly did happen, even who did what sometimes as I tried to process what each and every thing did.
It would be fantastic if there was an option to set something like Slow, Normal, and Fast speed for when you’re learning the game, something that you can change on the fly.
3. Combat Log
Following up on the second point, I think it would be quite benefitial to have access to a log of everything that just occured in the turn. Even better, if there was a hyperlink system where each skill/effect was highlighted with a colour that you could click/button press to get a quick overview of what that specific thing just did. It would also be nice to see what effects are active in battle, such as Selene’s runes.
4. Wider window for extra space
Now this suggestion might clash with your desired gameboy aesthetics, but it would be quite nice to always have a combat log on one side of the screen in combat, and then you could fill the opposite side with either the character art for whoever you are fighting, more information, or whatever else you’d find fitting. Outside of combat you’d then have to fill it with other images such as either the cover art, or maybe even just something that displays what area you’re in (nothing too complex).
Either way, I’m interested to see where this game goes, has a lot of great things going for it. Thanks for putting in the time to make this game!
