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Ava RPG

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Soldier 10 Points

Meet the first objective.

Adventurer 25 Points

Meet the second objective.

Assassin 25 Points

Meet the fifth objective.

Veteran 25 Points

Meet the third objective.

Strategist 50 Points

Meet the fourth objective.

Tenacious 100 Points

Beat the game.

Author Comments

This is the big one! Over the course of the last year and a half, I'm proud to release Ava RPG! This version is not PSP compatible, but will link you to a PSP-compatible version for those who are interested.

Features:
Huge open world to explore
Randomized dungeons
Real-time battle system
Sixteen abilities to learn and use
Eight accessories to boost power

==========================
STUCK?
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If you skip the tutorial, click the Help button and cycle through the hints. These are a streamlined version of the tutorial that tell you the bare essentials for playing the game.

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It's looks like rhythm game, How a RPG game.

Kwing responds:

It's actually based on Dissidia. You build up power to attack with the arrow minigame, then switch to attack mode and pick an attack to use on the enemy. It's a weird and kinda dumb system.

Without an obvious save feature, this game gets a very poor review. I have been at this game for at least a full hour, probably two because I didn't want to lose my progress. If there is a save feature or auto-save, please make it known.

Also, the game intends for you to hit the arrows as quickly as possible, but without a preview or anything, you may as well mash since your time bonus will possibly be higher than your penalties. Once I finished the first continent and found... I think it was either the shield or helm accessory, I just resorted to mashing throughout the rest of my game. I think this game could have worked as a rhythm-based rpg, but as it is, this is another reason for my low rating.

Kwing responds:

A preview was something I considered, though I'm not positive why I left it out. I think it was that players would have hit buttons too quickly for the Charms to be useful but alas, the mashing really is the way to go. On the PSP, these aren't issues since you can pick up where you left off using sleep mode and the D-Pad doesn't allow you to mash.

Ehhhhh tbh i felt combat could be improved. Arrows pressing could be more engaging like showing what are the next few arrows needed. I felt that pressing one at a time without knowledge of the next arrow is really tedious and boring. I also think that the sounds could be improved (mine has been stuttering for every 2-3s idk why). Furthermore i think you could make the combat like wasd as the attacks and arrows as the charge up so its not so troublesome to use mouse to switch between them.

Kwing responds:

Good ideas. I considered putting a preview of the next arrow but I thought it would make the power gained per press too consistent.

I"m not sure whether you mean the sound effects or music are stuttering, but it's possible the music is hiccuping if you have a slow internet connection.

The WASD keys is a neat idea - the mouse click was implemented because I wanted it to be PSP compatible. Later on I added the spacebar as an alternative for switching, but your idea is good too.

I just couldn't get into this game. The tutorial wasn't engaging at all, the combat was confusing and the graphics don't do the game any justice. Not to mention the game crashed on me the second time I got into a battle. The problem with the tutorial in this game is that all the info you need to play the game is crammed into the beginning without any context. What I mean is.. the most effective way to teach someone to battle in your game is while a battle is happening. I'd get a much better feel of how combat works if it'd show me how to do it in the proper context. It makes learning the game boring and also very forgettable if your tutorial is a book I need to read at the beginning. As soon as I got into game I had no idea what I was looking at and actually chuckled when I used the arrow keys and realized what I was. Just a flashy dot walking to other dots until a random battle happens. Once I figured out combat it still didn't make sense to me. You have to press a random combination of arrows and then press the space bar to switch to some other mode where you can choose what type of attack you want to use. By this time I'd already forgotten what half the buttons represented so I just went with heal because at this point I was nearly dead trying to make sense of the combat. Why can't the actions just be a list? I think just text would actually look better than the graphics you have representing the four actions you can do in battle.
All in all I had no drive to learn this game's mechanics, the graphics didn't represent their intended features, the tutorial was boring and easily forgettable and the combat is boring, slow, confusing and just plain weird. It's mind-boggling that a game this simple can be this confusing. Not to mention it crashed on me the second time I was in battle. How does this game have such a high rating?

Kwing responds:

I have to say I agree that the tutorial is by far the game's weakest point. I spent a few months developing this game, let it sink into development hell for a year, then went and finished it up. By that point I was so sick of it that I decided to type out a tutorial rather than making it playable.

This game is a spiritual successor to a prototype called Battle Your Friends, so if for whatever reason you still want to learn how to play this game, you can try that one out. It's MUCH simpler (hell, I should have included that game as the tutorial for this one.)

I found several flaws with the game.

The graphics in this game are confusing to me. A blank figure with a strange hat tells me nothing, and neither does a small colored square. I am aware that you intend for the art to be minimalist. This is still not an excuse. A simple square with a triangle on top would be enough to represent a house, a small rectangle with a smoke stack could represent a factory, an anchor could represent a port. Perhaps instead you could simply make a town a circle, a factory a square, and a port a triangle. Maybe you could replace them with letters, even.

The avatars do not do their job. They lack identifying features. I do not know what a rectangular hat means, or why the enemy is colored brown. You could easily have replaced them with something more fitting. Even replacing them with a single letter would be better, because at least B representing a Bandit makes sense.

I don't find the combat to be fun either. It involves random button mashing. The combat options are unclear too, the symbols chosen are difficult to identify. In an RPG I want to be able to think ,and for my choices to be meaningful. Button-mashing and arcane symbols do not help with this.

I am not asking for pretty graphics, simply ones which do their job of identifying the objects. The game-play was repetitive and did not keep my attention, and neither did the story. Graphics can be minimalist without being ugly or confusing.

Whether or not you like my tone, I ask you to at least consider the content of my post.

Kwing responds:

Okay, first thing's first - how the heck did you sign up yesterday and find this one particular game on the same day?

That aside, this game does require you to read (at least the red text in) the tutorial in order to understand how to play. I think the colors are easy enough to remember, especially since it's only three (cyan is water-colored, always borders the water and is thus a port, towns are green, making them a kind of safe-spot, factories are red, red frequently = evil).

The icons that distinguish enemies all have very mild effects. I believe a blue uniform means the enemy will not attack unless it has greater power, while a gray riot police uniform indicates the enemy gains more power per second. Similar to PLENTY of RPGs (Final Fantasy and others) an enemy's weaknesses/abilities/speed/strength are neither transparent nor necessary to understand in order to defeat the enemy. Also, as much as I like Rogue, I don't think that letter-based graphics would have helped much here. I could have used a B or even drawn a bandit but it wouldn't have made it any more clear how fast/strong the enemy was.

This leaves the abilities the player is stuck with. You can see the name and effects of each ability by going to the menu and using the ? button to cycle between all unlocked abilities. While this information is present, I suppose it's 100% my fault that I did nothing in the tutorial to make this clear to the player. That being said, if -I- wanted to know what an ability was, from the perspective of a player with no experience, my first instinct would have been to try and find the ability in the menu. Most of them (especially the starting ones) are very simple.

Credits & Info

Views
21,116
Faves:
20
Votes
56
Score
3.14 / 5.00

Uploaded
Nov 6, 2013
8:11 PM EST