Icyworlds.Net - Comments & Critique

Previous post by Tobias

This is the current version of Paw'D, a Flash game I have been working on. It is work-in-progress, so let me know what you like, what you don't, and what you would change.

Website

Note that by now we have our own website, with forums and everything - so if you'd like to play Paw'D, you're welcome to check it out!

Quick Start

To start the game, pick any username and click 'Login'. If no one else took that name yet, it's yours, and the game will protect it with whatever password you chose.
You can play with your keyboard or your mouse, but I'd prefer if you tested out the new keyboard controls and let me know how they work for you: Use your arrow or WASD keys to move around. 'E' selects a nearby enemy (press it multiple times to cycle between them), 'R' picks up nearby items, and your number keys are your abilities on your hotkey bar.
The full preliminary user manual is available online. ^^

Points of Interest

This will likely be one of the last play tests before release. Most features should be working and are included in this test.
There are three major quest chains to complete that will easily get you to level 10, the level cap of this test.
Deep in the forest, slightly off the main path, you'll find a dungeon to fight your way through, with very decent spoils that cannot be found anywhere else. It can be completed alone, though I'd really love to see two players group up and turn that dungeon upside down. Take a screenshot if you do it!
You can find a number of armor and other equipment that you can wear. All of it, save for pouches, shows up on your character and provides a boost to your abilities.
"Spirit Bottles" now drop from various monsters. They are used to enchant your armor, and give you unique effects that are related to the monster they are from.
Various items can be combined and crafted into new items. For example, claws can be attached to gloves, to increase the damage they do. This also changes their visual appearance.
A number of quests award tokens when you complete them. Territ exchanges these for special items and armor near the village.
Choco, near the village, needs your help to retrieve a treasure. Anyone can join in when the quest in progress and receive rewards. There are different rewards, depending on how well you do, and you can attempt it repeatedly. Try getting the best rewards!
There is a new ability, 'Auto-Attack' which is in your hotkey bar for your convenience. With it, simply pressing '1' attacks your currently selected target. If you have no target, it auto-selects the nearest enemy.
None of the maps are instanced (save for the dungeon). Don't make me regret that. ;P

Existing Testers

All your accounts are still there, and you can use the same name and password you picked before.
Existing characters have been given the option to change their name. So, if you tested the old version and want to use the same name for your new character, you can rename the old one if you wish.

Commenting

How can one comment on a game?! Really, there are lots of ways - the entire game is made of pictures, drawings and much more - and not only that: was the game too easy? Too hard? Unfair? What parts did you like? Are there any quests you particularly enjoyed, any places, or characters that were particularly well drawn? Or maybe you have some really cool ideas you'd put into the game - those are all things you can comment on, and more. So, if you have comments or thoughts, I'd love to hear them. ;P

Credits can be found in-game, as well as online.

Comments & Critique

Written by Shamus on Sep 13, 2010

It's been a while since I tested, and I apologize, just been caught up in doing work stuff and writing stuff, and now bowling is going to be starting up, so fun fun. But in any case, I tested some of the facets of the warrior class. Got up to level 9, but that was more or less a formality, as I beat the quests before that point. You know my style, that of the cautious warrior medic, so it probably should surprise you that I went through the next with caution and thorough preparation. So, here are my thoughts:

First off, I really like how you put the passage of time into this version, where you can see the day and the night appear as you play through the game. It adds a certain something to the game, and the scenery is very nice to enjoy. Touches like that really make a game all the more enjoyable, and I give you kudos for it.

Second, might need to fix the farmer NPC so that he gives you bottles after the quest is done. He gives you a bottle to complete the herb quest, but I was never able to get a bottle from him after the fact, even though I had the red herbs. Would be nice to be able to get more healing potions in the game if you need them.

Getting to the actual class, it's an interesting concept, getting spell points with the more you initiate combat. Actually works pretty well, and the gradual fury decrease between combats makes sense. In group play, it might prove to be a little difficult to manage in team play, given that the more the other party members gear up for a difficult melee, the more of a disadvantage the warrior is at because of not being able to use an ability right away. In some ways, it balances things, in others its a bit of a hassle. I think it's suited enough to leave as is, though.

The class lends itself very well to combo attacks. You start off with a bite to get the %5 damage increase, add a critical hit percentage increase with another ability, then use trash to deal a savage blow, and you're potentially maximizing damage against a tough foe. You can't chain these abilities together without doing enough damage to get your fury up, but once you do, it puts the hurt on significantly. If you have the natural fighter ability active to decrease the cost by 50 percent, you could potentially get two trashes in back-to-back. Which is crushing.

I didn't see any places available to get weapons as in the other server, so I'm not entirely sure how that would work, but unless I miss my guess, this class could be absolutely devastating once they gain access to melee weapons. Something to consider, certainly. The enchanted wing was nice for an intelligence boost, but I don't see that the warrior class can use that, necessrily, and the sp increase didn't seem to be active that I could see.

As always, your characters were cute and you really felt for their plights when you encountered them. You seem to have a knack for that. ;) I was actually considering writing a bit of a story regarding the other quest chain, the one with the flower children. Main character I would call Stem, it seems to fit regarding the nature of the heroes. ;)

Parent Post

Show previous comment

Replies

Tobias

Sep 14, 2010

Oh wow, thanks for the detailed review. *-* You're doing fine! I just barely posted a new build to test and you reply within a few hours - really, if you hadn't told me you were caught up with work and everything, I wouldn't even have noticed. ;P We have a really nice bowling alley in our local movie theatre, but I haven't been there in like .. forever *-* I should really grab a few friends and just go there again, buuut I'm really not that good to start with. ^^;

Yup yup, I didn't really pay too much attention to the levels this time - by now there are enough quests and dungeons that the level cap will probably be risen to 15 anyway. ;P Glad you like the warrior class (despite behind a healer!). Those warriors might well be the guys that you'd be healing - scared yet? X3

Thank you. ^^ There is actually a server time, so everyone actually observes the same time in-game. The idea was that some monsters could be night-active, such as ghosts, but I've heard other games had troubles as players returning to a place during night didn't understand why an area was suddenly a lot harder. So .. I'm not sure anymore whether to pursue that.

Oh yes, that's true - the farmer only giving bottles for that quest was on purpose, because bottles are sold in the village café. When playing, did you expect him to keep giving bottles? It would be no problem to add that in, to reward players from remembering that. The game would lose a slight money sink though, since bottles would usually cost 3 silver. What do you think?

And wow - I think you've really tested just about every facet about that class. *-* I honestly didn't think anyone would grasp all that in such great detail that quickly, so .. well done. ^^ You're right about team play - but it wouldn't be hard to add an ability they could use every so often that would give them a small boost of initial fury. And you got your combo attacks down really well too, I see! The plan for the natural fighter ability is to reward players who realize how and when to use it with higher damage - so kudos for figuring it out ;3 It'd actually be interesting to see how high of a damage you can sustain as a warrior, but none of the monsters in the west forest would last long against you if you use your abilities like that. ;P

The server is actually the same - your other characters are east of the village, and you're west of it. If the maps were connected, they could go to each other's place. Yup, you're right - the enchanted wing really is useless for warriors, but I'm sure it would be pretty attractive to your healer, no? ;P And it'd look good on him, too. ^-^ Zandra drops half-warrior and half-caster stuff, so if a group of both classes went down there, at least one of them would get something useful.

And .. thank you. ^-^ If you would like to write a story, you're totally welcome. If you want and have an idea for a story that others could play through, you could even write a quest chain yourself - I'd have no problems with adding it in! You could think of your own places, NPCs, what they need, and so on. Remember, during the test, flower spirits started at level 5 - they have no quests from 1-5 yet, and having something similar (yet different) to what warriors have would be quite nice. ;P

Shamus

Sep 16, 2010

That's the nice thing about bowling, though. You don't necessarily have to be good at it to enjoy it. Same thing with golf. Although I would argue that golf carries way more frustrations than bowling does. Inclement weather patterns, hazards, and lost golf balls...all you have to worry about with bowling is getting your ball stuck in the ball return.

It certainly would make things a lot easier on the warrior class if they can count on someone to heal them constantly while they deal out damage at a rapid pace. I noticed while in combat, it doesn't take too long to charge up fury with repeated blows. That's where a lot of the synergy takes place; the fighter protects the healer, and the healer protects the fighter. It increases fighting capability four times, by my estimation.

About the nighttime influencing monster strength; it's a good idea, really. The best way I can think of to counterbalance that is have some monsters that are weaker at night as well. The shifting of time works both ways, so while it might be a benefit to wait until a certain amount of time for best effectiveness, you can use the time waiting to get other things accomplished a little easier as well. You could balance it with traits like alignments as well, if you wanted, but since that system isn't in-game, it might be overstated.

Well, you could put a cap on the farmer...he only has a limited supply of bottles for each character, or he only has a certain number per day or week, until he goes to town to restock his supplies. That would prevent abuse to a degree. Or he could charge, as you said. There's always ways to work around a problem.

An ability that might fit for a warrior class would be Adrenaline Rush; the warrior self-inflicts a minor amount of damage to themselves in order to gain a fury boost. The ability couldn't be used if the warrior has half or less than half of their health remaining (adrenaline already in the system). It would solve the no initial fury problem, at a slight cost of having to sacrifice being at full strength at the beginning of a combat.

I'll have to take on Zandra again, see what I can get. In any case, I like the idea of writing a quest chain, I might have to get involved in that as soon as I have time. :)

Tobias

Sep 22, 2010

Oh yes, that's true - but missing three times in a row can still be kiiind of discouraging. ;P And yup, I agree - plus, with our bowling alley, they serve snacks and drinks while you wait for others to make their turn. It just seems a lot more sociable than golf. X3

Warriors would still get a few defensive skills to reduce incoming damage and to keep monsters away from the healers (which would also distinguish them from warriors that only picked offensive skills). Once those are in place, it'd be interesting to see how a healer-warrior combination would do in, let's say, the hollow tree (which you saw already, right? The place with the spiders!).

The biggest challenge will really be making sure that warriors and healers are actually playing at the same time - putting a dungeon for two people in is kind of pointless if people just expect to solo everything. Likewise, being able to count on a healer-warrior team allows me to put more interesting stuff in than "damage boss X faster than it can drain your health bar" - as is the case with Zandra. ;P

Yup yup, I agree - it'd be a good idea, but it'd be hard to make sure that everyone understands why map X is suddenly hard and that it'll be easier in six minutes. ;P And elemental alignments do exist - were you never surprised that your heals that ought to heal for 63-78 hit the zombies for over 120 damage instead? ;3 Unless you mean different alignments than I do, then they don't exist. X3

Here you go: "Adrenaline Rush - Adrenaline rushes through your body, instantly generating 35 fury but reducing your physical defence by 15% for six seconds." - 1 minute cool down. I thought it'd be less stressy on healers than seeing your warrior's HP drop 10% right before they engage the enemy. ;P It's already in-game, and works probably just like you expect. X3

Sure! I have plenty of other things in the game to work on, so take your time. ^-^ If you want, you can also try your hand at the existing (but not-yet-published) quest chains in-game (such as those in the village), since you're probably a better writer than I am. X3

Reply to this post

You are unable to post comments because you have Javascript disabled.

If you have a screenname here, you can log in to bypass this check. Alternatively, you can just enable JavaScript for this site and your comment - trust me, this is a very safe and well monitored place. That Javascript restriction had to be put in place due to the large amount of spam currently received - sorry for any inconvenience, you can thank those weirdos who have to get rid of their pills so bad, they have to spam websites hundred times a day. Not that they went through anyway, but just having hundreds of spam postings show up every day in the review queue is a little irritating ^^;

Your Name:
Subject:
Your Comments: