You need to let go of your need to possess gear and focus on building your talents an mastering gear in between missions. That stays with you when your level resets and your gear goes away. The idea is that you get better gear drops the next time due to your mastered equipment. By starting out fresh, every drop is exciting, especially early since you are so in need of it. Compare that to a game where you get the uber weapon of awesomeness and for a long time all weapon drops are no fun because you already have the best. Not that I don't like the more conventional rpg but this is a new idea and I am digging it! Now two nights with not enough sleep thanks to this game! -Greg
Pocket RPG is a complete misnomer. First, the iPad doesn't fit into most pockets. Second, none of the characteristics of an RPG are there. Quoting wikipedia: "A key feature of the genre is that characters grow in power and abilities, and characters are typically designed by the player." Characters don't grow in power and abilities because you start each adventure from scratch, with the small exception of items and skills you can unlock. They aren't designed by the player, you can't even name them and if you decide to not buy all available unlocks, the game actively pushes you ("you can still buy upgrades! Buy them all so every battle mage will be the same clone of battle mage alpha!"). There is no sense of progression or character development at all. If you encounter an adventure that is too hard, there is no way to improve your character before trying again (you will run out of unlocks you are allowed to buy early on), which is key to any RPG. "Automatic skills/stat progression based on the items your character equips" does not help either. The visuals are nice. They remind me of Fate. So it's a nicely implemented fantasy-themed dual-stick shooter/fighting game, with less RPG elements than some of the other dual-stick shooters that have actual progression. "Lots of Looting" is kind of an overstatement too since you don't actually get to keep your loot. I haven't fully made up my mind about the resets between adventures. On one hand it's not really any different from playing some other dungeon crawler over and over again. On the other hand, adventures are really short and every new one is just more of the same. Mazes of twisty little passages, all alike, with a very small selection of enemies. (They are different between adventures, but within one adventure you will be fighting hordes of one type of enemy with some sprinkles of one more powerful type, maybe one or two other normal ones, and a boss.) Starting from scratch also makes fighting really boring. Yes you can find swarms "of creatures to take out with devastating combo moves" but every adventure starts with the same mind-numbing grind of smaller enemies until you get some useable equipment that makes fighting actually feel like fun instead of work. The game is very stable on my iPad 1 and I've only encountered two identifiable bugs in several hours of playing. I glitched behind a chest between the chest and the wall once and got stuck there, and in one level, a shop room was so far down that I wasn't allowed to enter it (prevented from moving further into the room).
A button to rotate the screen. Instead of having it start the wrong way around and having to trigger a rotate using the accelerometer. Makes you look daft on a commute
My inventory was definitely not full. This was very intermittent, and seemed to be the exception not the rule. But I'll keep an eye on that just in case. Thanks!
There are a couple of ways to think about the name pocket rpg. physically putting it in your pocket is one, or you can think of the adventures themselves being small. In this case, I think the name describes the adventures being bite sized. The way the game is structured, they could have released it for the desktop and kept the name. The characters are chosen by you, you can grow their skills and abilities. Those don't go away, it's just the material one that do. And I think I'm starting to see the rationale as to why. Simply put, it keeps things fresh. You're always looking for better things and trying to figure out what strategies will work with what gear options you have available. Think of each different chapter as a different mini game where you start out with the default load out, but can pick things up throughout. If diablo and fate are RPGs, then this is an RPG. Personally, I tend to class those as action rpg/lite, and things like NeverWinter Nights as true RPGs. There are many different types of RPGs. I was hoping that this would basically be diablo for iOS, but for better or worse it's not exactly - it's something new and different. That's kinda rare. and depending on what you were expecting, I can see how you might be disappointed. I kinda felt that way at first, but the more i played, the more I started to appreciate the deisgn for what it was instead of imposing what I thought it should be on top of it.
This was adressed in the original announcement thread on TA. It was apparently meant to refer to physically putting it in your pocket until the plan was changed to start with an iPad release. It's not really important though... Skills don't go away, but 1) there's only one level of most things, e.g. a battle mage can master fire and that's it; 2) you can't really choose one path of several for lack of choices and the game actively bugging you about buying more skills with remaining gold. Every character of one class will eventually end up being exactly the same with all skills unlocked. Due to unlock requirements, every character of one class will also progress in a very similar way. There is no branching at all. I have no problem with that, like I said it's not really different from playing a very short game over and over again, which is something I've done before. They aren't pure RPGs but they don't claim to be in their titles. They both do have much better character progression and customizability than Pocket RPG. in Diablo or Fate, I get a sense of having to go back to grind one more mob to finally get a better sword and so on. I don't get that when I play Pocket RPG. It does go in the same direction (you hack and slash your way through swarms of creatures, collect loot, defeat bosses) but to me it feels like it lacks depth. Which I realize is kind of harsh when we're comparing to Diablo but still... There is nothing wrong with starting over regularly. I played many of the old roguelikes, still play nethack, played Diabo 2 in hardcore mode and so on and you keep starting from scratch in all of those.
Thank you all for such wonderful comments. It's has been a long but great amount of creative enjoyment working on this project for me. I have loved painting each dungeon and character! I am keen to add in further environments, loot and monsters. As for the name Pocket RPG, we felt it nicely reflected the slightly cute, quick and fun gameplay and art-style. We kinda wanted a pick up and play RPG. I do agree though because of some of our decisions, the name might be a bit inaccurate, maybe we should of called it Pocket Hack 'n Slash. I wanna thank you guys again for the warm reception to our game. Please keep posting those bugs, we will do our best to get rid of them as fast as possible
Now that I am almost half way I would like to add something to what it was said. This is not an RPG is more of a collection of adventures loosely tied together (there is no real story) and where we retain nothing specific to the character while progressing to the point that at the end of the game there is no character ... we players will have all the same. I have to admit, if it was not for the way this game has been realized .... I would feel bored now after three very similar adventures. Brutally said this is almost just a hack and slash dual-pad shooter with no story and proper skill set (mind here I am liking it very much!!) very much similar to solomon. I also find it quite useless to stick in every adventure to the same character, because I have no feeling of making a character (just buying skills) and there is no specificity to a story. Actually, this is cause of potential boredom. I am half way and I am not sure the interest will stay till the end of the game (and the game feels on the short side). Now, why don't you just allow us to change character hen starting a new adventure? This fits in the game and will force us to make choices ending up with a party that can change from player to player. Regarding difficulty .... I have not died once yet in three worlds. Well I died once, but because I had to put down my ipad during a battle for "external" reason At least int eh first three worlds, difficulty is as of a casual hack and slash game. Anyway, I am liking it .... but I am disappointed.
How do u access game centre in game? Can't find any button to tap, also I got a few achievements but they didn't register with game centre. Fun game tho Editne suggestion, any chance of a bit more of a "magnetic" effect to the coins/loot? Just so you don't have to run right over the item/coin to pick it up.
There have been a few times he game has shut down on me (mostly during boss battles). Has that happened to you? Perhaps it is in games like that when all your achievements don't register (I have noticed that in some other games, so it could happen here too).
no, game never shut down, i played the first section of the first adventure, the achivements showed up on the end screen, then i pressed advance to go to the next level. however, i then pressed the home botton once the new area loaded, a) to see if it would start again from my exact point and b) to look at game centre to see if the achievements had registered since I couldnt find a button to check this in-game.
