I like this idea - it would definitely alleviate some of the stress. I'll look into some kind of rhythmic alternative to rapid tapping.
Cheat codes are microtransactions that are hidden on the battle's pause menu. Some people think we made the battles hard to sell cheats, that's not the case at all. We actually didn't think the battles were hard at all (we'd seen a five year old girl blunder her way through a battle) - cheats were an afterthought during development. If you try out cheats, Super Mode is pretty awesome - it raises all stats to 9001 for the current battle. You can deal massive damage with 9001 strength. To get in the magic cave Spoiler tap out the sax riff from "Who Can It Be Now?" on the rocks above the cave.
Yes, the battles are not overly hard. The challenge is really nicely balanced. I do like the rhythm charge idea, could even use some 80's pop culture guitar rock or something else. Really could be a new way to incorporate some good nostalgia.
Thanks for the tip! I got a ton of stuff from that cave! Btw, one more question; will there be an option (eventually) to buy all the episodes? So for now, you can buy individual episodes for $2 each, but how about when we want to buy them all at the same time (when they're all out)? Will it be a discounted price like $8 or $9 (if, for example, there are 5 episodes)?
For me the tapping isn't what the problem is. The problem is how much it slows the pace of the game down. Every attack takes literally twice as long as it could do and so instead of getting on with things, I feel like I'm being held back. Changing it to a rhythm game wouldn't really get rid of that feeling because I'd still feel like I was being slowed down when everything else in the battle system seems to be designed around being fast and intuitive. Attacks should just be charged by default. The mini-games in each attack are there to establish how powerful an attack is, so there's not really any need to have the player charge an attack. It's effectively asking the player to do the same thing twice when the player wants to be getting on with it. Clearly this doesn't bother some people or they don't really realise it, but as a person who's played a lot of turn-based RPGs the combat in this one really stands out as being over-made. The mini-games are great, there's just too much faff around them. (While you're looking at the battle system by the way, a quick graphical touch on the turn gauge to show which way around it is would be helpful. My mind assumes that the icon at the left is next to move, whereas I think it's actually the other way around, isn't it?)
@toythatkills. I think a lot of people have played many a turn based RPG. Quite frankly it was a style of RPG done to death with very little innovation or change for years. Asking for SMRPG to be just like them is the last thing seasoned gamers like ourselves want. Fair enough the tapping and pre-charging may not be your cup of tea but at least it is different. It looks like the dev here is taking on ideas so maybe we can give them some rather than ask for them to copy tired JRPG's. I for one would like to see more gestures during special attacks, to really take advantage of the touch screen. Maybe quick simple shapes could pop up and you have to trace them quickly. I mixture of that plus the tapping from existing attacks could really keep things fresh. Sorry if that sounded like a rant at you mate, I just could not stand to play another formulaic JRPG in this lifetime.
I'm in no way suggesting that the dev should "copy" other JRPGs, more just look at how they've been designed, and how they don't make the player do multiple things which produce the same effect.
I played through the first episode last night, and I have to say that the overuse of rapidly tapping wore me out. That should only have been used occasionally instead of many times every single battle. It's too much and took much of the fun out of the game. Also the game seemed pretty straight forward. There was only one puzzle, and that I seemed to just stumble into the answer. I'm not really sure what the solution was. LOL. The battles didn't seem to require much thought, just going through the motions. Mind you I still had some fun with this game, but it's nothing anywhere near as fun as, say, Costume Quest, and certainly not as fantastic as Paper Mario. Also the episode was very short - is the paid episode more involved? With some changes I could see the game becoming a lot more fun, though, and I liked the style a lot.
I just finished playing episode 2 last night and I have to say this was one of my favorite experiences on iOS. I saw someone mention Costume Quest earlier in the thread and for me it invoked the same warm nostalgia. I love Halloween so Costume Quest was the perfect RPG for me and I found the battle mechanics to be silly fun. I have a soft spot for all things 80's, so SMRPG really hit a sweet spot for me. I also found the battle mechanics to be chuckle worthy and lot of fun. I admit that I struggled a bit with the combat in the first episode but it all finally clicked during episode 2. I can't wait for more!
I personally enjoyed Costume Quest a great deal (beat the DLC too!) This game however just wasn't great for me. It had everything I thought I would enjoy but ended up just not doing much for me. I guess it just wasn't very fun overall regardless of how much I was telling myself it was an awesome time.
Yeah Ep 2 is much larger, more quests and larger map. Even after several play throughs I'm still missing 3 areas. Ep 1 really is just a sample of the games main mechanics. What I'd love is a way to see my Episode Stats in game. I hate spending an hour playing an episode then having to end it to see how I did just to see I missed something. Further the more I play, the more I'd like to see changes to the Tap to Charge mechanic. Heck it could just be a simple verticle slider, still requiring a turn to charge my meter. I do like the way the Charge works, just the tapping part gets tiresome. Rythm or not, make all the charging time based via a button or slider. I don't even use the sword becasue I'm already tired from charging.
Am I the only one who wants some Paper Mario minigames? There's a lot of tapping in the game. It'd be cool if, for example, we could have something like the hammer's minigame in Paper Mario for, for example, the baseball bat. Anyway, this game is really awesome. I like quite a lot the story, it's very funny! P.S.: MightyRabbitJosh, check your PM inbox please!
I was able to check sales data today and I'll be open about it - we've had a pretty good number of downloads (32k from Thursday to Sunday), but we've only had ~500 sales. Overall we're seeing a 1.5% conversion rate from download to purchase, which is pretty sad. What this means is that we're nowhere near what could be called a financial success (considering Apple gets a 30% cut, our investors get 50%, and so on). The low sales have actually opened our eyes to why Square-Enix charges $18 for an RPG on iOS. I guess sales are low for JRPGs in general on the platform. Doing a free one probably wasn't the greatest idea from a financial standpoint. Even though we're seeing really low sales - we aren't going to abandon the game! We're committing to three more episodes, with Episode 3 being the biggest yet (two huge new environments, several puzzles, six side quests, six new enemies, and a few new notebook covers). Episode 3 sees Marty fighting evil Botchangers who are attacking Shadow Valley's Ronald Reagan dam. Episode 4 will take players into the sewers of Shadow Valley to do battle with "The Sweater". Episode 5 will take Marty into space to fight a shadowy villain from Commander Hood's past. After we launch Episode 5 on iOS we will be launching the game on the PC with the hope that we can realize financial success on that platform. If we see success there, we will create and release Episode 6 - which will bring Marty face to face with Commander Hood in an epic final battle. We're going to be reactive to the feedback you guys have given us - I'll be posting a change list for the next update as soon as I get the list hammered down. Thanks again for all the support and constructive feedback!
Well, you have my money.....exactly how far can you go on £1.49? I hope you can get on Steam soon, I think PC gamers are more prepared to shell out. On iOS asking for a couple of quid makes the punters run away screaming . I honestly think it will end up retarding the app store.
Ugh. Sorry to hear about the low sales! Frankly I'm not too surprised. The AppStore is just brutal on developers, I can't imagine the uphill climb it must be in order to be truly successful in the AppStore. Why not make the free download Ad supported? With no adds or an IAP for add removal in later episodes? I don't like ads sure, but I hate to see a developer offer a special product with over a year of work into it simply have to fold up and leave because of the brutal nature of the AppStore. I do hope you guys can branch out and make this game a success and hopefully that success can support further iOS development. I'll also add that Ep 1 is pretty underwhelming compared to Ep 2 in terms of size and scope. Maybe once Ep 3 & 4 drop move Ep 2 to the free side so that people can see just how large an Ep really is, would help to justify the measly $1.99 sale point when most people waffle on $.99 price.
Does it say anywhere in the game that the additional chapters are longer/more content? Not everyone comes to TouchArcade, and if there are some people that liked the came but found it too short, it might do you good to have a popup after you finish the game 'Thanks for playing Episode one! Go check out our much larger Episodes for purchase in the store' type deal. Dunno. Disregard if this is already explained somewhere
The game itself doesn't mention how much larger the paid episode is - I'll see if I can add that in with this next update. Perhaps we do just need to try harder to sell the additional episode to players.
