Author Topic: 東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine  (Read 11346 times)

チソウ タイゼン

  • tarzan cheetos
  • you'll thank me for the cropping later
東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine
« on: September 23, 2019, 05:01:26 AM »
Hey, guys. So as you know, The Strongest Day of the decade was earlier this month. This Discord server I'm in is all about developing Touhou fangames, and a key member therein ran a gamejam between 1/9 and 9/9 celebrating the event. No rules, just make something Cirno-related. So I'd like to present now,




The whole of Gensokyo has mysteriously been terraformed overnight! Arranged now as a tall, labyrinthine tower, ascend to the top to get to the bottom of the new incident. Encounter characters and locales new and familiar
The Odyssey of the Nine is a dungeon-crawling RPG where you play as Cirno and co., exploring mazes and fighting tougher enemies the further you go.

That's roughly my sales pitch, but the truth is the game is super fuckin' early and barely has any narration in it at all. But there's gameplay!
For those of you willing to check this out, thank you, first and foremost! Now be warned that the game is currently between 50 and 90 minutes long, depending on the difficulty you choose and how apt you are at games like Etrian Odyssey.

Youtube video of me playing through it on Lunatic
Link to the game's itch.io page - See the body of this page for controls

I am especially seeking out feedback on mechanics, and balance. Event scripting is spotty at best and visually, everything is, to put it mildly, programmer art. I don't even have spell animations, yet.
Those are coming up on my to-do list, though. Hang tight! But not too tight because I'm slowing down the update schedule lmao
Next version should be after some big additions.

Thanks for your time!


Re: 東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2019, 09:43:48 PM »
It looks great. Although I don't think I would be able to give accurate feedback, as I am not a fan of RPGs very often, but I had fun playing this. One of the things I could recommend working on is giving more details in the equipment selection.

Re: 東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2019, 04:43:07 AM »
So I decided to check this out on a whim, and I really liked it for what it was. I feel like there's definitely potential here depending on how much time you want to commit to the project. I'll provide a list of observations I made during my playtime to give some feedback. Keep in mind I played on normal difficulty, so that's the perspective I'm coming from when writing this.

- I really think you nailed the enemy encounter rate. I never felt overwhelmed by encounters, but I also didn't feel they were so scarce that I had to search them out to keep my levels up.
- I'd recommend item descriptions being more readily available in the menu. You can't see how equipment affects your stats unless you're at the equip screen. You can only see what non-healing items do during battle. You can't differentiate between spellcards with the same icon on the equip screen. Those are the issues that come to mind, but they make equipping items more of a hassle than it needs to be.
- I'm not sure how I feel about having to equip consumables to use them in battle. I assume it was done to discourage item spam, but it feels pretty limiting. The reload mechanic is my main issue with it. Depending on the item it can take a very long time for someone to reload it (looking at the party healing item). This is a bit more personal then my other complaints, but the mechanic feels like a pace-breaker to me.
- I like the ability to see the enemies' ATB gauges and how they're split into different segments. It really helps you plan your turns effectively and let you know when a big attack is coming up.
- There weren't that many enemies, but I felt like there was a lot of variety in what was there. Most enemies brought something different to the table, and kept things from getting stale.
- I really liked the first boss. It was good for her to be a bit on the easy side without being a cakewalk. Her attacks were varied, and that helped teach the player to respond appropriately to the situation.
- My only real gripe with the second boss was that I felt she had too much HP and the fight dragged as a result. Otherwise, the fight was challenging but fair.
- On the second floor, I ran into a fight with a painting, a gluttonous spirit, and a nekomata. For some reason boss music was playing and I couldn't run from the fight. I encountered them in a 3x3 room in the East portion of the map. Glitch?
- While I was fighting one of the fat green enemies (I forget her name), she used her recoil attack and her ATB gauge never went down afterwards. All my party members got about five turns in a row with the enemy's gauge ever decreasing. Glitch?

Well, I wrote a lot more than I thought I would. Like I said, I think you have something pretty good for the time it took you to make it. I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

チソウ タイゼン

  • tarzan cheetos
  • you'll thank me for the cropping later
Re: 東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2019, 01:23:32 AM »
wufff it's been over a week since i'd checked in here my bad

It looks great. Although I don't think I would be able to give accurate feedback, as I am not a fan of RPGs very often, but I had fun playing this. One of the things I could recommend working on is giving more details in the equipment selection.

Thank you for checking it out! Yeah, that's in my trello list lmao
Getting the equips functional took way long so I sidelined the effect display for later :/

So I decided to check this out on a whim, and I really liked it for what it was. I feel like there's definitely potential here depending on how much time you want to commit to the project. I'll provide a list of observations I made during my playtime to give some feedback. Keep in mind I played on normal difficulty, so that's the perspective I'm coming from when writing this.

Thank you as well! I was pretty excited as stuff was coming together but I had to take a break because working on this was turning into an all-day "table-every-other-responsibility-i-have" sort of situation. I'm about to jump back into it after taking some time to collect myself (and catch up on college work!! ahh)

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- I really think you nailed the enemy encounter rate. I never felt overwhelmed by encounters, but I also didn't feel they were so scarce that I had to search them out to keep my levels up.
Great! I did worry for a bit that they spiked a bit in the southwest end of 2F, so this is good to hear.
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- I'd recommend item descriptions being more readily available in the menu. You can't see how equipment affects your stats unless you're at the equip screen. You can only see what non-healing items do during battle. You can't differentiate between spellcards with the same icon on the equip screen. Those are the issues that come to mind, but they make equipping items more of a hassle than it needs to be.
Yeeeeah... after 6~8 hours straight slogging at the party menu's item and equipment screens I didn't take the extra time necessary to fully implement item information displays. I'm sorry! But this is on my to-do list.
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- I'm not sure how I feel about having to equip consumables to use them in battle. I assume it was done to discourage item spam, but it feels pretty limiting. The reload mechanic is my main issue with it. Depending on the item it can take a very long time for someone to reload it (looking at the party healing item). This is a bit more personal then my other complaints, but the mechanic feels like a pace-breaker to me.
Items are designed to be a quick but effective patch over any potential holes in your party composition / spellcard loadout. I chose to give them an almost-immediate prep time and very low turn cooldown to distinguish them from ordinary abilities, and with that crossed with how efficacious they are, (and that they can't be blocked/sealed) I felt it would be good to gate them by giving them a stack count and reload time. I will concede that 200 time ticks is a very long time to take to reload the Okonomiyaki, though, lmao. I intend to revisit exact numbers later.
Quote
- I like the ability to see the enemies' ATB gauges and how they're split into different segments. It really helps you plan your turns effectively and let you know when a big attack is coming up.
Hopefully some enemies frontloading harsh abilities onto low-charge high-cooldown windows wasn't too rough? I had to nerf the hell out of mujinas because their attacks came out too fast and often lmao
Quote
- There weren't that many enemies, but I felt like there was a lot of variety in what was there. Most enemies brought something different to the table, and kept things from getting stale.
Also something I worried about! I'm glad it came off well.
Quote
- I really liked the first boss. It was good for her to be a bit on the easy side without being a cakewalk. Her attacks were varied, and that helped teach the player to respond appropriately to the situation.
- My only real gripe with the second boss was that I felt she had too much HP and the fight dragged as a result. Otherwise, the fight was challenging but fair.
re: Eternity: Great! To let you in on a little secret, I'm mostly using Lunatic as the balance point and scaling back for the lighter difficulties. If anything comes off as weirdly adjusted on Easy or Normal, this is 80% going to be the reason why
Ahh, yes, I'm really feeling the "Kasen's HP Is Huge" bit and not just because i keep getting her to <200 on lunatic. Will address. Possibly will need to add more debuff cleanse items to the floor for her as well lmao
Quote
- On the second floor, I ran into a fight with a painting, a gluttonous spirit, and a nekomata. For some reason boss music was playing and I couldn't run from the fight. I encountered them in a 3x3 room in the East portion of the map. Glitch?
- While I was fighting one of the fat green enemies (I forget her name), she used her recoil attack and her ATB gauge never went down afterwards. All my party members got about five turns in a row with the enemy's gauge ever decreasing. Glitch?
Both intended! There isn't any event scripting on the second floor yet outside of the initial bit but basically you're supposed to go left first, to unlock a barrier on the right; immediately afterward you're set upon by new enemies that hint at the fact that the third floor is an entirely different setting, with more spirit-like enemies and the occasional beast youkai.
The Amazake Babaa's Topple attack has a cooldown of - really - 500 ticks, or, 5 full time bars. Once it uses it, it's basically a free pass to auto it until it dies.

Quote
Well, I wrote a lot more than I thought I would. Like I said, I think you have something pretty good for the time it took you to make it. I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

The write-up is very greatly appreciated, thank you! I'll put your feedback to use.


Re: 東方海宙城 The Odyssey of the Nine
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2019, 01:43:39 AM »
Hi again! It's been a while since I checked this out. I'm glad to see you respond to my feedback. This is my first time giving feedback on an in-development video game, so I'm glad you appreciated it!

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Items are designed to be a quick but effective patch over any potential holes in your party composition / spellcard loadout. I chose to give them an almost-immediate prep time and very low turn cooldown to distinguish them from ordinary abilities, and with that crossed with how efficacious they are, (and that they can't be blocked/sealed) I felt it would be good to gate them by giving them a stack count and reload time. I will concede that 200 time ticks is a very long time to take to reload the Okonomiyaki, though, lmao. I intend to revisit exact numbers later.

Admittedly, I've never seen items implemented like this in an RPG before, so a part of my lukewarm reaction to the mechanic my just be unfamiliarity and personal preference. Even if I have some misgivings about the system, I doubt it will be a deal breaker. Also, the Okonomiyaki may have left a bad taste in my mouth because I had to use it a couple times during the Kasen fight.:V

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Hopefully some enemies frontloading harsh abilities onto low-charge high-cooldown windows wasn't too rough? I had to nerf the hell out of mujinas because their attacks came out too fast and often lmao

I felt like the mujinas were the only real offenders in that regard, and only when there was more than one. I felt it was fine and the cooldown gave you enough time to recover, but they may be toeing the line somewhat. The other enemies are fine, though.

Quote
Both intended! There isn't any event scripting on the second floor yet outside of the initial bit but basically you're supposed to go left first, to unlock a barrier on the right; immediately afterward you're set upon by new enemies that hint at the fact that the third floor is an entirely different setting, with more spirit-like enemies and the occasional beast youkai.
The Amazake Babaa's Topple attack has a cooldown of - really - 500 ticks, or, 5 full time bars. Once it uses it, it's basically a free pass to auto it until it dies.

Well, glad to hear I didn't add to your workload. ;) I thought both occurrences were weird enough to maybe be glitches, so I brought them up just to be safe.

There's one thing I remembered after my last post. Moving onto a save point resets the encounter rate, and your HP regenerates every time you take a step. If you keep walking back and forth across a save point, you can fully heal yourself for free. I'm wondering if that's an exploit. I remember using it quite a bit when I played the demo because the only way to restore your HP outside of battle was with consumable items.

That's the last thing I wanted to mention. Keep up the good work, and have a nice day!