Review as of v0.0.3.17a
If I had to sum this game up in a few words, it would be: Fundamentally flawed.
Playing two-handed:
Playing one-handed:
If I had to sum this game up in a few words, it would be: Fundamentally flawed.
Playing two-handed:
There's a lot to cover here, so I'll break it up by location.
First, the farm. Crops are clearly an afterthought for this game. They exist largely because the setting is a farm, and their mechanics reflect that. You weed out bad crops, plant good crops. Water the crops once per day. Harvest them when done. Rinse, repeat. While this isn't inherently bad, it also never gets better. There are no days off, because not watering crops lets them die. There are no shortcuts, you need to water every single crop individually, every time. And you can't even carry enough water for a single field. You would hope that would be offset by the primary mechanic and selling point of the game, but...
First, the farm. Crops are clearly an afterthought for this game. They exist largely because the setting is a farm, and their mechanics reflect that. You weed out bad crops, plant good crops. Water the crops once per day. Harvest them when done. Rinse, repeat. While this isn't inherently bad, it also never gets better. There are no days off, because not watering crops lets them die. There are no shortcuts, you need to water every single crop individually, every time. And you can't even carry enough water for a single field. You would hope that would be offset by the primary mechanic and selling point of the game, but...
The breeding mechanic is lackluster at best. You pick one of your charges and choose to either breed with them yourself, or breed them with another of your charges. The animations are well handled (and the art is the only reason I didn't give this game just one star), but the end result of the breeding is that you get an animation and an egg to hatch. The egg hatches into one of the parent types at random (or in the case of the player being the parent, whatever the other contributor was). At which point you have another charge to feed and breed, who while supposedly sentient will do nothing but sit around waiting for you to either tell them to get it on or take them out on a dungeon run.
Speaking of dungeons, this game's dungeon is surprisingly lacking. It's a mystery dungeon setup where each "room" is a floating island you can jump to and from. A room will contain 0-2 lootable objects and 0-1 encounters/interactive objects. The loot you can obtain is minimal compared to the effort and time spent wandering the dungeon itself, and the lack of variance in the dungeon's rooms turns it into a monotonous, samey slog all the way through.
The battle system is interesting, and worth exploring further. However, it is inherently unbalanced and you'll quickly find yourself settling into a routine where you just use precisely the same moves in the same order while waiting for the battle to be over. Maybe taking a moment to ogle the characters on the field in the process.
Speaking of characters, there is the town. Visually, it's quite interesting. The characters are varied, the buildings and setting are eye-catching. Unfortunately, the cast of characters you find in town could charitably be described as animated cardboard cutouts. They have no depth and exist specifically to fill their functions and act as various forms of eye candy.
In terms of more basic, overall portions of the game. The movement is too slow compared to the scale of the maps, making even taking care of farm fields or exploring the dungeon more of a chore than it needs to be. The music is light and catchy, but nothing about it stands out. The only standout aspect of the game is its artwork and animation, which leads to the section below.
Playing one-handed:
Just unlock the gallery and use that instead.
What would I do next, as a developer?I would start with the core mechanics, centered on the farm and moving out. First would be handling the crops, which need to have a long term improvement in caretaking to make them a viable source of play and profit. This can be achieved the following ways:
- Add properly improved ways to water crops, that allows the daily chore to pass more quickly.
- Add rarer/higher end crops that are more valuable
- Add recurring crops where the base plant produces multiple fruit over time.
- Allow your charges to help with the farm's upkeep, which would also improve their apparent worth to the player. This is an especially valuable feature if that means you can see them wandering around the farm to take care of it.
In terms of your charges and the breeding system, that's a complex knot that the developer already clearly has some plans for, per promotional materials. It would appear that there is some sort of growth/evolution system planned, which already clearly integrates into battle. Beyond that, I would:
- Integrate more visual variations. The game already has a system in place for this, including for animations being played. I would take advantage of this to add multiple patterns and, if reasonable, additional body shapes.
- Properly incentivize breeding. There appear to be plans in this department, where you would breed to order and/or sell off excess offspring. I would recommend also potentially allowing this to play into the combat system, where you can try to breed abilities together to create an "ideal" battler of some description.
In terms of the dungeon, it's a complex problem. However, the solution is less difficult than you might think:
- Vary the dungeon's appearance. Break up the base island graphics into pieces, and create variants of the same pieces that get picked via seed. Follow that up by taking the same approach to the decorations on the islands themselves. A little bit of (non-colliding) clutter goes a long way.
- Properly incentivize exploration. Perhaps rare variants can only ever be found in the wild. Increase the item/gold rewards. Maybe add some proper gatherable objects in the dungeon that sell for enough to make gathering worth your while.
- Math out the battle system. Currently the variety is interesting but ultimately useless. The lack of balance means that you'll find yourself using only a few specific moves as soon as they're ready. Ideally this would be counterbalanced by variable effectiveness (for example, edged attacks might work better against something with thin fur/no fur than something that has a thick coat of fur.) However, carefully considering cooldown versus damage/healing/effect is something that should be done for every battle move in the game.
For the town, the problems run deep but are potentially some of the easiest to solve. The characters all have purposes. (which should be balanced against changes made to the game) What the characters lack is, well, character. Basically, making the town interesting and compelling beyond the player needing to be there boils down to actually filling in the characters. Give them schedules, dialogue, interaction, relationships with each other and the player. Special events, holidays, etc. Let things happen, and turn the caricatures into people.
