The Burning War by MegaMasterX

[raw]
made by MegaMasterX for LD27 (JAM)
2xH Studios' first public release. There are events unraveling that are causing strange events to occur worldwide. Animals are mutating. Spells suddenly are gaining strength. Mustaches are growing more lusciously. You engage to find out what is going on but are halted by some mutated rodents. Fight your way to them to find out what is going on!!

Your team has 10 seconds to decide what actions to take before the rats take the preemptive strike!

Minimum requirements: XNA Game Studio 4.0 redistributable (The Prerequisite link above)

Version 1.1: (8/25/13 - 6:41 PM EST): Changed download location to a trusted source. Added flare effect to show whose turn it is. Put controls on the title screen per feedback. Changed healing to, instead of targeting a party member, heal the member with the lowest HP to accommodate the theme better (Requested via team feedback).

Version 1.1.1 (8/26/13 - 5:36 PM EST): Implemented a pause function based on feedback.

Version 1.1.2 (8/27/13 - 10:10 PM EST): Changed the XNA profile to HiDef from Reach for compatibility with more GPUs. No content was modified (If you wish to confirm, the Mirror link is the Reach version)


Follow the team on dem twitters: @2xhstudios
Click that big blue thumbs up (or gray...whatever the Facebook team changes it to this week): https://www.facebook.com/2xHStudios

Ratings

Coolness 83% 2
Overall(Jam) 2.79 426
Audio(Jam) 2.55 379
Fun(Jam) 2.44 477
Graphics(Jam) 2.77 432
Humor(Jam) 2.42 285
Innovation(Jam) 2.48 471
Mood(Jam) 2.41 464
Theme(Jam) 2.80 434

Feedback

namrog84
26. Aug 2013 · 04:13 UTC
I loved the graphics and mood. I felt like I was inside a childs imagination somehow. Would have liked a little bit more animation/selection of wahts going on. But overall a pretty decent game.

Played through to the congrats screen! Good job Bryan Matthew and Ace!
manabreak
26. Aug 2013 · 04:35 UTC
The music could have used some variation, and I wasn't always sure about whose turn it was. Also, there was no indicator about who could do what (many times I tried to use magic with someone who couldn't do that), and I was able to attack the "dead" enemies.

Nevertheless, this shows effort and the FF-style fighting works for the theme quite nicely. Next time, I'd suggest to spend a little less time with the huge selection of characters and try to focus more on the smoothness of the game. Cheers! :)
Dark Acre Jack
26. Aug 2013 · 04:39 UTC
Browser warning on the .zip download, discarded. Sorry.
theholychicken
26. Aug 2013 · 04:47 UTC
I'm not very good with timed rpg-style battles so I tried to 1-F1-1-F1 the whole way through until 3 of my guys died and it's only my necromancer dueling with the last rat minion. I managed to burn it to death so it was pretty fun.
The important game messages could be placed in a more prominent spot imo, like right on top of the enemy being damaged or in the center.
I liked your graphics too, felt like cartoony van Gogh, and it's consistent. Consistent art beats jumbled collections any day.
Ramon Imbao
26. Aug 2013 · 05:06 UTC
Quite confusing at first. Also, the only quirk I have is there's no ability to pause! Other than that, great job!
🎤 MegaMasterX
26. Aug 2013 · 05:20 UTC
@Dark Acre Jack: We haven't paid for an SSL certificate yet. We also didn't do a ClickOnce installer, its just the Zip file and XNB assets.
🎤 MegaMasterX
26. Aug 2013 · 19:15 UTC
Thanks for the feedback! We've left feedback on all entries and will continue to!
tripleVisionGames
26. Aug 2013 · 19:52 UTC
Amazing graphics! A bit confusing at first and could maybe doing with being a bit clearer but I really liked it
Big Dave
26. Aug 2013 · 21:07 UTC
Definitely took a moment to get into the swing of it but once I did it was neat! Enjoyed watching you stream on Friday, cool to see the finished product!
tiagosr
26. Aug 2013 · 23:07 UTC
I seem to have landed on an error page when trying to download your entry =/
BradleySmith
26. Aug 2013 · 23:18 UTC
Absolutely love the character design, particularly the one with the purple head and chubby belly. xD Highly rated because of this. :)
Lissar
26. Aug 2013 · 23:39 UTC
Trying to access the site tells me it odes not exist!
JoeDev_net
26. Aug 2013 · 23:44 UTC
I also got the message that the site does not exist.
🎤 MegaMasterX
26. Aug 2013 · 23:52 UTC
I have increased the bandwidth on my Azure storage. Try again please and thanks!
MinionStudios
27. Aug 2013 · 14:26 UTC
Hilarious and fun! Definitely needs more feedback as to what is happening, maybe some animations...
immanuela
27. Aug 2013 · 15:26 UTC
I love the original graphics!
TobiasW
27. Aug 2013 · 15:43 UTC
I like the concept, but I think it suffers a fair bit from the controls and missing/misplaced feedback. If you ever want to make a post-jam version, here are my suggestions:
- Control the game entirely with the mouse. Have the available options in a circle around the characters, and drag the one you want to take to the target you want to hit with it.
- Basic attack animations, with characters actually walking over to where they attack, and hit points and notifications how many hit points you lost over the corresponding characters.

These two things would probably make the game feel a lot tighter. Right now it's a little bit awkward to control, so I mostly did 1-F1-1-F1-1-F1 until I needed to heal, healed up and rinse and repeat.

The graphics are quite original, and the music works well. I like the character designs and descriptions a lot!

Congratulations on your first LD entry!
🎤 MegaMasterX
27. Aug 2013 · 15:51 UTC
Thanks for the feedback! We are certainly planning on taking this one beyond the Jam. The mouse controls...I haven't honestly thought about that. I do like the idea of having the abilities in a 'skill wheel' around the current turn's character. I made it Keyboard-Only simply due to the 10-second theme. I may increase the turn timer after adding skills aft....*rambles*
murilo
28. Aug 2013 · 01:56 UTC
'No suitable graphics card found' :(
🎤 MegaMasterX
28. Aug 2013 · 02:05 UTC
You may have to redownload the application. I changed the Profile to HiDef (Some more advanced GPUs require it, and legacy GPUs use it. JUDGES: This fix follows the jam rules, as it was a small setting change and has not changed the game itself.
NachoDA
28. Aug 2013 · 02:46 UTC
Really a special and good art style. Well done.
sittaman
28. Aug 2013 · 15:44 UTC
A bit tricky to think the actions in short time, if each character had 10 seconds would be better =) Also the art is great and the classes system shows you put much effort on it. Congrats!
DY
29. Aug 2013 · 16:00 UTC
Interesting style. Battle system like from jRPGs. As someone above say, 10s per character should be good.
Starspell
29. Aug 2013 · 19:51 UTC
Can't play on my computer either. My archaic graphics card doesn't seem to be up to it.
🎤 MegaMasterX
29. Aug 2013 · 19:56 UTC
Try the mirror link if the original link doesn't work :]
ratalaika
30. Aug 2013 · 16:23 UTC
good job
jomomomo
03. Sep 2013 · 16:12 UTC
Can't play windows games. :-(
Mironix
08. Sep 2013 · 10:52 UTC
Some transitions and animations would improve game a lot! Interesting graphics.