Word Warrior by TheBreakfast

[raw]
made by TheBreakfast for LD35 (JAM)
MUST BE PLAYED IN FULL SCREEN!

Word Warrior is a Comedy JRPG made in Unity. Why not RPG Maker you ask? Because we're big ol’ dumb dumbs and decided to reinvent the wheel. But, as far as re-invented wheels go, our’s isn’t so bad for 3 days of work.

Instructions:
During battles, you can type in words to shapeshift into various things and attack the enemy.

You have a dictionary of about 225 nouns that you can transform into. Each word has a comedic result that gets displayed.

Try not to use proper nouns. Think of things and simple words like: “Town, Teacher, School, Man, Woman, Car, Truck, Party, Wolf”

The dictionary is taken primarily from the list of 2000 most common nouns, fantasy game tropes, and some fun words.

There are some fun words too. Try typing in your star sign, the names of the planets, the days of the week, or the last names of certain politicians.

If you’re stuck, here is the complete list of available words: http://tinyurl.com/gmdslvq


Try it first without reading from the list, and let us know if it was difficult finding words to use.

Art and Overworld/Cutscene code by: Marcio Miranda
Battle system & Menu code by: Jake Carewick

Music:
"Cyborg Ninja" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Overworld" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ratings

Coolness 52% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.35 431
Fun(Jam) 2.84 761
Graphics(Jam) 3.42 488
Humor(Jam) 3.80 65
Innovation(Jam) 3.77 106
Mood(Jam) 3.24 436
Theme(Jam) 3.81 180

Feedback

norseware
22. Apr 2016 · 06:04 UTC
This was really fun! It is a different twist on the classic JRPG. It was frustrating though, trying to come up with nouns that worked. It made the battles go on forever. Sure, I could use Gorilla or Tiger over and over again, but it was oddly fun, trying to find new ones. You should add Dragon :P Anyways, overall, this is a really good game. I'm surprised no one has commented yet. Nice work :)
PeachTreeOath
26. Apr 2016 · 02:46 UTC
You must've put a lot of work into this, well done.
Fabraz
26. Apr 2016 · 02:56 UTC
Clever, could have educational value.
danieldsj
26. Apr 2016 · 03:03 UTC
Pretty good game. I like the graphics and the battle mechanic. Good work!
okoto
26. Apr 2016 · 03:30 UTC
good idea but the gameplay falls...
KairosXIII
26. Apr 2016 · 05:43 UTC
Love the idea, very clever take on a JRPG. Pixel art was great, good job.
deathray
27. Apr 2016 · 03:10 UTC
"Dragon" was the first one I tried too... then I resorted to the online document with the list. It seems well executed, but didn't hold my attention for too long.
davidcmcdonald
27. Apr 2016 · 05:07 UTC
the link has been 404d???
Titangea
27. Apr 2016 · 05:17 UTC
I like it, the use of the words is something really good executed, it was fun, I was trying to find new words but it is not easy, good job.
icefallgames
27. Apr 2016 · 05:26 UTC
I found myself wanting to explore the world, but kept getting into battle.
I like the idea, but unfortunately it was too hard to find words that worked (I didn't look at the spreadsheet). I just kept using Wolf because it was stronger than any other words that worked for me. Only about 1 out of 10 words that I tried worked (really? no dragon?), so that made battle frustrating.

I think it's a cool concept though. Some things that would help:
- scope it to words that relate to things the player has encountered in the world. So that way the player has something to reference.
- crowdsource it :-). Have some server where people can upload words and descriptions. Maybe each unique player has x damage points to distribute among the words they submit.

Some of the sprite designs were very nice.
🎤 TheBreakfast
27. Apr 2016 · 14:30 UTC
@Icefallgames - we had initially planned on croudsourcing the words. We wanted to grab words and definitions from a Google Spreadsheet, and collect them from a Google Form, but we decided against it for profanity/offensive reasons. We're working on some usability upgrades but we might not have them done before the end of the jam since we both work full time.

Thanks for the feedback though! We're discussing how we can continue with the idea, and those are some helpful suggestions (especially the bit about training the player by scoping our dictionary to words the player will encounter).

@everyone else: thanks for the feedback. Sorry about the lack of dragons :P
CaptainPilot
27. Apr 2016 · 23:17 UTC
Had great fun with it for the first few fights, but I think the amount of time between goes at shapeshifting just put me off in the end. Coming up with words was *really* fun, and the responses you get back are very funny - my first full-marks for humour on this one :D
SnedHlepPls
27. Apr 2016 · 23:18 UTC
Overall, I thought that this was a very interesting take on the theme, good job! One thing I will say though is that the battles took ages, I think the healths of everything could have been lowered to speed things up.
curtamyth
28. Apr 2016 · 01:10 UTC
Great idea, I really like this entry! 5/5 on graphics, there's some great pixel art going on here. Could use some balancing definitely, it's pretty easy. At no point did I feel I was in any danger even at the final bosses, especially after I discovered a word (the word?) that causes 100 pts of damage. Maybe there could be a limit on words like that, or maybe make it so you're only allowed to use a word once per battle. I would enjoy seeing this developed further, it's a unique and entertaining idea for a game. Great job!
Marc F.
28. Apr 2016 · 01:22 UTC
Neat game, cool mechanics, fun to play. Like the humor. Also, thanks for making the full list of words available - fights were sometimes rather slow when guessing many words that are not in the dictionary
gelisam
28. Apr 2016 · 04:11 UTC
The intro dialogs disappear too soon, and the battle dialog stay visible too long. How about dismissing the dialogs with a button?

Do different shapes have different effects on different enemies? I felt like it was always the same text and the same amount of damage. except when we miss. I wish there were hints to find more words, my imagination is too limited!
🎤 TheBreakfast
28. Apr 2016 · 04:34 UTC
@Gelisam, there's a dictionary available for people having trouble. http://tinyurl.com/gmdslvq

Thanks for playing. I agree regarding the dialog boxes. We've gotten a positive response so far so we've decided to go forward with the game. This is one of the key changes we're making.
jordgubben
28. Apr 2016 · 15:02 UTC
Interesting concept. It would benefit from having even more words more words, but 2000 words is impressive for a 3 day jam.

(From what firebug tells you are not collecting input to add more words in future versions. It would have been interesting to see what players actually type. Or maybe I really do not want to know ^.-)
TheMightyTeam
29. Apr 2016 · 20:48 UTC
Cool concept. A real twisted innovation to a rpg!

I tried to shapeshift in a sword or elephant but these words were missing from the dictionary. But i think it was quite fun "the learning process" of finding the words that actually made something.