Tales Of Steel And Mana: Empire's Birth by DreamingDice

[raw]
made by DreamingDice for LD 42 (JAM)

Calling all adventurers! The humans have banded together to form the first human empire rather then existing as separate villages. However to do it, the monsters must be permanently vanquished. Luckily, they are Tribes and stragglers and not organized, so take control of a party of adventurers, Hire new ones, gain reputation and slay the head of these monster tribes to do your part for humans! Controls: Mouse. And that’s it!

How To Play: (For more information check the itch.io) Move around the map and fight to find the enemy tribe leader. Take them all out and gain more reputation as you go. Hire new party members from cities and don’t get overwhelmed by the hordes. Click on the grey spaces to get the option to move. Rest up with the rest button to recover stamina but be careful. As days pass, enemies become stronger. Manager your party wisely and form the best team you can, watch your gold and party space and remember: sometimes it’s better to run!

The following is the GUI description

l1.png Yellow: City

Red: Enemy

Blue: Player controlled party. Clicking a portrait opens a member stats window.

Green: Used to open the party stats window

Purple: Rest and end the day (recover stamina, level up enemies, refresh enemy places...)

l2.png Yellow: Gold

Blue: Reputation

Red: Stamina

Green: Bounties

l6.png Yellow: Player Party

Purple: enemies

Red: Attempt to Flee Button

Blue: fight

l7.png yellow: hit and life reduction

l8.png Blue: Player Party defends with 5

yellow: Enemy party attacks with 6

Contact us in our Discord: https://discord.gg/amwhTDX

Ratings

Overall 766th 3.233⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Fun 882th 2.93⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1039th 2.686⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1231th 2.262⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Audio 402th 3.232⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Mood 604th 3.115⭐ 41🧑‍⚖️
Given 42🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

The Triumvirate
16. Aug 2018 · 15:39 UTC
Nice game, had a lot of fun playing through it. It has neat animations and some good graphics. I really like the gamemechanics, too!
Three things:
- the enemies are ridiculously weak. I mowed down any ambush in one round, even the bosses. If you are able to get a lvl 5 wizard, you shouldn't meet goblins with 2 hp any more...
- Speaking of lvl 5 wizards: the buy-menu still says they cost 500 gold, and I can buy them, but the game subtracts more than that (supposedly the actual price) and leaves me with the OP wizard and some debt.
- Furthermore, the main menu button in the endscreen isn't working.

But all in all, if you did some balancing to make the game harder, it would be very interesting to play it again. The concept has a lot of potential!
GilgusMaximus
16. Aug 2018 · 20:47 UTC
The game itsself is very fun to play =)
I like the animations and the big map with the different places and landscapes.
But as @the-triumvirate pointed out, the enemies are ways too weak.
And in my opinion the bilinear interpolation the sprites look very bad, because tehy are so small. Changing them to Point (nearest) would make them nice and crisp (maybe something to patch).
🎤 DreamingDice
17. Aug 2018 · 08:12 UTC
Thanks @the-triumvirate and @gilgusmaximus for your comments. We did not make the Art and opted out of being rated on it (dunno why ludum does not show that) But we have both set images to be Point (no filter) and did some slight balancing to increase dificulty a bit. We left it easy as it is usually better for ludum games to be easy as those who play it dont tend to do so for too long. Thank you both! We will be pushing the image fix on monday and the deficulty patch is already up!

join our discord to share more games, thoughts and ludums in the future! https://discord.gg/BFqVG5C
GilgusMaximus
17. Aug 2018 · 09:29 UTC
Ok cool, i'm definitely going to take a look onto the server =)
Max Cahill
20. Aug 2018 · 00:30 UTC
Quite interesting, if a little samey after a while. This kind of party management exploration game without traditional rpg crawling is a fun little genre that I'd like to see more of - I think that you probably "just" (haha) need more "interactions" to have staying power.
Avon
20. Aug 2018 · 15:36 UTC
Cool game, I liked the music and the art was very nice. The gameplay is simple, but I liked it as well, though I would have preferred if it was a bit more difficult, none of my party members got close to dying. Balancing difficulty is always hard under the time constraints though, and I agree with you that its better to make it a bit too easy than too hard. Overall this felt like a very polished game, great job!
HermesEs
20. Aug 2018 · 22:04 UTC
The game is pretty good, it's well designed and easy to play and understand. It's a little easy but you need time to get to the right level to defeat the bosses. I really like the concept of the game, it reminds me a little of Fire Emblem but without the strategic part.
One thing I would add is a music for the battle, that would make the game to have a different feeling.
Great work!
NNNIKKI
24. Aug 2018 · 18:21 UTC
Nice entry! This looks more like a prototype though. Here's what I would change/improve:

-The graphics. Most of the graphics are blurred/scaled/low resolution and they just look rushed and poorly made. The GUI, too, is inconsistent (the pause button is a clear resolution icon but the menu buttons are pixelated) and sometimes just hurts the eye. I'd recommend watching [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_ZuNp1CTI) for help.

-The fights. They aren't really a tactical challenge, all you can really do is attack or defend, and by just attacking, I got through a lot of fights. I really would recommend a fighting system like in the Heroes of Might and Magic series (I espacially love [HoM&M III](https://store.steampowered.com/app/297000/Heroes_of_Might__Magic_III__HD_Edition/), I play it all the time :heart: ).

-The audio. Sounds would help immerse the player a bit more and the music could change according to the environment. One track just playing through the whole game gets quite tiring to listen to.

I really liked the whole idea, though. Making an RPG for Ludum Dare? Great work! :smile:

PS really sorry for my generic comment. I will try to restrain from writing such comments.
chrissx2
26. Aug 2018 · 11:13 UTC
Really fun game with some visual inconsistency. I wouldn't mind playing a more polished version :)
Rahim_Pxr
27. Aug 2018 · 01:07 UTC
Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
Crafty mine
27. Aug 2018 · 20:19 UTC
Hello!nice RPG you got!the gameplay elements are addicting and the fighting mechanic is good.not too good at grammering tho XD
Try resizing the pitures in photoshop so it wouldnt be blury
Good Luck :four_leaf_clover:
Lamossus
27. Aug 2018 · 21:27 UTC
The art is inconsistent, often blurry, some textures that should be transperent are not. And since you opted out of graphics I assume you didn't make them, but authors of the artwork aren't mentioned anywhere, the credits button in the game doesn't work. The gameplay feels really slow and stamina system only makes it worse. I'm not even sure how the battle system works and there is no in-game explanation, I thought that amount of damage dealt is the difference between attack and defence values but sometimes enemies attacked more than the difference. The text has some typos and the font is hard to read sometimes
🎤 DreamingDice
30. Aug 2018 · 19:03 UTC
@lamossus
First off thank you for playing our game. Id like to address your comments in order:

1) We opted out in art. As per the rules this indicates both that we did not make the assets in the Jam and do not wish to be judged by it. The reason for this is we intend to continue this game. We mainly used this jam to get feedback on the combat system (which is bones here) and the over world (party management and stamina system). We also wanted to get a feel on how intuitive these elements were. The art we have here are either purchased or the artist do not require mentioning. There are three exceptions that are in the itch.io page. We included this post launch (as originally it was in the credits screen but said screen had some graphics issues so we deactivated that button and forgot to update this) so I will assume we included it after your review. Just as I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you should do the same in the future as your comments may have some nasty connotations. I admire your intentions of protecting artists, and share your concerns.

2) The game in its current form is a strategy and party management game. Its meant to be slow and deliberate as games in this genre tend to be. Stamina limits your daily actions and misusing it will lead to wasting days. Enemies grow stronger every certain amount of days so managing your income and stamina while you hunt the two bosses is key. Its fine if you didn’t enjoy it and we will definitely look into ways of speeding things up as I agree some aspects may be a little sluggish, like movement time.

3) Combat Is partially explained in the images and in the stats of your party members. Some people got it, others didn’t, we now know what we need to improve for the full game, if you come into our discord il happily explain but wont do so here as it would spoilt the test for any new players

4) We kinda of wrote things quickly and didn’t proof read, if you could point out some of the typo mistakes it would mean a lot. We tested multiple fonts and agree that some of them are hard to read
Thank you for your feedback, it means a ton. The rest of you I have yet to address, some of your comments are responded here and some I have talked to on our discord. https://discord.gg/amwhTDX
Jonathan Lorenz
04. Sep 2018 · 13:03 UTC
I have to say, it is a pretty ambitious game for a jam!

I liked the adventure / rpg mood sprinkled with strategy elements! There are some elements of gameplay that remained mysterious to me (like the speed stat). I also would have loiked and indicator showing me when the monsters are gonna level up so I can make my route knowingly.

But overall I think you have a solid basis for a good game! Good work! (The Undead Lord kicked my entire party's ass!)


EDIT : Also, a short tutorial would be welcome. Maybe a short first level with only few encouters, a boss and a town. The game isn't that complicated but it can help players enjoy the game quicker.
dk5000p
04. Sep 2018 · 13:14 UTC
I liked the management of the party. At first I thought my party was leveling up like a traditional RPG, but it seemed you had to swap out your lower level members for higher level members. The music ended up getting a little annoying and a few different sounds maybe even just sound effects during the battle would have been nice. I enjoyed the overall play and feel the game.
Andrei9
04. Sep 2018 · 18:49 UTC
Coool! Nice game :thumbsup: +++++