Splice The Hedgehog: RPG Fangame.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

First thing I noticed was that the pipe that Splice hung on in the Sewer dungeon was completely inconspicuous. I recommend trying to distinguish objects that can be interacted with from the background in some way, be it an indicator when you're near, a discoloration, whatever you think works best. The same could probably be done to terrain that you can jump on/over. Particularly in Update 9, I noticed that it was difficult to tell he could even jump down certain ledges or onto certain platforms, until he actually did it. These are very minor things, but every step that can be taken to help give the player direction is important.

As far as the pipe goes, there is supposed to be a cutscene that basically tells you what to do. Of course, the whole place is under construction, so I haven't made that yet.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

Similarly, I noted that when Splice was attempting to push the Golden block, the little sweat indicator was hard to notice. Perhaps a little sound to go along with it would help. I know Sonic Adventure has more than a few grunts and huffs that would work perfectly.

Fair enough.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

In Update 8, when you were showcasing the story outset, I saw a couple places where you could shave of some time. The very first shot where it pans onto Splice's house shouldn't last so long. Sitting on the house with nothing happening for three or four seconds after the subtitle comes up isn't really necessary. Additionally, when Splice is recapping the morning's events to Clara, it might be wise to just quickly cut away from that. Most games tend to do that so that the player doesn't have to hear the same exposition twice.

I suppose you have a point there. I let it sit there for so long so that the song could end, to be perfectly honest. I could have worked it better maybe, buuut that particular shot hasn't been touched in literal years.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

Furthermore regarding the story, I felt that Tab sort of came out of nowhere during the encounter at the orphanage. That might need to be smoothed out a bit, but maybe that's just me.

To be fair that whole scene, and heck, the Black Rose Orphanage in and of itself, need to be reworked. Tab did come out of nowhere, but I didn't show the scene in which you meet her prior to that. It's not quite that random in context since you need to talk to her in the previous area in order to trigger that. I didn't show it because I hadn't updated it.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

Last couple details I noticed were in the Battles, the Health seemed to overlap with the SP a bit, so that could stand to be spaced out. The enemies, too. They always looked a bit too clustered when there was a handful of them. And regarding your low health indicator (brilliant thinking, btw), while I don't think leaving the whole thing blinking is a good idea, you might want to try letting that little broken heart icon stick around, until the leader's health is restored above critical levels. If the indicator only flashes up once, the player might forget after a while. But the whole indicator is too big to be a constant thing. So after the first warning, having it be just the heart might be a good middleground.

Hope that's not too much constructive criticism for one post. I had a lot of catching up to do ^^;

Health overlapping with the SP is a problem with the graphics, probably. I could look into that, but I never changed it too much further than colors.
Enemy placement is very tricky to get to look right. I have varying results with different enemies. If I place them too high, then it'll look like the characters attacking them are standing in mid-air. Sometimes being clustered is the only way to get it to look right.

And the broken heart icon sticking around does sound like a good idea. Although I don't know what careless player would forget to heal after nearly getting electrocuted to death.


Anyway thanks for the feedback. Gives me something to think about!

With that big bit of feedback out of the way, I'd love to bounce some ideas off you about the "too many characters" issue. I've been brainstorming a few ways to make them all valuable and fun to swap around.

Well, what've you got?

Well I'll start by saying that I like the idea of them all having unique field abilities. But at the same time, I think those should be dialed back a bit. That is to say, I think you should have places to take advantage of everyone's skills all over the game, but I don't think any of them should be required (except for Splice's, since main character). The player shouldn't be forced to have one specific party to progress, unless it's for story purposes, so I think the way to go about that would be to just hide goodies behind them.

That being said, I do have an idea to make everybody more useful in their own way, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement: Team Attacks.

I think Chrono Trigger implemented it the best, and it made every party combination in that game valuable. If you can program it in easily enough, I think it would be an excellent addition to SpTH. Every pair could have a unique attack, and there could even be bigger attacks among groups of three or four. If a character is less unique or useful on their own, give them awesome team attacks. You could have them unlock based on that Affection stat, too, or require both characters to be a certain level or have certain Skills. There's plenty of ways to do it.

What do you think?

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

Well I'll start by saying that I like the idea of them all having unique field abilities. But at the same time, I think those should be dialed back a bit. That is to say, I think you should have places to take advantage of everyone's skills all over the game, but I don't think any of them should be required (except for Splice's, since main character). The player shouldn't be forced to have one specific party to progress, unless it's for story purposes, so I think the way to go about that would be to just hide goodies behind them.

You raise a good point. I also wanted to, as I mentioned before, have multiple abilities essentially have the same effects on various things. For instance, Speedy and Splice can light fires and stuff, but Splice and Thunder can put out fires. But they're both unique on their own since Speedy can blow up walls with his fireballs while Splice and Thunder have two completely different elements. That way you'll be more likely to have someone in your party who can solve a puzzle you come across.

TheDarkGenesis wrote:

That being said, I do have an idea to make everybody more useful in their own way, though I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement: Team Attacks.

I think Chrono Trigger implemented it the best, and it made every party combination in that game valuable. If you can program it in easily enough, I think it would be an excellent addition to SpTH. Every pair could have a unique attack, and there could even be bigger attacks among groups of three or four. If a character is less unique or useful on their own, give them awesome team attacks. You could have them unlock based on that Affection stat, too, or require both characters to be a certain level or have certain Skills. There's plenty of ways to do it.

What do you think?

Honestly, I've thought about this a long time ago. But I don't know how to do this. I'm not saying it's impossible, as it might very well be in some offhanded way. But if it's been 8 years (...god.) and I still haven't made a single one, well, don't get your hopes up.

It'd be awesome if I could manage it though.

Spoiler:

Bit of an update here, I've just about finished the additions to the tutorial. Might give it a few more tweaks before leaving it alone.

It's been exactly one month since my last update, and it is now officially Splice The Hedgehog's birthday. (The character, not the game.)
This should have been the date that I upload another updates video, but realistically speaking, having two upload updates in one year just wasn't possible. In the past month alone I've been too caught up in pretty much everything but to continue working on this.

But let's not end this on a negative note. Lemme try to get a status update on all the things I've been working on since summer.



Field Abilities

As far as the projectile throwers go, the field abilities are in nice working condition. The only exception is Speedy, whom I have yet to start on. If his projectile spread doesn't work out, I might have to think of a different way.

I have yet to start on the others, and some I haven't fully figured out yet. But I'm getting there, slowly.


The Mystic Ruins

...is something I seriously need to go back and finish. I lost motivation halfway through remaking the train station and never got back to it. This SHOULD be a top priority since it's required to get the story onward.


Eggman's Underground Base

To be perfectly honest I haven't touched this place since I added that health warning. The actual layout of the dungeon is only about 30-40% complete, and I haven't even started on any cutscenes around there. This is another high priority.


Greenflower City Remake

Moving onto the less urgent side of the list, the GFC remake was one of the last big projects I started on. It's shaping up quite nicely, though there's still a lot to go over. I'm very excited about this one.


Ancient Mine of Eleyrah

I hadn't really touched this place until just the other day, when I was trying to get myself back to working on the game as a whole. I did a bit of mapping and made a neat list of unique items you can find here.

Spoiler:

I'm also aiming to make this place look a bit more like a mine, so expect to see some more mining equipment around here at the very least.


Other Miscellaneous Things

Like I said in the last post, I updated the tutorial. It now includes a section for the Field Abilities. I also touched up the swimming area a bit so that it looks nicer.

And well...aside from messing around in some spoiler-filled areas, that's really about it. It's sad how little of an update this wound up being, considering how much I was originally aiming for at this point. But, that's life. I should have more free time for a little while, so hopefully I can get some progress underway. I'm going to also try and upload at least one music video before the day is over.

It's tough to get back into the groove of things when you've been held back for 5 months or so. I've mostly been doing random minuscule things or just doing a lot of thinking for the game, as opposed to making any good progress towards anything.

However, 2017 is looking promising...:

This is the most I've done all month.

Made some updates to Splice's kitchen. I happened to walk in there and boy, was it a mess. Dishes left out on the counters and the stove, lazy flat-colored tile flooring, and a big block of cheese sitting out going stale! I've been away from this game for too long. It's time to start wiping off the dust.