Hello, I’ve finally (in my opinion) “finished” my current game Element Simulator. Now that I (in my opinion) have a product that could be playable and I feel has potential. I’ve asked players who’ve joined now & then what they think of the game. Lot’s of “it’s fun” and long play time. But the game has a 50% Like v Dislike ratio and I’m still not sure why. (Lot’s of them are from previous bugs in early development but I don’t want to reset/re-upload the game due to data lose as there are some players who join regularly). I’ve created everything in this game (besides trees) build, script wise. I want some help from other people who have a different look at things to see what could be improved on. I want some help testing the core mechanic and if it’s enjoyable, the mechanic is the Element Battle System. You click/tap an enemy, depending on the wand you have equipped you’ll have four different moves with different elements. There are 10 elements, using certain elements on certain Enemies with a certain type deal x2 damage, or /2 damage, now in the early game it’s not that useful but enemies get lots of HP later so having strong elemental moves is important. I won’t go full details, but I’d love some feedback on what I can improve to make the game better.
If you’d like to help you can play it here. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advanced,
~Notrealac0unt
Functionality
I’ve tried to play the game on and iPhone and the wand just unequips when you click on the screen, and when killing the enemies, all attacks are exactly the same if you don’t count the name and the color (accuracy, damage)
GUI Scaling
While I was playing, I also noticed that one of the GUIs that were made, isn’t scaled properly and it doesn’t reach the edge of the background.
Entertainment
If you could add some animations, make the wands shoot instead of just clicking enemies with your hand, and change some of the GUI designs, then I think that it would be pretty entertaining simulator.
I tried to play the game on my phone, but I had the same problem. When I tap with the weapon, it always unequipps it. I also don’t really understand how exactly the game is supposed to be played. The GUIs are also too big for mobile. I will try it on PC, in case this only happens on a phone.
Also, check the developer console (F9) for errors in a script in-game.
Played on PC.
Found having to click on the target and then the colour to do damage a chore.
I would have preferred that when my player enters a block the appropriate block is enabled so I can click it to do damage.
I worked through to 500+ crystals and got a 500 wand but the wand shown when I equipped was not changed. I decided that it might be just a colour thing and went on to get enough for a 1000 wand, a pencil. When equipped it was the same old light brown stick.
At that point I saw no reason to stay. Can’t say I like it…yet.
You’re providing feedback on UX and UI
Weird for an RPG to call it a simulator, what exactly makes it a simulator?
I will define “Roblox Simulator” as a simulator genre based on roblox.
A roblox simulator has these typical game mechanics:
- Reset | Reset all your progress and start the game from the start, gaining some advantage
- Tycoon-like Progression | Buy stuff to get even more stuff
- Simple Language+Gameplay | Requires little to no in-game text
- Children’s Game | Games are endless, simple to: play, learn, and set up
During gameplay, I encountered a fire element thing?? I then proceeded to click on the Water Spell, since it seemed logical. However it dealt 50 damage, while using the Fire element it dealt 100, I was confused, but now I solved your puzzle. Match the element with the same spell. RPGs relies heavily on puzzles, if the player were to solve your puzzle, the game becomes boring immediately. It will now seem like a roblox simulator which is what you don’t want your game to be like.
RPGs that uses elemental spells like Pokémon and Persona hides their true elements and weaknesses, it is up for the player to figure out their weaknesses and exploit them.
For Pokémon, the elements are obvious, their design tells your what it might be, however sometimes they can have two elements which changes their weaknesses and strengths sometimes. Persona deals with this in a new way, each enemy have their own sets of weaknesses and strengths. RPG damage scaling is even more complex rather than a .5x / 1x / 2x. Instead they have: Resist, Weak, Strong, Normal, Drain, Reflect, etc. Each has their own effect and experimenting becomes a hazard, so players have to be careful(somehow) in choosing the right element to fight and not trigger any deadly effects such as Drain and Reflect. Puzzle games are dead but many games have an underlying puzzle that makes the game much more enjoyable, especially on an RPG.
Your current gameplay only requires to match the element to deal the most damage. It doesn’t take a second to figure out what the enemy is weak to. I recommend doing game studies if you’d like to learn about how games create this type of mechanic.
I listed all game mechanics I can find in your game:
- Upgrades
- RPG damage scaling
- Area Unlock
- Clicker
- Tycoon
Right now you have incentives to follow social media and having people play in groups, but it doesn’t matter because the base game play is just not there. Think about what motivates a player to play your game, and focus on making that as good as possible.
Here's what motivates me and how my personal experience with the game was:
I played for about 5 minutes, and unlocked the beach level. I’m not going to play this again later, because I didn’t enjoy my experience. My main issue was with the pacing of progressing in the game and a lack of interesting game play. I did a bit of exploration, and found the cave with the treasure room. I wanted to see what’s behind the barrier, so I did a bit of grinding to reach the level requirement. I considered buying the cheapest wand crate, but after seeing the drop chances I decided that the huge chance of getting the starter wand made the first crate not worth it. At first I wanted to save up for the next crate, but then I saw that I could almost afford going to the beach level. I figured that seeing the next level would be more fun that getting a better wand, because killing the same enemies over and over again had already gotten boring. Also, the damage of each attack isn’t actually important for how fast you progress. So much time is spent walking between enemies and clicking on them that having 10x damage would only maybe double how fast you get crystals. That makes wands not very useful, as far as I can tell. So seeing the beach level was very disappointing, because I realized that you get the same number of crystals for defeating enemies and the game play is exactly the same. That means I got nothing for my grinding, and set the expectation for the other levels, “more of the same”. The only thing I cared about was that locked treasure room I saw earlier, so I went back to see the cost of leveling up. 15000 crystals, compared to the ~1000 I’d made during the 5 minutes I’d played. So that means I’d have to grind for about an hour and 15 minutes to see what’s behind the door, which may or may not be a huge disappointment just like the beach level. Besides, even if the reward was huge, I don’t care because the only two means of progression are super boring and unsatisfying. That’s when I decided to quit.
Here's what I think you should improve:
Your game is about clicking a lot. Make clicking fun. Add satisfying, punchy sounds and visual effects. Have animations and particles. Make the enemies shake or be moved around by the attacks. There’s no progression in the game. Make stronger wands have stronger and punchier sound/visual effects. Show damage numbers, make bigger damage show bigger/more colorful damage numbers. The pacing is off. You expect players to grind before getting them hooked. Establish an expectation of being rewarded for the grind, and do it early. The first unlocks should come as soon as the player has learned the basic game play. The growth should be rapid at first, and slow down as players become more committed.
I would also change the game play because I prefer more complex and more deep games, but if you're going for an ultra- casual clicker type experience, that's fine too. It's easy for me to dump a bunch of ideas, but implementing them and balancing them is another story. Here are some of my ideas:
I would give spells a random chance of missing, and deal random amounts of damage. I would make spells cost mana that slowly regenerates. I would unlock elements gradually instead of starting with all 4, and have them actually be different. Lightning could stun enemies. Water could make enemies wet for a few seconds, giving a damage boost to lightning spells. Fire could deal low damage up front, but light enemies on fire for a few seconds doing damage over time, and having the damage increase the longer they’ve been on fire. Earth spells could prevent the enemy from “dodging”, meaning spells stop missing for a few seconds. Having spells be different gives players a choice. Having spells interact makes the choice more complex, because now the cast order matters. You could make weaker spells matter by giving one type of reward for doing more damage than necessary, and a different type of reward for only just killing the enemy.