Feedback on Monster Catching/Training game - Magic World

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Hello all!

Hoping to get some feedback on my game, Magic World.

New Video Trailer:

I had originally launched a test version in September, and much feedback was provided (and many down votes. ) Main feedback was that it was poorly optimized for mobile experience, and having all the different game modes behind a games menu screen meant players did not try the other game experiences. Since then, I’ve completely re-vamped the game - condensed multiple game modes to a single area, reduced the part count from 200k+ to under 30k, tidied up all the scripts to significantly reduce the lag, added voice-over options, and done everything I can think of to improve performance.

Here’s what all you can do in Magic World:

MagiMon - This is the main interest point of the game, the ‘story mode’. Players encounter wild ‘MagiMon’ that they can battle, capture, and train to be their partners in their quest to challenge the eight ‘Spirit Leaders’, thwart the evil MegaCorp, partake in side quests, and recover the stolen Stars to restore peace to the realm from the sinister Dark Lord. Your MagiMon partners fight beside you in battle, up to three at a time (screenshots below.) Players can also battle against other Players, trade MagiMon, and even engage in a simple game of ‘MagiCards’ with one another. These MagiCards can be obtained in battle or purchased in shops.

Enemy Encounters:

PvP:

MagiCard:

At this point, there are four areas. plus the starting neighborhood to explore, 4 Spirit Leaders/Stars to defeat/recover, and over 50 unique MagiMon to encounter and non-playable bosses to fight. Eventual goal will be to add 5 more areas to explore in the main MagiMon mode.

If monster/card battling isn’t what a player is interested in, the following activities/games are available.

Jobs - Mining, Lumberjack, Post Officer delivery. These jobs provide gems/material that can be turned into Coins for use in the game and encourages the player to explore the map to find their NPC delivery targets.

House Building - Players can build and customize homes - gathering material as a lumberjack lowers the cost of purchases.

Game Modes that will take a player away from the main mode to their own servers.

Quest - Overhead, puzzle/dungeon explorer inspired by a certain classic adventure game. Currently two dungeons to explore - goal is to expand the overworld map further and add an additional eight dungeons.

2D Challenge - Side scrolling platforming action with levels inspired by classic games. Currently ten stages, goal is to add ten more.

Sportsball - a combination of soccer, Godzilla, and ‘attack the guy with the ball’, team-based points game.

Magic War Modes - Team & Solo battle, King/Lords of the Hill, Capture the Flag - 20 maps.

The game modes have weapons/class upgrades that affect the players stats. All stat gains, Coins earned, Items purchased, can be used in each game mode. For example, if a player finds they are struggling to level up their stats fighting MagiMon, they can gain Experience points playing one of the other game modes; then come back to MagiMon and find they’re much stronger than before.

Game Link: Magic World [reLAUNCH ALPHA] - Roblox

Any thoughts/feedback is much appreciated! Thanks!

EDIT: New screenshots of Menu and Battle GUIs post feedback:
Menus:

Battles:

Also redid the load screen, changed the avatars to Rthro, and a few other minor things to improve lag. Not sure it plays so well on mobile devices, with how old my phone is.

[tralalah]

It looks good, just a couple of things I wanted to say.

It is very og; the GUI style is outdated and even some of the gameplay seems to relate more to classic Roblox. It’s not wrong or bad, it’s just something I wanted to point out; you may be going for this style and if you are, you’ve done it quite well.

Your game is seemingly a spinoff of Pokemon? Again this isn’t a bad idea, there’s lots of monster catching games out there. However you’re contending with a large audience in the same genre (Loomian Legacy, probably others as well) so be careful with steps going forward - this is more of a niche game on Roblox and it seems like it fizzles quite easily if you don’t tend to the players frequently. Loomian Legacy is losing the hype train and since the ban on Pokemon games in general, there hasn’t really been a successful game like them running numbers as they did a few years ago. Again, it’s not bad design or anything, just something to consider moving forward.

I wish you the best with your game, hopefully your hard work pays off!

[Scrizonn]

The first thing that stood out to me is the GUI design, the GUI design reminds me of old ROBLOX. It would be very beneficial if you changed your UIs, possibly to a more cartoony feel?

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

I can agree with that, they currently do look very ‘serious’. Changing those up should be an easy fix. Thank you!

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Thank you for taking the time to play the game!
On review, I can agree on the GUI style, it certainly does look more ‘serious’ than the mood I’d want to attract for the game.

It wasn’t intended to be a spinoff of Pokemon, but I can’t deny the core tenants are definitely there - catch everything, fight strong leaders, stop bad guys, similar sounding name, etc. I’m hoping the extra features I’ve added will make it stand out on its own - job system, players themselves fighting with their monsters, house building, other game modes, etc. But if players see a resemblance, I hope they’ll also be able to find their own attachments to this game. I do plan on frequently updating, more monsters, more areas to explore, more story, etc.

The game originally wasn’t even focused on the monster catching/training elements, I was building an RPG, and thought, “Hey, I wonder if I could program a capture/training element to the game?” Then it flowed from there.

Definitely going to look at updating the GUI design. Are there other areas that called out to you as being out of date?

Thank you again for playing the game!

[teslobo]

If you’re planning to change up the GUI I’d recommend keeping in mind a hierarchy of information. You have a lot of stuff on your combat screen for a player to take in, and it would be far less daunting if the important stuff was easier to find.

As general rules of thumb:

• make more important elements larger than less important ones
• place more important elements either centrally or toward the top

Theoretically the attack button and the image of the enemy are the most important elements, and to your credit you’ve made them bigger than some other elements, bur the attack button especially can get lost in all that text and images.

Maybe look at other 2D RPG battle screens for examples: early dragon quest, earthbound etc.

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Those are great tips! I can do that… when changing up the GUI designs, I assumed the previous responders were referring to the in-game menus? But I can definitely streamline the battle menu too.The one shown above, the yellow one, is from an early on fight and displays more information to ease the players into paying attention to how their stats affect things. Later battles have less information on them, but removing some of that info would free up screen space. I’ll take a crack at this first, see what shakes out.
Thanks!!

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Thanks all for the feedback, I took to it right away.
I changed up the opening loading screen, changed the avatars to Rthro, the GUIs for the menus and battle screens.

Menus, made it more ‘cartoony’, improved the fonts -

Battle menu has been simplified, streamlined some of the displayed info, changed up the design, enlarged the important buttons:

What’dya guys think?

[teslobo]

Big improvement for sure, although at a glance I’m struggling a little bit to divine what the left part of the battle screen is. Are any of them buttons?

If it’s just an info window it can probably be better placed on the right side and the battle options on the left.

[Smogy_Developer]

Looks good so far, but try going a bit in the Booga Booga gui sytle, add some details to your gui’s. It is looking good so far, the images are stretched out a bit try fixing that. Try filling up the backround by adding some land, grass, mountians and so on. Also don’t add alot of giu’s , make a info giu and make it so it has options to your twitter,discod,promocodes and so on. Hope this helps!

Just noticed your new text, big improvements.

Smogy77,
alt account

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

The left side are the “Magimon Partners” you can use in battle…but that’s an excellent point, the buttons do not look like the other buttons, I’ll fix that!

[Smogy_Developer]

Try making your gui’s not so stretched btw.

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Ah! The stretching is probably partially due to how scrunched up the window was when I screenshotted, I’ll double check all of that!
Last night I went in and changed the entire art style of the game to be more “cartoony” too. I’ll work on that background. Thank you for these excellent suggestions!

[Smogy_Developer]

Alright! Cool, good luck!!!

[ClownAuthority]

Hello, Mr. Scribe!

You have presented an interesting creation you’ve made, and asking for feedback, and, I you know, want to give you feedback so you can make this game success as possible, so without sings FUUUUTHER of DOOO. Signs Let’s get it on.

Play Screen:

Now, let’s start with the thumbnails, you know, Um, I personally, LOVE the trailer you provided, it makes me want the click ‘play’, because it gives me that cool adventure vibe, which I really like, and I love your narrating and I love the cool swords and yeah, the trailer was nicely developed and you should be 100% proud of youself.

User Interface:

Um, You got some work to do, because there is way to many UI’s and everything is just complicated, like there’s so many and the images are like screthed out and they look open sourced and kills the vibe, because kinda give the vibe, you know what I mean? Some of the UI’s needs alot of work, and I know you got this can do do anything you imagine, because you already did, this is an amazing game you have created, and you should be proud of yourself. Period.

Graphics:

Yes, the graphics are amazing, sometimes its weird and kills the vibe again, and yeah, and It’s pretty nice overall,and yeah, you did a amazing job on that, and yeah, maybe you could make some tweeks in the contrast if you want all of that stuff, go ahead and do that but make sure you don’t over modify it to the point the game is gonna get laggy yucky, and ye, you don’t want that.

Stats:

Alright, so, you have 77 dislikes and 77 likes, which on some people throws people off and don’t play the game, and some play the game to see how trash it is, not saying having 77 dislikes mean the game is trash, but you know, and you have 9k vists, which is good, especially in 7 months, but it’s not great, you want to ty and get your game out there more because 9k in 7 months is just you know, not great but it’s good, you’re progressing which i the good part, and, I’m happy for you and your game, just get your game out there, recruit, sponsor, add do whatever the needs you need to do to get this game out there, you know?

Builds:

The builds are alright, there not really like all having that style all together, it’s like weird but it’s alright, it’s nice, you def. can improve the builds but I mean, it’s nice, I don’t think you need to do alot to make it perfect, you know what I’m saying? Good builds, it’s really nice.

Final Message:

You have done an amazing job on this game, i’M 100% glad you’re progressing, you’re doing well, give yourself like I don’t kno, 500 pats on the back, because you did it, this game is AMAZING, I like the theme and the vibes, you just got work to do to make this PERFECT, because you’re so cool, I believe in you and this game, and if you want any feedback, oh my god, just hop in my dms, and yeah, but, this is a good game, and yeah, I’m happy for you 100% again.

Regards,
Clown

[ScribeOfTheEndless]

Thank you for the response! More changes have been implemented! Art style, UIs, new jobs, and players now have a personal mine/forest and home to enjoy.
I’ve put a skyscraper advertisement on it to generate visits (I hope), so far in the past three hours, there have been 1,200+ visits, but they’re not staying longer than just under four minutes. I’m wondering what I could do differently to increase player retention? Also, why there are more down votes than up. =/ Hmm.

New Menu layout:

New Battle menu layout:

Uploaded a new trailer showing off the new visual art style, menus, designs, etc.: