The Shining Source

Hello everyone!
I am the creator of Kings of Ember (DrEthan) and I have been making this game for a little over a year now. I was wondering what your thoughts and suggestions and maybe some critics were about my game. If you haven't downloaded the game you can check it out on my GameJolt at https://gamejolt.com/games/KingsofEmber/201483.
Thanks!
DrEthan.

Hey man, just played your demo.

It looks like you're off to a good start so far. I have one main criticism though. The randomness of damage and misses are a bit TOO random. I had to play the battle far too many times waiting for the RNG factor to allow me to 1 shot the goblins just so I had enough health to take the golem with. Even with that much luck, the golem can still 2 shot you with the 6s he hits for if you aren't lucky lol. Luck should definitely play a part in the game, but it shouldn't be the only thing that determines the battle's outcome!

Nonetheless, I figured that this is only a demo battle and you'll likely balance things out more when you start on the main game.

Cheers!
~Chaos

P.S. Game needs some music!   

Hello Chaoswizard98,
First off, thanks for playing my game (Yours is pretty cool btw) and leaving feedback . For the first part of what you said about the randomness, I have realized it and I am thinking about how to rectify how damage is done. My first idea is to make it so that there is only a one or two damage difference between the base damage of a weapon and make all the rest of the damage be modified by terrain, skills, the position of other player units, etc so there is absolutely no rng. My second idea is to keep the random system that exists right now but also add weapons that have little to no rng to them, so you can either choose between a highly random damage weapon that can hit harder than other weapons or a no to little rng weapon where it may not hit as hard but you can count on it to do about the same damage every time. my last idea is to make a mix of the two.

As for the music, I am definitely not good at making music and I am planning on making this game purchasable in the future so I do not want to use music that is just lying around on the internet, so I plan to hire a music and sound designer near the halfway mark of the development of my game so that I can get music made and so I know what kind of music I want for the game.

P.S. The magic I just added to my game helps you kill the brick golem easier .
Once again thank you for the feedback!
- DrEthan

One method I've used with random numbers is to add two together instead of using a single larger value. It reduces the number of times extreme values crop up, so can help prevent attacks always missing.

e.g.

Rand(0,6) gives a random value between 0 and 6 with equal distribution.

Rand(0, 3) + Rand(0, 3) also gives a random value between 0 and 6, but it's more likely to give numbers in the middle range (2, 3 and 4).

In the demo I managed to kill all of the goblins with a little practice, but the brick golem seems to have all the luck and thoroughly beats me every time.

Battles definitely have a shining feel to them, and the little bit of town exploration works well. Looking forward to seeing more of this!

Thanks for the help, it's always nice to see that people care enough to comment . In the next patch I am releasing in a few days I will try your method and see how it goes. (The town will also get prettied up a bit).
- DrEthan

Hello everyone, happy holidays! I just updated my game on GameJolt and I decided to post a summary here! So here is a list of changes (this is usually called a change list)

 - Added attack animation for Enu Knight casting magic.
 - Redid the inventory menu so that it is now a scroll rect and you can see the stats of the items.
 - Added death animations for the Goblin and the Brick Man.
 - Removed the black outline for the villager eyes and nose.
 - Made the villager’s pupils be in the center of the eye instead of them being cross-eyed.
 - Implemented walls, art on the walls, windows on the walls, door, and a countertop.

Read the whole change list here https://gamejolt.com/games/KingsofEmber/201483/devlog


Have a good time with your family and friends, and if you have comments or suggestions please post them down below. Bye!
- DrEthan

Yaaaaaa, I released another update a few days ago and I decided to post a summary here.

 - Added main menu
 - Added saving and loading
 - added money
 - added item drops
 - added shop

Read the whole change list here https://gamejolt.com/games/KingsofEmber/201483/devlog

it took a little longer than normal but it is worth it and if you have comments or suggestions please post them down below. Bye!
- DrEthan

Really impressed by how this is coming together! The town part is quite solid, and feels like a proper Shining-style town now. The battle kicked my butt (as usual), but having magic gave a few more strategic options. Nice to have a proper title screen too.

Thanks! I am working hard to make this game look and feel like a shining game without using any levels or art from a shining game. BTW I changed it so that Inu Knight starts with a pretty crap iron sword and what you have to do is kill the goblins before the Brickman gets to you and then end your turn on the town tile which will bring you back to town. Then with the money you looted from the goblins, you go to the shop to buy better weapons which are more capable of defeating the Brickman.
- DrEthan

I released a small update on Game Jolt, here is a synopsis.
- Battle walk animations for the enemies
- Settings menu
- Logic in dialogues.
If you have any comments or suggestions please let me know .