Mind giving some critique and feedback on a game I'm working on?

[rvdleun]

The TL;DR version...

http://www.rvdleun.nl/rb

It's a game I'm working on called 'Rhythm Blade' which had best be described as "Guitar Hero meets the brawler genre". Mind giving some feedback on the concept? Still very early WIP.


The not-TL;DR version...

Right, so for the past few months, I've been working on and off on this little game idea that's been in my head for years. After experimenting with Unity and having some aspirations of designing indie games in my spare time, I started to work on the project.

As mentioned in the TL;DR version, the game is basically focused on being a rhythm game where you have to listen to the background music to time your attacks. By doing so, you'll unleash attacks to more easily kill your enemies. By the end of the song, you'll receive a rating based on your performance. Naturally, you'll be able to upload it to an online scoreboard to compare your skill to others.

Reason why I'm currently presenting this game is because I have some early stuff to show now. The website contains a youtube video demonstrating how the game currently plays, some concept art to demonstrate what I'd like the game to look like, as well as some general information on my plans for the game. At some point in the near future, I hope to upload a prototype demo which will have a three songs to play, as well as a tutorial. The latter is almost done, the first need some more work.

One thing that I will admit that is that I'm somewhat nervous about uploading this as well. It's a project that I've only mentioned to a couple of friends so far, and never really planned on going online with it until I had much more of a game to show. However, it's essentially a one-man(me) project and I suppose I want some more feedback on this, as well as see if there is anyone out there who'd be interested in helping me completing this project.

I only recently created this website, but actually didn't have the guts to throw it into the open. Suppose that I'm still uncertain if the page actually tells enough about what the game is and the kind of help I need. Which is why I turned to you, Halforums: Although I have to admit that I pretty much lost interest in this forum as of late, I know that this is a nice, contained and intelligent community that'll be able to pick this project apart before I throw it out into the open interwebs.

So I would also like to ask to not just critique the game concept, but the website as well. After browsing through it, do you think that you have a good understanding what the game is about? Is there anything in there that you're missing? Also, English is a second language to me, so are there some annoying grammar errors in there? Am I too verbose at times? Would love some feedback on that as well.

Once more, the website is: http://www.rvdleun.nl/rb

Hoping to receive some feedback. Thank you in advance
rvdleun

 

[Dave]

Do you have to move yourself into attack position or just watch the rhythm bar to time attacks? Also, do the other bad guys attack? They seemed to just kind of hang back.

It looks like a solid concept but I'm wondering how long it would be until it got repetitive.

 

[rvdleun]

You have to move by yourself. I've done some experimenting with the AI, but I turned it off when recording. My current thoughts are that the AI will be most active during the more quiet parts of a song. Another thought I had was that I'll add a new 'timed' attack called 'counterattack', where you'll have to target a specific enemy that is about to attack you to properly execute it.

As for repetitiveness, yeah, that's difficult. I'm hoping by offering different kinds of challenges(arena's, enemies, maybe even objectives?) to keep things fresh, and I find myself coming back to numerous rhythm games(Guitar Hero, Tap Tap Revenge, Audiosurf) because of a rate of new content that's released every now and then.

Of course, the holy grail would be #1. to be able to import your own songs or, at least #2. being able to build a timeline out of existing songs. Maybe even have a dedicated server to easily share these.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Maybe an interesting idea would be that you "unlock" songs wich contain different kinds of attack types and frequencies and whatever, and you can chose wich one you want to use in a level, depending on the kind of strategy that fits better the level's enemies (distribuiton, intelligence, kinds of attacks, etc.)

 

[Dave]

I take it you can attack any time but "timed" rhythm attacks are more powerful?

Does the power grow as you keep getting successful rhythm attacks?

 

[rvdleun]

Maybe an interesting idea would be that you "unlock" songs wich contain different kinds of attack types and frequencies and whatever, and you can chose wich one you want to use in a level, depending on the kind of strategy that fits better the level's enemies (distribuiton, intelligence, kinds of attacks, etc.)

Unlocking songs is something I had in mind... it really depends on the number of songs I'll be able to get into the game. As for picking attack types/frequencies prior to starting the game, that's an interesting thought. Although I want the game to be as pick-up-and-playable as possible, it would be a nice 'advanced' feature. I'll have to think about it.

take it you can attack any time but "timed" rhythm attacks are more powerful?

Yeah. A normal attack is basically just the player walking up to an enemy and hitting him once. Doing this three times results in the enemy being killed, and the player receiving points. 'Timed' attacks will yield more points, so if you have to opt between the two, you'd want to go for the latter.

Does the power grow as you keep getting successful rhythm attacks?

I've been thinking of implementing something like GH's Star Power. The player gains a certain power(mana?) by killing enemies. You may even get more mana by killing enemies with normal attacks to give the player incentive to also mix normal attacks in-between the timed ones. After getting enough power, he'll be able to use it to temporarily activate some 'super attack' mode, which would result in either two results....

Either the player's score will be multiplied upon activating it. Simple to implement and easy to understand. What would be slightly more difficult to work into the game, but more interesting is that the 'timed' attacks will be more powerful while this 'super attack' mode is activated. A standard timed attack would slay all other enemies on its path, combo attacks resulting in the player attacking a new enemy in each turn, smash attacks would kill every enemy surrounding the player(instead of just everyone in front), and the tornado would have a larger range... that sort of thing.

Thoughts?