Fast month eh...

So its been a full month since I dropped my proof of concept demo and the reaction has been incredibly encouraging.  Thanks to each and everyone of you guys who gave the demo a whirl I hugely appreciate it but in particular to those of you who left me long detailed feedback and stuff to work on.  You're all fecking awesome and I'm so greatful to you all.

From you all I've killed a ton of bugs, got a huge amount of feedback and the game already feels 100 times better than the version thats currently up for download. 

So I thought it'd be interesting to show you guys how I take feedback on board, deal with critique and improve my game.

Dealing with critique and Feedback!

So whats the number one thing when dealing with critique?  Its shutting you mouth, not answering back, taking notes and learning.  Someone doesn't like feature x in my game, should I spend an hour telling them why its there or arguing? No, I should be greatful they spent their time playing my game and listen.

Lets start with some feedback I recently received from one player!  This is top feedback and the kind of feedback I love.

First off this is some good feedback so kudos to Simple Gaming.  He's not overly harsh.  He's simply calling things exactly as he saw them.

So lets break this down.  

Point no.1 - This is what I call must change feedback, he is 100% right and a few people have said its uncomfortable to look at.  B The snow effect simply has to be reduced.  Theres too much snow and I have to fix it.

Point no.2 - transition from quiet to all out war is extreme.  This is again a great observation but this is more subjective feedback.  But again after receving the same comment from a few people, this is a change I chose to make even though I enjoy the funny nature of it.  Basically I've had more people find it jarring than funny.  A good call from the tester and something that got changed.

Point no.3 - Was a combination of a weird bug and bad implementation.  This is one while it reads like feedback gets filed under bugs.

Point no.4 - Again this is on me as a developer, I see too many developers read feedback like this and blame the player, if there is something in my game the player doesn't understand then I am to blame.   This got fixed as a byproduct of skill being changed mechanically but I also need to explain to players what Power formula in the skill box means.

Point no.5 - Ending on a positive this is a nice touch and put me in a good mood for the day, but I left it in the screenshot to show how one comment can cheer a dev right up.  Given classic Final Fantasy is exactly the aim of this game, the test is letting me know that even though there are parts of the game in need of tweaking and fixing, the game is heading down the right path to accomplish its goals.

These are just Simple Gamings answers to one of 7 questions.  All great feedback delivered in a good way and you'd think my reaction to said feedback was common sense and I'd like to wish it was, but sadly I've seen way too many people get pissy about things like someone saying "useless"  in relation to a feature because certain words trigger them.   Chill out, suck it up sunshine and use it to make a better game.

Lets take his reply to another question.

Again this is another extremely fair comment that I've seen people get annoyed at.  "Don't be calling my characters cliche bruv, they're all super unique".  Again this is subjective but very fair feedback from the player, in fact it is spot on, its not an insult to get feedback like this, its a fact.  My demo characters are literally the quiet, polite religious cleric/paladin and the boisterous noisy loud rogue/bard.  

Cliche is not always bad but this one got me thinking.  How do I make my characters have classic rpg personalities that match their class but also not make them cliche?  Honestly, I gotta think on that.  But it is something to work on and that one line of feedback made me realize I do want to get some uniqueness in there.  Cliche is not a bad thing, exactly as he said, it actually fits the classic FF, DQ vibe I'm going for but I now know I have to work on not letting the game become too cliche and just a knockoff.

Then there is this and at first it might seem like a throwaway comment.

This to me is a massive problem.  Because this is like domino's falling.  as poor engagement leads to being underlevelled which leads to a bad time.  Its a first dungeon so I want the combat to be easy enough that even a beginner can run through... but... combat was so unengaging to an experienced rpg player that they felt like avoiding it?  This left them a little underpowered on the boss and as such knocked the fight outta whack, its also important to note Simple Gaming wasn't the only one to fight the boss at level 2!  So I know that I need to tweak the dungeon, I have to find a way to keep combat easy enough for a beginner but also enough to keep experience players engaged to level up.  While he did beat the boss, this is a tricky slope that can get out of hand easily.    I'm still thinking on how best to accomplish this.

So to sum up, I got told, Your battles aren't entertaining or engaging enough, your characters are cliche and your intro was jarring,  take feedback for what it is, its someone giving up their time to help you.  Sometimes it'll be harsh, sometime it'll be soft, sometimes it'll be more useful than others but if someone is dedicating time to your game, they aren't doing it to cut you down but to lift you up and make you better.

In the end my game is a better game from the feedback it received to the point to where the demo I uploaded a month ago feels embarrassing to look at.  How you receive feedback is as important as how you give it.  Don't go looking for hate in critique thats not there.

Also because he's a cool guy, follow Simple Gaming (SG Harlekin on Itch) who was nice enough to let me use his feedback:  He's got two completed rm game available now.

SG Harlekin (Simple Gaming)