Crystalgate
Member
I played the demo.
Let's start with the story. In order to keep the story interesting, you have give the characters tasks that interest the player and make them discover interesting things. Now, avenging his father and the villagers surely is of interest for the character, but not necessarily the player. In order for this type of plot to work, the player has to care about the villagers and the main character's father in the first place. Obviously, "some bandits killed a bunch of people I don't care about and now I have to avenge those people" won't be a big hit.
You will need to breath life to the village first. Make it look alive and make the people there seem real. While punching chickens to death and dissecting them in order to recover a wedding ring is surely amusing, a load of fetch quests don't really help with immersion. Almost all villagers either offers you a trade or explain the trading mechanism. None of them seem to talk to you like a person or even display any kind of personality. As it is, the player won't really register them as people.
You will also need to establish some kind of relationship between the main character and his father. He starts right away telling telling his son to bring him some ore and he will make his son a weapon. I couldn't see any explanation to why the father decided his son needed a sword and why now would be a good time. Basically, it was just a trade item A for item B offering. It gets worse then.
None of that really sells the illusion that it's people caring about each other. If they don't seem to care about each other, why should the player care?
Now to the item gathering and trading. First of, there is a bug. You know the merchant that is supposed to give you 15 gold for a Tuna? Guess what, he takes 15 gold from you instead. Considering that you are specifically told that you should gather money by selling the fish this is not the best thing that could have happened. Fortunately, it seems selling the fish isn't needed at all. Buying ore for 5 gold, converting them to plates for 5 gold and then selling the plates for 55 gold each seems much faster and can be repeated infinitely. Since the Tuna work as a stamina replenishing item, it's probably a better idea to keep them anyway.
Mind you, the idea to let the player mine, fish, trade and whatever isn't by itself a bad idea, but you need to improve the system. Start with asking yourself what you want to accomplish with the system and design it thereafter.
Let's start with the story. In order to keep the story interesting, you have give the characters tasks that interest the player and make them discover interesting things. Now, avenging his father and the villagers surely is of interest for the character, but not necessarily the player. In order for this type of plot to work, the player has to care about the villagers and the main character's father in the first place. Obviously, "some bandits killed a bunch of people I don't care about and now I have to avenge those people" won't be a big hit.
You will need to breath life to the village first. Make it look alive and make the people there seem real. While punching chickens to death and dissecting them in order to recover a wedding ring is surely amusing, a load of fetch quests don't really help with immersion. Almost all villagers either offers you a trade or explain the trading mechanism. None of them seem to talk to you like a person or even display any kind of personality. As it is, the player won't really register them as people.
You will also need to establish some kind of relationship between the main character and his father. He starts right away telling telling his son to bring him some ore and he will make his son a weapon. I couldn't see any explanation to why the father decided his son needed a sword and why now would be a good time. Basically, it was just a trade item A for item B offering. It gets worse then.
Then he tells his son that he has a new task for him. His uncle is wounded in the forest and need help. He tells that to his son and asks him to find his uncle in pretty much the same manner you could expect a father to tell his son "now that you finished cutting some firewood, will you please go to the baker and buy some bread?" The mental image I got was him reading the letter thinking "I suppose we have to save him, oh well, I guess I send my son after we're done getting him a brand new sword."
Now to the item gathering and trading. First of, there is a bug. You know the merchant that is supposed to give you 15 gold for a Tuna? Guess what, he takes 15 gold from you instead. Considering that you are specifically told that you should gather money by selling the fish this is not the best thing that could have happened. Fortunately, it seems selling the fish isn't needed at all. Buying ore for 5 gold, converting them to plates for 5 gold and then selling the plates for 55 gold each seems much faster and can be repeated infinitely. Since the Tuna work as a stamina replenishing item, it's probably a better idea to keep them anyway.
Mind you, the idea to let the player mine, fish, trade and whatever isn't by itself a bad idea, but you need to improve the system. Start with asking yourself what you want to accomplish with the system and design it thereafter.
