I Made A Bullet Hell RPG In Unity (Indie Devlog)
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- čas přidán 6. 03. 2023
- Over the last month, I added a ton of new features to my indie bullet hell rpg's combat system, including a bunch of new weapons, smarter enemies, and an unique special attack. I also discuss my plans and the game design behind the progress system and job system that I plan to add to my game in the future.
This is what my battle system looked like a month ago, and this is what it looks like now. I’m making an action rpg inspired by games like enter the gungeon and Omori and I’ve been working on the battle system for awhile now. But currently, in my opinion, its just not violent enough.
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Suggestion(s):
1. Plan stage slowdown: When entering the plan stage I'd suggest having everything go in slow-motion for X amount of time and then being able to plan (rather than there just being timer) this would also be cool because you can use the slow-motion to simply dodge bullets and then cancel the plan state before actually entering it.
2. Plan Stage Self-Awareness: It'd be cool if all the monsters/characters in the world know that stopping a battle to plan is kinda absurd, however, they all do it. The characters could have an idle animation while they wait for the plan state to end (reading a magazine, playing on a GameBoy, or taking a nap) if they're taking too long.
3. Enemy planners: It'd be awesome if the game had enemy planners, an enemy type where they buff/create obstacles for you to face. It's not fair that ONLY you get to choose how you play the game. Imagine you use the katana ability (so you can't attack for 10 seconds), so in response, the enemy uses a timed bomb that does massive damage, you can deactivate it by doing X amount of damage, but that becomes impossible when you have this ability activated. (Simple risk & reward)
4. Gameplay rework: I think you’re focussing on the RPG element too much and have narrowed your vision. I don’t think you realize how AMAZING this concept truly is. Having the special ability set to a timer is a (forgive my language) silly billy goofy baby idea (in my humble opinion). I’d suggest simply having the character do the ability and switching to another character. (this is how it’d go), you’re using sword boy, a whole bunch of enemies appear so what do you do? “Big Sword Slice Attack”. So you activate that ability and the sword boy slowly gathers mana and gets into a stance to prepare for the attack, while this is happening you can you one of your other two characters to keep enemies away from him while preparing to attack. This way you don’t have to completely stop gameplay to do this attack, and their’s much greater risk/reward. Because now you’re risking this character's HP, the use of this character in combat, and a lot of mana to unleash this attack. You could do this for tons of other attacks, the shooter can charge a mega beam in your direction, healer could give you immortality while she’s on the field, but all the damage you take goes to her instead, spicy boy could stand for 2 seconds and then unleash a barrage of slices in whichever direction your facing! You could do all of this while still playing the game and not stopping for a moment.
The screen is too small: The screen size needs to be increased, in the future when there’s more enemies and bosses on the screen it’ll be really hard to move around in a meaningful way. You can only comfortably hold 4 enemies + the player on the screen rn, that’s way to little (in my humble opinion)
5. Plan State Enemies: As I said before it’d be AMAZING if enemies could also plan/stop your plans. There could be a commander for an insect-type enemy that positions them throughout the field, there could be an ogre enemy that’s very impatient making it so the planning state time is greatly reduced, there could be a necromancer who can raise the dead, and combine its minions into mini-bosses. In RPG’s/Card games/ strategy games, you have to either overpower OR outwit your opponent, in the current variation of the game it seems as if you can only do the former.
Also: I think the plan state is a bit too boring atm, everything/everyone freezing while you can think about what you want to do takes away from the flow state of the experience. Things should only slow down, and if they do stop there should be a time limit/ways for enemies to interrupt this state.
6. Art: I think the art (and specifically your player characters) in your game are lackluster. If I got a 5-second ad or screenshot of the game I would not be inclined to look into the game. I’d STRONGLY suggest hiring/commissioning/asking someone in or out of your community to re-create the player characters and environments. After you have a STRONG base (1 or 2 fully animated characters) you could rework/redesign other characters/assets/enemies to fit the style. Look at games such as enter the gungeon, hyper light drifter, celeste, and even turnip boy commits tax evasion.
(Some little tips on art)
When creating characters that will have many weapons you either need to have a lot of time, a lot of money, or a lot of simplicity. The characters in “enter the gungeon” have tiny little baby arms, so they don’t need to animate the weapons in their hands, same for “turnip boy”, no need for different weapon animations because no hands.
However in a game like “Hyper Light Drifter” with smooth animation, the main character only has access to a few weapons, and every animation is designed for every character.
You need to be the BEST, and the “best” is subjective. Omori & Celeste objectively has “worse” art than “Skull Girls” or “Hollow Knight”, yet all of these games are aesthetically amazing. Find what you want to do and make it perfect for that specific purpose.
7. For the love of god please stop polishing!!!: The sword slice is awesome, the multiple characters are great, and the enemies you’ve animated are really cool. But in my opinion, the game could use a lot of iteration/focus on gameplay.
8. Future of project: I think this game has some AMAZING potential, much more than Couch Combat and most other indie concepts. I think this game deserves a lot of polish, and money. I think you should focus on creating the BEST demo possible and starting a Kickstarter/finding publishers because if this game is done RIGHT it could be one of the indie staples to stand next to Celeste, Enter the Gungeon, Hadees, or Dead Cells.
Right now your game seems to feel like an “RPG that sometimes moves”, that’s not what this game is. This is a “Moving RPG”. You won’t be able to find solutions by looking at other RPGs because this is the first of its kind, you’re not reinventing the wheel, you’re creating a spaceship.
-DekaDev
P.S., your tileset issue (the cracks between tilesets) can be solved by making the tileset file bleed one block over. I’m taking a hiatus on game development atm to polish my skills, but if you need any pixel art/further ideas I’d love to help.
Also, if you like these suggestions I put them in a google doc, I’ll send it to you if you’d like.
(Forgive me for any spelling issues, English is my first language but I also am stupid)
Dude, this person right here just remade your design doc, and i trully would listen to it. The ideas are really wasted potential if you don't direct your focus. And i see their potential too. Think big my friend!
And oh, i would zoom out the game so it can accomodate the playstyle, and zooming out even farther when in planning stage.
Also, give texts in boxes some breathing space, like this: [ TEXT ] , because right now it looks like: [TEXT]. These kind of details make your game look more professional. and have a more pleasing aesthetics. You should make a side-search and understand your style to orient your producion better. Understand the specifics and polish FIRST your vision, the rest will follow
@@018FLP Lol, I saw he made a video titled, "One Comment Broke my indie game" and thought it was about my comment but it wasn't.
It's cool tho, if he doesn't implement these suggestions I'll just make my own game using them.
Oooh, I so love swordsman battles with shooters
I think it makes the game x10 cooler 💪
I love your special skill animation! It's so cool
*Sandcastles* would be great for the walls!
*Giant Crab Claws* Ancient beings forcing you to fight from under the surface.
the walls could be sand expanding up or even giant crab claws coming from under the ground (crabs do live in little sand caves on the beach after all so it makes some sense)
Lets go guys, butwhylevin posted a new video this day will be great for sure
After playing archvale, I realized I need bullet hell rpg's in my life. So please finish this game, also it already looks pretty considering the amount of time you've been working on it
Well theres a game called realm of the mad god on steam that is this genre
@@Zixio thx for the suggestion but awhile ago I had researched the game to see if I'd like it, but I heard it was very p2w
@@jamesnewman430 I mean in some ways yeah, like paying for more character slots, and vault space, but other than stuff you can keep forever, its just better to play the game f2p bc it ruins the fun of the game, and discord runs is peak, so you try and build up a good character to run the end game dungeons in a discord in hopes for the white bag drops. Its a fun little game for a bit but can be frustrating when you have to start from scratch
Me too
The battle borders would look good if they fit with the biome you fight in. For example: the beach-like area could have some sand castles blocking the way. A forest biome could have thorns, lava biome has walls of fire, desert area has random Egyptian magic blocking the area, an factory or industrial area could have the tiles on the ground rise up and turn to make walls, and so on. Just putting out ideas. Good luck with your project!
Great work my dude - loved hearing what you've been up to since last time!
A wall based off of the map would be cool, for example slippery seaweed for that beach map!
What if there was a enemy that can be only killed or is weak against one character. Like the crab gets defeated easily by Liam.
Maybe have enemies appear in waves, and then have the plan stage happen after each wave?
Really looking cool so far! What if as the characters learned more skills or jobs their appearance also changed like them fitting older or something? Idk if that would work but it could be cool
Being able to see that timer before entering plan state would be a good idea so the player can tell how long they have left
Cool vid! You are too underrated
You should switch out the plan menu to a like... weapon wheel where you first select character, then action like in red dead
HI, i just have an idea that the camera can move slightly to the centre of player and enemies so that you can see not just the player, just idea
Hey uh for the ui I get your clean look but I suggest making it pixel art too because it's clashing alot between the game and the ui
Bro liam fr pulled out a twelve guage shotgun his dad lent him💀
You should study Final Fantasy 5 (GBA) to help reinforce your job system.
Can you make it so when you beat the game you can replay as a crab?
are the characters gonna be updated again or this is the final look?
I’ll probably polish it over time as I get a bit better at pixel art, but this is going to be the general style
@@ButWhyLevin i will give you one huge help , "HAIR" , good luck with the awesome job ❤
in couch combat it doesn't work it is only pink thing
i cant see even the characters
Noice
Hey Levin, I scrolled through my subscriptions just to find this video again. Do you have any references, scripts, or tutorials on how to make something like that attack at 12:26? I'd like to implement something like that in my game. Do you have any guidelines, tutorials, or references for it?
make it multiplayer!!!!
Bruh I’m basically making the same game but it’s an FPS 😂
Calling out Daulphin huh lol
Huh?
Levjo
Thanks stinkyhead
I don't know how someone could manage to talk way too fast... and too much. Makes watching this video quite jarring if I'm being honest. Otherwise interesting concept