MV - QRPanda! [Prototype Available]

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Started by GBoiiDesu 7 posts View original ↗
  1. GBoiiDesu
    #1 Source

    Untitled.png
    (Q)i (R)esonance Panda.​
    Pandas in the Realm of Beasts must balance the Qi of every Zodiac spirit. They use Mini-Medals to manage Qi, earning Medals of Honor as they succeed. With three Medals of Honor and their Mini-Medal, a Panda becomes a full-fledged QRPanda.

    SECTION A: SYNOPSIS
    Spoiler
    • Set in the mystical Realm of Beasts, QRPanda tells the story of a young panda embarking on a sacred journey to restore balance to the Zodiac Spirits. A thousand years before the prophesied end of time, the harmony of the realm teeters on the edge of collapse as the elemental forces—water, wood, fire, earth, and gold—begin to falter within the Zodiac. As the panda destined to bring equilibrium, you must wield the ancient art of QI manipulation through yin, yang, and the harmonious yin-yang abilities to restore peace and unity.
    • In this adventure, players will roam the Realm of Beasts, encountering wandering yin and yang spirits that threaten the balance of the world. The gameplay centers on a unique combat system where success isn't about defeating enemies but balancing their QI. Rather than reducing their energy to zero, players must manage their foes’ QI to exactly 50, avoiding overcorrection that could lead to failure. Simultaneously, the panda must monitor its own internal balance, meditating regularly to maintain spiritual strength (SP) essential for aiding others.
    • The journey revolves around the Zodiac Spirits, who have fall out of harmony with one of their elements. When imbalance arises, players enter the spirit’s soul—a realm inside the Zodiac—where they must stabilize its disrupted element. Successfully restoring balance not only helps the Zodiac Spirit but also earns the player a loyal companion based on the spirit’s form and element. These allies bring unique abilities, aiding the player as they progress to restore harmony to all twelve Zodiac Spirits.
    • Victory in this journey is marked by earning medals from the Zodiacs. With three medals and a mini-medal in hand, the young panda will ascend to the rank of a full-fledged QRPanda—a master of balance and protector of harmony. QRPanda is more than an adventure; it is a meditation on balance, harmony, and the delicate threads connecting all life. Will you rise to the challenge and save the Realm of Beasts?

    IMAGES/SCREENSHOTS
    Spoiler
    Screenshot 2025-01-10 15-38-22.pngScreenshot 2025-01-10 15-39-06.pngScreenshot 2025-01-26 01-23-38.pngScreenshot 2025-01-10 15-44-00.png

    GAMEPLAY
    Spoiler
    https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1883611019999940928


    SECTION B: CHARACTERS
    Spoiler
    • Panda (Main Character): A young, determined panda destined to restore balance to the Zodiac Spirits using their unique QI manipulation abilities.
    • Momma Panda (Tutorial NPC): A wise and nurturing guide who teaches the basics of balance and QI to set Panda on their journey.
    • Yin Panda (Yin Mentor): A calm and introspective mentor who trains Panda to harness the gentle yet powerful energy of yin.
    • Yang Panda (Yang Mentor): A bold and energetic guide who helps Panda master the dynamic and fiery force of yang.
    • Yin-Yang Panda (Yin-Yang Mentor): A serene and balanced figure who imparts the art of unifying yin and yang into harmonious QI manipulation.


    SECTION D: SETTING AND/OR WORLD DEVELOPMENT
    Spoiler
    • The world maps are so far set to be the Wood Realm, the Water Realm, and the Fire Realm. Wood Realm and Water Realm's central hub can be seen in the screenshots.

    PROTOTYPE
    Spoiler
    QRPanda: Demo by Goodboii Ink.

    AI DISCLOSURE
    Spoiler
    QRPanda uses AI images for its "Made in MV" image, and its face images for Panda & Pig.

    The face images are intended just for the demo and will be replaced as soon as a suitable replacement is found.
  2. Mac15001900
    #2 Source
    I've played through the demo, and I have some feedback for you that might help you improve it.


    Feedback
    The demo is really short. I'd argue that it's definitely too short, since it doesn't really manage to demonstrate why the game might be interesting to play. Let's go through various parts of it.


    Combat

    Certainly the most original part of it, relying on getting opponents' health as close to the middle as possible. There are certainly a lot of interesting things that could be done with such a system. The problem is, the demo doesn't really show off any of them. Every enemy we face is dealt with by using the qi increase or decrease skill, and then the equalising one. Or sometimes, using the increasing/decreasing skill multiple times first. This might be novel, but it's not really interesting - no more than simply reducing an enemies health to 0.

    I'm not saying the system itself is boring - by itself it's neither boring nor interesting. What matters is what you do with it - what skills and enemies you create, and what strategic decisions arise from that. Currently, there just aren't any.



    I'm not sure what's the purpose of the SP restoring item only restoring 20% is. It's reusable - there's no reason not to use it again to get back to full. So why require the player to navigate the menus multiple times to access it, rather than only do it once by making the item restore 100%?

    If you want to emphasise meditation taking a long time, maybe extend the animation, or even create a very simple minigame for it. But having to go through menus multiple times is just annoying, and definitely doesn't feel like meditating.


    Art

    Now, I'm not an artist, and I usually don't comment on art that much. But as a person who likes looking at things, I believe your game could really use some more consistency. There 8-bit style environment, higher-res pandas and very-high-res floating leaves clash quite a lot and look like they belong in 3 different games, and are just... not that pleasant to look at. I'd highly recommend picking a single style and sticking to it.


    The pig

    Instead of writing about all environments, I'll focus on this one. The concept of exploring a soul through an environment that reflects it is a really strong one. It reminds me of Psychonauts or Persona game, which involve delving into people's minds, and learning a lot about those characters through exploring an environment which reflects their psyche. If you haven't played either, I highly recommend that you do - you might find plenty of inspiration there.

    The pig's soul... really didn't feel like it belonged to a pig. The ever present blue, the cliffs, the weird antenna things - none of that was particularly pig like.
    Try to ask yourself, what is the pig spirit like? What does it do? What does it often think about? What does it like? What does it fear? The pig's soul could have an environment and enemies that reflect those, and it would have been a lot more interesting.


    The title

    It's a small thing, but... why QRPanda? What does that title mean? There are certainly no mentions of QR codes in the game, as the image on top of this thread would suggest.
    Most games have a description that makes it rather obvious why they chose that particular title. I'd recommend adding that information to yours too.

    Overall
    Your game's description really piqued my interest, in a way that games on this forum rarely do. A novel combat system concept? Psychonauts-style exploration of the souls of our future companions? And an interesting theme? I was quite excited to try it out.
    The demo however didn't really demonstrate anything particularly interesting. It didn't show me why that combat system would be fun, nor why exploring spirit's souls would be engaging.

    I believe you have a very strong concept for a game, but its execution could definitely use some improvements.

    I hope you'll find this feedback useful :)

    EDIT: It's probably worth pointing out that the build shared in this thread was originally referred as a "demo", which led me to judge it on the basis of "how much does this make me want to play the full game". Since it's now called a prototype, some of the above feedback no longer applies.
  3. GBoiiDesu
    #3 Source
    Mac15001900 said:
    I've played through the demo, and I have some feedback for you that might help you improve it.


    Feedback
    The demo is really short. I'd argue that it's definitely too short, since it doesn't really manage to demonstrate why the game might be interesting to play. Let's go through various parts of it.


    Combat

    Certainly the most original part of it, relying on getting opponents' health as close to the middle as possible. There are certainly a lot of interesting things that could be done with such a system. The problem is, the demo doesn't really show off any of them. Every enemy we face is dealt with by using the qi increase or decrease skill, and then the equalising one. Or sometimes, using the increasing/decreasing skill multiple times first. This might be novel, but it's not really interesting - no more than simply reducing an enemies health to 0.

    I'm not saying the system itself is boring - by itself it's neither boring nor interesting. What matters is what you do with it - what skills and enemies you create, and what strategic decisions arise from that. Currently, there just aren't any.



    I'm not sure what's the purpose of the SP restoring item only restoring 20% is. It's reusable - there's no reason not to use it again to get back to full. So why require the player to navigate the menus multiple times to access it, rather than only do it once by making the item restore 100%?

    If you want to emphasise meditation taking a long time, maybe extend the animation, or even create a very simple minigame for it. But having to go through menus multiple times is just annoying, and definitely doesn't feel like meditating.


    Art

    Now, I'm not an artist, and I usually don't comment on art that much. But as a person who likes looking at things, I believe your game could really use some more consistency. There 8-bit style environment, higher-res pandas and very-high-res floating leaves clash quite a lot and look like they belong in 3 different games, and are just... not that pleasant to look at. I'd highly recommend picking a single style and sticking to it.


    The pig

    Instead of writing about all environments, I'll focus on this one. The concept of exploring a soul through an environment that reflects it is a really strong one. It reminds me of Psychonauts or Persona game, which involve delving into people's minds, and learning a lot about those characters through exploring an environment which reflects their psyche. If you haven't played either, I highly recommend that you do - you might find plenty of inspiration there.

    The pig's soul... really didn't feel like it belonged to a pig. The ever present blue, the cliffs, the weird antenna things - none of that was particularly pig like.
    Try to ask yourself, what is the pig spirit like? What does it do? What does it often think about? What does it like? What does it fear? The pig's soul could have an environment and enemies that reflect those, and it would have been a lot more interesting.


    The title

    It's a small thing, but... why QRPanda? What does that title mean? There are certainly no mentions of QR codes in the game, as the image on top of this thread would suggest.
    Most games have a description that makes it rather obvious why they chose that particular title. I'd recommend adding that information to yours too.

    Overall
    Your game's description really piqued my interest, in a way that games on this forum rarely do. A novel combat system concept? Psychonauts-style exploration of the souls of our future companions? And an interesting theme? I was quite excited to try it out.
    The demo however didn't really demonstrate anything particularly interesting. It didn't show me why that combat system would be fun, nor why exploring spirit's souls would be engaging.

    I believe you have a very strong concept for a game, but its execution could definitely use some improvements.

    I hope you'll find this feedback useful :)
    I'm sorry to hear that the experience for you was what you described, and a letdown from the synopsis for the game.

    The more I think about it, the more I feel I should have held off on releasing/getting feedback. I was hoping getting the base concept out would be enough to gather interest but it seems to be doing the opposite.

    The combat and the pig's soul are bare, I know. The open world also doesn't have much interaction beyond the bamboo either and what's currently available is definitely not the final draft. Enemies were inteded to become trickier to deal with, and the skills you/your companions learn more necessary to deal with various scenarios/enemy traits. Raising/lowering+balance would not be a good enough strategy for most interactions. My bad for not making it that far before I released the demo.

    Art is limiting atm, since my own artistic skills are not where I want them to be for this game, and buying all the appropriate assets at once isn't very feasible for me at the moment. Until then, I will call this game on hiatus.

    The zodiac soul are 100% intended to be more active/populated than right now, like a private realm for all people born year of the (insert animal here) to enjoy based on what the zodiac says about them. I put this off because I wanted player feedback on what is (what I'd call) the skeleton of the game, before I started putting the meat on. This seems to have been a poor decision.

    I see how I didn't provide any context to connect the game's concept with its title as well. Thank you for your feedback.
  4. Mac15001900
    #4 Source
    GBoiiDesu said:
    The more I think about it, the more I feel I should have held off on releasing/getting feedback
    I don't think it's necessarily too early to gather feedback - just try to focus on what exactly do you need feedback on. If you built slightly more complex combat encounters with more skills available and more complex enemies, you could get more feedback on how the combat feels. If you fleshed out the soul more, you could get feedback on how that's looking like. Etc.

    Just don't call the build a demo (something that's meant to demonstrate why the full game is worth playing), and refer to it as what it is - a prototype.

    You really don't need to have graphics ready to be building the game - work on creating everything with RTP (or whatever assets you have on hand), and only replace them when your game is mostly done. By then you'll also have a much better idea of what you actually need.
    And absolutely nobody will mind playtesting such builds as long as you mention that the graphics are still placeholders.

    Please don't get discouraged from pursuing this project because of what I've written. As I mentioned in my feedback, the concept is a very interesting one and definitely has a lot of potential. While that demo doesn't do a very good job at being a demo, that doesn't mean the full game can't still be a great one. I believe in you - you can do this!
  5. GBoiiDesu
    #5 Source
    Thank you again for your criticism, and I will see what I can do about improving player experience going forward. I've updated this post to show that is a prototype, and not a demo. I'm sorry for the confusion.
  6. GBoiiDesu
    #6 Source
    Mac15001900 said:
    There 8-bit style environment, higher-res pandas and very-high-res floating leaves clash quite a lot and look like they belong in 3 different games
    Falling Leaves updated!

    Before: Screenshot 2025-01-10 15-38-22.png

    After:
    Screenshot 2025-01-29 11-58-55.png

    More to come, 1 step at a time! :thumbsup-left:

    Edit: Pig's soul also Updated to include:
    • Feast Table
    • Hot Spring
    • River of Whispering Souls
    • Homestead
    Screenshot 2025-01-30 19-53-43.png


    Edit2:

    New System: Nature States​

    • Added Yin & Yang States
      • (Cloak) - Yin enemies increase evasion when Qi is above 50.
      • (Lightspeed) - Yang enemies increase damage when QI is below 50.
    • Added Pig States
      • (Stubborn) - Pig enemies reduce damage taken by 20% from Yin & Yang abilities.
    • Added Water States
      • (Depths) - Water entities recieve 10% less Yin damage when QI is below 50.
      • (Wet) - Water entities recieve 10% less Yang damage when QI is above 50.

    New System: Balance Shift​

    • Panda can now shift Party members between Yin, Yang, and Balanced states.
      • By using Yin heal on party members, they will shift into "Yin Form" if their QI exceeds 50 after use.
        • Yin Form grants increased evasion.
        • Yin Form changes Bite to Yin Bite.
          • Yin Bite only does Yin damage.
        • Yin Form makes the player more resistant to Yin damage, but also more vulnerable to Yang damage.
      • By using Yang Fire on party members, they will shift into "Yang Form" if their QI falls below 50 after use.
        • Yang form grants increased damage.
        • Yang Form changes Bite to Yang Bite.
          • Yang Bite only does Yang damage.
        • Yang Form makes the player more resistant to Yang damage, but also more vulnerable to Yin damage.
    Screenshot 2025-01-31 17-34-41.png
  7. GBoiiDesu
    #7 Source
    bump

    Edit3:

    Added New Maps​

    • The Deepwoods (Wood Realm)
    • Desert (Fire Realm)
      • The Oasis (Fire Realm)
    Map011.pngMap003.pngMap012.png

    Updated Game Features​

    • Yin and Yang forms have added uses based on the zodiac.
      • Find a zodiac and speak to it to learn more about what these forms can do.
    • Skill System
      • Buy skills using Yin, Yang, and Yin-Yang(Elemental) beads.
      • Level up skills based on your use in battle. (Still in development)