I'm playing an early build of the game with a tutorial level and the first map from the campaign. The game is very good, a great depth of tactical play on all 4 characters, alone or in a group, and a seriously addictive quality to the exploration and combat. The interface is great, movement controls are well thought out and nicely implemented. If you're interested in party-based RPGs or even tactical RTS games, you're really not going to go far wrong with Companions. There's a turn-based element (sort of) with the tactical pause but this is not a turn-based game, as you've already read if you've been following this thread closely. I'm not a beta tester on this game, I'm playing it for preview/review purposes but I've also started feeding back some comments/suggestions and helping out a tiny bit with a few dialogue text translations. What do people want to know? Here's one thing - equipping different weapons and armour changes the appearance of the characters. I like that and I know a lot of people love details like this in RPGs. Fun things - the Dwarf can lay traps. They have a cooldown, like other skills & spells, but there's no other limit to how many he can make or have active at any time. The Elf can summon a pet and it is proving to be quite useful, particularly when she is on her own. I'll post some more information soon...
@vernimator: that's what my rotten old developer soul wants to hear! @ojtitus: at the moment I'd say about 10 hours for the campaign, perhaps even longer, depending on what type of player you are. mind, with one of the first few updates we will prolong the campaign by at least two to three maps, maybe more. without additional cost. (not to mention the additional single maps!) if the game sells well, we consider to work on a second Companions and there I see the chance to port your old characters. I always liked this kind of stuff in the old dragonlance/forgotten realms ad&d games. also there will be the single maps where you play for highscore. as ist is now, you cannot start a new campaign with someone from your old party. but I like the idea and we talked about something like that a few month ago. we'll see.
Sounds good, I'm really hoping for a New Game + feature or something that would allow you to carry over your characters from one game to the next.
old post reply... great for you if that's what you believe, but not so much for those that don't share your idea of 'fun'. to me your 'fun' sounds like 'work', i don't pay for work when i'm supposed to be relaxing and having fun. the solution is ALWAYS to have multiple levels of difficulty as an option, that way everyone is happy. otherwise you're guaranteed to lose stars in your feedback when you realize others have different opinions that aside, the animations looked very stiff, need more fluidity.... nevermind, just saw the second video, much nicer and more fluid, definitely curious to see the final product.
A friend of mine created Progress Quest, maybe you should give that a try. But I agree with you about multiple difficulty levels (along with having easier and harder ways to unlock content, etc.).
as mentioned earlier, we integrated different difficulty levels. the game is playable in very easy, easy and normal mode and the tactical pause can be switched between 20 and 60 seconds. the only thing that playing on an easier setting won't allow, is the gaining of a few achievments. the bonus content, meaning single maps, can be unlocked on all difficulty settings!
thanks, can't say i care about achievements of any kind, other than the one that say I had fun with a game. what he said (my bolding). although this is at best a difficult task as a developer, having at least 3 options for difficulty (like you've implemented) is a great way to make sure a larger portion of your audience will enjoy your game they way THEY want to. i hate nothing more in the gaming world than a game with no difficulty options, it almost always guarantees a certain chain of events for me that includes; A) being pretty certain that i'll be frustrated with the game. B) leaving a one star rating due to this, more for the dev than the game, since to me it implies the dev thinks he knows best. C) avoiding the dev's games in the future. The antithesis of this is the developer Donut Games, who i think last year decided to include a cheat mode with most if not all of their games. So before when I tried a few of their games I usually found myself frustrated sooner than later and wrote them (the dev) off (after leaving 1 stars for everything I tried of theirs). Then they started adding cheat modes and I've been enjoying everything they've been releasing since then. Yeah i know, every gamer is different in terms of their likes/dislikes, but that's the point, a dev needs to take that into account, not just what HE/SHE likes, they're not developing the game for themselves, they're developing the game to the users, so it sells to as many as possible. anyway, long stupid rant over, looking forward to seeing this game in action
i appreciate your feedback. you're right with everything you say. nobody should be frustrated playing a game. the group of people who play games on a higher difficulty levels is surely much smaller than the casual "I just wanna play and destroy/get/create everything with minimum effort" player group. it's logical that we can't afford to ignore this fact. as I said before, I like a good challenge in games. if its too easy I get bored. but, hey, that's only me. I don't judge either side. Everyone should play as he/she likes. And we will try hard to make this game a joyful experience for the broadest audience possible. The game is coming along well, nearly finished now and we can't wait to see it hit the Appstore. here's a new screenshot. these nasty green dragonlings burn the poor minotaur with their fire breath.
looking good. its not so much about the effort (to me), its about whether the result of the effort is tangible. i.e. application of effort should be proportional to value of tangible outcome. the effort you put into developing this game will have a tangibly quantifiable and objective result for you. the effort i put into enjoying your game will not for me, outside of a smile/frown, neither of which i can do anything with other than move on from. man, getting late, time to go home
Even with the ipad screen, the units look really tiny with the camera pulled back that far. Will you have a pinch zoom (or any zoom function) available at launch?
This is looking promising. I agree with the above poster's concern about the size of the sprites, but that aside, a lot of what was posted in this thread gives the impression that this may well become one of the top games in this sub-genre. I'm definitely looking forward to playing this. It stimulated me enough to dive into another round of Sword of Fargoal!
@markus70: this is the normal size. you can zoom out, but not in. you'll see that it's really no problem controlling your characters. remember: you control a party of four, so we decided that a good overview is what we should aim at. we also packed a lot of detail into it, like different weapons are shown on the sprite, armor in two different types (for the minotaur), different colored robes for the mage and stuff like that. as for the release date: we are currently polishing the game. we want to give out a finished product, so we take our time and do it as best as we can. hopefully we will submit Companions at the end of this week or the beginning of the next. after 9 month of development and 2 month of 18 hour days, you can't imagine how happy we will be once our baby is in apples hands. @mivo: let's hope it does! we put so much content in it, I sometimes can't believe it myself. once the game is out we won't stop working on it. the campaign will be extended and several single maps will be added also. for free. ah, I would really love to tell you about everything that happens in the game, but I don't wanna spoil your fun. good night!
looking good will there be a lvl editor with the ability to share lvls, would love to make a few recreations of wow instances, good luck
thanks! we talked about the idea before. for now, it would be too much work. perhaps in Companions 2.
