[LynxJam 2023] New Game: Final Melee

[Nop90]

My contribution for LynxJam 2023 is on itch.io: https://nop90.itch.io/final-melee

 

The game is based on an old project of mine for a LCD game  that I never released because buggy and not good looking (there is a post about it in the forum). For the jam I rewrote it and used the nice tilesed provided by the organizer.

 

In the next days I may post little updates (mostly bug fixes) but the game is complete and playable.

 

The game is inpired to the battle system of a classic JRPG and I think that most of you don't need instructions on how to play it. If needed on the game page there are some instructions in my usual bad English.

 

  

 

 

 

[Nop90]

This is my high score so far 

 

 

If you can do better post it here and leave your feebacks about the game. You'll contribute to improve the game.

[Clint Thompson]

Gonna give this a go this weekend! 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing every LYNX JAM 2023 ENTRY including Final Melee on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us!

 

Tue Jan 16, 2024 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 2AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Chasm Warden (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Igor Kromin @Igor
• Dungeddon (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Paul Lay @playsoft
• Escape From Dungeon of Deja Vu (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Bjorn Nah @Bjorn
• Final Melee (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Gisberto Rondinella @Nop90
• Fortress Fighter (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Aaron Hitchcock  @thegoodwillgamer
• Grogger (2023 WIP Port | Lynx) by Brian Peek @peekb
• Hero Dust (2023 WIP | Lynx) by KanedaFr  @KanedaFr
• Rainbow (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Karri Kaksonen @karri
• Running Knight (2023 WIP | Lynx) by drludos @drludos
• Silly Archery (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest(Code) / Sampo Rintanen @Turbo Laser Lynx (Music)
• "Untitled Sword Shooter" (2023 WIP Port | Lynx) by 42Bastian Schick @42bs
• Ynxa - Leaf and the Guardians of Time (2023 WIP | Lynx) by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest

 

[Nop90]

Next summer I'll have some free time to complete the game and add new features, but I would like to have some feedbacks on the game first because so far seems no one likes it. 

 

Please share your thoughts on it.

[+jgkspsx]

I really enjoyed it but it seems really hard to me. I haven't beaten it yet.

 

I thought the battle system, weaknesses, timers, etc. all worked well. It would really help to be able to see the characters' health at all times, or at least before healing them.

 

Where I struggle is that only one user can do magic, there are only a few uncommon healing items, and recharging MP is very slow. Also it feels like the player misses a lot more than enemies do.

 

 

I am not sure how you could make it a little easier without breaking the later game, but I am sure there is a way.

 

[Nop90]

Well, at least someone liked it.

 

The game is hard, it takes a long time and it's not intended to be easily beated (did you ever played Powder? I got some inspiration from it). I consider this a strategy game, not an action one.

 

In a future evolution I would add the possibility to save the game so you can play few minutes when you have time, save it's state and continue later. This should help people to focus on the strategy. 

 

The possibility of looking at the characters health (and inventory) during a game is something I already planned to add. I couldn't do it in the jam version for memory limitations, but using cart segment I will be able to add it.

 

Only one characters can cast magics at the start of the game because it's the only one to have some mana, but when a character raise a level it randomly gets +1HP or +1MANA or +1SPEED, so also the other two can do magic at some point. And i's not hard to get potions and scrolls killing enemies, so in my test games i didn't find it a problem. I think it's a matter to find the right game startegy.

 

My strategy, that you can see in the video I posted, is to take the mage in the back line all the time, the warrior always in front and the elf in the backline when has arrows (a very poverful weapon on weak monsters),  the magics can kill weak monsters with a single hit, so the mage can ramp up fast and get MANA and HP, but with stronger monsters I use the mage to weaken them, but I leave only the Warrior and the Elf to kill them and gain experience, in the hope to raise their mana. When all the characters can do magic the game is easier.

 

Another thing I do at the beginning is to use all the SPEED potions as soon as I get them, first on the Mage, than on the Warrior, . This helps a lot.

 

This is only one simple strategy, a lot more can be defined.

 

In the final game there will be other two modes, The hard one and the easy one.

 

In the hard one the characters will have less starting ojects, less starting statistics and will not know what Spells and Potions are for. These objects will be shown with a question mark in the inventory and only after using them for the first time every character will learn what they do. This way you could heal a monster or poison a companion in the beginning 😁. I removed this feature from the released game because it was buggy and had no time to fix it.

 

In the easy mode I could add the possibility to select what to get (HP, MAMA or SPEED) when a character raise a level, and obiously some more starting objects. This should be enough.

 

Final thing, I also noticed the player misses more than the monsters, but in the code it's completly random and to be honest I already tuned the code to give some more chances to player. I think it's caused by the fact that the characters attack more frequently than the monsters. I'll try to tune some more the code.

 

Thank you for your feedbacks.

 

[+jgkspsx]

I think it might have been the hardest game in the jam (except maybe for Escape from the Dungeon of Deja Vu) but was definitely one of my favorites. The challenge kept me trying for sure!