MDO 2: Harbo's Plight

Rlly enjoyed the relatively short experience (40-60min) that the game offered! On behalf of soulcube, rlly awesome seeing ppl gettin inspired to make more and more indie games! Desh (Lead programmer) has written a lil review.

Story:

The games story is quite out there - an absurdist comedic take on the RPG genre with a lot of heart despite a lack of emotional story telling. The game was self aware of its absurdities, and rlly capitalized on the tone through the bizarre areas, character, writing & plot. The side dialogue and information text was genuinely entertaining to read most of the time, with me even literally audibly laughing at some of the dialogue lines. The story jumped around from very contrasting settings, however the use of revisiting the areas rlly help ground the world and prevent the exploration from becoming pandering. The little touches added to returning areas rlly went a long way to keeping me engaged and invested in the world. The game is also paced rlly well - breaking up sections at the perfect times. In addition to this, you never feel lost, but you also never quite feel like your being babied either - striking a near perfect balance. 

Gameplay:

The gameplay generally consisted of a series of fetch quests, with combat events riddled in between. Exploring areas for the fetch quest items was not extremely challenging, however nor was it boring. Most of the motivation banked off of the self aware humor with the characters u encounter along the way.

Combat:

Harbos Plight has a solid foundation for a combat system - however it never ended up going anywhere. I worked out how everything worked easily enough, and I was really a fan of this combination between real time & turn based combat. After I unlocked Malcom (another skill/ability), the first unlock in the game, I was really looking forward to see what other options I would be offered in combat. However there was in fact no other moves available, aside from an attack & a heal which are you limited to for the entire game. 

There are several moves that could have been implemented to add some variety such as a move that slows down the enemies charge bar, or speeds up your own (for the entire duration of a battle). Another move could have been a defend move - which if used X amount of seconds before the enemy attacks, would mitigate damage. Possibly having 4 or so core moves would have been a great amount of variety for a game of this length. The process of unlocking these moves would also be rewarding for players - keeping them engaged until the credits role.

While playing I thought of some improvements to the combat system that could have existed - however are easier said than done when it comes to implementing. For the basic attack move, instead of allowing a random spam on the enemy to deal damage based on how fast a player can click, there could have been some sort of moving targets. After each successful attack in the duration that you are able to attack, a new target could appear on a different part of the enemies body, adding an extra layer of skill/thought to the attack move. The heal move may could have also used a mini game in a similar vein. The last thing I thought of while in the combat was that the attack charge bar could have used some mini game to charge it faster or something similar. A suggested improvement would be that there is a marked point in the last 75% of the bar, and if you time hitting a certain button or key to match it - the bar skips the rest of the cool down. All of these are just little things that in my opinion could have added some more engagement to the combat.

The game was quite easy overall in terms of combat difficulty, as the only time I was ever in any real threat was during the first 10 minutes before I worked out you could upgrade your characters. The rate at which you could level up was quite insane, and combat became a non threat almost instantly.

Despite my critique suggesting improvements to the combat system - it is not a system that brings the game down. It serves its purpose in offering some filler to break up the exploration of the world, and the characters that you fight during the game are honestly quite comical. The loose art style only adds to this comedic enjoyment of the bizarre foes. The first time some of the enemies popped up in full art I genuinely laughed. 

Music:

Rlly loved the music. Great diversity with all of the different themes for each enemy & setting - it was really refreshing each time a new song came on. The music honestly greatly carried the games exploration. It provided lots of interest when encountering new things as well as revisiting old areas to hear repeated themes, further establishing a cohesive world. Sound effect cues were great when acquiring and upgrading - very fitting. More sound effects could have been used in combat however, with sounds for the attack bars filling up going a long way in informing the player when they can move/be moved against.

Controls:

Pls give WSAD movement thx. Otherwise worked great. Easy to figure out.

Bugs:

Apart from some occasional sprite glitching, there was not a lot of bugs to be found at all! I encountered nothing game breaking, however the most annoying thing was the hitboxes not being aligned to the object as if it was an illusion of 3d space - they just kinda rested around the outline of the asset. There was also a couple of dialogue mishaps at the end of the game when you drop Malcom off home. Characters will still refer to you as if Malcom is with you - however he is not. These are all just minor things, and do not bring the game quality down at all. Overall a really smooth experience.

Wrap up:

Rlly solid game with some lovely charm. Twitter might rip it apart for some mildly offensive themes to certain demographics - however it is all in a comedic tone, and doesn't cause any major issues. Would recommend ppl setting aside an hour of their day just to check it out!