Tales of Illyria Series for Android

[Snorkack]

By the way, how's your plan on releasing it on pc? Staggering release of the episodes or as a whole? Any idea on the price tag yet?

 

[ProphetSword]

ProphetSword I log all installs of the game. I think its laregly Russians as I get a crap ton of install errors. Seems the most popular APK floating around Russia has a bug in it I didn't introduce, probably hacked.

Still sucks if 90% of the copies are pirated. The game deserves better than that. I hope the sales were substantial, at least.

 

[Little Killerz]

Thanks guys, I imagine there will be some staggering between the releases but not much, I figure they might be $10 dollars a piece and maybe $20 for all three. But I've not been watching PC indie pricing much.

Chad

 

[MicoSelva]

I managed to finish the game recently (the first one). It is really good for a mobile game, but it does drag a bit towards the end. I am thinking of writing a review - I can always post it here on the forums, if The Codex shuns covering mobile (should not be a problem since the game is coming to Steam anyway).

 

[Little Killerz]

Hi MicoSelva

I'd love for you to post a review! We are GreenLite, after episode 3 comes out we are going to concentrate all efforts on ports. As I think we are only going to go with a trilogy. Unless things go bonkers when we port.

Thanks,
Chad

 

[Loriac]

Little Killerz

Hows episode 3 progressing? Will it be released in March 2015 or is it being pushed back?

 

[Little Killerz]

Hi Loriac thanks for your interest. Things got slowed down, our lead writer took a job teaching school. But things are still progressing, its allowing me to add new features and for our artist to develop more art and improve existing art. It is almost done though. Actually the core game is done. Whats not done is the expansion quests. We are looking at a June 1st launch now.

Thanks,
Chad

 

[Loriac]

Ok, thank you for the update, I'll look out for it in a couple of months time.

 

[Lhynn]

Criminally overlooked game.

 

[Little Killerz]

Lhynn Thanks Bro!

 

[Lhynn]

I found everything but the combat highly enjoyable. Still trying to get used to it, but feels so passive. The game runs beautifully on my phone, really well optimized, the story seems interesting enough and the world and the entire conflict like something i want to explore.

I wanted to play it on the highest difficulty from the get go, but the inability to pick it up and drop it is a big NO, especially when it comes to a cellphone. You really should make "save in towns only" an optional feature. And the price is just a fucking steal. Hurry it up and bring it to PC, its miles ahead of most crap thats on steam.

 

[Little Killerz]

Oh you can save on Hard it just closes the App. Ep3 has combat greatly enhanced as most enemies now have greater weaknesses and strengths so combat is more interesting as you need think about what the best tactics are.

 

[flabbyjack]

A new era of mobile gaming has begun.

 

[Little Killerz]

flabbyjack Thanks!

Ep3 Launches August 1st!

Hey guys I'm looking for a final group of playtesters for EP3. Please email me at littlekillerz@gmail.com if you are interested. You must have access to Google Play and must be willing to give honest feedback and report issues. Also You PC, Linux & Mac gamers can play on Bluestacks or equivalent emulators.

 

[Lhynn]

Alright, finished it. solid RPG, was very fun. Most of the perceived weaknesses of the title kinda go away past the middle of the game, including combat, which is designed with more of a hands off approach. The game tries to only force you to make relevant choices while it plays itself for a big chunk of it, by making travelling and a lot of the combat mostly passive if you set the IA right.

I liked how useful the skills were, like they really had dramatic impact on your playtrough and even a seemingly invincible party could fall to low morale and poor skills. I hated the level scaling, its something that should have never made it into the game and i wont be playing the sequel because it has a female protagonist and fuck that, a shame. Hopefully the third one will present character creation, i see no reason for this feature not being there as the parricide could have literally been anyone and while it was a driving force in the plot, it wasnt the main one.

The review is correct on most instances, the UI is annoying, the combat can be frustrating and is never fun, but the rest of the game and the very special way the events unfold and your choices/skills/luck have direct impact (for the most part, nothing spectacular, but enough to make you feel invested) on your gameplay simply make it a very enjoyable game. Easy to drop and pick up whenever you have free time (tho some situations are interesting enough to make it hard to put down).

I didnt mind the obscure math behind the game, it was mostly intuitive either way, but i must say i missed a lot of inn drinking content due to the fact i wasnt even aware there was so much of it, you really should make the player experience more of it, a way to do this would be to give a "complimentary" drink every time the player stays at the inn, at least at the beginning while on friendly territory, to show the importance of this content, especially when it comes to character development.

Anyway, good, fun game, would recommend over many cRPGs.

 

[MicoSelva]

You should play episode 2 (Beyond The Iron Wall), Lhynn . It is better in pretty much every way, except the rules explanation (which is as non-existent as in the first game) and maybe combat (which is the same, but with more enemy variety). I am probably 3/4 though now and am enjoying it a lot.

 

[Little Killerz]

MicoSelva thanks for defending Ep2 it doesn't get the appreciation it deserves
Lhynn thanks for the mostly good report. Yeah I'd also give Ep2 a whirl just think of the main protagonist as just one of your party members. You get three boys to play with.

We tried to make combat more interesting in EP3 by making enemies have more strengths and weaknesses you need to exploit. Ep3 will be out in a week so I guess you could just wait for that as you do get to design your own character and decide who you want to party with.

As far as level scaling goes being a mobile game we wanted the game to not be a grind fest and streamlined.

Ep3 does have level scaling or what we now call party scaling this is because many of the more generic events don't know how many people you will have in your party and what level they will be. BUT...

Don't worry we have many events which are NOT LEVEL SCALED to mix things up. Like a dragons den you come to and after first you cant kill it but you come back later and kick its ass.

Chad

 

[Agesilaus]

Is it still unplayable on Google Nexus 10? The first episode was so slow, apparently because of the screen resolution, that it wasn't worth the effort last time I tried.

 

[AetherVagrant]

Just picked this up. Id passed on it thinking it was one of those krpgs that are everywhere in the play store.
It seems like thought went into what actually works and is fun on a mobile device rather than slapping weird control schemes over cut-down content and graphics of what wants to be a pc game.
this may be my pooping game. i almost exclusively use my tablet in the bathroom.

 

[Little Killerz]

Agesilaus Did you try with "Bitmap Caching" turned on. I think this makes it playable. It also increases performance if you use a smaller graphics package try 800*480 although it gets pixelly which is a shame because of the high resolution. The Nexus 10 was the first tablet with a 2k screen(or one of them). For a current example. The S6 is a better phone in lots of ways to the iPhone 6. The S6 has 4 TIMES the pixels than the iPhone 6 but on FPS(Frames per second) tests the iPhone 6 wins.

AetherVagrant thanks man! I hope you enjoy!

 

[Loriac]

Little Killerz are you still aiming to release Ep 3 on 1 Aug? I've been a bit surprised at your 'low-key' marketing approach [yes that's sarcasm, 'non-existent' would be closer to reality] to be honest - even your own website has no update on episode 3, and the content on it is months old.

I did see that you'd put your old games on sale pre-launch of Ep 3, but thats about all I saw marketing wise (there was also a news article a couple of weeks ago from some online site iirc).

Is marketing on the android platform really so pointless, or is just time/budget constraints for your studio? It would be a real shame if Episode 3 is overlooked by android gamers, because it could well be one of the best RPGs released onto that platform this year.

 

[Little Killerz]

Loriac Thanks for calling us out. We are unprepared for our marketing launch. We are working on our promo video.

We are mostly hoping for a high position on Google Play's Just In and friends in the press to write stories for us.

We'd like to do a facebook ad that targets android, rpg, and fantasy book readers. But lack any money for a marketing budget.

I'll spend some time tonight discussing this with our team.

Thanks,
Chad

 

[Lhynn]

You should play episode 2 (Beyond The Iron Wall), Lhynn . It is better in pretty much every way, except the rules explanation (which is as non-existent as in the first game) and maybe combat (which is the same, but with more enemy variety). I am probably 3/4 though now and am enjoying it a lot.

Theres a primal part of me that refuses to play RPGs with female protagonists, i just cant force myself to give a shit about her problems or whatever the fuck shes trying to acomplish.
Its not just me btw, this is the main reason most games go with male protagonist or character creation. Strangely this isnt the case in MMOs, where the vast mayority of female characters are played by males.

 

[Little Killerz]

Lhynn this explains at least in part why Ep2 fizzled right out of the gate.

Chad

 

[Lhynn]

Still looking forward to your 3rd game, i love the minimalistic aproach and i honestly cant get enough of it.
How are sales for apps tho? isnt pc market a better place to sell your product?