Mana Punch: From a Player Perspective

Let me start by saying I am not overjoyed with how the presentation came out. There is nothing abhorrently wrong with it, but I don't think it did the best job of conveying our idea and may have soured the overall game's impression from that alone. An oversight on my part by misjudging the amount of time a video presentation would take to produce and the strengths and weakness of the format. That aside, if I were a member of the audience Wednesday night or came across this on Steam, it would most certainly grab my attention; the question is, can it hold it.

Concept alone, I think, would pull people in, put wizards in anything, and you made the property five times cooler than without. Now give people the ability to punch people with fire; I can see how that can draw a crowd. However, the intent is all well in good, but it's the execution that makes or breaks this decision. As a consumer, I ask, what is the extent of our magical abilities, how engaging is the moment-to-moment gameplay, and how challenging is the overall experience? These are questions that I want to be answered, and from watching what we presented this week, those questions are unanswered.

Stepping back into the producer's shoes again for a quick second, our slice is the framework for our game. Everything that was needed to make that end product made it into this demo. Does that mean everything is working order, no, does it mean people can gauge what the finished product will look like, yes? However, putting back on my consumer shoes, I may be somewhat disappointed; I can see where the game is going, but I can't say anything critical about it in this state that isn't blandly obvious. Things like the basic AI need to be more varied, animations need punching up, patterns need to be established, and art needs to be added. With that, I am of two minds as a consumer; on the one hand, I see the potential of the game: the fighting, the spells, the story, and I am excited and recognize that this is an early demo, so all those things will be added in later. However, on the other hand, the more cynical mind sees this and the plan and thinks, "well, why haven't they made this any better," and from there, doubt about the entire project begins to spread, and that hypothetical person is lost.

There's also an entire another can of worms that is the story content. What we explained in the presentation gives a very surface-level understating of the story and plot. It doesn't set a tone or mood or even layout the events in the story; it merely gives people enough info not to be confused when we talk about it. The story is also one of those sticking points in the game as our intended market is very split about a story in gameplay. Half of them hate it; the other half loves them, so we're going to be losing that first half right out of the gate. Yet if I were in that second camp, I would have even more questions about the game: how do your themes interplay with gameplay, what is Eva's character like, why is this world so anti-magic? Questions that raise curiosity in the game, yes, but like the mechanical questions, there are two minds about it. One optimistic and another pessimistic, one that wants to know more about the world we've created due to genuine interest, the other who sees stock characters and plot points.

Long story short, it has been a long eleven weeks, and in that time, we have made something the team is all proud of. However, now that we are out in the public light, the blemishes start to show. Areas and ideas that went overlooked during development that we now have to face head-on if we want anyone to pay attention to us again.