Puella Magi Ibuki Magica (Madoka fangame, updated 11/21)

[Funnyguts]

(Note: There is another PMMM fan VN being worked on somewhere out there. This game is in no way related to the other one. Hopefully there won't be any confusion, but just in case...)

Your body aches, and your mind is racing. You have no idea what those strange things you just saw were, or why the girl that saved you had such amazing powers. As you walk home, the starry sky above blotted by soft gray clouds, you can't help but feel that something is watching you. And then, just when you thought your life couldn't get any stranger, your mind registers a voice while your ears hear no sound...

So! I am working on a fangame based off the Madoka Magica series. It's currently unnamed (I am bad at naming things, as you may notice), but hopefully I'll think of a good name for it eventually. This game will be using the setting and general rules of the Madokaverse, although tweaked a bit to provide for more interesting gameplay. I will not be using any established characters from the show or any of the spinoff mangas, save for one. And that one won't even show up until the very last scene of the game. I've been thinking about this game for months, since the last episodes of the show aired, and I've started my work on coding a bit of the fighting system. I have a small, basic proof-of-concept down below.

Just as a warning, the final game will pretty much spoil everything but the ending of the show. The demo will have a minor spoiler in it, and I will probably be pretty candid about spoilers within this thread. If you hate shows getting spoiled, I suggest that you watch the show before playing.

What I hope to include in the final game:
*A compelling storyline, with the majority of events happening based on your actions within the game, and as few scenes as possible guaranteed to happen in every playthrough. For example, no character should be automatically killed off at any point, what happens to them will be dependent on you. You can do well and save everyone you meet, you can be a jerk and let them all die.
*Strong characters that will react to your actions. Make friends or enemies with your fellow magical girls. Those that like you well enough will participate in witch hunts with you.
* A robust RPG battle system, similar to that of Dragon Quest. Slay witches using a variety of attacks and powers. The ones you have will be determined by the wishes you have your character make. (Yes, I said 'wishes'. More on that later.) Just be careful, because for a Puella Magi, the difference between alive and dead is much smaller than you might think.

The POC demo: Download it here. Should work for Win/Mac/Linux, let me know if it doesn't. You can also get the source code here. It's just a very basic test of the battle system. I'm still scrawling down the plot on pen and paper, working through ideas.

Thanks for your interest!

Edit: Forgot to include the descriptions of different powers for the demo. You can read them here.

Edit 2: Currently hitting my head against a wall thanks to someone pointing out that I forgot to fix something I specifically made sure to check and see if it was right. The introduction text lists Hiroko twice, as being both the strongest and weakest. The weakest magical girl is Hikari, the strongest is Hiroko. (Chiyo is in the middle.)

[Desu_Cake]

Please tell me there will be the option of brutally murdering QB in various ways! If there is, I would kill for this game!
*Ahem*
Sorry, got a bit carried away there. Looks like a very interesting game.

[Funnyguts]

You may or may not be able to. No promises one way or the other. Unless you really really really want it, in which case, I have a form for you to sign. :3

[Desu_Cake]

Hmmm. Tempting, but Imma hafta say no. I have other plans for my wish which may or may not include world domination.

[PyTom]

FWIW, a Ren'Py-made Madoka fangame was released at the recent Comic Market:

http://www.nasska.net/nvl_mgk/index.html

(I don't know if it's safe for work or not.)

[Funnyguts]

Ah, cool. It looks interesting, I hope it gets translated. Also, it seems to focus on the original characters and might be a dating sim, so I feel confident I'm not going to make a game too similar to this.

[Funnyguts]

So, a request for feedback! Those of you who played it, what did you think? Did the game make enough sense for you to have a decent idea of what was happening, or were you lost and confused throughout the whole thing? Was the game at least mildly interesting for a simplistic test that still needs features? As for those of you who took a look at the source code, did my use of Ren'py make sense? What about my use of Python? Should I have utilized one or the other more than I did?

This is the first real game that I've ever worked on. I have no plans to sell it for money, so I want to take my time and make everything as good as possible before release. Your feedback with this initial bit of code will help me make sure I'm on the right path with this game.

[Desu_Cake]

Both links are leading to the source

[Anima]

Looks pretty good, especially for a first try.
The worst problem is the lack of clear feedback. Having to use an action to get even the slightest idea how the enemy is doing is a bad idea.
The HP value you give has also barely any meaning, since the player doesn't know how much damage his attacks cause.
I really liked the descriptions as status indicators though, they add a lot of colour to the fight. It might be a good idea to expand on that concept.
The purpose of the Restore skill still eludes me though, I'm not even sure if it does anything at all.
Is the witch supposed to have two attacks in one action?

For the sourcecode, doing it that way has a major advantage and a major drawback. It should get along fine with Ren'Pys Rollback and Save system.
But it also will be much harder to maintain and expand on, in comparison to an object oriented approach.
I'm not sure if one is objectively better than the other, but I find the ease of development with the object oriented approach worth the trouble with Ren'Pys
save system.

[Funnyguts]

Both links are leading to the source

No wonder nobody downloaded the normal package. >_< The built packages for all OSes is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?vwnct4eg0ru25dd

The worst problem is the lack of clear feedback. Having to use an action to get even the slightest idea how the enemy is doing is a bad idea.
The HP value you give has also barely any meaning, since the player doesn't know how much damage his attacks cause.
I really liked the descriptions as status indicators though, they add a lot of colour to the fight. It might be a good idea to expand on that concept.

I'm still debating if I really want to show actual damage, or if I can keep the feedback purely based on commentary from the PMs and visual effects. This is going to be one of the hardest parts to get right, but if I can pull it off it should be more rewarding than just having 'x damage' flash up on the screen after every hit.

The purpose of the Restore skill still eludes me though, I'm not even sure if it does anything at all.

It does! It heals minor damage that a PM has taken. Taking a lot of minor damage will end with a girl taking a hit from vital damage, so healing the minor damage when you have the chance will help them from getting into a worse position. What's confusing you is that I don't show minor damage status, only vital damage.

I think finding a way to display minor damage the same way I do vital damage would probably be a good way to provide feedback without necessarily having to show actual hit points. I will see what I can do with this.

Is the witch supposed to have two attacks in one action?

Anyone can get multiple attacks per action, if they get lucky with their attack roll. The witch is the one most likely to do so thanks to her high attack bonus.

For the sourcecode, doing it that way has a major advantage and a major drawback. It should get along fine with Ren'Pys Rollback and Save system.
But it also will be much harder to maintain and expand on, in comparison to an object oriented approach.
I'm not sure if one is objectively better than the other, but I find the ease of development with the object oriented approach worth the trouble with Ren'Pys
save system.

This, unfortunately, is something I'm not really sure what to do with right now, since I haven't tried to do anything with saves.

Thanks for your feedback. I'd love to hear more from everyone.

[Anima]

The worst problem is the lack of clear feedback. Having to use an action to get even the slightest idea how the enemy is doing is a bad idea.
The HP value you give has also barely any meaning, since the player doesn't know how much damage his attacks cause.
I really liked the descriptions as status indicators though, they add a lot of colour to the fight. It might be a good idea to expand on that concept.

I'm still debating if I really want to show actual damage, or if I can keep the feedback purely based on commentary from the PMs and visual effects. This is going to be one of the hardest parts to get right, but if I can pull it off it should be more rewarding than just having 'x damage' flash up on the screen after every hit.

It will get easier once you have a more elaborate GUI. You use few channels and only one dimension (Text) to display things. Using images, fonts, colour and size or even the background music would allow for far more information without introducing more text.

I think finding a way to display minor damage the same way I do vital damage would probably be a good way to provide feedback without necessarily having to show actual hit points. I will see what I can do with this.

You could try using the colour of the vital level text to display that information.

Anyone can get multiple attacks per action, if they get lucky with their attack roll. The witch is the one most likely to do so thanks to her high attack bonus.

You should identify follow up attacks or they might even be mistaken for bugs.

For the sourcecode, doing it that way has a major advantage and a major drawback. It should get along fine with Ren'Pys Rollback and Save system.
But it also will be much harder to maintain and expand on, in comparison to an object oriented approach.
I'm not sure if one is objectively better than the other, but I find the ease of development with the object oriented approach worth the trouble with Ren'Pys
save system.

This, unfortunately, is something I'm not really sure what to do with right now, since I haven't tried to do anything with saves.

Okay, I think I have to retract that statement partially. Seems like I and Ren'Pys save system can get along quite fine. So, if you can live without Rollback in a battle, I would strongly recommend a OOP approach. It really makes a difference in speed and ease of development.

[Funnyguts]

Alright! So, after getting feedback, tomorrow I'm going to get started on version 3 of the battle mechanics. I probably won't do a daily changelog because I suspect that will get annoying, but every now and then I'll post what I've changed, fixed, and added.

Essential features to add by the next release:
*The ability to select your preferred party from a pool of puella magi, instead of having them be preselected for you.
*Multiple types of witches and familiars.
*Enemy AI. Right now the witches just attack at random. I want to give each one the chance to act based on the current situation. They might not do the smartest thing at a given point, but it should make sense within their character.
*Status effects, both good and bad, and potential immunity to them.
*A cooldown system for powers.
*Better stats displays and interactivity.
*Better feedback on what happens after an action. For basic stuff like attacking, visual cues like the screen flashing should be enough, while other things will cause your party members to comment.

Features I am considering adding or changing, but are not essential right now:
*Music. I might do it to make things a bit more interesting, but I dunno if I want to increase the filesize at this point in time.
*Multiple kinds of 'standard' attacks, similar to the magic powers but not as strong, and without cooldown. Example: If you had Akemi Homura in your party, her attacks can include swinging a golf club, firing a pistol, and throwing a bomb. Her magic powers would include stopping time, or using her time control to speed herself up and make it harder for her to be hit.
*Reworking the health system to be a bit more intuitive.

So! This will probably take a stupid long amount of time to complete. I'll hope for the end of the month. I'll update you on changes, and I might throw some tidbits of plot and characters at you as I get a bit more confident that I like where it's going.

Speaking of, I'm bad with naming characters. Anyone want to give me some suggestions for a Japanese name that would fit a 15 year old girl who is generally good-hearted, a bit shy, and very close to her best friend, even though she gets a bit jealous of said friend's popularity? (Yeah, this archetype lends itself to a lot of abuse very easily. I'll do my best to keep her unique and interesting, though.)

[Soraminako]

This all sounds really awesome!! I can't wait for the new version to be out to see it.

Just wondering, but the code for this game, would you allow people to use variants of it for other fighting games, or is it exclusive? I don't know what's the etiquette for game code ownership, so I have no idea if asking this is ok or if it is horribly offensive. ^^; Sorry if it's the latter.
(Not that I have any games with fighting in them planned, but it just sounds so awesome and so difficult to make that I had to ask that, out of curiosity and out of interest for great code.)

[Funnyguts]

I will be releasing the source code for the entire finished game when done. Since it's a fangame, I'm not sure what license would be most appropriate, but it will probably be either under Creative Commons or Gnu Public License.

Progress update: Uh... nothing this week. I had to spend my time looking for a job, and after that was done I decided to relax by playing King's Quest. (Why I chose to relax with some of the most infuriating games around is beyond me.) Hopefully this weekend I will get started again.

[Funnyguts]

Hey, update. Again, busy week. But I did at least manage to code something! Your girls can now gain status effects! They get shoved into a list of strings, and whenever an effect would change the outcome of an action, that effect gets searched for in the list and if found, applied. Right now the effects don't actually do anything, and there's also no way to get them to go away, but at least it's something.

I haven't coded this yet, but I did kinda scrawl out an outline for a more intuitive health system. Before, the health system was basically the one from Halo: Easily recharging protective health that keeps you from taking actual potentially lethal damage to your body. When a girl dropped to 0 health, she'd take a point of vital damage and then suddenly go back up to full health, which is kinda non-intuitive. The system I'm proposing below will hopefully make more sense. Let me know if it actually does or if it only makes sense to me because I came up with it.

Hitpoints are now closer to the normal RPG standard. You get a set amount of HP, getting hit makes your current HP go down. It will partially heal naturally at the end of each round, as it did before, and it's easy to heal using the Recover action or casting a healing spell. Ideally this bit of HP should fluctuate up and down relatively rapidly, as enemies slowly batter you while you offset that damage with healing. Keeping yourself constantly at full health should be a challenge, and will probably require to heal yourself at a rate that wastes all your turns and prevents you from hurting any monsters. Still, it shouldn't be too unreasonable to keep afloat unless fighting particularly difficult enemies.

Vital damage is a lot different than the previous iteration. Instead of having a maximum starting level that drops down with each hit, the damage counter starts at 0 and works its way up. Each point of vital damage will increase the chance of your soul gem being shattered. The first couple points of damage would have a negligible chance of death, ideally to the point of impossibility unless you somehow really screw up and you're fighting a witch way beyond your current level. To take vital damage, a magical girl will have to take damage equal or higher to 1/10th of her current HP (so if you have 250/500 HP, this will trigger on hits that deal 25 damage or more), and then roll a check to see if that hit was damaging enough to severely wound her. I'm still working out exactly how I want to make an algorithm for the second part, but ideally the more damage you take in a single blow, the more likely you are to be wounded and take vital damage. It's also possible to take temporary vital damage due to getting into a situation where it's harder to protect your Soul Gem. For example, if a powerful attack causes you to lose your balance and fall over, you gain one point of vital damage until you stand up. Even worse, should you drop to 0 HP, you will fall unconscious and gain two temporary damage points. (And since you won't be able to keep yourself balanced, you'll get an extra one from being knocked down. In case you're wondering, you'll have the option of having a Puella Magi protect another, taking the damage for her. This is really handy if your healer won't have a chance to bring the PM up past 0 HP any time soon. You can use the protect option on anyone though, not necessarily fallen girls, so use it wisely.) You can heal vital damage by taking a turn to Recover as with before. This will be the only way to heal vital damage (except with one particular magic spell, but a magical girl who'd use that would have to be generous to the point of stupidity to use that), so make sure you utilize it whenever you have the chance. Recover won't necessarily heal any vital damage, but if it doesn't you'll get a bonus to your next attempt, and no matter what you'll gain a decent amount of HP back. (Note to self: Make sure there's no bonus gained for using Recover at 0 Vital, so players don't get free bonuses before they actually get hit.)

So, does this make sense, and sound like an interesting way to play with standard RPG health systems?