Feathered Quest: The Bird RPG
A game I worked on over the course of 7 years
Hi everyone my name is Adaline, I started creating a game 7 years ago that I worked on sporadically over those years. It’s a two hour demo but I think this is the right place to share it. It’s a quirky RPG idk maybe it will resonate with some people here I was heavily inspired by things like earthbound and mother 3. I probably won’t finish it but it would mean the world to me if people checked it out.
https://adaoutofline.itch.io/birdrpg
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Mystic Knight of the Octo Vinctum
Hi! You know, I’m kinda in the same boat myself :spent 3 years developing my huge passion project game , and still have yet to see anyone play it.
Anyway, I checked out your game. It’s looking pretty nice so far! I played for about an hour, and I decided to take a break when I got softlocked on some guy’s head. I may come back to finish the last part of whatever’s left. Got to say, I kinda like it.I uploaded a file of my playthrough here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14_oDlXYnYxnG77zI1Lb2sFJlyLNYCoQv/view?usp=sharing
If you want some more specific feedback, I’ve provided some in the section below. I thought I’d try to give you some constructive feedback to maybe get an idea of the game’s strengths and weaknesses, but feel free to completely ignore my suggestions if you don’t agree.
Strengths:
- I liked the writing. Running around and talking to all the crazy characters was pretty entertaining! It had some of the EarthBound charm to it!
- Liked the item variety. Felt like I just kept getting random “stuff”. It was kinda fun to get something, then open the menu to find out what use it had in battle. It helps the game stand out among other games.
- Enemies were pretty balanced. For the most part, it hit that sweet spot of “not too tough for the opening of the game” and “I actually have to think.” A lot of RPG’s fall into the latter category, and I was glad to see that using spells and items was a logical option even early on.
- Cutscenes were nice. Just like the writing, pretty entertaining stuff!
- I caught the little mention of being able to return to previous areas for new content. This is something I wish more games did. Not sure if you’ve had the chance to add any of that new content to previous areas (only played an hour in so far), but that’d be really cool if you did. If/when you do get around to adding that, it’d be great if I wouldn’t have to trudge for too long in unchanged content to get to it – as in, maybe add some sort of warping system (think PSI Warp in EB, Return spell in Dragon Warrior, or even EB’s bus system) or perhaps redesign the map layout a bit to make the routes between areas not a straight line.
- I also really appreciated the addition of those Relic/Rarity items. It made getting and managing equipment a lot more fun.
It kinda sucks in other RPG’s that you don’t get cool items under more than halfway through the game. Also, the way you get these items (e.g. the bubble gum thing from the bubble gum machine) was fun too.- I enjoyed the designs for the characters quite a bit! The animations were cute, and I liked all the wacky, weird creatures that you’d meet along the way. The quilted look of the world and backgrounds was also nice, gave me a “Paper Mario” sort of feel (the N64 and GC kind, though
). Also, using gift baskests instead of presents or chests was a great touch.
Improvement:
While I guess not completely necessary, it would help take the game up a notch if you could flesh out some of the world and characters a bit more. I saw a good amount of worldbuilding through the dialogue and notes scattered about, I still have some questions. Take for example, our bird protagonist. Who exactly is this bird? Where did he come from? Does he live in the forest? What does he do when he’s not on the quest, like what’s his job? How does he know TV man (I imagine this detail could be delved into later in the story)? While I can see he’s meant to be a silent, malleable protagonist like Ness and you don’t really have to have characterization, it’d be easier to get invested in the story if we could get an idea as to how this bird fits into his world.
The “Feeling Gross” (funny, by the way
So, once I realised this, I just avoided fighting the frog enemies altogether. I’d highly reccommend either nerfing poison so it doesn’t last outside of battle or wears of quickly, or provide the player with some renewable means of curing poison even early in the game. Perhaps you can add some item salesman in the tower area.
I noticed that the spells Rena could use were described as magic. Given that all the enemy attacks I saw had quirky names, I wasn’t really sure what, if anything, was being counted as “magic”. If that’s important, it might be a good idea to indicate the difference between phyiscal, magical, and whatever attacks in some way. This is useful for the player when asking the question, “What might this monster be weak to?” and having to choose the best type of attack for the situation.
Omg thank you so so so so much for the feedback!! You have no idea how happy I am to read your comments! I love that you spent time discovering stuff like the gumball, I seriously love that. I am really happy to hear you enjoyed a lot of the stuff I am most proud of. I did spend a lot of time trying to make the turn based combat engaging and people just always write off the combat as annoying when I get feedback. There absolutely is some stuff to go back and discover like fighting the old guy, finding a use for the hotel application, returning the lost dudes keys, finding the vampire cowl and some other stuff.
I so greatly appreciate that you took the time to play it also, I loved that you were using Renas healing spell a lot too in your gameplay, it mostly gets overlooked.
I bought your game it caught my eye and I’m definitely going to give it a try, hoping I can run it on my steam deck
