Games Only The Strong - pixelart game with animals for mobile

Big news! Finally released my mobile game. It's been crazy almost one year working, so i hope you enjoy it! Download it for free now!

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avyssos.onlythestrong




The wheel of time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Heroes from every corner, travels great distances to prove their strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts that spreading death across the lands.
The journey is long... many will die... but...
Only the strong will survive!

FEATURES
- Fight your way through hordes of enemies across 6 worlds spanning 60 levels and 6 unique bosses.
- Upgrade your heroes! Complete challenges to earn new items and upgrades.
- Over 20 heroes with unique abilities. Animals ONLY!
- Over 30 abilities to upgrade and 30 items to equip.
- Original comic book style.
- Achievements, facts & more.

Check a short trailer.

Contact: avyssosstudios@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AVYSSOS1







Tell me what you think. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. More to come later...

 

Great great work, keep up and send us alpha/beta link soon

 

Only The Strong is almost ready and we want YOU to help us deliver it!

* We are looking for testers that will provide feedback before the game releases.

* You have to own an Android device and you must have access to an internet connection.

Contact: avyssosstudios@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AVYSSOS1

LIMITED SLOTS AVAILABLE

Sign Up Here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQh0RJpl9Mx0ErxOARkOige9ZRrY8cMNLrRnOwEWJErWKfgw/viewform

 

Gameplay from my game...

 

Big news! Finally released an early access version of my mobile game. It's been crazy almost one year working, so i hope you enjoy it! Download it for free now!
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avyssos.onlythestrong

 

This looks awesome! The pixel art is of impressively high quality. What really got my attention though is the gameplay. I'm a little biased as my current project started as something vaguely pool-like as well, but I honestly just looks really unique and fun to play. I will absolutely be checking this out. Props to the team!

 

Thank you very much!
since you were involved in a similar game, I would like your opinion for the gameplay and physics.
Unfortunately I do not have as much feedbacks for the gameplay as I would expect.
.

 

I don't want to over-state the similarity between your game and mine. My game was initially going to have a heavy emphasis on ricocheting shots off of the level to hit your opponent. This aspect was sort of overtaken by other ideas before I even started making the game. What I can say though, is that I had a different game called "Magnetic Billiards" in mind when I was thinking about how I might visualize the shot. And, actually, I just remembered that I was briefly working on a digital adaptation of a dexterity board game in which you flick wooden discs. Anyways, I don't want to talk too much about my own projects as I have a few pages of notes that I took on Only the Strongest.

First of all I want to say that I genuinely love what you've done here. The gameplay is every bit as clever as the trailer suggested, and the art is even more detailed and fully of character. I think you have something really special here.

With that out of the way, most of my notes are suggestions or criticisms. I don't want my feedback to sound overall negative though. The only reason I felt inspired to grab a notebook to write things down is because I like your game so much, and I want it to be the best it can be. I'm sure that you're already aware of many of the issues I'll bring up, but I'll lay them out anyways.

I played up to the first (desert worm) boss, which I (barely) lost to twice. Both times, I killed the worm, and had only one enemy to defeat, but they managed to get me one turn before I would have won.

Okay, here we go:

- Tutorial included: Very nice! This kind of game absolutely needs it.

- Area select screen: The icons representing each area would be more clear/interesting if they showed either a stylized graphic for the area boss or something representing the environment type. The tiny screen-caps are difficult to read.

- Some of the animals are not centred in their box on the selection screen (most noticeably, the Critter). Side note: I love that you have included a Critter as I remember watching those movies when I was a kid. I'm not sure what the legality of using the same name with the same appearance is though.

- Design issue: This is a personal peeve I have, but I don't like when my score is influenced by time unless it really makes sense for the game. Lining up your shots just right can be a little finicky, and I don't think that's due to anything you've done wrong-- it's just the nature of games like this. So, it's frustrating to be stressing over time while also moving my finger so slightly back and forth until the preview shot stops where I need it to be. I hope I explained that well enough.

- Grammar: There is quite a lot of text in the game, and I noticed some grammar issues that could be smoothed out for clearer communication to the player.

- I love the leveling system. It's simple and intuitive-- just how I like my RPG mechanics.

- The red text on a yellow background is a little hard to read. If you can use a "shadow" font, that would certainly help.

- The item icons are, like everything else, beautifully drawn. It's not always immediately obvious what they mean, but they're all distinct enough that it's just a matter of me, as a player, learning them all.

- You can touch an animal icon at the top or bottom of the screen to view its stats card. I'd like to be able to click a different animal to view it without having to hit the 'X' to unpause the game and then click a different animal. A swipe left or right would be especially slick.

- Collision bounds difficult to read: This is probably my biggest criticism of the game. It's always a risk in 2D games that if you have a lot of detail, it can be harder for the player to know where the collision edges on objects are. I have a suggestion for you, but I'm afraid it would require quite a lot of work. Basically, it would work like this: When a player either touches an on-screen button (to toggle) or when they touch to make their shot, all of the objects in the level show their collision areas. They could have a little glow or moving colour gradient effect to make them look nice, but it would give the player the information they need to confidently make a tough shot. The really tricky (or time-consuming) part for you would be to make it so that any tall object (like those tall cacti) will disappear, leaving only a small, simple sprite representing the area that actually has collision. They would reappear as soon as the player takes their shot, or if they toggle "Show Colliders" back off.

- The animal death animations are hilariously gory. That kind of thing is right up my alley.

- Tutorial bug: When I got to the part that instructs you to change your starting line-up, I did so, but the tutorial didn't move forward. There was a "next" button on screen, but it was not functional. I had to close and re-open the game, and so I wasn't able to try the tutorial again to replicate this.

- Monetization: Outside of Pokemon Go, I don't really play many mobile games. I'm aware of some of the common strategies that developers use to monetize their games, and it's a very tricky line to walk: Making the game accessible enough that people will play it, but also giving incentive for spending money. Personally, I get a bad taste in my mouth if I don't have the option to just purchase a game outright, and not have to deal with ads. The gem system is fairly well baked into the overall design, so it would be tricky to make this work as I'd like it to. I'm just thinking that if this were a console game, how much would I be willing to spend on it? From what I've seen, $10 - $15 would be reasonable with the promise of (free) stage and animal updates in the future, or even a paid DLC pack if there was a substantial amount of new stuff. I can even deal with relying on daily challenges to earn a small number of gems (as long as it's easy to earn at least a small number of them every day), but the ads may, unfortunately, wear me down to the point where I don't want to play. This would be a great game to play on my lunch break, but I don't want to waste any of that time watching ads, and I'd be happy to pay a one-time price to have that experience.

- Versus mode: Have you considered one? The potential is certainly there. Any plans for this?

- Reading the manual, I was shocked to learn that you have to start the game over if you run out of heroes. This seems like a brutal punishment, but if I think of this game as something like a "Rogue-like", it makes a little more sense. However, unless I'm missing something huge, I think that players desperately need to be able to leave an area to try another one so that they can level up different animals if their main party is defeated (as mine was, by the boss).

- The graphic that indicates which animal whose turn it is could be bigger/clearer.

- The animal icons at the bottom and top of the screen have two numbers, one showing the attack and one showing the remaining health points. I feel like it would be more intuitive if the attack number was red and the health number was green.

- Replay levels: I don't like that I can't replay levels, and I *really* don't like that I have to spend 20 red gems to retry if I'm mid-level. I know that you wouldn't want players to be able to easily grind levels, so what I would do is make it so that each animal can only level up one time in each level.

- The shot power is indicated with that small horizontal bar. This is ok, but it would be much more useful if the arrow that you aim with could indicate the power-level instead as the player is less likely to accidentally be covering that with their hand as they line up a shot.

- The Hero screen needs an 'X' or something over dead heroes.

- When an animal is sleeping or stunned, I would like if there was a number above/below them to show how many turns they have left before they're back to a normal state.

- I appreciate that you can look at a preview of the stage layout before you start it, but I'd also like to be able to see my animal's starting positions so I know where each animal will be. This would allow me to make a better strategic decision before attempting the stage.

- Once again-- the art is just *chef's kiss*. The amount of detail crammed into such a small space is just incredible.

- On that note, I'd love to be able to play this on my iPad.

- The aim arrow is hidden by certain objects such as the worm boss and its worm holes. I'm sure you're probably aware of this, and that the arrow should be on top of all animal/environmental graphics.

- On the screen where you choose your animals, I'd like if I could see the icons for items equipped to each animal without having to click on them individually.

- When viewing your item inventory, there should be something to indicate that an item is already equipped to another animal.

Wheeeew! That was a lot! I'm sure your to-do list is massive enough as it is, so I hope I'm not adding too much stress, but I wanted to be thorough.

I'll leave it at that for now! <3

 

MoonJelly, thank you so much for your reply and your time! It means a lot to me and a reply like this is exactly what i'm looking for. And… sorry for my bad English!

First, you have to consider that i’m a solo developer and this is my first game! I have never code or pixel art before and i start making the game after years of economical crisis and recently coronavirus quarantines that strikes Greece (no job for me, lot free time). I’m mention that, because many suggestions you make, they have to do with the budget. The truth is that i have totally zero budget. I hope for some profits, only to put them back in the game and make it better! Of course nobody cares when someone will download it on Google Play, but... i just mention it to you, as an indie developer.

Next update will include most of your great suggestions. For others:

- I was shocked with the bug you find on tutorial (next button), cause that is a good reason for someone to give up my game before even take a closer look on it. But i test this many times and next button always work. I can’t figure out what happened on your case.

- Monetization: I agree 100% with you. I don’t like adverts too. I start playing games at 90s, when you buy the game once and thats it. But mobile market is not the same. Most people want games for free or they don’t bother at all. Only super original games (like Monument Valley) can make a profit selling their apps, but they have a great marketing budget too. I am working this game for over 1 year and the only solution i find for some profit is in-game purchases and adverts. Mobile monetization is something that makes me sad, i mean, the way companies change the players thinking about games and developers through the last years. It is a big conversation, but i never followed the greed way other companies take. You can play my game without purchase nothing and play it the nice way, the “strong” way, the way this game originally has builded.

As for the forced adverts, this is an early access version. When i officially release it, i will offer a free and a paying version. Free version will be pretty much the same as you played, but (and you’ll not gone like this) it will required internet connection to play. Paying version (2,99$ or something) will not have popup ads, will have more gems, more heroes and no internet connection required.

- Versus mode: I had a versus mode before (thats why i have one more frame in game modes), but only if you share your device with the opponent when his turn to play comes (both in the same device). No one seems to care about it, so i put this out. Later, i try to connect two devices via bluetooth but it was difficult for me to do and i don’t think it worth all this work. The potential for online game is great, but it needs servers and other stuff that i can’t afford. For the future? I hope yes, if the game has some success and players request it.

- Collision bounds difficult to read: I know it can be a big deal for new players, but not for experienced players. Back some months in developing, i visualize a collision circle for every animal when you tap on screen, tall trees or objects disappear if someone was behind and thinking to do all you suggest. But i think a lot about this and i come to the conclusion that it is not necessary (other players told me too). As you progress the game, notice that you will learn the areas, obstacles and heroes bounds better. As a developer yourself, you want the best experience for your players (less possible confusion) and i can understand your concern. But i believe your suggestions are great for a beginner but after that, it can be malicious to see lines or graphics you don’t need any more.

- As for the Replay levels (20 red gems, ouch!), some players request a replay button (i wasn’t have one and never want it). Notice that this is not a game that you gonna finish it with your first play, except if you are a “strong” player. You may lose and have to restart from the beginning. Me, as an experience player, i finish the game with only 2 casualties on normal mode (after 60 stages!). Thats why i have hard mode (this is menace!) or easy mode. This is how i experience gaming back to my time (again 90s): Lost... get angry... start from beginning... try again (cause i don’t have many games to play)... but when i finally finish the game, i was super happy. I know that now days, players learn to play easy games and mostly mobile companies make them easy for them, because a player can easily give up the game and download another free game. Thats to sad and an another big conversation. So, if you want to “cheat” (replay), you have to pay red gems. And if you lost all your heroes... you just lost! Restart if you like. (as you understand, i'm not an marketing expert).

But let me explain something here. The game is easy to learn but hard to master. I always like hard and challenging games that sometimes makes you very angry for just a tiny mistake (tetris for example). Everyone who has played my game till the end, tells me that at the beginning there was a lot hard times that they mail them to me like issues, but as they progress through areas and they became better, those issues became challenges that they look for them and finally enjoyed (bad english again, sorry).
After all, i’m sad that i’m going to lost many players cause my game is challenging for beginners, but i kind of like that. In the end… ONLY THE STRONG… gonna love this game!

- "The Hero screen needs an 'X' or something over dead heroes". I don’t get it. You mean the dead heroes that appears on the grave stone?

- I would like to release for IOS in the future.

- When an animal is sleeping or stunned, i have a number (inside a circle) showing how many turns left, on the hero’s card/icon.

- Thank you for all your comments for the art here and twitter. I put much time for this, because it was my first time ever try to paint something. My every day job is a cinematographer, thats why i have to do visuals the right way.

I will visit your posts for cataclysm into future for more developer questions i have. Sad that you have no mac version...
Sorry for the long and sometimes irrelevant comments…

 

I saw on your Twitter that you're a solo developer and it made me shout something explicit. Hahaha! The fact that you've done the design, programming, and that artwork is unbelievable. When I saw the trailer, I just assumed that this was the most recent of many games to come from Avyssos. It has the qualities of a polished game from an experienced indie team.

- Monetization: I understand the need to participate in some of these practices that we, as gamers and developers, don't like. My game, Cataclysm, was only released on PC without any expectation of people paying for it. But for my next game, I'll have to deal with these issues too, and I'm not entirely sure how I'll handle it. I certainly appreciate that Only the Strong is perfectly playable as a free game, and if there will be a paid version without ads and with the features you've mentioned, I'd be happy to pay for it.

- Versus mode: I was picturing a local versus mode as you described where the players share the device, kind of like Pocket Tanks (which my fiance and I enjoy playing together). I think I have a more selfish philosophy about making games, as I often include features because I want to play with them myself (or with friends), rather than considering too much what anybody else will do. Clearly, I'm no marketing expert either!

- Collision: I'll take your word for it that I'll learn the collision bounds as I get better, but I will maintain that it's not ideal for the environment to block your sight. It's a personal preference, of course, so I respect your design decision.

- I grew up in the 90s too, and I have a great appreciate for difficult games. Some of my favourites are Super Meat Boy, Celeste, Spelunky, N+... Lots of platformers! All of these notoriously tough games have something in common though: When you fail, you can restart immediately. You might be angry that you died (maybe you were so close), but that feeling is brief because you're right back in it for another attempt.

Only the Strong is a different kind of game, so I know that it's not a perfect comparison. But I think there is a bit of a clash in the way that the game is, as you say, not really intended to have a "replay" option, but it also has a "three star" ranking system for each level as many mobile games do. Those ranking systems make people such as myself want to get three stars (or red gems, in this case) in every level for 100% completion. However, doing this in any game is usually very difficult, and I (and I assume most players) sometimes choose to move on to the next level and come back to try that one again later. With the current flow of the game, that's not really a feasible approach. Instead, players have to pretty much get three gems in every level in a single run. Unfortunately, that sort of punishment for failing one challenge (starting from the first level all over again) kills my desire to even attempt playing the game to 100% as I don't believe I would ever have the time or skill to do it. It's one thing to try a tough level over and over again, trying to accomplish the three gem requirements, and something else entirely to re-do the entire game up to that level before having another attempt.

As with the collision issue, I realize that this is a matter of design philosophy, and I don't expect you to cater specifically to players such as myself. I always make the distinction between "difficult" and "punishing". I generally like difficult games, but if they're too punishing (lots of time required repeating already-completed tasks), I lose interest.

One last thing regarding difficulty/replaying levels: If I get to a boss and lose all of my animals, my only options are to try again with a squad of animals that I haven't leveled up, or to just restart the game and pretend like I didn't have more animals available. If I was unsuccessful with my leveled-up squad, I don't really have any reason to believe I'll perform better with a much weaker squad. I may be overrating the difference in a level 1 versus a level 8 or 9 animal, so I'll have to play more to see.

- "X on hero screen": I just mean that when you go into the Options menu to view your animals, the ones that are currently dead ought to have an 'X' or something on their picture. I guess it's not really important-- it was just a thought.

- Sleeping/stunned: I see the number now. My bad!

I appreciate that you're considering my feedback, and I'm excited to see the "final" version of this game, as well as any future game projects you work on.

PS: On a personal note, I sincerely hope that your economic situation improves as we start to move past this pandemic.

 

Hello again! A couple of days ago, I finished the game. I have a much better understanding of what the game is really all about, and how to play it well. Granted, I had to switch to "easy" mode (which I never do), but I'm going to take a stab at Normal again soon.

If curious about what else you intend to do with the game before it goes from "early access" to full release. I assume there are animals, items, and areas in the pipeline, but do you have any gameplay adjustments in mind?

 

MoonJelly, thanks again for the support!

I wanted to reply on your previous reply, but i wanted to wait till i finish my updates for the game and have a better picture. Unfortunately, it’s a busy month for me, and i can’t find much time for developing. But i have manage to work many hours for the next update, hoping coming soon (again in early access).

I focus mostly on fixing bugs, and smooth gameplay, but i have some noticeable changes too.
I will announce the new update here soon, with a full report, but some of the changes are:

- all abilities and items now works as it should be. I’ve noticed that some of them never worked (as snake’s 3rd ability and more)

- i focused on bosses that was full on bugs and some times unplayable. Don’t know what you experienced, but now everything works great.

- Also, i create a new boss game mode, as a mini game, where you can play only the bosses. This turn to be much fun. Of course, upgrading abilities and earning gems are different for this mode.

- much more accurate vision lines, and enemies attacks.

- Monetization: I write in my last reply that i will have two versions on google store, one paid and the other free. I decided not to do that, cause of the difficulty on managing and updating two versions on google store. I put one “free advert” option in the store page inside the game, and now, for 2.99 you get rid the annoying popup ads, plus you get some free red gems. For players like you, who don’t mind to pay, as you said, this is a good solution. If you can afford to purchase and a gem package, then, you can unlock many heroes, items, make replays and revives without thinking purchase nothing else or watching reward adverts.

- i also improve visual the gameplay here and there (most of your recommends). Also you can swipe left or right to change hero or item card anywhere.

- and a big change. Now you have 4 more slots for new heroes. If you hire all 4 heroes in your main squad, you can continue hiring 4 more. This way, you can replace your squad members anytime during your quest. Very useful to plan your strategy depending the stage. You can also upgrade and equip them and leave them there until you need them and this opens many more options.

- On your previous reply you said: “The aim arrow is hidden by certain objects … I'm sure you're probably aware of this, and that the arrow should be on top of all animal/environmental graphics”, and i imagined you getting to the forest area, play two stages, then push your home button on your device, and drag the game to the recycle bin. He, he, i would like to know how you experience this area.

- for new heroes and items. Items are enough, i don’t want more confusion to the player. For heroes, i’m going to create 5 more, but not for the full release, as i want to wait and make better choices. I already have design, draw and animate some (a dog, camel? and other four leg animals) but i feel that new ones have to be more unique. For the next update i will create a new animal, a rabbit or a frog, with the unique ability to jump over obstacles.

- I am not having any more gameplay adjustments in mind. I don’t have more ideas that can fit to this game. If you have something to recommend, please do.

- i will try to bring back the PvP (same device) mode, but it seems to me very difficult now. I will see…

At last, some personal thoughts on repeatability of the game, if you consider to do that. As a player, i am surprised to the fact that after 14 months of repeating the game over and over for testing, i’ve never get bored! (not as i was expected). Each time starting a new game, i always found something new to catch my attention and my interesting, something new to challenge me. Thats because of the many abilities, items, combinations, heroes, strategies and more that this game has. This game maybe look small and casual, but i think there is a very good depth in it. But again that is subjective and my opinion as a gamer.

And again thanks for your support and help. Unfortunately, early access was not what i expected in google store (only 10 downloads???), so except some friends opinions and yours, i don’t have much help. Νevertheless i'm not disappointed, and I will continue to improve the game as much as I can. I’m not expecting miracles to happen, but I can wait to see how it goes when i full release it.

 

Hey, don't worry about being late to reply. Life happens, right?

It's frustrating how much time is spent trying to squash bugs rather than adding new features. I often sit down with the intent of working on one thing, but end up spending hours on some silly bug. That's game dev though, eh?

I don't remember any big problems with the boss battles. I will say that at a certain point, I got into the habbit of closing the game and effectively "retrying" if I lost one or two animals, which happened many times during the tree boss (very clever, but a little frustrating). I'm not really sure if there's a "solution" to this frustration. It reminds me a bit of Fire Emblem with its perma-death. I don't play a lot of FE, but when I do, I generally consider it a loss and restart if I lose a hero. If I'm really struggling just to get through a scenario, I will accept a hero's death and press on, but I really try to avoid it.

When you say you'll be making the vision lines more accurate, I'm curious as to what you mean. One thing that I noticed is that the predicted path (shown by the line) would not account for the way an animal would bounce off of another animal, so while it may look like a shot will hit 2-3 targets, it actually only hits one because your animal didn't follow the path beyond the first hit. Is that what you had in mind or was that a deliberate choice?

Anyways, great job with the game. It's an incredibly tough market to make any significant money in, so I hope that you're primarily making the game because you enjoy making and playing it. Best of luck for the final release though. As I've said many times, I think it's an exceptional little game and absolutely worth playing. I started my Normal mode play through shortly after finishing Easy mode, and I'm still enjoying it. I also bought some red gems, so I hope you see a bit of that money.

 

I recommend you to wait for the next update if you want to start a new game. I hope i release it next week.

Vision lines i mean predicted path for you and the enemies (they use it too). I noticed that sometimes aiming was off when it was shown that you can pass between 2 rocks for example, but you never make it. Now its more accurate for static obstacles. Predicted path just gives you a choice to visual the path, not an accurate hit, its up to you to always keep in mind the mass of the animals (stat). If bee bounce off the bear for example, the predicted path will be more accurate. Also, you have to keep in mind agility too.

So you are from Canada, thanks for your support.

 

Hello!
The latest update is here with improvements, bug fixes and new stuff to explore!

WHAT'S NEW:

- Bug fixes and improvements (bosses, items, abilities)
- New: Ads free purchase
- New: Bosses challenge game mode!
- New: Second squad for better plan and strategy
- Improved saving system
- More flexibly menu
- Graphics improvements

...and many more!
Download it for free now!
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avyssos.onlythestrong

 

Finally released my first game! I hope you enjoy it! Download it for free now!

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.avyssos.onlythestrong

Thanks everyone for your support!