Found two places at the motel where I could leave the path:
Balancing still felt very fair (did the level 17 run), only the wolf boss was a bit of a longer roadblock. All of the encounters made me feel like I could beat them as long as I use a proper strategy (working with status buffs/debuffs with the party, sword of damocles strats with Firestarter Sarah).
Music is still absolutely gorgeus. Liked the remixes and interpretations of music from previous acts, for example the fleshrite remixes during the bloodrites backstory explanation part. Everything is still super stylish, I especially adored the Firestarter vs. intros for young adult Sarah and her enemies, those were a nice touch.
Writing was still great too. For reference, I always forced Sarah to go to work and take the Mariner classes so Joergen can return. Still masterful at setting a mood. Also still enjoyed the jokes sprinkled in, my favorite one in act 3 was the blocking box in the motel, that blocking box company is truly a menace. And of course, after two acts of dark tormentuous psychological scenarios, you go even further and introduce not only Canada, but also a Canadian. I'm man enough to admit I flinched a little when he said aboot.
Every other praise I mentioned in my acts 1/2 feedback still hold up, this is a very unique game with a very distinct voice, I think you have a great thing going here!
Glad you liked it, the collision system overall is a mess and relies on me bonking out invisible boxes and not missing one... or a few. I thankful when people point out the mistakes so I can fix them. Glad you liked the small Canada hints dropped, there are some details concerning the overall world hinted at here and there, at some point I will make a world map that is likely to be equally shocking and hopefully hilarious. Jimmy Winters canadian accent is intentionally a bit uneven, I do not know if you got the conversation where he and James talk about his old football stuff but it is spelled out that he does not really have an accent left after living in America for so long but intentionally makes it stronger sometimes since he finds it makes him more "mysterious". Felt like a Canadian/American dad thing to do.
I have a question for you: the characters in dream team come from another project if I have understood things correctly, could you point me in the direction of that game so I can play some more of your stuff?
Yeah, I think that was the old football stuff conversation at the helmet where I took the aboot reference from. Looking forward to the world map, the world building throughout the acts is a great point too, I hadn't touched upon that yet. We got glimpses from the more cybernetic world in the form of for example the android doctor in the previous acts, but act 3 really paid it off by showing what life is like in the big city. I think that is also a great draw for your game, it makes you want to see more of that interesting world.
Regarding Dream Team, I think you tried both versions that include the characters, the Gamescom one and the prison one (thanks again for that!). I think I might have written in one of the descriptions that I based the characters on the characters from my Ludum Dare game "Inside", it might be that (but it's just very loosely the apathetic main character, incompetent bossy sidekick dynamic).
I'm still playing, but I just wanted to already post that I got the crash below on 1.4, it happened after someone attacked, unfortunately I don't really remember who, I remember the animation playing when Billy attacks, but that's unlikely as I was using Ponder All with Billy that round.
Thanks for the information, that narrows it down. I have had problems with confused before and have lessened the times this fucks up but clearly it is not done yet. It is an interaction between the plugin handling the confusion stat specifically and the one which manages enemy animations, I will have to look into it more. I suspect this happens when a confused enemy attacks itself and fails to hit.
I think I have solved it but it's hard to test out, gonna have to wait to see if I or someone else spots it again once I push out the next build. There is a problem happening when an enemy avoids an attack which causes the animation system for enemies to crash. I removed avoidance entirely which I thought solved this but I think an enemy attacking itself and missing might count as avoidance in the fucked up rpgmaker logic. Raised hitrate on enemies from 95% to a 100, if the problem is what I think it is this will solve it and it explains why it happens so rarely. One in twenty chance if an enemy is confused. Your build will still have this issue at the moment however, and I cannot really be sure until a new build is out and has been tested a lot.
Do you know if you had the mood which gives you a confusion effect equipped? I suspect confusion might be the culprit to a couple of bugs but I am not sure.
Someone else got this problem and confirmed that confusion was indeed in effect. I think it has something to do with this:
Thanks for the information, that narrows it down. I have had problems with confused before and have lessened the times this fucks up but clearly it is not done yet. It is an interaction between the plugin handling the confusion stat specifically and the one which manages enemy animations, I will have to look into it more. I suspect this happens when a confused enemy attacks itself and fails to hit.
I think I have solved it but it's hard to test out, gonna have to wait to see if I or someone else spots it again once I push out the next build. There is a problem happening when an enemy avoids an attack which causes the animation system for enemies to crash. I removed avoidance entirely which I thought solved this but I think an enemy attacking itself and missing might count as avoidance in the fucked up rpgmaker logic. Raised hitrate on enemies from 95% to a 100, if the problem is what I think it is this will solve it and it explains why it happens so rarely. One in twenty chance if an enemy is confused. Your build will still have this issue at the moment however, and I cannot really be sure until a new build is out and has been tested a lot.
Sorry for the delay, I usually review in reverse popularity order:
- please name your demo in files, folders and exe
- I don't play a lot of vn, but pressing esc to accept your name seems very strange, add an "accept/finish" button, since ideally you wanna make your game enjoyable with mouse only
- clicking npc feet to select them is not good, but I understand it's a tile problem.
- liked the videos a lot
- very good to have not enough swagger to do a special in your first atk
- tutorial laptophead is fine, but in combat it talks too much
- 6-7 turns to kill the second mob of the game is not fun
- I like a lot 'optimize' equip
- open chest sprite is not open enough
- it's funny when you are confused the rifle gfx turns against you
- bug: if you are on the little island where you talk with little girl about fishes, you can walk on water and bypass the ladder
Game is really depressing, so gj. great atmophere, sounds, gfx, everything.
imo your game is prone to too much softlock:
You are not very powerful, but you can't run away from most combat
some enemies can twoshot you
some enemies get stuck in travel points (little island with ladder point) so you are fucked
resources are super limited, and there is no indication of low lv mobs; so you can't farm
I have confused messages of what I should do as a player, should I farm or avoid enemies? This is a bad middle ground. Or you make a silent hill experience where you can avoid most combat because everything is very dangerous, and you fight only when you must; or you make a classic jrpg.
A simple solution to solve this first location with grandma at the center would be to place a restore point at grandma house, but ofc it would ruin the atmophere
- I don't play a lot of vn, but pressing esc to accept your name seems very strange, add an "accept/finish" button, since ideally you wanna make your game enjoyable with mouse only.
You press enter to accept it, there is a message there. Escape must work as well then.
- clicking npc feet to select them is not good, but I understand it's a tile problem.
This is a problem with the mouse controls which does not happen when you play keyboard only. I am considering removing them altogether as another dev suggested instead of trying to mitigate the problem more.
- liked the videos a lot
Thanks mang!
- very good to have not enough swagger to do a special in your first atk
How the swagger system actually operates becomes much clearer later in game. Some abilities more or less work as swagger-engines, fueling your move economy.
- tutorial laptophead is fine, but in combat it talks too much
I have been asked to include it more to explain things further so I am not sure about that one.
- 6-7 turns to kill the second mob of the game is not fun
Depends on you item setup, if you equip the card you have just gotten from the chest next to them those encounters become a breeze. Managing your equipment is essential to the combat system, switching between moods and cards is a part of the general strategy. Most cards that are introduced have a function that makes a problem nearby easier, giving the player a hint on how to use them.
- it's funny when you are confused the rifle gfx turns against you
Yeah, I kind of like the jank.
- bug: if you are on the little island where you talk with little girl about fishes, you can walk on water and bypass the ladder
This has been pointed out to me before but I forgot to fix it, thanks for reminding me.
imo your game is prone to too much softlock:
You are not very powerful, but you can't run away from most combat. some enemies can twoshot you some enemies get stuck in travel points (little island with ladder point) so you are fucked
The early game encounters are there to teach you how to use the moods and cards. It is a game that requires attentiveness to make combat easier but blowing through the enemies is quite possible. This is probably not something everyone will like. Grinding is optional, it makes the difficulty a lot easier but is in no way required to actually progress until act 3. I have not properly balanced everything there yet so I am unsure if this is true in the latest additions. Gaslighting counters a lot of abilities, curse acts as a boss-killer, different moods grant you immunity to different status effects etc.
resources are super limited, and there is no indication of low lv mobs; so you can't farm
Depends, xp is actually set up so that without grinding you will naturally get full heals along the way until a resting spot can be found. Your introspection healing is usable outside of combat, this is mentioned in the tutorial. The items are mostly unnecessary in act 1.
I have confused messages of what I should do as a player, should I farm or avoid enemies? This is a bad middle ground. Or you make a silent hill experience where you can avoid most combat because everything is very dangerous, and you fight only when you must; or you make a classic jrpg.
This one I disagree with. Clearing it without any grinding at all is not easy but it is completely doable if you take the time to prepare for encounters. Autosave in every area does make trial and error less punishing. This is a matter of taste and not right or wrong.
A simple solution to solve this first location with grandma at the center would be to place a restore point at grandma house, but ofc it would ruin the atmophere
You can unlock two different kinds of restore points in that very house, there are some story-related hints dropped on how to do so.
Thanks for playing it! Act 1 overall acts as a tutorial even if you do not choose to enable the tutorial options. It does take some dedication to understand as it is intentionally obtuse. I think there is an audience for that kind of experience and further on it will become apparent how it reflects the story. I do not think it is for everyone however. I loved the first fear and hunger game which is a much more punishing experience, if you want something to compare the difficulty level too that would be it. This shit is way more lenient and obvious though.
Every dev knows his game best, but I'll pressure you this time since you are in an hard spot:
The early game encounters are there to teach you how to use the moods and cards. It is a game that requires attentiveness to make combat easier but blowing through the enemies is quite possible. This is probably not something everyone will like
I went in full tutorial, exploring every room and picking up every chest (minus one protected by the red female ghost). combat is gets more difficult room by room. At grandma house I have bone ghost in north that does a double atk every turn and kills me in 3 turns; or south with fish ppl that have a waterfall atk that hits for nerarly half health. bone ghost can be escaped, fish ppl cannot. In these encounters I need 6-7 atks to win if I don't get a lucky crit. In the mist of this, I have not a recharge station. Items are limited and once they are gone they are done. So or your autoequip dosen't work as intended (Iclicked it after every pick up) or something else is wrong. Maybe the difference of power between some moods you choose from is fucked. I've not played fear & hunger, but I'm not new at jrpgs.
Clearing it without any grinding at all is not easy but it is completely doable if you take the time to prepare for encounters. Autosave in every area does make trial and error less punishing. This is a matter of taste and not right or wrong.
If you think your balance is fine, then your tutorials in my case have failed. I suggest you to see every streamer that has played your game, and check if everything is as it should be. Maybe my experience was just an unlucky one.
You are the first one to get the boneghost I think, its triggered by your hatevalue which is connected to some of the choices you are making. It is impossible to defeat at any point but moves incredibly slowly. Optimize is a bit tricky and not to be relied on, you need to switch between different things to manage different encounters. Jack of traitors gives more attacks to all of your attack moves meaning that an attack that hits thrice will hit four to five times instead. It does not raise power however and will not be triggered by the optimize if you have something else that will.
Jack of the suffering increases both evaporation and phantasm, more or less meaning health and magic. Taking the sidepath by the crowlady gives you Gaslighting for free. It counters a lot of attacks, turning them back upon the enemy making them damage themselves. You can progress without ever using it or grinding however.
Jack of the torpid is all purpose but does cancel paralysis, making the euthanasia fight a breeze.
It's not really about optimizing, it's about adapting to different encounters. You can heal with your skills outside of combat. Interacting with the scarecrow will either give you the mood certainty which counters confusion or another one which adds a possible confusion effect to your attack-moves. Confusion is really the killer stat the fishboys can apply.
Plenty of people have gotten through this, I have done it with minimum required encounters, meaning avoiding everything that is not forced upon you and reaching level 5 once you hit the last boss of act 1. You can reach level five way earlier however. The curse guys in the first combat zone are easy, kill both of them, a gundeer and the ghost deer and you will be at level three, take out the double encounters with bullet spray which hits both enemies and you can easily reach level four before hitting the lake. You manage your equipment and you manage what moves you choose. Hit a couple of the fishboys and you are at level 5 early where the real good stuff starts to unlock.
Clearing it without any grinding at all is not easy but it is completely doable if you take the time to prepare for encounters. Autosave in every area does make trial and error less punishing. This is a matter of taste and not right or wrong.
Some people have had this reaction, but I have had a lot of feedback at this point. It's not that its just me who are able to do it. Dev on break did a real good job of understanding everything if you want an example, otherwise there are plenty of comments at my page.
Gorgeous art and presentation, but I had some gripes, I listed them out in case they’re of any use to you:
Click to expand...
Having to click on the “base” tile that a character is on instead of being able to click anywhere in their body is confusing and can make you think that something isn’t interactable when it is.
The character changing direction rapidly sometimes when you try to move diagonally looks quite jarring, is the lack of non-cardinal-direction, non-grid movement a limitation of the engine/framework?
The main character’s default walking/running animations look very rigid.
Explaining all the stats at once when you shoot the deer targets is near-useless, there’s no way you’ll remember any of them, you’d have to be screenshotting the explanations or something, at which point you might as well just put that explanation in the menu when you hover on that stat’s name.
Enemies in the start seem to rarely hit any attacks. Intentional?
After walking back up to the swirling tree area, walking left or right actives the trigger to go back down to the bonefield. This is easy to do if you click anywhere that isn’t directly above the character, as the game tries to move horizontally first even if you click right above the player and only very slightly to the side.
I just realised arrow keys do movement too, had presumed mouse movement was the only control scheme. Is there any reason for walking to exist when sprinting does the exact same but faster, and is the default when using the mouse? Though I would prefer to use the keyboard, I don’t like having to use both hands just to move (or awkwardly press the arrow keys and Right Shift with the same hand).
The red flashes from what I presume is the curse draining my health are too strong, they give me the same funny feeling that seizure-inducing gifs do (I am not epileptic but am mildly sensitive to the same flashes). Same goes for the flashes when touching into the deer that you can’t fight.
I totally get it if you’re going for a “tough as nails, doesn’t hold your hand” game, but yeah it feels pretty sucky to blow your healing items on not realising the curse is draining your health mega fast,
The 2nd time you approach the mirror that teaches gaslighting, it vanishes while the character is saying “I need to find her…”
Having to click on the “base” tile that a character is on instead of being able to click anywhere in their body is confusing and can make you think that something isn’t interactable when it is.
The mouse controls are an inherent addition of using rpgmaker, when I play I only use the keyboard. I have mitigated this by making the clicking easier by adding an "area of interaction" to most events, but it still does not make it perfect unfortunately. On my page I recommend people going for keyboard but I get that not everyone wants to do so and hardly anyone reads that shit. I have some ideas on how to improve this in the future but rpg maker is a limited framework. Naturally it would be better if you could just make an entire sprite clickable, perhaps this can be solved with a plugin.
The character changing direction rapidly sometimes when you try to move diagonally looks quite jarring, is the lack of non-cardinal-direction, non-grid movement a limitation of the engine/framework?
Many people have asked for diagonal movement, it is my personal preference to not use it, but I will take this into serious consideration and I am likely to change it I think.
The main character’s default walking/running animations look very rigid.
These will be redone at some point, I am not pleased with them either. I have begun remaking some of the early game graphics that I am not pleased with but my main focus for now is to keep adding to the story until chapter one is fully playable.
Explaining all the stats at once when you shoot the deer targets is near-useless, there’s no way you’ll remember any of them, you’d have to be screenshotting the explanations or something, at which point you might as well just put that explanation in the menu when you hover on that stat’s name.
I agree that it would be a good addition to be able to hover over the stats and get information but I am not sure if this can be done. Stats are pretty simple to learn, it's basically health, magic but affects certain hidden qualities and an alternative move currency that gets filled by attacking, taking damage and some lorerelated things. I could add some additional explanations perhaps but players who progress further does pick up on this naturally just by using them. The explanations are mostly there because the names and the effects are tied into the story, it's a clue.
Enemies in the start seem to rarely hit any attacks. Intentional?
It is intentional. They have much lower speed values than later enemies. In the most recent parts some enemies get multiple moves per turn. People already think its hard, I tried making the speed "equal" and the ones who tried it out hated it.
After walking back up to the swirling tree area, walking left or right actives the trigger to go back down to the bonefield. This is easy to do if you click anywhere that isn’t directly above the character, as the game tries to move horizontally first even if you click right above the player and only very slightly to the side.
This cannot be fixed, the transfer points are set and the reason they become almost to friendly is due to the "area of interaction". Lowering it makes it too hard instead, with keyboard it works as intended. If I can find some solution I will try to mitigate this.
I just realised arrow keys do movement too, had presumed mouse movement was the only control scheme. Is there any reason for walking to exist when sprinting does the exact same but faster, and is the default when using the mouse? Though I would prefer to use the keyboard, I don’t like having to use both hands just to move (or awkwardly press the arrow keys and Right Shift with the same hand).
There is an option in the menu for having dash always on. I like to alternate between them.
The red flashes from what I presume is the curse draining my health are too strong, they give me the same funny feeling that seizure-inducing gifs do (I am not epileptic but am mildly sensitive to the same flashes). Same goes for the flashes when touching into the deer that you can’t fight.
The flash effect is also inherent to rpg maker, what I could do is change the color red in the palette, but this would change a lot of other things. If you interacted with the doll in the area where you initially kill a deer tutorial guy explains how curse works. I tried to make the doll as obvious as possible. I will add a seizure-warning to a future build, later in the game there are some effects that are really intentionally obnoxious to get a point across. You can watch an example of this here, flashing lights warning:
I totally get it if you’re going for a “tough as nails, doesn’t hold your hand” game, but yeah it feels pretty sucky to blow your healing items on not realising the curse is draining your health mega fast,
Curse is explained and is actually a key part of the narrative, but I think you may be correct. What I should do is add a message from the tutorial guy in combat for the two initial encounters where curse is first used.
The 2nd time you approach the mirror that teaches gaslighting, it vanishes while the character is saying “I need to find her…”
Thanks for pointing this out, I have made this mistake plenty of times with the chests, it is easily fixed with a "direction lock".
Honestly the mouse input sounds like it’d be better off disabled, if it wasn’t there and I knew about the autosprint option I would’ve happily just used arrow keys from the start.
Best of luck with this, you’ve got something real special already.
Setting aside some time to play this was a good idea even though it's a long demo.
Loved act 3! Way less "trash" encounters makes the game more lean and less grindy.Gotta say maybe a recap
I started at the recommended level and used the free lvl up, the one on one bosses were all pretty manageable, while the wolf and the two final party bossfights took a bunch of attempts. In particular having to redo the cayote fight before being able to reattempt the final boss was a little annoying. Definitely my fault but I always save on the same slot and if I had to rethink my strategy for the final boss I would have had to go back to the last autosave and idk how far back that was. Thankfully I did manage in like 3 or 4 tries, it did feel like I had to get lucky but imo it was appropriately difficult for the final boss of the act.
Good progress, I'll definitely play act 4 whenever it's up.
I am very happy you liked it! What activities did you choose for Sarah? I wanted to make act3 a bit leaner since there is so much story that needed to get done, I still like grinding so my compromise was to make a dedicated area for people such as me who just like to see numbers go up, thus the grinding hole.
If you do not grind at all and enter at lvl 17 the bosses you mentioned are punishing, if you do grind they naturally become a lot easier but all of the main skills are gotten at the levels you naturally would get as you progress through the story (and use the free level-up items). It can be cleared without them but it is a challenge.
If you have any particular opinions on the narrative I would love to hear them.
I stayed at the motel first and met toaster lady, then before school I worked a shift at the store. At school I only studied marine biology three times in a row. I also got the locks of hair from the grindhole and did the flower lady bossfight idk if that influenced anything.
so my compromise was to make a dedicated area for people such as me who just like to see numbers go up
I think it's fair if people know about it but concentrating the XP farm fights means players might miss the grindhole and accidentally make the game harder for themselves. It wasn't a problem for me but if you're worried about difficulty it's something to keep in mind.
If you have any particular opinions on the narrative I would love to hear them.
The party scene had me worried because this feels like the kind of game that doesn't pull punches when it comes to horrible things happening to the characters, I hope the girl who invited Sarah gets what's coming to her. Switching from the countryside to the city makes the setting feel more grounded and less oneiric because there's regular people running around and not just skinned deer and meatgrinder men, the setting is starting to make more sense. Winters' father being a regular nice guy (at least for now) is a nice contrast to the generational trauma of Sarah's family, although it's 3 acts and like 7 hours into the game and there's still no real progress on the Velouria situation, which is an interesting choice. It's not a problem, I'm just invested and curious.
That's all, off the top of my head. Is there some narrative branching path that I missed?
That's very interesting, thank you for sharing what you thought. There are some more narrative branches going on, but it's not all done or available yet.
These things are there: If you take all mariner classes Sarah regains the mariner skills, if you go to the city and start burning things you get the opportunity to regain bloodrites instead. Whichever things you choose as activities triggers something that is planned to pay off at least in some way.
Not in there yet: There will also be another version of act 3 but that is not done yet. In act 1-2 if you make some particular choices Sarah and Billy leaves you at the end and you are instead joined by Arthur, Billy's dad. Right now if a player chooses to do this it won't change anything but I am working on that branching path which basically changes half of act 3.
This will be a big game game in sort of an anthology style, act 4 i s the last one of chapter 1. 5 more chapters to make with new characters. The Velouria stuff will be ongoing throughout all chapters until the very last. Winter is the connecting point between all chapters.
Bethany (girl who invites) and Steffani (snakegirl) will return later. Bethany will also be one of the bosses in the other version of act3 that has not been made yet.
I think I will manage to have chapter one totally completed by february and then I will put up a steam-version. It will require a lot of polish after act 4 and the alternative act 3 is done. Not all chapters will be as long as the first one, it will mostly depend on the story. First one is a speedrun through the entirety of Sarah's life more or less, second chapter will be divided into days instead of acts and take place during a week so it will be a lot shorter. Runtime of 3 hours perhaps. In total this will be massive if I can complete it, I am hoping for a development time of about three years.
Some pretty minor spoilers:
First chapter needs to do a lot of heavy lifting since it introduces a bunch of concepts which will be important for the overall narrative. A lot of these concepts will be further explored in the following chapters. Chapter two will explore the "blue dust drug" and more of the citylife and the general decay of society going on, chapter three will take place on a big converted oil-rig which acts as a power plant for "ghost profanation, aka memory burning" which is something you might have seen mentioned. Sarah's mom used to work at a power plant, you might remember Billy talking about this in the first act.
The spirit sickness and curse is actually really important for the overall narrative and will be a part of all chapters. These are some very light spoilers. I try to plant clues and drop hints for later stuff throughout the story while still maintaining a human core and focusing on the people who experience this nightmarish reality.
Act3 is up and adds about 2 hours and 40 minutes of new content.
Act3 contains a bunch of new stuff, music, story, enemies, areas, bosses…
Cheating room is up but far from finished.
Added two extra secret bosses, a third one is coming, both need more work.
Added two extra social scenes in act 3, a third one is coming.
A ton of spellchecking for act 1 and 2… this is not done yet.
Some improved visuals for act 1 and 2, more will be coming.
I have begun working on the logic for some of the act 2 bosses… this is far from done and poorly tested, hopefully it is better and not worse in this build.
Immersion Assurance Beast added to the cheating room.
Sturgeon kept wet.
HOLDING DOWN SPACE SPEEDS UP COMBAT INFORMATION/ANIMATIONS.
Known bugs:
Black weird text bug, I do not know what makes this happen yet.
Boar boyz, the first fight of act3, sometimes breaks, I am unsure why at the moment. It happens relatively rarely. Might have fixed it...
Things not yet in act3:
Young Winter will eventually have some card related activities but this is so far from done it is likely to be the last thing I work on for chapter 1.
Some transitions need work, this is even more true for act1 and 2.
Should you encounter a bug where winters positioning in combat fucks up this can be solved by going to the Grinding Hole. I think I fixed it, but I will not have time to check before dd53.
Save and save often, still very much a game in progress and I have updated a lot of things which I have not had the time to properly test out completely. People have been able to clear all paths of act3 to the end but I have added new things since then…
DARKRUN PATH NOT AVAILABLE IN ACT3 YET.
SKIP AHEAD/CHEATING ROOM:
Do this:
1: Start a new game and choose “not to take the tutorial.”
2: Proceed as usual.
3: Once you reach the Swirling Tree, go back the way you came from but let the jumping deer pass the screen first, it creates a stupid bug otherwise.
4: MR.TV is the guy you need to talk to if you want to go directly into ACT3.
5: When choosing which level to start Act3 Winter at, know that 17 is actually pretty hard, lower levels are even harder.
6: Choose the Begin ACT3 option at the end of the string of choices if you want to be able to progress through the narrative. The other options are for fucking around and testing shit and will break progression in different ways.
Awesome stuff, this game has a really strong perspective. The world you're developing feels fresh and unique. The story aspects and gameplay aspects feel well balanced, I think that is a big strength here. Either of those can easily take over if allowed, so good job there.
My main feedback is to give people a little more time to soak things in. For instance, when you first meet a character, a sheet comes up for them with lots of things going on. But it disappears so quickly I can't read it. Looking at the gif of the girls sheet I can get a better look, and it's really fascinating. It's something people are going to want to look at in detail. The Deerhunter 2 cutscene as well, it's awesome but flys by so fast that I can't fully appreciate it. I love that you're thinking in terms of creating cool and memorable moments, but let those moments shine. Especially for someone playing the game for the first time. If someone just wants to skip the cutscenes, they are playing the wrong game and shouldn't really be factored into your feedback, in my opinion.
The game takes forever to load... like several minutes. Almost crashed my PC lol.
Is there an option to go fullscreen? Maybe I should've tried pressing F11...
Story games are absolutely not my thing, and I'm not even sure what this genre is, but I liked it (only go to the fishies tho). I definitely felt involved in the story.
The presentation felt a little incoherent at first, as the main screen looks fantastic, with the audio, too, so my expectations were higher than what the game actual looks like. It still looks fine (not that I would care about graphics in the first place), but the contrast was noticeable.
I chose the path without tutorials because I like to test games on how intuitive they are, and I must say it's impressive. Moving around, interacting, even using right click to open the menu: I didn't even have to think about what I wanted to do. It all just made sense.
I can't think of anything to critize just yet. If you want to ask anything specific let me know.
Its big, it has about 5 hours of story at the moment and they way it is setup requires it to load all cutscenes and maps before the game begins to function properly. This is something I am going to get to work on much later. For me it usually takes about a minute and then there is no loading at all throughout the rest of the game, although I have added 7-8 second transfer cutscenes to get the pacing correct in some of the much later parts. I just uploaded a fullscreen version. You can go fullscreen by command in the "normal version" but it kind of blurs it a bit. Fullscreen version cannot go windowed however, its stupid, but ya know, work in progress.
Can't ask you for much input unfortunately, each act ramps up the tempo, visuals and the combat system, you would have to spend some time on it, I am really thankful for you trying it out and if you ever choose to continue playing it let me know what you thought afterwards. It was like this the last jam too and I have added a big chunk of story since then. I got a lot of feedback the week after once interested people had more time to give it a shot. Perhaps I can lure you in with this:
I played through act 1 and a bit into 2. Music is great, but I knew that before playing it.
Its nailing the most important parts for an RPGM game; nice atmosphere and interesting enemies. It made me want to find out what the story is about.
It really seems like you know what you're doing here so I don't have that much more to say, wish you could walk diagonally and there are some sprite sorting issues. I'll return to play more later.
With sprite-sorting issues you mean which "layer" something is on and how it interacts right? Some of it will be fixed eventually when it comes to some environmental-stuff, objects and characters will probably be wonky forever. I really dislike diagonal movement for some reason, I like that classic movement... but I will consider it since plenty of people have mentioned it.
I really should have taken a screenshot of a better example when I saw it, but I loaded it up now (and heard the Nirvana cover - good shit) and here is a less egregious example of what I mean.
Comments
Finished Act 3, still great stuff!
Found two places at the motel where I could leave the path:
Balancing still felt very fair (did the level 17 run), only the wolf boss was a bit of a longer roadblock. All of the encounters made me feel like I could beat them as long as I use a proper strategy (working with status buffs/debuffs with the party, sword of damocles strats with Firestarter Sarah).
Music is still absolutely gorgeus. Liked the remixes and interpretations of music from previous acts, for example the fleshrite remixes during the bloodrites backstory explanation part. Everything is still super stylish, I especially adored the Firestarter vs. intros for young adult Sarah and her enemies, those were a nice touch.
Writing was still great too. For reference, I always forced Sarah to go to work and take the Mariner classes so Joergen can return. Still masterful at setting a mood. Also still enjoyed the jokes sprinkled in, my favorite one in act 3 was the blocking box in the motel, that blocking box company is truly a menace. And of course, after two acts of dark tormentuous psychological scenarios, you go even further and introduce not only Canada, but also a Canadian. I'm man enough to admit I flinched a little when he said aboot.
Every other praise I mentioned in my acts 1/2 feedback still hold up, this is a very unique game with a very distinct voice, I think you have a great thing going here!
Glad you liked it, the collision system overall is a mess and relies on me bonking out invisible boxes and not missing one... or a few. I thankful when people point out the mistakes so I can fix them. Glad you liked the small Canada hints dropped, there are some details concerning the overall world hinted at here and there, at some point I will make a world map that is likely to be equally shocking and hopefully hilarious. Jimmy Winters canadian accent is intentionally a bit uneven, I do not know if you got the conversation where he and James talk about his old football stuff but it is spelled out that he does not really have an accent left after living in America for so long but intentionally makes it stronger sometimes since he finds it makes him more "mysterious". Felt like a Canadian/American dad thing to do.
I have a question for you: the characters in dream team come from another project if I have understood things correctly, could you point me in the direction of that game so I can play some more of your stuff?
Yeah, I think that was the old football stuff conversation at the helmet where I took the aboot reference from. Looking forward to the world map, the world building throughout the acts is a great point too, I hadn't touched upon that yet. We got glimpses from the more cybernetic world in the form of for example the android doctor in the previous acts, but act 3 really paid it off by showing what life is like in the big city. I think that is also a great draw for your game, it makes you want to see more of that interesting world.
Regarding Dream Team, I think you tried both versions that include the characters, the Gamescom one and the prison one (thanks again for that!). I think I might have written in one of the descriptions that I based the characters on the characters from my Ludum Dare game "Inside", it might be that (but it's just very loosely the apathetic main character, incompetent bossy sidekick dynamic).
I'm still playing, but I just wanted to already post that I got the crash below on 1.4, it happened after someone attacked, unfortunately I don't really remember who, I remember the animation playing when Billy attacks, but that's unlikely as I was using Ponder All with Billy that round.
After reading your reply below I just noticed I could also have confused the Boss and have her attack herself
Thanks for the information, that narrows it down. I have had problems with confused before and have lessened the times this fucks up but clearly it is not done yet. It is an interaction between the plugin handling the confusion stat specifically and the one which manages enemy animations, I will have to look into it more. I suspect this happens when a confused enemy attacks itself and fails to hit.
I think I have solved it but it's hard to test out, gonna have to wait to see if I or someone else spots it again once I push out the next build. There is a problem happening when an enemy avoids an attack which causes the animation system for enemies to crash. I removed avoidance entirely which I thought solved this but I think an enemy attacking itself and missing might count as avoidance in the fucked up rpgmaker logic. Raised hitrate on enemies from 95% to a 100, if the problem is what I think it is this will solve it and it explains why it happens so rarely. One in twenty chance if an enemy is confused. Your build will still have this issue at the moment however, and I cannot really be sure until a new build is out and has been tested a lot.
I played some more but got a crash, its on v1.2.
Thanks for showing me, I will look into it.
Do you know if you had the mood which gives you a confusion effect equipped? I suspect confusion might be the culprit to a couple of bugs but I am not sure.
I had the Powerful and Bleak moods equipped, but I was using that fish attack that causes confusion in the fight so maybe its something there.
Someone else got this problem and confirmed that confusion was indeed in effect. I think it has something to do with this:
Thanks for the information, that narrows it down. I have had problems with confused before and have lessened the times this fucks up but clearly it is not done yet. It is an interaction between the plugin handling the confusion stat specifically and the one which manages enemy animations, I will have to look into it more. I suspect this happens when a confused enemy attacks itself and fails to hit.
I think I have solved it but it's hard to test out, gonna have to wait to see if I or someone else spots it again once I push out the next build. There is a problem happening when an enemy avoids an attack which causes the animation system for enemies to crash. I removed avoidance entirely which I thought solved this but I think an enemy attacking itself and missing might count as avoidance in the fucked up rpgmaker logic. Raised hitrate on enemies from 95% to a 100, if the problem is what I think it is this will solve it and it explains why it happens so rarely. One in twenty chance if an enemy is confused. Your build will still have this issue at the moment however, and I cannot really be sure until a new build is out and has been tested a lot.
Sorry for the delay, I usually review in reverse popularity order:
- please name your demo in files, folders and exe
- I don't play a lot of vn, but pressing esc to accept your name seems very strange, add an "accept/finish" button, since ideally you wanna make your game enjoyable with mouse only
- clicking npc feet to select them is not good, but I understand it's a tile problem.
- liked the videos a lot
- very good to have not enough swagger to do a special in your first atk
- tutorial laptophead is fine, but in combat it talks too much
- 6-7 turns to kill the second mob of the game is not fun
- I like a lot 'optimize' equip
- open chest sprite is not open enough
- it's funny when you are confused the rifle gfx turns against you
- bug: if you are on the little island where you talk with little girl about fishes, you can walk on water and bypass the ladder
Game is really depressing, so gj. great atmophere, sounds, gfx, everything.
imo your game is prone to too much softlock:
You are not very powerful, but you can't run away from most combat
some enemies can twoshot you
some enemies get stuck in travel points (little island with ladder point) so you are fucked
resources are super limited, and there is no indication of low lv mobs; so you can't farm
I have confused messages of what I should do as a player, should I farm or avoid enemies? This is a bad middle ground. Or you make a silent hill experience where you can avoid most combat because everything is very dangerous, and you fight only when you must; or you make a classic jrpg.
A simple solution to solve this first location with grandma at the center would be to place a restore point at grandma house, but ofc it would ruin the atmophere
- please name your demo in files, folders and exe
Sure thing.
- I don't play a lot of vn, but pressing esc to accept your name seems very strange, add an "accept/finish" button, since ideally you wanna make your game enjoyable with mouse only.
You press enter to accept it, there is a message there. Escape must work as well then.
- clicking npc feet to select them is not good, but I understand it's a tile problem.
This is a problem with the mouse controls which does not happen when you play keyboard only. I am considering removing them altogether as another dev suggested instead of trying to mitigate the problem more.
- liked the videos a lot
Thanks mang!
- very good to have not enough swagger to do a special in your first atk
How the swagger system actually operates becomes much clearer later in game. Some abilities more or less work as swagger-engines, fueling your move economy.
- tutorial laptophead is fine, but in combat it talks too much
I have been asked to include it more to explain things further so I am not sure about that one.
- 6-7 turns to kill the second mob of the game is not fun
Depends on you item setup, if you equip the card you have just gotten from the chest next to them those encounters become a breeze. Managing your equipment is essential to the combat system, switching between moods and cards is a part of the general strategy. Most cards that are introduced have a function that makes a problem nearby easier, giving the player a hint on how to use them.
- it's funny when you are confused the rifle gfx turns against you
Yeah, I kind of like the jank.
- bug: if you are on the little island where you talk with little girl about fishes, you can walk on water and bypass the ladder
This has been pointed out to me before but I forgot to fix it, thanks for reminding me.
imo your game is prone to too much softlock:
You are not very powerful, but you can't run away from most combat. some enemies can twoshot you some enemies get stuck in travel points (little island with ladder point) so you are fucked
The early game encounters are there to teach you how to use the moods and cards. It is a game that requires attentiveness to make combat easier but blowing through the enemies is quite possible. This is probably not something everyone will like. Grinding is optional, it makes the difficulty a lot easier but is in no way required to actually progress until act 3. I have not properly balanced everything there yet so I am unsure if this is true in the latest additions. Gaslighting counters a lot of abilities, curse acts as a boss-killer, different moods grant you immunity to different status effects etc.
resources are super limited, and there is no indication of low lv mobs; so you can't farm
Depends, xp is actually set up so that without grinding you will naturally get full heals along the way until a resting spot can be found. Your introspection healing is usable outside of combat, this is mentioned in the tutorial. The items are mostly unnecessary in act 1.
I have confused messages of what I should do as a player, should I farm or avoid enemies? This is a bad middle ground. Or you make a silent hill experience where you can avoid most combat because everything is very dangerous, and you fight only when you must; or you make a classic jrpg.
This one I disagree with. Clearing it without any grinding at all is not easy but it is completely doable if you take the time to prepare for encounters. Autosave in every area does make trial and error less punishing. This is a matter of taste and not right or wrong.
A simple solution to solve this first location with grandma at the center would be to place a restore point at grandma house, but ofc it would ruin the atmophere
You can unlock two different kinds of restore points in that very house, there are some story-related hints dropped on how to do so.
Thanks for playing it! Act 1 overall acts as a tutorial even if you do not choose to enable the tutorial options. It does take some dedication to understand as it is intentionally obtuse. I think there is an audience for that kind of experience and further on it will become apparent how it reflects the story. I do not think it is for everyone however. I loved the first fear and hunger game which is a much more punishing experience, if you want something to compare the difficulty level too that would be it. This shit is way more lenient and obvious though.
Every dev knows his game best, but I'll pressure you this time since you are in an hard spot:
I went in full tutorial, exploring every room and picking up every chest (minus one protected by the red female ghost). combat is gets more difficult room by room. At grandma house I have bone ghost in north that does a double atk every turn and kills me in 3 turns; or south with fish ppl that have a waterfall atk that hits for nerarly half health. bone ghost can be escaped, fish ppl cannot. In these encounters I need 6-7 atks to win if I don't get a lucky crit. In the mist of this, I have not a recharge station. Items are limited and once they are gone they are done. So or your autoequip dosen't work as intended (Iclicked it after every pick up) or something else is wrong. Maybe the difference of power between some moods you choose from is fucked. I've not played fear & hunger, but I'm not new at jrpgs.
If you think your balance is fine, then your tutorials in my case have failed. I suggest you to see every streamer that has played your game, and check if everything is as it should be. Maybe my experience was just an unlucky one.
You are the first one to get the boneghost I think, its triggered by your hatevalue which is connected to some of the choices you are making. It is impossible to defeat at any point but moves incredibly slowly. Optimize is a bit tricky and not to be relied on, you need to switch between different things to manage different encounters. Jack of traitors gives more attacks to all of your attack moves meaning that an attack that hits thrice will hit four to five times instead. It does not raise power however and will not be triggered by the optimize if you have something else that will.
Jack of the suffering increases both evaporation and phantasm, more or less meaning health and magic. Taking the sidepath by the crowlady gives you Gaslighting for free. It counters a lot of attacks, turning them back upon the enemy making them damage themselves. You can progress without ever using it or grinding however.
Jack of the torpid is all purpose but does cancel paralysis, making the euthanasia fight a breeze.
It's not really about optimizing, it's about adapting to different encounters. You can heal with your skills outside of combat. Interacting with the scarecrow will either give you the mood certainty which counters confusion or another one which adds a possible confusion effect to your attack-moves. Confusion is really the killer stat the fishboys can apply.
Plenty of people have gotten through this, I have done it with minimum required encounters, meaning avoiding everything that is not forced upon you and reaching level 5 once you hit the last boss of act 1. You can reach level five way earlier however. The curse guys in the first combat zone are easy, kill both of them, a gundeer and the ghost deer and you will be at level three, take out the double encounters with bullet spray which hits both enemies and you can easily reach level four before hitting the lake. You manage your equipment and you manage what moves you choose. Hit a couple of the fishboys and you are at level 5 early where the real good stuff starts to unlock.
Some people have had this reaction, but I have had a lot of feedback at this point. It's not that its just me who are able to do it. Dev on break did a real good job of understanding everything if you want an example, otherwise there are plenty of comments at my page.
Gorgeous art and presentation, but I had some gripes, I listed them out in case they’re of any use to you:
Click to expand...
Having to click on the “base” tile that a character is on instead of being able to click anywhere in their body is confusing and can make you think that something isn’t interactable when it is.
The character changing direction rapidly sometimes when you try to move diagonally looks quite jarring, is the lack of non-cardinal-direction, non-grid movement a limitation of the engine/framework?
The main character’s default walking/running animations look very rigid.
Explaining all the stats at once when you shoot the deer targets is near-useless, there’s no way you’ll remember any of them, you’d have to be screenshotting the explanations or something, at which point you might as well just put that explanation in the menu when you hover on that stat’s name.
Enemies in the start seem to rarely hit any attacks. Intentional?
After walking back up to the swirling tree area, walking left or right actives the trigger to go back down to the bonefield. This is easy to do if you click anywhere that isn’t directly above the character, as the game tries to move horizontally first even if you click right above the player and only very slightly to the side.
I just realised arrow keys do movement too, had presumed mouse movement was the only control scheme. Is there any reason for walking to exist when sprinting does the exact same but faster, and is the default when using the mouse? Though I would prefer to use the keyboard, I don’t like having to use both hands just to move (or awkwardly press the arrow keys and Right Shift with the same hand).
The red flashes from what I presume is the curse draining my health are too strong, they give me the same funny feeling that seizure-inducing gifs do (I am not epileptic but am mildly sensitive to the same flashes). Same goes for the flashes when touching into the deer that you can’t fight.
I totally get it if you’re going for a “tough as nails, doesn’t hold your hand” game, but yeah it feels pretty sucky to blow your healing items on not realising the curse is draining your health mega fast,
The 2nd time you approach the mirror that teaches gaslighting, it vanishes while the character is saying “I need to find her…”
Thanks for the very good feedback!
The mouse controls are an inherent addition of using rpgmaker, when I play I only use the keyboard. I have mitigated this by making the clicking easier by adding an "area of interaction" to most events, but it still does not make it perfect unfortunately. On my page I recommend people going for keyboard but I get that not everyone wants to do so and hardly anyone reads that shit. I have some ideas on how to improve this in the future but rpg maker is a limited framework. Naturally it would be better if you could just make an entire sprite clickable, perhaps this can be solved with a plugin.
Many people have asked for diagonal movement, it is my personal preference to not use it, but I will take this into serious consideration and I am likely to change it I think.
These will be redone at some point, I am not pleased with them either. I have begun remaking some of the early game graphics that I am not pleased with but my main focus for now is to keep adding to the story until chapter one is fully playable.
I agree that it would be a good addition to be able to hover over the stats and get information but I am not sure if this can be done. Stats are pretty simple to learn, it's basically health, magic but affects certain hidden qualities and an alternative move currency that gets filled by attacking, taking damage and some lorerelated things. I could add some additional explanations perhaps but players who progress further does pick up on this naturally just by using them. The explanations are mostly there because the names and the effects are tied into the story, it's a clue.
It is intentional. They have much lower speed values than later enemies. In the most recent parts some enemies get multiple moves per turn. People already think its hard, I tried making the speed "equal" and the ones who tried it out hated it.
This cannot be fixed, the transfer points are set and the reason they become almost to friendly is due to the "area of interaction". Lowering it makes it too hard instead, with keyboard it works as intended. If I can find some solution I will try to mitigate this.
There is an option in the menu for having dash always on. I like to alternate between them.
The flash effect is also inherent to rpg maker, what I could do is change the color red in the palette, but this would change a lot of other things. If you interacted with the doll in the area where you initially kill a deer tutorial guy explains how curse works. I tried to make the doll as obvious as possible. I will add a seizure-warning to a future build, later in the game there are some effects that are really intentionally obnoxious to get a point across. You can watch an example of this here, flashing lights warning:
Curse is explained and is actually a key part of the narrative, but I think you may be correct. What I should do is add a message from the tutorial guy in combat for the two initial encounters where curse is first used.
Thanks for pointing this out, I have made this mistake plenty of times with the chests, it is easily fixed with a "direction lock".
Thanks for shedding some light.
Honestly the mouse input sounds like it’d be better off disabled, if it wasn’t there and I knew about the autosprint option I would’ve happily just used arrow keys from the start.
Best of luck with this, you’ve got something real special already.
I have to go to sleep but I will check out your video tomorrow!
Setting aside some time to play this was a good idea even though it's a long demo.
Loved act 3! Way less "trash" encounters makes the game more lean and less grindy.Gotta say maybe a recap
I started at the recommended level and used the free lvl up, the one on one bosses were all pretty manageable, while the wolf and the two final party bossfights took a bunch of attempts.
In particular having to redo the cayote fight before being able to reattempt the final boss was a little annoying.
Definitely my fault but I always save on the same slot and if I had to rethink my strategy for the final boss I would have had to go back to the last autosave and idk how far back that was.
Thankfully I did manage in like 3 or 4 tries, it did feel like I had to get lucky but imo it was appropriately difficult for the final boss of the act.
Good progress, I'll definitely play act 4 whenever it's up.
I am very happy you liked it! What activities did you choose for Sarah? I wanted to make act3 a bit leaner since there is so much story that needed to get done, I still like grinding so my compromise was to make a dedicated area for people such as me who just like to see numbers go up, thus the grinding hole.
If you do not grind at all and enter at lvl 17 the bosses you mentioned are punishing, if you do grind they naturally become a lot easier but all of the main skills are gotten at the levels you naturally would get as you progress through the story (and use the free level-up items). It can be cleared without them but it is a challenge.
If you have any particular opinions on the narrative I would love to hear them.
I stayed at the motel first and met toaster lady, then before school I worked a shift at the store.
At school I only studied marine biology three times in a row.
I also got the locks of hair from the grindhole and did the flower lady bossfight idk if that influenced anything.
I think it's fair if people know about it but concentrating the XP farm fights means players might miss the grindhole and accidentally make the game harder for themselves.
It wasn't a problem for me but if you're worried about difficulty it's something to keep in mind.
The party scene had me worried because this feels like the kind of game that doesn't pull punches when it comes to horrible things happening to the characters, I hope the girl who invited Sarah gets what's coming to her.
Switching from the countryside to the city makes the setting feel more grounded and less oneiric because there's regular people running around and not just skinned deer and meatgrinder men, the setting is starting to make more sense.
Winters' father being a regular nice guy (at least for now) is a nice contrast to the generational trauma of Sarah's family, although it's 3 acts and like 7 hours into the game and there's still no real progress on the Velouria situation, which is an interesting choice.
It's not a problem, I'm just invested and curious.
That's all, off the top of my head.
Is there some narrative branching path that I missed?
That's very interesting, thank you for sharing what you thought. There are some more narrative branches going on, but it's not all done or available yet.
These things are there: If you take all mariner classes Sarah regains the mariner skills, if you go to the city and start burning things you get the opportunity to regain bloodrites instead. Whichever things you choose as activities triggers something that is planned to pay off at least in some way.
Not in there yet: There will also be another version of act 3 but that is not done yet. In act 1-2 if you make some particular choices Sarah and Billy leaves you at the end and you are instead joined by Arthur, Billy's dad. Right now if a player chooses to do this it won't change anything but I am working on that branching path which basically changes half of act 3.
This will be a big game game in sort of an anthology style, act 4 i s the last one of chapter 1. 5 more chapters to make with new characters. The Velouria stuff will be ongoing throughout all chapters until the very last. Winter is the connecting point between all chapters.
Bethany (girl who invites) and Steffani (snakegirl) will return later. Bethany will also be one of the bosses in the other version of act3 that has not been made yet.
Thanks for the input, it helps me a lot.
I see, thanks for explaining.
6 chapters in total with branching paths seems like a massive undertaking, good luck!
I think I will manage to have chapter one totally completed by february and then I will put up a steam-version. It will require a lot of polish after act 4 and the alternative act 3 is done. Not all chapters will be as long as the first one, it will mostly depend on the story. First one is a speedrun through the entirety of Sarah's life more or less, second chapter will be divided into days instead of acts and take place during a week so it will be a lot shorter. Runtime of 3 hours perhaps. In total this will be massive if I can complete it, I am hoping for a development time of about three years.
Some pretty minor spoilers:
First chapter needs to do a lot of heavy lifting since it introduces a bunch of concepts which will be important for the overall narrative. A lot of these concepts will be further explored in the following chapters. Chapter two will explore the "blue dust drug" and more of the citylife and the general decay of society going on, chapter three will take place on a big converted oil-rig which acts as a power plant for "ghost profanation, aka memory burning" which is something you might have seen mentioned. Sarah's mom used to work at a power plant, you might remember Billy talking about this in the first act.
The spirit sickness and curse is actually really important for the overall narrative and will be a part of all chapters. These are some very light spoilers. I try to plant clues and drop hints for later stuff throughout the story while still maintaining a human core and focusing on the people who experience this nightmarish reality.
I realized I only posted this in the other jam:
DD53: Information
Updates:
Act3 is up and adds about 2 hours and 40 minutes of new content.
Act3 contains a bunch of new stuff, music, story, enemies, areas, bosses…
Cheating room is up but far from finished.
Added two extra secret bosses, a third one is coming, both need more work.
Added two extra social scenes in act 3, a third one is coming.
A ton of spellchecking for act 1 and 2… this is not done yet.
Some improved visuals for act 1 and 2, more will be coming.
I have begun working on the logic for some of the act 2 bosses… this is far from done and poorly tested, hopefully it is better and not worse in this build.
Immersion Assurance Beast added to the cheating room.
Sturgeon kept wet.
HOLDING DOWN SPACE SPEEDS UP COMBAT INFORMATION/ANIMATIONS.
Known bugs:
Black weird text bug, I do not know what makes this happen yet.
Boar boyz, the first fight of act3, sometimes breaks, I am unsure why at the moment. It happens relatively rarely. Might have fixed it...
Things not yet in act3:
Young Winter will eventually have some card related activities but this is so far from done it is likely to be the last thing I work on for chapter 1.
Some transitions need work, this is even more true for act1 and 2.
Should you encounter a bug where winters positioning in combat fucks up this can be solved by going to the Grinding Hole. I think I fixed it, but I will not have time to check before dd53.
Save and save often, still very much a game in progress and I have updated a lot of things which I have not had the time to properly test out completely. People have been able to clear all paths of act3 to the end but I have added new things since then…
DARKRUN PATH NOT AVAILABLE IN ACT3 YET.
SKIP AHEAD/CHEATING ROOM:
Do this:
1: Start a new game and choose “not to take the tutorial.”
2: Proceed as usual.
3: Once you reach the Swirling Tree, go back the way you came from but let the jumping deer pass the screen first, it creates a stupid bug otherwise.
4: MR.TV is the guy you need to talk to if you want to go directly into ACT3.
5: When choosing which level to start Act3 Winter at, know that 17 is actually pretty hard, lower levels are even harder.
6: Choose the Begin ACT3 option at the end of the string of choices if you want to be able to progress through the narrative. The other options are for fucking around and testing shit and will break progression in different ways.
Awesome stuff, this game has a really strong perspective. The world you're developing feels fresh and unique. The story aspects and gameplay aspects feel well balanced, I think that is a big strength here. Either of those can easily take over if allowed, so good job there.
My main feedback is to give people a little more time to soak things in. For instance, when you first meet a character, a sheet comes up for them with lots of things going on. But it disappears so quickly I can't read it. Looking at the gif of the girls sheet I can get a better look, and it's really fascinating. It's something people are going to want to look at in detail. The Deerhunter 2 cutscene as well, it's awesome but flys by so fast that I can't fully appreciate it. I love that you're thinking in terms of creating cool and memorable moments, but let those moments shine. Especially for someone playing the game for the first time. If someone just wants to skip the cutscenes, they are playing the wrong game and shouldn't really be factored into your feedback, in my opinion.
Keep it up bro, great work.
The game takes forever to load... like several minutes. Almost crashed my PC lol.
Is there an option to go fullscreen? Maybe I should've tried pressing F11...
Story games are absolutely not my thing, and I'm not even sure what this genre is, but I liked it (only go to the fishies tho). I definitely felt involved in the story.
The presentation felt a little incoherent at first, as the main screen looks fantastic, with the audio, too, so my expectations were higher than what the game actual looks like. It still looks fine (not that I would care about graphics in the first place), but the contrast was noticeable.
I chose the path without tutorials because I like to test games on how intuitive they are, and I must say it's impressive. Moving around, interacting, even using right click to open the menu: I didn't even have to think about what I wanted to do. It all just made sense.
I can't think of anything to critize just yet. If you want to ask anything specific let me know.
No commentary video.
Its big, it has about 5 hours of story at the moment and they way it is setup requires it to load all cutscenes and maps before the game begins to function properly. This is something I am going to get to work on much later. For me it usually takes about a minute and then there is no loading at all throughout the rest of the game, although I have added 7-8 second transfer cutscenes to get the pacing correct in some of the much later parts. I just uploaded a fullscreen version. You can go fullscreen by command in the "normal version" but it kind of blurs it a bit. Fullscreen version cannot go windowed however, its stupid, but ya know, work in progress.
Can't ask you for much input unfortunately, each act ramps up the tempo, visuals and the combat system, you would have to spend some time on it, I am really thankful for you trying it out and if you ever choose to continue playing it let me know what you thought afterwards. It was like this the last jam too and I have added a big chunk of story since then. I got a lot of feedback the week after once interested people had more time to give it a shot. Perhaps I can lure you in with this:
The crazy gets stronger.
5 hours? Damn. Nice.
I'll see what I can do. No promises tho.
I played through act 1 and a bit into 2. Music is great, but I knew that before playing it.
Its nailing the most important parts for an RPGM game; nice atmosphere and interesting enemies. It made me want to find out what the story is about.
It really seems like you know what you're doing here so I don't have that much more to say, wish you could walk diagonally and there are some sprite sorting issues. I'll return to play more later.
With sprite-sorting issues you mean which "layer" something is on and how it interacts right? Some of it will be fixed eventually when it comes to some environmental-stuff, objects and characters will probably be wonky forever. I really dislike diagonal movement for some reason, I like that classic movement... but I will consider it since plenty of people have mentioned it.
I really should have taken a screenshot of a better example when I saw it, but I loaded it up now (and heard the Nirvana cover - good shit) and here is a less egregious example of what I mean.
Yeah, this is due to the collision-system overall being pretty shoddy, there should be an invisible box at that corner.