And I just go and say GWAA, why does the SWAGGER skills raises the SWAG count for its own damage? Usually, you do not regain energy for using the special attacks with energy cost, or else it results in infinite resources for these special attacks. Maybe it is purely intentional and works as intended, but I'm not sure if it is good for balance.
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Dreams of Joy Departed's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Controls / UI | #10 | 4.017 | 4.400 |
| Sound/Music | #13 | 4.017 | 4.400 |
| Art / Graphics | #22 | 4.017 | 4.400 |
| Overall Fun | #24 | 3.834 | 4.200 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.
I particularly fell in love with the visuals of this game. I'm assume when you say surreal, you also mean horror because it has quite the visuals for that. Now admittedly, I didn't get as far as the screenshots seem to show. I got up to the Hallowed fight. Unfortunately, I also didn't take Sarah and Billy with me and then saved while inside the boss room, essentially softlocking me since it became impossible for me to win. If it's supposed to be possible, I don't know how with my current level and gear as I've fought everything. As such, I can't speak on the narrative either. If I get the time to replay, I'll try and do so to get further along.
Along with the visuals is the music. The battle music in every fight has just been fantastic. It fits with just how weird everything else is.
With all that said, I think the combat, while having done quite a bit to distinguish itself from RPG Maker titles, could still use more work to mask that. Sound effects come to mind, but so is just some of the awkward ways that RPG Maker works in general. You may know what I mean, you may not. It's hard to explain.
I'll be interested to see more of this in the future. :)
Hey, it's always great to see another RPGMaker horror dev here! This game looks so stylish and I can already tell it's up my alley. I'm enjoying the initial cyberpunk vibe.
So, very initial thoughts- I hate hate hate hate hate games with flashing lights; they're automatically inaccessible to me because I have chronic migraines. I'm pushing through because I want to see what this is about- it looks SO COOL- but if they're excessive or intense I *will* have to nope out without finishing the game. It'd be nice if you could have an accessibility mode where they're toned down or not included.
I love the art style- your pixels are crisp, and your aesthetic is on point. It's surreal and dreamlike, and the stuff you're doing with the UI and the font design is SO impressive. As for stats, you're giving me ideas I could use for my own game-- I can already tell that there's some interesting mechanical shit going on. Honestly, it kinda reminds me of Suda's games- which I need to get around to playing.
...I am pushing through, but you were not kidding about the flashing lights. :(
I love the JJJBA-style Character Diagram that pops up when new characters are introduced-- wish the screen held on them a little longer!
The spooky bunnies are super cute, the ghost deer are appropriately creepy, and I absolutely love the environment design.
Getting into the combat- I love the way everything looks, though James' sprite being cut off at the knees is a little awkward. The animations are STUNNING and the mechanics look fun - especially with the quirky alternate stats! Unfortunately, I can't give a good assessment of the combat, because... well...
The room after the first combat encounter is where I had to cut things off- you were not kidding about the flashing lights, and the flickering effect killed my ability to continue. I really, really, *really* want to play this game-- it's so stylish and cool! - but my ability to play is *heavily* compromised by the flashing lights and the flickering/glitch effects. If I keep going, I will hurt myself.
I agree with most of the things that the SilverDaze dev said- it's pretentious, the dialogue is a little awkward, and there's a lot of surreal dark imagery- but from my POV those are all positives. I can see the Team Silent influence, the Black Tabby Games influence, and the SUDA influence in here, and it's used incredibly well- if you're a fan of any of those devs' work, I'd recommend checking this out.
From what I saw of the game, it's an easy 4/5, and the single point docked is because it was actively painful for me to keep playing. I'm following you- if you release an accessibility mode for this game, I will be ALL over it. But until then, I've gotta tap out.
- Mal
Submitted
jjimjilbang: haunted sauna (demo)Heyo! I know the rating period hasn't begun yet, but I'll come back around to rate this then! I just got to a good stopping point, so I'll go ahead and start with my overall thoughts!
I'll have to be a bit blunt for a moment and admit that I find this game a bit pretentious. It's got a lot of random dark imagery thrown about, but so far it's not promising any especially compelling narrative to me. The characters speak in a bit of an awkward manner, and while I am somewhat curious about James and the girl he's looking for, I haven't been given much reason to care about James as a character. The dying wife plot with Sarah and Billy is pretty tragic from a straightforward perspective, but the way the characters are presented doesn't give me much reason to actually care about them; Billy is just a consistently rude old man who only seems to care about gun violence, and Sarah seems to be intentionally dull as a character, but as a result it's really hard for me to get invested in their personal struggle at all. James doesn't fill that void much better as a protagonist. The presentation is intentionally vague, but it ends up becoming confusing to me, rather than intriguing.
The visual presentation is pretty great for the most part. It's not exactly my style, but everything looks really good. The MP4s displaying seemingly random iconography at random times are both a bit jarring and noticeably blurrier than the base game itself, and I find most of the battle animations to be way too long, but otherwise the graphics are very well executed and appealing.
As for the combat, currently it's not introducing any interesting hook, and while I understand I'm relatively early in, only having access to brute force attacks and a self heal makes me not very eager to fight enemies. As I leveled up I eventually got a neat Reflect skill which seems pretty interesting, but that alone isn't enough to get me engaged in combat. With the party members for the two fights I had them the game was quite a bit more fun, although it remained pretty brutal in difficulty and really felt like I had to get lucky with enemies not targeting the same guy three times in a row with the same attack.
Overall Fun: 2/5 - The combat was a little below average for an RPG and exploration and story weren't huge highlights, but outside the game's general vague vibes, it was mostly poor encounter design that bogged down my experience; with so few options in combat and only one party member, enemies like Euthanasia and the fish dudes would completely stun lock me for several turns at a time, with my only hope for victory being luck. With so few options in combat, I'm not compelled to fight enemies either, so I was probably underleveled.
Controls/UI: 2/5 - While the controls themselves are just normal RPG Maker controls, the use of vague terminology like "PH" and "Swagger" adds unnecessary friction to understanding the effects of items and abilities, leading to me docking points. Gauges in battle are cramped and overlap each other, and the pictures when obtaining a new card also overlap with text boxes and just generally need a bit of restructuring.
Art: 4/5 - Very good art! Subjectively it's not to my specific sensibilities, but it all looks very well made and it's clear this is where most of the work went.
Sound/Music: 2/5 - The music was pretty good, but I have to dock huge points for that random Nirvana remix in chapter 2. Unless you actually got the rights to Smells Like Teen Spirit, I would say that's downright unacceptable. Otherwise, my main critiques are that the loop points aren't set for the tracks so they'll fade out and then start playing again a few seconds later rather than properly looping. There were also a couple stock RPG Maker sounds that could stand to be replaced.
I also did write live playthrough notes as I went which I couldn't really find a decent way to include here, but I'd be happy to come up with a way to get them to you if you'd like. Thank you for reading!
The MP4s displaying seemingly random iconography at random times are both a bit jarring and noticeably blurrier than the base game itself.
They unfortunately have to be to not bloat the size to unreasonable proportions. Still working on alternating paths for chapter one, sections you get depending on your choices, and its above 1 gig. The cutscenes are by far the element that takes up the most space.
Overall Fun: 2/5 - The combat was a little below average for an RPG and exploration and story weren't huge highlights, but outside the game's general vague vibes, it was mostly poor encounter design that bogged down my experience; with so few options in combat and only one party member, enemies like Euthanasia and the fish dudes would completely stun lock me for several turns at a time, with my only hope for victory being luck.
Equipment management is important, you get a card nullifying the stunlock ability right before the battle, equipping it makes the battle a breeze. It is there to force you to learn to change out the equipment to adjust to different battles. Same with the moods you get straight before the fish, so you neither need to grind nor get lucky if you are willing to experiment a little.
Spelling things out is boring, but all elements of the story are explained and explored, but it will take some effort on the part of the player.
With so few options in combat, I'm not compelled to fight enemies either, so I was probably underleveled.
Think you have barely gotten past the tutorial, combat gets more advanced as the game progresses. Story progresses with time, it all fits together and gets answered.
Controls/UI: 2/5 - While the controls themselves are just normal RPG Maker controls, the use of vague terminology like "PH" and "Swagger" adds unnecessary friction to understanding the effects of items and abilities, leading to me docking points. Gauges in battle are cramped and overlap each other, and the pictures when obtaining a new card also overlap with text boxes and just generally need a bit of restructuring.
Some work to get done here for sure, the terminology is related to the story and makes sense in time, if you are willing to head deeper. This is a 8+ hour game and still growing.
Art: 4/5 - Very good art! Subjectively it's not to my specific sensibilities, but it all looks very well made and it's clear this is where most of the work went.
Sound/Music: 2/5 - The music was pretty good, but I have to dock huge points for that random Nirvana remix in chapter 2. Unless you actually got the rights to Smells Like Teen Spirit.
A cover is not the same as a remix , there is no sampled material at all.
I suspect this may not be for you though, good luck in the future!
Also there are laws concerning parody music and satire which complicates things, its not exactly clearcut, and you know, this is clearly a parody of u drive me crazy by waldos people a song whhich may or may not have been inspired by a certain riff. In case you are curious there are also copyright stuff you can run things through when it comes to audio, youtube probably being the most used one these days. If I ever get a real complaint, I would probably get the mechanical license, which is a whole lot different from a normal one.
I didn't understand the game. The game starts off with a vague allusion to a girl related to the protagonist and throws a lot of vague symbols at you. I notice the game is keeping an eye on whether I respond to in-game choices with love or hate and because of that, I didn't enjoy killing deer with that gun. I didn't understand what "phantasm", "evaporation" or "swagger" was and I understand how it was going to impact my playthrough if I lose "swagger". I found I got "cursed" which I didn't know what that meant until I noticed it's basically a poison status effect which I don't have any obvious curing items for. Sorry to say, I don't feel comfortable with this game
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