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A jam submission

Magical Girl MarshaView game page

Short game made for Harold Jam 2022
Submitted by Licro — 4 days, 23 hours before the deadline
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Magical Girl Marsha's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Oldhar Award for Literature: Story#24.2504.250
Marsha Award for Music: Sound#43.7503.750
Harold Award for Excellence#63.7003.700
Hrld Award for Graphics: Visuals#73.7503.750
Therese Award for Strength: Combat#103.1003.100
Lucius Award for Laughs: Comedy#143.1503.150

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

I was quite disappointed to be just simply dropped into the game with no intro, especially considering what it was with the reveal. A simple setting build up from the perspective of the ‘dungeon master’ would have been fitting and great like a ‘setting the scene’ for the players.

The sequence was great for transforming and the overall story and sequence of events really felt like a ‘magical girl anime’ and the vibes of madoka magica were apparent which the game even references. I did find the transformation sequence after a while got repetitive.

The weakest part of this entry are the fights, they are really not balanced. I just wanted to speed past those sections to get to the next part of the story and hope for the best in RNG.

I appreciated the use of custom busts but could tell where some were traced over, such as the rat and rtp graphic. For a jam game though it’s fine and it allowed for the art to mostly be consistent where possible apart from were styles conflicted.

Overall this is a different vibe game out of other entries with a magical girl approach and focus on more than just Harold.

 

 

Submitted(+1)

Other than the fights and that intro, I really enjoyed this one.

Submitted

Some QoL improvements and balancing would have gone a long, long way with this one.

It was cute, funny, and original, and had a pretty good soundtrack (some songs RTP-adjacent? but there was a lot of custom stuff too). Dialog was a bit uneven and needed editing for grammar/spelling etc., but it was also snappy at the right times and the humor was great. I appreciate the custom graphics though there was a mishmash of art styles (whatever it's a jam).

I have the same complaints mentioned below about the skill learning being awkward. I wish you'd stated on the item that it teaches the skills, as I also thought these were single use and didn't interact with the skill system until the greed fight.

Incidentally, greed is where I stopped playing. I think the story was good, but I basically knew more or less where it was going, and the gameplay just didn't work for me well enough to want to bash through the encounters. Battles are massively imbalanced with physical being dramatically more powerful than magic except for being susceptible to counters. Plus the prevalence of multi-hit enemy skills that do way too much burst damage, enemy healers that can revive, skills that underperform for various reasons (description says "great damage" but it does less than your starter arrow), all kind of made the difficulty feel padded and artificial rather than strategic, which is the worst kind of challenge. I would have been more likely to complete this game if it had no battle system instead, and from a combat focused player that's not a great sign.

My other, lesser issues: the repetitive transformation scene got old fast. Too much walking around that could have been shorter cut scene.

Ultimately I'd consider this a great effort and for a player that has enough patience to just RNG brute force their way through a couple bosses I am sure it would be much more satisfying.

Submitted

My thoughts while playing the game:

No intro? Just dropping us right into it.

Fire, Spark, and Heal skills don't have a description.

Oh, so this was just an intro stage in which we're playing a TTRPG?

Text boxes have a lot of blank space on the right.

The writing is pretty good. Just when I think it's going to be generic, there's a twist.

Custom busts are cool.

Really cool transformation sequence.

A lot of work went into editing sprites and animations.

Demon of Wrath's Triple Attack is too strong. You die if you just get unlucky.

Why do you buy spells as items? And why don't they apply automatically?

I bought a few spells but saw they were items and assumed they were one-time use abilities.

One problem I'm seeing is the enemy skills. They hit multiple times hard, and the targeting is random so if they hit one party member it can kill them before you have time to heal.

The fact that the trainee can heal away all your damage makes the battle obnoxious.

You included the animated version of the Oldhar bust! Awesome!

That run from the spirits is way too brutal. Gotta give the player some means of knowing where to go ahead of time.

The fragments on the floor tiles makes it unclear whether a tile is OK to step on or not.

It's also not clear that you need to go to the exit on the right because there's nothing to indicate that there's an exit there.

Being able to win a battle by healing the enemy to full is a cool twist.

---

Summary

This is an above-average entry on many fronts. There's custom art and sound, and a clear effort was made to include theatrical elements and shake up the usual RM battle slapfest. I enjoyed the journey the story took me on. Well done!

Submitted

Pro tip to anyone who is struggling with the Billy Gatewell battle: use Marsha's stun ability to stop Billy from demolishing you. It's not a *perfect* strategy since he can still regain his senses and whack you (and that damned trainee can heal away your damage), but it's how I got past it after a few tries.

Submitted (2 edits)

I’m not that big on anime or the whole magical girl thing, but this was pretty awesome. Got both endings and I loved the tough-but-fair battles. A few things:

  • The chase sequence was weird. Initially, nothing moved but for some dumb reason I saved, and upon reloading, shit went crazy. Either I moved right when the game loaded or the thing got me. I had to pre-plan my route and make several attempts before finally completing it.
  • The fact that I can save at all during that sequence means somebody could potentially save themselves into an unwinnable position, so be wary of that.
  • Transformation animation was cute the first few times, but eventeually I got sick of seeing it and just wanted a skip button.
  • Game needs a rest point right before the final sequence starts. Currently if you don’t buy any remaining skills when it gets popped up on you, you miss them for good and that’s no bueno.
  • Corporation area had some passability issues that allowed me to walk on some of the computers.
  • Controller support is broken. Most MV games do it fine, but something in this game isn’t playing well with my controller. Its tricky to get it to recognize it at first, and if I F5, it stops reading controller input entirely, forcing me to use a keyboard which I hate using for RM games.
Submitted

After about ten tries to get through the chase sequence in school, I give up. Either I get caught by spirits or exploded by the fires. :(

It's tough to say something about a story if you have no idea how it finishes, but from what I saw it was a good magical girl story so far. I liked the transformation sequence for Marsha, a bit sad there wasn't one for Therese, but I assume that was due to time constraints.

I kind of wished that when you buy a spell, it gets activated immediately and removed from the shop. I can see players accidentally buying the same spell twice or forgetting to use the spells so they're activated.

The opening dungeon was very boring and frustrating. I went the opposite way at first and kept getting into battles every ten steps or so. I would have probably stopped playing if I was a normal player. I would make it either smaller or change the encounter rate.

HostSubmitted(+1)

That was some A+ storytelling. You didn't pull any punches, and your use of assets was also top notch. Combat was fine, but relied a bit too much on how well you picked your skills to purchase. The cheaper ones were surprisingly way more useful. Still, it wasn't too hard overall and moved quickly enough. Perfect pacing for a jam game.

Chase scene was a bit tricky, as the exploding fires were unpredictable. A little bit of polish on the timing of events like map transfers and transformations would have smoothed out the experience too.

Now that ending. . . that really hit hard, especially given that Marsha's actions arguably could have prevented all of that. Overall this was a really entertaining and well done entry and had so many unique touches. Thrilled you got it into the jam!

Submitted

Nice magic girl-themed story! Some of the battles were pretty tough (riposte and magic shields really saved me). 

Submitted

Excellence: The transformation system took this game a notch above most of the others I've played so far.

Combat: Pretty straightforward and being able to buy and equip spells was a cool touch. The Demon of Greed battle was pretty damn hard though.

Comedy: Appreciated the gags every now and then.

Sound: Music and sound worked well enough. Definitely gave me some Persona vibes.

Visuals: Custom art was really nice, especially for the transformation sequences.

Story: Pretty typical magical girl story, but fortunately a typical magical girl story focuses on overcoming tragedy and growing into your skin. The final battle was also amazingly done. 

Submitted

I enjoyed this even though I died in the office building. 

It was a fun game with cute mechanics. 

The combat was good. Not too complicated and engaging. I loved the flavor text.

it was an amusing  game, with a lot of charm but the repetitious "Slave to capitalism" dampened the mood real fast. I took a star off for that.

A freight train came by and I muted the sound because it's always too much... then forgot to put the sound back on. Title was good. ^_^'

The GFX were very pretty. It was off putting to see stock faces on some characters and hand drawn art on others. The transformation was very nice. I like Marsha's design.

As I don;t have much time to play the whole game through I don't know how the story ends, though I can make some educated guesses, but what I saw so far was fun! (I id kind of want to hit Lucius a couple of times. No other game has managed that.)

Over all it's good, needs polish and was fun!

The story was interesting and well done, I liked the intro with the dnd bit! Hahaha.

I love magical girl stuff tooo, so tryna not be biased, I hope you are joining the magical girl jam! I struggled with the battle, but I personally am not a fan of difficult battles myself or grindy stuff

Interesting idea, but battles are way too hard. I lost to Anguish when it one shotted me for more than I got in max HP.

Submitted

Lost about six times to at the fight with Billy Gatewell, this looks like a well done story but I'm not able to see how it plays out

Developer

Did you buy skills from Mr.Rat? 

Submitted

Yes, until I had no more orbs to buy more. I tried a strategy of using Emotional Support to passively heal HP when I don't have the turns to heal up against a boss who 2-turn KO's you, tried using hype to boost Therese into OHKO range for the employee, but usually I can't heal fast enough to deal with Billy Gatewell

Developer(+1)

The Greed skill hits 2 times and I forgot to reduce the damage. It's rating period so I can't fix that sadly=( I don't know what skills you have but if you have Riposte you can try using that, since it counterattacks the Greed skill.