Had some fun with this simple game. I can't say I find the gameplay compelling, but for what it was, I enjoyed it. Well told story in between, although the fact that you can get around the original tragic ending feels wrong. I think I was craving a little bit of auditory or visual feedback on finding things as well, and the hiding and revealing the things to find I also expect some polish to in future versions. Lastly, I made the mistake of choosing "instant" speed for the text, which made the auto-story go by comically fast. Original submission, and great aesthetics. Would play a longer version.
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Eurydice's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| People's Choice | #20 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Thank you for that feedback!!! I am glad that you enjoyed your playthrough enough that you'll revisit it after it being brushed up! I do want to ask for a little more clarification on a point or two so that I know what to add to my notes to expand/fix/remove for the later release.... Firstly can you expand on "compelling game play"? What could be added to make it more compelling? Or something I need to tweak or remove? Do you think the romanticized ending should be harder to attain? You mentioned "hiding and revealing the things to find" needing polish as well... Can you expand on that? Do you mean like what some other mentioned with the timer issue when you open or close the tray??
I love the feedback as it helps me get better as a person and developer, so please let me know!!! I look forward to all the feedback you have!!
Compelling gameplay may be a matter of player preference. I just can't say I'm excited about finding hidden objects like I would be with a fun and intricate battle system and characters hitting each other with things. I wouldn't suggest you put battles in because that's not what your game is about. Perhaps the feedback is that this type of game will have a certain audience it appeals to (I also am no big fan of VNs).
The storytelling is also potentially personal preference to me as well. I see the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as a moral fable about patience, trust, and evading the tragic end feels like it erodes that a bit. It's like if you made a Gone with the Wind VN and you could unlock the ending where the two characters get married and live happily ever after. Again, this is a personal reaction, so I don't think I could suggest changing this. Other reactions may be totally positive, and my own reaction isn't even negative, it's more of a raised eyebrow.
Regarding the gameplay, it feels like opening and closing the tray interrupts the core of the gameplay, which is just looking for hidden things, and the tray obscuring part of the view meant that either a player needed really good memory, or they had to interrupt their search frequently to open and close the tray. I feel like some resolution or UI setup could both keep the picture on the screen and also the list of items to get without any need for opening and closing at all.
I really, really enjoyed this game. I think it adds a lot to the VN style of presentation to include the hidden pictures elements in between long story pieces.
There were a few misspellings within the items that I noticed, but nothing that made it hard to understand what you were looking for.
I think you might need to extend your timer a little as well -- for people who aren't familiar with the puzzles / items, it's difficult to succeed in the first attempt (unless that was your intention, considering the theme of the contest, and obviously ignoring the initial puzzle where you're meant to lose to teach the player that mechanic). I often had to retry with one item remaining and then had to redo the entire puzzle, which was a bit disheartening. Even an additional 15-20 seconds would've been enough for me, personally, in most cases.
But, other than not particularly loving having to redo the puzzle if I didn't finish within the time limit, I thought this was an absolutely fantastic game. Very well done! :)
Submitted
The Phoenix ProjectThank you so much for those points! I have notated them to take another look at as I polish the game :)
I have many things planned to add and fix so I hope that you will play once that version has been released later this year :) I am ALWAYS open to ideas and suggestions so please please PLEASE feel free to share anything that will help with the QoL of the game!
I play a lot of Hidden Object games and enjoy Greek mythology quite a lot, so I was looking forward to playing this. The artwork, maps and music were amazing! And I really enjoyed playing through the story. On the other hand, the Hidden Objects puzzles were quite "hard" in the sense that it was against time, which is highly uncommon in the genre, and if your window was down, you were never really sure if you had actually clicked the correct object.
All in all, I'm amazed by the things were you able to do for this jam. Very impressive work and an enjoyable game to boot.
Submitted
Stray Kitten and the Magical Lanternthank you!! I'm glad you enjoyed my rendition of the story!!
I am working on a polished version and have added sfx (a bell ding) to when you found an object and a timer pause when the tray is open/closed. I'm trying to add a "hint" function as well .. and I will definitely look into doing a mode without timers!! That is a good idea! I wanted to make it as engaging as possible with future achievements with the timer but I honestly didn't think about a non timer mode!! It's now in my notes to go through lol. Ty for the feedback!
Interesting to see hidden object mechanics! The art and mapping are really well done too. I think the other comments have covered the main QoL stuff regarding text speed and the need to toggle the window during the hidden object sections.
Nice work!
Submitted
RE:Caliburthank you for playing!! Overall I hope you enjoyed yourself! I thank you for the feedback and am working my way through many of those afore mentioned suggestions! The feedback helps me really polish this game off as it was something I don't normally do at all, and so was a nice challenge for me both as a dev and on a personal achievement level. I hope that once I release this once more as a more rounded polished version that you will play again to see all the changes!!
A really innovative gameplay idea, it recalls me the Artefix Mundis serie's games, but with slower texts and a singular graphic! The portraits are very nice, but sometimes the facial expression doesn't match with the speech. The story is very enjoyable, really good atmosphere music, maps and sprite are well done!
Spoiler alert!
I didn't like, during the puzzle games, that I must open/close the message window to pick up what lies behind, it makes you lose time too, and I'm not very good at it already :(
I would give the possibilità to speed up texts, sometimes they are too slow, maybe it's better to make it adaptable to the player reading skill.
This game is very promising and much different from the usual RpgMaker games, it's very charming!
My compliments! Keep up the good work :3
Submitted
Shadowsthank you! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself!
I have a list of things to polish up based on players feedback and have added yours!! I appreciate it more than you know! I have added a pause function to the timer when the tray is opened/closed.
The bust art was more of a stock bundle so I know I have to tweak it a bit; but for the level of my artistic skills, and the quality of the art itself... I would need more time then the jam had to really match the original style and do it justice if I edit it myself lol.
I do ask, I have the message speed option in setting, but I understand the need to adjust it more? I would like very much to hear more on an idea of how to do this as I am a parent of a child with dyslexia so totally understand the need for being more inclusive for different levels and abilities. You are not the first to comment on text speed so I have it started in my notes!!
I am open to all suggestions, feedback and criticism!!
First off, I set the text speed to 'instant' and it just zoomed right through the opening scene with it's auto-text hahaha! Ah-hem. I set it to 8 afterwards.
The maps are gorgeous, the music fits so well, and on a whole the game is really atmospheric. You gave Eurydice a great character voice.
Some of the hidden objects were a lil buggy; I had to click them a few times in different spots for them to register. A bit of an annoyance, but a minor one, since you give a generous amount of time on the puzzles.
Not sure how I felt on the 4th wall breaking; it was done in a way that doesn't hurt the game, but I don't think it does it any favours.
I did encounter a fail to load issue: if you fail and look back at Eurydice, it's missing 'scream-terrified-female-1h-01' SE.
All in all, I enjoyed playing this game! Thanks for sharing this with us ^-^
OH MY!! I knew i should have quadruple checked... I put all the files to no spaces and I had thought I caught all the instances... drat! I guess I am unable to fix that huh... well... ~adds to notes~ live and learn!!
Thank you for letting me know!
As to everything else... I do plan to look at the transition between story and puzzles a bit better and polish that up as well as a few other things others have noted too!
The hidden pictures are done through map events, yanflys' clickable plugin and hitbox plugin on the map... So it's not precise as I'd like... And something I want to get more into in the polishing phase.
I thank you for the compliment on the maps, but all I did was throw some tiles on a background and called it good lol!! The art I wish I could take credit for but the artists are the ones that have the credit there!
Hidden Object Puzzles mechanic make me interested, It's really impressive you can make this custom event from pictures at RPG Maker.
Great atmosphere, great story, great art!
Love love love this idea and concept, I would love an extended version of this with more to explore.
Well done!!
Submitted
Legends of Aksara JawaI had some good, positive feelings playing this game, I liked it! Let's start with the positive things: the art style is gorgeous and the story told is very interesting. I also like the idea of solving this type of puzzle, it's a different gameplay from the typical RPG MAKER game. However I think this game miss some quality of life that would greatly improve the experience like a sound effect when you found the correct item, or the chance to see the log of the previous messages (sometimes I miss some texts because I changed the text speed).
Other than that, it's a game that I would recommend! =)
Submitted
Soul's SpectrumThis was a new idea to me with the puzzles that I didn't even know could be done with Rpg Maker! I love the art work and it was a fun dip in the non-combat rpg world that i haven't ventured very far in before. This inspired me for how picture events could be done.
Submitted
BlackheartI really like the story and art and while I've never actually played this kind of genre, it was a new experience for me.
However, breaking the 4th wall (such as telling you you did a good job solving a puzzle), also broke the immersion of the story a little bit. It would be great if the transition between story and gameplay was more subtle. Also, some of the items in the picture were really hard to see, maybe changing the contrast would help a little.
In conclusion, the game does have potential to be an interesting novel, if the transitions would be tweaked a little.
Submitted
Project Arkthank you for playing!! I do hope you enjoyed yourself! I admit this was a challenge for me as I've never done anything like this before, so it was a huge learning experience and personal achievement!
I will look into how to soften the transitions more, thank you for that feedback! The art I left as intended by the wonderful artists that did them though, I did in some cases ask them to make the linework in some images more pronounced, while in others to blur the linework more so that things weren't too obvious. But as it's a learning experience, going forward I know exactly what to ask of anyone doing work for this type of project again😊.
I thank you so much for your feedback and the time you took, not only to play my game but to leave some things for me to look at better in the polish phase! I hope you'll try it again once it's completely finished to see the improvements!!!
My thoughts while playing the game.
+ = I liked it
- = I didn't like it
* = Neutral/suggestion
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+ Custom cursor looks slick.
+ I've seen some of the art on Discord already, but it's just as lovely to look at again.
+ I like how you made the pictures move around on the intro to the title screen.
- Auto-advancing text makes it hard to read the story
* To be fair, I did set the text speed to maximum, but it's still generally an unwise practice to feature auto-advancing text because you don't know how fast your audience will read.
- Showing your player "when you see this icon it means click to advance the text" then auto-advancing the text confuses the message
+ I'm liking the tutorial so far. You're describing all the tools slowly in detail and the first puzzle is not timed.
- I wish there was a sound when I clicked an object. Those little bits of feedback are helpful.
* Animations and changing the color of found objects would also help
* Not sure why I would want to hide the object tray at this point.
- I restarted and slowed down the text speed because I couldn't read the text. Too much auto-advance!
+ I want to point out how lovely the font is. It's fancy but readable.
+ Even the window skin looks beautiful. I rarely see this level of visual quality in a RM game.
* There's an awful lot of empty space in the middle of the text boxes. Is that intentional? It seems like some text goes to a new line needlessly.
* I can see why I would want to hide the tool tray now. Some objects can be covered by it. That said, perhaps in the future you could design around the tool tray always being visible?
- You were doing great introducing each new element as it appeared but then suddenly there's a QTE with no warning? To be fair, it's not hard and I remember you talking about it on Discord, but you should have said something in the game since it pretty dramatically departs from the game loop that has been established thus far.
+ Oh cool, there's a bonus ending!
* This one is challenging.
- Why a save prompt just before "the end?"
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Summary
While it's not flawlessly executed, there is much to appreciate about this game. The visuals are so customized and the game loop is so vastly different from a top-down turn-based RPG that I occasionally forgot that this was made in RPG Maker. The puzzles are challenging to complete and the story is portrayed well. No on-map player movement keeps the game on track and focused, while having the cutscenes acted out gives the story substance and impact. There are some rough edges on the user experience front, particularly with information presentation and feedback - I really did not like the auto-advancing text, and the lack of feedback when clicking items made the experience feel a little hollow.
I like that you took a risk and stepped outside of the traditional RM game types, and I think overall you succeeded. With a little more polish, I could see this being a whole series of games. Well done!
THANK YOU! I am noting the feedback to be sure to fix after the jam is done as I am determined to make this a complete game :)
- I love how you explained everything, it makes it much easier to follow and to notate in my notes!
- I had done the auto advancing text in some places to keep the timing on task with the sprite effects, but I think there might honestly be only 2 places the auto advance is really needed i agree (the intro and the scene 5 second part)
- I am going to fix the text dialogue after as well, when testing it was fine, but in deploy it was being weird so i need time to tweak it XD
- I'm still trying to figure out what to do when a player finds an item because it currently is set up through event boxes, hitboxes and clickable events note tag.
- Thank you for pointing out the need for some kind of intro to the hit bar... I thought about it again... but against my gut.. didn't put it in.
Again thank you for playing and I hope of anything.. you had a pleasant time!! ^.^
The art is adorable and the story is well written. I'm not a huge fan of hidden objects games, but this was worth playing through for everything else it brings. If you are a fan of hidden objects this is totally worth your time.
Submitted
A Reaper's MercySimple hidden object game that is visually entertaining to watch. The hidden object aspects are alright, nothing special. The story of the tragedy and the characters actions therein are engaging enough. The game itself serves as a fine entry overall.
Submitted
Life -A- Live
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