I was one of the official judges this year, and now that the results have been made public, and I'm free to do so, here is my score and thoughts on this title:

Overall score: 7

I felt that the game really needed some sort of intro or tutorial to explain not only what was going on, but the more unique game mechanics that were happening. I could tell a lot of care and passion went into the game's design, but since nothing was explained, it felt like something major was lacking all throughout. Loved the character and enemy designs, however.

I liked a lot of things about this game, but there were also a lot of things that seriously held it back. The custom graphics and battle engine were nice, and I liked that the story was told from the middle as it was happening. I admit I haven't beaten the demo yet, but unfortunately the game is very frustrating. While I could get into a nice rhythm with a full party, the low HP of the other characters meant they would die after a few battles and have to be replaced. I felt like the whole game was a grind because of this. It is impossible to ever get any money (karma) bc of this. I only ever devoured or recruited bc every time I wanted to release a soul to get karma, I had to recruit the soul instead. I did like the Soul Blazer vibe of freeing people and having the town fill up that way. But it never seemed to really pay off in any way other than more stuff showed up. (I died after making the bridge appear, and I've played the game close to an hour now.) This could be a great title, but it definitely needs some work. Maybe have an item that permanently raises the HP of your teammates? Something. It was just so frustrating struggling to keep them around. Also, not sure if this was said yet or not, but the water that refreshes you should have a sound effect associated with it.

A Reaper's Mercy had a lot of good ideas. I like how we both had similar ways to go about the enemies. Semi copying SMT but adding our own touches to it.

The time limit of IGMC is a very brutal thing. I would have loved to see the map art drawn in same style as the enemies and character. I know why it wasn't, but the art that was made for this had a lot of charm to it, even if rough.

A lot of people said this already, but a good tutorial would have helped a lot. I understood a lot right off the bat because I too played old school games this was inspired off of my whole life. The only thing I didn't get for a bit was you get more levels from devouring than one and the karma system.

The battles themselves had a lot of meaning and depth, but I think would have vastly improved if you severely cut down enemy HP. A lot of devs worry too much about things being too easy, but I assure you even hard ass games like SMT have very fast battles.

And I think just having player be instantly healed after battles would help. I always was able to walk back to healing but most of my playtime was doing that.

I would also love to see a battle speed option/plug-in. The battles felt a bit slow and this is an RPG Maker thing. Mine was crazy slow until I found a good plug in. Really made the difference. This is just my opinion. Preferably an option for speed preference. But again I understand we only have so much time to work on these before deadline.

The allies disappearing after dying is a cool mechanic, but for our hour limit it might have been better to just have them forever after you recruit. I also think one devour per enemy would have been enough and have it improve main slightly more.

The game has some passability issues and some of the sound effects could have been turned way down.  I also would have a 'Are you sure you want to Devour' dialogue as I accidently pressed it when I didn't want to. Choosing which enemy you want to do what with instead of randomly having one selected would make things smoother as well. Some of the state icons were a little too vague. Others fine.

It's a good attempt overall. All changes I suggested (it's all my opinion,  feel free to ignore all) would be very fast fixes for the most part. Good work! Hope you had a good time in this brutal contest. It's a great learning experience each time I do it.

I quite enjoyed this game, even though i didn't reach end of demo, i liked the custom sprites and collecting monsters and was sad everytime i got the monster killed. Good work, can't wait to see where u go with this.

You have a strong and unique battle mechanic with the devour, but I spent a lot of time wandering around, not entirely sure what I was meant to be doing. I think (based on previous comments) that you're already aware that you could definitely use a little more guidance for the player. I thought your outdoor maps / cave maps were pretty nice, but the interior / house mapping was a little empty and plain.

Overall a solid entry; good luck with IGMC! :)

I streamed this with the dev present, so just for posterity:

• I like the concept of the game (Soul Blazer! I see youuu) much more than the execution. I might have been unlucky but it became really tedious.
• Presentation doesn't quite match the maps and sprites, and the mapping itself is very barebones and rough. The enemy sprites are cute enough.
• Skill descriptions really need a good round of polish as they are not clear.
• Some explanation of the mechanics of recruit/spare and how they handle KO would have been great.
• I'm not a fan of the spirits disappearing on death, since a few unlucky hits can leave you alone against the high level party.
• I feel like the game expects me to grind without making grinding really much fun. The combat is a bit slow and there are now easy "sweeping" combos you can quickly and mindlessly spam to get a few "levels".
• The fact that monsters cannot improve hurts it a bit for me. Some of them also feel brutally unbalanced, some creatures like the lady holding her head had absolutely no use for me, while others were extremely strong. 
• There should be some way to quickly circle back to the rest spot, specially in the cave.
• I gave up after a couple pretty bad wipeouts that left me burned out, I was (I think) halfway through the big house.
• The icons make what's happening in combat very hard to read, especially the status effects.
• I would suggest making the animations snappier, I definitely felt like combat went by too fast. Additionally I did not have a good grasp on who was acting.
• I'd suggest making priority skills like quick buff/debuff/status have a speed boost to act quicker, otherwise the order of attacks can dismantle your strategy.
• I could not muster much interest for the story, the text wasn't exactly super engaging but I appreciate it stayed out of my way.

Overall I feel like this game suffers a lot from a lack of polish, which is harsh due to deadlines, but doesn't change it sours the experience a lot. Happily this all seems very fixable and with some more work should make a nicely enjoyable game.

I really liked the gameplay loop of recruiting monsters or devouring them for exp, the party members were really diverse and I found them really helpful for support.  However, for the devouring aspect, I felt as if this jam version can't really cover the bases because of how short it is and how you don't really need to do so in order to beat the whole game, but that's just a me thing.  Speaking of the systems, like the others said here, it was kind of confusing what to do at first as there's little explanation for what's happening.  Despite this though, it's pretty easy to get a swing on things as you get going and it can be fun (at least for me).  What I'm really confused by is the story though, there isn't really an intro to give like a brief hint of what's going on or who the characters are or their motivations for the things they do.  I felt as if I was dropped off somewhere nowhere and not until I defeated the first "boss" I knew exactly what  the characters were supposed to do.  What I really liked were the custom graphics!  I liked the monster designs a lot as well as the overworld sprites, but if I do have to say something, the styles of the sprites and the battlebacks/overworld clash since they're not in the same style imo.  Overall, I liked this game and with more polish, I think this can be a full game!

My thoughts while playing the game.

+ = I liked it

- = I didn't like it

* = Neutral/suggestion

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+ Nice big, readable font

* Sprite style is not default, but not sure I like it.

- The choice of confirm SE is throwing me off. You're using what is normally "cancel."

* Not sure if I should be exploring or heading out of the cave.

+ First impression of the encounter system is that it may be direction-based. Cool little touch if so.
  + On-map encounters are good too. I have some measure of control over the battles I get into.

* No tutorial about what any of my skills do, so it's trial-and-error time!

- I almost died on my first encounter.
  + But it looks like escape rate is 100%
  * Enemies disappear if you escape. A good thing in my case, but I can see this being exploitable.

- I could really go for a full heal location
  * I did find a spirit essence location. Not quite as good, but it will do.

+ Oh, so there's an item shop outside the cave
  - I wish that had been clear from the beginning

+ The water is the full heal location!
  - I wish that had been mentioned at the beginning
  - Nothing really ties it to the story - you just get a "you are rejuvenated" message

* Enemies respawn upon reentry; maybe even when you go outside a certain range

+ I get to choose what happens to a spirit after I defeat an enemy
  - Why am I choosing one or another? What is the benefit/drawback?

+ Stella is cute
  * Gonna give you the benefit of the doubt but I'm currently not sure what this is all about

* I just noticed that there are no energy resources like MP or TP; instead, there are cooldowns

+ Oh wow, if one of your minions dies, it's permadead! That makes for some interesting strategy & tense situations
  - Again, I had no idea this was a thing until I experienced it

+ Minion nicknames are cute

+ Battle BGM is a bop

+ I like that there are HP bars for the enemies

 * Not sure if I like the choice of colors and lack of outline - it makes them a little hard to see against the backgrounds. I still could see them, though.

* I just barely managed to destroy a statue and released a frog. O...K....?

* Apparently the frog is just as confused as I am

+ Frog sprite looks good though
  - Minor thing: I can see a little bit of stray pixels when the frog is moving left

- I have 0 Karma. How do I get Karma?

* Took on a statue that I wasn't prepared enough for. At least there doesn't seem to be a penalty for dying!

- It's a small thing, but having the power up animation play on all party members means it can get pretty loud when there are 3 or more party members. Probably would have been better to have it be a single animation that targets the center of the screen.

* Oh, releasing a spirit into the Aether gives Karma.

- I used stealth but an enemy ran into me anyway

+ I must say, I do like the low numbers. Makes it easier to understand what's going on in battle.

+ Took down another statue. Cool house building animation!

- The large doors don't stay open while Gerard walks through them. Looks weird.

+ I may not be terribly into the main character's overworld walk sprite, the battler images are growing on me.

- There seems to be oddly large impassible spaces on some tiles

- Not sure what the point of having a shop with the exact same items on the other side of the river is.

 * Oh, I see, it's so you don't have to go to the other side of the map. It's OK I guess?

- The lack of sound when opening a door is kinda disappointing. It's minor, but I keep running into it.

- The bird got in my way when crossing the bridge. Consider using region restrictions to prevent players from getting stuck.

+ The introduction of Frost Moss is the way every concept of the game should have been introduced: An in-universe explanation of what it does along with the mechanics of how to obtain it ("come see me if you use the one you have").

+ I like how you used a carpet tile to indicate a door along a wall.

- I'm starting to get a bit fatigued by all the statue destroying. I think this is too long.

+ Hey, it's the Looker! Looks good.

- The overlapping HP bars looks a little sloppy and hard to read.

- Selecting the eyes goes in the opposite order of what I would expect

* And it's over

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Summary

It seems that in your efforts to avoid the info dumps that so many RM games fall prey to you instead went too far in the opposite direction. I may not need to know the full history of the gods and their politics and yada yada yada, but I need to know the rules of the game and why my character is doing what he is doing.

It's otherwise an OK game, if a bit repetitive. There are a good variety of enemy types, skills, and even some cool mechanical ideas like the devour/recruit/release system.

I'm glad you made this entry and hope you keep improving.

LOVE THE SPRITES! The battles were hard for me, I would have liked to have seen more of an introduction to what exactly was going on... love Stella! Was sad to see her go.. but I wasn't aware she was in my party to start or why... PLEASE GIMME MORE! lol I like the way you handled the battles and the fact of devouring to add skills and lvls... that's is really cool! Also i love how the world expands.. that is great! I would love to see this polished up!