Thanks for playing!

A Dream Of Valhalla does have Sakura and Gina in it, but it's ambiguously canon and doesn't have any important plot bits in it, so you're safe skipping that one. It was really more a dry run for the mechanics which will be in Shattered 2.

The story worked out better than I'd expected. I figured it would be pretty good, but maybe not to everyone's taste, but almost everyone seems to speak positively of the story. The diary was a bit of a gamble- I was worried in particular that it would kill the pacing- but it was a ton of fun to make and worked out well.

You're not the first one to report issues with the controls; I suspect I shipped an incorrect or incomplete control map.

I had a lot of ideas on how to make objectives clearer, but didn't implement any of them mostly because of time. I tried to make things as clear as possible with the tools I had available.

The phantom archer suppression sequence just didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. It's aone of those things where you try something different in a jam, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

You're not actually the first one to suggest something Deus Ex like. I don't think it's likely, however. I prefer smaller projects these days- I tend to lose interest when they get too big, and it becomes stressful to have it in the background- so I don't see a large project in my future. Even Shattered 2 has grown into something bigger than I'd like.

Thanks for playing!

I've been making weird "magical girl" games since the first Magical Girl Game Jam, when I started out with basically no idea about magical girls at all. This one is definitely off base in regards to mahou shoujo conventions. The closest thing to a magical girl anime that I can definitively say directly influenced it is RWBY. I've tried to work in elements that I've picked up through osmosis but it's still kind of its own thing.

I like this style but it's divisive at best, and sometimes a lot more work than you'd think. Both Takagi and Shattered 2, both already in progress, will be much the same, but I'm looking at doing something different for some future games.

I hear you about the enemies' lack of reaction. Both enemy types are kind of lame. I was somewhat limited by what I had in mind for the series in general (I think I elaborated on this in another comment) but I'm looking for ways to make things a little more interesting in subsequent games.

Even with perfect hindsight, I don't think I would have cut the first section. One of the biggest disappointments with In The Middle Of The Night (my MGGJ2 game that this one is a sequel to) is that it was hilariously short. I really wanted the game to be a decent length this time, and although the end result isn't super long I'm a lot happier with the length this time. If I was to cut the first act and merge elements of it into the third, I think the game still would have ended up too short. I'm also not sure if the story would flow as well, but I wouldn't really know that until I tried to rework it.

With that being said I knew I was pushing it for scope from the beginning. The story and concept I had in mind I felt were doable within the timeframe given, but only just. I really wanted to do this specific thing because it's a keystone for the series and I really wanted to get this one out before Takagi. Without that consideration I probably wouldn't have attempted it, and would have come up with something smaller that I knew I could comfortably finish within the timeframe.

I honestly don't know how some folks in this jam manage to make games that are long, polished, and complex. I've only ever been able to hit one, maybe two. This time, polish definitely took a backseat to length and complexity. Next time, I don't think I'm going to do the crazy genre crossing here, maybe just a visual novel. I definitely want to do more experimental stuff next year rather than mostly continuing existing things I've started which I did this year.

Thanks for playing!

I think is probably my strongest entry to this jam (although Shattered still has a certain magic to it), so I find it reassuring that it's your favourite so far if that makes any sense. That it ranks high among the entries you've played so far is high praise I did not expect.

The story seems to be the best received part overall. I was surprised how well it came together and how well some of the later changes worked. Then again, story and storytelling was a focus area this time around. The diary was an early idea I had, but making it central to the game was something that kind of came about later. I had expected it to kill the pacing, to be honest, but that turned out not to be the case.

Although I didn't see a problem with it myself, I've heard a few complaints about the edgy, coarse language filled dialogue. I'm not going to promise future games will be milder, but the overall style and tone will vary from game to game and with it, the style of the dialogue.

The ending is abrupt because it was kind of written and implemented in a hurry. It should have been longer, it was going to have more options, and some of the dialogue was not quite there, but the clock was starting to run out by that point.

My audio is always a random mishmash of stuff from Freesound, OpenGameArt, and some other free and commercial packs. It's usually done in a hurry and works pretty well, but one of these days I'd like to do a game with exceptionally good audio.

I do wish the environment models were more consistent in style and polycount. I could probably have thrown some money at the problem, and maybe done a little better with more time.

Lily's pathfinding and getting stuck on Sakura are known issues. Pathfinding is basically nonexistent but usually okay in open-ish areas; one of these years I'll solve that general problem (knock on wood). Getting stuck on Sakura I thought was rare enough that it would never happen in practice... I forgot about Murphy's Law. I thought I'd fixed the continuing to move when hitting the hospital, but apparently I'd missed that. I'm not sure why the staring at the sky thing happened, but it certainly could. I don't actually remember if the hammer thrusts things, but it could put Sakura into her Hurting state and she might move when reentering her previous state.

Back in the first MGGJ, I spent the first week on Shattered without any plans on anything but the story sections. I knew I wanted some sort of other gameplay, though, because it seemed like such a tease to describe awesome magical powers without actually letting the player use them. That being said, I'm considering doing a more pure visual novel for MGGJ5 so I can focus on improving the dialogue system without having to worry about making the rest of the game.

I have tentative plans for a third entry in the series (not counting Takagi), though I still only have very vague ideas on what the game will actually be about. I am trying my hardest not to become Valve.

Thanks for playing!

I've been honestly surprised by how well the narrative has been received, and the diary section in particular. I was very worried that the story would fall flat or come off as overly narmy, and I was concerned that the diary would kill the pacing of the game. 

The tone and manner of speaking isn't really out of line with my own experiences. I guess I associate with extremely acerbic individuals. Note though that this is somewhat determined by player choices, directly and indirectly.

A lot of the shortcomings you describe touch on things that were meant to be, but were cut for time.

I originally wanted to have a boss battle at the end, but I had to cut it for scope reasons. I really didn't want to do this, but there was just no way I could squeeze it in within the time I had left. I hadn't even started planning it and was still on the "okay, how do I make this interesting" stage. I had some ideas I felt were maybe good, but it was already I think the third week and I had a pretty long list of other stuff to get done.

There are also a few ending variations that didn't make it. You would have had a few more options in the good ending, and depending on your positivity (basically karma) may have been able to force a certain outcome regardless of Sakura's choice (keeping this intentionally vague to avoid spoilers).

In short the ending really was rushed and all of the possible gameplay in it was left by the wayside.

I realized about three quarters of the way through the jam that there was really a dearth of combat sequences and that the combat sequences that did exist were pretty uninspired. By this point the levels were built, the story was locked down, and there was little I could do about it. I wasn't happy with this, but decided to just accept that this one will be a little lame and try to do better with Takagi. It didn't cross my mind to just remove it entirely, but thinking about how the game is put together I don't think it would have been practical at that point since most the sequences were already built.

Elaborating on that I'd kind of written myself into a corner with the setting in terms of having interesting enemies. The Shades (purple ghost guys) were meant to be the main enemies but I don't find them interesting at all. I wanted human enemies, but who they can be, how powerful they can be, how many I can have, and where I can put them is pretty heavily constrained by the mostly down-to-earth setting. For instance, if I'd made the handful of skinheads into a swarm, that would raise questions like "where did these guys come from" and "why don't our protagonists get arrested for 60 counts of murder".

Takagi has a way around it, and if Suckerpunch 3 (Big Team Heavies) ever comes to pass that won't really be an issue.

The shooting into the forest section was one of those ideas that you think is interesting when you come up with it but just didn't work out in practice. During playtesting I found it tedious enough that there's a specific console command to skip it, and most of the other folks who tried it just didn't get it. I think it could have been made interesting or replaced with something more interesting, but (are you seeing the pattern here?) it was too late at that point.

The magic key is in the README and help, unless I botched the default control map which is possible. There is no melee key. I had planned to do either a kick (yup, like Duke Nukem 3D) or a weapon bash (like Halo or any modern shooter), but- surprise!- didn't have time to do it. Unfortunately I left some confusing references to that in the game.

Despite all the stuff that didn't make it in, I'm pretty happy with the stuff that did and the overall result. While it still has shortcomings, it's an improvement over its predecessor in almost every area in the way a sequel should be. Story-wise, this game is really critical for setting up the rest of the series, and I was able to get all the important plot points in. I would definitely agree that the biggest shortcomings are the abrupt ending and sparse, uninspired combat.

As for the art, yeah, I know. I'm under no illusions of it being amazing; it ranges from utterly terrible to so bad it's good at best. Thing is, I am completely hopeless when it comes to bringing people onboard on my projects, and I gave up on the notion of actually having an artist a long time ago. I do have some options available to me, but I like drawing weird janky programmer art. With all that being said, while Takagi and Shattered 2 will retain this art style, I'm looking into doing something different for some other games next year.

Thanks for playing!

I had a lot of fun making the diary. The investigation part of the game is something that only really came together just before I started implementing it. I knew I wanted the park and farm sections but was stymied for a while on how to connect them.

Thanks for playing!

The narrative worked out better than I though it would, although it's also the part of the game that was conceived first.

Thanks for playing!