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Dichotomy's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #124 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Presentation | #133 | 2.858 | 3.500 |
| Engagement | #134 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #139 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Theme | #164 | 2.041 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Warning for some light spoilers!
Super cute art, characters, and concept! I love little projects where you just try some novel battle system idea, in this case balancing the HP bar instead of trying to get it to 0. I would love to see a version of this where the battle system is expanded upon. Right now I think the dominant strategy is to save a lot and kiss your way into a good beginning state for the battle coming up then just beat on the enemy in whatever direction they are closer. If there were multiple endings based on how you defeated enemies I think that would add a ton of replayability since you would have to play drastically different in every route. Definitely could use more skills and status effects to take advantage of as well. I had a ton of fun figuring things out! I wanted the side characters to smooch each other more than I wanted to smooch them I will not lie I think watching them come to understand each other better was so sweet.
Would love to see it with an actual ending! Great job!
Thanks! Trying some novel game idea is kind of my/our whole thing, so we'll continue to make these types of things (hopefully).
There's different builds and different starting HP, and each of them have different challenges to explore. We initially had ideas for multiple endings like you said but it ended up that we didn't have time/motivation to complete even one ending. But we're working on it, so stay tuned for v1.0...
-The Director/Programmer
Makes a ton of sense! The time limit cut a lot of ppls projects short I'm sure! Really looking forward to your stuff in the future!
Hello! Writer, character artist and animator for Dichotomy here!
Thank you for the review! Proteus already mentioned that we’re gonna have a post-jam version with a much better ending! (Which will involve more kissing, don’t tell anyone! Shh!) Hilariously, a lot of players thought the story was gonna be the classic love triangle where only two characters get together, but canonically it’s a story about a polyamorous trio. (Smooches all around, no lesbian left behind) <3
Smooches all around! It's what the lesbians deserve!!
Wasn't rocking with it at first. I thought the combat was a little bit confusing and clunky and while I still think it is I eventually found myself somewhat engaged in the combat. I started thinking a little more strategically after getting my sh*t rocked by Dominion like 5 times lol. It was cool to finally get the hang of the combat but it all feels somewhat precise. The reason I got knocked by Dominion so many times cause my HP was at 80 and they always attacked first. I was able to pass this by going back and getting a kiss. Which, I mean I'm kind of split on. On one hand I feel like making the enemy faster than the player helps with balancing but on the other it can get frustrating have to always think 2 steps ahead and over correct to account for future enemy attacks. I found myself reading skills for longer than I should've to find the correct one to balance my bars. I also don't know what was up but a lot of enemies just seemed to stop attacking at some point and just block for the rest of their turns. This happened during the dominion boss fight. He used block 3 times in a row, which is how I won. While I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing I don't think the game would be as charming without it. I don't feel like it does enough to flesh out the characters and never involves anything deep but it does enough and gives them both personalities and creates a back and forth between them. Was a little upset that when something interesting was happening and both supporting characters were realizing that they might've just ruined this girl's life it just kind of ends. Wasn't sure if that was meant to be the definitive ending. Were you planning on making an ending to this post jam?
But other than that, HOLY! The art was cute, I liked the designs of the characters (and their portraits+), I liked the tileset, loved the custom sprites for the characters and good lord I loved all the enemies. I feel like the screenshots do not do this game justice. Every enemy being animated is so crazy and must've taken an insane amount of work considering how many enemies their are. I loved how each enemy troop was a new unique portrait. I was really surprised how good a lot of the enemies look. Great enemy designs and great animation. I'm also surprised you're using VX Ace. I've been spoiled by MV I can't imagine going back, but good on you for sticking with it. I honestly just wish this had a more satisfying conclusion. I know I'm one to talk but it just feels a little anticlimactic. But you all did a good job. Very impressive. I'll be looking forward to your future works.
For that first part, you can use Purify/Corrupt from the menu at any point to switch between (in your case 80 and 30 health). I tried to balance each encounter differently but I do think this version of Dominion is one of the harder ones (previously it was completely random like The Heap).
As for defending, Dominion does it randomly I think 2/5ths of the time, and The Eye is meant to Sin twice and Guard the rest of the battle (though we should probably change it to a cycle).
We planned to include a final sequence, culminating in a final boss and more happy ending (or multiple, based on which side you killed more), but we cut it at the last minute due to time constraints. I'll have to talk to the team about if/when we want to make a definitive version.
Animation was almost cut, because I spent a lot of time trying to make one specific animation script work and I just couldn't, but eventually I found one that worked, even though it does mean that the animations are a little wonky.
VX Ace was just the version we (I) had on hand. This is actually our first experience with RPG MAKER, and as for if we make more? We'll have to see...
-The Director/Programmer
It's super cool how you were able to make animated enemies. You did a really sweet job on the game, and despite the few shortcomings it's still a neat project. Hope to see more in the future.
also forgot to mention but I thought the looping maps were a super cool way of showing that the player is lost.
Hello! Writer, character artist and animator for Dichotomy here! (Sorry for my late response, I totally forgot about the jam submission page and was only checking the game’s main page, lol)
Thank you for the detailed review! I’m totally on the same page as you when it comes to the shortcomings of our game, haha.
On the writing: I agree that the dialog in this didn’t have as much going on as it could have. I think I was a bit too afraid that these particular characters weren’t gonna be interesting enough for players to enjoy reading through longer cutscenes of, so I focused on making all the interactions short and sweet (and unfortunately, just a tad boring/pointless). I was originally gonna explore much more into the ethics of the Angel and Demon, but I’ll touch on that later with the ending.
On the character art/animations: TYSM! With the characters, I loved designing cute fantasy characters, and with the enemies I adored creating weird and unnerving creatures that each moved differently! Luke did a fantastic job with the tile set too!
On the ending: O H B O Y, is it a rough one. So what Proteus said is mostly accurate, there was gonna be a final boss and potentially different endings. I was indeed gonna go in depth about how the two love interests had both messed up in their own way, (I won’t say all the details here, but there was gonna be a lot). However, it wasn’t time constraints that caused issues. It was about a week before the end of the jam that I heard there was a high probability of my animations being cut, which resulted in me phoning in the rest of my work. I didn’t want to animate a final boss that might’ve been reduced to a still sprite, and I admittedly was so cross about the whole situation, that I purposely wrote a very unsatisfying ending to the game.
Luckily, at least me and Proteus are for sure gonna work on a post-jam version that should have most of the cut content! Also, if you’d like to check out my writing at its best, we made a visual novel called “Get Into Their Heart” that I can guarantee is actually a lot more interesting and in-depth than Dichotomy (ESPECIALLY if you wanted a deeper dive/exploration on the nuances of characters in relationships). Feel free to check it out if you want, lol. Thanks again! <3
I'll be sure to look out for any updates on Dichotomy. Despite its flaws I still enjoyed it. And I enjoyed the little secret dev log room. I thought that was pretty cute.
I'll also be sure to check out your other game. Keep up the good work.
not quite sure why, but it kept on stopping me every couple steps telling me that I was virtuous. Which is always nice to hear. The static audio was a bit much for me so I had to turn it down. The artwork however was awesome, great work, it did get progressively weird as the game went on which I love.
I also liked the idea of rather than just attacking you had to decide to either curse or bless them.
Oh no! Virtuous means you gain health every time it tells you! I was planning on removing that, but I didn't manage it in time. You can get rid of it by getting a smooch, or using Corrupt from the Skills menu.
-The Director/Programmer
Hahahaha i shall try and smooch my way to victory
Hello! Writer, character artist and animator for Dichotomy here! (Sorry for my late response, I totally forgot about the jam submission page and was only checking the game’s main page, lol)
Thank you for the review and the compliment on the art! I’m glad you appreciate the odd creations I made for this game <3