Hi there!

This post might come as a surprise to you but I'm fulfilling my obligation of writing a review for every entry I played in the RPG Maker Game Jam 2025 and haven't had the time and motivation combo until now. Apologies for the wait.

I'm one of the 6 judges for this RPG Maker Game Jam 2025. I was one of the 2 judges assigned to your game, and we have been assigned to rate your games according to each metric highlighted on the game's main jam page, and submit these ratings to the organisers, who will then appropriate what happens with that. Please contact them in the Q&A if you have any further questions about the judging process. The judges will work on different time schedules, so even if I may have finished playing your game, the entire process might not be finished as of yet. Many of these reviews I am posting while still judging.

All that aside, I'd like to share my VOD of me playing your game, which contains up to an hour of gameplay, and some final thoughts at the end! Depending on whether I stopped the VOD early or not, it will also contain many of the thoughts that I say to you below, which may cause repetition. So just be aware of that.

I will also attach a review below this VOD. I will not disclose my ratings for each category as of yet, but those will be revealed in due time. Not all judges are required to post a review or VOD to each game, but many will do so even if it's optional, including myself.

Here's the VOD:

The plot was quite surprising, it did buck expectations quite often and there is a plot point where it details the pilgrim's meeting of the all father's expectations or going beyond them. But perhaps I think maybe this theme could have been made more clear, in order to have gained more points.

Gameplay

Despite there clearly being some interesting ideas, I ended up feeling like it was a little overly convoluted, in my mere opinion. A lot of dice rolls and skills I didn't end up understanding, by the end of my hour playing the game, and I think many messages in battle were missing, so I didn't know whether it was hitting or not, or why many of the things were happening. This caused some confusion in me. I then ended up selecting a bunch of moves and had a general idea through trial and error which ones dealt more damage, but not really why. Potions are also due to dice rolls as well. I think in this case, simpler might have been better. A simple gameplay loop. This was a bit ambitious and I don't think it achieved most of its goals gameplay-wise, yet with more polish it could definitely improve in this area.

Engagement

Engagement is very important, and I feel as if the over-difficult first battle gave me a bad impression of the gameplay, sadly. The later battles became easier, thankfully, but it was hard to improve my already stained impression of the game, since the first gave me so much trouble. I think that simplification would do it good to the flow of this game, and even with the stakes of the story, while the pilgrim not meeting the all father's expectations was alluded to, I personally found it hard to get a sense of stakes on why I should care about the people in this convent, or the main character. In general, I found it difficult to relate emotionally to many of the characters, or to get a good impression of them. This was just how I felt, although I think with more adjustments, it could prove a very compelling story indeed.

Presentation

Decently stylised graphical presentation. Fairly a lot of effort put into it. Quite impressive indeed. Although, the sound mix could use some work - some sound effects were loud, and others were too quiet. However it was clear that effort was put into this area.

Polish

Passability glitches in several maps and typos and inconsistent capitalisation to the point where it affected my enjoyment of the story. I feel as if some of it was also due to lack of care, especially capitalisation issues, but I could be wrong.

Keep making games! You're awesome. Every game's a gift <3

The idea of relying on dice rolls for a battle system with an emphasis on closeup portraits made for striking visual and gameplay styles, though I found the act of playing the game a bit confusing and tiring. The dice roll system doesn't appear to have much feedback with regard to how it calculates its outcomes and feels lacking in communication in general.

That said, while I found the dialogue difficult to follow due to its grammatical errors, I think the story's events were interesting and had decent build up, though I felt I had to guess what the true context was much of the time. I also feel the current implementation of the combat system could largely be done away with as well unless the visual and audio feedback were to be improved.

I do find the ambition of this game's story impressive, even if I felt I couldn't become truly invested due to the above issues. As something experimental, I think it acts as a good foothold for discovering what elements in a dice-based, story-heavy rpg should be polished or reevaluated.

Oh! I really liked the art style overall, and the battles were quite interesting. I'm a bit confused by the story, but it didn’t affect my engagement while playing. You did a great job—GG! ❤

While this started a little slow, the original music helped set and build the tone right away. The dialogue and events were a little confusing and I wasn't quite sure what was going on exactly; this helped contribute to the tone of the story, in it's own way, but could have been a little tighter.  

The combat was very interesting - I enjoyed the use of dice and the way the different abilities worked together; looking out for high rolls to use Shank with afterwards felt rewarding. The artwork and presentation of the battles was very good as well! The fights did become a little shallow, but I would love to see it expanded upon some day with more abilities and more interactions and strategies. The biggest failing is that the combat didn't explain itself all that well (and the dice roll too slowly!).

The combat and the sense of atmosphere, conveyed by the music and custom art assets, were the strongest aspects of this game. Well done; Death to the Emporor!

Well, I do love a good 'King in Yellow' reference. 
So, I like the theme for this game, it's very unique and oozes with dark, surreal fantasy vibes. The issue is that I wasn't really sure what was supposed to be happening or what I should be feeling about it. The end was very surreal and a bit drawn out, again leaving me questioning what the story was trying to convey.
As for the gameplay, I thought it was very interesting! I've never really played anything with these kind of dice rolls and they added a good amount of tension to the combat. I also liked the insecurity that came with ingesting unknown potions and the fact you can interact with the enemies in other ways than just fighting.
Overall, I think this is a really interesting project. With some expansion, polishing of the text, and a clearer 'path' or 'goal' for the pilgrim, I think this could have a lot of promise.