| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fan Favorite | #87 | 2.121 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Hi there! Here's a video of me playing through this entry, and I'm going to release my full opinions of each after the results for the first round have been published. Until then I won't let on my judging score or overall review, but you can still watch my playthrough if you'd like! Cheers. :)
(It's in 2 parts, sorry. My stream cut out half way through.)
Part 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1106584619
Part 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1106587065
Hi there, PhoenixGirl1!
I'm Cash, one of the judges for the RPG Maker MZ Jam, and I received your game to judge for Round 1.
Since Round 1 is finished, I am giving a review of each game without scores. The below is my review of your game without a score. :)
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REVIEW DISCLAIMER
Dear developer! Thank you for making this game :) Here's my disclaimer I'm placing before all my reviews - I appreciate all games, and I consider every creative work a gift from the artist to the audience. The very fact that you made something is worth celebrating! Being a judge of this game, as was stipulated in the rules, I had to play at least up to the first existing hour of every entry and judge the game on that alone - no more than that! If any gamebreaking bugs were found, the game would be disqualified, and I was to judge the game based on the submitted entry by the deadline - without any additional notes. Here is my overall impressions of the game. Again - thanks for creating it! I appreciate every entry, that you gave it your all, and I encourage you to do what you love - if that means making more games, then please do so! Don't let my (admittedly sometimes too brutal) feedback deter you from making future games - I really want you to succeed! Much love, Cash <3
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CASH REVIEWS: "Cavilance" by PhoenixGirl1
My first impression of the game was that it used a lot of standard RPG Maker graphics. It did look quite cosy, though. The main character, Cavilance, looked quite cool with those glasses.
There were some quite humorous descriptions, without full stops at the end, and some lines that seemed like references to jokes but that I couldn't understand, but they were quite funny anyway. I did find myself laughing near the beginning. :)
This game did have quite a few nicely mapped interiors that looked quiet lush.
There were some funny dialogue pieces as well. I just wish that there were full stops after sentences XD
There were a lot of lines that didn't seem to amount to much story-wise, and although it's light in tone, I still expected a little bit more. There was a repeated joke in every shop about closets being scandalous and getting caught looking in closets and it got quite repetitive :)
There were a lot of dialogue, for example the shopkeeper, that didn't seem necessary at all. I didn't understand the plot with goblins and stuff. Maybe I didn't get far enough into the game to know what was going on in the story but I struggled to understand what was going on. The pig in the shop was cute, though.
In my opinion, the game spent too much time dilly dallying around in the first town. I wanted to know what the story was! But anyway, sometimes a linear RPG is nice.
Most of the battles were just about spamming attack, since there was nothing else to use.
There were some plots with Cadence and a tree monster and stuff that I didn't quite understand. Mostly, the story was quite incomprehensible. There was a bit of meta humour but I don't think it contributed to the story that much.
I could see these characters being in a better story where they serve as buddy cops, maybe? But there needs to be a series of events that I can follow, where I understand the mission, and I know what each character wants and why. I didn't quite know exactly what was going on.
There was a funny little game show segment that was quite fun! This was the kind of off-the-wall stuff that was quite hilarious and well-done. I wish I would have stayed in that funny part for much longer, or even made it the entire game! An adventure in a vegas-style world filled with vapid game show hosts and liars.
The game show asked questions about the story but I forgot what the brother's name was because I have ADHD and the details just went straight past my brain XD
However, I got stuck in a particular town for a very, very long time and then I didn't know how to progress. The music repeated over and over again and I didn't yet get to the point where I could continue.
It was at this point that I just went around and around in circles and didn't realise where I had to go. I felt like I was going a bit silly in the head.
I ended up spending the final 15 minutes of the game just going around and around in circles and getting frustrated. T_T
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
My overall thoughts about the game was that if this was a first game, it was a really nice first game! Keep going. It's very important in games to properly signal where the player should go. To design it in a way where it's obvious how to progress. There are flashes of promise here, however I couldn't help but feel that I was getting claustrophobic! Hoping that in future, you will create more and more amazing games in your journey <3
Hey Cash! Thanks so much for the review! This was actually the first game I have ever made, (I made it a full game too although there are plenty of spelling errors and bugs here and there. ) I know for a fact I need to balance the battling system better and I honestly didn't realize how much meta-humor I ended up putting in the game. XD But yes, this game is VERY self-aware.
Regarding the repetitive joke for the closets being scandalous, in the long run after the game jam was done, I knew I wanted to post this on Steam and have the scandalous closets turn into an achievement like "You inspected every closet in the game! How Scandalous!"
I saw the video of you playing through my game and regards to knowing about those goblins and what the whole deal with that was you ended up skipping the cutscene that would explain more about that. When Cadence asks "Do you want me to explain what happened?" There was a yes or no option and you selected "No" so that ultimately skipped the cutscene. I think in the future for story direction, I should make that cutscene unskippable.
For the game show, technically you can quit to the title screen and reload your last save. Since the game saves right before entering the game show area. I already have a way to make that more obvious by changing where the game will save and have the host mention it at the beginning the first time a player enters the area.
Funny you mention buddy cops because there was an optional battle in the first town after getting Cadence and Beatrice in your party where you're pretty much-playing cops and robbers with one of the kids.
For what to do in the second town, it was mentioned the moment you enter the town to gather intel. I'm already trying to find a way to add a hint system option for the player if they need direction on what to do to progress the story.
Too bad you couldn't make it to the fox village, but you wouldn't have been able to make it there anyway since there is a progression block in the second town that I didn't realize when playtesting.
All in all, Thank you for playing! I am looking into all these bugs and going through all the dialogue for the game and fixing the many, MANY errors. This has been a great learning experience for me, and hopefully, I can have a fully polished game updated after the game jam.
So I'm not sure if I need to write a long review of every issue since I did sort of go over the issues with you already.
A few things: Instead of having the autosave be before the warp, you could consider in having the autosave be in the question area.
The debug item I made? You might want to make that.
Definitely try to balance your gear a bit better.
Also, that buff skill for the entire party uses MP, but is in the TP section. Especially for someone like me who has a harder time with colors, certain shades of blue and green look the same since I identify colors by context and 'lightness' (if you were to turn on grayscale filter and the two colors look the same or very similar, I won't be able to tell the difference between them without context clues).
You might want to make the strawberries feel less tedious to farm. Maybe have a third upgrade that produces high quality strawberries that give you more strawberries each time.
Really reconsider the passability options of some characters because it looks odd and ends up being a bit more immersion breaking than it helps. (Especially since later you don't do the same thing despite having the same potential problem). You could have your character go "pardon me, sorry, just passing through" or something while you use some sort of method to allow the player to pass through so that they can get past stuck points. For example, for Travis, if you have him passable due to getting stuck, you can instead have it so that the movement route "Skips if Cannot Move".
For the children, you can have a "event touch" trigger where they ask you to please move so that they can keep playing and where they stop the chasing while in that stuck state. Or perhaps have an event touch where the player dodges out of the way with the direction depending on what part of the map they are on, turns on a switch, then causes another event to have the player say something like: "I should stay out of their way" before self switching.
Hey Al!
Thanks again for playing through the game and searching for all those bugs! It helps me spot things that I normally wouldn't have. (I'm Still amazed you persevered through that boss knowing you'll be trapped in the room right after).
For autosaving in the question area is a good idea, it might just make more sense to the player and it'll play out smoother.
Balancing gear is gonna be a bit difficult in order to keep the battle fair but I also see what you mean, I'll do my best on that.
Speaking of that buff, I meant to have it in the MP section but just forgot to switch it, that's something I'm definitely going to fix so thanks for pointing that out.
Your right about the strawberries, I want the players to have a chance of getting the items and skills they want in that area, so adding another expansion that would give 3 strawberries instead of 1 is a good idea, and making the tiles underneath them passible would work, I might just have to remove the text that appears when there is an empty plot to make it easier for the player to collect the strawberries.
When I saw you pass through the people who have the "through" option on I admit it did look pretty strange, so I will work on that. Might have the player just jump out of the way for the kids. As for Travis, I might just take that option off entirely since there's no real way for the player to get stuck around him.
Other than the 2 progression blocks, I'll be working on that. As well as the many, MANY Spelling and grammar errors you loved to point out, that can be fixed and I might just add a few flavor text to some other objects for the fun of it.
Thank you for playing through the whole game! (7 hours is not what I was expecting lol ) And thanks for teaching me how to make a specific skill ineffective against bosses. It was a lot simpler than I thought.
Good luck with your game as well, I do plan on playing through it soon.
From what I saw on Sin's stream I really enjoyed your story, and the set up. I'm looking forward to playing it myself ^.^ You did a great job creating a full game in such a short amount of time! <3
Thank you for the kind words Siryn! QvQ
I can't wait to hear your review once you get the chance to play the game. There is, unfortunately, a progression block in chapter 2, before the dungeon, so that might be as far as you could go, but it should still be around 2 hours of fun! .....hopefully ^.^;
Losing sleep in order to make a full game for the jam sure was fun lol
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