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Syndicate Seven's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #1 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Fun | #3 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Innovation | #3 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Mood | #3 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Theme | #4 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Humor | #6 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Graphics | #6 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Average playthrough length
40 minutes
Completion game time
60 Minutes
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Comments
Stream of consciousness thoughts (long, sorry):
hadn't saved since turn 1 so basically starting over now. Alisia kicked off by missing 7 consecutive attacks. Great start
Closing thoughts:
The most interesting parts of this game are the mechanics, especially the berwick turn order and the strange pursuit mechanics that I never quite figured out. The dream choice at the start is also very interesting - it changes not just which of the challenges you face first, but also swaps out 2 of your 5 party members. Very interesting and probably leads to interesting replay value. I do wish there were an End Turn button like what Berwick Saga has - several times I had nothing to do with half my units while someone else was playing catchup or healing on a fort tile (5hp at a time...), and then sometimes Ruben would proc his skill and I'd have to tell him to wait AGAIN... minor annoyance but still an annoyance
The most fun part of the game is in the first few turns, which was pretty good at getting me to use everyone. As it goes on though, my party came to totally outclass the enemies outside of a couple of bosses and I was able to pretty much just hold forward. And boy is there a lot of holding forward. This is another entry with an enormous map and a huge amount of dead turns spent walking. I respect the times the game automatically repositioned my army after an event in order to either a) prevent an unfair ambush spawn situation, b) get my units to where they needed to be faster, or c) set up a more challenging position to face the new group of enemies - that was a good design decision I was always happy about whenever it happened.
At a certain point I was wishing I'd been given a bigger party to tackle multiple challenges at once, but towards the end I started to think that might not have been better. I'd end up walking, say, 10 units per turn across the map instead of just 5 while repositioning between zones. But at least I'd have been able to tackle multiple zones simultaneously, which might've saved time, maybe. In any case, my gut feeling was, this should've been shorter. I think the optimal experience for me would've been: start Boar, finish Rat, and then stop. After that the game was pretty much just walking. Would've missed out on the banger song in Snake though. Having different music for each zone was a great idea.
There was almost no story outside of the start and the (surreal) ending; it didn't get expanded on much, but I liked that the twist on the jam prompt was a mafia "empire" instead of an actual government. Points for creativity for sure. The spelling and grammar were very rough throughout this game, but it was mostly understandable.
This was a pretty interesting entry with a neat hook. Overall, solid! The units, skills and weapons could be cool in a full game, since they're all pretty distinct. Thanks for making this, and for hosting the jam!
My tier list of the units I used, ordered within tiers:
The gaps in competence were pretty vast except for the worst 2 units. Aguara was more useful for the first few zones and the ending, but was completely useless in Snake and Cat while Alisia performed well in those. Alisia only performed well in Snake, Cat and Frog, and was pretty much a liability in the others. Americo was good at everything except killing extremely high p.def units - and countering at 2 range I guess, but his bulk was so good it usually wasn't a big deal to take a hit and kill on the next player phase. Ruben was almost always tripling enemies safely from 2 range and proc'd his movement star skill at several useful times, but he also often didn't kill things even with tripling so he's between Americo and bottom tier. I don't think I need to expand on why Alfonzo is busted as hell. He oneshots enemies early on and twoshots them later. Even the bulkiest bosses are 3-4hko'd. He's relatively frail I suppose, but only relatively. I'm sure he could solo the game without too much trouble.
Also, how about that softlock!
Thanks for all the feedback man, I really appreciate all the positive things you noticed. There is a lot of things, so I will just adress a few that I feel like explaining a bit.
Indeed, I went with a "criminal empire" kind of deal, glad you liked the opening scroll, is a lot of text to read and I have been thinking on some ways to make it less "text heavy" but I also think is does a bit of rug pulling, because it can make you think that the map is gonna be palying out the events described but then is a completely different thing :D (I don't think you noticed it, but the report changes slightly based on the party picked)
I'll take note of all the bugs and give the script and descriptions another revision. Man, that nasty infinite new turn loop is a pain, I though I had squashed all intances of it. And sadly is part of the reason there isn't an End turn map command, it has the nasty issue of bugging the turns. Also Alfonzo not having access to the bag is also a bug D:
Regarding not being able to take out weapons from the bag, I hacked together an equipment system, so you can only take out weapons if can use them (and have "free hands", ie you have to store your bow then take out the new bow)... thinking about it, I should make the convoy allow you to trade the item directly.
Also, the stat rename, while can seem a bit superficial because they work as their original counterparts in principle, most of them have some reworked functionality, for example if you track P-Def and Vit, you will notice is not a simple 1-to-1 relation (even accounting for equipment P-Def bonus), same with all other secondary stats. I need to add goinza's bottom window for the stat description part, but I'm really really conservative when adding QoL plugins, so I go slowly adding them project to project. (I actually had your big unit map windowin the previous and forgot to copy it into this project) and yes, Fibonacci persuit is at play here :D
But I love your comment of finding out stuff by turn 40+ because that is the kind of design school I go for, I'm really not into the whole "explain every mechanic and feature of your game outright" I want to make the player find out stuff on their own as they get more into the game, I guess is a kind of old school thing. That is the mindset that inspired making the first choice kind of "I have no clue what this does" for the first time playing, but it easily makes sense for replays if you pay attention while playing.
But it not always works, I actually removed the effective description on weapons to make finding out what weapons work against what, mix into that replay value and that makes the boss weapons underwhelming at first sight. :( But if it make you scratch your head a bit I guess I kind of achieve my objective lol. And I'm not really always logical with it eaither because I do have that Skill info extension of Marky's Skill info window plugin explaing skills in depth haha. I need to work on picking a side for everything I guess.
On the ending, Eioneous is a demigod, he is a playable character in Rookie's Day that works as a FE3 Manakete, and all the feedback I got regarding him was that he was really busted and why did a mercernary company had a Demigod around? (Because he was barely adressed on that game's plot) so I took the chance to explain that in the ending as a "post-credit" scenes kind of thing, shameless plug to another Americo game is shameless ;)
PD: Dank Boar... is a Dankboi reference, I just like that guy it makes me laugh lol.
I skipped the opening scenes when I tried out the other dreams, so no, I didn't notice the story changed. That's cool
I suppose I understand the appeal of leaving surprises in the game and not wanting to be too hands-on in explaining every small detail, but my comment about learning basic things about the game 40+ turns in was definitely meant as a dig at the game haha. Maybe now that I've beaten the game I'm allowed some answers? :)
1-Handed and 2-Handed is basically a limit on weapons, shields and staves to equip. For example, Americo has a 2-handed sword, so he can't equip a shield or have another weapon in his inventory.
Meanwhile, 1-handed stuff allows to have off-hand equipment, examples in the game are Spear (1-handed) + Shield, Tome + Stave, 2 Staves, 2 swords and 2 axes (didn't get around implementing dual-wielding tough)
The boss weapons are effective against the blessings, following an elemental theme like you though :D You were on the right track. The secret idea, is part of the megaman inspiration for the map "kill boss-> use boss weapon" loop, it just wasn't executed that well on the current version :(
Each of the zone themes are original pieces by Forester, same with the title and ending theme. He also made the 16-bit player 1 remix. He is awemose like that, I will make sure to bother him about making the ost availible somewhere for people to enjoy it.
I cannot really say I have a preference of a starting zone, I tried to make each starting zone have a different feeling, but truly the only one with a strong gimmick is the Boar/Earth zone, because that one was the last one I made, also is the most consistant as a starting position even if the party is really limited healing wise. If you begin in another zone, the necromancers are actually a wildcard, because they can revive any mob from a previous zone.
The desert zone is actually another strong inital position, the bard's refresh works like FE4 so you can move pretty fast if you play with turn order and positioning, so it's not as bad as it seems at first.
Also, I love all my units, I just cannot pick favorites hahaha
Oh, I forgot to mention, Potions are meant for healing other people instead of yourself like vulnearies do, so they are the go to for parties with no healing. And the Angel Robe is bait for hoarders, because you need to kill everything and sell all boss weapons to get to 10k gold... is a dick move, I know.
This was a decently fun well put together map, and I was able to get through it eventually after playing cautiously. My biggest suggestion would be to add an end turn option to the game so I can end rounds early instead of telling each unit to wait if I'm having them do nothing each turn.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, may a ask on wich choice did you pick at the start for your run? And how did you feel on the party composition?
I'll take note of the suggestion for a future update or project using this turn system.
I had tried the top two choices and lost on them, and then succeeded on the run where I picked the middle left choice (where the other two party members was a horse bow and infantry staff). On the note of that party, I tried to equip the bow that I picked up on the map to the horse bow girl, but she didn't seem to be able to equip it. The party comp choices I played I had felt were pretty enjoyable, and I may have stuck with them if I had known to investigate the houses of the destroyed guardians afterwards since they carry a revive item. Maybe it'd be good to highlight that the areas are really worth investigating with a more flashy tile or something? Other thought I had was I wanted to save up for the most expensive item in the shop in the bottom right of the map, but I don't think I ever got up to 10k gold during my run.
Oh really nice to hear that you got to try different choices. Indeed Vanesa (F!Ranger) needs to hit a few Prof level ups to use the Boss bow, overall she should get there after 2 complete zones... unless the RNG goddess decided to curse your run or she wasn't killing enough.
Sadly the revive item was a late addition, to ensure that one could recover from losing units, so I didn't though of drawing more attention to the Sanctuary tile to point that one could visit it.
Actually buying the 10k item without selling stuff is not doable, there aren't enough enemies to get 10k gold even if you kill them all and go to the shop then. :D
Writing the music for this was a real fun treat. It's always a thrill to work with the Genesis bass, plus it was a neat challenge to compose an entire mini-soundtrack within 2 days.
I like your map design philosophy for this one and Rookie's Day. Very reminiscent of FE4, although with less incest and surprise BBQ parties. Looking forward to seeing where Americo's group finds themselves next.
Working with you was a pleasure my friend, and thank you for the kind words.
You rushing to complete the music so fast was really a huge push to make sure this project was complete on time and do justice to the amazing songs you made.