Game was free, I guess you get what you pay for.
I'm not trying to sound like an asshole here but this game is terrible as a game.
The Gameplay loop is un-fun and requires a lot of back tracking to the van to constantly save after every little thing you do because you don't know if some terrible gameplay of clipping up against the least scary spider of all time will just 1 shot this man who's made out of tissue paper and gum.
I get what you're trying to do it's clearly inspired by resident evil and there are some parts where yeah I really felt the vibe but it was just for a flash and then it was gone. It would've been nice if maybe the van travelled around as a mobile save station.Maybe if quests were a bit more guided properly you could use completion of certain parts as flags to move the van.
The Dialogue of this game is absolutely terrible, it's too long it's full of meaningless speech that isn't written with purpose so it just leads to alot of skipping through dialogue until you see objective based words. There are so many books to pick up from shelves and alot of them can't be read because they aren't finished and give an error for that.
I really don't think dumping exposition into the books is the way to tell whatever story you're going for here. You should do more showing and less telling. I mean even when it comes to the environment, the detective town before even going to the other area with the van is just a ghost town with no one in it and it makes you ask "Why is this guy even living here". Also the presentation of the detective apprentice feels hard to believe to be honest it feels like a mislead interpretation of what becoming a detective is like.
The game doesn't explain its self very well in terms of questlines, to the point it feels like there isn't any. It feels like a generic RPG maker game where you're wandering around a giant sandbox of stock assets until you hopefully do something to advance. But the gameplay loop just ends up being you slowly checking every single book shelf box and object one after the other in the least seamless way as possible it's a chore and kills the atmosphere.
The game feels like a test bench of just random systems that were being experimented with and just dropped onto itch.io one day. I mean you'll run into a guy and apparently he's just some addict dude on the street but he talks to you. Otherwise he looks normal, but the next guy you meet is a zombie for some reason?? OK, I guess we have those in this game now. It's now a zombie game, even though there's only like 1 zombie in this whole thing with red eyes.
Maybe being indistinguishable is intentional, maybe it's like the plant based bio weapons from resident evil or something but there just needs to be more guided, narrative establishment before throwing players out into the wild something anything.
It just has you thinking, "man, was this an adult game or like a weirdly empty visual novel thing?". Because where's the scenes, the only time I finally came across something was the mirror scene with the pink one and that was good but honestly the text was in the way like 90% of the time. Just add a wait section so theres nothing in the way for a bit before throwing more text on screen.
There was some random chick by a tree and it was suggested there's some kind of memory viewer or scene viewer but its nowhere to be found in the game idk.
I'm really not trying to tear you down on this one creator but, my honest feedback is. Localize the level design to smaller less sprawling expanses and make these compact zones more meaningful and communicate the intentions/player direction more clearly. Add a gallery, it would help a lot. The aimless wandering made me want to quit so many times. Not because of difficulty but boredom.
Give the player more options to save in different locations besides the van its too much back tracking. If the inspiration is Resident Evil I think you must be forgetting that RPD's main hall is a centralized area with zones branching off of it and the level design basically guides you in a big circle that at anytime allows you to easily navigate back to the center.
Lock in on what your themes and intientions are for your game, and deliver on the story based upon that. They just need to be polished (or exist idk if there really are any thematic elements here). What is the viewer/player supposed to feel at every moment. I don't think playing some sinister music and cartoonishly red screen tint is enough.
There was only like one moment where it seemed like the game was trying to introduce the player to these hostile enemies. Where it basically did an RE4 reference to being in a house and seeing some dude who seemed like a regular village dweller go hostile and try to kill you but that scene is practically optional and doesn't make things clear enough that everything is now a threat.
This is too all over the place. I recommend adding a plugin for omni directional movement or something too because shooting the gun can feel kinda jank and aiming the flashlight. Sure maybe restricted movement can help horror but I don't feel horror for this game just nuissance design.
Currently: 3/10
The Slime girl was the best part. Until she did that weird neck thing idk.
Viewing post in Dianthus - The Mark of Lust v1.0 comments
Going to break this down by each segment to give you a proper answer to this. But if you want a TL;DR...
The game isn't finished, this isn't a beta or an alpha it's a staple everything together, get the main story events working properly then go back to the beginning and start trimming and cleaning up. Money is tight but I spend what I can into it.
So don't complain about a game that isn't finished, or complain about a game that just isn't your taste.
With that said, let me break down each section in more detail.
"Gameplay Loop"
The gameplay loop isn't finished, many elements haven't been added yet either. The reason the areas are large in Trighbon is the first boss would chase you around the area similar to Ao oni but that got pushed back to the final release as I just wanted to get the basic story beats done. The save issue was brought up before and I already know of it.
"Got one shot"
The spider boss is one of the easier in the game. The reason you got one shot is either: It hit you when the sprites were active or you didn't have enough HP to survive his basic attacks.
One part of gameplay here is exploring and gathering materials + herbs you find in the environment, another is building armor to reduce damage taken. The armor needs buffed and more sets need added, which is being worked on. Again the one shot or high damage issue has already been addressed and being worked on.
"Inspiration"
Resident Evil 4 was one inspiration but not my main one. If I said what the main inspiration was it would be obvious what your fighting so I don't want to spoil that. Having the van move sounds like a good idea on paper but there's not much tension when you have a safe area and save spot you can go to regularly. A few new saves were added and some are being planned and there is a journal system that's being worked on and it will give you basic directions of where to go I just haven't finished it yet.
"Move the Van?"
Completion of certain parts to move the van happens in a few select areas already. The other saves are near the salesman or book trader in select areas only.
"Terrible Dialogue"
Dialogue was already planned to be reworked but it's not as bad as your making it out to be. Most dialogue will be the same as the beginning conversations with Abby and Shane where you can just choose to progress story instead of listening to it all, but you didn't bring this up for some reason? Not sure if you thought it was mandatory but I can tell you it's not.
Books are primarily for trading to the book trader for rare items. There is no exposition dumping in books because the "lore" in those books is optional and not important to the main story of this game, just an optional read for those who care.
Ignoring the "show don't tell" section. Games not finished, NPCs have already been made to the town and just need to be added. Again, games not finished not even in alpha.
"Detective Apprentice"
Glad you noticed the detective apprentice is arrogant and only in it for the money and entertainment. Almost like he was given the job by family and only looking to get a paycheck. This was partially explained in some dialogue but you either skipped over it or it wasn't implemented. I would need to go back and look to make sure.
"Game doesn't explain itself"
I already know the game doesn't explain much, this complaint was made before and I answered this further up when I said games not finished, just trying to get main story beats done before additions,trimming and polishing.
"Generic Sandbox"
The game is focused on exploration, when entering a new area you are told to explore to see what you can find, your even told this in the intro area. So yes wandering/exploring the area is part of the game. Your also told EXACTLY which buildings to go to or which direction to go during briefing, the only problem is in Trighbon where the one house door is locked for no real reason, I need to leave it unlocked so people can go straight to the mansion if they really choose to. If you don't like these types of games that's one thing, but don't claim it's a problem when multiple times you are told to explore your surroundings. On top of skipping dialogue I'm not surprised you got lost or stuck.
You don't have to check every area. I can only think of one key that is under a table with no real explanation but that key was moved in 0.8 which isn't ready yet.
"Bunch of random experiment systems"
Wrong, I wanted to make a shooter game with puzzle elements which is what I'm making. I chose to make a shooter after seeing an older game use it and I knew it'd be fun to make one and RPGM is the easiest engine to use and the only engine I know how to work with.
"Just some addict dude"
Wrong. You missed an event explaining that, you'll find him again in the slums area and he tells you something interesting that I won't spoil here for others who may read this.
"Zombie?"
Nope. Not a zombie, won't spoil what it is but it hasn't been explained well in the story as the dialogue needs reworked as stated above. A majority of enemies in the game have red eyes but it's hard to see with the pixel art and areas being dark.
"Indistinguishable?"
Nope. Not bio weapons. In this game you are a detective, I'm not going to spell out the answers, your suppose to explore the area and figure it out as you progress. But again can't say much here because game isn't done, story needs work, main story beats work first etc etc.
"GAME Novel?"
It's a game, not a visual novel. I've said on other sites don't think of this as a typical adult game, scenes are more spread apart then in most other games and some are hidden.
"Scenes?"
The slime scene was one of the first I had made and it's one I like the least. It was on the chopping block even, it's not that good and the thing never appears in the game again after. It came out of the sink, not the mirror but I get what your saying. The text was moved to the top of the screen rather than the bottom which makes watching it easier.
"Random Chick"
She isn't suppose to be there until you've completed the demo and the recollection room unlocks so, whoops on that.
"Tearing down and level design"
Really odd way of saying that, like you only made this to attack my game and bring my project down rather than just say you didn't have a good time with a game that isn't finished or even in alpha. I doubt you did, but it comes off that way. Levels are based around exploration as stated before, the reason the mansion is a large map is because the lower section used to have three buildings but I ended up removing them for reasons.
"Aimless wandering"
Again, other people who have played this never had this issue or made a complaint about it being an issue. Maybe you skipped through the text that gave you basic directions, I don't know.
"More save locations"
Already addressed.
"RE Inspiration"
Nope. Only the RE4 Plagas and a small section of the intro were inspirations. Never played a RE game in my life, only seen playthroughs of RE4. So I have no idea what your talking about when you say RPDs Main hall.
"Themes"
Already answered this above, game not finished, story plans etc etc.
"What does the player feel?"
No idea. Your suppose to slowly put the pieces together but the story/game isn't complete.
"Music and red tint"
The music is perfectly fine, the red tint is the sunset brother. Not sure what exactly you thought it was but it's sunset. It's an orange tint, not red by the by.
"One Moment"
Yes, because that first town was the entire game at one point and was going to be it. As I said, the iron juggernaut was going to stalk you and chase you around the area along with other enemies sprinkled in. That enemy intro was the last thing I made before deciding to A: Make the game longer. And B: Get all the main story beats in place and functional before adding, trimming and polishing.
"Too all over the place"
Games not finished, I hate beating this horse but that's why it feels empty/unfinished.
"Omni Movement"
Never liked that, it makes things very janky because of how RPGM is designed. The flashlight looks awkward and the gun gameplay wouldn't work properly. I've tried it before and I have no intentions of rebuilding my game around it when it's this far already.
"Shooting the Gun"
Shooting works fine, the flashlight issue has already been fixed by adding a better flashlight and two lantern items which illuminate an area around you.
"Nuissance Design"
I won't beat the dead horse anymore.
Originally there was two more scenes but those were cut and pushed back. I work on this game when I can and put money into it when I can. Tilesets are expensive and not worth putting money into, anyone using RPGM will tell you this.
Sorry you didn't enjoy it, if you put money into it just ask for a refund. I'm not going to ask you to stick around until it's done, if you don't like it then that's that. Just know that what you played was an unfinished project with many of your issues already being worked on or plans have been made to work on them while others aren't problems and are simply not your taste.
Didn't mean to dump text here and I apologize if I came off as antagonistic.