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(+1)

Absolutely lovely so far! The art is wonderful, the music--while repetitive--is decent (at least it's not droning or annoying), the writing is good, just general kudos really! This doesn't feel like a parody/fan/inspired (or whatever you would call it) game, and I mean that in the best way possible. Without the spell names or name-dropping WW stuff, this is pretty much its own thing. I'm loving the characters so far, Audrey being my favourite (gotta love the catgirls and sciency types), so I can't wait for whatever comes with her and the rest next. 

My only qualms would be some weird UI stuff, like the navigation around the school being rather wack right now: there is no back-to-map button on the furthest-out view. I ran into the Grace soft-lock on my first run without having saved before the bug so I had to restart, at least that's only a few minutes of waiting through dialogue. The match mini-games are really cool but have an issue where the tiles take up an entire space so it's very difficult (since you have to move the mouse very quickly and precisely) to get certain diagonals where there is an adjacent tile either way from the diagonal. Lastly, as someone who only vaguely remembers the books and movies from my childhood: maybe describe what an "unbreakable vow" is and what it means to take one (especially in this case). I clicked the option during the bartender confrontation thinking it was a sort of show of goodwill on my part: "I will get you the resources, you have my word" sort of thing; instead bro turns around to do the reverse of that and instead does it so that bartender-man won't go back on his word. Why would he even go back on his word, and it's some sort of curse thing? At least you can repair your relationship with bartender-guy easily enough (seemingly a vow that will punish you if you go against it as a sign of mistrust isn't that big a' deal).

The biggest issue as I see it is the journey thing; it is so ludicrously punishing and doesn't really help the player much. It's a good prototype but there needs to be rebalancing and better map generation. I went back to play it again in order to write this comment but even then I felt that while it's a solid prototype, it needs polish and more work to be fun. The lack of animations (as in spell particle effects, one-frame attack animations, anything) and feedback (sound effects, particle effects (again)) really makes it feel like I'm playing a student project. The loot feels like you're getting nothing since it's just churned up into dust for spells. Seemingly there's a "crafting" system but I can only get to it by what seems to be a glitch, if you click the normal attack/stick button in combat it has a chance to bring up the crafting menu, which I never tinkered with unfortunately but it is there. Moving around the realm map is janky and needs some pathing so that you can move more than one tile at a time. The map generation not-irregularly will generate unwinnable maps, mountains in between the player and all the portals and the blue ore/crystals. If you scroll while in the map view, you may either zoom in or zoom out and bring up the log, this is likely just a bug or oversight but is annoying since the scroll/zoom increment is so small.

That may sound like a bunch of complaining but I'm serious when I say this game is good and doesn't have many issues; it's just I'm a neat-picky freak who has been a game-dev since they were a child so now sees the flaws in everything: my bad. 

I'll indulge myself a moment and say that I hate the MC, I've seen Magic Academy a few times but only started playing HGames with male MCs recently, and I was right about this guy: he looks pompous and acts douchy, that is initially grating but gets better when you get to make decisions which better shape him as a person (i.e. make him less of a stuck-up douche). As a character, I like that idea, as a person, he's the worst. But that's meant in good faith as while there's only a little of it so far, he seems to be at least reprehensible in the long run even if most of what's running is his mouth. I'm always harsher towards male characters though (as a lesbian who writes things with mostly female characters, shame on me), so if MC was a lady, I'd find it less bad on the onset. If there ever is an option to add a futa or female MC I'd be glad but with how much that would require more art and animation work, I'm fine with just the male MC, I'd rather have more meaningful content personally :P

My dearest apologies for such a long and droning comment, I do that sometimes when I like something ;^v^. I mean the best. Thanks for your work team Wild Pear Games!


TL;DR: great game, good characters, cool idea, some weird UI, the battle/realm hopping whatever is a cool idea with much need for development. Amazing job devs, keep up the amazing work!

(+1)

Thank you for your feedback! We are happy to know that you enjoyed our game so much that you wrote such a long review.

Yes, the Journey mode is a big experiment and we are currently working on improving it based on the feedback we've received.

The other unpleasant things like the strange UI behavior are mostly due to engine bugs that we are trying to fix.

Also, recently players found out why Grace's quest was breaking (if you talk to her instead of searching for her room). This will be fixed in the next version.

The character's personality fell victim to our initial concept - we planned a clearly defined plot, but over time, based on player feedback, we decided to make the character "formable."

Now, gradually, we are removing traces of his character from the plot, leaving room for it to be shaped through dialogue responses.

Basically, we suffer from banal things - lack of time and money. That is, now there are only two of us on the team and we spend our personal free time from work and our own money on the project, paying for the work of freelancers in those things that we cannot do ourselves. For example, we have to order VFX, sounds and animations - and this means that we must be sure of the content before we spend money on it, and not just our time.

For example, that's why, in the current version of Journey, the characters are static, and the interface is assembled on stubs and does not correspond to the general style.

Following our original intention, we still try to take player feedback into account as much as possible.

And every piece of feedback we receive gives us the strength to keep working.