As I stated while live, I have no notes, honestly amazing work! From the story to the art and gameplay it was a blast! The story made me invested in the world and characters and the combat was simple yet challenging! Even the subtle details of little sounds or effects were wonderful!

I was only able to try the story mode but I'm sure chaos mode is equally as good as I saw it's a more in-depth version of the combat.

Time Stamped VOD

Heya!

Really nice game! I feel like CharMaeMengMing below me said a lot of the stuff I wanted to say though 😆 But I really like how simple the gameplay is, while at the same time requiring you to use your brain. I don’t think I’ve seen this specific type of gameplay before either. Only reason I’m not still playing and instead writing this comment is because I reached the end of both modes…

But yes, ditto on the amount of highlighted text. Love the dialogue tooltips though, it reminds me of FF2.

For feedback:

I wished that when the Lesser Keeper boss switched to the… harbinger? The harvest? The enemy type that deals AOE damage and steals XP from all emblems. That one 😆 I wished that when it became that type, its “level” would also visually switch to reflect the damage it’ll do. Sometimes I would forget that it’s an AOE and not a “one-on-one” attack because it stayed at 16. Either “3” (I think it was 3 damage to everyone), or perhaps a big 3 with a tiny “x6” similar to other enemy damage modifiers (with 6 being the number of player emblem alive).

It took quite a bit of time (at least 30 seconds) for the game to launch the first time, to the point where I was a bit concerned. Like, the icon wasn’t even showing up on my task bar while loading. And I have a pretty good machine if I say so myself. I know nothing about optimization in that regard, but if shortening the launch time (assuming it’s not a problem on just my end) isn’t possible, maybe add a loading bar to reassure players? It was only for the first launch though. The second time the icon showed up early enough that I wasn’t concerned (and it overall didn’t take more than 10 seconds).

I actually didn’t mind the sketchier art during the choice/NVL section. I felt like it was its own thing without necessarily clashing with the rest of the game? I could totally see you refining the linework and leaving it colorless for example.

Really enjoyed how there were always reminders of how the game works accessible during combat + reminders of your solaces and other such bonuses

Oh and while you can skip most conversations/cutscenes, you can’t skip the dialogue mid-fight which can make replaying the story mode a bit of a slog, especially when they’re “tutorial” dialogues.

Also I’ve accidentally discovered that double-clicking a node/battle will make me move there as if I held left-click, which is very nice but I wish the tutorial told me about it (maybe it did and I just have fish brain though)

Besides that I love Weapon. Ngl That one screenshot of her and Magic really picked my interest at first 🫢 I want to love Spirit but I feel like he’s going to stab me in the heart right when I start thinking everything will be alright 🥹 especially if I believe what that bird is saying…

Genuinely had a blast with this game! Every time I thought "Hmm... wish the game had this option available", the next scene introduced those very mechanics lol! Happened with

• Rock, paper, scissor mechanics
• Dragging Emblems to the frontline vs constantly clicking between them & the enemy

The overall pacing of Battle, Difficulty, & Mechanics was ON-POINT, but it did have me questioning why Enemies aren't affected by environmental modifiers...! Visually, the Emblems cracking/breaking  was extremely satisfying!

I was pleasantly surprised with the Visual Novel portions of the game, too. The characters & dialogue all felt very natural.

A couple things to improve:

• For me, it was difficult to remember the difference between the Level & the Health number. The Level is highlighted as the most important number (it's bigger, it's shinier, and it's front & center), while Health - in comparison - is tiny. Visually, I'd want something that helps keep mindful of it... maybe using a red meter around the Emblem (similar to the XP meter, but with line breaks to visualize the number of HP left?)
  Not quite sure how to have Health be more visually appealing like the Critical Hits are (like the shield buff)
• I wasn't fond of the targeting system angling THROUGH other Emblems. For the visually impaired (or those streaming for 24hrs lol), it makes more sense for the line to be pointing straight to the enemy.
• Sound Design. I loved the occasional voice lines from the characters! For a more immersive experience, I'd love if we could hear footsteps, clothes rustling... things of that sort during scenes!
• Throughout the playthrough, I encountered an overabundance of highlighted text. I feel like I was spoiled with the Highlighted Text that had Information Tooltips because when I encountered just regularly colored text, it left me wondering... well, why is that important? (I recall Spirit saying something like "One last detail..." & wondering "why emphasize that at all?", for example).
  So, I do think the amount of colored text should be pulled back: to emphasize Gameplay Mechanics or Tooltip important information about the world/language.
• I do wish that we had fuller art for the Choice sections of the games!

I was at my wits end since this was the final game during my 24hr Charity Stream, but it was a pleasure having you pop by! (I also JUST noticed the Streamer Thank You's at the end. We love to see it!)

You can find my VOD here. Timestamps available:

Oooh I'm so excited to play this one in full when it's out!

I'm a huge fan of visual novels and this one's got the addictive gameplay loop to boot. Very much appreciate the endless mode and difficulty options for those who are here for story. The art and UI are gorgeous. The tutorial is integrated into the narrative, so it takes a little time for the full width of combat to be laid out. But all of the beats here are so, so promising and I cannot wait to see how it scales with the next chapters!!

VOD (from 00:08:50 to 01:29:30)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2561690458

Hello~! I'm so happy that I got to play this as one of the streamers for FBQ this year!

I don't want to spend a whole bunch of paragraphs gushing and restating anything my co-host and I go into during the VOD but just WOW WHAT A GAME! I really can't state enough how much this clicked with me and got me engaged! The balance between the Visual Novel and Roguelite halves of the game are simply wonderful - it feels like both sides got equal love and attention that makes the whole game just stand strong. The writing, art, and flow of the Visual Novel sections are just fantastic and I found myself so invested in our trio of characters. The partial voice acting was such a pleasant surprise as I go into these games fairly blind and I think all the VA's are just wonderful.

I knew when I saw this game for FBQ I was gonna love it but I can't state enough how much I really enjoyed it! Below there's a link to my VOD where you can see my initial feedback thoughts as I played. Hopefully you get a kick out of it! (｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ Absolutely going to support this project further and buy it when it comes out!

VOD Link: 

The timestamp for Emblems: Sunless Vow is 2:11:35 - 2:53:14 & 3:07:30 - 4:16:40! I have a bit of an unrelated yap in the middle so please feel free to skim past that. o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

I enjoyed playing this! The art and design is really cool. I liked the story so far and really interested in how it progresses. Big fan of the attack predictions. Overall the battle mechanics seemed easy to pick up and it was fun to balance/plan out my attacks. I think the only hiccup I ran into was not knowing how to use my crits when I picked "Orderly" in the chaos menu (thanks for explaining it to me during the stream!). I also appreciate the heads up about the auto-play scene and mentioning that it'll be in the menus for replay. I liked the shops and the skill tree looks like it'll be interesting.  Looking forwarding to seeing how it develops!

VOD: https://www.youtube.com/live/DQ9kCwe3htg?si=NeeqiYvOnsyu7mop&t=2769

Beautiful art and music! I really enjoyed the story aspect of it, and the mystery in the story. I'm sure as the game continues to be developed we will learn more about our strong and honest knight and the spicy green magic user! I loved the fact that the characters were so well portrayed that it was easy to find likeable/unlikeable characteristics and they stayed true to the character! 

Hey! thank you for coming to my stream and watching the game directly.

I think you can rewatch the VOD for all my comments but I'd still like to write down my own thoughts.

Aside from what I mentioned on stream, for each feedback, the only issue I do feel could be worked on is bits of the UI. It could be polished better. Maybe better font choices for my poor eyesight or something along those lines. Beyond that, I REALLY struggle to give any real feedback and I hope the others can do a better job than me.

You made a great game, objectively. I practically sang praises for it as I was playing and went from slow reading to speed reading the text and ignoring the stream simply cuz that is how I naturally play and that is hard to get me to do. You made me actually LOCK IN and that's impressive. I WANTED to play more and any higher praise would be impossible. So please, keep working on your game, find the smaller things to perfect and I feel that this is a gem worth sharing with the world. Heck, if I somehow finish the full game, I'll be waiting excitedly for a sequel. It's been such a pleasure to play your game, thank you so much for making it.

LINK: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2555430603

PS: Etch my name into history! <3

I quite enjoyed this, and def am looking forward to the full release down the line. A lot of times when I'm playing a turn based roguelike I'm enjoying it in the moment but kind of just sitting there thinking "I could be playing Slay the Spire." or "I could be playing balatro." Which I mean as long as it's not in the level of I really don't see a point to play this over them isn't a bad thing. Calling back to games I love when playing other games is usually a good thing to me. That being said I bring that up merely because I didn't have that thought while playing this. We had rows of enemies and turn based moves, but it felt like its own thing enough that I wasn't just sitting there thinking about the other games I've played before, but instead just enjoying what you had there. It was really great sitting there playing something that truly felt like its own thing where I had to stop and think and my muscle memory from playing way too many roguelikes didn't just take over. And in general I was vibing with that gameplay so good job there.

I know you were there during my stream, so I know you also know that it always means a lot to me to see non-binary representation. I'm an openly non-binary streamer, so I was happy to see that, and had a lot of fun voicing over the characters in general but especially the enby one as I could just be a bit more myself. Overall the characters were fun, the game was fun, and hands down I think you are doing a great job with this.

You also mentioned there was a roguelike mode, which I really need to find time to mess with now that I know the basics of combat, but this game was already the only game that I ended up going over time because I really wanted to see it through. If there is anything else you would like to know for feedback just let me know. Same with if there is another demo of this you want me to check out as I'm def really curious about how this one turns out.

Fun characters, well written dialogue, and a clever combat system make this game really stand above the pack. I think with some trimming on the narrative side and a bit more efficiency in storytelling and balancing the game's pacing, this could definitely be a winner!!

Video review here: 

Hello, Mayshing here, co-host of FeedBackQuest, your game caught my attention with the pretty illustrative quality (being an artist myself, I appreciate those efforts) I archived my playthru. The work is quite polished, it's kind of getting up-there to compete with the AA titles, then it's going to require you to make your art as polished as they are and remove some of the sketchier quality stuff. I would say that would be a good consideration. The game play, game flow is excellent and really enjoyable. All the hints, reminders are easily accessible which is really appreciated. 

Honestly not much to nit-pick on this game, it's solid as it is, I would say get the demo to give alittle more would really hook people, half an hour is decent but felt like I only did half an hour of tutorial. lol WELL done tutorial stages nevertheless! I also spent half an hour trying to determine what kind of pairings we are having in the story. Successful characters. lol 

Hi ^^. I'm Suki, one of the streamers of visual novels participating in this amazing Feedback Quest 8! This game was the first to play on the stream. I didn't feel the hour I spent playing this game. The story itself is easy to follow, alongside with fun characters like the boy and girl who show up in the beginning, creating a good chemistry between them.

Furthermore, the gameplay itself is very intuitive, I didn't feel uncomfortable playing the game to face to the foes. The art and animations in the characters makes more immersive the story, and the backgrounds made me feel uncomfortable at the beginning but attracted for the mystery behind of that.

-Graphics; 9/10

-Gameplay Mechanics: 9/10

-Soundtrack: 8/10

-Story: 9/10

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!

So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.

This game was rather interesting to play. I like seeing visual novels that try to do things that aren't just visual novel stuff. The strategy elements of this are fun and take a lot of thought to work through. Each character has uniqueness in their combat, which is always a good thing to see. I've only played through the first area, but overall it's nice. 

In all honesty, it's a bit difficult for me to come up with any constructive feedback to give as I feel like this game is already well done in all aspects. It knows what it is and does it well, it has great visuals and sound, and as it continues on it keeps introducing new ideas to expand the gameplay. As such, I don't really have much I can give besides keep doing what you're doing! :D