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(+2)

Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!

Being that this game is primarily a visual novel, I chose to do what I normally do for visual novels: focus on the writing to ensure lines are well written and that the logic of the story makes sense. However, I opted to not go about writing down every line I felt had a writing problem and instead just brought those things up while playing. You'll be able to see them in the VOD. Instead, I chose to focus on the story's logic and... honestly, there are some huge problems with it.

First and foremost, one of the things we learn early on is that students have to be both doctors and engineers to "work in this field." Since they'll be in this school for 10 years, I assume this means that after graduation they would then be able to "work in this field" and that the requirements given  have to be obtained before you can start in this school. This would mean having a doctorate and a diploma. I also assume that when you refer to "being a doctor" you specifically mean to be a physician, as otherwise there are a myriad of fields of study that produce doctorates (which is what you need to become a doctor) where you're not a physician.

Except there are two problems here. First and foremost, it typically takes 7 years to get a doctorate to be a physician.  If the characters are 28 when in their last year, this means they were 18 or 19 at the start. This means that to have a doctorate just to get into the school, they would've had to have spent years already studying both medicine AND engineering. In short, they would literally have to all be child geniuses to be where they are which is just so unlikely. So that's already a huge fail in logic.

Another problem is that when you become a physician, you have to take an oath known as the Hippocratic Oath. To boil it down, the Hippocratic Oath demands that physicians will not do anything unethical. This would include doing things that would intentionally cause harm to their patients. or even to people in general.  What this story suggests is that all of these people, after becoming physicians, abandoned their Hippocratic Oath. Besides the fact that doing so would see their doctorates revoked, meaning they'd no longer be physicians and thus would no longer have the qualifications to "work in this field," this is just something that feels insulting to physicians in general. Even in the context of this story, I have a difficult time believing that these people (who, again, have to be child geniuses) would all abandon that oath. It doesn't make sense. I would recommend dropping the idea that you need to be a physician and even an engineer, and rather change it to be that you have to show an aptitude in these fields instead.

I also would argue that literally including a currently living person in the game under the idea that they also went to this school is a bad idea. Why? Because it's so easy for someone to talk about this game's story then for someone else to take that out of context and then spread misinformation about that person. Now you suddenly have a potential libel issue going on. While I appreciate and love the call back to this person's work, you would be far better off changing both the person and the things they made to something made up. You can still do things in a way to make the call back, but don't use their actual name.

Next, I would argue that a deli slicer (what you called a meat slicer) is more well known than a dough roller machine. Deli slicers are far more common and are typically seen more by the public eye. Heck, you wouldn't even use a typical dough roller for donuts but rather a donut cutter roller. Dough rollers are more for bread, pie and pastries. Also, donuts are typically fried instead of baked (they can be baked, but it's less common). Given all this, you would be better off changing it from donuts to something like tarts.

With this all covered, there are some other things I wish to give thoughts on. First, why is it that Harry is the only person in the main group who has artwork? Why don't the others? Heck, why do Marcus and the currently living person have artwork before them? Why was I asked to save early on, given a single line of text and then asked to save again?

Lastly, I know this is intended as a type of visual novel but I feel like there's no gameplay for the player. The only time we get to move around is when we visit people (speaking of, I broke the first visit room. You can walk into the wall and climb all over it. Even more confusing is that doing this is the only way to reach the water cooler), and it doesn't provide anything. You'd be better off making this game in something like Renpy, where all you'd need is the text and the artwork. At least there, there's no expectation of having some sort of control.

Finally, I'd argue that the very first idea suggested is actually a really good one. It just needs more iteration on it (No joke, I told my stream how to make that idea work way better. I won't repeat it here, but legit I had people ask me if I was a serial killer because of how quickly I improved the idea)

And that's all I got. Good luck with your game!

Thanks for playing my game and for the detailed review! I'd appreciate it if you post the vod in the comments of the game page :)

I'll answer everything.

1) I'm afraid there was a misunderstanding. They meant that they'll need to have the same skills as engineers doctors (physicians as you mean but doctors is more common, at least as far as I know) to be able to create a torture device that accomplishes the goal of keeping the victim alive for as long as possible and all that. Not actual diplomas and all that.

2) Szymanski? I emailed him before going along with any of it and when he was on board with the idea I wrote the scene and did all the events work then recorded it and sent it to him, he liked it! He already has lots of messed up games like Butcher's Creek and Fingerbones, so yeah don't worry about that :)

3) At least according to my knowledge and media and all that, I've seen dough rollers more frequently... Used as weapons in cartoons or in movie scenes showing the mother baking or something like that. Also ah crap forgot that donuts are fried even though I've made them myself, but hey at least a dough roller was still used to make them XD

4) Only Harry has a bust cuz there was not enough time to draw for the rest of the group, it was made for a game jam and the game was long as is unfortunately. We do plan on handling that among other things in the future (hopefully).

5) You can walk into a wall? Ah dammit which one? 😭

And yeah there is indeed minimal gameplay, wanted the story to progress linearly. Will probably add choices somewhat in the future in case I make a Steam release. Also I never learned Renpy cuz I never thought I'd make visual novels, I love RPG Maker, and I hate Python XD

6) The hydraulic press thing? Or the deli slicer? How would you get the press to work? 👀

As for the slicer, it'll be used in the sequel if we end up making one.

(+1)

Hearing that you contacted Szymanski and had his approval to include does make me far less concerned. I always try to keep legal stuff in mind since it's something most developers don't think of. Over the years with this event, we've had quite a few entries where I've brought up potential legal ramifications as I want to ensure those who take part in the event don't cause trouble for themselves.

I'm also glad to hear that some of my logical concerns were a matter of wording choices. For the one regarding skills needed, I think that could use some re-writing to ensure the objective you have gets across. I'm also glad to hear that more characters will have stuff to do.

One thing I didn't include in my post, which some in my stream felt to point out, was the fact that despite us being in a school meant to teach us how to torture people... we didn't get to do anything like that. I think it'd be great if, before you get to the part of the final assignment, we get to spend some time as students and... well, get to torture people. This could help add more gameplay while keeping the linear progression.

The wall I could walk on was in Szymanski's room.

As for the device I felt could be made better, I'm referring to the hydraulic press. Instead of only five pieces, it could be dozens of them with each being able to be done on their own. Just to explain what went through my head (before you can see the VOD), I'll use just one part of the body. Assuming the person is strapped down, you could make a small press for each part of a finger, which alone makes it at least 15 pieces per hand (one for each jointed section and then one for the main part of the hand), then repeat this idea on every limb with joints acting as separations. This could absolutely ratchet its ability to torture up as now instead of doing a single limb, you're doing just small pieces of it... writing this out, I now worry I actually may have been a serial killer in another life. XD

I'm glad that things are more clear :)

Good idea with having a scene of when they were in normal classes and such, maybe as a flashback so it doesn't break the story

And ow ow ow ow that's a horrifying idea (in a good way)! Maybe you were indeed a serial killer at some point XD