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A jam submission

The Null SlumberView game page

Various RPGMaker characters, from cover-art heroes to obscure battlers, explore a castle!
Submitted by Chromaji (@dragonicsdev) — 3 days, 2 hours before the deadline
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The Null Slumber's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#83.3493.867
Music#122.8293.267
Story#132.8873.333
Comedy#152.5983.000
Gameplay#172.6563.067
Overall#172.9443.400

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

Overall: A great little VN-style game with some cool aesthetic and functional spins on the usual RPG.

Gameplay: Love the board game-style overworld and the combo system in battle. I played on Storybook Mode and encounters were still challenging. It did get a little confusing figuring out which enemy I was targeting though, even with the indicator that appears after a little bit.

Music: Music packs do a nice job augmenting the dreary atmosphere of the castle and the cult resurrecting the dark lord.

Comedy: Nice blend of dramatic storytelling and comedy which I always love.

Graphics: The typical RTP and Aekashic graphics get a very nice boost from your beautiful VN-style character sprites. Love all the different expressions. Canary is also hot which is a nice bonus.

Story: A little shorter than I was expecting but I still really enjoyed it. Absolutely love the way "go on without me" is used at the beginning. Still messes me up seeing other people using the name Emvi after I used it in my first Harold jam entry two years ago. It's low hanging fruit but it always gets me.

Developer(+1)

Thanks very much! I'm glad you liked the board game style navigation. Its a style I try to improve on whenever I use it.

I'll for sure work more on battle balancing. I'm also experimenting with ways to make it easier to tell whose turn it is & which enemy you're targeting. And the battle presentation in general, honestly.

Nice to hear the music served its job, and that story style is a mix I have a habit of going for! I can never go too far in either direction, & try to get a blend of both (though I usually lean more towards the lighthearted).

I really appreciate the compliment on the character sprites!! & CANARY SWEEP!! I won't lie, "kinda hot angel" was the angle I went for when drawing him, so, its good to hear the intention was successful lmao.

Yeah this was planned to be longer, but sadly time wasn't on my side... The "go on without me" was originally gonna be more direct & in a scene that couldn't show up until after the demo (due to time), until I realized I could fit it into the intro scene. It ended up working better there.

& oh cool, didn't know you'd used the name Emvi in an earlier jam. Now I wanna check it out👀

Submitted(+1)

Go ahead! It's actually the prequel to my entry for this jam.

HostSubmitted(+1)

Well written and designed game. Didn't know what to expect, but Eric and Nina are a wonderful team (and the angel's alright). It was fun doing some input combos, but I there were a few things that made it less than ideal. I only realized on the final fight why some of my attacks weren't occurring. Seems I lacked the resources but didn't know it. the multiple resource pools kind of threw me off. Also, the short time to input attacks often made me pick the wrong moves thinking I as a different character, or just because it took me too long to remember the attacks I wanted to do in rapid succession. I picked easy mode, and still found it a bit difficult. The optional boss doesn't quite seem possible, which was too bad. A little less HP on that guy (like half) would have made it possible, even if super hard.

The visual novel style storytelling was impressive, and I loved the different expressions with the art. I think you're the only one to pick a non-HTML MV ally, so thanks for throwing one in! Nina is an especially cool choice, and your ancient dragon take is good enough to be canon. 

This game had some of the most original stuff in the jam! I think a little polishing on gameplay would have made a big difference, but it was impressive as is.

Developer

Thanks, Human! Glad to hear you liked it!

Thanks for the battle feedback. I'll admit, even I messed up with combos & resource management a few times in my playtesting, but didn't give myself as much time on the battle presentation. I'll be fixing those issues in future releases for sure.

Right, the optional boss. It was initially supposed to be beatable in the demo, but only because the demo was initially gonna have more content in it... The way the current demo is, it isn't meant to be beatable in it. Still, I'll lower its health a bit in future releases.

& its cool to hear you enjoyed Nina! She's got my favorite design from the MV Cover Art so I had to include her lol.

Thanks again!

Submitted(+1)

Interesting creativity with the "Vexace" and "Emvee" stuff :D I'm also quite familiar with the node traveling style you presented because I've played RPG Maker games recently that uses it. So it was interesting and quite exciting(?) to expect a game jam that's possibly going to be fun like this. :D

Reading the comments below mine though, apparently there are different combo combinations? I keep thinking the combo input keys must be exactly in the same order as displayed on the screen, and it was the same for every character and thus battle felt quite repetitive in some form throughout the game. Like, use combo and then heal or buff (or vice versa), and then repeatedly doing the same thing. So, unless if I'm missing something, I did think that it was relieving I did my playthrough in the easier mode. The F.O.E. one turns out to be too difficult, and maybe that was the intention, but it seems unbeatable. Noticed that the difficulty increases if I have Canary in my party; initially thought it would be easier once I get Canary but it was way harder with a three-people party.

Overall, it's an interesting experience. I probably wouldn't be honest if I say I enjoyed it due to the repetitive battle actions for me and the "Relief I didn't play this in Normal mode," but then it could be I'm missing something, possible wasn't sleeping well when I played, etc. So if there are things I'm supposed to have known or should have done and you want me to redo, feel free to let me know.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks! Yes, there's different combo combinations for each character. The skills inside the Techniques menu show what combination you must put down for the combo to activate. For example, Eric's "Bolo Punch" asks for Up + Up, so you gotta input Jab two times. If you do get the chance to replay, I hope you can get more enjoyment out of the battle system with the combos.

& yeah, that F.O.E. isn't actually meant to be beat in the scope of the demo (though I still put in the rewards just in case), but all F.O.E.s definitely will be beatable with enough experience in the full version.


Also, I think I see why battles seem more difficult once Canary joined. I didn't up the difficulty once Canary gets added, BUT the right side of floor 1 intentionally has 1-2 more enemies in each random encounter. The "envisioned" path is for a player to go left to get Canary, then go to the right if they want to, before fighting the boss.

And hey, it's actually good to hear you're relieved you played in the easier mode! I'll probably make it so that players can change difficulty at the rest point in future releases, so a player doesn't have to be locked into one mode before knowing how the normal mode's difficulty is.

Thanks again for the feedback, I appreciate it!

Submitted(+1)

Hey! Thanks for the response and letting me know with a direct example of how the combos can work. I'd be interested to retry your game knowing this, because when I played with the repetitive combo, I felt the battles were getting boring and it deeply affected my experience. So I will attempt to find a chance to replay (not going to promise things as I've been quite unstable energetically and needing to rest a lot, so "if it happens, then it happens" would probably be a fairer promise to you without concerns of potential unfulfilled promises or mental to-do lists). As for the F.O.E., I first encountered it with only two party members, and was able to get to the last wave of monsters. So I thought that it was beatable. Then after surprisingly finding Canary, I thought that now I have three party members, it should be easy to beat the F.O.E.s and turns out that was not the case at all. Also, I didn't say this in my previous message, but I think there was a path that let the player keep on chasing the mouse or something, and in the end leads to a more difficult battle encounter. I think I first tried to chase the mouse all the way to the end with only two party members, and the fight felt overly difficult. Think second time around, I stopped chasing and stopped in the middle or something. I'm going to assume there are more rewards for beating the last revealed set of monsters in the end... maybe this will be something I explore if I do retry your game. But would help if I have a heads-up on how that "mouse chase" part works and whether stopping at the first part vs. the second part, would be any different from stopping at the third part... or if the only difference if it's the end where you fight the monster group and before the end when you stopped chasing. Hope this isn't getting confusing XD;

Developer(+1)

No problem! And it's cool if you don't find the time to replay, I know life can get crazy.

Oh, now I see how the fight got more difficult. Unfortunately, it seems like the randomizer messed with you. All normal fights & F.O.E waves have randomized enemy sets, so you may have gotten lucky picks for enemies first time around, but not the second time. In future versions, I'll be making the F.O.E. waves have the same enemies (except for maybe 1 enemy per wave) to make it more fair.

As for the mouse chase event, whether you stop at the first or second part doesn't change anything. You either get into the fight after choosing to chase it twice, or leave the mouse at either chance you get.

(+1)

Hello! This was a very fun experience! I love the characters and the beautiful artworks for them! :D <3 I think the characters and their interaction was the most charming part of this game! The battle system was really cool as well, I see that it also has button combo input style and you can use certain skills if you input the correct order of the arrow keys. That was a unique touch for the battle system, so great job on implementing it! I did however, had a hard time in the start cause it just went by too fast and my fingers felt too slippery trying to memorize the correct combos, only for the char's turn to end! xD It would be nice to have a little indication on who's gonna do the combo so It'll be easier to determine (like maybe show a bust art of the char as he/she is inputting their combo). Other than that, the gameplay was fun and had it's own unique little touch!

I love the VN-style storytelling and the way you travel through the dungeon via nodes! As reminiscent of your original game that I've played before and enjoyed too. ;) Overall this was a fun experience, and there's a lot of potential for this demo to become something greater when you complete it soon, so I'll be looking forward to do that day! :D Congratulations on finishing your entry! <3

Developer(+1)

Hey! I'm happy to hear you had fun! I'll definitely take your feedback in mind. Honestly I planned to have something like a character cut-in when it was their turn, but didn't have the time to make the assets for the jam. I'll definitely figure something out for that.

Thanks Starmage, I'm hoping to have the full version out by the end of the year!

Ohh that's great to hear Chromaji! ^_^ <3 And this was great for what you've made in the time limit, and those are only minor issues I end up overlooking due to the fun experience the demo brought overall! :D so amazing job once again! ^_^

Submitted(+1)

Loving this game. Love the artstyle. The little letter of invitation ala mario 64 style was cute. The busts were very expressive and well used. Combat was fun enough with the combo system. Characters were cute and I liked the dialogue.

Music was fitting as well.

I feel like this game could very well be an "official" game on its own and the effort shows.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the high praise, it means a lot!

 also I'm glad you caught the mario 64 vibes I wanted to give in that letter lol.

Submitted(+1)

Very engaging game. I really enjoyed the humor linked to ironic expressions. Beautiful characterization of all the characters with a very captivating mechanic. Truly beautiful. One of the best I've played so far.

Developer

Thanks very much, I'm really glad to hear it!

Submitted(+1)

I beat it on the 'easy' mode! Still I took waay too long to notice that my attack combos were being interrupted if the combination calls for a skill that I do not have the SP for. I beat it with just a small bit of trouble. I didn't have the time to figure out what the winning strategy for the waves battle was though. Overall you have a nice battle system going on

Developer

Thanks for playing! Glad to know you found the battle system nice! I should probably make a note that using skills you don't have EP for will stop the combo.

And to be honest, I didn't outright *intend* for the optional wave battle to be beat in the demo, so nothing crazy there.