I played your game on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1850361813?t=00h01m34s

Overall, I had fun! The graphics are cute like Turn By Turn Villain, and the music is also whimsical and cute.. I appreciated the the Quing is non-binary :) And I liked that the game is set in the same universe with God S, and the villain in this game is the one you play in TbTV.

I didn't get to the combat itself, since I only did the stat-based comparison combat thing for a bunch of the monsters. I found that I kept pressing the wrong button on the gamepad to bring up my stats. It would be nice to have a way to pin my stats on the HUD all the time, or maybe have some way to visually show me which monsters I can insta-kill vs which I can't.. maybe by a skull icon on their heads or something.

The exploration was nice, kind of like Zelda (maybe? I never played the original Zelda(s)) where you can enter zones and see places but can't access them for a while. Tunic had this too which was nice.

I liked the quest text with the Quing. The NPCs were not bad.. I think having more conversations with them might add more flavor and depth to the characters as well.

One big suggestion is on the combat initialization. It was difficult to get the victory symbol to show up and press the button to start combat. I eventually got better at it, but it was still tricky. I think you mentioned that you improved it in TbTV, and can make those changes here too. I think that would be a great improvement! :)

After I unlocked the Captain Beardie, I could have a ship that takes me to the villain. Maybe Capt Beardie should warn me that I'm severely underleveled :) Or maybe the villain can laugh at me, one-shot me and send me back or something.. I kind of expected that I'd go splat so I saved the game beforehand, but I can imagine a player getting upset if they lost all their progress. Maybe have an auto-save before the boss fight?

Hello there! I didn't realize you had another game. I played and reviewed this entry. Here's my breakdown (it's a lot, but I hope this helps). I haven't finished, but I'm really enjoying it, so I'll definitely keep playing. I want to finish the demo.

OVERALL FUN

Most important category (IMO) and you nailed it here. I'm really enjoying this game. I love how you need to unlock various different abilities to proceed further into each map and rescue villagers. The story and simple and cute, and I love how each villager has their own unique personality. My only gripes...

Combat, while I love how the # and color are associated with each enemy... hitting them with their random movements can get a bit frustrating, but this is minor.

The zones are big, and with no map, they feel a bit daunting at times. This may discourage new players if they get too lost and confused. However, in my case, I pushed through and as I started unlocking new abilities and items... plus learned the map a bit... it got easier. Have you considered a map of some sort, though?

CONTROLS/UI

Overall not bad controls, but they were a bit uncomfortable feeling. I think they'd be better if you let us have a couple extra keys for confirm and cancel/escape. Not a fan of Enter being the only interact/confirm button and Z being the only cancel/escape button. Maybe...

  -Confirm/Interact could be ENTER & SPACE

  -Cancel/Escape can be Z & ESC

  -Love how ARROW keys and WASD can be used to move

Also... controller didn't work for me, but I use a PS5 controller... so it may only be compatible with Xbox. This may be my fault since I don't have an Xbox controller to test it on. I need a new one. I broke it over the weekend.

Full screen didn't appear to do anything. It enlarges the screen, but the game stays the same size with a large black border around it. It would be nice if the game, itself, went full-screen.

You have good tutorials, and you explain how to play very well.

It would be nice if there was a quick key to view all your stats on screen quicly. Going into the menu, cycling down, and then hitting confirm twice can get a bit repetitive after a while. It looks like you want to keep the game screen clear of HUD info, but maybe pressing a button causes a quick popup that displays HP, MP, Strength, Luck, etc. Pressing it again gets rid of it. Then players can choose to leave it up... or play without.

ART

5 Stars! A+! Rotten Tomato scores you 100% here! Artwork is fantastic and very unique looking. I love each character's look, the animations are very well done, and the style is amazing. I love your animated speech bubbles, as well.

SOUND/MUSIC

Music and sound was very well done and fitting for the theme of the game. Love the music and it didn't feel like it got old or repetitive at any point (which is a good thing).

ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK

For all the locked doors... you should only have that message populate once or twice. Or, maybe a faster animation without a dialogue box: knock, question mark bubble, done. Not a huge deal, but I think players would get the idea without waiting on that text box.

I love, love, love that you have to learn everything: swimming, farming, dashing. However, I will say this... and I only do because old-school RPG players are obsessed with dash. If your character moves too slowly, and you can't dash... they get upset. My game is the same. You need to learn dash, so while I respect this and have no issue with it myself... you may get some complaints because walking is just way too slow for some people, especially with the size of your maps ;-) I get this complaint with my games, as well.

You should add a visual indicator on each building when you rescue a villager. Perhaps the shop sign has a crosshair over the icon until you rescue them? After they're saved, and the shop is open for business, and the new sign shows up without a crosshair?

The light green monsters with the white # is hard on the eyes and difficult to read. All other colors looked great, though!