Post by horbror in Dreams of Joy Departed comments

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Demo2 is up Dinoman! You can now play until the end of ACT2, which also wraps up the beginning of the story, hopefully giving a satisfying end to the demo! Act 3 and 4 will be like s2 of a tvshow in a way.

There was no way at the moment to make sure that you could continue on your old savefile, but I recommend replaying it either way. A lot of things have changed, autosaves works, enemies have healthbars (?!) and I encourage people to see what different information the dialogue choices bring.

You could also play as a straight up monster and get some unique things at the end and in the future.

Here are a few tips if you want to try the dark path, do not read further otherwise:

SPOILERS:

- Make sure to not save the fish

- Always behave like a hateful asshole in conversations, but not a "sarcastic" asshole.

- Take butchering and get butchering 2: make sure to butcher rabbits to rack up your hatred.

- Take Deerhunter X

- Take King of hatred

- When prompted to have an opinion about Arthur Sweich say that "he was a legend".

- Accept the help of Arthur Sweich.

Dinoman972253 days ago

Thanks for letting me know! Already finished replaying the normal route, haven’t done the evil route (I don’t think I have the guts for it, lol) or managed to beat the Warbear yet.

My previous praise still stands, and most of the new additions are pretty neat! I don’t know how many of them are new and how many I just missed on my previous playthrough, but I like the optional interactions that depend on your current party, like young Sarah staying behind if you try to take her to the fight against the Majestic Deer, or Billy being confused at the Sarah in the tree claiming he’s still in his camp. The trapped bunnies are a nice way to liven up some rooms, and the fact that they become shadows when you free them is pretty intriguing story-wise, especially since the same thing happens to the one young Billy butchers near the end. Speaking of, I also really liked the nuance added to Billy’s character at the end, and the apparent parallels between his childhood and Sarah’s. And it might not be quite for me, but the addition of a dark route is bound to make the game a lot more interesting and replayable.

I did notice some of the things I mentioned in my previous comment aren’t fixed yet (mirror disappearing, Swagger bar not being visible in the Strats menu, young Sarah’s collision in the hidden pond), but I understand they might take some time. As for some new issues I had:

I don’t remember if this was also an issue in the original version or not, but some of the rabbits seemed to have their animations “reversed” from the side. Their midair pose is the default and they periodically switch to the grounded pose instead of the other way around. I don’t remember which specific ones had this issue, unfortunately.
I found another instance of sprites transforming when interacted with from the wrong angles: the chest in the room below the Hunter’s Camp momentarily transformed into a completely different chest sprite when I opened it from behind. I haven’t noticed this with any other chests, though.
I forgot to ask this in my previous comment, but is there any way to reach the red slime things in the room below the Camp? They really look like they should be able to be fought or otherwise interacted with.
I’m very confused about how Swagger carries over between combats. On the previous version I was under the impression that it only reset when you use a healing spot like Sarah’s room, but now I’ve noticed I’ll sometimes lose a lot of the Swagger (but usually not all of it) I built up and didn’t use in one combat when I start another. Doesn’t help that the Strats screen will always display the amount as 0 regardless of how much you have at the beginning of a fight.
The Euthanasia never used the healing move she had in 1.5 when I fought her this time. Is that intentional?
A minor one, but the bosses’ health bars seem to go a bit offscreen while you’re attacking them, making it harder to tell how much HP they have left. It also seems like boss minions, like the Majestic Deer’s organs and frozen Sarah’s jellyfish, don’t have health bars of their own, which makes the mechanic feel pretty inconsistent, but that might be intentional.
The computer on the Southern Fields tower is pretty broken. Someone already brought up the background being stuck on the screen, but on top of that the AI chatlog file won’t open at all.
The second paragraph of the message on top of the path to Anatea’s grave seems to be missing one or more letters at the start.
It seems like when you talk to the Sarah instance in the Frozen Lake, she’ll refer to Winter as James regardless of what first name you actually gave him. Don’t know if that’s intentional.
In the Frozen Cavern, to the right of Sarah’s memory of Anatea in the hospital, the entire wall is missing collision, allowing you to walk into it.

I also felt like the difficulty spiked a lot towards the end, with the Spirit of Rebellion and the Jackalope both being able to one-shot my party members on a whim; but I didn’t fight a lot of enemies that run, so maybe I was just underleveled, and either way I managed to beat both of them in 1-2 tries each. And I don’t quite understand rebel Sarah’s role in the story, particularly the way she attacks Winter and hardly acknowledges it after you beat her, or how the scene where she leaves home is abruptly cut to from the Jackalope fight; but you could argue that the ambiguity enhances the surrealism of the game.

Either way, I’m still very interested to see where the game goes from here! Hope this feedback helps.

horbror253 days ago (2 edits)

Speaking of, I also really liked the nuance added to Billy’s character at the end, and the apparent parallels between his childhood and Sarah’s.

- I am happy that this gets through. Once the game is a lot bigger and new chapter are added it will be pretty clear that one of the points of the story is more or less character study. As so most characters wont fit neatly on the spectrum of good/bad, and those that will (Arthur) will be the exceptions that clarify someone else. Billy was never evil, he was a hurt man who loved his daughter and did the best he could. He never intentionally harms Sarah, he was acting in what he thought would be her best interest. His own father is the opposite, carelessly enjoying hurting others and with a grandiose sense of self.

The dark path will be just one of many once I am finished with it all, I want some serious replay value. There are 8 hidden stats managing your "personality", in time I want these to change which dialogue is available to you, meaning slowly changing Winters personality in the direction you are pushing him, and letting this influence events. The dark path will be awful, and I feel bad sometimes when I write it, but the game is not called Dreams of Joy Still here ;).

- These are still on my list. I took part in jam this weekend and the people who have played my game went from 10 to 40. I have tons of feedback and bugs to get through. I am juggling this with my need to make new stuff too.

I found another instance of sprites transforming when interacted with from the wrong angles: the chest in the room below the Hunter’s Camp momentarily transformed into a completely different chest sprite when I opened it from behind. I haven’t noticed this with any other chests, though.

- Thanks for pointing these out. Hopefully an improved workflow and understanding of how rpgmaker handles sprites at least will make it so I dont repeat these problems in the future.

I forgot to ask this in my previous comment, but is there any way to reach the red slime things in the room below the Camp? They really look like they should be able to be fought or otherwise interacted with.

- Not at the moment. One of the things at the bottom of my list is adding more secrets. In this instance there will be an "invisible" path, but I dont have a good reward for it yet so I have not removed the collision and opened it up.

I’m very confused about how Swagger carries over between combats.

It is SUPPOSED to carry over as long as you are on the same map, and reset every transition. I am guessing this is pretty wonky at this moment.

The Euthanasia never used the healing move she had in 1.5 when I fought her this time. Is that intentional?

Healing triggers once she is below a certain health-threshold, most people destroy her with crackerlacker and jack of the torpid before it has a chance to trigger. If one wants to face her early she becomes a real challenge. Perhaps low-level running could become a thing.

A minor one, but the bosses’ health bars seem to go a bit offscreen while you’re attacking them, making it harder to tell how much HP they have left.

- I will add looking over them and adjusting the placements to my list.

It also seems like boss minions, like the Majestic Deer’s organs and frozen Sarah’s jellyfish, don’t have health bars of their own, which makes the mechanic feel pretty inconsistent, but that might be intentional.

- It got too messy when they had them since the enemy sprites are so close to each other.

The computer on the Southern Fields tower is pretty broken. Someone already brought up the background being stuck on the screen, but on top of that the AI chatlog file won’t open at all.

- AI chatlog is just not written yet, since it is a hard piece to get right. Its a conversation between Billy and an AI-chatbot where he asks the bot for advice on how to propose to Anatea. The background bug is now fixed, it was a stupid mistake on my part.

The second paragraph of the message on top of the path to Anatea’s grave seems to be missing one or more letters at the start.

- I will check it out.

It seems like when you talk to the Sarah instance in the Frozen Lake, she’ll refer to Winter as James regardless of what first name you actually gave him. Don’t know if that’s intentional.

Its not, will fix, thank you.

In the Frozen Cavern, to the right of Sarah’s memory of Anatea in the hospital, the entire wall is missing collision, allowing you to walk into it.

- Will fix this too!

This is intentional, and by the end you should be able to buy a couple of remembrance and remembrance all from MR.TV.

And I don’t quite understand rebel Sarah’s role in the story, particularly the way she attacks Winter and hardly acknowledges it after you beat her.

Spoilers: The world you are in as you are going through chapter 1 is created out of Sarah and Billys emotions and memories, though the main focus is Sarah. You can view it as a speedrun through the key points of her life. Everything you meet represents something , some of this is obvious, other things less so. Spirit of Rebellion is the end point of Teen Sarah, what she ends up as after going through what Margarette and Billy puts her through. In act3 you will continue playing as her for a while, seeing what happens once shes freed herself from their influence and gets out to experience the world. The motif of fire she has is also in opposition to young Sarahs motif of water and fish. The ocean represents freedom in a way to young Sarah, and sympathy. The fire also represents freedom, by burning the past, but not sympathy.

Dinoman972252 days ago

Very interesting, I guess the "speedrun" aspect explains the sudden cut from the Jackalope fight as well. And I had no idea Swagger was tied to screen transitions, I didn't pay a lot of attention to them so maybe it is working more-or-less as intended.

About Euthanasia, though, I did beat her without Crackerlacker this time around (I can't remember if I hadn't unlocked it yet or if I did and just forgot). The fight was pretty long, and yet she didn't use the healing move a single time, hence why I brought it up. I don't know how much RNG there is to enemy decisions in this game, though, so maybe it was pure dumb luck.

horbror252 days ago

There is quite a lot of RNG, but some attacks or moves are dependent on "if this is true, this is available". Her healing move does not autotrigger at a certain a % of health, it gets "available" and has a higher priority. These things need to be tweaked over time I think, once I am done with act3 I might just fiddle around with the enemies for a week or two.

horbror252 days ago

Here is a little sneak peak of what the future holds, not a spoiler, just the continuation of the final bus scene. Not done though!

itch.io

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