A really interesting set of balance choices, at first I didn't really understand the changes, but after a couple of turns I found that this is indeed an incredible improvement on the Shadow Dragon experience.
 Also, kudos for getting all the SD graphics into SRPG Studio.
 

Oooh, the empire was actually the "Railway  empire" that fall apart, nice, it seems I was on the right track ;D I wasn't really sure that was the case since this was your 3rd Evening Train Crash game I was in doubt if all the train and railway setting was stablished previously, some sequel confusion I guess.

1-Handed and 2-Handed is basically a limit on weapons, shields and staves to equip. For example, Americo has a 2-handed sword, so he can't equip a shield or have another weapon in his inventory.

Meanwhile, 1-handed stuff allows to have off-hand equipment, examples in the game are Spear (1-handed) + Shield, Tome + Stave, 2 Staves, 2 swords and 2 axes (didn't get around implementing dual-wielding tough)

The boss weapons are effective against the blessings, following an elemental theme like you though :D You were on the right track. The secret idea, is part of the megaman inspiration for the map "kill boss-> use boss weapon" loop, it just wasn't executed that well on the current version :(

Each of the zone themes are original pieces by Forester, same with the title and ending theme. He also made the 16-bit player 1 remix. He is awemose like that, I will make sure to bother him about making the ost availible somewhere for people to enjoy it.

  I cannot really say I have a preference of a starting zone, I tried to make each starting zone have a different feeling, but truly the only one with a strong gimmick is the Boar/Earth zone, because that one was the last one I made, also is the most consistant as a starting position even if the party is really limited healing wise. If you begin in another zone, the necromancers are actually a wildcard, because they can revive any mob from a previous zone.  

 The desert zone is actually another strong inital position, the bard's refresh  works like FE4 so you can move pretty fast if you play with turn order and positioning, so it's not as bad as it seems at first.

Also, I love all my units, I just cannot pick favorites hahaha

Oh, I forgot to mention, Potions are meant for healing other people instead of yourself like vulnearies do, so they are the go to for parties with no healing. And the Angel Robe is bait for hoarders, because you need to kill everything and sell all boss weapons to get to 10k gold... is a dick move, I know.

Thanks for all the feedback man, I really appreciate all the positive things you noticed. There is a lot of things, so I will just adress a few that I feel like explaining a bit.

Indeed, I went with a "criminal empire" kind of deal, glad you liked the opening scroll, is a lot of text to read and I have been thinking on some ways to make it less "text heavy" but I also think is does a bit of rug pulling, because it can make you think that the map is gonna be palying out the events described but then is a completely different thing :D (I don't think you noticed it, but the report changes slightly based on the party picked)

I'll take note of all the bugs and give the script and descriptions another revision. Man, that nasty infinite new turn loop is a pain, I though I had squashed all intances of it. And sadly is part of the reason there isn't an End turn map command, it has the nasty issue of bugging the turns. Also Alfonzo not having access to the bag is also a bug D:

 Regarding not being able to take out weapons from the bag, I hacked together an equipment system, so you can only take out weapons if can use them (and have  "free hands", ie you have to store your bow then take out the new bow)... thinking about it, I should make the convoy allow you to trade the item directly.

 Also, the stat rename, while can seem a bit superficial because they work as their original counterparts in principle, most of them have some  reworked functionality, for example if you track P-Def and Vit, you will notice is not a simple 1-to-1 relation (even accounting for equipment P-Def bonus), same with all other secondary stats. I need to add goinza's bottom window for the stat description part, but I'm really really conservative when adding QoL plugins, so I go slowly adding them project to project. (I actually had your big unit map windowin the previous and forgot to copy it into this project) and yes, Fibonacci persuit is at play here :D

But I love your comment of finding out stuff by turn 40+ because that is the kind of design school I go for, I'm really not into the whole "explain every mechanic and feature of your game outright" I want to make the player find out stuff on their own as they get more into the game, I guess is a kind of old school thing. That is the mindset that inspired making the first choice kind of "I have no clue what this does" for the first time playing, but it easily makes sense for replays if you pay attention while playing.

But it not always works, I actually removed the effective description on weapons to make finding out what weapons work against what, mix into that replay value and that makes the boss weapons underwhelming at first sight. :( But if it make you scratch your head a bit I guess I kind of achieve my objective lol. And I'm not really always logical with it eaither because I do have that Skill info extension of Marky's Skill info window plugin explaing skills in depth haha. I need to work on picking a side for everything I guess.

On the ending, Eioneous is a demigod, he is a playable character in Rookie's Day that works as a FE3 Manakete, and all the feedback I got regarding him was that he was really busted and why did a mercernary company had a Demigod around? (Because he was barely adressed on that game's plot) so I took the chance to explain that in the ending as a "post-credit" scenes kind of thing, shameless plug to another Americo game is shameless ;)

PD: Dank Boar... is a Dankboi reference, I just like that guy it makes me laugh lol.

The Mercy Killing of Pharteus (MKP) is really solid, following the trend of TheRepeat games, here we have a really tight design that put the focus on two unique mechanics, on one side Dual Attacks and counters that happen whenever 2 units stay one besides the other, the tricky part? Enemies do it too.

 And Pivot, allowing not only to jump over allies, but also to get to move once again, basically doubling the characters move.

 With only this two mechanics taking front center, the map is tighly build, with a simple but effective first turn that teachs us how they work, and then open the game up to let us decide how to tackle it by giving us various secondary objectives that are introduced just when one is getting confortable to keep us on our toes. The secondary objectives are nicely paced, and the cultist persecution in particular require a lot of effort to get the "reward" character.

Now even after taking on all of the map challenges, the final room is no push over, the guys inside are really tough and the killed half my units in my rushed attemp at overwhelming them. Luckly, the reward girl came with lance that sealed the boss, so I could kill him easily, otherwise it would have killed the other half of my team trying.

 I really enjoyed the gameplay here, there wasn't a moment when  I would not be thinking about pivoting or setting up dual attacks.

 But lets move on to the story, the game has an interesting plot of a "after the war ended" kind of mission, were your army is lead into killing one of the last remnants of some empire, and then also cultist appear, and something important happened a while ago... and your army were the heroes of that previous conflict... woah, there seems to be a whole lot of lore behind this one, and a cliffhanger for more conflict in the future too. All of these could come up as too much, but actually the dialog is on point and doesn't over stay is welcome neither goes into more detail that it needs to, clearly pointing that we are just seeing an small part of the story of the world. Actually, you know what it reminds me about? The battle of bywater in the lord of the rings, that one small battle at the end where the hobbits claim the shire from Saruman and his last minions, just like that battle, this one too happens after the major conflict has ended, or at least that is what the dialog implies.

And last, I cannot mention the amazing UI and graphics work that is in this, small detail like the cursor changin color or adding a marker for events, the changin of partner or weapons on the battle forecast of the neat changes to the level up window, everything beatifully functional.

In short, another great game that keeps up with TheRepeat's track record for innovative tightly designed gameplay and functional UI, with lots of polish.

Shard Saviors is without a doubt the entry with the best presentation of this jam, not only is the art, music really high quality but they are really unique. All player character being blue and enemy characters being red gives it a feel of cohesion with the game sprites. Also all Shard Holders have unique portraits, giving a feel that each enemy is unique.

The tileset are is also incredible, is simple in nature not trying to hide the grid at all and most terrain being "a single tile", there are no conecting forest, mountains or anything, even the roads don't connect properly to avoid breaking the grid pattern.

And the writing is top notch too, the premise of civilization depeding on some sort of magic crystal that shatters (also everyone looking stonish like) and that then needs to get back put together is a great interpretation of the theme. 

Also,  the characters interactions were fun and I was really looking foward to recruit more guys, beacuse each conversation was such a treat.

 All that being said, while the gameplay premise is really good, and the use of "advance wars roads" really helped backtracking, I think the team run out of time to give it a second pass or balance it out.

The map is really big, but the only enemies (at the start) are the lonely shard holders around, at the start is alright since you have few units, but it never really scales, while you get to build an army to march around, shard holders just stay put waiting for their demise. The reinforcements that target your home castle make sure you need at least a couple of guys left there to protect it, giving at least a secondary objective to just marching on.

Also, I'm fairly certain that all weapons and items, outside of dark eruption are the default items that come when creating a new project, another thing that ties into the not-scaling of the game, you don't get better weapons or items at any point.

And by the halfway point, characters just started joining with no dialog. 

I'm hoping for some later updates to add the missing dialog and see if a second pass makes the last half of the game more interesting.

Overall, the game is great in all the things related to presentation and theme, but the gameplay loop never scales in complexity besides marching to kill the next shard holder, wich makes the last half an exercise in patience more than anything. Still I'm holding my hopes up to see how this turns out after a few updates.

Moonriser was an interesting surprise that started really strong, but due to some issues ended over staying its welcome by the end.

The first part of the game has you explore a Huge city to get gold, items and recruit the units to want to help you survive the attack that is coming at night.

This setup and the variety of units to pick from give the game a fair big of replay value or at least an unique playthrough compared to other.

The story is interesting and the dialog has is fun moments, even if there are some typos or missing words here and there, and I know the developer is  not a native english speaker I'm willing to cut him some slack there, but I'm sure it can be a bit distracting for people that want to be inmersed in what they read, so is fair mentioning at least.

Now, the defense part of the map takes place in the same huge map of the start, and because of that, you always get a fair bit of turns of just moving into the range of enemies, that comes in small waves and up to the last big bad are mostly a push over. So basically you have to spend a lot of turns moving around and then kill some enemies in 1 or 2 turns, and then just repeat that loop.

Having played Shanks previous game, I think he course corrected a bit to much, previously his maps were packed full with enemies having a high density that made advancing slow as one had to slowly take on enemies to not get overwelmed. And now, he has too much dead space between waves of enemies, basically going into a really really low enemy density.

 But I think this is a way of improving, and after this he will find the happy middlepoint to get an awesome map flow to go along his incredible varied characters full of interesting weapons and skills.

All in all a solid entry, is just that it gets a bit too long by end.

Due to the number of entries and lenght of them, the judging period has been adjusted to 2 months instead of 5 months. This is still gives people ample time to play and rate each entry without having to wait for the jam results for almosr half a year.

Also, in the case all entries get rated by all submitters the judging period will be ended and the results announced.

The romhack ETC3 is a short entry, I think it took me 35 minutes to beat, and half of that was reading the introduction...

 I'm not sure the game made use of the theme at all, unless the dialogs was related to an railway empire that used to exist and the broken railway was inspired by that? Maybe it went over my head, but the theme was never mandatory so is all good, and is not like I could make much use of it either.

As a FE8 romhack it doesn't deviate much from the base game, it has some stuff like split Str & Mag, skill icons to show mounted units having canto+ and other QoL additions. 

The unique charm comes from the weird crossover of characters taking place on the short but crazy plot, even if some character like Yugi or Mario weren't actually playable. And the unique objective, to remove all obstacles from the way of a moving "train" pushed to keep advancing and pushing every turn, and there were some interesting enemy positioning to make the game more than just a "kill rush"

 But there were some pain points, my first try was a failure because after visiting the first village and getting "beat the ballista so I can fix the bridge" the village closed and I couldn't trigger the repair. And then, I don't know if the guys next to the cracked walls were supposed to do anything or not... but they just stood there.

All in all, short, fun and with an interesting objective.

Thanks for the kind words, the portraits and background were made using generative AI, more specifically the Bing Designer. Then they where touched up on Gimp to clean them up and make them usable in Srpg Studio.

 While the map art uses the FE-like 32x32 tileset made by McMagister.

A really interesting concept using different board pieces mixed together, certainly a surprising way to be inspired by the theme.

The game takes around 15 minutes to beat, but it could take several attemps depending on how good you are at solving puzzles. It nice that the go stones have some sort of dynamic way of appearing, not totally random, but they appear in a way that will keep you on your toes and thinking ahead when moving the pieces.

The graphics are simple but work and the dialog scene between the pieces is charming.

The implementation of the way to move the pieces or attack is a bit rustic, seems it makes use of the skill system of LT by making moving or attacking actually some kind of warp... also the go stones hit 2 times at the one piece stuck to the palace... so one bad move costed me the piece because I though they would only hit it once :(

It was a fun and enjoyable experience.

Oh really nice to hear that you got to try different choices. Indeed Vanesa (F!Ranger) needs to hit a few Prof level ups to use the Boss bow, overall she should get there after 2 complete zones... unless the RNG goddess decided to curse your run or she wasn't killing enough.
 Sadly the revive item was a late addition, to ensure that one could recover from losing units, so I didn't though of drawing more attention to the Sanctuary tile to point that one could visit it.
 Actually buying the 10k item without selling stuff is not doable, there aren't enough enemies to get 10k gold even if you kill them all and go to the shop then. :D

Working with you was a pleasure my friend, and thank you for the kind words.

You rushing to complete the music so fast was really a huge push to make sure this project was complete on time and do justice to the amazing songs you made.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, may a ask on wich choice did you pick at the start for your run? And how did you feel on the party composition?

 I'll take note of the suggestion for a future update or project using this turn system.

No problem, thank you for submitting to the Jam :D

Hi Darrman, your game page is not accessible, please make sure to set it to public for people to have access to it. 

This sounds like such a boon, did you manage to get all the RTP classes refurbished?

A truly great demo of the current work on improving ToK, sadly the demo only last to the first castle so it ends when one starts getting hooked. 

The new art, the new music, the story expansion and tutorials are all great additions to a game that already had a great base.

Just a bit sad that the enemy phase slowdown is so hard to remove with so many units on the map.

Truly an awesome demo of what things to expect from future updates to Sea of Novis. The level of polish of this is off the charts, and the maps play awesome.

A lot of the things I loved from the previous version carry over, like music, UI design, font and art choice.
 Only thing I found a bit worrying was that the last map was a bit on the long side, and I didn't see a mid-map save option, only the suspend one, so if I had messed up I would have had to replay the whole map from the beginning, luckily that didn't happen.

Great demo, totally recommended.

A really short demo with some interesting ideas going on and a really good amount of QoL and Custom stuff. The first map is a tutorial so no comments, but the second one shows good pacing and enemy placement with a moving sub-boss. I would love to see more chapters.

A short and easy entry that aligns with the more classic FE formula, the music is a total banger.

Next Version (0.5) Plans:

- New Map: Chapter 4

- Minor QoL (Based on current version feedback)

- Bugfix (Based on current version feedback)

Version 1 Goals:

- Main Campaign Complete: 8 Chapters

- All Characters use custom art

Thanks for the feedback, there isn't any map where the reinforcements are unlimited, they just spawn for a decent amount of turns.

Mmm that un-ending turn bug seems to happen sometimes, I haven't found out way yet. If you send me a screenshot of the map when that happens I would appreaciated it.

I'm glad that your overall experience was good!

Oye Colega! This was a fun game, until the last map, then I stopped having fun. A shame you didn't translate the story into english because it is quite good and the kind of short story I would like more people to make with the engine. Also, loved Tresbarrotes y Doña Liss (even if she barely did any damage)

SRPG Studio Project Public Survey.

   (Gameplay)

A) I wanted to create a good level dessing. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, how well did I do?

7. I would say the design where decent enough, map 2 could have used some improvements, it was just single 1 tile corridors, even if the gimmick was cool, it could have been better if it was a bit more maze like.

 B) I wanted to create a steady difficulty curve that grows alongside the combat

6. It started well, the first map was easy enough, then the first 3 turns of chapter 2 where too tight, one bad move and game over, once you get in the corridors is just killing skeletons 1 by 1 to get exp.

Then chapter 3 was fairly easy, and then chapter 4 was an exercise in frutration, I had to save constantly to get good turns, all enemies had 100% Hit, while mine had 70 to 80, that and the high damage from enemies meant that or just Sancho could be in the frontlines or any miss meant a game over. And then the last group of enemies didn't do anything, they just stood there taking hits.

C) Which map do you lie the most? just say the number. 

2 even after all I said, I liked the gimmick.

D) It was difficult to know what to do in each map?

3. Not a problem at all.

E) Have you miss any reclutable character? In the final batttle you must have at least 5 characters.

3. I found all and has no trouble to know who where them. Let me your thoughts :)

Follow this link to complete the feedback survey: https://forms.gle/F5p2jxJ84PUyEezx6

Feedback here or on the community forums of the game are welcome too!

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm happy you found enjoyment on experience, specially the turn system, while is not exactly like the one Shining Force uses, it is pretty close. I have been hoping for someone to code it or something close enough and Robinco sharing the plugin was like a signal that I just had to use it on this jam.

I'm really guilty of going overboard with the scape sequence, but I wanted to create a true feeling of dread and push for sacrificing at least 1 or 2 units to reach the scape without actually forcing a "sacrifice scene".

On the other hand the units not gaining exp on kill is a concious choice I made, "learning by struggle, not by easy victory" or something like that. I really went a bit wild with all the experimental ideas I wanted to try haha.

I found Tournament of Kings to be the most intimidating and yet the most addictive entry... The whole thing is one huge map, and when you first start it feels like it is just a bit too much, but that first impression quickly goes away as you start getting into the meat of combat and exploring the other mechanics... the core thing is to save often since you can save at the start of every turn, because sometimes I felt into the "1 more turn" trap, and when I noticed my last save was like 30 turns ago.

The  combat mechanics are classic SRPG fare, but the small addition from more Grand Strategy or 4x games are great, like having to visit specific places to get gold or learn skills, it add a lot to the feeling of exploration of the map. The same with triggering special events and recruiting extra units.

The pacing is specifically well designed, since it flows really well as you go from encounter to encouter, one key thing is that combat and bosses nod you into the mindset of dividing your troops to make better use of your turns. This is clear from the skill set of bosses, no point in taking sword guys to fight a boss with 40% chance to block swords, right? And on the other, it takes around 3 attacks to take down any enemy or for enemies to kill your guys so you don't want to engage with a lot of enemies at the same time and also don't need 10 guys to bait at kill them one by one, it feels really well balanced in this regard.

The special events add small reward to explore beyond the main objective of capturing castles, and also allow to do stuff while you get enough glory to face the final boss.

Now the final zone had a different take, it was closer to classic SRPG map in that is was more maze like and encounters more packed together, and even a little gimmick here and there, it was a nice challenge to test the might of the army I had build along the game... not so much the boss itself, that for me it was a bit of a RNG test to make a couple of skills trigger and he miss one attack to be able to take him down in two turns. It also could have been trivialized if I had put the right skills on someone, something to try in another run.

Now, about the art and music, the main song is really good, good enough to not get tiresome after like 12 hours of playtime, there are other songs used in different moments, but the main theme your gonna hear a loot, so is good that it is good. Also the whole character art is custom and gives the game a more unique feel, and makes the characters stand that out more even if some don't have any dialogue or event.

Now there are some small issues, while Sprint Potions exist to give a unit extra Mv, is not that much and they are fairly rare, so taking specific units to specific places when backtracking can be a bit tiresome... I feel that having Sprint as a command that gives +2 or +3 Mv but doesn't allow to do anything else would be a good adition to aliviate the issue of backtracking, or maybe a special way to move units from one castle to another in a automatic manner, like a convoy or another vehicle.

Another similar addition could be changing the characters description when they join, green units use their description to tell you how much leadership you need to recruit them... maybe changing that to clues about their special events when they join would be a nice way to use that space, and also reduce the guess work for some events.

All in all, I really enjoyed played through this, it basically eat away a whole weekend and I didn't notice. The game is really solid and is good experience, the score system may give it some replay value to push for a high score or lower turn count, but it is also a long journey and there are some small nitpicks that slow down the experience, like a bit of lag because the amount of enemies or the constant checking of enemy stats to see if an area is appropiate to challenge or not.

So is a game that one really should give a try.

This one is another of the few "classic SRPG" entries, while the core gameplay is what one could expect, it has some nice little twists and a lot of polish.

The use of the theme for the plot has to be the most expanded of all the entries, yes there is a tournament... but there is also different relations, a bit of lore and world building and a lot of dialogue for a 6 chapters of the game, if this was meant to get me invested to check out the main version of R0 then I have said it succeds at that.

I really liked all the polish that went into the art and UI, the effects at the start of a battle and the "Chapter Complete" were something really nice that I would love to see more in Srpg Studio games.

The use of the music to setup the mood of the different scenes was done to great effect.

And the gimmick of choosing what teams to play in the different encounters, all the way up to the finals was really interesting and allows for some good replay value and personal playthroughs.

On the other hand, the map desing is certainly the weak point of the game, I guess they fit into the whole "Arena" concept, but up to the final chapter all were pretty big and empty with both teams in oppossite sides... at least the first turns of only moving towards the middle were made faster by the use of the Auto mode.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one, the story got me hooked, and the battles were engaging (once people get in range), and the final chapter was an interesting challenge. There is a lot of polish and details to love.

A more classic SRPG, the story is half-parody, half-serious and I enjoyed it a fair bit, even if sometimes the dialogue extended a bit much for my taste.

There are some pretty nice ideas and features, all units have skill to affect allies positions, and there are functional shields too. One interesting balance choice is that effective weapons are reeeally effective, and critical hits no so much. This makes using effective weapons a better strategy than depending on critical hits to finish tough enemies, and there was a good variety of weapons too.

But there are some issues that I didn't quite enjoy... I find that the maps suffer from a bit too much enemy density and also high enemy quality... the first map has 43 enemies in a 30x20 map, and the ones after that only increase in number, by the 3rd and last chapter of the entry we are talking about 127 enemies.

All strong enough to kill almost anyone that is ganged and also packed in formations that heavily punish trying to be agressive... so I found only two options, the good old turtling or just send Jermie, the self-proclaimed jeigan of the game that is so powerfull she basically soloes the maps as long as you give her enough daggers to keep countering.

I think that for a game called Quick Emblem... I was expecting something else, that's all.

This is another interesting take on the game loop for a tournament, you need to summon your units like any of those popular gatcha games, and then level them up along side your main characters... or at least that is how it would have been if I had understood that I needed to use the bonus points for summoning and not to level up my units. I grinded and got to the finals with only the first summon... just then I found out how to actually summon new units... and then I had to level up the new units up to speed.

Being fair leveling up  units is pretty fast once you get some gold, same with buying them better weapons. The downside is that if any of your summons die all your investment goes down the drain.

The hub town is interesting but I wonder if it is actually necesary, I feel most of what is going on there could have been done through the Base menu, probably making it less cumbersome to navigate with the constant refresh to change units.

There some pretty nice art mixed in too, some units have unique portraits made in a pencil style that I really like.

Truth be told I was having a good time, and by the finals I even felt overleveled since my main 3 guys were around level 30 while the extra additions where around 15... but then the final battles appeared, this is the first entry I think I'm gonna leave unbeated... both final bosses are Lv 99 with capped stats, and the units with them are also 99 with capped stats... the jokes were nice and everything, but having to keep grinding my units to have chance to survive those fights seems way to much... even if I just replay the tournament fights for easy money and bonus points is not like lv is gonna be faster... neither can I say that I can beat the bosses by having an army of summons since the deploy limit is pretty low...

Overall, I found the entry innovative, fun to play and the dialogue was funny and made me laugh a couple of times, but the big jump in difficulty for the final bosses that needs me to go into a grind fest lowers the final score.

This one really packs a lot of replay value, the avatar customization, the class selection and the randomization on the chests rewards all make for a game that wants you to come back and play it again. 

The whole single map and 50 turns can feel long at the start but once the action gets going... it doesn't really stop, I felt everything was well balanced out even if this meant that there were a lot of enemies carrying bows to balance Flying units from dominating the treasure hunting.

There wasn't a plot really, but the writing was fun and enjoyable with a good sense of humor, there were also support conversations or something... but when I was so into getting treasure and killing enemies that I didn't really take the time to trigger them.

A really good entry to comeback everyonce in a while and try some other party composition.

This a more classic SRPG entry, there not much innovation outside of the basic gameplay loop but there is nothing bad with that. The first map is a really good start with a fair amount of challenge, and a lot of paths to take to victory.

The second map is a bit weirder... the reinforcements just keep coming and coming, and they are no scrubs, I guess since the objective is to reach the boss and trigger an event instead of simply fighting killing the reinforcements and getting that chest is just an Extra challenge.

And then the last map has an interesting idea... but I'm not sure I like  the execution, it was bit bigger than it needed to be. Getting straight to the boss takes like 8 turns, that if you're too weak to beat  him need to reset or just get back and kill the side guys to get the level ups you need.

I'm really not a fan of the FE sprite splices, less so when they mix with generic portraits of the RTP since they really clash in style, and is not like they where a lot of portraits either, could as well go all out and make the generics use FE splices too.

The writing wasn't bad, but I think it may have been too much for the lenght of the game, conversations extend beyond the point various times to give context to things when it was not needed... and the mention of the tournament feel just trivial and tacked on, if I removed the idea of a tournament existing all the events would happen all the same... Cato's friend even says so "we can find him if we look for him" I know the jam has a Theme, but it was stated it was totally optional no need to force it like this into the plot.

And the 3rd chapter while interesting in concept... it really has nothing going for it, It could have been a long cutscene and achieve the same dramatic effect.

And lastly, I'm not a fan of permadeath on game with such a small cast and enemy quality this high, basically losing anyone meant reseting because otherwise it meant to keep going with missing function... not that the game is not beatable with a low party, since I lose Roselind and Axe guy in chapter 2 and still made it in chapter 4. Is more I didn't think they were dead because they appeared in chapter 3 otherwise I would have loaded the chapter 2 save.

Overall the game started strong, and the weakness started showing as it when on... I enjoyed the first 2 chapters and started to feel annoyed in the last. I hope you keep working on this or other projects to get better and build upon what you got right.

Another entry with an unique take, the gameplay is more close to classic RPGs, long attack ranges and short movement, really enjoyed my time with it, even if by  the last fight the activities to pass the days had become a bit repetive.

The treasure hunting part where fun and seeing how the green guy goes looking for treasures was always an incentive to hold out juuuust a bit longer.

On the other hand the spending time with your allies to get more powerfull was a nice addition and by the end I used that to go by faster.

The Rpg exploration of the city is nice and its always nice to get some interactions from NPCs, and the couple of event that happened justify it instead of just using a simple Base menu for navigation.

The mood of the story was nice, and the plot twist was decent with a happy ending, even if all the exposition about that happened by the end... or maybe I missed some clues from NPCs about what was really going on with Baron.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with it but I feel is a game best played on short sessions since the gameplay loop can get a bit too repetitive when played all the way in one go.

This is an awesome entry, totally awesome! The game says is a homenage to Undertale, I haven't played that but I know enough to know that holds true... and that this has nothing to envy it.

Everything is on point, the story is short and the tournament is played straight until the final battle, there are some cool meta comments and a good pay off at the end... I really liked all of the small dialogues and scenes, they had a lot of character.

The mix of RPT edits and the retro looking text boxes and "bullet hell" area fit pretty well, and everything is really smooth... also they weren't any distracting extra stuff, just what was needed for the game. The music and sound effects were also really nice.

Obviously the most impressive thing is the bullet hell parts, technically is an impressive feat on its own, but that it was actually well integrated into the positioning mechanics is the best part, even if I didn't let me be fully surrounded to see if that was possible to survive... talking about surviving, the last boss is brutal, I couldn't get past the final attack for the life of me... so I cheated, I admit it, I wanted to see the end... and also found a nice secret too.

5/5 I would ram my heart into an axe again any day of the week.

This entry has a lot of charm and cool stuff, and the expected duration was correct, even with a couple of tries it took me around 30 minutes to beat. So let's get into some details.

The whole Art package, Graphics, Sounds and even the FONT! Has a lot of retro charm, there are a lot of small details that I love, the effect on the range panel was subtle but really cool, the design of the charchips is really original, loved the Archers specially.

The game really gives a great mood of a classic Card Battler Anime, you know the one I'm talking about... the intro, the way the characters talk when playing their hands, all really charming.

On the gameplay side, the game is solid, at the start of the battle you draw 3 cards, and then get 1 more each turn. Sadly, the cards drawn are fixed each time, so while the mood and presentations scream card battler, the gameplay goes more into puzzle territory with this... being honest I should have notice it wasn't random when the enemies had so context sensitive dialogue for their cards combos.

Also, there is no way of telling what a moster is gonna be like before you summon it, so you have to just try and see if it was a good pick, on the other hand effect cards give you a little explanation of what they are gonna do. And talking about those, the idea of combos that promote monsters was awesome. 

But a little nitpick, there was no indication that the Orbs take half damage, I lose my first game because I though I could kill it with 2 hits of the Samurai... color me surprised when he only dealt 9 damage and my strategy fell to pieces.

And a little bug, I guess it is a bug, is that when you start the second battle you keep the unused cards from the first battle, so you actually start with 6 cards. Is not game breaking, it actually allows to abuse a bit the system to get alternative starts for battle 2. On that note, I found Battle 2 way easier than the first, Mal kicked my ass with his combo a couple of times until I could set up a proper strategy.

On a final note, the game ended leaving me wanting more, it really gave a great impresion and set a great mood to play it... and just when I get comfortable it ends, and with a cliffhanger, are you trying to get me hooked on this stuff?

 Man, I really liked this entry... I forgive the small gameplay inconveniences because it is really short and it seems clear the focus was in the art and mood direction and both of those were really on point.

So let's start with what there is to love about his entry, the art is gorgueous, the character art is big and nice with characters having a mix of unique designs and designs that reference known characters.

Also, if I see pixel art from Thomas Feichtmeir I just have to give 5 stars to art, nothing beats the quality of that guy.

The use of the Hi-Resolution tilesets makes maps pretty to look at even when they are designed as "big chunks" of terrain.

The music is also a high point of the game, chapter 4 music was really good, proper for a big fight.

The writing was good and the dialogue was engaging, but I don't know if it was just me being an idiot or what, but it was really hard pointing out the tone of certain interactions... like Jaden and his father, at first I thought it was a "cool dad messing with his kid" but then everyone was pointing out how Jaden really hates his fathers guts. Same with the interactions between the rulers, for people in charge of countries and keeping peace they certainly like to take shots at each other...

The use of the theme was within the expected, Rulers gather to play a tournament to entertain their people and make sure everyone is cool with one another.

Now let's get into the thing that could have been better, the game was fun but nothing ground breaking, they were a lot of mechanics  that felt underused like all the reposition skills, since all the maps were big open areas and everyone has a lot of Mv there wasn't really some point where I thought of using those mechanics. The dismounting was useful only on chapter 5 since it is the only way to make use of Lily with all the bow users around.

The game is on the easy side, most units can handle themselves and enemies come in manegeable groups, at least until chapter 5 when the horde of rangers with 5 range bows start overwhelming you and killing everything they get in range. It took me 4 tries to beat that map with enough units to beat the next and final chapter. At least I can say that chapter 5 actually make me think on a strategy to beat it.

I was gonna point out that Rachel had a weird stat distribution, but that is a bug (that affected various characters) so while she is almost useless, it's not by design. There are some other bugs/weird things on some units or items, but nothing game breaking.

All in all it was an enjoyable experience, and chapter 5 was such a difficulty spike that it became memorable. It's worth a playthrough to the end... also it got me curious on how this ties to BTrain main game.

The theme voting period has come to a conclusion, you can check the results here:

https://strawpoll.com/polls/1MnwvaoGky7/results

This Jam's Theme is gonna be "Tourmanent Arc", the home page has updated to reflect that.