itch.io

was it intention to have a blank enemy troop in front of the stairs in Dungeon. i thought it was kinda like a nice victory fanfare, hey you won

i'm a little sad that we have to beat up sbybol but i get it. he's just a pig to a blonde woman

in the VX days i had a roguelike i kept trying to make called Edifice where you had a shitton of HP (2.5k for everyone) to start and there was no healing. this font was terrible but you can see how BIG of a role i wanted it to have

game was unfinishedish and probably bad but its always something i thought was fun. like there was still tanking but that meant oyu were spending that person's HP to protect other peoples' HP... idk! i think it could be compelling with defter hands!

i think spinal cord was great because it fools you into thinking that you maybe can take on an executioner without dynamite. just one of many evil tricks... i also really really liked how the hp played. i also like to give brawlers more hp than martial types so this Appealed to me. me, zerac ?

i also routinely struggle with how long to leave the player alone. i don't usually find it makes for amazing rpg fighting (maybe just not with my systems, you have plenty of single character sketches i like... hmm...) but i just want to give the hero a little breathing room, yknow. alas.

this one was great. you can feel the crunchy number polish you put into it, and i liked the aggressive compromise for saving with eating the fairies. great work!

WAIT "ZERAC" IS AN ANAGRAM OF CRAZE

LMAO now that's a fucking name

ah. another sketch with a jumpscare of a statline. hm

I had a lot of fun with this one! It took me about five hours to complete, but I'm a backtracking sicko so may be less for others. The world is nicely built-up and it was really enjoyable finding all the little secret passages throughout the island.

i should have known!! we shall meet on the fields of gam mak, indrah....!

im gonna be honest, i did pick up on the targeting with Hearth... and then due to the accidental mercy of allowing saving, i let myself try the final boss once even though i saw the azure chest and it was already obvious i had one spell missing. and so i was immediately like Huh Im Gonna Get MP Restore and then i did and then i creamed that blue lady

so apologies for mentally solving your skill box of curiosities in the wrong order but it did have basically the intended effect on me anyway? and i was still scared of the mimp + goofus troop on the final, fully equipped walk back so good work

hey thanks ദ്ദി´ ˘ `)✧

oh my god hahahahahaha

hot split screen temple action

all the previous harold jams had a colon instead of an emdash in the name. please

yeah, i really loved the chase. i did realize pretty quickly it was easy, especially since I had found the library secret earlier, but the music and tone were still spot-on. i did freak myself out on the castle entrance being like, wait, he's RIGHT THERE, but then i remembered he can only see in a straight line lol. i'm too gay for that, LeStack!

i will say, one of the best hallmarks of these sorts of games are "finding a secret you don't know how to use" like the library and the hole behind the throne. then, when it all clicks together in the final couple minutes, it feels sooooo good.

holy fucking shit

games really are a language, huh

alright. kept coming back to this one and finally figured out The Evil Trick (embarassing). what a cool concept. 

it was really impressive how situational you made the big cool one-ofs so that the whole cast could sing. or scream, i guess. double screaming action.

i think they're kissers

thanks! the randomized parties were a goofy way to handle a jam requirement but i wound up really liking them haha

DRAGON SLAYER JUMPSCARE

i liked the ideas here. i think the high encounter rate and kinda wonky default skills did a disservice to those ideas, but i did beat it. neat jam game.

less of a criticism cuz possibly intentional, but i thought it was interesting that you fought so many other monsters before slaughtering the humans by the end. hm!

i thought i was the evil tunnel queer

edit: also for future collab concept at some point, after Harold Gacha (vesengir saga ii) (I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO MENTION MY YURI GAME ONCE DURING ALL OF JUNE??) i have a lot of experience forcing visustella plugins into autobattler A-I which could be... pretty funny for a game like this or killing fools etc lol

actual edit: why the fuck did i start this with "edit"

i think the most interesting textural thing for me with jusztina is that sorcelleons barely take damage from her but she won't basic them unless they're really low, BUT they're also dangerous, so you have to spend a lot of mp to give marie-louise time to attack them or just hope you've finished them off with the attack that turn

this was so cool

the ol "skeleton key" eh

I do think you did a great job with the character differentiation on this, and in how you chose to work around evasion/accuracy due to 2k's limited access to those. Lament's "hit twice" is technically more accurate when everything has 1 hp, and so on. Fun!

the harpies are mean!!!

i thought i was supposed to knock stalagmite off of each side room to make the cave collapse but i guess not....

sketch 12 gave me a jumpscare with the statline

this one gave me one with an enemy named "roadrunner". what are you cooking here

"But it's still clearer than getting a lump sum of gold or EXP and not knowing how much each enemy contributed."

Time to make a math systems game where the final boss is simply the question "how much XP does a red imp drop"

lina more like. area heala.

if i ever rerelease it i need an item that lets you put a pair of sunglasses on one character's faceset/portrait

i'm the new elf fight world champion!!!!!!!

femelf..................................................................

i liked the idea of this one, though i have to admit....... i did not get the waking up sequence. defintiely has vibes though

first try, i went a ways through and died to a tick. i did go off the path a bit, got attacked by a game warden and assumed the forest was off limits, but got one on the road so... lol

second try, i just fucking booked it through the woods south and followed the river until i found the rest stop. but i only had 56 gold so i couldn't spend the night. still, was good talking to all the npcs. i liked that. poor pig

yeah, i can tell you had fun with this one. i think this jumped to the top of the list for me.

i do want to push back on:

"This latter limitation accounts for a number of smaller balance gripes I have: buffs and debuffs suck, the impacts of elemental access are muted, status ailments never get their moment, enemy movepools are all small and samey (most just have one regular attack + one offensive skill)..."

1) i got a lot out of buffing Boxos

2) i did at least -notice- elements in the dragon horde 

3) Thrast was great at doing area ailments in the cave. I think that was worth

4) The enemies had a little texture, like I always ran from Soldiers because Provoke was scary on anyone but Boxos

oddly this feels similar to the hounds of hell just in terms of "what the fuck do i do with these guys" lol, so that was fun. having to deal with death and swapping out for mp was absolutely the way to flex into the end product i think. clap clap

okie. beat it.

here's my rankings, in order of memory and not bestness:

• Boxos: Well, he is the best actually. Just pure, unmitigated damage. Being uncontrollable just makes my life easier. He and Ullar were in my party the entire game.
• Soron: Big fan. Basically infinite MP and can do most things you need. I used him a lot, but ultimately ditched him to make space to grab Jorkon, since the ice queen was more helpful in clearing the cave dungeon.
• Thast: Quite liked them. (I tipped 1k.) The infinite area heal spam was great, but I did wind up kicking them out for Edelith because Soron had healing covered as long as I was careful.
• Edelith: She was fine in the cave dungeon because she has strong AOE. That's all she's got goin' for her. Worth the price of admission if you get her before the caves.
• Jorkon: Unironically quite good, despite... yeah. Cure III was really important for keeping Kudelpha active in the Demon God fight. DPS was great too.
• Drakellion: Fine, but died early. Buffing Boxo's attack and healing him was 80% of what I had him do.
• Stefq: Dead. Whatever. All the other healers were more interesting or self-sufficient.
• Ullar: I figured that was what I was getting into, but I played the entire game with him and beat it so whatever. He was tanky enough to stay in the game and take hits off of Jorkon, so thanks Ullar. I did accidentally get him below 10 MP because I kept using the MP drain on enemies without MP... lol...
• Kudelpha: Amazing healer concept. I grabbed her for Demon God thinking she was gonna be a buffer, then saw Recovery III and was like... hell yeah! She and Jorkon were incredible for the fight.

Cool concept, and gives me ideas for future jam games ~

boxos my beloved...

so is the tunnel...