itch.io

Hey there.

Just wanted to say I mentioned remaking the game at some point but I really don't think it will happen in the next 10 years or so, if it does happen.

Due to some life/money stuff going on at the moment, I don't have access to any pc right now, so not developing anything for the foreseeable future.

Still have this little dream of remaking this game. Maybe just with a performance boost in another engine with stuff fixed, or dunno, sometimes I think how cool it would be to reimagine it as a 3D Soulslike haha

Sorry if it felt like something I was planning to do soon, or at all.

Sorry, but it's hard to try look up this without more context.

How many times the game froze? Where? Inside battles? The world map? Dungeon exploration?

To be honest, at this point I would probably not mess with design related stuff anymore, despite the problems. I kind of want to remake this game in a better engine eventually, so to adress its more fundamental problems.

I have been fixed so many wrong language text in the last update, it's sad that there's still a lot unchecked. Will give it a better look some time. 

If anything, please check if your version is the last one updated. 99% chance it is, if you downloaded it after january 9, but who knows. I have lots of really old itch games in my folders myself, so that happens.

The enemies respawning on Maze of Trash may be a bug as well, since they are supposed to just respawn when the player uses a restoration chamber.

Yeah, honestly impressed that took so many years for someone to criticize the tentacle boss haha Nowadays, not sure if making a boss like this in a turn based game was a good idea in hindsight, working with the clunky collision of RPG Maker, no less. Sorry for the frustration.

It's all royalty free music haha I have edited some tracks, adjusted tone and tempo, stuff like that.

You can read credits here: https://ghostwind.itch.io/unobelisk/devlog/155577/just-some-place-to-post-credit...

There's urls with the source of the music, though not 100% sure all the links still works. 

There's a whole lot of incredible musicians out there with royalty free music available, wouldn't never guess how high quality they can be, before i needed them.

Thanks for playing it!

I sure miss those times of playing single player stuff together with friends. Really happy Unobelisk was part of it for someone.

To be honest, the biggest sadness of making this is never being able to enjoy it properly. Since it's a game about discovery, and as the dev, i knew all about it already :´(

Sorry for the really late reply. I was kinda getting a vacation from itch and stuff haha

Thanks!This means a lot to me! A little bit envious that you have a group of friends interested in getting through weird indie stuff together tbh : o

But yeah, will totally replace the berserker thing and do a bigger effort on balancing things for the eventual update. Though i'm letting this version available at the same time anyway.

Thanks for the feedback! It took some time to digest everything. This post may have more words than the entire game itself, but i will try to respond in the most detailed way i can.

(There's no quote system on itch.io apparently, so i will try to improvise something.)

"I beat the game yesterday and was hoping the comment section would be open here to talk about it, but I guess I'll post here instead (if you'd rather not have this type of discussion on your game page feel free to delete it)."

For some reason, i couldn't have both a forum and a comment section, so i decided for a forum without thinking too hard  about it lol But feel free to comment anything here.

"As a first RPGM game, this is good, it's always fun seeing people customizing enough of the game to make it look original, and the art here really is fun. The worst thing I can think of, considering this is a first attempt, is certainly the guide book item in the inventory. It's quite confusing, and should honestly just have been a bit better explained, I forgot what every status ailment was in the exact moment I closed that window =P."

At first, the idea was to just make every element about the game hidden, from the ailments to the damage calculation. The guide book was more of an info dump about some terms, it's not meant to be memorized or anything. Most of the terms there are obvious but i needed to do something for the people wondering what the hell is "Jelly" supposed to do. I could have made something clean, with 5 to 6 pages, but i honestly don't think  this is a problem, exactly. It's not something i would change in an update.

 "But the ideas are there and the drive to make something original as well, you clearly thought about the battle system, and how to make it distinctive, and all the form stuff is fun too (that changing animation is way too long though, lol)."

Oh yeah, while i don't care about the guide book, the form change animation is the first thing i would change in some future update. I was pretty annoyed with that when testing it.  

But why i didn't change it then before releasing? As someone that would make a RPG in my spare time as long as 3 months, I've planned to make every aspect of the game in a well defined span of time. Like, the visual identity, enemy design, and stuff like that would be made in the first 15/20 days, then some 10 days to design the maps etc. Which means, i was well aware with most elements in the game that could end up being problematic, but i just needed to carry on.

"The general narrative has a real "first RPGM game" vibe to it lol. It's hard to describe, but things like the first scene being a pretty shallow philosophical moment, one of the first NPCs breaking the forth wall by recognising the dialogue box, the odd dry humor, collecting the four two elemental crystals, etc. That might come off as a bit mean, but take it almost as a rite of passage, we've all been there. Also, being inspired by the first Dragon Quest, this feels almost intentional, like the quintessencial RPGM narrative told in its simplest forms. I would also disagree with your assessment of DQI not being super influential, and that DQII is the one that really inspired people, but I digress, let's go back to your game."

It wasn't exactly intentional, but i can see why this happens lol

First RPG maker projects are rushed by nature, not very well thought out, and also not very polished.

Liquid Sugar is 100% these 3 things. Don't feel bad for pointing that out.  

Think of it as a project that i thought about far more before actually starting it. No way it would be made like this otherwise.

"A couple of tips is that the sense of pacing in cutscenes is a bit off, and you close the dialogue box to wait for a few seconds before showing the next dialogue, which always makes it uncomfortable because I kept thinking it was over, only to have my character still stuck in place. There's a command you can type in the dialogue box to have it hang there for a couple of seconds without closing it, and that helps inform the player the cutscene is not over yet. But I really enjoy how you never have a text dump in the game, like every dialogue was thought out, and edited to be shorter, and it works really well. I don't think I was ever at a loss with the narrative either."

Yeah, the waiting times in cutscenes are weird and can be annoying. Another result of not testing it a lot and something i was thinking about for the eventual update. 

"Battle animations look like you had fun making them (A+ on that healing animation), but some of them go on for too long (the "thousand little punches" or however it was called was pain everytime an enemy used it)."

Same as above, you are 100% right about a lot of animations being needlesly long and this is something i would want to fix

"The graphics are not very legible, not only from the sprite work (collage work? idk what you'd call this technique) but from contrast as well. An NPC told me about a robot at the abandoned factory, and I crossed that entire place twice, and never saw something that looked like a robot there. If there wasn't a dialogue prompt telling me the little icon on the left of the first island was a crossbow, I would have never found it, etc etc. The world map is also really boring, its literally a bunch of rectangles connected by some lines."

So, graphic assets related stuff was the first thing i made for the game, and after doing everything, and testing it, the first thing i could notice is how 48x48 sprites simply doesn't work well in any style that's not super deformed lol Along with the custom resolution, it was kind of messy, yeah.

Honestly, it's not something i would change at this point, unless people really had problem progressing through the game. The messy aesthetics blends well with the vibes, if anything.

But i feel you about the crossbow. Could have made it 96x96 with an opposite color, but i'm okay with the text describing it. Same with the Spyglass. 

Surprised with the Robot, though. I should have made the dialogue box something like "the dude in the abandoned laboratory" instead of robot. Since there's just one npc in the place anyway.

The world is meant to be artificial, like literally some rectangle towers as big as a aircraft carrier, put together. Didn't want something as vast as a Dragon Quest exactly to make traversal between places faster and as bloatless as possible. I personally like how tight and narrow it ended up being. 

"The game is about 3 hours long and it still had me grinding, which is never fun. First NPC I talk to? Grind 3 hard to drop items from a common enemy or 3 common drop items from a rare enemy... Awesome. I think I was level 12 by the time I left the first island, just trying to grind out the 3 carrots. Second town, same thing, after all that grind I barely had enough money for the two cheapest items there."

Maybe my mistake  was putting the npc alone as the first thing you encounter after the first save, as i never intended it to be seen like a mandatory quest. Your reward is just a mini lore dump, after all.

That said, yeah, the experience curve is by far the biggest problem in this game. My main idea of average level for the first boss was like 4/5, and then 8/12 for the second one, either the missile rider underground or Mr Green. It's a game that will be just too easy with any kind of grind.

So yeah, i was not just clueless about how to tackle the experience curve and money, but also testing it alone, and in the last week of making the game. Kind of expected this happening lol

But in hindsight, no matter how many time i had, this kind of balancing feels impossible to do alone. It was actually interesting to see that you really took your time to get the 3 items before doing anything else. It's something that me as a player would never do, and i'm likely to be in the minority.

The same applies to the purchasing habits in RPGs. In the third town there's some items that are really expensive, not meant to be purchased before atleast going through the key cards bridge, but i got some feedback about how they actually grind there to get everything, which also made the game too easy.

"Halfway through the game I bought the berserker item and the muscle ring, I equipped them on the strongman form and for the rest of the game the battles became just literally holding down the enter key, I couldn't even be creative if I wanted, since the berserker item locks my skills, it's like the game gave me an overpowered build at the expense of fun. No enemy could deal with this either. You clearly thought about the skills and equipment in the game, but then put an item that just undermines it all, it feels a little weird. Maybe if items played a bigger role in combat, the berseker would make more sense? idk."

You know, this would never happen in a commercial video game, because there would be a lot of QA to make sure overpowered items like this are heavily nerfed. 

This is something i could solve balancing more the stats, and then testing it again and again, and that takes time.

About that, i feel like i shouldn't have made 12 different playstyles as the forms, if balancing them would be too time consuming.  

"The towns are really basic, with pretty much nothing interesting going on, and the level design on the towns and oveworld is really uninteresting. And still, they are a step above the dungeons, which are all completely flat, and are clearly just a few halways connecting rooms that will, sometimes, try something different, but never something interesting. It feels like you have in your mind a couple of things you think a dungeon shouldn't do (don't be a corridor, don't make every enemy walk the same, don't limit the dungeon to just fighting and opening chests, etc), but it never feels like you have a grasp on what a dungeon SHOULD do. You never "cooked" anything here, you just avoided the pitfalls.  You should have spent more time designing things, questioning why something is the way it is... Hell, maybe you can find an idea to make a hallway dungeon be interesting, who knows? That would probably end up with you getting a game with memorable dungeons (even if they turn out bad) instead of the unremarkable ones you have here."

I'm happy with the towns being basic in design. They mostly exists to have people talking about the world, to put the player in the setting. There's nothing else they should do imo. 

For the dungeons, i just wanted something that strongly resembles DQ1 and other 8 bit RPGs. If anything, the first thing i would change about them if i made the game again, would be removing the gimmicks lol You know, the pac man like setpiece in the Licorice Tower of the Radar thing in the Anise Temple.

Something i overall disliked when testing the game was how the enemies were placed. All the enemies walking in big rooms can be easily avoided, and sometimes there was the same kind of enemy too near each other. That's something i want to change as well in a future update.

  I understand your idea of making dungeons more remarkable but this is definitely not the game i would think of this kind of ambition, Think that you would have probably enjoyed the dungeons a lot more if they were challenging, and the balancing wasn't so fucked up.

"My last (and maybe harsher) comment is that it looked like you spent most of that 3 months making the game not look like standard RPGM project, instead of being a fun, well paced adventure, with fun level design and fun combat. IMO, that's fine, but I'd prefer a game that looks like standard RPGM and focuses on design over presentation."

It's hard to reply that part without looking super defensive haha But i feel like your experience was soured mostly by balancing problems. If i removed the npc in the lab, and the expensive items, maybe your experience with the grind would be completely different?

I say this because i played dozens of jrpgs that i really disliked because they were either too grindy , or just trivial for a reason or another, that could end so much better with some tune up in the numbers. Also, several Jrpgs that i love, but just because i ignored most of their sidequests...

"Sorry for the heel turn and subsequent downer comments. If you take anything from them is that you have an ocean of possibility in front of you, and whatever comes next can be so much more inspired and creative. And hey, if you had fun making this, and would like to make another one just like it, go for it! At the end of the day, I'm just a guy who stumbled here and decided to spend way too long writing out his personal opinions on your work. More than making an amazing game, you should have fun making your game. Everything else comes with time! Cheers"

Thanks for the time! 

It was an interesting read. No matter what was my intention with the game, and what you got from it, it's great to have a different perspective on stuff. 

Sorry for the delay, i don't visit itch a lot nowadays.

Thanks for liking the game! This means a lot to me : )

We can maintain contact in another site. Do you have a Reddit account?

If you want to edit the text in any way right now, the "en.json" file can be accessed in the www folder. It's pretty easy to edit it with notepad++. Unfortunately, i have no way to compensate you money wise (I was planning to make it free as well, since pretty much anyone that played it, did so from the bundles), but you have complete freedom to edit stuff in the game. Will credit you if i end up using your editions, of course!

To be honest, i don't mess with the butler client for some time, plus i'm 100% on developing another game rn so i didn't expect to update this one anymore (Tbh i had some enhancement ideas and bug fixes, gave up due to not many people playing it nowadays). But i have no problem accepting your help, and will make an effort in updating the game with the new edition.

Interact with the puddle, and use the bucket with the poisoned water when the inventory window appears. There will be an option to empty the bucket.

Note: Not 100% sure, but i think the puddle need to be poisoned to empty the poisoned water bucket. In the same way the puddle need to be clean to empty the non poisoned water bucket. 

You can use that purifying machine thing to alternate the puddle between poisoned/not poisoned, using the herbicide poison again for the later.

Tbh every dialogue and image language is set manually on the event itself, so i solved dozens of those some time ago.

There's probably more of these bugs, specially in the map display on area transitions.

Since i'm developing another game rn and nobody commented until today, i was waiting for feedback from the players. Now i'll probably make another bug hunt gameplay to update the game in the next weeks.

Thanks for letting me know! Most people either don't find these bugs, don't care or just give up on the game, i'd guess. As a sole dev, it's essential to have feedback like this.

I think it's sorta obvious after you get the materials. 

In hindsight, i was probably expecting most players to get the mandatory item before reaching that point with the PRMI room in Tower of Light, but of course it would be common with the non linear nature of the game haha

Maybe i should change that in an update. It can be really misleading now that you mentioned it.

Oh, that's a relief! haha

At first, the repair machine could be used in any order, but then there was a rare chance of hard locking the game this way, so i decided to make sure the player used the repair machine to get the mandatory item first.

To be honest, the only hint that the materials could be used to make the module in the repair machine would only appear if you checked it after defeating the boss, but you figured it out without the hint haha

Thanks for the info. Feel free to reply in the comments about anything in the game, bug or not. 

Just to be clear, you completed the puzzle in that room after the one you got the materials without a problem, right?

I will try to replicate the bug here, so expect this post to be updated in the next 30 minutes (or maybe 2 hours, assuming it's more complex than i think haha). 

Thanks for letting me know! And sorry for the trouble.

While i try to replicate the bug, feel free to comment here about any possible extra info or if you made any progress.

Edit: Checked the event, tried to replicate in-game multiple times in different conditions, but i couldn't make it fail. It's apparently working properly.

I will post some spoilers below. Since comments on Itch.io doesn't have a spoiler function, i will edit this post deleting the spoilers after your reply, okay?

About returning to the room you got the materials to take some more, don't worry, you're supposed to do this.

Please reply this post to inform wheter you've used the repair machine previously or not.

Edit: Deleted the paragraphs with spoilers.

Damn, that's unfortunate. I think the save system is not super well explained unless the player reads the in menu tutorials. 

How many HP Uno has?

It's a long shot and maybe a little luck dependant, specially depending on your HP, but try to do that:

- In Path of the Faces, depending on what floor Uno steps on, it can trigger 2 ghosts of different kinds. One of them is always a "Statuarum". Basically, you are in the soutwest entrance of the area, so you should get to the northwest exit.

- There will be 3 fights to get throught this way, try to make sure you only fight Statuarums (There's also Staturuams, don't confuse them) in those 3 battles.

- Statuarum does minimal damage in normal conditions, like 3 per attack. While your knife attack should kill it in 3/4 turns? That will depend on how many knife upgrades you have. The catch with Statuarums is that when they start to smile, you should stop attacking them, using evasive actions instead, then return to attack when the ghost gets serious again.

- While you make your way through the Path of Faces, don't go back to Mist Woods, since that will make the ghosts respawn.

- If you manage to fight the 3 Statuarums and reach the northwest exit, you'll reach the Archery Zone area. Go west, trying to avoid encounters, and reach the area "Pathfinder's Pass".

- On Pathfinder's Pass, there's a secret passage through the trees to north. There's a hidden ghost there but it can be avoided.

- After the secret passage, you'll reach an upgrade module. Every upgrade module found in Unobelisk recover Uno's entire HP and ammo, so you're basically saved.

- Return to the Archery Zone, go south to reach Mist Woods, so you can return to the Safe Room. Make a lot of saves in different slots to be sure. You may have to fight a ghost in Mist Woods but now you're completely recovered.

If you manage to pass through the 3 Statuarums and follow the instructions, you're 100% saved, but depending on your current HP or knife strength, it may be impossible after all.

Can't do that now, but if you just can't pass through the Statuarums no matter what, i may send you a save game in the Safe Room just before the Gardens. 

Besides that, my apologies for the problem.

The game autosaves on every room for convenience but safe rooms should save in a separated slot. There was one right before the entrance of the Gardens, two screens from where you are now.

To be honest, i think it's possible to ignore every save prompt in the safe rooms but it's highly unlikely. Is this the case? The auto save always saves on slot 8 while the player chooses the specific slot for the main one.

Aside that, it's fairly common to get locked in an autosave since the game was designed around resources management. At first, it wouldn't offer auto saves at all, but i thought it could be a nice quality of life feature. Though it can be misleading at times.

Can you load a main save from the last safe room?

https://ghostwind.itch.io/unobelisk

Thanks! 

This means a lot to me! 

You're welcome :)

Yeah, the exploration/puzzle part of Unobelisk is definitely inspired by games that i would never finish without a guide myself haha

Thanks! :)

Kind of sucks that the game isn't popular enough for someone to make a walkthrough. Maybe i'll make a simple one myself and post it on the development log haha

But anyway, if you get stuck again, just post in the comments about it.

Thanks! Really happy with any feedback :)

Did you use the Alpha Key to upgrade your armor? (It gets purple instead of orange, for reference). Like, the key unlocks the device that upgrades Uno's armor to get through tougher ducts, but you'll have to find the device first. It looks like the restoration chamber from any save room but orange instead of purple.

There's another area acessible after the tougher ducts. The Junkyard can be reached at this point but it's not related with the Alpha Key. 

Did you get the Portable Heater, by any chance?

Have you visited the Light Room in the Factory?

You have visited the Engine Room to eventually get the Alpha Key, right? Maybe you should visit it again to change the direction of the blue lever and see if something in the factory changes.

There's actually two entrances to the ducts from the factory. The first one that links the Factory with the Test Dorms, and the second which can be accessed after unlocking a specific room. That locked vent on the ducts between the Dorms and Factory can only by opened from the other side, and serves as a shortcut.

The game gets slightly less linear at this point haha Will try to give hints but i can just say the solution if you want to.

I guess i should try to solve it in a future update. Maybe change the password to something with only one word haha

I pretty much tested the game alone, so i think there's a lot of stuff that feels obvious to me as the dev, but not to anyone else.

The "space key" can be found as an actual blank space, so i understand why it can be so confusing.

Thanks for the feedback! Will try to solve this asap.

There's no way to private message on itch.io unfortunately, so i'll reply with the password but i'll edit it in the future to not spoiler the other players haha Reply this comment when you're done, Thanks.

Thanks! With so many great stuff in the bundle, i suppose not many people will focus too much on this one right now haha

Thanks! Happy you're enjoying it.

Thanks : )

To be honest the emails that came after the 2 first tax interviews about having to complete the form in the next 30 days made me think i did something wrong since i checked them after doing the interview for the last time. If the situation of my last interview is complete and those emails can be ignored, i can rest well already.

You have my thanks.

Just released the game and it's in  checking stage right now. It's unindexed right now but can be accessed by url. Already downloaded my game to test and everything seems to be okay. Can i put it on the bundle?

Anyway, here's my game for the bundle in case the answer is positive:

https://ghostwind.itch.io/unobelisk

Sent an email for support on saturday with the same questions, but decided to post in the forums as well just to be sure.

I got pretty frustrating with no replies after 5 days but i understand the itch.io's staff is not exactly big, and everything is probably slower due to the quarantine. Maybe someone here got the same problems and stuff.

So, i published a commercial game on Itch.io, and made the tax interview, which was confusing but i think i got this right in the end.

I'm not sure if this is a problem, but i did retake the interview 2 times, since i was confused about the electronic signature bit. The first 2 times, i choose not to give an electronic signature (I was really confused about it, thought i would need some kind of license or something), then got in the process of printing the form and physically sign it.  After some reasearch, i updated the tax interview one last time accepting the electronic signature and apparently everything was ok in the end. 

I believe my tax interview are in checking stage right now. There's some way to confirm it? Checking my gmail, the tax support sent me 2 emails about how i didn't completed the form and a signature was still needed, but they seem to be automatic mails sent after i did the interview the first 2 times. This is normal? Can i ignore them? Both emails are exactly the same, btw.

Aside that, my published game is unindexed at the moment. This is normal since i put a price in a game for the first time, right? How long it normally takes? I released the complete version of the game with the price on friday if i'm not wrong.

The game was indexed before the release and price set, when only the demo was available. It's likely that the game is unindexed now due to the first time price set but i also changed the url and put the published game back on draft to edit the page before releasing the complete version. It's possible that the game got unindexed for these motives as well?

While unindexed, seems like people can still buy my game if they access the url. Can i sell my game sending the url to people despite the itch's staff still checking it?

Can my game take part on the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality even though it's unindexed?

That's it, you people have my thanks.