itch.io

Playing through Order Road and will try the other games included too. Dimasik is my favorite, also: poor Narrator, he/she/it got molested by himself outside of a bathroom. It was not even in the bathroom. A visual novel mindset is harsh for people with a peasant upbringing. 

Got to level 13. Some surprising depth to the system if you think a little more. Think saving up fruits early that heals may be the best strat, gonna try it out some other time. 

Excellent work, looking forward to playing through all of it again next demoday. I have a proper microphone now so may record a video, though I am not 100% my computer can handle it. It is honestly shit...

old man, and think he's fun too.

Billy is meant to be a bit of an acquired taste, once you learn of his circumstances and understand more of his personality I think he comes across as much more sympathetic. 

 Was all the music made by yourself?

Yes, second camp track is a reference to nirvana, forest one is a reimagining of House of the Rising sun. All music has been made by me.

Tried to always maximise my Love points, hopefully it will land on a happy ending! 

Very likely would have! The "saviour ending" is the most good one, you can play it by using the cheating room at the moment. The normal ending is also finished. Working on the final ending now, the "dark path" for players who choose to play hatefully alters act 3 greatly and is also in now. 

Overall, glad you enjoyed it. Still improving a lot of the material and polishing stuff but chapter one is nearly done. The story of Winter will continue for a long time still, as  traverses through the experiences of other people. 

These are some legally distinct levels. Music is lovely, got the AGDG room. I think a straight rip of the mechanics but with new and creative levels may make for a really entertaining game. The mechanics felt familiar and tight, the esthetics are nice. Keep going!

Yeah, feel free to abuse the swagengine to your heart's content, it is by design. 

Top scores, naturally. 

A true ending you say? How... intriguing... 

I might have reached max lives, kept picking things up and did not die. Coins is just fun to collect, even if you never get to use them, just raise the bar a ridiculous amount. 

Might have missed that particular conversation about Booker and Stella, which reminds me, some of the map conversations that continue should maybe be possible to be forwarded by pressing interact,  you have to wait for them now if I have understood things correctly. 

Yes, treasure chamber was the slot machine room. 

Forgot to mention that the photobooth was really cute btw. 

Hope your appointment goes well! 

I have defeated you game, you dastardly scoundrel! Now make more content, lest I severely damage your mind with my opinions!

Finally playing the new update, as usual, will be writing down my thoughts as I play. 

I am playing it from the beginning, only using the switch between character commands to see how it feels. I will say this: ladders are easily defeatable with the player changing, the toughest enemy in the game has been severely nerfed. 

Couple of levels in I have to say the game feels very different this way, it feels more like the characters are cooperating rather than the elders siblings leading and helping the younger ones. It's definitely not bad, just different. 

The game is a whole lot easier now, which I think will work to your benefit. 

Found a bug: if you try to walk backwards in the section where you are riding in a van, the van keeps spawning. 

Sun/moon mechanic is more visually interesting with the additional pixel spritework.

As I am playing through these earlier levels I am always sort of stricken by the sheer amount of ideas put into this, it really is a wonderful world. 

I won the running competition this time 8). 

Money pickups in Krimb-stone one does not seem to work. Seems none of them work. 

Rhew-phi clubname, I missed the pun last time. 

Transition from water to ladder is a bit rough for the child characters, did not seem as wonky for the elder sibling. 

I ship Booker and Stella, lovely cutscene overall. 

Durable cheeselore. 

Barney Mackenstein figured out the deeplore before anyone else, the monkeyman knew! 

Unlocked the treasure chamber, could not pick up the chips. Maybe I have triggered some sort of consistent bug with the coin pickups. 

Messag-Coav is a cozy world, lots of nice character designs, good change of pace after Krimb-stone. 

Did not expect some relationship intrigue going on in the background of this part.

Quite enjoyed the train-section. Fotboll challenge section was nice too!

Love this game, hope your health gets better!

the only thing that's confusing to me is what's James role is supposed to be, as the focus very quickly shifts away from him and staying on Sarah and Billy

A lot of things may seem clearer at the end of chapter 1, but the story of James is just beginning. This is chapter 1 out of 6 in the script, once it is done I am starting to work on chapter 2. This will be a big game. James place in everything will become clearer and clearer as he goes through the lives of other people. 

reezed up after the second phase of the shadow boss (after the two Sarah boss phases) with the following: "Uncaught LoadError,chrome-extension://njgcanhfjdabfmnlmpmdedalocpafnhl/movies/wallslam.webm,() => { this._element.load(); }".

You did not miss anything, this is the point where the game will calculate what ending you will get, but those are not reachable natively at this point. Equipment will affect this btw, some of that is in, some of it is not, yet. 

Apart from the overall impression, I drafted up some bugs/findings during my playthrough based on the notes I've been taking:

ACT1

Typo on act name (re-emergAnce)

Originally it was a typo, one I have made so consistently that I have decided to go with it. Reemergance does have a slightly different meaning in universe than reemergence. Maybe I will fix it... 

Not a fan of the Euthanasia fight - shock too op and otherwise the fight is simple, there's no strategy just a binary check of whether you equipped the shock-resistant card (supposed to be a tutorial?) 

Yes, it is supposed to force you to try the card. But it is a bit uninteresting as a fight, combat gets updated and fiddled with continuously, the oldest fights are the ones that has gotten the least amount of polish so far.  That will change, but there is a lot to do. 

 The muzzle flash for Billy appeared for James, probably because I took off the Deerhunter 3 form Billy and gave it to James (probably shouldn't be able to do it) 

This is the reason, will have to think about this one. 

White text in white background during the pc section is hard do read - one of the options (third one I think) seems to be broken Sad 

I hate the look of all the computer stuff, it will be completely remade at some point. 

that can't bait enemies into beartraps 

One day. 

Bugfixes: 

Thanks for the extensive reports, adding all new things to the lists. 

Knife attack under skills just worse version of regular attack? 

It's the same, someone asked me to put it in the "knifebox" so they would not have to go back when they noticed they did not have enough swagger for cuttabitch. 

 the gun is "now not the right time" - framing implies it's out and should be useable.

The functionality for Jackie-0 is just not done, will be working on it soon though since its more featured in the haterun section of the game. 

I will give you a more thorough answer later but I will tell you this right away. You had finished act 3, you were at the cutout point where you would have gotten to act 4 if everything would have been finished. Two out of three endings for chapter 1 are done (still needs some more polish) you can reach them if you use the cheating room. Act 4 is all different endings depending on choices made, but these things are still worked on. 

You can also watch the two completed endings here if you are interested: 

No rush, I will play your game more at some point, but there are a lot of games to follow, and a lot of things to do. 

Don't get to hung up on the "wordy" comment, that is just a matter of taste, and not all necessarily a detriment for the players that will become your core audience. I was honestly not sure if I should have included it, but I figured if this was a recurring comment in the future, then some fiddling might be good.  

Thank you, still some final work content wise for chapter 1, and a bunch of polish. Touching up or replacing a bunch of scenes and maps I am not satisfied with. Menu setup is wonky at best at the moment, making such things better will be part of the final polish process before chapter 2. 

Also there are laws concerning parody music and satire which complicates things, its not exactly clearcut, and you know, this is clearly a parody of u drive me crazy by waldos people a song whhich may or may not  have been inspired by a certain riff. In case you are curious there are also copyright stuff you can run things through when it comes to audio, youtube probably being the most used one these days. If I ever get a real complaint, I would probably get the mechanical license, which is a whole lot different from a normal one.

Different key, changed lyrics, changed melodies, it is a finicky field. You want it recognizable but not close enough to the original ;  ). 

There is one other cover in there, particularly one for house of the rising sun, where copyright has faded with time. 

The MP4s displaying seemingly random iconography at random times are both a bit jarring and noticeably blurrier than the base game itself. 

They unfortunately have to be to not bloat the size to unreasonable proportions. Still working on alternating paths for chapter one, sections you get depending on your choices, and its above 1 gig. The cutscenes are by far the element that takes up the most space. 

Overall Fun: 2/5 - The combat was a little below average for an RPG and exploration and story weren't huge highlights, but outside the game's general vague vibes, it was mostly poor encounter design that bogged down my experience; with so few options in combat and only one party member, enemies like Euthanasia and the fish dudes would completely stun lock me for several turns at a time, with my only hope for victory being luck.

Equipment management is important, you get a card nullifying the stunlock ability right before the battle, equipping it makes the battle a breeze. It is there to force you to learn to change out the equipment to adjust to different battles. Same with the moods you get straight before the fish, so you neither need to grind nor get lucky if you are willing to experiment a little. 

Spelling things out is boring, but all elements of the story are explained and explored, but it will take some effort on the part of the player. 

 With so few options in combat, I'm not compelled to fight enemies either, so I was probably underleveled.

Think you have barely gotten past the tutorial, combat gets more advanced as the game progresses. Story progresses with time, it all fits together and gets answered.

Controls/UI: 2/5 - While the controls themselves are just normal RPG Maker controls, the use of vague terminology like "PH" and "Swagger" adds unnecessary friction to understanding the effects of items and abilities, leading to me docking points. Gauges in battle are cramped and overlap each other, and the pictures when obtaining a new card also overlap with text boxes and just generally need a bit of restructuring.

Some work to get done here for sure, the terminology is related to the story and makes sense in time, if you are willing to head deeper. This is a 8+ hour game and still growing. 

Art: 4/5 - Very good art! Subjectively it's not to my specific sensibilities, but it all looks very well made and it's clear this is where most of the work went.

Sound/Music: 2/5 - The music was pretty good, but I have to dock huge points for that random Nirvana remix in chapter 2. Unless you actually got the rights to Smells Like Teen Spirit.

A cover is not the same as a remix , there is no sampled material at all. 

I suspect this may not be for you though, good luck in the future!

Pressing hint while talking to forensic frankie crashed the game. 

Okay, I love this. Gonna try to make a recording. Make way for psychocop. 

What the fuck, left it running while answering a comment and it magically fixed itself. Did you create a magic game? 

"This is an amazingly made game, I expected Ren'Py and was pleasantly surprised by a highly customized RPGMaker game. I really like the unique look, the surrealist aspect of the game definitely is the  most unique part..."

Thank you, I really appreciate it! 

 (statuses are even unchanged etc)

There are some alterations to most of these, getting more important over time and additional features are added to them later on. Sleepstat for instance gets a chance for enemies to use alternate, heavier attacks, in the part I am working on now, among other things. The visual stuff for some of the old rpg maker elements is getting replaced as I continue to work.  A lot of the combat systems still need a lot of polish, and more unique features. I am not satisfied with keeping them "ordinary". 

"... hood because I mess with RPGMaker a bit, I quite enjoy the ingenuity!"

Very nice to get some input from someone who is familiar with rpgmaker, I am still a bit of a beginner, recently learning to abuse common events and states to create some more advanced effects and combinations. 

Part 2 is more polished and I like the straightforward simplicity compared to part 1. I enjoyed the little twist for the last rung of the fetch quest. There are some difficulties with the bosses, but nothing not overcomeable with time and a revive.

Visually, act 1 has received an overhaul and some more polish, storywise the game gets increasingly complex in its structure each act, it's more or less traditional escalation. 

"Bugged out space? "

Thanks for pointing this out, I know what caused it. Changed the map when I overhauled the visuals, must have missed replacing one of the transfers so you are being teleported to the position appropriate for the old map. 

Fish and Randomness -

Lowering the speedstat is a good suggestion, will do.  The initial thought was some forced tutorialisation, to get people to change between moods and cards, just as with the early Euthanasia boss which can stunlock you eternally unless you switch up your gear a little. 

"Similarly, there's a forced segment on the house roof later in Act 2"

Did actually think about this, if you die, you do not get a gameover but are instead teleported to the central tree. 

One final note that I think is good is that there are a lot of custom animations/ shorts that a fitted between scenes, it really helps bring the story to life. The hunt scenes in act 2 are quite the kick in the feels.

These get increasingly better, will remake some of the act 2 stuff. You wanna sneak a peek at how they eventually end up you can look at this: 

P.S: I think I got most of the conspiratorial references, my time browsing /x/ was well-spent!

; )

It started this time around, but the resolution is fucked up. Can't seem to change it in the menu either. 

The art and the music are both lovely, the expressions are top notch, as are the cutscene sequences. 

Nyehboy Lightmuffin is a cutie and will be protected from the horrors of the world. 

The combat sprites are excellent too, as is the U.I design. 

You a professional artist or something? This is extremely high quality. 

Hobb/Nyeh pairing acquired. 

Evil book acquired. 

Church location is interesting, all of the characters are intriguing visually. Cutscene with the deerboss was very cool. 

I will be honest and say the story is a bit too wordy for my taste, conversations drag on for way too long, but this is opinion and not fact. Unless you hear this from other people, do not mind it. 

This is how far I have gotten for now: 

I had fun!

Yeah, weapon racks was obvious to me, breaking pots is such a staple it's hard imagining not to break them, you just want to. 

How long is your game on average? Seems to have some replay value. I want to finish it sometime soon, but I have to manage my time too. 

Started playing this yesterday, took a break will continue today. I really enjoy it, and I suspect I will even more as put more hours in, I will be jotting down my thoughts as I play.  

This is not actually important input  but I am not a fan of the splash-art, this is just a personal opinion, but the style seems like it might not reflect what this is. It almost makes it seem more generic, but these things are vague and you probably have tons of input related to this already. 

Goblin sfx is so good. 

Firewave, also known as goblin-clearer. 

I have one suggestion, maybe do not use stamina for breaking pots, weird, yes, but it might make it slightly more enjoyable.  It already is enjoyable though, don't get me wrong

Got to the Grand Ritualist for now, he made me salty, but I will play this more. 

If you ever play it again, do accept the tutorial. It explains  everything you have mentioned, except for perhaps the vague allusions to Velouria. This is a big game though, answers come later, but it may just not be for you. 

Thank you for trying it out! 

Played it, not at a lot to say but I liked it. First time I started it the character did not spawn, it worked on the second attempt though. I think having some speedrun sections might be cool in the future, holding down dash and moving around showed some promise, transition such movement into new attack combos that create more momentum when slicing up an enemy and you got something special.  

Boo, I already bought it ;)

Little Reds animal genocide begins yet again, when will she leave these poor critters alone? 

Got nothing really to add, played a bit, gonna save the rest for the full release. 

Forgot to say, actually quite liked the music. 

Surprisingly fun, these satanboys aint got nothing on my Jesus-power. 

I love this, but I am a big Isaac fan so that is not surprising. Movement speed may be a bit quick, initially, gotta make room for some movement upgrades. Enemies actually have some different behaviours, very nice. 

Still, I would add some patternbased enemies, meaning enemies that strictly move in set patterns, such as  square or whatever. 

Sheild-dudes are interesting, took some time to figure out how to deal with them, which is good. 

Run restart should have a command up after you die without having to enter the menu.  One map had an exit implied, hit the wall and got a jingle which I suspect means secret room, nothing opened though. 

Encountered a room early which may have been unbeatable, slimes spawned/split or however they work more rapidly than I could kill them which created a deadlock, even though I did use the skill move which creates the big flame.

Ah, found another secret room... you have to press E. Should have been able to figure that out. 

The music is lovely btw, the graphics are neat but the environments need more variation. 

Okay, slimes seem to consistently be unbeatable to me, since they keep increasing quicker than they can be killed. Perhaps there is some trick to this I cannot figure out. 

Items do not need descriptions, but a subtext providing flavour or a clue might be cool. 

You can dodge over holes... the science, it is real.  Missed the inventory initially, the additional flavour is nice. 

The slimething does not happen in rooms with big slime, only in the ones with all small. 

Got cool lightning  bow, then got to impossible slime room ;_;  

Might write more, still playing, but I am afraid of losing this comment for any dumb reason. 1 hour in. 

Playing this now, it is not too hard, do not make it easier. 

cool, will probably work more on it then at some other point. Ill send you an update

Still good, played both levels.  Crouch is kind of OP when it comes to the enemies abilities to detect you. 

You already know I love this shit, just writing to give you some POINTLESS VALIDATION. 

https://voca.ro/1k8JKqgA4JMU

Will probably not work more on it if you don't want it,  you wanna use it, its yours. 

There seems to be quite a few particles going around, perhaps add an option to scale them down and it might solve some issues?