itch.io

I got a good chuckle out of seeing how the fireball worked. that was really funny.

the teleport spell seems to be bugged though, because I wasn't actually able to teleport through gates after I got it, and was softlocked!!! I'm not sure if there was an upgrade I was supposed to have gotten before that. the copy is cute though. kinda like how you can stand on it for a bit before it despawns, I wonder if thats supposed to mean anything.

the first area kind of reminds me of like. a medieval backrooms. i kinda wonder how it would have felt if you went for that backrooms vibe with that kind of bizarre architecture.

i was a bit thrown off by that first area as well, though. the fact that you can actually just fall down to the boss on accident and die instantly is a bit silly, and the sword isn't that easy to find either considering you have to be constantly ganked by flying enemies before you can actually grab it.

the combat serves its purpose, but considering how much stamina the slash attack takes to use, i was expecting something a bit flashier and cooler! the first boss is sort of funny because like, they start out with an aerial attack that can slash away half your health if it hits, but it never gets used again in the fight and sort of feels more like a tutorial for you (the player) to use aerial slashes to take them down more easily.

some kind of regeneration on attacking enemies would also have helped smooth things out a bit. also, the dialogue system is bugged; once you start a dialogue scene with one of the purple totems, you're unable to back out of it, and have to go back to main menu and reload. 

one last thing: pressing new game while having a save file just wipes your save file :( i would have liked some sort of confirmation prompt, especially because the two buttons are very near each other!!! 

???? what's unfinished? i met the big rat and he was awesome. working as intended

jokes aside, i like the style youve got going on! a bit too short for me to truly give it a proper critique, but i like the instructions being natural scrawls on the wall, and the hook mechanic is pretty interesting and would be worth exploring more :-) 

holy shit, absolutely insane entry. most creative one I have ever seen. in the like, 10 mins I played this, I actually felt my heart rate increase. the build-up from "eh its okay i can probably traverse the entire lower corridor before the toxicity goes high" to "PURGE AFTER EVERY COMMAND" is extremely well-done. the story being told in this mysterious, almost context-less manner that invites you to fill in the blanks is amazing, too. probably the first overall 5-star for me this jam.

p/s: i think 'defective side effects' works better for this entry, with the toxicity being literally disruptive to the gameplay. c: 

yo, incredibly sick movement mechanics in this entry. the movement speed alone makes the game feel very good to travel through, even with larger maps. upgrades are also really neat, and I like the idea behind the propeller. pie mode made combat more bearable, even though it also meant that everything dealt 2 damage to your puny health............. 

I'm not a huge fan of the way the battery works, though! the idea of your batteries being both your lifebar and charge meter, and the concept of temporary batteries sounds good on paper, but it falls apart in the later levels - being on low battery/health means that your movement and combat is heavily affected, especially when you consider how the dash costs TWO (2!?) batteries, and how the propeller costs THREE (3!!!) batteries to activate! i think it would be great if the upgrades could have their own cooldowns instead of sharing the battery meter - and maybe you could make the battery meter recharge on its own without needing to destroy enemies. the save points being regular and well-spaced helps reduce frustration regardless!

....Oh, right. I beat the game without the magnet. I am so sigma. Please make a game where you can beat with even fewer upgrades next time. I love that nonlinear minimalist speedrun stuff.  

he has no thoughts

Cute game! I am a knight enjoyer and the prince is cute. :-) 

I'm a bit irritated by the movement controls though, specifically the jump button. Since you're using the WASD and mouse control scheme, and the W key has pretty much no use other than deciding your dash direction, I feel it would've been better to map W to jump and make the player's dash direction dependent on mouse direction. Alternatively, ditch the mouse, go for arrow keys as movement, Z to jump, X to dash, would be significantly more convenient. Also, the boss is a bit............ tanky, especially considering how you need to jump-dash to hit them. But I like the little prince. ;-) 

thanks for playing!

assuming i know which room you are talking about, there is a way to get through those enemies. you will need to backtrack to a certain area, then obtain a certain item in a room hidden behind significantly fewer and easier to evade enemies that will let you make it pass that problematic room.

i'm glad you enjoyed regardless :-)

cute game! just like you!

thank you so much for playing!!!! I'm so happy you enjoyed it.

Penmaster (thats the guy you called "Azure" lol)'s focus laser always renders below bullets, but it DOES render above items so that maybe is what is causing the confusion? But yes, it's currently not affected by opacity. That's a bug I haven't been able to figure out how to fix elegantly yet aaaaaaaa

Bullet visibility is definitely a bit wonky everywhere right now especially boss patterns! But that is something we're actively trying to fix as well!! Appreciate your feedback!!!!!!

This is the official feedback thread for STARLIT REVERIE!

Use this forum to:

• Share your feedback on the game!!!
  
  • What kind of feedback??? Anything!
  • Was the game too hard? Too easy? Did the difficulty range help you learn and play it properly?
  • Were the controls and mechanics complicated? Was the tutorial good enough?
  • Characters! Story! Visuals! Anything! Was it pretty? Was it fun?
• Share your experience and awesome high scores!
  
  • The game has built-in online leaderboards! But feel free to share any of your cool Gamer Moments here too!

• Report bugs/crashes/issues!!!!
  
  • BUGS! CRASHES! THE HORRORS! There are some rare bugs that we're trying to consistently replicate and fix but most if not all game crashes should be 100% super duper fixes!!! But please report ANYTHING you come across!!

...Seriously, though... thank you for playing STARLIT REVERIE.

It's been a long long journey of hard work. The game's not done, but we're so happy to have something we can be proud of out there.

wow,,,, blue raspberry lollipop,,, im honoured

the art was made using procreate on ipad, and edited a little bit further on pc with firealpaca

the feeling of "there's a world out there you can't see but can fantasize about" was exactly what i wanted to communicate through this. i wanted the reader to feel like the main character in the story - trying to reach for a world so far away that it may not even be real - so i'm so happy you enjoyed it and saw my vision!

thank you for reading!

the voice sounds were lifted straight from a (significantly more lighthearted) previous visual novel I did - I didn't have much time or ideas to make new ones and voice acting didn't seem right for this kind of story. 

I originally wanted to make no sound effects at all, not even voice beeps. though it felt a little too empty, so a few choice sounds were added here and there. no atmospheric sound was an intentional choice, though, to reflect the unreality of the situation/story

thank you for enjoying my writing! i'm especially glad you thought it wasn't pretentious, because that's always something i worry about when writing in this prose-y style.

good luck on your game!

...okay, but,

 when are we getting the makeship plushies

thank you they and i oove you too :3

shhh, there's nothing strange with it at all, you're simply speaking into the void here...

Thank you so much for enjoying!

The Royal Guards are super cute aren't they??? That kind of relationship dynamic is ultra-adorable aughghghhhhh

Thank you for playing and making a video of the game! I appreciate it.

Loving the squishy thumbnail ahah. My boys, all SQUISHED!!! Unforgivable raaaaaaaah (/joking)

This is so late but thank you so much for playing and making a playthrough video of it! I'm so happy you enjoyed it and gave it five stars even despite all the audio issues.

After some debugging, I managed to figure out why some of the sounds couldn't be adjusted at all (it was an issue with registering new sound channels/mixers!), I've fixed that as well as did a pass through most of the sound effects to reduce and balance their volume. I'll be pushing an update in a few hours for both PC and web!

Thank you SO MUCH for playing again! It's an amazing experience seeing people not only play my games and enjoy them but ALSO go through the efforts to showcase them with videos.

So after some testing, I'm concluding that the crowd noise not being affected by volume sliders is a web build issue, as on the PC download build you can set it with volume sliders just fine.  It seems as if the web build has an issue with different channels using the same mixer; the crowd noise plays in a "BG_sound" channel which uses the "sound" mixer, but somehow the "sound" mixer on web doesn't affect any other channels besides the main sound channel (blegh).

In the upcoming update, I've reduced the volume pretty significantly, and I've also applied the bandaid fix of registering the crowd sound as music, which is weird but also you can adjust its volume in the menus now. Furthermore, I've did a full pass on most of the game's sounds, adjusting volumes and removing unnecessary sounds as needed. It should be pushed soon. Thank you for your feedback!

(deleted this once to fix a typo whoops)

Thank you so much for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed the character writing and the art!!! 

Thank you! Please look forward to my future work!!!

Thank you for enjoying it! I'm glad you enjoyed the dialogue and also the little bits of lore sprinkled throughout. I do plan to explore the setting and make more games with these dudes, so please look forward to my future works!

The crowd noise loudness has been reported, though it not being affected by volume sliders is a new one. I have a sneaking thought that I know what's going on and will fix it sometime in the future when I get the postmortem out.

Thank you again for playing!!!

Thank you!!! I’m glad you liked them! Hoping to make more games with them soon 😎❤️

Thank you so much for this lovely review, it really means a lot to see you enjoyed my writing and characters ;___;

The way Kaiser and Solaris' dynamic is built is that both of them want to be loved, but neither of them want to admit it (initially) for different reasons; Kaiser because he feels like his job and role requires him to put up a brave face of sorts (and accidentally ignore the entire communication aspect of it), and Solaris because he kind of just... is too reserved to ask for attention most of the time. I wasn't sure how to fit the entire, "opening up" part into a short word count (because oops! only started work 2 weeks into NaNoRenO), but I'm glad it came out well. I wonder if Kaiser being the one to offer his hand first came off as a good hint that he wants to be intimate?

I'll be expanding on this more in my post-mortem/"the making of" devlog but the initial concept for the game all the way back in October 2023 (wow) was that you'd be playing as Kaiser and making various conversational choices to have Solaris open up. There would have been multiple endings and the choice to offer his hand would only be available/not grayed out on the route to the best ending, when both of them are fully comfortable with each other. As you can see the scope ended up being cut down to a short-and-sweet kinetic novel, but I think it's better off that way considering the jam time limitations.

The hand-holding scene made me blush as all hell when I drew and programmed the expressions + the dialogue into the game so I am incredibly satisfied to see it have the desired effect on you ^_^ The relationship Kaiser and Solaris end up forming is very sweet and does take a romantic direction further down the line, too. I'm not sure what kind of game I want to make next but I really want to include these helmetboys in my works more going forward!

Once again thank you so much for playing Inside Out!!! I'll definitely try to play Monochrome Pixels when I have the time as well, it looks absolutely stunning and has an insane scope for a NaNoRenO game! Good job to your team for finishing it too!

Thank you for playing!

Please do! I'm sure you'd enjoy my other games if you loved this one!

very sorry for the bug jgskggjlkdg, but I'm glad you enjoyed it overall!

fjjdjdnsnfnd sorry about the weird fullscreen and gameplay issues you had… but I’m glad you think mystia is cute :’)

VOID STRANGER FAN FOUND LETS GO

And yes I did receive a few reports about the slash timing/cooldowns being inconsistent. And you are also kind of correct - both the shot and the slash have the same timer variable with different cooldowns for both, so it's very easy to be in a situation where the first slash won't come out immediately when you tap. I'm not sure how I can go about fixing this yet but I'd definitely put it on my list for when I want to re-implement this mechanic.

Thank you for playing!

NO MORE PONDERING WE SLASHING

thank you for playing!

> the patterns were surprisingly doable without clearing bullets

see this is what mildly surprised me! here I thought that I made it so that you'd have to use sword to make patterns doable. but turns out I did not do that hard enough! one day I will make it so you must use the mechanic to survive...

also ye only multiplier affects score. you build multiplier by killing enemies fast to keep it at 6.4x

marisa with balls is indeed awesome

thank you for playing!!!

yayyy thanks for playing!!! :3c

yeah it’s my first time working with 320x240 resolution so like!!! a lot of the movement/bullet size stuff is still in need to finetuning. but I’m glad ya like it!!!

/het

me and the besties being disgraces to tengu society!

this game, as janky as it was, has a lot of charm to it. like someone here mentioned it definitely reminds me of old school flash games - rough around the edges, but you can tell it was made with love and passion, and a good chunk of silliness. it's fun for what it is.

Disclaimer: I played the game first on v1.00 but beat it on v1.1.

that's a good question. what did I expect? well, I didn't really expect to get emotional over alice pc-98's misadventures through makai and out to gensokyo, but here we are.

I think what really got me and what really pushed me to beat the game was alice's monologue at the beginning.

"it's suffocating.

why do I feel empty, when I have everything I want?" 

I also ask myself this question often. I ask myself why I keep wanting more, even though I should already be happy with what I have.

I think it's human nature to keep wanting more, to keep seeing what lies at the end of the rainbow. just like how alice wants to get out of makai, just like how I kept pushing to beat this game, just like how I stayed determined even when I died to the forsaken laser wheels for the fifth time. there's not really a good answer for whether doing this is a good idea in the long run... wanting more, I mean. but whatever keeps us kicking, yeah?

thanks for making this game. and thanks for v1.1. I really needed that checkpoint update.

I finally got around to playing this game with a friend (Nutterbutterz, one of the awesome folks who worked on this game actually) and it was fantastic! We had such a blast throughout with him showing me the ropes and me blind-reacting to each of the levels, I was like "WHY IS LEVEL 2'S TERRAIN SO WHACK TO NAVIGATE AAAAAA" and he was like "LMAO BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS EASIER FOR PLAYERS THAN LEVEL 1 THOUGH???"

I absolutely enjoyed the art and music of the game, the title art is so silly and cute with all the little touches and the Miko Owl gawking at you, the font choices are stellar, the pixel art sprites are super cute, and Sanae's boss theme is such a banger!

Gameplay was also quite fun and I appreciate that recovery is fairly forgiving despite the increasing difficulty of the game throughout. I do have two complaints though: first, the inertia is really hard to work around which made dodging things like Okuu's laser walls and the Level 2 terrain frustrating. Secondly, you barely get any invincibility after getting hit, so it's very easy to be walled by enemies, lines of bullets, or lasers and just take a bunch of damage (45-60%) within 2-3 seconds without any chance to escape. If these issues can be worked, the gameplay would be so much smoother! I appreciate the fast pacing regardless, though.

Overall, I loved the game!!! I understand it seems like there's some bias in my rating because someone I know worked on this and also I'm a jam host - but my enjoyment of the game is genuine, promise!

hell yeah thats what we talkin about. thanks for enjoying!

Thanks for playing! It's definitely meant to be a harder game than my previous entries for sure :')

yeah the boss is pretty hard so I had to buff the number of lives you get a bit.

thank you for playing!!