The mechanics are simple and easy to understand, but they also manage to tie in perfectly with the story, and there's so much variety with the ways all the different terrain types interact with your meters.
That said, by the time I figured out how to make it all the way to the end, I managed to make it without having to worry about the FEAR timer at all (it was only ~halfway filled, and without using any refills), ahahaha.
1) I think what you're experiencing here is just that the player character's movement speed is 1.25 pixels per frame. The game display is pixel perfect so there's nothing that can really be fixed here.
2&3) I don't have any plans for an update for this game currently, but if I do I'll consider adding controller support + an alternate font.
4&5) All intentional! I think it's cool to have unintuitive strategies like that. Playing around the more unreliable or specialized abilities offered is part of the fun too.
6) Music changes happen at the end of the tracks' loops to keep the audio continuous, so while the main trigger is every 15 minutes, they won't necessarily 100% line up, especially if you pause the game.
Ok I did some more testing and the dragon must have really low magic defense since sleep works surprisingly consistently on it. The real bottleneck is your ability to do damage to it quickly, which is solved by Gomez at level 12 with Water II (Carol at level 12 with Ice II also helps).
On another note I gave the bonus game a shot. It seemed doable at first, but I'm not convinced the first dungeon and boss fight is possible without grinding well past where I gave up (at level 12) given that sleep seems to be ineffective there. I did manage to reach the second town too, but it didn't really help since there isn't much gear Helen can equip anyways.
I did manage to beat the dragon at level 12 with the sleep spell. That might need a significant degree of luck to work though, when I tried it the spell hit first try and the dragon stayed asleep for ~10 turns while I wailed on it lol.
In this last-ditch effort to save the company from financial disaster, Sraeka Games invents the never-before-imagined concept of gaining "E" by defeating enemies, which allows the playable characters within the game to become more powerful and defeat stronger opponents. This is in accordance with the modern trends of compulsive gameplay design.
Unfortunately, this gameplay loop is deeply inherently flawed and stands no chance of catching on with the self-respecting gaming populace. If in 20 years from now a hypothetical "RPG Maker" existed with this system in place, every user of the program would surely disable it at the first opportunity.
It took me 4 attempts. My route still wasn't thoroughly optimized, but I barely made it out with good encounter RNG at the end, so I'd say it's pretty tough, yeah.
Didn't feel like the dungeoneering gameplay hit the level of depth it was intended to, I basically just attacked and healed and made it through on my second try (after blowing a bunch of MP figuring out how the skills work on my first attempt), but maybe that was just luck.
Nice NES-era style metroidvania! I like how exploration can always get really tense with how sparse the checkpoints are, even when you're in the lategame overpowered stage with your upgrades.
...Was it intended that the game started lagging really badly every time I tabbed out to MS Paint specifically (forcing me to draw a map on physical paper) or was that a trick of fate?
Wow!!! The Fray is a great combat mechanic just like the first time around, but this time every single encounter introduces new types of enemies and attacks that interact with the system in unique ways... incredible!
The resting mechanic took me a while to notice, but I'm a big fan of how the resource economy here works. Even if the measly 5 healing items you get is super stingy.
The silent storytelling is awesome too, introducing the characters one by one really lets you get attached to each of them, and the atmosphere of escaping the castle under assault is impeccable. I love the part where the last party member gets introduced and she just casually styles on a swarm of enemies for 5 minutes lmao.
It's a bit buggy/unpolished currently, but I think this beats the first game by a mile, and I loved that one (crazy that it's been four years...). My only real complaint is that I wish the combat system was faster.
Shoutouts to the elf from RPG sketch 3.
(Also the time this took me to beat was more like 6 hours than 2 ahahahahaha. I got stuck on the final boss for a while.)
Wow this game is so cool! The writing is so nice... The elemental system is really intuitive too, and the skill + encounter design leverages it perfectly.
Won on my... fifth attempt, I think. First phase went badly compared to my previous try (I got through with 1 potion left), but then I got a really lucky pattern on the second phase.
That ending screen hit really hard, ahahaha. Well done.
Something I probably didn't get across as well as I wanted to in the game descriptions is that it is supposed to feel totally hopeless and frustrating between the time investment per attempt, close to unfair difficulty of the bosses even if you're prepared, and opaqueness of ways to improve your strategy. I did this to tie into the story, make it feel more rewarding once you finally figure things out, and hopefully encourage people to share strategies rather than go it alone (unfortunately barely anyone has bought the game).
That said I'll try to give some advice. For the earlygame, my recommended target to be on pace for winning the game is to reach level 4 within 15 minutes, ideally 12 or less. Midbosses or higher tier enemies are the most EXP efficient, so it's best to use your resources in ways that target them. Gold efficiency in this part is definitely tricky... slimes are safe but give terrible gold drops, while the tougher enemies give solid amounts but you can only snipe a couple with spells before needing an MP refill. Because of this, saving up gold is really slow, so you'll only ever afford any of the big purchases when you get a big influx of cash (your starting gold, overworld rewards, reselling your gear). You'll just have to make those sources count. Other than that, you can also save on healer fees by loading up on cheap items (usually health potions) and taking a death to make the duke heal you instead.
To comment more seriously, despite your worries I think you very well captured what you were going for with this one.
The balancing is off but I don't expect that level of polish from a one hour project lol.
Your games are always inspiring with how they evoke feeling through minimalist gameplay ideas and this one is no exception... learning the lay of the land and its inhabitants to find a relatively safe path, that's good stuff!
