itch.io

This is like some kind of strange rm2k gambling game. I could seriously see people laying bets on an ‘automated’ version of this… What an odd idea you had!

Missed exactly one attack, on level 48 - with one party member and one enemy left, then went first on next turn and continued. Then all good outcomes till 55, when 3 enemies all went first, killed 3 characters, and then one went first in the 2nd turn- game over.

I still had lots of resources left, too.

I think Beautrix is the actual main character, right? Fun and inspiring ‘skit’ - such a cool idea to do these!

Good one. Made it to 28 with Lament, Cearcelaan, and Jorkon. Maybe got lucky with RNG and encounters till I got a whole party paralyzed by zap boxes.

Not 100% sure I understand the mechanics - may try again later :)

Ah! Clever with the Kraken, I wouldn’t have thought of that…

Very nice! What a strange world where just growing plants can be illegal… oh, wait.

There are a few possibilities to get stuck and sometimes cramming all plants under the light is hard, but it plays very well overall. Short and sweet. Thank you!

Fun to see new 2K content - it’s clear you put in a lot of care to the visuals, seeing the characters jumping around when they attack is a lot of fun.

I think I have probably missed an area somewhere - I can currently choose between Kraken, Lindwurm, and Shaytan for my next goal, and all three seem untouchable with my setup and tools. I’ll do some more exploring and see what I can find - the maps are extensive.

Small possible bug - there are bones outside the lindwurm that say ‘the door is locked’ on examine.

“I will lay on my deathbed and the doctor will ask if I want palliative care and I will say no because that sounds like a Skill name and I need to be ready for Gremlin Nob in the afterlife.”

I laughed so hard that the bloody, weeping ghost of the Silent squirted out of my nose! 5 stars!!

What would you like for dinner tonight?

I dunno… whatever’s easiest for you is fine.

Ok, poop it is then!

Pure cinema!

I liked Kaeru quite a bit - a kind of simpler ‘magic tower’ like. I don’t know if you’ve played anything in that genre before, or if this is just some cool ‘convergent evolution’ type situation.

It was fun to get access to everything in unfinished state and see where you may have been going with things. Thanks!

Excited to have another OI entry! Overall I’m excited with the general direction, and your encounter design is interesting, as always.

I see some interesting conversation about some potential ‘flaws’, so I’ll give some of my own (hopefully constructive) criticism:

First, I don’t like the ‘real time’ combat model. It still ends up being turn-based (and I see that it pauses when you are making decisions, which is good and important), with the only effective change being that I have to ‘wait around’ a lot as a player sometimes.

I get that this might be a weakness of the software. You want to have ‘granular’ turn order, where faster combatants go more often than others rather than ‘we go, you go’ activation, and this ‘real time’ version might be the easiest one to get in RPGmaker.

Think of something like Final Fantasy Tactics, where there are speed scores counting up to 100, but no ‘waiting’ - the system just calculates the next turn and goes there.

Also a ‘turn order’ UI where I can see the turn orders of the participants would be amazing! It could also indicate ‘fray’ status…

I get using the tools you know, but it’s kind of a bummer in a hard game where I am replaying combats…

Second, I feel like there are two ‘genres’ in here, broadly, and they feel like they are fighting each other.

The first genre is something like tactical combat ‘discovery’ - here things aren’t totally clear, a bit random, but overall each battle is a puzzle. The ‘unclarity’ is part of the game - a lot of play is learning by doing and putting together strategies, and the output randomness there is ‘juice’ after a fashion.

I think ideally in this type of game, there aren’t ‘attrition’ systems - think something like a SaGa game. You get full HP between battles, and the battles are HARD, maybe expecting you to scrape by nearly losing each time. Also, if you lose, you can usually try again right away - you can generally save anywhere and try again freely.

The second ‘genre’ I’m feeling here is a very ‘attrition-heavy’ game, where you are trying to figure out routes and ‘trades’ to make it though a fixed gauntlet. Think a Magic Tower game, or a well-made Fire Emblem type of game. These games usually don’t have any randomness, and every element is super clear and calculable. ‘attrition’ plays a big role, and the main game is about routing and trying new things - kind of like a good arcade game that can be played at first just to survive, and later for highscore/1cc.

So, you have this hybrid. Things are not clear, but there is attrition-heavy gameplay too. Saves are limited, and the combat system feels ‘slow’ to play.

I really like both of these genres, but there is something a bit ‘grating’ about this particular combination. Specifically the combination of ‘unclarity/discovery’ and ‘heavy attrition’.

I do find the game overall really compelling, and I think it’s short enough that I don’t mind replaying through the friction because the overall design is good. Speeding up the ‘waiting’ so it’s instant would help. And then letting me save anywhere and getting rid of the attrition mechanics, or making everything way more clear and deterministic would make this perfect. Or having a ‘life points’ style attrition system like SaGa games have - if a character is KOed they have to sit out a battle, or use a limited ‘revive’ item, something like that.

Overall I don’t want to seem like I’m dissatisfied with this amazing free experience you’ve given me - I’m not at all :)

I’m actually happier if you make more creative and ‘scuffed’ things, if you doing more polishing or learning other tools would feel bad or reduce your creativity or output.

Thanks as always for sharing!

Something a little crazy seems to have happened with the web viewer, with the numbering and comics shown at latest being pretty ‘off’. Can still see latest in the DevLog though.

Great comic, by the way!!

Strange, but compelling.

Wow, awesome art style and great setting. I managed to win, but I didn’t feel like I did a great job - it took me a quite a bit of time to understand the central gameplay loop, which is honestly pretty cool. Jamanguar and Bright Flier were hard carries for me!

I also didn’t manage to use the temple with the rhyme, or forge much of the special equipment. I’ll give it another try.

Fuck yeah! I’m awesome.

Done! Looking forward to it.

Glad it’s working for you, and that you didn’t hand edit all those events!!

Yeah, same response as EnamersU.A - I was a little confused at first, and then delighed while learning and after understanding the rules (mostly). Gargoyles are unkillable?

Strange and fun. I don’t know the language, but I can still play a little, and even get to an ending?!

Very nice. Easy enough for someone not so good at shmup!

Amazing work - great plotting and mechanical design! 10/10, would wake a witch again

As always, amazing job. I like the combo of cards and drpg - good stuff!

Extremely well made! Kudos!

Scored 9057, probably can be improved a lot!

Interesting gimmick - reminds me a little of an extreme version of tactical nexus multiplier items.

At the end I saw maybe killing almost all the monsters in their weak form might not have been best for optimizing. Oh well, I was never too good at that anyways.

Nice improvement on your other Magic Tower like. You have interesting ideas - you should keep making them!

Interesting Magic Tower game, with some new ideas that let you play it in an unusual way. Not too hard or long.

I got ending B, went back to get all mushrooms, and still got ending B - maybe a bug there?

My main recommendation is having a key to speed up combat. Thanks for sharing it!

Alright, taking a look, I was able to make a ‘mini-plugin’ that hijacks your display function and de-randomizes it. It catches it automatically whenever an object gets touched, so nothing has to change in the data.

The changes are adding one file to the js/plugins directory and then registering the plugin at the js/plugins.js file.

I’ll share these via pastebin, not sure what a cleaner way would be.

This first one is LoopDialogue.js, that’s the ‘hijacker’. It goes in the js/plugins/ directory. This is the code, but unless registered it doesn’t do anything on it’s own.

This second one is the adjusted plugins.js file. What I did here is add the plugin I made (LoopDialogue.js) as the final entry, it looks like this:

{“name”:“LoopDialogue”,“status”:true,“description”:“Fixes random dialogue loop.”,“parameters”:{}}

You can either replace js/plugins.js with this file entirely, or just add the line above as the last item. Either way, make sure and save a backup of plugins.js, in case something goes wrong. The first bit of code won’t have any effect on its own.

I haven’t tested it extensively, but I’ve modified my own and it seems to be working fine, and covering all the objects.

Feel free to contact me if anything doesn’t make sense or goes wrong, and please don’t go back and edit the logic object-by-object, that’s no fun at all!

Hmm, not too familiar with the structure of MZ projects, but is the actual function defined on every object? I figure there is some place upstream where you are calling some kind of randomizer, where the randomizer function can be replaced with something custom?

I can take a look in the code and see if I can figure it out sometime, and let you know if I see anything.

Very nice! Like a cross between a dragon quest and a top-down wizardry. I like your art style and I feel like the ‘upbeat hellscape’ vibe from alien squatter is here, too.

I noticed a small typo on the directions that let you know burrowers can exit caves “can to”, an extra word in there.

A suggestion - I like to get all 4 of my team’s comments about stuff. Right now it is random, so I have to examine things many times sometimes. It should probably loop instead.

Thanks for making it!

Well done! I was just going to try a bit and now that snake eye is toast.

Great length and pacing - and thanks for eliminating all those pesky CLICKS!

Yeah, I finally played Silksogn! Slightly overrrated, but still fun.

Nice job. I am not in the competition, so cannot rate, but good luck!

This is really great! Tip for users - I did some searching in the GH repo and if you want to dismiss the “script runner”, in the top right, hit the F10 key.

Thank you for all your hard work!

Nice little sokoban! Well done.

Nicely done! The ice levels were a bit tough, but managed to play to the end. Undo and save would be the main features I’d say were missing - but the levels were short enough that undo wasn’t a big problem, and save states took care of the rest. It’s the first work of yours I’ve played, will look forward to more of your work!

Nice! I liked the art and vibes, and simple but fun gameplay.

I’m dismissed? We’ll see about that…

The music is nice, the ground soft and green, and the light is blinding…

Great news - if you finish it, I will too! No matter what, I’ve enjoyed all your games, so thanks for all you’ve already done.

Awesome!

Running it in Wine might be worth a try.