itch.io

Thank you so much for playing! <3

As an artist, I was a little put off by this one to be honest. After a few days, however, I decided to give it another look, because I could not stop thinking about it. Please keep in mind at that moment I have not bothered to read your devlog, or much else about the project itself. 

After a second look, I see so much potential and your devlog has given me a picture that while you might be more of a writer than an illustrator, your efforts and passion are a lot like mine, as well as your ADHD. I will never belittle ADHD, but I also hope it is has not gripped you as severely as it has for me. I am unable to hold a proper job, and I am always in and out of a hospital (ADHD can cause so many physical problems too :(...).

After that hopeless ramble, I really hope you don't mind some... I don't want to call it critique, more like suggestions or something.  I just hope I'm not overstepping. If I am, please feel free to disregard this. After all, I only know a small fraction of what led to this interesting set of maps.

First and foremost, normally I tell people to move on from a project, but your project is still in progress and I believe it deserves to be continued. You already put so much work into this and, while I cannot imagine what you were or still feeling after your work was wiped, I hope this will help you get back up and continue your work. I for one would be devastated if I lost my progress, I try to write a lot on paper just in case and pray my house never catches on fire...

From what I could see in your game, you have great presentation, I know people can go like "ew why do you use default tiles?", but as someone who still draws trees and buildings like a kindergartener, I think you still created areas I haven't really seen before (Westridge and the surrounding area especially) that are eye catching and neat to explore. (Meanwhile, halfway through mine, or even a quarter way through, I used actual sample maps so I could just finish my events >_<...) I spent a while on my second playthrough walking around and seeing how everything connects. It was very nice.

Obviously, your theme is there. This one isn't as hard a some of the other themes, in my opinion. You got a prince/princess, and a leader that's maybe dying or wanting to teach their kid a lesson about royal life? You got a theme. Seriously, just having a prince or princess might even be enough. The bonuses help give some direction, and number one was nailed despite the lack of dialogue. Still, after this, the theme doesn't even matter.

Because of the skillful use of RPG Maker assets, I thought this one did stand out. I did stay in my head enough for me to come back to it after all. I never played Paper Mario, but I watched my husband play and I've seen some speed runs. I did get that Paper Mario vibe while walking around your maps. I feel like once you entered an area in Paper Mario, it was several map screens before being popped out the map? Level select? I can better compare it to Mario 64 maps for sure. If the castle is the world map and the paintings are the areas/ dungeons, then that's the best metaphor for what I felt in Dragon Hunters. 

I love the story idea, and I followed you in hopes to see it come alive. I don't know if this was a bug, intentional, or an oops, but it was a little weird the Princess was MIA on the Prince player side. I'm not saying it's bad, if there's a reason go for it. Since it happens in the beginning it may make the player wonder how different the routes are and play both, or help decide which one to do first.

There is not much to say about gameplay, but (so many developers don't this >_<) please put descriptions on at least items. Not everyone knows what the default items in RPG Maker are called, and giving them a boring name like HP Heal, is first, nothing I have seen anyone do, and second, too generic. If it's the default menu system that takes away the descriptions, then I would get a menu plug in. I use VisuStella on Yanfly (also here on itch, but Yanfly has their stuff super organized with instructions on how to use them) That's for MZ, if this is MV, then use Yanfly's they made theirs easy to understand too and are on the same website.

Overall, you seem to have worked hard and are very close to a demo. Don't get overwhelmed, take your time, just pop in on your devlog so people know you are still working on it. I wish you luck on getting that vision out there. Thanks for reading.

Hi there, I played your game it has some really cute characters both design wise and personality wise. I just hope you don't mind some critique, this game is done, but hopefully it will help you with future projects. Don't worry, this really stands out, I just hope I'm not overstepping. If I am, please feel free to disregard this.

The presentation was definitely your biggest strength. It's so cute! I was drawn in by your screen shots showcasing your character busts and sprite work. This game also gave me zero trouble running! That's amazing for a first game. Is this your first game? It just runs so cleanly. I hope you continue to make games, with practice I'm sure they will be amazing.

Theme was also pretty good, but I didn't really get any impression of character growth on Maya. She never mentioned actually not feeling confident in the beginning nor was she much more humble by the end. Obviously, the main theme Heir to the Throne was positively nailed, though. I will also say close enough for bonus one, since so many others just thought leaving on a quest they didn't want to do was the same as being forced to run away. I also can see the argument on both sides for it, so the first bonus I would say has been met.  Theme sometimes can feel like there should be an answer, but obviously there is never one answer... Not sure if that made sense...

I felt the the creativity was just okay, but it might be just me not knowing what this was going for exactly. Like if it's supposed to be action/puzzle visual novel, great. The meat of the game featured a bunch of obstacles that required watching and figuring out patterns (puzzle) and crazy hand eye coordination (action) with a cute story (visual novel). I don't see that often with RPG Maker, so I think that's a bit unique. However, if you were going for a puzzle RPG, you would need battles, levels, a world map, etc, and less physical action and reaction by the player. Games like Zelda and Y's are more action and puzzle than a standard role playing game. I'm sure your idea was the action, so this is probably unnecessary, but just in case. I don't want to assume either way.

That said, while the action puzzles are a great concept and work well, the gameplay did lack balance. I thought the flame dodging was extremely difficult and overly punishing. Yes, you can save anywhere, but even visually being sent back to the tippity top of a floor after passing the middle of a long room is moral reducing. Because you can save anywhere, the quickest solution, or the least thinking how to adjust this in other games, is to add a load option to your in game menu. I had to full on go to title and load my save from there every time I messed up. 

The more balancing way is to make it just a little slower and/or easier. I'm not saying to baby it like modern RPGs, I understand the need for challenge in games today, but there must be some kind of compromise to stop people from just giving up and quitting. I for one have rage quit this game several times this week before I could finally beat it.

There also needs to be a reward worthy of the challenge, and unfortunately, the ending of the story was disappointing. This was a cute concept and the characters were well thought out, but the story pacing and closer caused it to fail somewhat in execution. The sad part is if you remove the most interesting parts of the story, like the 'trial by fire' descent and the bloody room, the story would make more sense structurally. 

You left the player wondering many things like: Did what we just do actually happen? She passed out, so does that mean she was just dreaming? Maybe she passed out and dreamed the end and got captured? But, it would make more sense for the danger to be the dream? 

One might think it would lead someone to eagerly wait for a second part, but who's to say there's more? Is the player ready to go through that type of gameplay again to reach maybe an answer? There are a lot of questions one might ask themselves when writing for a game. Now, I'm not saying that it was bad, just incomplete. There needed to be more breadcrumbs left for the player if we're going for the 'you are going to want answers' route in storytelling.

Again, this is merely my opinion, nothing more. I am probably having the exact same storytelling problems in my game too. Every game is a learning experience, especially game jam games. After this, one can either start fresh or improve on the game submitted, and I will guarantee that the next game will be better. I really hope I didn't offend. I wouldn't  have written all this if I didn't think it was good and had amazing potential. Thank you for reading my babble.

Hi there! I played your game and I thought it had some interesting elements. I hope you don't mind some critique, this game is done, but hopefully it will help you with future projects. Don't worry, a lot went right, I just hope I'm not overstepping. If I am, please feel free to disregard this.

First I'll talk about the good things. While I played and rated this, because I have also submitted, I only write a review when I think something stands out. The game runs really well, and I never crashed the game. I thought I did at first, but I realized I did not explore enough to progress. I liked a few of your ideas like using what appeared to be items as conversation topics. I have seen it done, but thankfully yours did not disappear after using it once. I had to repeat those options so much, because that section was where I was stuck. 

I also liked the unique design of the main castle, and that the prince had choices in what to say. (I actually liked the one try and that's it, of that optional hole puzzle! It really nails down his character.) I was really careful with choices after that, but I'm a little sad I did not get the lake screenshot scene with Daniel. (But that is good, because it encourages replays)

 The story seemed a bit rushed (don't worry, play my first game Elemental Quest and know for game jams, we have all been there), BUT, and this is why it's in the good section, the main idea, concept, and what you had written, makes this sound like a super cute story that, even though it's based on something already existing, the twists were well thought out to the point where I thought it was really good (and I usually hate remakes, no one needed 'live action' Lion King...)

Okay, sorry I ran on a bit, but I hope I at least made some sense. That said, I have suggestions, but I am only using this game as an example. It needs more art. This game had some exploration and puzzles, but was mostly a visual novel. I think having someone (or yourself) make you even just a few drawings of your characters would really make this thing pop and not scream "I am an RPG Maker game!". Art (doesn't have too be super good art, just art) makes games unique even by itself. 

While I really loved that you have brought exploration back as an important gameplay element, something today's games seem to lack, I still think the player needed a little more of a nudge. I believe you got extremely close to this mostly, but when it came to the random fay trying to drop those two a giant hint of "dudes, seriously?", I think the player needed something to lead them a bit, like maybe tell her to take a look around the castle or something. With the rest of the game, I used the nanny, Daniel, little Harold, dog, nun, and Amanda as these people must have my instructions. I also would have never solved the water puzzle without the hint, so maybe a tiny nudge for the prince to stick his nose in a prayer book would have been good, but like MYST you do not need to get people to get what the words in the book mean. That part was executed very well. Exploration is amazing in these types of games, and I think you got super close to really doing that perfectly.

Sorry that was a big paragraph, but now I'm wondering if that should have went into the good section too, but also I don't want to call this a bad section, just a tip section?

The theme, in my opinion, was also a little off. I know "Heir to the Throne" is a very broad topic, and yes this definitely hit it and the second bonus prompt about responsibility, but he left his castle of his own volition to solve his and his kingdom's problems, so I cannot call him a runaway. I think the leaving to go find a cure or help is more part of the responsible thing, because he just stayed holed up in his room for a good amount of time.  However, do your choices change some scenes? You have an optional puzzle and I missed a screenshot scene, so maybe you at least dipped into number three's whole choices change result bonus? I'm just curious.

In closing, while the story seems rushed, it is still a great concept and a good look into the prince's character. The theme may have been rocky, but this is the best use of part 2 of the bonus that I have seen. I think it could use some art, but you were able to make nice explorable areas. One might get a little lost, but exploration is a great part of the game. Some gameplay elements even went perfectly in tune with the prince's personality and self esteem. Overall, I thought this game was pretty good, and you are well on your way to making something amazing. Thank you for making and submitting this game. I hope you continue to create more games.

Congrats 🎊 on winning the City of Adventure jam! This is a beautiful game. Well done!

This game was super pretty. The busts and animated sprites were really well done. 

I don't know if playing the other games were a requirement, but the characters were hard to get to know and it was hard to isolate the small issue that was solved in the story from the big picture. I was taken by surprise by how sudden the ending seemed. I hesitated in writing this review, because I am also creating a large world and I am facing the same struggles. I am still having trouble with this problem myself, so pointing it out to another seemed weird, I guess. I could also be totally off base here and my ADHD brain just couldn't handle everything.

I was committed enough to the big picture to be sad it ended when it did, so it is still very interesting and has so much potential. 

As for the gameplay, while the animations for the skills were neat and the battle system was more unique, I did not have full control of the whole party. I understand they would probably come and go normally, but in this game they were in every battle and that made it odd to not have control.

Some randoms would have been a fun way to see more of the skill animations without worrying about death too much like in a tougher forced fights. If you would rather stay in a more visual novel format, it would be nice to have choices sometimes. I know time was probably a factor here, so please just take these as ideas.

I wish they had two separate categories for creativity. I can never tell to judge it on art, music, or adding some kind of technical unique touch. I usually see it as interactive features, but the style and consistency of the art and sprites was very well done here. That's where I put those points, because I thought presentation wasn't enough.  Honestly, I'm not very good at pixel art or animating spites, so it looks like magic to me! Thank you for making this cute game.

This game is amazing, and I can't believe it was made in RPG Maker. Only critique (serious one, the next is a huge opinion), I got so lost in your story and art there were small points where I was poking chairs until Oliver would sit and I didn't know you had a menu. It's small and nitpicky, but other than that the only fault I can give is (here it comes) if you are going to fill a city with cats, please make them able to receive pats! 

I'm being serious when I say this is solid. (for the record, I only played part of it, but that's because I'm too busy to finish it right now) Anyway, the characters are interesting. Between the drawings you chose of them to use and what they say for embellishment (or getting to know them) they are able to carry the story to a point where I'm never slamming down the spacebar. I already liked the character that became the victim. Trying to do this without spoiling is hard, forgive me. I felt something when they died. 

The story and the characters feel like they are one instead of two separate parts. That is extremely hard to do. I hope you can carry this talent through every visual novel you make, but stay humble and open to learning. (I don't like saying cheesy stuff like that usually, but I was arrogant when I was young and that was my biggest mistake) I cannot wait to see what else you can come up with. Thank you for making this game! 

Thank you so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it.  Combat is still my weakest area, so I leave the options open in my plug in for the player to adjust. I do not like escape penalties either, I do not ever think I'm going to do that. In my options menu, you should be able to adjust randoms, and if you can open the menu, you should be able to save anytime. I also have the autosave trigger on leaving an area, and after every successful battle.  

With my art, I'm mostly just trying to improve. I am still struggling with objects and scenery, but the story is intended to be part of something bigger, and to complete the jam on time, I had to cut a lot of character development. I plan on coming back to these after expanding my game portfolio, so I can improve on them more. I feel like there is so much more I can do for my games. These game jams motivate me to just get something done and out there. Thank you so much for playing my game!

This was super cute! It had it's share of collision issues, and some portrait work would have been a great add, but the city was very explorable and well mapped out. Also, you should add some comments or notes on random places (like bookshelves, draws, windows to stores ect), it's a really good way to give more personality to the characters, like you did with the sand bucket. The sand mirror was my favorite puzzle! 

The story was very nice, and you had the best city. There's only one game I did not complete, but it is so cool you fit in a lock picking game when others (including myself >_<) did not fit it in. I don't remember any others with that, again I did not finish one game, so not sure if correct on that.

Overall, this is an amazing first RPG Maker game! Honestly, most of my critique was mostly ways to add to what you have already done, so it's really just advice or an idea. The only actual critique is to double, even triple check your collision. I hope you make more games, and keep having fun with it!

Hi! I tried to play your game, but it seems like when you deployed, RPG Maker did not send over your whole img folder set for this project. This means after I hit start on the title it crashes with an error message saying it cannot find the img it needs. This happens to me all the time. 

The folder in img that usually effects my projects is the pictures folder. If you do not encrypt, simply check the deployed folder, and see what is missing. 98% of the time its img. 90% of the time its the pictures folder within img folder. Then, just put the missing files copied from your project into the matching folder in deployment. 

If you encrypt (or I'm a dummy and you have to do this anyway), deploy a copy without excluding unused files, it will be beefy. Then deploy excluding like normal, then take the files from the beefy file you need and stick them in the one that has excluded unused items. 

I'm so sorry if this sounds overwhelming, but I suggest starting your search with the pictures folder in images and if that doesn't look different boot the errored game and read exactly what it cannot find it will say something like "Cannot find File: img/pictures/png" That's an example, but the folder breakdown and filenames should be familiar to you. Start looking there, that's where they lost your files in transfer. 

I really hope this helps. I want yo save someone from suffering the same frustration I had when starting out. Even for this jam I had to do this trick to get my game to run. I wish you well, and I look forward to playing your game when you can fix it. Also if you have questions, I'll do my best to answer. I'm no genius at this program, but I wanted to try to help based on my experience with it. Thank you, and good luck.

Thank you for your feedback! I'm trying to learn more about putting my art and stories into games, because I play way more games than I read books. I feel like these jams teach me more than I ever do on my own. Also, I am in process of some redesign and those busts were made before I learned about how to make pictures fit the game engine. I sadly used a lot of older things, because so many unexpected things happened in the past few months >_<... I will definitely use your valuable feedback to help me in the future. I am truly thankful you took the time to write this. Thank you so much!

Thanks!

Oh my gosh, thank you! I really appreciate the feedback, and your video was super nice. I didn't get a chance to do a few things, and not only did I have little time to tune the combat, but I'm also still trying to figure out what is best, so thank you so much for all of your insights on my combat. Combat is the area I have the most trouble with right now.  Hopefully next time my grammar and timing will be a lot better too. Thank you so much for all your pointers, this means so much to me.

Thank you!

Thanks!

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

I'm going to open this with I have never seen an RPG Maker game like yours before. Structurally, you can tell, but the way your story and mechanics go, I think it really stands out. I did not really see the theme until quite a  way in, but I loved the twist. 

I found the game to be on the difficult side once I hit Layer 4, but that could be just how slow my reaction time is to an active battle system. My biggest critique is the red menus and message boxes got hard on my eyes. I can only suggest that in the future you ask a couple of people who haven't been staring at it the whole time to see if it looks readable. Red is a very powerful color, and getting a balance between a good shade that fits your theme and is also readable can be difficult, especially since the color wheel in the RPG Maker database looks nothing like the actual  menus in the game. I'm sorry if that sounded picky, but the database is such a liar with color.

Overall, I thought the hook was a little weak in the beginning of the story, but that dungeon was amazing and sucked me right in. Like walk into that first bit of sludge, and wow. It really made me eager to explore your creative dungeon. I'm glad I got as far as I did, because being left with that twist was amazing. This is a very solid game, I mean, the worst comment I have is about something like window color, and that the intro was slow. This one was fun and that's the best part. Thank you for creating this.

I really enjoyed this one! The characters looked good, and the gameplay was really fun. I guessed the direction on the first try, so I went back to see what happens if you don't pick it. I hope I'm not spoiling. I loved the boss names too. Again, the guidance on how to play was clear and I ranked that with gameplay.  I also got into the small story more than I thought I would. 

My biggest critique is the light path at the end (unless I missed something!) was just a literal path, and the ending was very sudden.  Other than that, it seemed rather solid to me.

Thank you for making this! I look forward to seeing an expansion if you decide to do it.

Unfortunately, the Mac issue is much more complicated than I thought. I have someone with a little more experience with tech issues looking into it. It may take a while, but I'm hoping to fix it and still make this Mac compatible. I loved my Mac Air, and I was always sad not many games were playable on it.  Thanks for reading!

I had to take the Mac Version down, because it doesn't seem to work. I'm looking into the problem and trying to fix it. Hopefully, it will be available soon!

Thank you so much for your critique.  I'm very new at this, and one of the things I learned from this experience is to look at the big picture before I get too involved. Three days goes by very quickly!

To answer your question, that was a mistake.  I'm so sorry that was confusing.  I was using the flat code for the event and forgot to change the choice names.  Thank you for pointing that out.

I'm working on fleshing out the story better, and I'm really happy about your combat critique!  This will help so much!

I am going to go back and improve the game later, so I thank you very much for your valuable feedback.

Thank you so much for you kind words!  Enemy composition kind of fell off my radar towards the end when I realized I haven't coded the story events yet...  Still, I'm new to this, so I glad to have received this critique.  I have a few more games and stories planned for this universe (also I plan to improve on this one), so I hope you'll stick around to see the rest.

I really liked it!  It was a different way to interpret the theme, good story, good characters.  I just didn't like how no matter which end you got you got a game over screen after.  Maybe a simple "The End" would be more rewarding.  Real fun game!

Hi, I robbed the pharmacy and got stun bolt, but I still could not get past the lasers.  Did I miss something else?  Thanks for the help!

Posted this on the game's page, but in case you didn't see it:

That was different.  I liked the concept a lot.  One small critique, though, I think it could've used a little more character development.  I would've liked to be more attached to the characters.  I know it's hard with the time constraint, but I think this game is worth coming back to later with those extra touches.  Loved the creepy vibe and the simple console with the hint.  The concept of the rooms changing was also awesome.  

That was different.  I liked the concept a lot.  One small critique, though, I think it could've used a little more character development.  I would've liked to be more attached to the characters.  I know it's hard with the time constraint, but I think this game is worth coming back to later with those extra touches.  Loved the creepy vibe and the simple console with the hint.  The concept of the rooms changing was also awesome.  

I liked its style.  It was a little fetch-quest-ish, though.