itch.io

While I am criticizing the game in the same way I would one made in normal circumstances, I will only be using the ones up to *** to grade it as I understand this was a game made in less than ten days.

I liked the custom battle sprites, they were a nice touch! The legs in the cafeteria were hilarious and helped lighten things up
I liked that the first dorm room served as a sort of HQ for students, but I wish it had gone a bit further by expending interractions, really making it feel like the "safe room" and could have been used to further lighten up the mood. It's important in horror to have moments of levity so that the horror hits that much harder

The theme is Gothic horror, cults are religious horror which is a type of Gothic Horror so the theme was respected.

Here are a few minor problems that I found while playing:

- Exiting an unlocked room or corridor with unlocked rooms will lock the doors again

- You can "use" the dog treats, locking you out of obtaining Scrappy an Scrappy can wear a school uniform

- There are a few collision issues  (If the wall top is in contact with the floor, you can climb it, the walls under the whiteboards and the tables with loose papers also allow you to walk on them)

- I did notice a few typos but nothing too bad

- Maybe change the text on the nurse after 1st encounter as it seems a bit strange she acts like she hasn't seen us before

***

Unfortunately, the only battle that really feels like a challenge is the boss. I feel like maybe diversifying the types of monsters could solve this problem so that the closer you get to the boss, the stronger the enemies get, or you could also limit the use of the Nurse somehow and I wish there was a fight against Chrissy (maybe optional if you carved your hand?)

The door in the cafeteria feels like a red herring for finding the code (which was less fun than laborious to find which I did by listing out all of the possibilities and trying them one by one). My suggestions are to straight up block the player from walking up to the door so that it is clear that it is not meant to be accessed and to fix the code search by removing the numbers from the paper and instead putting the order of  them and then get the player to search how many of each items there are in the cafeteria (you can even amp up the difficulty by leaving a note from the kitchen staff saying stuff like "The kids keep stealing stuff from the kitchens, I bet they're hiding it in the dorms" or something like that that complicates the search without making it tedious.)

It also felt like I was spoon fed the story at times. I liked that a lot of the info about Maya was locked behind doors but the problem is that they are locked by the same key so just getting the bobby pin (Which I suspect may have been a debug tool?) or the keys from the janitor allows you to find out everything at once, and the journal also gives out an awful lot of information at once.  My suggestion would be to spread the pages of the journal (maybe people were getting nosy and she didn't want them to find out what she was doing?) and to spread the keys and hold them behind different enemies or even puzzles. That way, doing the optional ritual also becomes a more rewarding process! :D

One last thing that bothered me were the endings mostly because I feel like the "s" wasn't really needed here. I tried out 7 possibilities and ended up with two almost identical endings. One in which you get beaten by the idol and one for every other path. It's a shame because even unlocking the safe or carving the sigil does not lead you to a different ending. The paths I tried were:

-Accepting the Idol

-Beating the Idol

-Be defeated by the Idol

- Same  three paths but after carving the sigil

-Beating the Idol after opening the safe

While I enjoy stories where things were doomed from the start, I would have liked to see bigger differences in how Leila would reach that bad ending.

Honestly, I sound kind of mean here but I did actually enjoy the game! 

It reminds me of Seven Mysteries by Sang Hendrix and a bit of Look Outside as well. I think there's a lot of potential here and nothing  made me want to stop playing at any point in time which is not the case, most of the time! 

You have something solid here, and I hope you decide to continue working on it (if it wasn't obvious, I want to play your game again) :D

Hi, sorry to comment under the wrong game but there's no way to do it under Hopen Crest. The UI appears but the rest of the screen stays black making the game impossible to play

Hi, just started playing the demo and I've got to say I love the tiles you use! I don't know if you made them yourself or if they were ready made assets but they are beautiful! 

The environment is gorgeous and I love the weather effects and the fact you can see the player's reflection in the water. This game is full of pretty little details!

The only things I'd complain about visual wise would be that the RPG Maker portraits and gray "modern" text block do not feel like they fit in. 

While I usually dislike the use of default sprites in RPGM games, I feel like they are just fine here and do not stand out in any unpleasant ways in this case (though bonus points if you decide to spice them up a bit).

However there is one huge problem with this game and it is the matter of performance. Just like books, and movies, the first few seconds of your introduction to a media will be what let's the person decide wether they want to pursue with it or not. 

But the performance issues make the initial cutscene incredibly slow and, I hate to say it, annoying to watch. There are other performance issues throughout the game but none as striking as the literal introduction to the game and while I'm glad I decided to continue due to the screenshots, I almost closed the game.

You need to find a way to lighten the load on that game (maybe turn that first cutscene into a video? That way you don't compromise on the visuals)

Apologies if it sounds harsh, but I feel like this problem could kill your game :( 

[EDIT] After finishing the demo, I noticed that the problem was exarcebated when fire was present on the scene. I suspect your problem lies in weather effects 

There were also lot's of typos and grammatical mistakes so getting someone to re-read after you could be a good idea.

Everything else was great, the combat is fun, It was a good choice to spice up the turn base system!

All in all, while my comment may seem very critical, it was a good and enjoyable game. Problems are only performance and typos and suggested additional improvements are a new Text bubble and custom portraits. 

Here's a doodle of Evelyn :)

I usually get disoriented with that kind of game but that mini map at the bottom really helped! 

Also, that was insanely creepy, instant shivers when I realised something was wrong

I've been remaking it in Godot and have not yet reached a point where I feel it is playable enough that I can share it unfortunately :(

No problem! :D I used the Windows version

Hi, just wanted to let you know that you need to either include a Run Time Package or let it be known which version of RPG Maker you made the game in so people can go get the RTP themselves.

Otherwise no one will be able to play the game, which is a huge shame as it seems you've gone above and beyond and made custom assets

Hi, started playing your game! I love it so far and the maps are beautiful but I've run into a bug D:

After the church meeting (immediately after the murder), I went straight to the Inn, did all the interactions then checked out the post box in front of the victim's house. Isolde says "It's a well", takes a few steps towards the right  and... refuses to move after that, halting gameplay. [After replaying the game and checking the well first, I get that same interraction but played out correctly and the post box plays the correct event]

[Edit] Also, when I got back up to the room in the church, I got stuck on the bannister

[Edit2] I forgot this was a demo, I was completely compelled and was genuinely shocked when the main menu showed up lol 

The only real critics I'd have so far (outside of the above mentioned bugs ) would be that it's not very obvious you are meant to sneak into the farm's house which meant I was lost for a good long while examining everything in the game multiple times; and the portraits which I feel do not suit the overwhole vibe of the game (but that's more a matter of personal tastes)

Absolutely beautiful game, great story with a compelling mystery and fun mechanics.

I don't know if you plan on selling it once it's done or share it for free but I genuinely think you deserve to make money off of this.

Here's a doodle of Isolde

Hi, loved the game!

I got a few bugs to report and some minor critics to make (if they are welcome) but I'll wait for your game jam to end before I do that

Also, here's a drawing I made of Leila

No problem! Honestly you've done what most devs never end up doing: finishing a game (I am guilty of this crime as well) 

It's better to have a complete game that's rough around the edges than to stagnate with "perfection"

You can still go through Marcus, the baskets on the kitchen table for some reason. Everything else ? 50x better! Great job! :D

You forgot to set the starting position back on the first map 

Awesome! I was a bit worried about being too harsh so I'm glad you didn't take it badly. For map making, you'll find plenty of free assets online in the default style if that's something you're interested in

I'm going to be brutally honest... there's not much game to play here. The game literally tells you what to find and where to find it when you touch that teleport spot.

If you want the player to find all spots before they move on to the next room then I suggest having the teleport spot appear only once all hints have been found. (maybe create a "hint count" variable and add 1 everytime the player finds a hint then set the teleport to appear only once that variable has reached the required number then once the player has moved to the next room, set the variable back to 0 and repeat). 

Also I feel the character being able to go through walls and furniture is a heavy flaw as you need to be in a very specific position to investigate a spot which can get very annoying. Maybe instead of going through furniture, you could lower the opacity on the character to show they are a ghost (I assume this is why you made it that way).

Finally, I think this game would benefit from a lot more interactions. Not necessarily with the characters, but as an investigation game, there should probably be at least a little bit of dead ends (investigation wise) and red herrings and lots more to examine. 

And also, most importantly, don't spoon feed the answer to the player. Let them come to a conclusion themselves. The goal of a mistery game is to solve the mistery. What's the point of playing the game, if the game plays itself is what I'm saying.

Not a real critic but if you decide to attempt to create your own maps ands sprites, it could definitely spruce up your game and add to the value but I also get that not everybody has the will/skills to make that or money to have it commissioned

Honestly, the game summary sounds amazing! So I'm a bit disappointed that the game itself didn't meet the set expectations. If you ever decide to improve upon Silent Banquet, I'd love to replay the game and see if it rose to the challenge

Keep developping and have a great day!

I'm going to try and give good feedback! I understand that this is the initial version of this game and so that some of the critics I will give, you probably noticed yourself already and might have even fixed already for the next update. My biggest skills video game wise are artistic so I'll be mostly concentrating on that.

-One big critic I will give that you've probably heard a thousand times before is the usage of default assets. It's not dramatic , especially if you intend to make this game free but if you intend to sell this game or even simply use it to make a name for yourself, it's important to make it stand out from the thousands of RPGM games that use the same assets. Especially since a lot of people will turn away from a game that uses these VERY recognisable assets. Again, it is not an obligation. But if you do intend on using custom assets, I would suggest starting them early on as the size you end up using might not match default assets' size and then you are in for a very bad time re-adjusting every map in your game;

-The first scene I find is very static. The character does not turn towards the old man to talk.  Also, the old man is oddly accommodating.  The player could have been offered the chance to re-visit the location (that visible chest being a strong incentive to the player) at a later time rather than make the old man wait. It would also give the player more incentive to explore the map;

-Maybe scale down your maps a bit or fill the space as there are a lot of empty areas. There's also a lot of visual repetition but I was actually pleasantly surprised by the joke with the training dummy showing that you CAN turn that repetition to your advantage, at the very least for the sake of humor. Good job! Though why does the character walk at a crawling pace until that dummy slaps you?

-The guy sleeping in the Inn turns towards you when you examine him when he probably shouldn't be moving. 

-On the first floor of the Inn, the second and third bottom doors opens even though they are said to be locked.

- The weapon seller says "Coma back" instead of "Come back" when you leave

-That one is a personal preference but I really hate being surprised with a fight. I'd rather have an enemy visible on the map that I can see coming and avoid if I want to but start battles when you come into contact with them. Players won't always be able to escape but it is less annoying because you actually expect the interruption. But again, that's a personnal preference.

-I actually find it pretty neat that you can enter the forest through different ways on the overworld map and mayhaps could be a set up for a more complex maze puzzle in the future. I think you should keep it the way you did it for this forest as a sort of introduction to the concept and make another one at a later point in the game

-I liked the dentures' lady quest but perhaps a hint from her that you should use that money for a sword would not be amiss. I got massacred because I kept getting poisoned and my escape attempts were interrupted by extremely frequent battles. Needless to say, you cannot make it out of the cave alive without a sword, which leads me to my next point.

-The scorpions are disproportionately strong compared to all the other monsters which leaves the player unprepared as they seem to spawn almost exclusively in the cave and, as it is very big, chances are that even if you somehow manage to escape the scorpion alive, you will die in one of the twenty encounters that will interrupt you in your attempts to escape. If there was a cure for poison available or a tech/spell to ease combat, this could the player. That or lock the appearance of scorpions behind a condition such as reach a certain level, lern a tech/spell, or have your attack stats reach a certain point.

- "How dare you interrupt my me human" I think you meant " How dare you interrupt me, human" . Also, it's a bit repetitive to immediately after say "Foolish Human... Interrupting me". You could instead say "How dare you interrupt me. Foolish human."

- That Imp does more than 200 HP damage at once. That is way too much so early in the game, especially when there is nowhere to buy healing items. At this point in time, it is impossible to beat it unless you grind a lot and visit the inn frequently which can be quite tedius

I did not defeat the Imp but I suspect the game ends after that fight. In conclusion, I'd say the most important thing you need to fix at this time is balancing your enemies, particularly the scorpions and the Imp, and the frequency of enemy encounters when your maps are this big. Most of the criticism I've given where more about minor improvements over things that ultimately are not an obstacle to the player's fun. But unlike typos, those impossible battles are a HUGE detriment to the game experience and may lead to people giving up on your game which is the last thing you want.

I hope you will take this into consideration and improve upon your game. I look forward to the next update and do plan on playing it whenever it comes out. I think if you fix those things early on, game development will go a lot smoother in the future. Good luck with developing and have a nice day :)

Thank you! It works just fine now! :D

Hi! Thank you very much! :D Your comment actually gave me incentive to remake those sprites all with a standard (adult and child) size for easier use and a more accurate portrayal of the characters if you're interested. They are also smaller so they fit in better with standard assets

You get "TypeError c is null" as soon as you start, even before you get a menu 

Hi! I tried the game but couldn't get very far due to a bug during the rat fight :(  I did check the image file and couldn't find the one in question so maybe it's a problem that occurred during export?

Love this game, however I do think it could do with a couple save points, particularly one just before the orchard because it can get pretty frustrating having to redo the whole day everytime you die. Also, I think the monster is getting stuck at the top of the orchard because I had to backtrack to get him to follow me. Aside from that, great game, I dreaded closing the windows everytime

Awesome! Thanks for the update :D

Is there any way of changing the control keys? The game looks really cute but I can barely play it since it uses WASD keys and I use a french keyboard so those keys are not set up in the same way :(