itch.io

After playing this, I must say I'm very impressed, is the main point to make. :) Very impressed, indeed!

But since this game clearly took a lot of effort, I feel I have to leave a more detailed response. I loved the dialogue of course, it's the right balance of cheeky without being so self-aware that the deconstruction loses itself. Like early on, when I thought Zack was merely complaining about the price of items, only to realize the significance of that line a bit later! :o

I played it many times over, trying to see if there were any obscure alternate endings or Easter eggs I had missed the first time. I think I got both endings... ;) 

The feel of it gameplay wise was very solid, despite the short length I felt satisfied going back and mowing down enemies that only a short time ago my stats were struggling against. Took me back to the days when this RPG era was the norm and not a few generations of retro ago. 

Overall, I loved how this is both a love letter to older games, but also tweaks your expectations just enough. Feels fresh but also comfortingly familiar. Thanks for sharing this with us!

Oh gosh, thanks so much for such a thoughtful commentary! I'm honestly just so touched I needed some time to say how much this all meant to me. :)

I'm also very, very glad that the different approach to combat felt right, since it was mostly a requirement of the plot being a typical RPG plot, but working backwards. Keeping things interesting was something I had to put a lot of effort in.

I wasn't quite satisfied with how the puzzles turned out, and if I did remake this game I would add more foreshadowing on them, but it's still good to know that they didn't feel entirely unfair. :)

And thank you for playing this! It's hard for someone like me to ask a stranger to take time out of their lives to see if my wild take on a genre of game will strike their fancy or not, so I'm very honored for every player I learn gave it a try. :) Reading this really made my day.

I love bitsy and think you made something extraordinary in this tool, though I admit I forget how exactly one leads to the other.

I saw myself in this so, so much. When I transitioned, I had no idea what my name was going to be. Who I would become. I had to unlearn power fantasies that were toxic in their own way, even if they came from a desire to free myself.

This worked so very well. You told a very emotional story that definitely benefited from the pixel artwork, where the player stood out due to a simple color choice and the other humans could have been many different people, but the dialogue revealed a lot about them nevertheless.

I could show someone this to say what it's like to be trans or to struggle with hope, or both.

Thank you.

This was almost too beautiful for words, but I will try to tough it out and say how much I love it.

This is what memories feel like, to me. Floating, unconnected pictures and words. Brilliant use of collage of actual paper media of different kinds, mixed with digital text.

The way this tool shaped the game is brilliant, too. Knowing all I could do was observe was heartbreaking. Depending on the path a player takes, they could get very different experiences from seeing different parts of the field first or last.

I played until the music changed and felt such emotion I can't describe it. Sad? Scared? I wish I could play this again for the first time.

This very well captures the kind of conversation kids have, even if it's not literal. Using shadows to represent two unseen people makes it seem like I could be either of them and the other is an old friend. The sounds and visuals take me back. I found the secret version.

Very cute! Takes me back to my love of crawling under blankets just to be in a warm darkness. The mix of different pictures gives it that feel of very youthful curiosity. 

I love this. The deliberate pacing and subtle foreshadowing hep give it the uneasy feel that seeing the shadow man must have felt like for a child like that. Wish I could capture that subtle suspense.

I like this, the pixelated artwork gives it an impressionist feel, though I am probably misusing that term. Things like how the 'check time' button and the arrows are not all uniform adds to the feel of waiting, and that odd stranger feels like someone I bet we've all met.

The collage aspect works very well here, every bit has its own feel, even the cartoony pieces like the witch and the ladybug still fit into the whole, like a mosaic of widely differing images!

I was very surprised at how well integrating a 3/4 hour video clip fit into this game. It's always very hard to capture the exact 'feel' of a kind of found media, but the limited color palette and your philosophical prose help give it that feel of something from another time.

A lot of this is recognizing my own nostalgia, but perhaps this sort of connection means I feel the effort and thought that went into bringing those memories back. Thank you. :)

Thanks, glad you found it so!

Lovely, thank you for playing!

She was. :)

Thank you for inspiring it!

Oh my gosh this is probably the most high-effort feedback I've gotten on anything I can remember doing ever, thanks tons first and foremost! :D

I'd love to go through my entire creative process but the main thing is that I'm so very glad the story reached you. A writer's biggest fear is trying something weird and different without knowing if it will hit the mark or not. Glad the storytelling worked in the strange way I approached it.

Also very glad to hear the combat worked out. I did not set out to make a game with a lot of aggressive battles, but as the nonlinear story began to click with me, it seemed the way to get the feeling I wanted. 

Thanks again and again, this overall fell so short of what I imagined in my head that it means a lot to know things did work in their own ways. I mostly just want to make another game and your honest words will help a lot! 

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I did try to correct that but I still may not have implemented the skill properly.

Hopefully, any players who find themselves in that situation simply return to the world map, which should then put them back on the right track.

Thanks again for leaving some encouraging words and for trying my first attempt at an RPG Maker game. :)

I loved the surreal wit of this game! The way there were actual sincere conversations at that one time in the cave and again at the ending really popped for me, when mostly I felt myself questioning my own sanity.

I went back and won against the Orb. I'm not proud. That unbalanced, overpowered fight fit in perfectly in this game by not fitting in, if that makes sense.

That typo is embarrassing for me, thanks for pointing it out. 

You really nailed the atmosphere, the dynamic animation style meant that early on, I was jumping at any bit in the background that moved!

The suspense was also spot-on, I really had no idea what would happen next but I just had to steel my nerves for the ending. No story where you find a skull right away goes in an easy direction...

Thank you so much for this. It felt selfish to ask but I'm past the "visual novel" stage and nearing the place where the RPG elements are functional, I hope I can bring something share-worthy.

I'm choked up a bit after playing this. I kinda wish I had jumped on it sooner, but to me, the themes (other than the hilarious dialogue) of finding a bit of comfort and friendship amid a chaotic world really speaks to me right now.

Best part was how the jokes came fast and landed perfectly. What sounded like witty lines were actually setups to really funny punchlines, and every room had several great moments, surprising me with each smile I cracked, despite trying to play the game legitimately.

Honestly, just an extremely loving tribute to RPGs and the kind of memorable characters that the best ones have. Thanks for making this.

So very impressed at how minimal development led to a complex-feeling game. The unpredictability of battles gave it a high-risk, high-reward feeling that worked well with a horror theme.

Honestly, I was pretty frustrated and died a lot along the way, but I could tell that was part of the experience and I'm glad I pushed through. I had to read a lot of comments here and elsewhere to pick up a hint on what I was missing. 

So glad I played this! Though it took me a few tries to figure out how this game worked and I died a few times along the way, it just made me all the more determined to find what was at the end of those long caves full of Knife Wifes. 
Though the game was playful in nature, the minimalist dungeon designs and the tension from having no save states and limited resources meant that it does function well as a sort of deconstruction.

Pardon the cliche but this game is art. The pacing from the engine gives it a very deliberate feel that lets the tension build until it vents just a little bit, which works because the incident may be over but as the conclusion says, the trauma lives on.  
I liked the part where brief sexual encounters are described that the protagonist hoped would lead to friendships or relationships. The writing made me feel sympathetic to the other characters, even as they were portrayed as flawed in how they dealt with the oppression they lived under.

This felt like a horror game to me, despite the fetish aspect. The coziest horror I've ever read.

The understated traumas, the soft but melancholy music, and the eerily pastel illustrations all contributed to the feel of the point-of-view characters' gradual loss of will and their eventual surrender to obedience.

If, instead of the common thread being a sadistically cruel lesbian, it was narrated by a deadpan man smoking a cigarette, it would feel like a Twilight Zone episode.

Very cute! Definitely got the vibe of becoming a larger predator with a matching appetite, as prey that was once closer to the player's size eventually can fit in the palm of their hand, and the once-larger prey are now 'unlocked'.

The dialogue is super cute as well, and encouraging in the sense that I wanted to play again to see if there was any cute lines I missed. Also, adding a little timer as a 'score' was another thing that made me want to try again!

This was actually rather adorable, I didn't know what I was expecting but the intentionally dated references did make me crack a smile and the simple concept was pretty fun, I did learn I could grab multiple prey if their sprites overlapped when I clicked them which added some strategy. 

This was adorable and fun to play! Loved how it tied in the previous entries, and I did like navigating the tunnels and figuring out the logic of how the different rooms were connected. Great use of text-based graphics, like how the mayor was a longworm. :) 

Oh gosh, this gave me chills! I love how every page plays a little bit with the format, sometimes playing it straight with a page of prose and a choice, but sometimes giving a false choice or revealing things at a deliberate pace.

The way the characters were developed did a great job of making everyone feel real, even if they were just briefly mentioned, and the main characters sympathetic, even if neither one is perfect (except in the other's eyes, maybe).

Played through a few times trying to see the results of other choices.

I did enjoy the way the storyline zig-zagged from being a silly satire about pixelated fish but also a sincere examination of war and how it leaves the ones who had to fight it.

The map design worked, because even though it wasn't always clear where I could go I did feel like that meant I was exploring a more 3D space, as a fish under water would have a harder time finding spaces to swim through as opposed to just walking on the horizontal surfaces.

I did get bogged down in the grinding, though. Only looking back at the text walkthrough made me realize what I was missing!

Well, I'm glad you submitted it after all! :) I went through and played every game in the jam, so maybe I wouldn't have found your game otherwise but the whole journey was fun, too. Thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind since I do want to make more games!

Loved this! Reminded me of escape room games in Flash I have played, like the original Crimson Room. The puzzle was simple at the end but I honestly had no idea where it was going through most of the game, and hunted a lot of the pixels trying to find clues. The loop with the sailboat painting was a nice touch, made the 'room' seem more intriguing, even if it wasn't a hit. Makes me want to try something similar next time, but I don't know if I could be as clever! :)

Very cute! I had to try again because I wasn't expecting this 'comic' to become a puzzle. :) The handwriting worked for the pixelated style and you got personality for each character into a small canvas, loved it!

I liked this one! Though I first thought it was a trial-and-error thing, I did go back and try to 'solve' the other puzzles to get all the hints legitimately. :) It was a neat little maze game all along!

This might be one of my favorite Flickgames! I found the friendly spider, and I liked how the two main paths looped differently. And the art is some of the most gorgeous pixelated stuff I've ever seen! :)

I loved the surreal premise of this game, really did feel like I was playing some kind of broken reality chess!

It was a fun little story, it had a bit of a plot arc and I did have fun looking for the next clickable bit. :)

Surprising, I wasn't expecting that kind of game to get a demake! :) Really nailed the 8-bit feel, I did use an old Macintosh with a blocky, greyscale screen a few decades ago, got that feel nailed down. 

I like it! I thought at first it would be like teleporting between stars and planets in space, but after a few tries it felt more like an interactive art exhibit, like a picture that changes when you touch it.