itch.io

The standard MV deployment (for all platforms) leaves you with files that can be easily pulled from the game, and opened in a new project of MV. Although there are methods to encrypt the data, audio and images, they unfortunately aren't compatible with other plugins used in this game. >o<

So instead, I packaged the game into a single executable file to protect them. To be comfortable sharing the Linux build I would need to figure out something similar. I'm afraid that I'm pretty unfamiliar with that, but I'll have a go :D 

Thanks for your interest! <3

Unfortunately, due to their different programming languages, there's no easy way to port between MV and VX ACE (asides from re-making everything.)

But if you're really curious, Tea made an awesome let's play video of the original IGMC version! :)

Thanks so much for giving it another go! <3 The update was just a bunch of really overdue fixes but it feels like things are a bit more complete now. :D

Hello, I ran into an error whilst playing;

  File "game/dakotachat.rpy", line 278, in script
    if basilchat1 == False:
  File "game/dakotachat.rpy", line 278, in <module>
    if basilchat1 == False:
NameError: name 'basilchat1' is not defined

so I kept playing and ran into another error-

 File "game/stacychat.rpy", line 103, in script
    menu:
SyntaxError: invalid syntax (game/stacychat.rpy, line 150)

And decided to stop playing there. I found the message system idea a bit confusing, not really sure I got the hang of who everyone was but it was an interesting play! The writing style is great and it really feels like a chat group amongst friends. Nice work! 😃

Lovely work! You got such an impressive amount done in the deadline! The concept of magic in the relationships you have with others is really interesting, and I can understand Zoya's defensiveness and reclusiveness in such a world. Nice to see how it all unfolded in the end. The artwork is so bold and colourful too, the only thing that seemed to be missing for me was some sound effects or music to enhance the atmosphere. Keep it up! ❤

Not a lot to it, but nicely written! It definitely feels relatable, and I like her already! Her sprite is really nice. I guess if I had a criticism it's how small/far away the text box is from her face. Whilst reading I could see her expression flicker from the corner of my eye but would have to look up properly to register her face which didn't feel natural. If you look at a few screenshots of VNs they typically go for a knee or waist up portrait allowing the character to fill more of the screen and feel more connected.  

Good luck with development! <3

I'm having trouble understanding it too. I wouldn't expect/ask you to do a thorough analysis, this is my problem to sort out and I feel quite bad that I've been bothering people with it. (Though I still can't trigger the issue, ugh!) The books, door and bookshelf all have basically the same conditional branches, if books carrying is 0, 1 or 2. The items each have their own common events when you view them, and the key one ends up overwriting the variable. If it makes that variable 3 or more it breaks the storeroom and the events in there only + or - variables rather than setting them so it is game over from there. Picking up the cheat sheet though, it's "show text" "show gab window" "play SE" "add item" and then a self switch. I think it's unlikely that Yanfly's Gab Window is messing with the variables, but there's really nothing in that which should cause issue. I did a run through on my editor version whilst checking the variables via the debug menu. The bookshelf works exactly as I want so I don't think it's a mistake in that, and yet the variable is never mentioned outside of that key issue. At this point, I'm feeling very defeated. I know there's a game ending bug in there, and even if it's not the one Judge DOOM encountered, I think it's fair enough to be disqualified. This bug that I can't find or understand, well, it's beaten me. This game wasn't good enough, and as I keep wasting my time searching and failing, it's really making me feel like I'm not good enough either, so I'd like to just nip it in the bud here. Maybe I'll come back to it later, but for now I'd like to forget that I ever tried. I really appreciate that you put the effort in for me though. I'm sorry I wasted your time, but thanks for trying to help anyway. :)

Hi, I followed the order of your events and was still able to leave the room and interact with all of the books. (And recorded it if you'd like to see that.) There's no starting condition for either of these, and they end in an else branch so there shouldn't be a time when they do nothing at all... UNLESS you've viewed the key from your menu sometime during doing the books. So, I have found a game ending bug, and I have to assume that this is what's caused the error since I just can't seem to find another reason for it. I've used the event searcher and only the key, house (comes later), and storeroom events use this "books carrying" variable that can break the interaction. The actual chair and cheat sheet don't reference it at all. I'm sure I followed everything you mentioned on the thread, and Judge DOOM didn't seem to interact with any of the optional events to cause this error so it's really weird and frustrating. I don't know how it's only happening sometimes and that I'm unable to trigger it (I play from the deployed version on here, it's the only file I ever had up for download and I haven't updated it from the contest.) I am about ready to tear my hair out, but I'll keep trying to see if there was some other cause. At the very least, I want to be sure that everyone who'd like to play the game was able to.

Thank you for your time. 

From what I can tell, the events still work even if you pick up the book on the cabinet first. (They were made to go in any order, and even two at time though I neglected to mention that so I don't think anyone noticed.) 

But I can understand the confusion why nothing happened having gone for that one first, and I can imagine that having so many games to play and judge, there wouldn't really be a reason to keep trying if you thought the game was broken. So if you'll agree with me I do think the disqualification was an unlucky mistake as I'm quite confident the game runs through to the end, (though I'm sure it does have it's fair share of bugs, none should be gameplay ending.) I am sad to have missed out but I don't think I'd have come near the top marks anyway, so just knowing that I managed to make something that plays in a month is good enough for me! 

Thank you very much for your time and for trying it again. :D

Thanks for commenting ^^

You should be able to enter (and leave) the storeroom at any time until you place the final book back. There are a few optional events that can only be done before the final book, but nothing that affects the storeroom... Did you try to interact with the book once you were on the chair? It wasn't an autorun event, you needed to use the action button to pick up the book as it was for the others.

Not being able to leave the storeroom is the most concerning as it's set to a simple conditional else branch. Can you remember if there was a message "I should put this book back before I leave," despite you not having one, or did nothing happen? 

I know nothing can be done now, but I do have to admit that it was quite depressing to be disqualified so it'd be great if I could figure out what the problem was and make an update :)

Oh... I don't understand this. No one else reported any issues and I tested it thoroughly. It should be impossible but for the judges to have problems, I guess I must be really unlucky. Well, thank you for your time anyway.

Congrats on making your first game! It's even more impressive that you've managed to make a non linear game on such a short time whilst still learning. How many endings did you write? It might be cool to make a guide of them so it's easier to experience all that this game has to offer!

The MS Paint drawings don't really match the rest of the graphics, but they were a nice touch anyway, especially the cinematic style opening. There was a typo in there though- should be 'invasions'.  Another typo when talking to the lady about her babies- it's 'predicament'.

When you get a chance you might want to look into finding a simplified menu script since the dead space of the default menu makes it look a little rough, but I don't think you'd lose points on that for a first game. 

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

So I think I got the worst ending possible, which was probably deserved, but I did feel like I'd been unfairly mislead. Getting punished after trying to do what I thought was right leaves me feeling a bit frustrated and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I managed to play it better but I guess life isn't always 'happily ever after' X'D

 We all got the tickets... and died.

So I'm kinda questioning my ethics now but anyway, good job! :)

Aw, I didn't get everything on the to-do list, but the ending was still sweet. It's pretty different from what you normally see made with rpg maker! 

The atmosphere was nice and the furniture selection was really cool. I didn't feel like there was enough of interest to do during the day to keep me playing for a longer version of the game. If you do expand this, I'd like to see more 'gameplay'? I would have liked to be more involved in the inn- being able to cook or clean rather than just having it all done by an npc, but that's just my opinion :)

Did notice that when Kyle is sat upstairs, he's got the wrong sprite.

It might have been nice to be able to deselect amenities after accidentally clicking on them. 

Overall, good job :D

This was an interesting game. There was a lot of choices and multiple endings, so it really felt like you were in control of your fate.

The graphics were all solid, and the world was well built and believable. However, I found it kind of depressing to play, even when things were going well. Although I understand the last ending, it made me feel hopeless.

Turn based battles aren't my thing, though I found most of them to be fine apart from the Clinger (didn't realised until later that that choice can be jumped to- might want to mention that), and the Clingers army which felt like it went on forever. Some of the skills effects went right past me, so I wasn't always sure what states actually meant.

Don't know if it was intentional, but you can't actually escape battles (even when the option is avaliable), the party menu vanished whenever I tried to click it.

Did notice two random small bugs, one after the first fight with the Clinger where the '-3' was persisting on screen until the next battle, and on random occasions the save menu would be obstructed by a black box (though it still worked.)

It took me 1:14 to finish which is a little over the judges hour, but the game did drive me to want to continue on and see all of the endings. I especially liked the way you earned experience from each attempt. Good job! :)

P.S: I'd recommend adding more of a description to your game page- even if it's only short. Knowing more about the game might help convince more people to try it as opposed to them downloading it solely from curiosity. 

The easiest thing is just to search specifically for looping music. Most music made for games will loop, and you can find commercial use ones around in places like OpenGameArt.org

Or if you wanted to keep that piece to fit with your theme, you'd need to edit it in something like Audacity. There's a few tutorials around showing you what to do, but I can't really offer any advice since it's not my area.

He was definitely twisted. You guys have quite the imagination ;)

P.s. If you haven't seen it- just1witness made a let's play video of your game :D

So, I like the concept of this. A school where you have to get married to graduate is kinda wacky but fun. I liked the idea with the stats, lessons and the mini games, but I just felt like it didn't really live up in the execution.

I didn't play for long, so I didn't see any holidays or events that might have combated some of this criticism, but if you can't hook people from the start it doesn't matter what cool stuff you have later game, so here goes with my feedback;

You go on dates with characters, but you don't actually see them. You don't get to talk to the characters or learn about them, you just have to pick who to start romancing based on the intro. With all of the stats, it does feel more like an rpg than a romance sim. (I haven't played a lot of otome games, but I'm pretty sure they're based a lot more around character dialogues and choices.)

I found it incredibly tedious to walk back to my dorm, sleep or study, then walk out of the dorm and back to school each day. Sometimes, that took longer than the actual days events. Your maps are a bit too big and boring (or a sample map,) so it wasn't interesting to travel, and that's the main reason I quit playing. I wasn't having as much fun as I thought it should be.

Some quick fixes you might want to look into;

The tiling error on the walls above all of the doors can be fixed with shift click mapping. (Tut is Vx Ace but it's the same method.)

Tsukiko and Miku have the exact same face apart from their hair. You might want to change the eyes/nose to make them more unique.

In the fortune telling class I was awarded a B and a C.

I went out with Rin and Miku too, but my relationship only went up with Kazuki. 

So, I'm sorry if that came out a little harsh. I can see what you were going for, and I do like your ideas. I think you might just need a bit more experience in making a rewarding player experience, and the best way to do that is to just keep making and getting feedback! If otome games are something that interest you, you might want to look into the visual novel genre instead, I think it's a bit better suited to developing deep character relationships. 

Hope this helps :)

This game is so damn attractive TT_TT The little animations and details are so nice, and I spotted some of your little self-inserts too ;)

I do agree with other comments that the dialogue is a little dry though, I think having an extra line in the message window would help with some of that constant clicking fatigue. There's possibly a typo on the desk at the inn, I think 'me' should be 'he'?

Everything else I want to say has already been mentioned I think. Definitely looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with when you're less confined by a deadline. Talk about a dream team! <3

This game is as good as it looks! It's really charming. The battles are hard if you're kind of useless like I am, but it is a lot more fun than just spamming attack in a vanilla turn based battle. 

I find it very strange that the title screen image turns upside down if you're viewing the options or continuing a game.

I found this passability error in Laeta's house, but only the first time we were there. Upon re-entry it'd vanished. 

I didn't actually notice until I saw the updates that the HP bar was only for enemies that had been defeated before, I thought it was just bugging out on me tbh xD. Perhaps a mention of that somewhere in game would help?

After defeating the boss man eater it still briefly appears on the map which was odd.

Lastly, the credits don't always seem to run. I'm not sure what caused it, but on my first playthrough the music kept playing on a black screen. I could still open the menu but it wasn't responding to anything else. 

I would certainly like to see more of this. Great job team!

This game is super stylish! All of the assets are well made, including the lovely dragonbones battlers (though I'd expect no less from you ^^) The only thing I would have liked to see was perhaps custom balloons too.

It was a bit weird to have a flee skill and the standard escape option. You could try using SumRndmDde's Battle GUI Core to hide the party command though I'm not sure how compatible it'll be (and the flee skill does miss the cool escape animation.)

Onto the gameplay, unfortunately it wasn't for me. I'm not particularly fond of turn based battles, and this had a ton in. Although you can escape, it puts you back to save points and all the enemies respawn so it wasn't really avoidable. I did get up to the (what I assume) was the final boss, after around 50 mins. I tried twice but couldn't win. I was curious about the ending (and all of the golden skulls), but since you have to trudge through battles again to get to the boss, I didn't feel up to a third run.

So I'm a bit disappointed on that. I enjoyed the atmosphere though, I just think it wouldn't hurt to cut back on the number of skulls. Since there's no stats and so no need to grind, it would help to be able to enjoy the exploration a little more without constantly getting caught, though I am bias XD Great job anyway!

Wasn't for me, but I can easily appreciate the effort that went into this. Everything looks and runs really well. Great job! :)

The story was well written, the cast were fun & lovable and it definitely opened mine (any many others) eyes to Alexithymia. I used to know someone who had a hard time understanding body language, and we ended up hurting each other quite a lot. But that's a different story, some things just aren't supposed to be, but hopefully with a little more knowledge and understanding they'll be more stories with beautiful endings like this one <3

I feel like this feedback is going to be nit-picking but I like to be detailed so;

Some of the maps could have done with a bit more customisation (perhaps reshuffle rooms, change floor/wall tiles), as they were quite noticeably edits from the sample maps. I particularly dislike the combination of tiles in the forest since I think it was just too textured and sort of hard to distinguish the edges of things.

Suggest that you use region restrictions on events inside houses on the entryways to prevent the player from getting stuck in one of the rooms by the npcs.  

The fog in the forest was pretty jerky, although it did help make things feel more maze like again, it was also kind of unpleasant to watch. A slow scrolling fog might be better(?)

Hime's actor battle commands should work to hide the skill selection from the battle menu. 

There's a typo in the castle just before you meet the queen on the guards name boxes. Also, a tiling error on the roof of the castle that just needs to be sorted out with some shift click mapping.

This game was made with clearly made with lots of love, and as a player I think it's hard not to be swept up in the world. It's a nice change to play on the monsters side for once, and a lot of effort went in to find the resources and the characterisation of them. The gameplay wasn't always engaging for me, and after having to delay feeding Dog I did wonder if there was actually a penalty for forgetting. The story carried itself through though, the cutscenes and extra details on sprites was a nice touch. Good job! :D

Not perfect is fine by me ^^ I previously got myself into a dark place by strangling my creativity in the pursuit of perfectionism, so I'm quite happy to let some things go. I will try to fix the concerns being brought up in feedback though, so thanks for your comment!!

It was on my list of 'passable errors' to make some of the SE louder as they were easily missed. I was originally going to add music, but my initial playtesters quite liked the minimalism. There are some scenes where I could see music for extra emphasis, but I'm not really sure what I'd put as a general walking around jingle.

The sound of the kitchen sink is the same as the rain, so I guess you have observant ears! By the end of the game I started being stingy with sounds since it was taking a while to find decent ones and I was cautious about bulking up file size. I really want to remove the rtp cat sound, but I couldn't find a decent one for that either. I need to think about what's bugging me enough to I want to invest the extra time in. If I had my perfectionist way, I'd end up redrawing all of the artwork, but I feel quite jaded right now U~U'''''

Thank you :) (And thanks for taking the time to go back to see what was missed! I'll have to make an update after IGMC to make it harder to accidentally miss...)

Not being able to open the menu with ESC was an oversight. By default RPG Maker MV games can also use X and Numpad 0, and it's mentioned on the game page, but still it was a bad move on my part. I hope it hasn't driven anyone too crazy :S

Thanks for looking!! ^^ 

Thanks for your feedback!!! It was really insightful. (And oh dear, 'square route' that's embarrassing xD)

The bathroom scene was a pain to event. With the lack of portraits, I tried to make things more interesting by having the textbox bounce around but the coordinates were just guess work and a lot of play testing. I really should have just stuck it to overhead and kept things simple hahaha.

Yeah, the menu key was pretty last minute. I really wanted the menu to have a background filter other than the standard blur. None of the menu filter plugins I found worked with the current version of pixi, so I ended up making a work around by using Yanfly's button common events. Unfortunately, that doesn't have a field for the ESC key, so as a non codey person I was stuck with just disabling it. Note to self; never sacrifice technical stuff for aesthetics...

I've been thinking about how to give the player a better chance to look around before hitting that autorun. My first thought was to give them another choice, but moving it downstairs would certainly at least let people know there's stuff to do there. That stuff is mostly just fluff, but after spending the time it would be nice to know people were seeing it. I still don't know if anyone has actually found that they could view all of the items in the inventory either. Ahh, that's the curse of a dev I suppose! I'm grateful people are giving it a chance anyway. Thanks <3

To reply to your other comment (being economical lol),I don't think it's so much about the speed as much as the actual motion. I didn't feel sick playing your game, but I know from playing a few other entries with scrolling movement that it certainly can cause that, so the same advice, just keep it condensed if you can. ^^

Educational games are a great idea. Being able to turn work into play definitely makes things feel more approachable, and the actual interactiveness of a game makes it more engaging. I personally can't stand to just sit down and *study*, so I kinda wish I had a teacher as dedicated as you haha! I'm sure your students appreciate this :)

I can't really list any MV games with good editor maps off  the top of my head. Most of them use parallax mapping, but that's not really viable (or indeed, worthwhile) for a game like this, especially if you're trying to keep it playable on mobile devices. I like to lurk on this thread for mapping inspiration, though it's pretty mixed so you have to surf through for particular MV rtp maps. 

Thanks for taking a look at Lost Boy! It's not really a self help game like yours is (although I'd certainly be pleased if it was able to benefit people.) There are a few other mental/health themed games in this contest if you wanted recommendations for any of those just out of general interest.

I don't currently have any plans to develop a new game of my own. The scope of this series doesn't align with my interests enough that I'd want to co-develop it, but I'd certainly be happy to lend you some support if you'd like. I don't have oodles of experience, but I am fairly confident that I can put things together without breaking them XD

Making a short game in a month is a big ask even without custom art, so yeah, I hope you feel proud of that! The art didn't suck, it just wasn't my taste. You can't please everyone, but I still appreciate the amount of work that's gone into it. :)

The game is still easy to understand, (and actually your English is a lot better than some of the games I've played by native speakers. xD) Unfortunately I can't really go through the errors since they were spread across the entire game, and I don't currently have time to replay it. There are places where you can go to get help though. One of those is the rpg maker web forums! You can make a post here asking for some help. I don't personally own Rpg Maker VX Ace, but there might be someone on there who you can send your whole project to, or if you prefer, use the deployed game and have them write it all out for you. 

You do need to make sure you read the rules of the sub-forum (the very first thread), which state that you have to have at least one post before being allowed to ask for help, which is a perfect chance to introduce yourself! The people over there are really nice, so if you felt like it you can get involved in other parts of the community too! You might be interested in the secret santa we have going on, you're given a random IGMC entry to play, and in exchange, someone else will review yours. ^^

This was short, but so atmospheric! I definitely think I'll have weird dreams now... I played through each ending in the order 2,3,1 and enjoyed all of them (I only wish it was a little longer to find out some more!)

Two potential issues I noticed, the piano needs a self switch else I can continually switch it on for no reason, and I did notice a bad loop of music in the riddle room (possibly because I spent the longest in there...)

That riddle was tough... I spent a long time trying to come up with answers, but in the end, I cheated ^^' I really don't think I would have been able to get that on my own, to be honest, the answer didn't make sense to me. Well, I understand it, but I wouldn't have clicked that together. You might want to have the solution somewhere so that the ending is accessible to all.

Overall, you did a great job! <3

This was pretty fun! Not particularly believable, but that doesn't matter. The puzzles flowed logically, so I think you did a really good job of making things easy to understand how to solve, without obviously just giving away the answer.

The only thing I'm not a fan of is the ending. Depends how long you were planning to make that scene, but reading text against a moving background can easily make people feel motion sick, so it's usually something to avoid.

There was a typo on the second line, it should be 'the adults WERE too busy'. Other than that, good job! Looking forward to seeing what's in store for the future :)

I got the feeling this game has a very specific target audience, and certainly, I'm not one of them ^^''

I don't know anything about the massage/medical side, so quit playing this fairly quickly (even to play for entertainment, turn based battles aren't my idea of fun.) So I can't really comment on the game/story, but there were a few things I noticed on the rpg maker dev side. (Ignore this if you're not particularly looking to become a fully fledged game dev and were just wanting to make this one game. Rpg maker is easy to pick up, but it's hard to actually get good at it, so most of this might be useless to you if you weren't planning to dive into the world of developing.)

Mapping needs a lot of work, layout aside, you just seem to be using the tileset weirdly. Make sure to pay attention to how tiles are lining up, and the way you're layering them. Here's a quick tip on shift click mapping (tut is for vx ace but it's the same.) This should help you clear up some edges, walls and anything else you might want to copy directly. As for making things aesthetically pleasing, that's really just down to experience. Take some time to study how other people use the rtp. If you right click on the map list, you'll be able to load a bunch of sample maps and there's loads of places to find pictures around, or actually play some games that have been praised for their maps.

There was a point in the intro where the text cut off. Personally I find lining up text to be a pain, which is why you might like to invest in some knowledge of using plugins! Yanfly's Message Core is a pretty popular and easy to use one. It gives you a lot of cool features, plus you can use automatic word wrapping if you're lazy like me ;P 

Your shopkeeper keeps walking around even whilst we're supposedly talking to them. I think you're currently using a bench for the counter, but rpg maker actually has a built in method for this! If you check out the Inside tileset A tab, you'll notice some tables. These have a counter flag on them. That means  you can interact with an event over the counter, so you'd actually make the shop event on the npc itself. This makes more sense with mouse control since you're clicking on the person you want to talk to. (Of course, it does mean the shopkeeper needs to always be in front of the table.)

You've got a save point although saving is still enabled from the menu. If you want to remove it from the menu, you need to go into database>system and uncheck save. The crystal also needs a direction fix, since it can change colour depending on where you're talking to it. 

You can repeat all of the massage battles, wasn't sure if this was intentional. (Since they repeat all of the dialogue too.) Reyvi in bed needs a direction fix too. It is a bit weird to talk to her when she's no where to be seen in the intro.

The mismatching faces/battlers is pretty weird. If you look around, you'll be able to find loads of cool resources. A good place to start is here. It's usually better to make do with what you have, than try to make exceptions for things. You can also make requests for resources on the forum, although there's no guarantee to get any reply. 

P.s. Wasn't sure what gender your protagonist is (not that it matters), but since they've got a masculine name I thought you might want to know that the character you've chosen is commonly female, though of course, you're free to use the characters however you'd like. 

Hope this helps! :)

Congrats on finishing your game! The custom art wasn't really my cup of tea, but you've done a huge amount of work in a month! Well done!

The game could do with a thorough proofreading since there was quite a lot of errors. I did find it a bit hard to engage with the story as well, I wasn't really feeling anything at the end, which isn't what you want in a scene that's supposedly tense. Some of that is due to the short length (took me under 30 min), but other times I did find the characters robotic. The faces could have done with some small tweaks to things like nose and eye shape to stop everyone looking the same.

I liked the idea behind the PSY cards. I spent most of my time running from random encounters but was still able to finish the boss fairly quickly.

There were a few bugs/things to improve;

The immediate battle after buying the wooden sticks means there's no chance to equip them. Personally I think toy swords would make more sense than a shop selling a bunch of twigs, but I digress...

You don't actually get the PSY  in your inventory until after the night scene, when it should be immediately in the shop. We also pick up stimulants without actually receiving any.

If you go back to the school at night, all of the npcs are still there which seems a little odd.

You can remove TP by going into the database> system and just unchecking it. 

Hope this helps!

I gave this another run for an hour, but I think it's too hard for me ^^' Flipping a switch, running around around and trying to see if any new solution has come up, failing and running back to the switch isn't really my idea of fun. The puzzles themselves are good, and solving something does feel rewarding, but there's a lot of layers to each puzzle and it's very easy to get stuck, so I really started to feel hopeless.

Your guide was useful though. Some people still might try and figure it out for themselves, but I think it's always good to have a crutch to fall back on to avoid that feeling of sheer hopelessness. I didn't figure out the switches before since I was looking for a boulder or object to push on, I didn't realise I could dash and catch it, so I got a lot further this time. (I also only realised escape was blocked for the solider and ended up assuming escape was blocked for all monsters which was dumb...)

There's an oversight where after rescuing Pi, the General's sprite disappears, but if you talk to the locked gate he's still there.

You've also quite a few passability errors. Some of these actually let you climb onto walls and cheat. Using that I managed to get into the green version of the shop, and into the room where the hammer was, but I couldn't leave so I guess you can't actually cheat that x).

It's sad to say that rpg maker games are a niche that most people do avoid. There's a lot of competitors, so with all of these new games released at the same time, it is pretty hard to actually stand out and get someone to look at your game. I think there's also a bias amongst a lot of developers and players against things that are 'default' since there's been a huge amount of rpg maker games released with little effort, so in a lot of cases, rtp just looks like it's going to be sloppy and not worth a play. Your game doesn't come into that though, it's clear you've put a lot of thought into organising the puzzles and mechanics, so all you can really do is keep pushing it. The internet is very hit and miss, but don't give up!

If you've got time, you should try signing up for the secret santa reviews. It's a really nice way to get and give feedback. I'm sure puzzle-y people will enjoy this game, it just needs to get to the right audience :)

A very short play, but I enjoyed it :) As others have said, your mapping is really solid. I love the xp rtp anyway, but it was really pleasant to wander around your world.

I liked the intro, you've got to set up story somehow, and the cinematic way you've achieved it meant I was happy to sit and watch it, so I don't agree with PVGames feeling that it was just an exposition. I suppose I do feel a bit ??? about the evil character, and why his motivation would be just to destroy the world (given that he has to live there too,) but hopefully more on that would be revealed in the story.

The only criticisms I have are kind of nit-picky. I find it a bit strange to still have saving in the menu and looking like it's enabled until you press it. I don't know if there's a better way to hide that command until you hit a save point.

The prices seem a little weird. Why is bottled milk so much more expensive when it heals less LE?

You can't talk to the farmer who is plowing the field.

It did look like some of your sprites didn't match up, particularly in the bar. I don't know the rtp character style, and I don't think it was glaringly obvious, I'm just a graphics based person.

Otherwise, seems like you're off to a really solid start here. Good luck with development! <3

I'm using MV so I'm not really familiar with scripts, but I know that common causes of errors are from scripts conflicting with each other, being in the wrong order, or being the wrong version. Testing things in blank projects usually helps, if there's a crash there, you can take a guess that there's something wrong with the script itself and seek help.

I think the puzzles do rely on the player having a certain level of background knowledge and patience to sit down and think. It might not be for your average player, but as long as they can actually be solved (have seen a game where only the dev would know the answers :S), I think people will still take it on. If you're worried about making the game accessible to more people, having a strategy guide/extra hints somewhere will help those who still want to play and just got themselves a little lost. My problem with the piano puzzle was after reading the sheet music, I headed to the piano thinking there'd be an input screen, but there was just a long pause and I thought it'd crashed. (Was I just supposed to type directly?)

Life drain I can take or leave. Not really sure if it was doing damage over time or just by the number of steps. I found it more annoying than intense, but I guess it was a means to an end in your story to make the player more interested in finding the solution and antidote. As I said, the atmosphere wasn't quite there for me. I was annoyed that the cat told me to 'get fucked' since I didn't feel it was very encouraging to try again. Of course there are some people who are fuelled by negativity and will take it as a challenge to fight and prove themselves, but I'm sensitive and prefer to be positively encouraged XD So the atmosphere not clicking with me is not a fault of the game, it was just a matter of personal preference.

I tried this 3 times, but I can't seem to figure it out. I haven't found any restoring items, so once all the MP is used up you can't fight anymore, but I can't escape battles either. I found the prison key, so I made a mad dash avoiding all the enemies one run to get there, but was discovered by the captain and couldn't defeat him. I'd give it another go, but knowing that the save menu is opened by random chance is hugely off putting. If I was unlucky, I'd never open it, and I'm not the kind of person who finds back tracking over lost data fun. I'd say 1/12 times I actually got an orb (not sure what they were supposed to be for,) and the rest I lost 50HP. I don't think this game is really for me anyway, but if there was some strategy that I'd missed, it might be helpful to have a walkthrough somewhere. 

I have no idea what happened, but I ran into a fairly large bug. After the morning scene in chapter 2, I tried to go to the darkwood, but was told that 'it's getting late' and to go back to Cent's sister, which then replayed the night scene from chapter 1, then began chapter 3 and after that, replayed chapter 2's morning :S I decided not to keep playing because I think it probably would not have run correctly.

You've also got two game ending bugs. Trying to leave the first map the way we came can't find "Temanco"'s face, and trying to enter the house on the top right of town can't find picture People3_8.

Those aren't the only errors I found, which is a huge shame because I think this game had potential. So to cover these;

• You've left save file 13 in (no biggie, just remember to clear them out when deploying a game next time.)
• There's quite a few mapping errors where things just look weird. E.g. the stairs in town should be using the wide staircase tile, since using the single one stops you from being able to walk left/right. The stairs don't make a lot of sense anyway there anyway.
• There's passability errors (where you can walk over things accidentally) outside of Seria's house, and some other items in town.
• The girl next to the fountain has the wrong face for her sprite. 
• There was a portal in town for no apparent reason. I think that might have been a debug event you left in.

Next is the writing. It needs a good proofread, there's a lot of errors. "You" doesn't need a capital letter unless it's the start of a sentence. I also feel that the writing quality varies a lot. Some scenes have a nice emotional quality, and others are very childish. I'm not a fan of having actions between colons, it looks jarring. You really shouldn't insert random japanese words like "baka" into the dialogue either. If you're writing as you go, I'd suggest actually making a script in an external program and copying it in. (You can even use plugins that can read directly from text files.) Being able to see the whole scene, and actually taking the time to think and tweak your dialogue before putting it in should help you with pacing and catching mistakes.

So for the positives, although I don't really like rpgs, I ended up enjoying my short time with this. I'm a big fan of the chance to dodge since it's an extra level of player involvement, although it seems pretty hard to time correctly. Being healed every time you guard seems like it could be abused by way of the player not needing potions if they're good enough at avoiding damage. I didn't get far enough to see how you were using TP. It's pretty uncommon to see MP taken up by a normal attack since you'd associate it with skills and or magic, but maybe you've come up with your own system.

I'd recommend making your own graphics for the HUDs, since they are quite recognisable. Hopefully there was just a timing issue with getting some of the pieces done. Mixing the rtp with custom faces is never a good idea, so you'd really need to do "all or nothing." (Sometimes you can cheat by not giving npcs faces at all, although most of the time, the extra effort will be appreciated.)

Some of these issues do seem like they'd be manageable just by spending a bit of extra time playtesting and reviewing things. Others, like improvement to the writing and mapping styles, are really just things that will come with experience. Spending some time studying other rpg maker games, picking out things you like or dislike, seeing how they've used the rtp resources etc may really be of value to you. I'd suggest crawling through this thread and its older versions, fixing up your maps as best you can, and then posting them on there to get some direct feedback. 

Hope this helps! <3

You know what, I enjoyed this. Well, enjoy is a loose word, but it was certainly an interesting experience, and I think you really nailed the atmosphere. I enjoyed the pop up error and fourth wall breaking. I did leave feeling more depressed, it would have been nice to have a positive spin somewhere, although part of it did feel like we were experiencing your frustration at making this entry, as opposed to a character roleplay, but writing from experience does make things more relatable. Thank you for deciding to post this. You've made a complete game in a month, and it plays all the way through to the end. That's a huge achievement, whether or not it came out quite the way you wanted. I think perfectionism and depression go hand in hand.

P.s. trying to use the menu to open skill/status/equip whatever does end the game because of missing files. Don't know why anyone would need to use those anyway, but I like to snoop around since I was maybe expecting laundry and things to appear in the inventory. Perhaps replacing the skills as a list of conversation topics that have been collected would be cool? Anyway, nice work :)