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i love all of this for you and can't wait to see all the awesome things you're involved with flourishing this year~!

let's goooooo!

🎉🎉🎉2024 DED!!

Hello! Just wanted to give you a heads up that the sample maps aren't properly loading in at first. All the files are there, so it's an easy fix to update the tileset, but thought you'd like to know. :)

Thanks for always creating such beautiful tiles! I have several sets by you guys. Would you ever consider adding the 4th direction to your chest animations? Currently you have them fully animated facing down, left, and right, but not facing up and I'd love to add even more variety to those, if possible!

To play:
    -- Extract the file named "Elmo's Pub Crawl" wherever you desire.
    -- Run Setup.exe
    -- Run RPG_RT.exe

It's also included in the Read Me file in the zip, if you need to reference it again, away from itch.

Hope you enjoy this silly little game! :)

HAPPY DELUGE DAY!! 

Aw, thank you so much -- I appreciate that you did that! I hope you liked his role in the game, too. :)

Congrats to everyone! :)

Can't wait to see what great things come from this game (and was honestly shocked not to see it in the top 18)!  The portrait for Nora looks AMAZING!

Thank you for playing! I'll definitely have to add some lore for the failed experiments into NPC dialogue, now that I have more time and can add in more variety to that sort of thing. :)

Thank you so much for playing -- glad the map helped! :)

Cool concept for a game! It would've been interesting to see some of the other options once your reborn, but I made it through with a straight warrior build.

Some of your enemies are positioned a little awkwardly on their battleback and end up looking like they're standing on the wall, but that doesn't affect anything other than the visuals.

Neat game! 

I had a good time with this one -- it's just the right balance of action / fighting to puzzle, in my opinion! 

One thing I did find a little frustrating though was that TP didn't carry over between battles. I intentionally didn't use one of Luna's skills because I was building up TP for a stronger fight / in case I needed it.... And then the next battle she was back down to 7. That might be something you want to look into changing, if you're planning on updating this at all. 

Thanks for sharing your game with us! It was lovely. :)

I adore your opening and think the overall aesthetic of this game is super cute! The early battles are a bit tough for the start of a game, but nothing too punishing, as long as you meant for it to be a little on the difficult side to force the player to manage resources well. I love that you give more than enough berries out to help mitigate that.

The music choices are great as well. Overall a really enjoyable experience. :)

I also was unfortunately unable to finish because of the black screen. :(

Some of the gameplay in this is a little TOO repetitive and without reason. For example, every time you leave, you have to speak with everyone. But their dialogue doesn't change and they don't even say anything interesting, just "we're waiting to leave," but in different ways. If you're going to force your player to talk to everyone before leaving, there should be a reason. Use that moment to give your characters some personality beyond just existing like they do now. 

It's hard to keep a linear "groundhog day" like setup interesting, but small changes like that would make all the difference. 

I wish your game / game dev well in the future! Thanks for sharing your game with us! :)

I know the silence is intentional, but I think some carefully placed and sparsely used sound effects would have more of the effect you're going for with it. As it is, coupled with the ending, it just makes the game feel rushed and unfinished. 

The concept is interesting, but definitely needs some more time to see it through.

Right from the start, this game had me laughing -- it was not at all what I expected!

I love the battle UI -- reminded me of Fire Emblem and other similar titles -- and the Almanac is a great touch. You did a good job giving the player guidance at the beginning without overwhelming them, too. 

Great work -- thanks for sharing your game with us! :D

I love the sound design in this game -- the victory / loss themes made me chuckle a little, but all of the other music / sound effects are excellent, though they could use a little volume equalizing / balancing.

I thought the story was interesting, though the second half feels less polished than the first. I assume that was due to the time crunch of the contest, though. I know my entry suffered the same fate. 

The mapping is nice, though some maps are too dark to be able to really enjoy that. 

Overall, an enjoyable experience and I hope you continue polishing this one after everything is over! :)

I love the music choice to open the game! I also missed the lantern right beside me at the very beginning and had to restart. After that, I enjoyed this game, though I do wish it were a LITTLE less dark. 

Fun entry! Nice work! :)

 You seem to have a good start here, and a good basic command over the engine, but you have a few places where your text gets cut off by the end of the text box. Right now, your maps feel pretty large and empty -- consider shrinking them down in size so the necessary elements that you have in them will fill the space more and the player will have an even better sense of direction for their progression. 

Thanks for sharing your game with us!

Interesting start to your game, but definitely feels a little rough around the edges. Nice work creating a game in not your native language -- but you do still have some parts that never got translated and some typos that go beyond translation issues that you'll want to take a look at.

I'm not sure why there are both on-screen AND random encounters, but the random encounters make me not want to explore off the intended path because they are so frequent (and the super healer is incredibly annoying before you have a second party member, since it heals for 2+ turns of damage from Skelly, a seemingly unlimited number of times. ).

I also unfortunately didn't get a chance to complete this because when I activated the invisible man's powers to go through the spikes, his shadow disappears for some reason and it's impossible to tell where the player sprite is, so I got a game over and hadn't saved, so I'd be forced to start the game completely over, which is never enjoyable for the player. 

You have a solid start here and the fights, although numerous and repetitive, seem decently balanced, but you just want to continue fine-tuning things to make it feel more complete for the player. Thanks for sharing your game with us!

Nice, coherent art style throughout the entire VN! 

I thought it was a little odd that if you visit the library twice in the school while searching it, you have the exact same conversation. Very deja vu.

The ending feels very abrupt and makes the story feel unfinished, since several loose ends are never tied up.

The music fits the atmosphere nicely and changes appropriately as needed. 

Overall, a nice start to a creepy VN, just needs a little more attention to detail / fleshing out of the story. Nice work!

I enjoyed your opening, though the dialogue on the black screen could've benefitted from some art behind it -- even if just a screenshot of the map or a battleback, to avoid the black void.

Ah, I am quite a fan of the Ancient Dungeons tiles! There's just something about them that helps set up quite a lovely atmosphere. You do have some minor mapping errors, but nothing that keeps me from playing the game. Similarly, there are a few spelling / language issues, but since I noticed your descriptions are in Portuguese, they are definitely super minor -- but make sure when you're working on an English jam that you remember to also translate your database entries!

Some of the fights are VERY dark, since there's no battlebacks being used, which makes it very hard to see.

I think you have a good start here and hope you'll continue improving post-jam! :)

You have a unique premise to your game and some lovely character busts! They unfortunately clash with the other art on the maps, but on their own / the title card, they look quite nice. 

It might've been a time-constraint, but all of the text with "Meat" when she comes to visit after your sister's accident is a LOT to read and it would be a lot more engaging for the player to learn some of these details throughout playing the game, rather than all at once. It's definitely important / integral information for your story, so you want to keep it in for sure (and probably also give it another proofreading pass), but a slower introduction would be much appreciated.

I love that there are multiple endings (I got #1: I am in pain) -- that's always a challenge to make sure comes together correctly, especially on a time crunch like IGMC. 

Thanks for sharing your game with us! :)

I know others have mentioned this, but for an English-only jam, it was a little strange that the game didn't default to English. Kudos to you for making something in what is obviously not your native language, though! I can only imagine how much of an extra challenge that adds to already being on a limited time crunch!

I wasn't quite sure what I was meant to be doing right from the start, since you drop us into a large world map with no direction. This can definitely work for a game, but you'll want some sort of guide or goal post so your player isn't wandering aimlessly trying to guess their purpose. If you think about classic NES Zelda games, we get dropped into a huge overworld with no instructions, but the opening cinematic has told us that Ganon took the triforce and we need to take it back to save the princess AND Hyrule. That sort of "instructionless" opening works, because we know the goal.

You've clearly put some decent work into this, but even after finding Abigail, things feel pretty directionless. I hope you'll keep working on this to help guide your player to see all of the work you put into it!

(Also, I love your bee sprites!)

Wow -- there is a LOT of detail going on here and we are thrown into the thick of it! You've definitely put a lot of attention into developing the beginning of your battle system and I'm interested to see where you take it in the future. 

The art is also super cool -- I hope you do return to this idea later when you have some more time to spend on it! I can definitely see how this could lead to something awesome! :D

This game definitely reminded me of the NES-era games from the title card, to the music, to the art that you used! 

Be careful with your scrolling text at the opening for a couple of reasons -- one, it's hard to read with that size / color / speed. But also because it drops a lot of information on the player right at once that they're unfamiliar with, so it's harder to get engaged with than if you'd included it in pieces within the progression of the game.

I LOVE your world map! I find them very difficult to do well, and yours is really lovely. :)

I'm definitely interested to see more from this world after playing through this game. Thanks for sharing it with us! :)

Interesting concept to pull the D&D type of system / mechanics in as your battle system. I thought that some of the early battles were maybe a little too punishing for a single-party. I was doing sufficient damage so it didn't feel like too much there, but with only 7hp before leveling up the first time, it didn't take much time before we died and it sometimes felt like healing was pointless, since you basically had to do it every turn just to stay alive at all, but couldn't really get an attack in in between. A few extra points of HP would've done enough to counteract that, though.

Of course, this could just be because of my TERRIBLE luck with RNG on dice rolls, so take that with a grain of salt.

I was very appreciative of your note to BG below, since I thought I was stuck until I saw that. 

Nice work with this and good luck with IGMC!

This is quite a fun game -- and I absolutely adore all of the custom art you did for it; it's beautiful! 

I'm a big fan of games that tackle heavy themes, especially equality, but oof did Dan cross some lines. 

The early battles were quite challenging, but I'm sure that was a jam time constraint thing. I liked that you're able to retry the battle, though it would've been nice if maybe it healed them before restarting? I also like that even if a character was down at the end of battle, they still got experience. That was definitely a saving grace for me going through.

I loved Irene's list of interests.

I'm also glad Finn spoke up against Faye, finally. I was worried Faye was going to be Dan, but from the opposite side for a minute. 

Overall, I really, really liked this one and can't wait to see the post-jam version! :)

There is a LOT going on with this game right from the beginning and I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing. It starts off like a serious, narrative-driven game that fits the IGMC game, but then quickly changes to a brightly-colored board game with slots.

The music choices were good and you certainly put a lot of work into using the animations and filters -- but they also might need to be pared down a little. With them playing with no wait every time you mouse over an option, it's a LOT at once and can be very laggy.

Even with the language set to English, not everything was in English, which made an already difficult to figure out game even more difficult, since the pieces that weren't in English probably did a lot of the explanations about what things were supposed to do / be.

I think you have a lot of great ideas going on in this game, but maybe too many for a single game, especially one on a time crunch. Overall, it's just very overwhelming and confusing in its current state. 

The art in this game is absolutely it's strongest asset -- the game is beautiful! I loved all the small expression changes and details that went into all of the character profiles and backgrounds.  

I liked that this wasn't straight VN, but had gameplay elements woven within the story, since that makes it much more engaging, rather than just being a lot of text on the screen. 

This definitely gives me FF tactics vibes (minus the difference in battle system, of course), and I like the choice element that you've given the player with the skills / AP. 

Overall, very nice game and I think with the changes you already plan to make, based on your comments below, it will only improve from here!

I'm not a huge fan of runners, and I feel like a lot of my "issues" with this game are ones that I find prevalent with the others in the genre as well -- a lot of repetition and the levels just feel like they go on a third longer than I want them to, likely because of the long lead in / opening to each level? -- so I think that's a me-thing, not a your-game-thing.

The art is pretty cool and this seems incredibly well-polished, even if it's not for me, personally. Great work putting this together!

This is exactly the kind of game I love curling up with for short periods of time to relax and unwind, so it brought me a lot of joy to play this! The art / presentation is quite lovely and, while I would love to see even more variation added in the future, I think this was a very well-polished, enjoyable game!

Super fun concept! I liked trying to figure out the different combinations in order to be successful with each boss... At first. I'm not sure if it was a combination of multiple losses or just too many fights overall, but the trial-and-error got old over fight 4 or so, even with the Scanner or the tips. Maybe consider building the town out a little more (and improving on the mapping a bit) to include a Pub or something where other contestants have gathered and are talking about the next available boss. Have some of them offer vague tips or ideas about what kind of build might work, but also have some mention things that are misleading. Then the construction of your party is actually more of a puzzle than trial and error and more rewarding for the player who bothers to talk to the NPCs.

The battle system is really unique and and I think the idea of this game is definitely something cool, it just needs some more elements fleshed out a bit more.

The isometric view is very cool and certainly makes your game stand out as unique against the others in the contest. Unfortunately, I think it needed a little more time fine-tuning the controls within the perspective / arrow key use. The movement did not feel very natural and led to a lot of trouble when trying to complete movement-based puzzles.

Your music is fitting for the game and the expectations for the player are clearly established!

I think this is a really neat start to something, but definitely needs a little more attention to detail, overall.

I like the idea of reliving others' lives to restore your own, but I didn't quite understand how the tasks were meant to be making your own rebirth more worthwhile -- they just seemed to be random fights thrown in  for something to do, rather than actually having a purpose -- especially when you're asked to "slay the demon lord" and then... that character just ends? I assume that was how they died, but it would've made sense that you could then try to win the fight they lost and that was what made you stronger and able to be reborn?

The mapping could definitely do with some more variation and attention, rather than just big open squares with random enemies, especially since so many of the characters' lives seemed to be so repetitive. It would've been cool to see some scenes or dialogue with people in their lives in order to give each character a bit of depth to them, outside of their little job. 

Again, I think it's a good premise, but it just feels more like the start of something that didn't quite get finished.

I absolutely loved everything about this game -- it's a unique idea, with fantastic humor, and a fun / rewarding gameplay loop. The only thing I can hope is that an extended version is in the plans! Fantastic work!

Honestly, that makes me love the ASCII part even more.