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Thelightsmen

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A member registered Jun 11, 2020

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I had a lot of trouble with this one. In fact I couldn't finish it after trying around 4 different times.

First I want to say that the concept of doing detective work is a great idea from the start, and the characters were written quite well when it came down to personality! Something I definitely liked was the possibility of getting a sort of "random encounter" when leaving a room, either with Baba Yaga,  The Morrigan or Osiris. Even if the encounters seemed inconsequential.

However there were a couple things that prevented me from fully enjoying the game:

1- The BG music is good at first, but seems to glitch soon after the first couple screens and sort of "piles up" by playing the same track on top of itself multiple times until it becomes really hard to listen to. To the point you're better of muting the sound.

2- The amount of options is a little overwhelming, but the layout of them needs improvement. For example, all options for leaving or entering rooms should always remain in a position where the player gets accustomed to them (bottom, top, etc), same with dialogue options and search/exploring options. In the state that it is right now everything is jumbled together with the options all over the place, this difficults gamplay a lot more than you think.

3- During the dialogue with the Jade rabbit, the game softlocks itself after asking him to translate the torn magical page, not giving you any option to leave, which forced me to restart the game and lose all progress.

4- Some of the options do not shed any clues until you interact with something else in another room. While I appreciate some clues on where to go in the beginning, I generally dislike things I have to "check twice" after the main character learns of something in order to find something to proceed, and sometimes when asking the characters for things you find gives you very vague clues that don't seem to help enough.

5- The game requires you to gather proof before accusing someone, but you never really get a real sense of confidence in any of the evidence you gather. I soon found myself clicking the same options again and again hoping I see something different (see point 4). And when I felt like there was nothing else to it I accused one of the characters only to be wrong and have to restart (this wouldn't be much of a problem if not points 2 and 4). This made it feel less about deductive reasoning and more about triel and error, except you have to go through several steps in the right order  before you can try accusing someone again.

Everything in this game was very well put together, with the writing and the dialogue being the strongest point!

It was a great idea to use time travel/manipulation for the subject of resilience really making it seem like you're one hard bone to chew when in reality you canonically just keep trying again and again.

I loved how you took the time to make the "game over screen" segment play into the storytelling, making it feel like that game never really ends until you win.

The only downside is that there's no graphics whatsoever, they would've enhanced the story a lot more should they exist.

This one was lovely!
The simplistic visuals and the custom UI design are a great addition from the start and the story is super easy to follow. I really dig the character designs as well, they're very eye pleasing.
I personally liked a lot that small feeling of dread I got when reading the messages describing the slow progression of the vines around your body and psyque until it makes itself super evident with the rambling/confused text.

One thing I found kind of odd though... is how "hard" the game makes it to give in to the influence of the swamp, I expected to get a bad ending after hitting the wrong button once, but instead I still got the good ending. Only after repeatedly hitting the wrong option on purpose I got the bad ending.
 

This was an interesting idea! My only suggestion would be to have anything different happening depending on who you go with, maybe a different ending?
I kept trying to see if I could find a secret ending somewhere but I couldn't find anything.
I also wanted to see a little more of the story on the last interaction before the bad ending. I felt like it could include a little more information on the situation of the protagonist and how he's there.

I really liked this one!

The story seemed insteresting from the very start, I got really curious as to what and why everything was happening in the game considering the way everything in the life of the main character seemed so awfully wrong yet completely normalized.

The dialogue is not half bad either! All the conversations you have with Daisy feel natural and not like they're reading a script, so I enjoyed reading them.

For the characters,  the game does a good job at giving the Main character a defined personality, same with the chubby mouse girl, she looks like a sweetheart!

I also appreciate the artstyle and design used for this project, it sells the idea of weirdness very well.

My only criticisms would be:

  • To further proofread the dialogues, because I found a few typos here and there. 
  • Add more interactable objects (With usually the MC talking about whatever you interact with)
  • Remove the unnecessary promts (where you can only choose one option and that's it) and only keep the ones where you actually have more than one option.
  • Add more pictures/sprites, etc showing off the monsters designs!
  • Add more events like the tinder app section, and overall more events that involve more than just moving from point A to B.

I don't really have much to say about this submission, but I feel like I should vocalize some of my thoughts about it.

First of all I appreciate the work done for the sprites, the tilesets and the character portrait, they did a good job on making the game feel distinct enough from the usual default assets found in rpg maker!

However, in terms of gameplay, the game part is over as soon as you reach the rehearsal room, which happens less than 10 minutes into the game.
I also found it confusing when the game said to go to "the second floor" when I saw no stairs or elevators at any point.

As for the dialogue, which is a huge part of the game, I found it quite lenghty and felt like it overstayed it's welcome. At first I read everything fine, but soon reached a threshhold where I started tuning out almost everything the characters would say (around the time the main character talks to Dr goya and company) because it started sounding like a lot of overexplaining and talking like the player already knows what the characters are talking about from the get go. The section of the play (where the puppets act on stage) could've easily been cut without losing anything for the story progression, although I can understand keeping it for the sake of showing the puppet sprites which I'm sure took a while to make!

I understand the game is a spin off of another game which I didn't play so I'm assuming all the context for the story needed is there, however I think this game should be self explanatory without the need to play a different game, and so far I couldn't understand anything beyond the basic premise of the actors being turned into puppets.

As a huge Undertale fan, I was looking forward to trying this game.

However, as harsh as it may sound, I must say I was dissapointed in many ways. 

Before I continue, I want to say that the graphics are phenomenal. The pixel art in every sprite is super well done! And it's clearly the strongest point of the game.

Everything else though, not so much...

The main issue here is that there is basically no gameplay at all, it's all just walking and reading text. No combat, or events take place anywhere except for ONE puzzle that's very inconsequential and you can beat 1st try.

The second biggest issue is the writing, it starts by unpacking a huge load of information that becomes irrelevant (aside from being the main character's back story) right after leaving the house at the beginning,  to then try to give some semblance of lore about the circus we're in, without explaining anything of it, to then an ending that feels empty and meaningless. It's like the story is trying to tell itself as fast as possible without even taking a moment to explain itself, it all feels disjointed and rushed.

This problem is only worsened by the lack of save points, really long sets of dialogues that you can accidentally trigger twice (having to manually skip them all over again), missing dialogues with place holders in it, and grammar mistakes.

In terms of theme, aside from the clown character (who only appears once if you fail the puzzle) and the curtains, there's nothing else resembling a circus, and we can only tell because the game tells us we're supposed to be in one.

And lastly, while I appreciate the Undertale aesthetics and the few references in the game, it draws parallels to the point where if feels like an undertale fangame rather than it's own thing, which takes away from the experience a lot because it doesn't necessarily contain any of the characteristics of UT.


I understand time constraints and lack of experience can be a lot to deal with, but they are hurdles that you can always overcome eventually!

I'm sure your next project will turn out much better!

This one was an enjoyable ride!

I really liked the style of the graphics and their consistency, and that every asset was seemingly made from scratch! I also liked the implementation of a combat system (as simple as it was), and I loved how you took the time to include several endings!

In terms of gameplay, I have to say it really didn't to much for me, since all the fights were easy to the point I could just spam enter/z and attack whoever and still win. The guard option, both for the player and the enemies was probably the most useless mechanic in the game, you would basically waste a turn just to get hit regardless.
The puzzles were also very easy since everything took place in basically the same room.

In terms of story, everything was good! But the huge jump between the beginning (from the garden) to the circus entrance takes away some points for the story because it clearly omits a lot of information and context before the circus.
Something I feel needs polishing are the dialogues for Kat, where it seems like the game is telling more than showing, or feels like is more lengthy than necessary.

In terms of horror, I honestly did not think it was scary at all, even with the gore bits, instead It felt more dramatic/romantic than that, but that's alright because the story was still enjoyable.

I think I encountered a bug during one of the routes (the one where you're killing enemies to please Ari) where you have to find the nail for the fortune teller.
If you pick up the plushie after killing all 9 enemies, the game locks out and can't interact with the fortune teller. But if you pick up the plushie  before killing all enemies, then the fortune teller does react and you can proceed.

Also, in the very beginning, while Ari is killing the audience member, the narrator makes a mistake and says the full name of Ari, (ariel) when the player is still not supposed to know it.

Needs a little polishing in some aspects but overall, a good game!

This one was an enjoyable ride!

I really liked the style of the graphics and their consistency, and that every asset was seemingly made from scratch! I also liked the implementation of a combat system (as simple as it was), and I loved how you took the time to include several endings!

In terms of gameplay, I have to say it really didn't to much for me, since all the fights were easy to the point I could just spam enter/z and attack whoever and still win. The guard option, both for the player and the enemies was probably the most useless mechanic in the game, you would basically waste a turn just to get hit regardless.
The puzzles were also very easy since everything took place in basically the same room.

In terms of story, everything was good! But the huge jump between the beginning (from the garden) to the circus entrance takes away some points for the story because it clearly omits a lot of information and context before the circus.
Something I feel needs polishing are the dialogues for Kat, where it seems like the game is telling more than showing, or feels like is more lengthy than necessary.

In terms of horror, I honestly did not think it was scary at all, even with the gore bits, instead It felt more dramatic/romantic than that, but that's alright because the story was still enjoyable.

I think I encountered a bug during one of the routes (the one where you're killing enemies to please Ari) where you have to find the nail for the fortune teller.
If you pick up the plushie after killing all 9 enemies, the game locks out and can't interact with the fortune teller. But if you pick up the plushie  before killing all enemies, then the fortune teller does react and you can proceed.

Also, in the very beginning, while Ari is killing the audience member, the narrator makes a mistake and says the full name of Ari, (ariel) when the player is still not supposed to know it.

Needs a little polishing in some aspects but overall, a good game!