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I'm really glad to hear this even after so long <3

Funny enough, I was doing a minor rewrite of the whole script with the help of a native speaker, and the untranslated parts would probably be fixed too (I made every update first in Portuguese so a couple of friends could try it out), but it's kinda left in the drawer now. I'll probably finish it if I ever go back and make some more post game content (like the other beast people village to the south, explore Jeanne's situation with her family, revisit Lianna's home...) This is all extra tho. The game is fully finished as is.

Spirit Arrow is kind of in a limbo too, between me being bad at programming and having a lot going on in life pulling my attention, so it's going to take forever before it releases. There is a demo out tho, if you wanna try it out. Just keep in mind it's PC exclusive.

Oh my! Congrats! xD

I'd like to see that recorded. Could be a challenge run for the full release lol (Actually, I wanna see you try hehe)

And sorry development has been slow. Got stuff going on but I should have new stuff to show soon.

Glad to hear it!

The change will make more sense later. Remember how Shida's bow looked like in the other game? It has beads and feathers hanging from it. The idea is feathers are your permanent power ups, while beads will be swappable like Hollow Knight's charms. How that should look in the menu I'm still thinking about tho xD

Oh, hi!

Well, I'm assuming you're talking about games made in the RPG Maker engine. You can start by just googling "best rpg maker games" or similar. There should be plenty on Itch, Newgrounds and Steam. One I really liked would be OneShot. Yume Nikki and Omori are really popular too, tho I haven't given them a shot yet. But I have to admit most RPGM games I've played were eroges xD

But if you're talking about the story... Well that's a little complicated. I wrote this story kind of in a "something I wish I could read, but nobody has written yet, so let me do it instead" sort of way, so I can't really give you any recommendations. My inspirations were in some novels/anime like Konosuba and Re:zero.

I hope that helps!

Oh my! Yes, I remember changing the table and other furnishings after some update. Wow. That brings me back xD

Anyway, thanks again for the help. I'd be nice if you could recreate the bug, buf it it was indeed caused by stacking interactions together... Do you play the browser version? I have no idea why, but it's been known to let you skip entire lines of code if you click through cutscenes too fast. One player managed to retain the no clip/collisions off state after a cutscene had ended, and so phased through buildings in the whole game, but never managed to replicate it.

Well, right now my theory is that a similar thing is happening to you. The issue remains that the bed isn't supposed to mess with your characters' exp either way, so it's hard to tell what the culprit is. Maybe it's one of those crazy bugs that happen in pokemon where you can change parameters from one section of the game to another (like using an item ID for a pokemon), but at this point I'm just putting a tinfoil had on xD

The hunt still remains though. But thank you again for your effort!

Oh thanks a lot for the help trying to locate the bug! And I'm sorry it happened to you.

But that's really weird... Did you lose only the exp progress to the next level, or did your characters' level go back? It seems to be the former. Also, it did happen to everyone, and not just Shida, right? Did the battle screen display your gained exp as negative, or did you only look at it in the menu later and saw the number was smaller?

If I'm not mistaken, if I tell the engine to jump you to a certain level, it will you make the character's level exatcly it, and their progress to the next level should be reset. The weird thing is, this should only happen when you use the debug window to jump to a certain chapter, which levels up the 3 main characters. Shida isn't involved in the main story, so this shouldn't affect him either way.

It could be related to Attentive Goggles, but it has  the simple effect of multiplying the exp you gain by 1.1 (so 10% more than normal). You actually losing exp after battle is REALLY weird, and I don't remember there being any status effect in the game that affects your exp gain aside from being dead (by default, it multiplies your gained exp by 0, which I manually removed anyway since this is a tough game and I don't want sacrificed characters to gain nothing from bossfights).

The only other event that can mess with a character's exp (that I can remember) is when they rejoin your party. RPG Maker gives me the option to initialize their data, meaning return to their default level (Lianna would be 1, Jeanne 4 and Shida 9). It's possible there's an event somewhere where a character rejoins your party and I accidentally left the initialize option marked. (note: you know a character has left your party when you open the pause menu. Sometimes I just disable followers for special events or cutscenes, which is only a visual thing)

When you change chapters by sleeping on a bed, the game runs the "recover all" code, restoring everyone to full health and healing any status ailments. And when you interact with it in the late game it only uses triggers to switch between day and night. So I don't think the bed is involved (the code for it is very short too, and I just double checked it)

If you want to keep trying to find it, those are all the leads I have. I'll have a good, long look at the events this weekend when I have the chance. Thanks again for your dedication and help!

(Btw, what do you mean quantum table? Did I forget a joke? xD)

edit 1: tried cheating to get my characters to a high enough level and equipped some with the attentive goggles. They still gain exp like normal. So I guess it's not related to their exp curve or something.

Well, the tutorials I watched were for RPG Maker, so they'll probably only be useful if you end using it, but here's the playlist:

Ohhh good luck! That's another tough fight! xD

Well I don't believe a whole lot in talent. My game is far from perfect but I'm always listening to game reviews (nerd), and the story had the benefit of have already been written back in 2018 and gone through several iterations. If you know what you're doing, have a solid vision as to what the player should experience and do your best within your limitations (if you're not an artist, try simple pixelart, commission an artist or use free assets; if you're not a composer, get royalty free songs online etc.), I'm sure you can make a great game!

(Only now reread my previous reply and edited it. I must've been drunk. No way a sane person types like that lol)

Ohh then you're probably way more competent than me at making games xD Please let me know if you ever publish one tho!

The Yusha quest is tough. You need 4 diary pieces and can only find each in order, the last 2 pieces only available after the credits. The secret is to just retrace your steps carefully to revisit places you wouldn't normally. Good luck ;)

Also, sorry I should've been clearer. There's only one real ending to the game (plus a secret joke ending). By endings I meant to the quests, as a great deal of them have 2 endings (usually by completing it or failing, which is kind of the canon option since it's what I wrote the original novel as. Still left the option to win fights you're supposed to lose since I know some players would try tho xD)

Aww thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

RPGMaker is a great engine if you just want to get straight to programming an RPG without having to touch actual code. If you want I can direct you to the tutorials I followed. Managed to learn 90% of what I needed to make this game in one week, believe it or not.

But have you already beaten it? It's already finished but I do plan on releasing more side content later on when I'm done with other projects. For now, if you want, you can try replaying the story and getting endings you didn't get, or finding secret side quests. (if you didn't do the Mappi and Huyuchi village quests, I highly recommend!)

Heyy thanks for playing! Glad to hear you've been enjoying it.

I'm guessing you prefer moving with the directional arrows? Unfortunately you'll have to get used to A/D movement since you have one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. (plus I use the arrows and the whole right side of the keyboard for testing lol) If you prefer using a controller, there'll be support for it on the next update tho!

As for the ogre boss... Some people have really struggled with it. My suggestion would be to time your dodge rolls well (with shift, in case you're just jumping to dodge and forgot about it), to see what elements can damage the ogre, and remember the wind arrow uses physics mechanics and can... do things to some projectiles ;)

Don't give up! If you got so far I know you can beat it. Just use everything you've learned so far. But don't worry, the full release will start out easy and take a while to get tough. The demo is just a vertical slice of what the game will be, so the difficulty scales up pretty quickly.

Is that for chapter 4, I assume? Don't worry, the dungeon is really short. Just have a good look at where the teleporters are taking you and you'll soon notice a pattern ;)

Well I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Good luck! xD

Oh my. Not even if you ask him first?

If you want to make a game, you'll have to at least download the engine first too. If it's RPG Maker it already comes with art and sound assets at least, but it isn't free.

You can also just download the game and take a look inside the folders. All the bgm are in .ogg format ;)

Ah thanks!

All of the used songs came with RPG Maker MZ. They don't even have proper titles, and that one is just called "Town8" in the files xD

Oh hi there!

Well if you want to get a game done quick, RPG Maker is probably your best option. It's the engine I used to make this game and it's so simple I learned most of what I needed in 1 week. RPGM very focused so you can get things done very quick and don't even have to touch actual lines of code. Though that means it's very limited and you won't be able to go crazy unless you install plugins or are just really skilled at programming and can write code directly into the game. It doesn't have pixelart visuals by default, but you can just get tilesets that match the look you want online (or just draw them yourself).

This is the tutorial I used to get started:

If you don't mind building all the systems from the ground up though, you can try something like Game Maker Studio 2 (the engine I'm using for my next game). But it's VERY complicaded since you need to learn proper programming to use it, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you can spare several months just getting the main systems ready.

I hope that helps!

And don't worry. There's already a kind player who is a native speaker and decided to proofread the game and the next updates will have reviewed text.

Also, if you still wanna find my Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tiagoxningenjanai/

If I'm not misunderstanding you, you want to program a  game yourself? As far as I know, Itch doesn't provide any game engine (much less powered by the browser). It only hosts games for you. So you'd have to create your own game with the engine of your choice (RPGM, Unity, Godot, GMS2...) and upload it here. If it has HTML support, people could even play it directly from the browser like this one. Hope that helps!

Oh hi! Well there are a few ways, but beating them first try isn't intended. I just left the option there because I know some people would definitively try and eventually succeed lol.

But if you want a tip, you could try stocking up on holy water before entering the graveyard.

Thank you. I'm glad you had fun. But well, all things must come to an end.

But well, the good news is that I released a short demo for my next game not long ago.

Plus, I have plans on releasing a sizeable update for Witch Hat in the near future, with new areas and a new questline ;)

Saw so many numbers for amoment I thought you dropped some lines of code here xD

But yeah, I heard about that. You can beat the boss at different points in the game and get different endings from that. It's fascinating.

Ohhh cool! Can't wait to see it xD

joiplay? Isn't that for RPG Maker games?

This one was made in Game Maker Studio 2, and currently only for PC. ;-;

Well that's good to hear!

Lucky that, even though the misty wood has pretty tough enemies, the encounter steps reset everytime you walk from a room to another, so if you bee-line to the exit you're very unlikely to be stopped by enemies.

That reminds me I never finished Chrono Trigger though!

Oh thank you! I'll be very happy to see it! xD

And don't worry. Sometimes I embarrass myself really bad in games with the simplest puzzles lol. Following a set of directions SHOULD be pretty simple, but even I got lost a few times during playtest by forgetting which line I was on or counting a verse too soon or too late.

Yes that's about right. RPGM is great for people with zero coding skills and who just want to make a game with little attrition, but that also makes it pretty limited. For me it was very worth it, but there's a reason I'm using a professional engine for the next game xD

And oh gosh... Unfortunately playing in the browser has these risks.

Recently I learned you can even play the PC version on mobile with an emulator. I wonder if I should tell people playing the browser version on mobile that.

Oh no, you don't get it... RPG Maker HAS plenty of if/than/else stuff. It's just that it's VERY restricted on how and when we can use those. Usually cutscenes are very free, but scripting stuff in combat, while it uses similar code to cutscenes, can get pretty clunky thanks to how it loads events in a certain order and thus can skip another, and enemy AI is defined by a very small set of parameters with thresholds and probability.

For example, with liches I set their enemy-specific AI to only start using Mana Drain from their moveset after they fall below 50% MP. That's how RPGM's combat coding works best. It can only get values from the enemy itself, however, and not from other enemies or the player characters.

Meanwhile with ogres I had to write the code down in the event windows of the fight itself, like it was a cutscene. Those scripted OUTSIDE their AI tab. What I did was set a debuff on Jeanne at the start of the fight that makes her 900% more likely to be targeted than Lianna or Mao for lore reasons, it has an automatic event that plays once it reaches 50% HP or lower so it uses the Wild Rage skill, which it also uses at any time you try using Cindy's Incense inside the fight. Those scripted events have a lot of programming freedom, letting me get variables from any entity inside the combat or even global switches/variables (like checking where in the story you're at), but since they work like cutscenes they play on top of the actual turn-based combat, and whenever I force an enemy to take an action it's essentially an extra turn. RPGM tends to glitch out when I stack several event windows that uses different parameters so in a cutscene-heavy fight like the liches it's not a very good idea, in my experience, to force the liches to take certain actions.

Maybe there's a solution for this without plugins, but in the end it was too much trouble that it's worth. Plus, you can consider it an extra layer of strategy to keep your characters at low MP to troll the liches lol. Anyway, I hope that clarifies things.

Ohhh congrats xD

And don't worry. I still have a lot of edits to make before catching up lol. Should get to it soon now that Spirit Arrow's demo is out tho!

And well... I really wanted to do that, but I don't think it's possible without some plugins. The best I did was give Lianna and Jeanne a debuff when fighting wargs that make them more likely to be targeted, but I don't think I can use the player's stats in the enemy AI. I can only make enemies do stuff like use Mana Drain when their own MP is below a certain threshold and such. The only way of doing what you said would be scripting an event in the middle of combat like a cutscene that would check each character's MP and then decide if the enemy will make an extra turn using Mana Drain on one of them... Which I don't really like either.

So? Did it work?

Oh gosh. Sorry about that.

It's a somewhat convoluted chain of sidequests so I expect most people didn't do them either. That said, only one person had this issue and they quickly solved it by simply following the instructions. Are you sure you're not just counting from the wrong room? Or mixing east and west up?

Either way, you can just save scum your way through, or follow the stones. (Yes, that's a trick that a few people caught on lol. Just go through the paths that have stones near them)

And don't worry, I'm Brazilian too.

I don't deserve y'all 😭

Ohh. You know, I really like the idea!

The story is so focused on paying their debt the two don't get a lot of time together. But that could work really well as post game content. Well, I'll keep that in mind whenever I get back to working in this game xD

(But you may be happy to know they get some quality time together in the second Huyuchi sidequest (^_-) )

Oh my. Please don't worry!

Well my only tip would be to have a strong sense of what kind of game you want to make, and not to get too greedy with the scope. It's REALLY easy to just keep expanding and changing things forever while not getting anywhere. With Witch Hat, for example, I just had a story written years ago I wanted to tell, so I made a game in a really simple to use engine to tell it. This way my lack of technical knowledge didn't stand in the way, plus I've played enough RPGs to know how they work.

RPG Maker is an amazing engine if you just want to tell a story. But if you want some specific mechanics, you may want to look into what plugins are available for the RPGM version you have, if not pick a different engine altogether.

I think we've found the issue xD

Start counting from the first room and we'll see what happens.

Oh hi again! Well that's weird. I think only one other person had the issue, and they arrived there eventually. Are you counting from the first room or the second?

Monkey? I assume you mean the lost cat in a sidequest? If so it's in the north part of the city. Keep searching and I'm sure you'll find it ^^

Oh I work basically solo. Though Witch Hat uses a lot of pre made asses from RPG Maker and I get some tilesets from forums. I also did "hire" a friend to make the title art since I suck at topography, and some people help playtest and check for typos, but most of the help I get is  from the player actually.

With my next game (Spirit Arrow) I'm using an engine that actually requires me to write code (Game Maker Studio 2) so I'm learning everything from zero, and all the visuals are hand drawn. The only help I'm getting is from tutorials online and free sound assets, and I'm probably getting the same guy to draw the title art again but that's it. So yeah, no wonder it's taking so long xD

Well it's gonna be a very different game but I hope not to disappoint! xD

It's almost good to release the first demo. It just depends on how much new stuff I'll add (like new enemy types) lol. Still thinking if one boss is enough or if I should add two instead. Hmmm...

Wow I don't even know what to say. I made the game to be played twice and was afraid even that would be too boring ;-;

But well, I''m glad you liked my little game that much. The next will be a totally different genre but I hope it'll be just as fun!

Aww thank you <3

I wish I had more time (and skill) to program but I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. Hopefully it'll be fun to play, most importantly xD