itch.io

This is immensely helpful feedback, thank you so much! Let me know if you ever need a playtester for any of your games, I'd love to return the favour! :)

That gradual speed up idea is the perfect solution I didn't think of! Good to know where I can make some other adjustments too. Added to the to-do-list! :)
Happy to hear you’re liking it and big thanks for the excellent feedback!

hahaha oh no! I'll get on fixing that right away!
Thanks for giving it a go! Looking forward to your thoughts on it if you have any :)
(You can skip dialogue pretty quickly alternating pressing Z/X if you wanna catch back up to where you were)

(edit) Update is Live! :D

I'm a solo developer and I've been working on a non-linear RPG with minigame-style combat for the last 2 years, and today I'm releasing the first public demo of my game!

The demo features the first hour+ of the game and should give a good idea of what the rest of the game will be like! The full game is set to release in Q3 2023 and is available to wishlist on Steam.

Play the demo for free here > https://yozoraki.itch.io/nagayami-nights-demo

The game is still a work in progress, so if you have any feedback then let me know because I still have time to change things for the better!

Thanks, very happy with how that animation turned out! Mac has a bit of Sans vibe to him especially with the pixel art glowing eyes and grin, but you’ll see he’s different in personality- much more stubborn and grandiose.

Personally, I enjoy quizzes but I know some people don't so I made sure from the get-go that it would be completely optional- players can just choose the HYPE option instead for a pure RNG-based bonus and quickly get back to the battle. My hopes would be that players mainly opt for HYPE and occasionally use QUIZ because I want it to always feel like a risk (high stakes make for an exciting quiz). It'll have some of the most powerful buffs in the game but the wrong answer HP loss penalty with no option to heal will get players to think twice before using it. 

I see your point in questions getting stale, and I plan to avoid this by adding *tonnes* of unique questions that are slowly added as the game progresses. I’ve made the system so it’s really easy to add new questions and test them, so I’m thinking it’ll likely get to about 5000 questions of varying difficulty, far more than the player would likely ever see. Also some of the questions will read player data for unique answers (e.g. “How much damage did X do on his first attack this battle?” or “What was the last resource you picked up?”)

Your idea for active problem solving questions is also really interesting and something I’d never thought about, but certainly possible! I have a bunch of “whos that pokemon?” style silhouette questions for characters and enemies already, so spot-the-difference/short-term memory image based questions wouldn’t take much more effort to implement, and that could add a nice bit of variety!  Thanks for the feedback :)

Fair enough, I avoid updating GM now that my main project is so big and spaghetti coded that I doubt I'd be able to handle it if anything went wrong.
If it's not too much of a hassle then I'd appreciate it, but don't worry if it'd waste an excessive amount of your time. Thanks for the quick reply

I'm installing GMLive for the first time on v2.3.7.474. 
Whenever I launch my game I get a list of missing functions-

Function missing: video_pause
Function missing: video_resume
Function missing: video_enable_loop
etc...

Then I get this error-

___________________________________________

############################################################################################

ERROR in

action number 1

of Create Event

for object <undefined>:

Variable <unknown_object>.time_source_state_stopped(102249, -2147483648) not set before reading it.

 at gml_Script_live_preinit_init_consts (line 73) -        l_gmlConstValues=[undefined,pointer_invalid,pointer_null,path_action_stop,path_action_restart,path_action_continue,path_action_reverse,pi,NaN,infinity,GM_build_date,GM_version,GM_runtime_version,timezone_local,timezone_utc,gamespeed_fps,gamespeed_microse

############################################################################################

gml_Script_live_preinit_init_consts (line 73)

gml_Script_live_preinit_api (line 429) -               live_preinit_init_consts();

gml_GlobalScript_GMLive (line 4079) -        live_preinit_api();

Thanks! Love that idea hahaha, I'll be trying to add lots of small interesting interactions just like that

this is awesome. Looking forward to future updates! 

Oh nice! I'm used to assuming 'Australia' on the internet just means Victoria or NSW haha
I'm yet to get involved in the local indie dev scene but I've been looking into it lately, and there might be something we can meet up at!

Rewards that affect overworld abilities is a great idea for a workaround! I’m yet to fully decide on how shortcut unlocks work so I’ll definitely keep level up rewards in mind going forward!

I haven’t written about it yet, but there are resources you can collect throughout the overworld to upgrade your base, and maybe a random one of these with every level would satisfy the need for immediate reward.

And now I’m thinking about it more, maybe there could be a reward wheel that you can spin each level-up with varying rewards in 20 slots that slowly get reduced as you level so you’ll always get all rewards by max level- then I can add things like ATK+1 so you sometimes get that immediate amazing reward but I can still keep numbers low!
I’m coming up with this as I’m writing so it’s a bit all over the place, but there’s definitely something here!

Really appreciate the support! :)

Interesting! I’d never considered ghosts jumping across objects, but it could definitely work! Players have to revisit areas often enough that something like an event where ghosts you previously encountered start jumping to other objects could be cool.

I completely agree, and considering Pokemon’s approach is a big part of how I arrived at my solution. Just like stepping into the grass in Pokemon, I want the player to feel like every battle they start is due to their actions, whether that’s because they didn’t see the hidden ghost and got ambushed or triggered the battle on purpose to progress.

Game has a lot of charm and there were no bugs in my playthrough. Overall it's fun but a little short and missing a few features (listed below), I finished it in under 20 minutes. I wouldn't say it's worth this price point in it's current state, but I'm always happy to support an indie dev who clearly has a passion for game making and if my purchase will go towards future projects then it's worth it for me. Look forward to seeing what you do in the future :)

Needed features-
-An explanation of the controls somewhere in-game or in the menu
-Background music, even just free Kevin MacLeod stuff would do
-Sound effects you used are good, but could do with a lot more.
-The colours puzzle was a little fiddly. I'd suggest changing it to buttons that change the colours instead of pushing, but if that's not possible then just a simple sound effect letting the player know when it's hit the right spot will help.
-Finding the cutters took a while, give the sprite an animated sparkle or something so it's easier to spot

A prologue seemed like the most logical choice to me, and your reasoning definitely mirrors my own so it’s comforting to hear you came to the same conclusion.

Love the idea for your title, a great example of what I appreciate when making a title interesting!

Appreciate your support! I’ll be keeping an eye on your stuff too! :)

Very cool what you've managed to create within such limitations! It's a little repetitive but I had fun just placing tiles and making it look nice. My total score would sometimes flip to a negative number, so maybe a bug? It was -28000 and then when I got to 30000 it flipped back to positive. Had a lot of fun with it, great job!

Fun, feels good to play and the visuals and audio give it a great atmosphere. The game doesn't evolve at all with newer levels, but it kept me entertained enough to get to the end. The platforming needs coyote time if it were to become more of a platforming heavy game. Has a lot of potential! Great job!

Thanks for playing!

A classic tower defense with a cool twist. First play I made it to round 11, second I made it to 15.  It's like playing bloons except there's something to actually do (reroll) while the next round plays out. Art style is nice, especially the little walking card animation. Great job!

Glad you enjoyed it! There's some more one-off tile ideas in my notes that I didn't get time to implement that I'll put in the post-jam version!
Thanks for playing!

Even in a broken state this game is fun. I love the concept, and I ended up playing til like 8000 coins just messing around with it. Great job, look forward to checking out the fixed version

wow, fantastic game. Sadistic idea, perfectly executed. Well done!

Thank you for playing, and for the in-depth feedback! Some great points I'll keep in mind  for the post-jam release!

Thanks for playing!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for playing!

Excellent game, very polished and fun game loop. If it had a bit more feeling of progression like upgradable special attacks then I could see myself playing for a long time. Very well designed overall. Great job!

Short and sweet, I really enjoyed it! Charming visuals and a breeze to control. Level design is excellent. Great job!

Simple at first glance, but super well designed and clearly very thought out. A great variety of characters but consistent rules for each made it easy to learn. The balance between movement and attacks for dice rolls was so well done. Great job!

Incredible atmosphere perfect for this type of puzzle game. The zap when you connect dice feels great, and the game gives you a lot of control over the movement which I appreciated. I got stuck on the sticky get you higher level, but I enjoyed it a lot overall! Great job!

I had a blast with this for the first two rounds then it became a hectic mess haha. If I could change one thing, I would say add multiple entry shoots for the requests. I would drag a dice and by the time I got there another one was on top of it, to which I changed up my strategy and dragged the cards out to the middle of the table before adding dice which worked for a round, but when the table got full just dragging a card over would hit a dice and clear it. By the next round I found the best strategy was to just throw the cards on the pile of dice and hope for the best hahaha
Maybe a short startup round of like 20 seconds to sort the dice/table layout before requests start coming in each round would be cool.
I had fun with it though, and the writing was really entertaining. Great job!

I had a great time with this, very fun and graphics are lovely. I could never get to 1000 coins without it freezing up at some point in the run and having to reset, but nevertheless I enjoyed playing. Inverted camera controls would be nice, but I got used to it eventually. Well done!

Simple, but the weighted odds make it fun to play. Though I think it would need another layer of depth (e.g. spells, status effects etc) if you wanted to extend it to longer play times. I really like the visuals, kind of a mix and match but very charming. Great job!

I was considering a day limit etc, but purposely left it fairly low stakes for the jam version. Temporary camps is such a good idea for expanding the game! If I end up shamelessly stealing that idea for a post-jam version I'll make sure to chuck you name in the credits :) 
Thanks for playing!

Very charming, simple and fun. A little short but I liked what was there. The menus felt a little unresponsive at times, but other than that it played well and the UI was nice. Great job!

Very nice polished game. I love the steady introduction of new mechanics and ideas, and personally I love the limited moves design choice, it helps me narrow down the puzzle to actually be fun to solve instead of flailing around hoping for the best. The visuals and audio are excellent, and the butt-side up finish got me good haha Great job!

A very polished jam game, simple concept but fun to play. I love the stylised look, and how uniform it is across gameplay and menus. It's well paced as well, a good amount of challenge for a jam game. Great job!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I've fixed both of the bugs you encountered now, ready for the post-jam version. Thanks for playing!

Interesting concept and really polished execution. Very difficult but the short levels make it not feel so punishing. The red side is a bold design choice, but really keeps you on your toes and focusing on that main spinning mechanic. I tried both the web version and download, and the download version did feel a little better to play. Great job overall!

Super polished and great looking game! It's challenging in a good way, but I would either slow down the enemies a little, or charge dice faster, just for those moments when you get swarmed by enemies.
Music is nice too! Great job!