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Adrift's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Writing/Story | #5 | 3.765 | 3.765 |
| Overall | #11 | 3.471 | 3.471 |
| Creativity | #14 | 3.647 | 3.647 |
| Gameplay | #18 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- Hey there :). Good game. The gameplay is fun, the mapping is good, the story and the dialogues are great, and there is a lot features that a liked. I played until the fight against the mysterious woman. At this point, the combat was bugged, the UI disappeared, and couldn't beat her since i was dealing no damage and she couldn't beat me since i was immortal (for some unknown reason). I didn't saved since the beginning so i stopped here, but it was 35min+ that i don't regret, even if i stopped because of a bug. I really liked the survival part (i love survival game) and if i could advice you something, it would be to increase the importance of this feature (from what i've seen, the played didn't had to worry too much about that, the hunger/thirst wasn't decreasing a lot, and there was only a few crafting item). But anyway, i really enjoyed this game, good job to you, cya ! :) Drag
- You did a very nice job with the mapping. The game was a bit on the long side, but well done :)
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Comments
I'm both impressed and frustrated by this game.
I'm impressed by the plot and game mechanics but I'm frustrated bcs even tho the story is interesting the game wouldnt let me finish it and see the ending. And the gameplay here is really bugged and badly done. Basically I would say everything that pikamew said and also add that for some reason my skills didn't work, I dunno why mb its bcs I changed action keys but sometimes I could use spells and sometimes I couldn't it was very random. And oh boy... Those cutscenes... When you set movement in an autorun event you should either leave the "skip if" option on or use yanfly's move route plugin it will allow to use coordinates in set movement option.
I also personally think that both of the gameplay features you applied (ABS and survival sim) are pretty raw. It's like you spend a lot of time on both of those things and none of them is good bcs you put too much into your short game instead of focusing on something one.
1st about the survival stuff: I personally like your survival system even more than sykarjon's but trees used to make a fire aren't supposed to respawn everytime you exit the cave, there should be more recipes for items than 3 (mb there's a way to get more recipes but I didn't find any). Also let the player craft equipment.
2nd the ABS: I was tripping over those plants all the time XD make them passable and get rid of that bridge or make it straight and wide. Also those bats deal 0 damage, let them deal more damage but respawn only after you re enter the dungeon. I think the fairy or at least MCs sister should be a full party member bcs his sister is actually useless she deals 0 damage even to chickens and I can't do anything to change that.
The game doesn't have an ending yet, I never had the time to implement it.
The action keys changing shouldn't affect your ability to use skills, because you can't rebind the buttons for the skills (the plugins I'm using don't allow for it because they're unfinished - the creator abandoned RPG Maker altogether a couple years ago).
Were there any cutscenes in particular where this happened?
The trees respawn because they are enemies, and because I was planning to allow the player to make more fires but I never got around to it.
The recipes were added as I added things, but yes, some enemy drops went unused because I ran out of time. I have no plans of letting the player craft equipment, the decision to keep the player at one weapon and some armor was deliberate.
The plants aren't supposed to be passable because they are enemies. If I set them as below the player, then harvesting/"attacking" bugs out (the same is true for enemies set to above the player). The bats deal 0 damage half because I never had the time to balance their skill and half because I didn't realize how badly Drifty Mode is unbalanced in the player's favor.
The fairy isn't supposed to be an actual party member, she was never supposed to be. She is accompanying you. As for Teriny, I never had the chance to balance her because I was focusing on the gameplay as Donicus (since you spend most of the game as him).
I am glad that you enjoyed the story, I apologize that there were as many bugs as there are. The bugs and general uncompleted nature of this game are why I plan on releasing a final, finished version after the jam is over (after the winners are announced) - bugs hopefully fixed, some more balancing, more story and gameplay content, and less wonky collision (which was primarily because I couldn't use my mapping system of choice).
This game definitely has an intriguing plot discovering what happened to the ancient civilization. It was unfortunate with the current saving/loading issues. I did managed to progress to the mysterious women and got stuck in an endless battle doing 0 damage; would be interested to find out more!
I think this has potential to be an interesting game with a bit more polish!
Yeah, as I've said in other replies, the saving/loading system seems to break for everyone else even though it's always worked just fine on my end. Hopefully the post-jam version won't have that problem.
There isn't anything after the mysterious woman battle, I never had the time to add more because that was added shortly before the deadline. The post-jam version is planned to have the story fully finished, the assorted bugs squished away, and some improvements to the visuals as well.
In any case, I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for playing my entry!
Hey there! We did a high level review of your entry this weekend and would like you to see it on our channel. You can find the exact time to skip to in the description:
Thank you for your review!
I'm glad you liked the premise and the story. Truth be told, I started with the mechanics for this game rather than the story, so I was worried it would come across as rushed or unfinished. The story took some inspiration from the Ys series, although I wanted it to still be my own interesting spin on it rather than a copy-paste of their stories.
I always add the manual into games I make, especially ones where the player might step away for a long time and possibly forget things. The last thing I want is a player coming back to the game after a long time away from it and being completely and utterly lost.
I'm also glad you liked the island map, I try to make sure the maps in my games look good while also not hindering the player's ability to traverse them.
I really should have added more guidance, but to tell the truth I wasn't certain how to effectively give guidance without holding the player's hand too severely. Creating tutorials has always been somewhat of a weak point for me, because I'm never sure how to go about adding them without confusing the player or boring them.
It's odd that the water source dried up, because it's not supposed to do that. The eventing logic was set up so that, if you have an empty bottle you can fill it with water, and if you don't then you can't get another water bottle out of nowhere. I'll have to look at that and see if maybe a bug slipped through my admittedly barebones system.
And yes, the loading issue has been brought up by many other people who have given Adrift a try. I'm not certain what causes this issue, since at least on my end (in playtest, in the deployed copy, and in the .exe copy) saving works perfectly fine. I have been directed towards a possible alternative, so I will likely be trying that system out in the post-jam version and seeing if that solves the loading issue.
I like the suggestion of creating a tutorial area, that's definitely something I will try out in the post-jam version since that won't have the 30 minute time limit.
I did try and slow down the sleep meter (the current version is about 2x slower than the original version was, when I was just testing out the mechanic), so I'll definitely try and slow it down even more.
As I said earlier, I'm going to look into the event logic for the water source to figure out why it dried up for you, because the way I set it up it is supposed to be infinite.
I appreciate your advice and the good/bad that you pointed out. Thank you again for the review, and for giving my entry a look!
*sigh* Alright, this game... I tried. Multiple times. I tried to see this game through like all the rest. But this game... is almost impossible to finish. For you see, this game is filled TO THE BRIM with game-breaking bugs. Most of my game sessions ended in a softlock. I'm not joking when I tell you this game is probably the most broken game of the entire game jam. It have a lot going for it: an intriguing story, world-building stuff, mystery, adventure... This is also a game that wants itself ambitious for a RPG Maker game: real-time combat, pixel-based movement... And that's probably part of the problems I'm going to mention here.
- As the boat go in the introduction, stuff are disappearing on the right side of the screen.
- The HUD is way too big, it takes too much space on screen, and is susceptible to hide map elements or enemies. You should consider making it smaller.
- "Max HP Heal" is confusing if you don't know Yanfly's plugin. People might think the item increases the character's Max HP instead of healing him based on his max HP. Maybe something more in the way of "% HP heal" might fix the issue.
- Also, I would like to talk about the controls which are... not very human-friendly. You use the directional keys to move around, enter the interact with things, left-click to attack/cut trees and plants, right-click to guard, and 1 and 2 to cast spells. Well... I'm sorry, but I'm not a Machamp: I don't have 4 arms to spare. Maybe you want to map your controls a more efficient way?
- So... apparently, saving the game starting the moment you get the pickaxe and the sword corrupts the save file as the game now refuses to load said save file. Which is pretty early in the game and thus a big problem considering the length of the game (and the bugs). As it forces you to restart if you just want to leave, the game shuts down for any reason or if you encounter a game breaking bug (which this game doesn't lack of apparently).
- WAIT! IS THE GAME PROGRAMMED TO AUTOSAVE AT THE LAST SLOT YOU SAVED AT, CRUSHING THE LAST SAVE DATA AT THAT SLOT? OH MY GOSH, IT MAKES THIS BUG SO MUCH MORE PROBLEMATIC! WHAT THE HELL?!
- Donicus have no reason to say that this early in the game.
- The lantern barely does anything in the underground tunnel and Donicus just says it is "Much better" while it isn't. It's as dark as before visually.
- Combat seems... not... stacked against the player?
- Oh yeah, Donicus. Now you definitely understand what's on that wall. Too bad, you can't share it with us...
- Ty-typo? I'm not even sure.
- Pixel-based movement is janky in this game. You got to be extremely close of what you want to interact with, sometimes when you get close of anything you can't get on the side forcing you to walk away first. I had problems entering the tent. During my first playthrough, I fought you simply couldn't enter it so I roamed the map looking for a way to rest and a lantern for several minutes before leaving the game out of frustration.
- Wait! A bat just made me jump through the wall! You can walk through walls! It's not easy to come out of this situation, but if you manage, you can trigger the demon boss fight early despite the doors closed. Oh... And toying far enough with that bug... I realized... where was the demon... before the boss fight is triggered. It scared me. XD
Now, here is a list of the softlocks I found:
- If you talk to the fae the first time at the wall and she tells you to join her at the pillar near the cliffs, you can softlock the game by going to rest instead. For some reason, the fairy isn't at the pillar, but back at the wall instead. Talking to her softlocks the game after a few text boxes.
- When the fae activates the pillar, you can talk to her in a certain position. Doing so will softlock the game again when it tries to make Donicus walk back.
- When the mysterious woman approaches you, you have the choice of fighting her or not. Deciding not to will softlock the game again after a few text boxes.
- Softlocked again. This time, because last time I didn't challenged the woman and it softlocked the game, I did challenged her. And the game let me rest at the tent without problems, my pursuer was way too slow to stop me (even despite being at the Asleep state, which lowers the character's movement speed). As a result the game entered a softlocked state where rain started again, the sister is nowhere to be found, the fairy at the wall asks me to touch the pillar and the main menu is disabled. Also... I can't die for some reason?
(Please excuse the quality of the gifs I had to compress them to make itch.io accept to host them.)
*sigh* I'm sorry. I would have like to see this game through, but in this state... it... it's just too much. If even the save files would have worked as intended, it would have make things so much easier for me. Between the game-breaking bugs, the balance and the oversights... I can't put this in the "good game" category. Not in its current state.
Also, make sure everything you put in your game have a purpose. Like, for example, does pixel-based movement serves gameplay more than grid-based movement? Don't do things just because "it's not default". Don't make the same mistakes than Final Fantasy II.
From what I understand, you intend to make it a full-fledged game? In that case, I wish you good luck! The path of excellence is long so don't get lost on the way, okay? ^^
The stuff in the boat was a bug with the mapping plugin, there was nothing I could do to fix that. It is fixed in the new version because I am not using that mapping system anymore (I couldn't use it for the jam because it was considered a "tool").
I will look into making the HUD smaller.
I didn't have the time to fix the terminology on the plugin's menus, because I was focusing on fixing mechanical issues.
You can rebind the controls to be how you like. You don't need to use the arrow keys, and frankly I never do use them. However, I am unable (as of right now) to let the player rebind skill buttons, that's just not a feature of the plugins I'm using.
Yes, I know that saving is broken, I have no clue why. But someone has suggested a fix for me, so hopefully the post-jam version will fix that.
The only time that the game is supposed to autosave is right before the boss. Beyond that, no, it should not be autosaving. That is not even a system I have in that game because none of the autosaving plugins I've found even work.
Alright, a minor eventing bug that I missed, I'll see if I can fix that as well.
The lantern is a problem with the lighting plugin I had to use (not a fan of Terrax's). Again, this will be fixed in the post-jam version since I will be switching to Khas'.
I have no idea why the bats do 0 damage, this bug didn't appear until later and at that time I was putting my effort into fixing the demon boss. This will be fixed in the post-jam version.
I never had the time to finish the mural, that will also be fixed in the post-jam version.
Last I checked, no, that's in fact not a typo.
I've fixed the collision on the tent in the post-jam version, this was also a problem due to the mapping system.
Yes, that's again due to the mapping system I was using in lieu of my usual system. This will also be fixed in the post-jam version.
Ugh, I tried fixing her event but I guess a condition slipped through while I was testing. Gonna fix that too.
Duly noted, I'll see if I can't do some tweaking on that event.
The mysterious woman event is not finished, I was adding that in roughly 2 or 3 days before the jam ended. That will be finished in the post-jam version, but it wasn't in this version because I simply did not have time.
Interesting. That's likely a bug due to how unfinished the mysterious woman event is, so in all likelihood the post-jam version won't have this problem.
I intend to finish it and give it an ending. Beyond that, it wasn't supposed to be a "fully fledged game" as much as a "let's see how people like these mechanics and let's see if I can't fix them ahead of time". Effectively, this can be considered a prototype for my main project, a way to test the systems and get what people think. However, due to the limitations of the jam I was unable to do some things I otherwise would have been able to do. I am sorry to hear that you consider this game less than enjoyable. Hopefully the post-jam version will fix at least some of the issues you have found.
Why don't you just use a looping map for your introduction sequence?
Thank you. ^^
It's understandable considering the project.
Trying out I realized it adapts itself to the keyboard used (I'm using a French keyboard which is different from English ones). Which is a good thing. I didn't really dared touching it until now out of fear it would break the game again due to the type keyboard used. As for skill buttons, it would be indeed nice for the player to have a full control over... its controls. OwO
That's cool! I hope the fix will work! ^^
Actually, I just wanted to tell you: you don't need a plugin to make an autosave system. You can open an event and make him execute this script:
if (DataManager.lastAccessedSavefileId() !== 0){$gameSystem.onBeforeSave();
DataManager.saveGame(DataManager.lastAccessedSavefileId());
}
Upon reading this script, the game will either:
- Save in a new slot if this is a new game,
- Or if the game has been saved, save in the latest slot this game have been saved.
Source:
Problems like this happen with complex eventing. X)
Ok, good to know for the lantern. ^^
Maybe the monsters' stats are getting in the way of one another. If the problem occurred while you were balancing the demon, then it's a possibility.
Too bad for the mural, I was curious. X)
Ok, I had a doubt about it. That's cool. ^^
Great about the tent!
If you intend to do a New Game+ with a Cheat option, maybe you could consider to allow the player to go through walls. That'd be nice. Because... I kinda had fun with this. (Even though I was getting more trapped than anything.) Or you can make like Super Mario Odyssey and use this bug at your advantage to hide secrets for the player. (In which case, you might want to allow him to return back to the level with ease.) ^^
It seems that the action of resting resets the fae's position for some reason. That's the problem. Also, after another trying out this: I realized what actually caused this softlock to happen is the game is trying to make the character back off against a tree. About softlocks, most of them happen because the game tries to move a character against an obstacle and because you haven't told it to stop if the movement wasn't possible, it keeps trying to move it indefinitely. You could maybe toggle ON/OFF the possibility for characters and event to go through obstacles. This is something I often used for The Escapists during cutscenes to make sure everything happen as intended.
Thanks a lot for your concern, but don't worry. Adrift was a noble effort with maybe too big of a scale for a game jam. I'm sure you will manage in the future.
I hope my review helped you going through with Adrift and your future projects as well. ^^
I did use a looping map for the introduction sequence. That's why the mapping system was glitching, because it does not like looping maps. In the version where I'm using my preferred mapping system, that has been fixed already. (That was honestly the first thing I fixed.)
As I said, I don't yet have the ability to let players rebind the skill buttons, because that just wasn't a feature of the plugins. Once the new programmer on my team starts to get the hang of programming for RPG Maker, I'll see if he might be able to get that working.
For Adrift, I didn't really want an autosave system, truth be told. I only forced a save before the demon boss so the player wouldn't be stuck having to go through the whole game again if they forgot. (it should be said that at the time I added that, I didn't know that the save system only works on the developer end but not for the player. I didn't know this until later builds, where I started having people test it out. By then I'd basically forgotten that I had the game force a save before the demon boss.)
I feel like the bats are unbalanced so badly is just because I gave them a basic skill and went to work on the more pressing mechanical issues: ie, the demon boss. An underwhelming enemy is one thing, but an underwhelming boss really doesn't bode well.
Unfortunately no NG+ plugins exist that are both free and functional in 1.6.2. With Adrift that's not a problem since NG+ wasn't part of my idea for it, but for my main project I absolutely plan on having NG+.
For the pillar sequence, I'm probably going to do what I did for a couple other events and have it teleport the player to a specified position so I know where they are. That way I can 100% know that they won't get themselves stuck.
The fairy's position is supposed to be set to near the pillar after a switch is toggled, that's odd that it didn't work like that. The detriments of having less time to have people test things before the game was due, I suppose.
Wow Pika you should be a pro playtester
When I'll finish my main project I'm totally hiring you to playtest XD
Wow, I feel flattered. Thanks for the compliment. ^^;
This game has a pretty solid premise, set up with an interesting intro. The survival action rpg genre is always fun, but unfortunately I spent about 10 minutes wandering the island and could not figure out how to use items, how to craft anything or what to do besides slaughter hapless chickens and mushrooms. From the other reviews, I am sure it is totally doable, but the lack of even a tiny bit of hand holding really hurt the game for me.
I love the premise and the ideas are great, just needs a bit more quality of life for the player.
I'm glad you liked the premise and ideas. To be honest I wasn't sure to what degree to add in guidance for the player, since I didn't want to have no guidance whatsoever but I also didn't want to shove the player's face into every smallest thing. I'm hoping that in the post-jam version, I'll be able to iron out the kinks in this version.
I got up to the Demon boss. That may not seem like I got very far but it took me 2 hours to get there. The first puzzle was tough because you don’t repeat the hint after the first time you read the plaque. If you miss it the first time you will basically have to restart a new game. The save system doesn’t work. Every time I died I had to start over from a new game (I only died on the boss, pretty hard to die from the bats). The bats respawn a bit too quickly. Personally I would only respawn them after you leave the current map and come back. The combat system was good otherwise.
This game is just not completable in under 30 minutes. Maybe if you tried speedrunning it after you knew how to do everything and skipped through all the dialogue really fast. I don’t know as I couldn’t get past the first boss. And I really tried.
A few glitches happened during my playthrough. I got trapped during the boss fight when my attacks stopped working. This also happened before the boss on the bats as well. The animations still played but no damage was being done. Had to quit and start a new game when this happened. The sheep bugs out of existence every time I go near it. The bridge across the lake sometimes works and sometimes you have to mash directional buttons to get through it. Selecting a skill in the pause menu crashed the game. The lamp doesn’t actually seem to work, the dungeons were really dark. Maybe it wasn’t turned on but the dialogue pop up said it was on, and I couldn’t turn it on from the menu, so I don’t know. The HUD flashes on a black screen every time you enter a new map.
I liked that you included the KeyInput option, but it would have been better if I could have rebound the attack and block buttons from mouse1 and mouse2 to somewhere on the Gamepad. If there was a way to do this I didn’t find it. I understand not everyone uses the Gamepad so this is not that big of a deal.
The opening cutscene was good, a bit visual novel-ly though. Nothing wrong with that. The story overall seemed pretty good. I liked the characters and the world building. The use of ellipses in sentences was a bit excessive. It really slowed down the pace of the game and made my repeated attempts a bit irritating. I think I over used ellipses in my game as well, so no judgements here. You clearly spent a much longer time on your game than I did mine. And I didn’t find any typos or grammatical errors, so that was great.
A Hint/Log Tab in the pause menu might be helpful. Something that logs important information and hints as the game progresses, like the clue about the first puzzle that isn’t repeated, or suggestions on where to go, what to do, etc.
Anyway, I will try and come back and complete this game soon. Overall I really liked it.
PS: The Ys games are awesome. One of the games I’m working on is also kinda inspired by that series.
Adrift isn't meant to be completed in 30 minutes, in all honesty. I created 30 minutes of content, and decided "screw it, I'm having fun with this, let's just add more for the people who feel like playing some more". Strange that you weren't able to see the hint again, gonna have to look into that event again and see if I can't fix that once the jam is over.
Yeah, the save system has been reported a few times as not working for some people, but in all honesty... I have no idea how to fix it. It works just fine on my end, so somewhere between then and downloading it on someone else's computer it stops working and I have no idea why. Maybe Drifty will have some ideas during the stream, who knows.
Interesting, I've not heard of the attacks not working bug. Nor was I expecting the sheep to disappear - though to be fair, that's an enemy I was planning to implement and I never got around to it. The collision on the bridge is a little tight at times, partially due to the colliders being more of a rough approximation rather than a more accurate representation of what it's supposed to be like. That'll be fixed as well in the after-jam version.
Interesting, I thought I fixed that skill menu bug. Everyone else who's tested it said the bug went away. Going to need to see if that addon can be fixed...
Yeah, the lantern problem is honestly just a product of the plugin I was forced to use (I'm not terribly fond of how Terrax's plugin looks, and Khas' wasn't an option for the jam since it uses external images). That will also be fixed in the after-jam version.
Yeah, the HUD is because I was testing out a new feature and it proved to be kind of buggy. Definitely going to go back to just doing it the way I used to in the after-jam version.
That's not something QInput allows by default, unfortunately. I'm hoping that the programmer who recently joined my team for my main project might be able to help with that.
I did debate on creating a Hint/Journal option, but I never got around to it because I spent so much time trying to get the demon boss to not be so easy to kill (in earlier versions he died in one hit, maybe two).
Fair warning, in this incarnation of Adrift there isn't an ending. It just kind of ends with the player either being in a cutscene forever or with the player being in an unwinnable boss battle. I never got around to finishing that cutscene, because for a while that bit of the game was pushed aside while I made the demon boss less boring.
I'm glad that you liked it overall, though.
PS: Yeah the Ys series is great. Since playing Ys 8 (my favorite so far, might change once I get the chance to play Ys 9, haha) I've gotten some cool ideas for my main project (Adrift is kinda supposed to be a prototype for my main project, so I can see what things people enjoy and what things people don't enjoy).