A downloadable game for Windows.
This game is not perfect, however this game is extremely fun, with great potential.
In the hopes that you will take on board some of this feedback I will write quite a long review.
The idea that you are not only leveling an RPG character but progressing, aging and 'growing' up is awesome. You'd expect to be rather defenseless and useless as a little girl but that makes it satisfying and cool when you can actually do things. Like that mission in the bunker with the Generals, top notch. Felt so badass that my character could actually contribute damage, yet I could tell the Generals were way more powerful with their HP pools and high accuracy. This also applies outside of combat, with progression on the favors and jobs as you skill up. Even a simple ok I trust you enough to help with the harvest is cool.
When building a party to tackle a dungeon you find that all the adults are usually to busy too help most of the time... It makes sense that kids would be the ones you get along with the best and George + the Church girl are great for this. I hope that the kids will age along with you.
I like the dialog and 'setting', the fact that you aren't afraid to include swear words and some people talk down to you or say things like 'sure i'll help you, but not for free' is great. Or the church girl liking killing was unnerving, I loved it though.
Here is my understanding of the story. So you were brought to a prison island with its own set of rules, which is weird as usually very young people aren't brought here. There is something behind your back story and creates a mystery. It even makes some other powerful figures interested in you. Then you find out through bits and pieces the world isn't doing so good and that there is weird things like Mr White with his powers, or the fact the Germans didn't seem to be destroyed in WW2, but it also has WW2 guns, but they are old? So its kind of in the present time sorta? Its kinda interesting and mysterious and leaves it open.
I like that you can slowly build up relationships for favors and stuff, the church faction is kinda cool. The exploration is fun. I like you can go anywhere even if you shouldn't early game and just die immediately.
Lastly I like the 'pacing' on events. Having it every week would be annoying, every now and then makes it better.
Alright but some bad.
The story has a lot of polish to be done, it has lots of spelling errors. Especially the start/tutorial. The kobold quest line ending after getting the companion is kinda a downer as well. Same with saving the merchant.
You need instructions on how to swap between some menus, there is no clear indicator of how to swap characters (to the church girl) in the skills tabs to use heal, you can do it but no where is it mentioned and it is easy to think she is useless until you realise she is one of the best characters in the game.
The 'ending' is very bad and non immersive. You are copying princess maker here but it doesn't really work, because you ARE the character, not raising it. Having your character go off and do random stuff you wouldn't just doesn't make sense, you should be able to choose to a degree, but either way at 18 I seriously doubt the story would 'end'. I think that this needs a focus. Having endings you can choose to take might work better. Christ having you go off and do Miss Brown type stuff would be way better and a lot more interesting. I'm not sure how to fix this, I am sorry I cannot provide a solution but I know it should be changed. Also one year is way too short to accomplish anything in game.
There is a few bugs that crash the game, like interacting with the rest zone. There is also other issues like the hunter stalking the birds on the beach disappearing and never coming back, causing you to have a quest forever.
There is some cosmetic items like clothing, but you might ignore them for the militia armor. Which is a shame, you should encourage different apparel, including a 'cosmetic' slot. Customization options need to be expanded as well, there is only 2 hair styles.
A lot of balance needs to be looked at. Currently every job is kinda pointless after the early game with taking contracts in the city. The canned food one is especially good giving a lot of money for cans which can be farmed easily from the first dungeon. Every day I would be doing training and mood boosting, never working.
Some upgrades are expensive but pointless, like fixing the bridge. Upgrading the farm is pointless, as farming is useless. You can buy food everyday that is way better. Same with smithing, crafting, etc. A lot of the skills like this are pretty useless. Which is a shame.
Some tasks are just plain bad. Like resting with a book, always a bad idea as you can train skills way faster and you waste the day. Things like this should probably not end the day and be one time each day things.
Combat feels bad. Every time you get hit you lose wellness, which is very hard to increase and I played with the 'Healthy' trait. There also isn't any stat increase only weapon skill, it also isn't clear how 'much' xp you can gain each week. Also you should probably just remove a lot of traits, starting with extra 10 skill is pretty boring.
It isn't clear how 'good' and 'bad' increase or how some dialogue options work, it took me a long time to figure out how to become a citizen for the town to join the militia.
You need to point players towards a way to heal early game, the church girl can heal you for free easily, but for someone who doesn't know they might think they have to buy healing items!
Mutations are good, but the stat leading to them is called integrity. When subtracted to 0 you get a mutation. I played through the entire game thinking losing this stat was bad and starting eating only canned food to keep it up, I never mutated. I thought I was avoiding something bad but I made the game worse for myself. It might be better to include some info in the tutorial about it, including giving you a food that mutates you straight away which would show you how the system works. The first mutation can be rather weak or temporary. I'm disappointed that I missed out.
The weapon switching system sucks, its just generally a bad idea to have 2 weapons. The way followers ammo workers also is weird, you can't give them ammo but they have a limited supply, you should probably just give them infinite ammo and balance their strength on the weapon they have. Also the hydra heads up the top of the screen can't be melee attacked, but they can be bashed if you are using a gun, clear oversight with guns counting as 'ranged' when bashing.
The area you explore is too small, you need to increase the map size, add more dungeons, islands, etc. There is also a lot of backtracking, walking around the circle every week to find people to help is effective at training skills but also very annoying and sucks to do.
Some descriptions of things are not accurate, The 2 shot black powder gun only has one shot, also things like the pistol proficiency trait, says it allows you to use pistols, but you can equip them without it, same with automatics, etc.
The music could use more variety or be higher quality. I hoped for better/more. Also the rooster sound, hearing it loud as every day walking past is annoying.
The dungeon white gives you the key for under the bear sucks, you get random encounters. In the other dungeons you walk around and have enemies chase you, this one just spawns enemies while walking around. You could make it better by having them respawn every week.
I never found a way to run the entire game, even though it is implied you can by the trait giving extra run speed.
Overall I look forward to this game progressing and I would gladly buy it if it was complete, however you have a long way to go. But I recommend you keep it up as I have not played a game this good for a while.
