Here are some unsorted thoughts as i played through. i didnt finish it, judging from your comments below there's hours of content but euthenasia kept killing me. I might return if i get some time this weekend, but im not good at these type of games. Also nice to see another C3 user (i think?).
Mood is great with all the creepy sfx and effects, the attack names and enemies. reminds me a bit of silent hill and like earthbound? Its definitly its own thing, keep that.
Going fullscreen is not using nearest neighbor so its blurry
i like the different personality graphs, perhaps show it during dialogue if it has an effect on the choices you pick
i wish the dmg numbers would show as the attack animation plays. Making it smoother. On the same point, maybe using keyboard shortcuts to be able to select different options
the music is bumping especially the fish part of the map lol
dont know if its on purpose but i can walk out on the water from sarah
Good job, you have an idea for the mood just need to tighten up the gameplay part. If you are using construct the pathfinding can use diagonals and calculate the way forward if you want to make the walking a bit smoother.
Euthanasia is real simple actually, she is there to teach you to use the cards. Right before her fight you get a card which you can equip to make yourself immune against her paralyzing attacks.
I must have missed a piece of collision by the lake, I will look it up.
This is actually rpg maker, I cannot code anything at all, and due to this some things just cannot be implemented. I have a plugin which can enable good fullscreen, but instead unfortunately makes fullscreen the only option.
I will port a fullscreen build tomorrow so people can choose. I almost always play it windowed. Diagonal movement is just a tick of a box away in rpg maker as well but I personally did not like how it felt, I have received mixed opinions on this.
Gameplay becomes a lot more advanced as you progress through the game but some general tips is that equipment setup actually can matter for individual fights, the moods and intentions get updated with new options as you make choices in the game, managing these things makes the system make a whole lot more sense I think.
I'll be writing my thoughts as I play because I have alzheimers and can't remember anything from 5 minutes ago.
Menu music is really nice! The Keyboard configuration (confusing shit, right?) button piqued my interest so I gave it a click. It took me a second to figure out how to make it work, but I got it. I assume you already have plans to adjust it later so I'll leave it at that.
I like the art a lot, it's very unique. James' sprites are cute, love me some sleepy-eyed, dead-inside dudes. The story is intriguing right off the bat, good job hooking me in. The little intro screens for the characters are cute and super stylish. Great atmosphere too.
The battles feel nice and juicy, which is really important for turn-based combat imo. The world's interesting enough to actually want to explore. Thank you for not including random encounters. I'm enjoying all of the music so far, really cool stuff.
I can tell you've got a lot of content here, so I'm going to go ahead and post this and update it with my final thoughts later today when I'm finished with it. It's captivating so far, great work!
Update 1: I'm coming back to it to play for another few hours or so. It's really, really good. I'm a brainlet so I honestly don't really have any useful critique to give. I'm loving the experience so far though.
It is long, the story has reached about 5 hours, the next act I make will be the last one of this chapter and wrap up all the choices the player has made. There is a lot of escalation in there, each act gets progressively more complex both concerning the gameplay and the story. The amount of visual flair increases too as the narrative really picks up.
Thank you, if you do play more I hope you let me hear your thoughts about everything! Finishing it today might be a bit of an ask though...
I am glad you are liking it. Apparently you don't get notifications for edits, I spotted this just by being lucky... I have made some edits too, I hope the devs get to seem them. Better to post a new comment it would seem.
I'm liking the main menu and music and button-selection SFX
one thing I really don't like in this kind of game is inability to walk diagonally, especially if some paths are curved. adds a bunch of friction to the common process of getting from point A to point B
this game has much soul like with the gun acquisition animation and character intros and that
STUFF being under Fight is a bit strange. I guess healing yourself is part of fighting but it's not where I would look for the items
navigating with the keyboard in battle is solid
I was slain to death by a ghostly deer. since I am a not-RPG-enjoyer that's probably all I'll play, but the quality seems unreal. even though the art is a bit wonky it's consistent enough that it works. I smell more potential off of this than I smell poop from a cat's litterbox
Barely scratched the surface my man, but I am thankful to you for you testing it. Diagonal movement was actually something I removed, it was baked into one of the plugins I use, I just did not like it.
Act3 is up and adds about 2 hours and 40 minutes of new content.
Act3 contains a bunch of new stuff, music, story, enemies, areas, bosses…
Cheating room is up but far from finished.
Added two extra secret bosses, a third one is coming, both need more work.
Added two extra social scenes in act 3, a third one is coming.
A ton of spellchecking for act 1 and 2… this is not done yet.
Some improved visuals for act 1 and 2, more will be coming.
I have begun working on the logic for some of the act 2 bosses… this is far from done and poorly tested, hopefully it is better and not worse in this build.
Immersion Assurance Beast added to the cheating room.
Sturgeon kept wet.
HOLDING DOWN SPACE SPEEDS UP COMBAT INFORMATION/ANIMATIONS.
Known bugs:
Black weird text bug, I do not know what makes this happen yet.
Boar boyz, the first fight of act3, sometimes breaks, I am unsure why at the moment. It happens relatively rarely. Might have fixed it...
Things not yet in act3:
Young Winter will eventually have some card related activities but this is so far from done it is likely to be the last thing I work on for chapter 1.
Some transitions need work, this is even more true for act1 and 2.
Should you encounter a bug where winters positioning in combat fucks up this can be solved by going to the Grinding Hole. I think I fixed it, but I will not have time to check before dd53.
Save and save often, still very much a game in progress and I have updated a lot of things which I have not had the time to properly test out completely. People have been able to clear all paths of act3 to the end but I have added new things since then…
DARKRUN PATH NOT AVAILABLE IN ACT3 YET.
SKIP AHEAD/CHEATING ROOM:
Do this:
1: Start a new game and choose “not to take the tutorial.”
2: Proceed as usual.
3: Once you reach the Swirling Tree, go back the way you came from but let the jumping deer pass the screen first, it creates a stupid bug otherwise.
4: MR.TV is the guy you need to talk to if you want to go directly into ACT3.
5: When choosing which level to start Act3 Winter at, know that 17 is actually pretty hard, lower levels are even harder.
6: Choose the Begin ACT3 option at the end of the string of choices if you want to be able to progress through the narrative. The other options are for fucking around and testing shit and will break progression in different ways.
Comments
Here are some unsorted thoughts as i played through. i didnt finish it, judging from your comments below there's hours of content but euthenasia kept killing me. I might return if i get some time this weekend, but im not good at these type of games. Also nice to see another C3 user (i think?).
Good job, you have an idea for the mood just need to tighten up the gameplay part. If you are using construct the pathfinding can use diagonals and calculate the way forward if you want to make the walking a bit smoother.
Euthanasia is real simple actually, she is there to teach you to use the cards. Right before her fight you get a card which you can equip to make yourself immune against her paralyzing attacks.
I must have missed a piece of collision by the lake, I will look it up.
This is actually rpg maker, I cannot code anything at all, and due to this some things just cannot be implemented. I have a plugin which can enable good fullscreen, but instead unfortunately makes fullscreen the only option.
I will port a fullscreen build tomorrow so people can choose. I almost always play it windowed. Diagonal movement is just a tick of a box away in rpg maker as well but I personally did not like how it felt, I have received mixed opinions on this.
Gameplay becomes a lot more advanced as you progress through the game but some general tips is that equipment setup actually can matter for individual fights, the moods and intentions get updated with new options as you make choices in the game, managing these things makes the system make a whole lot more sense I think.
I'll be writing my thoughts as I play because I have alzheimers and can't remember anything from 5 minutes ago.
Menu music is really nice! The Keyboard configuration (confusing shit, right?) button piqued my interest so I gave it a click. It took me a second to figure out how to make it work, but I got it. I assume you already have plans to adjust it later so I'll leave it at that.
I like the art a lot, it's very unique. James' sprites are cute, love me some sleepy-eyed, dead-inside dudes. The story is intriguing right off the bat, good job hooking me in. The little intro screens for the characters are cute and super stylish. Great atmosphere too.
The battles feel nice and juicy, which is really important for turn-based combat imo. The world's interesting enough to actually want to explore. Thank you for not including random encounters. I'm enjoying all of the music so far, really cool stuff.
I can tell you've got a lot of content here, so I'm going to go ahead and post this and update it with my final thoughts later today when I'm finished with it. It's captivating so far, great work!
Update 1: I'm coming back to it to play for another few hours or so. It's really, really good. I'm a brainlet so I honestly don't really have any useful critique to give. I'm loving the experience so far though.
It is long, the story has reached about 5 hours, the next act I make will be the last one of this chapter and wrap up all the choices the player has made. There is a lot of escalation in there, each act gets progressively more complex both concerning the gameplay and the story. The amount of visual flair increases too as the narrative really picks up.
Thank you, if you do play more I hope you let me hear your thoughts about everything! Finishing it today might be a bit of an ask though...
I am glad you are liking it. Apparently you don't get notifications for edits, I spotted this just by being lucky... I have made some edits too, I hope the devs get to seem them. Better to post a new comment it would seem.
I'm liking the main menu and music and button-selection SFX
one thing I really don't like in this kind of game is inability to walk diagonally, especially if some paths are curved. adds a bunch of friction to the common process of getting from point A to point B
this game has much soul like with the gun acquisition animation and character intros and that
STUFF being under Fight is a bit strange. I guess healing yourself is part of fighting but it's not where I would look for the items
navigating with the keyboard in battle is solid
I was slain to death by a ghostly deer. since I am a not-RPG-enjoyer that's probably all I'll play, but the quality seems unreal. even though the art is a bit wonky it's consistent enough that it works. I smell more potential off of this than I smell poop from a cat's litterbox
Barely scratched the surface my man, but I am thankful to you for you testing it. Diagonal movement was actually something I removed, it was baked into one of the plugins I use, I just did not like it.
DD53: Information
Updates:
Act3 is up and adds about 2 hours and 40 minutes of new content.
Act3 contains a bunch of new stuff, music, story, enemies, areas, bosses…
Cheating room is up but far from finished.
Added two extra secret bosses, a third one is coming, both need more work.
Added two extra social scenes in act 3, a third one is coming.
A ton of spellchecking for act 1 and 2… this is not done yet.
Some improved visuals for act 1 and 2, more will be coming.
I have begun working on the logic for some of the act 2 bosses… this is far from done and poorly tested, hopefully it is better and not worse in this build.
Immersion Assurance Beast added to the cheating room.
Sturgeon kept wet.
HOLDING DOWN SPACE SPEEDS UP COMBAT INFORMATION/ANIMATIONS.
Known bugs:
Black weird text bug, I do not know what makes this happen yet.
Boar boyz, the first fight of act3, sometimes breaks, I am unsure why at the moment. It happens relatively rarely. Might have fixed it...
Things not yet in act3:
Young Winter will eventually have some card related activities but this is so far from done it is likely to be the last thing I work on for chapter 1.
Some transitions need work, this is even more true for act1 and 2.
Should you encounter a bug where winters positioning in combat fucks up this can be solved by going to the Grinding Hole. I think I fixed it, but I will not have time to check before dd53.
Save and save often, still very much a game in progress and I have updated a lot of things which I have not had the time to properly test out completely. People have been able to clear all paths of act3 to the end but I have added new things since then…
DARKRUN PATH NOT AVAILABLE IN ACT3 YET.
SKIP AHEAD/CHEATING ROOM:
Do this:
1: Start a new game and choose “not to take the tutorial.”
2: Proceed as usual.
3: Once you reach the Swirling Tree, go back the way you came from but let the jumping deer pass the screen first, it creates a stupid bug otherwise.
4: MR.TV is the guy you need to talk to if you want to go directly into ACT3.
5: When choosing which level to start Act3 Winter at, know that 17 is actually pretty hard, lower levels are even harder.
6: Choose the Begin ACT3 option at the end of the string of choices if you want to be able to progress through the narrative. The other options are for fucking around and testing shit and will break progression in different ways.