First of all, I loved the documents and notes that you can find, and I like how they were presented in-game. However, the dialogue for the NPCs needs to be cleaned up and there needs to be more clarity on what the player can do, or more limits on what a character can ask about. I was incredibly confused because I could ask about topics that I seemingly had no knowledge of and more than once, that led me into a fight I wasn't prepared for (Sister Calista is the biggest culprit for this). I also would have liked an introduction cutscene instead of just starting in the town with no idea what I should do other than just "ask around for help," because there is nothing asking me WHY I should care about the Daminik Family. And for such a story-heavy game, we need that question to keep us interested in what's happening, and we also need it to be answered. I got through the game, but that WHY was never actually answered for me. Why ARE we in Tidecrest in the first place, and how does the Daminik family even affect us as a player? How does the priestess at the end even play into the story? I felt like there could have been very good foreshadowing done for her, but she kind of just... shows up, and her part feels almost too abrupt for me. For a first game, this has serious potential. I just think you need to go back and either pare down what you can ask NPCs, or make it so that finding lore opens up potential new topics to ask the townsfolk.

At first, there were a LOT of typos, so it was hard to tell what things were being intended, like the Pary instead of Pray. But as the game went along, they seemed to clean up quite a bit. As for the story, the background lore was really nicely done. I enjoyed the diary entries, even if I didn't read them all, but I found the ending to be a little confusing, and wasn't sure what exactly was happening. Also, the random battles were a little annoying the further you got into the game, as they were less a way of getting cash and more just in my way as I tried to advance the story.

Hey BlackRose, I'm sorry, but I couldn't figure this one out! I had so many issues with the game:

• Grammar errors make it a bit hard to follow the story. I got the broad strokes, but the details are fuzzy.
• I'm not sure where to go. There isn't enough player guidance for me to have a clear idea of what I need to do to achieve my objective.
• I can't rest at the inn even after I have some gold. Did I run into a bug?
• Enemies seem to be immune to the fire spell I start with, and with no other skills battles just boil down to "spam fight until someone dies."
• If I fight the cultist lady in the chapel I revive with 1 HP. That's kinda nice, but without an easy way of restoring my HP it just ends up being more punishing than giving me a game over.
• Items in shops lack descriptions, so I don't know what anything does or why I should buy it.
• I have explored all the areas available to me at the start but can't seem to make any progress beyond this point. I seem to need items to progress, but I don't know where they are.

There are some things that I did like:

• The graphics look great and there's a good spooky atmosphere throughout the game.
• The voice acting at key moments is a nice touch.
• I know you put a lot of effort into making some unique mechanics and it's exciting seeing them in action.

I appreciate you and what you tried to do here, but I think you bit off more than you could reasonably chew. In the future, try going for something smaller so you can polish what you have.

Awesome! That was fun! I loved all of the games' secrets, and I wonder if I found all of them. Also, are there alternate endings?

(ANYONE PLAYING THIS: IF YOU GET THE CUTSCENE FREEZE BECAUSE YOU RECRUITED THE DOG, SCROLL DOWN - I HAVE A SOLUTION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS COMMENT SO YOU CAN GET PAST IT AND KEEP PLAYING!)

Here are a few thoughts and notes on the game-

• I think you need a bit more starting gold right now - the start of the game puts you in an awkward position because you have zero gold, and if you explore in the wrong direction you can end up taking damage before you have the means to sleep at the inn! I would say, put an easy to find 10-20 gold somewhere in the city, or in the graveyard.
• Small bug: when you leave the tomb, going back to the graveyard, the game does not properly reset the tint of the screen to the darkness of the graveyard, so it looks as though it's now daytime.
• Once you reach the manor, there are books upstairs with a LOT of text, huge walls of text. Were these AI-written? I would recommend to trim these down, it is a lot of reading to put on the player all at once. It comes down to like 12-15 full pages of text all in one go! If you really need to tell all of that story, maybe distribute bits and pieces of those journals elsewhere in the game, and only leave the one journal with the secret code in it whole. Maybe you only find the final pages of each book there or something.
• In the manor, the secret door you can only see with the eldritch eyes active - the eldritch eyes idea is really cool by the way! - I would recommend you do something to make that door more obvious. I was stuck wandering around for a while because I didnt realize I had missed something. I would recommend adding the sparkles of the eldritch gold around that door, framing it with them.
• Finally, the biggest problem: if you recruit the dog, a lot of the games cutscenes can break, because the dog is a follower, and it can block characters from moving, which interrupts the cutscenes and locks up the game. You should disable followers whenever cutscenes begin, or maybe disable followers at all times! The worst of it is at the ending cutscene, since it takes place on a narrow bridge, there is no way to play this cutscene without the dog glitching it and preventing you from reaching the ending. I did figure out a workaround if players are stuck, though-

---CUTSCENE FREEZE FIX---
If you need a workaround to fix the dog cutscene problem without getting an updated build of the game, here is what you can do to fix it in-game right now:

First, open the file WHISPERS OF THE DEEP/s/rmmz_managers.js  using a simple text editing program like notepad.

Then use the search function to find this on line 2017:
if (Utils.isNwjs() && Utils.isOptionValid("test")) {

change this line to say:
if (Utils.isNwjs()) {
this will enable the dev tools in-game.

Then, load the game to where you have the dog with you, before the broken cutscene begins, and press F8. This will bring up the dev console. In the console, paste this line and then press enter:
$gamePlayer.hideFollowers(); $gamePlayer.refresh();

This should remove the dog character following you around as an object, though the dog is still in your party. This should prevent the cutscenes from breaking!

This was really cool! Really liked the sprite work and story!