Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

• PRESENTATION
  

  Graphics are RTP. Mapping is pretty decent - though large they have details and design to fill them out a bit so that they're not an empty mass of nothingness.

  Sound is RTP and it's used here and there but nothing more than standard defaults. It's not jarring but it's not great either.

  Music is much the same, though with a few non-RTP tunes thrown in as well. It fits well enough with the scenes it's used in but it's nothing worth really commenting about.

  Writing is a bit of a mess with a lot of grammar and punctuation errors strewn about. The dialogue is jarring and has no real flow. Oddly enough, there are some areas where the writing is decent but those are few and far between.

  The characters are all pretty one-dimensional and flat, even the main character. Effort went in to try and make them more interesting but for the most part they're quite bland.

  The story itself is interesting but the way it's presented is very jarring and nonsensical. There are points where you jump around in the story oddly if you go in the wrong area before another, but since there's nothing blocking off the areas to go...

  GAMEPLAY
  Gameplay consists of talking battles and on-map interactions.

  The on-map interactions are very basic RPG mechanics. Walk around, talk to NPCs, buy stuff and open chests.

  The interesting thing about the game is the battles, which are set up as conversations with other characters. You can eventually unlock new things to talk about (well, types of conversation really) and in the battles you have to pick choices that will either interest the enemy or bore them. Lose all your health or bore them to 100 points and you lose the battle. Get their interest up to 100 and you win.

  You can use items in the battles in order to pique their interest more.

  ENGAGEMENT
  While the game had some interesting factors going for it (a couple of the characters and the premise of the battles and story), sometimes the battles just weren't fun, especially when you had to talk the same conversation again and again to win. It took the interest out of the battles, making them seem less like a conversation and more like a skill spam.

  Add to that the fact that I had no idea what was going on with the story after the point of the pendant stealing Mary's soul and it was a very confusing experience.

  THEME
  One of the themes was talking your way through and the battle system did this reasonably well, presenting a system that had a lot of good ideas, even if it didn't pull them off very well. Any other themes got lost in the confusion of the writing and how it jumped from point to point with no direction between.

  36/80