Hey I was wondering where you got those balloon icons. Are those from finalbossblues? Because I can't find them on their site.

I really liked this game, up to the part where I, too, fell victim to Jet standing in the damn way. I feel like this game has a good basis, but it's also got a lot of little issues that hamper the experience. Obviously, it's a marvel how much of the game you were able to put together, but at the same time, many of the activities were just downright boring. Fishing, for instance, just involves having the right items and standing in the right place, then crossing your fingers. In fact, the whole apprentice thing doesn't really pay off in any interesting gameplay. I liked the writing, tho I felt like a lot (most?) of it was first draft. That, again, is understandable given the time constraint. (This might just be a personal preference, but I really dislike getting a text box with the last word of a sentence in it and nothing else. Either rewrite the text box to be more concise or add more text.) I'm really interested in seeing where this goes, so I'll be keeping on eye on the game page! Good luck on the contest, btw, you have one of the more promising games I've played.

I really enjoyed playing through your game! It has all my favorite things: witty dialog, a crafting system that satisfies your every need and different types of jobs/career paths!
I love that our character gets 5 days to get to know a bit of all the available professions in the village.. it was a fun way to get new skills and new crafts.. and also a way to get to know everyone!
I found the maps really nice too though I found the inside of some areas kind of small (like the tavern and the 'church').. It was really difficult to talk to everyone during the party at the tavern because of the small space, the chairs were in the way when they would move a lot.. haha
I found a tiny bug too: On day 4 I think... Jet is blocking the way out of the cave making you stuck.. the only way I found to bypass this was being Tolkien's apprentice for the day because Matsu'll finish the day in her room.. otherwise.. yup.. stuckkkk
Also the last screen, the 'to be continued' screen kind of lets Matsu move in the background.. the only way to leave that is by quitting from the menu (yup you can also access the menu.. haha)
I wish you luck on the contest! I really had lots of fun playing the game and I look forward to see what sort of plans you have for Monster Village after the IGMC is over.. I hope you'll continue it! I really wanna play Matsu as grown up.. finding ways to avenge her village.. :) Good luck!

Nice little game! The playful dialogue was fun. I liked the mapping too.
Like someone else said, the village really does feel like its own place in the world!

If the ending I got was anything to go by, I might've not done everything. ^_^;
If there is only one ending, I can see this game heading in an interesting direction!
A most interesting direction indeed.

TOTAL PLAYTIME: 20 MINUTES 

FINAL VERDICT: Are humans...the real monsters?

Did an episode of Monster village. The story hasn't gripped me yet, it a bit slow. Battle system is hard, not sure if i missed equipment, its too early to leave village or its badly optimized. Dialogue needs work, noticed some grammar mistakes, some spaces forgotten and using numbers instead of words. but mapping seems ok. I also like that you control a cat instead of a human.
Also sound effect when moving the cursor is very annoying.

Alright lets get into this review for SS2018 and I am sure some of this if not all of it has already been said.

Here we go..

• Sprites, Tile set, and dialog boxes tied in well together. I am happy to see that it feels like  it's not a mishmash of different art styles from different games. Being an artist it's one of the things that drive me nuts is when everything looks out of place and there is no art direction.
• Music is very whimsical and pleasant to listen to. Kind of relaxing. Suits the kind of art style and game you are trying to make as well.

• I enjoyed the aspect of having different classes/jobs you could choose from. I love farming, crafting, and resource hunting games so it appealed to that side of me. I am a survivor at heart.

• The sound effect for the Main Menu at the start. The sound you used for when you move to select options, to change how loud the sound is, and such.. It is the worst and most annoying sound one could use for that(at least to me). Thankfully it's only there and on the other menu which I didn't use that much.(Though is it a good thing that the inventory, status, and etc isn't used much?)
• Enters and Exits. As some have stated before I have gotten stuck in the cave because a little gnome was hanging outside ogling the cave.  Easily fixed if you just set him over one tile in any direction. I had to restart my game because of this.
• The dialog. While I know some might not agree with me I felt the dialog was very.... forced. I can tell it's trying to be whimsical and get you to like the characters but it's as if something is missing. It's hit or miss with it. (Course it might just be me) Specially with the best friend. The dialog doesn't seem to flow naturally as the characters interact with each other.  I do like the Orc and Mummy's dialog though.
• While you say you could build a relationship with that friend into something more it kind of feels like that relationship is already there and it feels really awkward. But it is possible that you didn't have time to work on it or something. A little build up and tension towards this kind of flirting would be nice. Feel like you earned it!

• The tavern is almost always empty and I am sad that it is. Lots of great character interactions can happen there. How are they making money at all if the tavern is always empty? 
• I wish you could have made Matsuki say something with a little more impact to Genko when he was insulting her father. I am not sure if what was said is really growing a backbone and standing up for the person you love. Maybe something more along the lines of. "Stop insulting my father in such a manner! You shouldn't judge someone just because they believe differently than you do.  Now, if that's all you have for me I will be taking my leave!" Maybe not exactly like that but I hope you get what I am saying. I mean he was being rather harsh.
• I really wish this was able to be a larger screen than just the square box. Maybe wider... Mainly because I feel a bit claustrophobic with all that dialog and such packed in there. There are times when the dialog box blocks the list of selections and makes it hard to read. Widening the screen might help with that.

Over all I did enjoy the game. Many things could be easily fixed that I mentioned and I am looking forwards to seeing where this goes. Keep up the awesome work!

So I got this game assigned at the Secret Santa 2018 thread. I like the artstyle and its resolution very much, but I didn't really like the 4:3 aspect ratio (prefer 16:9). Aside from some collision glitches and a good amount of tile passibility bugs, the systems implemented in this game work surprisingly well together. But something I do want to point out is that it would be really nice to put a character in front of the forest which prevents the player from walking in unarmed. That was the first thing I did the first 2 tries and died immediately at the first encounter (also, please make a custom game over screen and choose another font, they don't go well with the artstyle). I also would've liked to see diagonal movement, be or with diagonal sprites or not. The first few minutes (and still a bit) the goal of the game were a bit unclear to me. But that passed away rather quickly as I followed the game and did what it told me to do. Overall the game was just fine but I don't really know how it would expand to not be an Animal Crossing clone with some classic style rpg fighting elements which I'm not sure of people in that genre would like to play (also if ABS is implemented, it's about the fighting aspect itself).

Bit of a long one here so bare with me. 

While the font for the title is default, the background image reflects the game play (with a clear shot of various characters) plus the music is very old timey snes music box like which fits with the particular tiles you’re using (and the change in music per area fits well with what's supposed to be there, I.E. more bpm for Genko's area for example). The window screen has a bit of a thickened line on the corners but otherwise, it looks quite nice.

Text wise, there are some little hiccups (names not capatilized and extra/missing spaces) but otherwise you can easily see the personality of the characters in how they are written. The sprite used for Misha in dialogue options has a tiny extra bit of pixels on the left which seems to make it off center compared to the others.

Gameplay:

There really isn’t anything to tell me what buttons do what, which is okay as this is standard RPG Maker MV but that can get a little hairy if I wasn’t familiar with it. There is a bit of reliance on "common sense" to perform various actions (like fishing for example, you aren't told you need to go to the end of the dock) which again, is more of a nitpicky kind of thing here. The quest journal is a nice touch but completion of the toy quest didn’t result in any kind of notice (nothing to say the quest was done or what the next step was after finding the toy) but it did update the journal on the first day to let me know of the various quests I had to do (the Apprenticeships, Speaking with everyone and Manuscript).

There is a passability issue in the MC’s home where I can walk up onto the upper portion of the wall (2^nd floor has it on the parent’s bedroom wall and 1^st floor starts just one “block” below the door). Map transfers also have a nasty habit of sending me back to using the previous map if I’m using my mouse to move.

Then came the game breaking bug on Day 4. If you enter the mine with Jet standing in front, you cannot move without returning to the cave. Every time you exit the cave/mine, you're ported to in front of Jet with the only available movement is to the left which puts you back into the cave.  If you have already done your apprenticeship with Tolkien then you’re stuck and cannot progress the storyline any.

Graphics Wise:

2 NPCs walk into a wall and just stop on Day 2 (Shiori and Suki), they are still capable of being interacted with but look a little strange. Day 2 also had the gold griffin (Shiori’s grandmother I believe?) with some image clipping on the wings. Day 3 had Menke with clipping on the top of their head. Otherwise, everything has a cohesive look and it genuinely looks like the homes belong to the same village.

After getting the bad end on my second play through, I was still able to walk around during the To Be Continued screen which might have been intentional but seemed a little weird. I could also move the camera during the initial starting screen after the second dialogue box.

Closing Thoughts:

Despite the few bugs, it’s a fun little game. The characters feel different enough to make it feel like it’s an actual diverse village. While you kind of just get dropped into the relationship with Shiori (or friendship I suppose), it does make sense with the history of the characters, I just would have liked some more references to the childhood they had to make it feel more like a believable background.

I liked the little touches with the 4^th wall breaking comments and the Griffin’s prayers made me giggle. Storyline wise, I couldn’t figure out how to work on the Manuscript (as per the quest, but only tried up until Day 4 as I had to restart on that day) but otherwise I enjoyed the varying dialogue from each character. 

There's a lot of stuff going on in the game and it looks like you're planning on adding more so that's awesome. I'm not a huge fan of the particular tile/character style but I enjoyed it. Just gotta ask... where did Tobi go use the bathroom? (just kidding, that was a good end to an entertaining scene).

TL:DR; version

I like the game. It's very cute with a diverse cast. A few bugs here and there but otherwise a nice little game. It also has some replay value given the different endings as well as an ability to customize the character's path.

And congrats on getting a game in! Especially as this is solo work, which makes it all the more impressive.

4/5

I looked around the whole village and talked to everyone, then the game froze as I was leaving the empty tavern.

Super fun to help test and play! Cant wait for the next part

This was very cute! I love the characters and the dialogue - I also loved flirting with Shiori~

It could certainly benefit from some fleshing out, but I can understand that not being here yet, what with how many different things exist.  I wasn't able to explore the forest too much xD (I might try it again later), but the ending was quite the twist and it's clear that the choice you made at your coming of age ceremony will have greater impact on the rest of the game in the future. I decided to apprentice as a farmer xD (though I only got a lukewarm version of that ending)

This was my favourite line! https://imgur.com/MOPcv5Q But then, I am a sucker for tongue in check 4th wall breaking text.

Congrats on finishing and submitting your demo!

Your game is very colorful, is make me interested! xD

Amazing game! So many features. I like the alternative endings, and how with every different path you go to, you get a different ending! I went for Genko, and the ending was sad! The game play was cool, and loved how you actually had to work a little bit to be able to fight without dying.

It's amazing how much is in this game, there are so many features that are well executed. Getting all the different system operating in sync is awesome. This Village sim focusing on the apprenticeship process set in a world at war is a great concept. Great characters and dialog really sell it. Love this game!  5-stars!

I liked your game, the little sprite were so old school haha. Even them music too! There were funny moments in the game like the intro. "this isn't going to be one of those cliche story" lol Some many jrpg's i've played hahah. The fights were a bit too tough though. And a bit too long for my taste. I died fighting the chest at lvl 2.  One wrong move and it's over for me. I used staff instead of fire haha. If I had to give another playthrough through the game, I'm sure I could grind out the fights to the forest each day, but that's the devoted gamer I'm talking about haha. For the newer people, maybe you could lower the enemy hp? Instead of 4 strikes to kill, maybe do 2 - 3? and high defense? Idk..

But this reminds me of rune factory, and I love rune factory :D