This a ton of content for such a short dev time. Good job! The game does a good job of balancing the combat and dojo building parts so that neither feels like a chore to slog through.

Battles are easy to die, the reward doesn't seem much, prices are high. There're lots of choices and things to do, that's a good thing but you can't guess what the consequence will be or maybe it won't change the result. I liked how the new game works even after game over.

There was a guy that appeared down the dojo so I turned back to save first, but he disappeared.

Wow this game has a crazy amount of content! I was going to try it real quick before getting some sleep but I ended up putting a couple hours in. It was a fun time. 

The only thing that made me sad was that my beautiful character Leki didn't make it past her 3rd battle. Such a short life. 

I really liked that I learned some battle skills from farming. It was unexpected and fun to find little secrets like that. I can tell a lot of care went into this and its amazing how much you got done in only a month. I hope you continue working on this game!

This game is really dope. 

It is very unfortunate that the many of the maps are sub par. Many pieces of the map have odd placement and kinda take me out of the games immersion (especially when I see the two different trees with different art styles on the same map, it is a bit jarring). Minor gripe, but I would like the tint screen for the time cycles to be altered a bit. Not a fan of the sunset and sunrise colors. In addition, there are quite a few missing battle-backs that makes some battles look odd. Overall, the presentation is very rough.

The combat, on the other hand, is pretty solid. Since this game requires more interaction from the player, it is important that the combat is balanced perfectly, which it is.  The timed actions and the circular dial are all neat additions to combat and make it stand out greatly to other games. Again, the thing that holds it back is the presentation. The battle HUD is passable, but really basic.

The Harvest Moon/Rune Factory aesthetic in terms of the farming and mining stats are also great additions that emphasizes the whole "running your own dojo" feel to it. It is a shame that when I want to build my students skills in those departments it causes a game breaking bug that happens over time. I think it has something to do with a variable of sorts. One thing I would like to add to this is some stat allocation points when you level up, so you can build your character however way the player chooses (so I can make my schoolgirl Master Annie the speed demon goddess she can truly be). Or a simple class system would work too; either way, there should be an option on building the protagonists' combat stats excluding the typical grinding (since this game is widely open ended, of course).

I am not a fan of the SRD character generator due to the color pallet being a bit off (Annie's hair is dark brown instead of being black), but its another minor gripe from me that is not entirely in your control. Just some more modding of the plug-in that's all. Believe me, I tried working with it before and it was not great. So I'm glad to see someone trying to work with it.

Then, there is the permadeath... 

I appreciate the legacy system that you implemented for your game, but a casual mode is something that must be put in place (I am sure this was said prior to my review, but it is something I wanted to really emphasize here). Needless to say, Annie got hit by... She got struck by... A smooth criminal (or guild enforcer in that case).

In short, it is an admirable feat to get all these systems running together and be able to add neat little easter eggs. Especially, this one picture attached to this review (you are amazing for making that ridiculous reference to the song "Call on me" by the way). I will try to keep an eye out for your game and see what new stuff you'll add to it.

Well done.

Great game, fun and daring. I know I haven't play much RPG maker game, but I think that the character maker are unique feature for this game, I really like it so much, especially there is a tail and wing option for your character. The idea for running a Dojo is fun too, and there is a little farming simulation which is more fun. I also like the humor in it, such as the Hanry Pooter book :D, the downsize is that the clock is sometimes doesn't fit for the situation, I mean, when I go to the town to buy something, it's already dark, and I have to walk around waiting until morning, maybe if there is a option to "wait" a few hour, but it's just a minor thing, The battle is fun too, I really like a battle that involving player when the attack happen, and so do skill and when defending, it make the battle more interactive, but the circle bar is a little too fast for me, I want to do a low attack, but fail a few times, I know that with time I will get used to it, but still, if it was a little slower, maybe it will be easier, but that just me. All and all, it's very entertaining and fun game, I hope you will develop this game even further, and I say, just play it and it all will make SENSEI.

So after tinkering around with the game for a bit, I have some opinions I can share.

The character creator is a nice touch.  As said in other comments, a default preset would have been nice.

Gameplay feels solid from what I played of it so far.  The combat wheel for basic attacks isn't something I've seen before, and it's a really nice unique addition to the game.  I could see room for expansion on other attacks.  Also a point mentioned in another comment, blocking feels weird.  Half the time I forget it (which is my problem), but it does seem like the timing is too strict for it.  I couldn't get it to work after the tutorial.  Maybe I'm just bad.  Who knows?

The exploration is open-ended, which is both a boon and a detriment.  It's nice to explore wherever and whenever you want, but I got lost easily after trying to go to the mountains for mining.  I eavesdropped on the conversation, but I don't know what I was supposed to do there.

And finally, my biggest thought, PERMADEATH.  WHY????  This is more of a blanket statement, but I hate the idea of permadeath.  It's the biggest reason why I'm not attracted to games like Fire Emblem and Yoshi's Story (I think it was that Yoshi game.  One of them, at least), but I digress.  Objectively, it seems to be used well.  If you die, one of the students becomes the new master.  Seems fair, and is a good reason to keep training whoever you can.  Subjectively, however, that's the reason why the game lost me.  After dying and losing my character I was invested in, I was immediately disenchanted.  I tried reloading after death, but the cutscene still played and I lost my character.  Sorry.  I'm a pansy, I know.  One thing I would suggest is to have an option where you can choose at the beginning to have a casual/hardcore mode, where the casual mode doesn't have permadeath.  Maybe I'm being too harsh by fixating on a single mechanic I don't like, but I thought I should give my full thoughts.  

Final verdict:  Overall, a well done product that would be interesting to see grow and improve, and to the right person, could be a very appealing game.  However, it's not for me because permadeath.  If in future updates there was a way to toggle it on or off, I would absolutely give it another fair chance, but right now, it's tarnished my opinion.

Review for Dojo Master by LockeCole88

The story begins when you approach an abandoned dojo and take control of it. The place has been unattended for quite some time, yet there is an old man who seems to live there. He acts as your tutorial guide while you go through the basics of the game: managing time, doing (menial) tasks and, of course, combat.

You can completely customize your character (using SumRandomDde's Character Creator plugins) which adds to the immersion somewhat. A preset character would have been nice to have, though.

There is a lot of customization found all around the game. You can (and probably should) tend to the dojo be clearing weeds, breaking rocks and repairing the walls. Your first quest seems to be finding some copper ore from the nearby mountains. However the chances to find that ore aren't that high, and you can encounter wildlife while doing this. My original character died when a wasp attacked and poisoned me, but he was succeeded by a punk named Panko who acted as a tutorial battle in the beginning. I like this feature, it allows for some leeway when you're learning the game to not have your progress completely reset when you ultimately die.

The combat seems to consist of three different actions. You can attack, which opens a minigame of sort where you need to hit a certain area of a circle with a stick that rolls around. Where you hit determines how you strike your enemy, but I honestly did not find much of a difference in the three colored areas (granted, I did not manage to play for that long). You can also block by hitting the action button at the right time when the enemy is striking you. However, I'm not sure if it's because of my 144Hz monitor but this margin of error seems to be too little. I only managed to block once after the tutorial, maybe this can be fixed by using the Synch FPS plugin by Yanfly, I'm not sure. Still, something to look into. Finally, you can use skills, which seem to require you to press designated buttons quickly. The first time I managed this, but the next time I failed, ultimately leading to my doom. Of course, there's an option to use items and escape, but since those are default options, I'm not describing them.

I liked the fact that you are able to name your character (and the dojo) without the clunky RPG Maker MV name input screen that most projects use. Now, if you only could change the font on those screens to the same one you use elsewhere, that would be perfect. Also the picture about keyboard command layout at the beginning of the game was a welcome addition. Most projects tent to approach players as people who already have knowledge on how to play RPG Maker games in general, and this might not always be the case.

The graphics and music were composed of (mostly) RTP assets, which wasn't that bad. The mapping was pretty good, too. However, there was a passability error with the larger tree tiles, allowing you to walk through them.

I sadly encountered a game-breaking bug on my second game. When entering the graveyard, I noticed that the grave of my first character was there. When I went to check it out, well... Let's just say the game wasn't that happy.

Overall, a pretty good entry that gave me enjoyment for a while. I might return to this some day, and I think I'll keep an eye on how the game develops further.

Good game. Here are my thoughts.

Really fun game. The maps are beautiful and well done. I like the whole concept of running a Dojo. The idea is really unique.  Great work in such a short amount of time. I look forward to seeing where this goes.