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Carnival of Shadows's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #8 | 2.405 | 2.571 |
| Horror | #8 | 2.272 | 2.429 |
| Theme | #8 | 2.940 | 3.143 |
| Creativity | #8 | 2.673 | 2.857 |
| Overall | #8 | 2.450 | 2.619 |
| Presentation | #9 | 2.272 | 2.429 |
| Story | #9 | 2.138 | 2.286 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How did you choose to implement the Theme: Macabre Carnival in your game?
Art:
1. deep purples, blacks, and blood-red tones
2. elements of decay, rust, and wear to convey a sense of abandonment.
Music: use unsettling sound effects for in-game actions, creating a sense of unease.
Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
all of them
Did you create your game in RPG Maker?
Yes
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Comments
Hi! I'll base my """review""" on the fact that this is your first RPG maker project.
It was cute actually, I liked the chasing scene and the minigame was simple but well thought.
The idea that taking cig butts from the ground to save game was also cute, and I liked that you put some descriptions around.
On another note, though, since you made it very short I would've put a lot more thought into mapping - there are some bookshelves over others and the plants let you walk over them and on the walls.
It is a nice first project though and you did a good job with the eventing, so congrats!
Hi Kylmaenen, thank you for playing! Your kind words almost spoil me haha. The mapping issue, if I understand correctly, regarding the misplaced tileset and the partially blocked pathway did come to our attention at the last minute. We would love to learn from this experience and make our next game (if it happens) better!
I played this game and, if I'm being perfectly honest, it was very minimal in several aspects. I wasn't sure what was meant to be happening, and there were several visual glitches that made it hard to tell where/what I was supposed to do. The bucket in the beginning disappearing, the lack of intractability with other characters besides one or two, and the fact that if you leave the skeleton area, into the hallway, then backtrack, the screen is enlarged and cuts off all visuals in the skeleton map.
I was able to walk over the button game and got stuck a few times, and I wasn't sure what any button did what, since sometimes after interacting with it, nothing would happen. There's also the fact that it felt a little less like a carnival and more like one strange type of "haunted house". We're never given a reason for why things went the way they did, aside from the very ending which felt promising, only for it to end right there.
There was virtually nothing to interact with, aside from a very small number of items, and it made the world feel very empty to me, which was a bummer because it felt like there was a lot of potential for any kind of world building. I'm unsure even what era or time-period the player is supposed to be in- it just feels a bit thrown together.
I'm sorry if this is harsh- it's not my intention to dissuade or discourage game development! I just hope you can see what others might see, and hopefully you can make something with a little more meat sometime!
Hi Egg! First of all, thank you for your post. It is very encouraging and thrilling to receive such informative and well-rounded feedback for this prototype. As I described, yes, we were taking a minimalist approach to this game development since it is our first project on RPG Game Maker for all members of our team. We've tried to involve every aspect named in the game jam challenge, and obviously, it led us to kind of overlook the main theme - Macabre Carnival/horror. Though we've done some research on this topic, the final work is more resonant with what we are familiar with as a typical (i.e., old-fashioned, Japanese-style) RPG horror game by involving a haunted house and chasing element. Your comment is exactly what we need from a player's perspective with professional suggestions for future enhancement.