I definitely got a lot of playtime out of this one, between the large number of conversations, map sizes, quests and support/skill unlocks. Even now I'm pretty sure I might have missed some content, getting constantly lost on the first floor as I did.
It was understandably a bit buggy given the scope, mostly noticeably with some of the 2F battles and tile shenanigans. Never anything game-breaking or that couldn't be very easily bypassed, though. Encounters could still be quite frequent, often triggering multiple times in a row, which made the Sublimate skill a real lifesaver given the large maze layout.
One of the highlights for me that hasn't been mentioned so far was the classrooms. On top of all the endearing NPCs, I liked how all the classrooms had unique seat layouts and features. Very handy while navigating, and I was really impressed how distinctive they could be despite mostly using the same props, in contrast to the corridors.
There were definitely a few easter eggs/sidequests in there that a player could have reasonably missed, with the amount of classrooms and all. You could go the entire game without finding the secret shop on the first floor, which really isn't a huge problem since you can finish the game with just the equipment you have. At first I considered putting in an (optional) quest marker for NPCs that would give out side quests, but I figured that it would just encourage players to talk to the quest-givers and ignore all the other NPCs. A future update would probably have a rumormonger student that would hint toward the side-quests that are available on a certain floor and a way to track quests that are in-progress. I'm glad you enjoyed the various classrooms and all the different students who populated them! I did put a fair amount of effort into NOT just copy and pasting everything, though I can't really say the same for the hallways. I was considering putting lockers into the hallways to decorate them a little, but I thought it clashed with the look and feeling of the school.
This was a really ambitious one, lots of custom systems and stuff that needed ironing out but I think the current result is good. Loved the conversation system, it was clear to me that you had a ton of fun writing them and they cracked me up (loved the gremlin lambasting me for playing "Seacats" and then buckling and saying "well, I guess it's technically a game..."), loved the support system and would be happy to see it fully fleshed out. The battles are pretty well-balanced, there's just uh, a bit too many of them honestly. Fortunately I got to play the version where the encounter reduction spell had been fixed up. The second floor is maybe a bit large (I'd try reducing its size to about 2/3 of what it currently is) and a bit mean with the traps in it, but it helped that it came with a whole new batch of enemies (speaking of, the original art assets you made were very cool and entertaining, as usual). Also, the progression of the final boss' graphics was awesome, love to see it.
Great work and congrats on successfully finishing another Jam game!
Thanks for playing through Sleepless and giving your thoughts on it!
Yeah, this is definitely my most ambitious and gameplay-focused game so far, but with that came a lot of bugs! I severely underestimated the amount of playtesting I needed to do for the game, so the initial release just had bugs left and right. I have nothing but eternal gratitude for those who played through the game in its earlier versions and put up with all the bugs in it.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but there's also more than a few cut features, like a crafting system to spend extra souls and a map that filled up as you went through every room (that's why the maps in the first floor are split up like that), but time constraints meant that I could only release what I had so far. Also, yeah, the 2nd floor is a lot worse than the first in several ways, also due to dreaded time constraints. If I had a bit more time to work on the game, then there'd be school problems on each of the doors on the 2nd floor that you had to solve correctly within a time limit to unlock (this might actually be more annoying to some players than what's currently there).
I had a ton of fun writing all the conversations for the encounters AND also all the various students. That was probably the most time consuming part of it all. If somebody got a laugh or a smile out of what I wrote, then I'm glad.
If possible, I'd like to do a sequel to this game that expands on and refines its systems, because I love SMT-style negotiation systems and also sticking a ton of different skills onto a character. Maybe in a later jam...
I loved the progression of getting new skills and supports. The SMT style negotiation mechanic is really cool and it paired with the support system makes battles worth fighting through. Though the encounter rate can get ridiculous at times, like battles appearing the moment you step out of a room. At some point it became too tedious and I just ended up running away from battles. The support system reminded me of the gba Fire Emblem games, good work on that one.
Exploration on 1F can be confusing at times since the hallways look the same and lots of classrooms were sprinkled everywhere. I got lost and had to draw a map to keep track. The quests are great but I think a quest log would be beneficial since it's easy to lose track of objectives and quest giver locations after tons of battles and walking around. Exploration on 2F honestly felt kinda tedious since it's a teleport maze. I would recommend giving the player some sort of way to determine the correct door, rather than trial and error. The battles were balanced pretty well and the Persona boss fights were cool.
Best parts of the game are definitely the art and dialogue. It was fun going back to the 4 girls after recruiting Xinmei for additional dialogue. Koberu and Tristia are my MVPs in battle but Xinmei is best girl. I actually felt kinda bad for Ava and laughed when I realized the plot was basically about a school shooting. Art is top-notch as always and the ending scene with Nora was cute. All things considered, this was an enjoyable ride with some bumps along the way. Great work!
Thanks a ton for playing through Sleepless and suffering through the gamebreaking bugs! I swear I playtested it a little...but probably not enough for a game of this scale. Next time, I'll devote a lot more time to playtesting everything.
I've pushed out an update that should fix things like getting two encounters in a row while also lowering the encounter rate, but you might still get ambushed by enemies after you exit a room. I wanted to put in features like a map and quest log from the start, but time constraints meant that the game was released without much QoL features. If I went and worked some more on the game, though, those will definitely be in there, along with an optional indicator for "important" NPCs. There's a lot of unused enemy designs too if you look in the enemies folder.
I'm glad you enjoyed the characters! I had a lot of fun writing them all, but I definitely wish I put some more time into making scenes and writing social links for them. Currently, the only character support that's finished is Nora and Koneru, but I had a draft of one between Xinmei and Tristia. There was supposed to be a sort of rivalry between them, with Xinmei being the chaos rep and Tristia being the law rep of the game. Xinmei definitely is best girl.
Comments
I definitely got a lot of playtime out of this one, between the large number of conversations, map sizes, quests and support/skill unlocks. Even now I'm pretty sure I might have missed some content, getting constantly lost on the first floor as I did.
It was understandably a bit buggy given the scope, mostly noticeably with some of the 2F battles and tile shenanigans. Never anything game-breaking or that couldn't be very easily bypassed, though. Encounters could still be quite frequent, often triggering multiple times in a row, which made the Sublimate skill a real lifesaver given the large maze layout.
One of the highlights for me that hasn't been mentioned so far was the classrooms. On top of all the endearing NPCs, I liked how all the classrooms had unique seat layouts and features. Very handy while navigating, and I was really impressed how distinctive they could be despite mostly using the same props, in contrast to the corridors.
Thanks a lot for playing Sleepless!
There were definitely a few easter eggs/sidequests in there that a player could have reasonably missed, with the amount of classrooms and all. You could go the entire game without finding the secret shop on the first floor, which really isn't a huge problem since you can finish the game with just the equipment you have. At first I considered putting in an (optional) quest marker for NPCs that would give out side quests, but I figured that it would just encourage players to talk to the quest-givers and ignore all the other NPCs. A future update would probably have a rumormonger student that would hint toward the side-quests that are available on a certain floor and a way to track quests that are in-progress.
I'm glad you enjoyed the various classrooms and all the different students who populated them! I did put a fair amount of effort into NOT just copy and pasting everything, though I can't really say the same for the hallways. I was considering putting lockers into the hallways to decorate them a little, but I thought it clashed with the look and feeling of the school.
This was a really ambitious one, lots of custom systems and stuff that needed ironing out but I think the current result is good. Loved the conversation system, it was clear to me that you had a ton of fun writing them and they cracked me up (loved the gremlin lambasting me for playing "Seacats" and then buckling and saying "well, I guess it's technically a game..."), loved the support system and would be happy to see it fully fleshed out. The battles are pretty well-balanced, there's just uh, a bit too many of them honestly. Fortunately I got to play the version where the encounter reduction spell had been fixed up. The second floor is maybe a bit large (I'd try reducing its size to about 2/3 of what it currently is) and a bit mean with the traps in it, but it helped that it came with a whole new batch of enemies (speaking of, the original art assets you made were very cool and entertaining, as usual). Also, the progression of the final boss' graphics was awesome, love to see it.
Great work and congrats on successfully finishing another Jam game!
Thanks for playing through Sleepless and giving your thoughts on it!
Yeah, this is definitely my most ambitious and gameplay-focused game so far, but with that came a lot of bugs! I severely underestimated the amount of playtesting I needed to do for the game, so the initial release just had bugs left and right. I have nothing but eternal gratitude for those who played through the game in its earlier versions and put up with all the bugs in it.
I've mentioned this elsewhere, but there's also more than a few cut features, like a crafting system to spend extra souls and a map that filled up as you went through every room (that's why the maps in the first floor are split up like that), but time constraints meant that I could only release what I had so far. Also, yeah, the 2nd floor is a lot worse than the first in several ways, also due to dreaded time constraints. If I had a bit more time to work on the game, then there'd be school problems on each of the doors on the 2nd floor that you had to solve correctly within a time limit to unlock (this might actually be more annoying to some players than what's currently there).
I had a ton of fun writing all the conversations for the encounters AND also all the various students. That was probably the most time consuming part of it all. If somebody got a laugh or a smile out of what I wrote, then I'm glad.
If possible, I'd like to do a sequel to this game that expands on and refines its systems, because I love SMT-style negotiation systems and also sticking a ton of different skills onto a character. Maybe in a later jam...
I loved the progression of getting new skills and supports. The SMT style negotiation mechanic is really cool and it paired with the support system makes battles worth fighting through. Though the encounter rate can get ridiculous at times, like battles appearing the moment you step out of a room. At some point it became too tedious and I just ended up running away from battles. The support system reminded me of the gba Fire Emblem games, good work on that one.
Exploration on 1F can be confusing at times since the hallways look the same and lots of classrooms were sprinkled everywhere. I got lost and had to draw a map to keep track. The quests are great but I think a quest log would be beneficial since it's easy to lose track of objectives and quest giver locations after tons of battles and walking around. Exploration on 2F honestly felt kinda tedious since it's a teleport maze. I would recommend giving the player some sort of way to determine the correct door, rather than trial and error. The battles were balanced pretty well and the Persona boss fights were cool.
Best parts of the game are definitely the art and dialogue. It was fun going back to the 4 girls after recruiting Xinmei for additional dialogue. Koberu and Tristia are my MVPs in battle but Xinmei is best girl. I actually felt kinda bad for Ava and laughed when I realized the plot was basically about a school shooting. Art is top-notch as always and the ending scene with Nora was cute. All things considered, this was an enjoyable ride with some bumps along the way. Great work!
Thanks a ton for playing through Sleepless and suffering through the gamebreaking bugs! I swear I playtested it a little...but probably not enough for a game of this scale. Next time, I'll devote a lot more time to playtesting everything.
I've pushed out an update that should fix things like getting two encounters in a row while also lowering the encounter rate, but you might still get ambushed by enemies after you exit a room. I wanted to put in features like a map and quest log from the start, but time constraints meant that the game was released without much QoL features. If I went and worked some more on the game, though, those will definitely be in there, along with an optional indicator for "important" NPCs. There's a lot of unused enemy designs too if you look in the enemies folder.
I'm glad you enjoyed the characters! I had a lot of fun writing them all, but I definitely wish I put some more time into making scenes and writing social links for them. Currently, the only character support that's finished is Nora and Koneru, but I had a draft of one between Xinmei and Tristia. There was supposed to be a sort of rivalry between them, with Xinmei being the chaos rep and Tristia being the law rep of the game. Xinmei definitely is best girl.