Post by StreamLined in Last One Standing: Royal Massacre comments

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I just finished chapter 2 and honestly, I no longer have the desire to continue reading this story. It was a combination of a lot of smaller things.

The unnecessarily long pacing and build-up to the murders take hours of characters basically going back and forth about nothing, I've been reading through this for most of 2 days and have only just got through chapter 2 with 1 conference per chapter, that's much to long.

The constant taunting and ridicule of the MC for completely reasonable things combined with characters randomly acting like completely different people at one point made me think there was some kind of mass chemical mental manipulation going on, induced by one character who causes the MC to go into a rage whenever he's around, half the time screaming nonsense and the other half is the only time he actually stops ignoring obvious issues and starts making sense. Now I think I was just reading into it too much and the story is just inconsistent.

The issue that ended it however is the incredibly strange morality and sense of "justice" of the characters. They seem to almost revel in the pain they cause the murderers after their revealed as such, everyone immediately says that the death of the murderer is deserved and a good thing. When the character known for being kind essentially told the woman who committed the murder, as she was breaking down about to be executed, that she was glad that she was being killed and that everyone hates her, I found it genuinely offputing. That wouldn't be an issue of course if the intent was to show these characters as crazy sadists, who think justice is about death and torture, but I got the impression that the game expected me to agree with them. It might seem like I'm being prudish or overblowing something but these things are difficult to express in text.

Crimson Sugar Studio90 days ago

We apologize that you didn’t enjoy the game! Thank you for taking the time to play it though, and for providing your feedback. We always like to hear what others think of our work, regardless of the nature of the commentary!

Honestly, we do understand how the pacing could be a deterrent. Our goal in producing this story was to ensure thorough opportunities for plot and character development; however, this does cause things to go on quite long. For some, this may make the story feel boring and/or repetitive.

Would you mind elaborating on the point about characters randomly acting like completely different people? We aren’t entirely sure to what you are referring, but we’d like to look into it.

As a final note, we would like to point out that, no, players are not necessarily supposed to agree with the extreme notions of justice presented by certain characters within the game. The point of these debates is to show multiple perspectives; it is up to the players whether they agree or disagree!

Once again, thank you for giving our game a chance! Even though it’s not your cup of tea, we’re grateful that you took the time to play it, and to review it.

StreamLined90 days ago (3 edits)

I wouldn't go as far as to say I didn't enjoy it, I don't think I would have stuck with it so long If I didn't at least think it had potential and there are aspects I enjoyed of course. The overall mystery was engaging, it just took too long to have any real payoffs or build up the individual murders, and while I'm usually not a fan of romance I actually found that aspect quite cute.

As for characters acting like different people, off the top of my head, There was Mikhail who spent Ch 2 acting completely different than Ch 1 he was much more confident and at times seemed aggressive and taunting while in the 1st he was much more meek. Kostya, of course, spent the second half of ch 2 trying to delude himself into thinking nothing was wrong or suspicious, despite being fairly intelligent and more level-headed when it comes to trust previously. K becoming more whiny and less competent and some others I'm forgetting but the one that convinced me that this had to be intentional was actually when you talked to Yana after you started investigating, the entire game she has been nothing but rude and dismissive of others and of murder, but when you talk to her she talks about how she understands this is difficult and that she would do her best to find the killer, it felt contrary to her portrayal until then. But these examples are just off the top of my head and I would need to re-read it to be more specific.

On their own those things would be understandable, Kostya having a mental breakdown, or Mikial becoming more comfortable, but altogether it had me convinced that Mikial had somehow used some kind of mind-altering substance on everyone or at least Kostya, which made everyone ignore his blatantly suspicious behavior or making them more dumb and docile, like right before the murder where Kostya somehow thinks he had to go to the audience hall, then follow Mikhail.

As for the morality issue, it's less of an issue than I made it sound, like I said these things are difficult to elaborate in text but I felt the perspectives were too limited, ranging from "killing murderers is a good thing" to "I agree but I don't want to watch". I could have missed something of course but that's just how It looked to me.

I apologize if my previous comments came off as rambly or insulting, I was very tired at the time and wanted to get my thoughts down fast, but wanted to keep it vague to avoid spoilers in my comment.

As I said there are aspects I liked and I still look forward to seeing what you make. I'm willing to try it again when it's Its fully complete, but currently, it just takes too long to do too little to keep me engaged.

Crimson Sugar Studio90 days ago

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

As for the character changes, that’s actually just them opening up more with time! For instance, K lowered her guard as she got to know the others (causing her immature streak to show); Yana showed that there’s more to her than just being nasty when truly awful things such as murders occurred (she does have empathy, of course); etc. No mind-altering substances, haha! And like you said, in Kostya’s and Mikhail’s cases, the former is facing heavy psychological impacts from the competition and the latter is getting more comfortable showing his true colors with time.

Even if the pacing and structure didn’t suit your taste, we’re glad that there were aspects you enjoyed! And that you’re willing to be so fair; many people will just play a few minutes and turn it off if they’re not crazy about it (especially with indie games!), so we’re grateful for the fact that you viewed several hours of content before making a judgment.

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