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(+1)

Hello!
So, I'd say the game is so-so. Not so nice, not so bad.

Let me explain. I was quite surprised of the pixel movement and the combat system. It is pretty nice, but pretty buggy too. Sometimes you walk on drops but you don't reach them, so that slime hurts you because you took risks to take it, but it was useless, and then it disappears. It's quite frustrating, honestly.

Some enemies were attacking me from really far away (two-three blocks ahead, I don't know why), and I lost some parts of my life because of that. So, hey, nice, you can drop healing items! Erm, I probably were lucky, as they are really rare. And I'd rather see a system were only drops would heal you, but they'd be dropped a bit more than this save & heal points. Like, why? You lose all the fear of game-over, as they are unlimited. Just farm in front of the shop and that's okay.

Oh, and that leads me to two other points. First, why would you have save points into shops but not before bosses? Like, I agree some RPG system can be modified, but they have to be modified wisely. I do not say I would say it wisely, but saving points often say "Be careful! something may happen in the next few minutes!". Second, errmmm, bashing, again and again, for only little parts of stuff that aren't that useful. Like, attack speed boost: I farmed like 5-7 minutes for that, and why? It just doubles my attack rate, but the default rate was sufficient enough. And items are way too expensive to start. Maybe having a "level boost system" where you can upgrade all caracteristics a little bit at the beginning, then if you want a real upgrade, you'll need to save more money, or wait for late game? I admit I've been bored too fast because I didn't see the point of fighting.

Talking about combat, why do these monsters pop from nowhere? I hope it is explained in the story, as I didn't see why they would pop like that. But okay, that's not much of a problem. Though they spawn way too randomly. I like randomness, but it sometimes messes with the systems. Like, I've waited like 1 minute to encounter monsters, then the minute after I was surrounded by 15 enemies. Ugh, not something I enjoyed much.

Then, that speed... wait, you cannot dash, you should've removed the "always dash" option. It may be just me, but I've been frustrated to realize you cannot move faster, unless you pick-up that speed bonus. No, I do not want to drive a formula 1, I just want to dash. It's way too fast for me, I need to control my character, not suffer its movement. Okay, I won't pick it up anymore, let's be slow but control our char. Wait, what did I say? Not picking it up? It was without counting on these bugged monsters... yaaaay! I hide that perfect speed power-up! Nooooo why would you do that to me.

Though I must admit the game wasn't that bad. I enjoy finishing on a great point, so let me tell why I played 54 minutes.

I enjoyed the bashing a bit: I like farming monsters, but for a few minutes, I won't spend hours on that. And the game seems to lose the dynamic it could have gotten because of that: it mainly is bashing monsters to have a proper stuff.
Fights were actually fun, even though bugged: I enjoyed the multiple attacks, I enjoyed the "not so fast" monsters that won't let me one-shot them. Though I did not enjoy the lack of ability to aim at the monsters. The way you have to shoot at them is pretty weird and not that fun. A bit of strategy would be nice, too, even though I'm very bad at strategy: it was just run and shoot, and I hate running away. After all, I'm a f***ing badass angel that sends souls to somewhere I don't really know where.

So, I guess the game deserves a not-so-bad 5.5/10. It is pretty decent, though it could be exploited a bit better than it currently is.

Thank you playing my game and for your comments. I will do my best to address your points. 

I am aware and would like to improve the responsiveness of picking up power ups. I had to choose between ones that stayed on the screen forever and ones that disappeared after a time but relied on checking over and over to see if you were standing on its square. I largely preferred the dynamic of having to choose to sometimes risk danger or even voluntarily take a hit in order to grab the power up that allows you to ward off a larger danger encroaching nearby. 

Most of creatures attacks are based on RPG Maker's built in Event Touch trigger. With only a short time frame to make our games, exploring alternative collision detection methods just wasn't in the cards for this release. 

Save/heal points were placed in shops because they are pretty much the only safe areas. Grinding isn't required if you free the souls throughout the game unless you really want to get them early. I wasn't expecting anyone to do this in a game that designed to be completed in under an hour though. The direction I tried to lead players down was exploring the maps and freeing the souls to get money and pushing forward once you were done with each map. If you want to forgo a lot of the weapon and armor upgrades, you can push right through but the later areas and bosses will be more challenging (but not impossible). I also chose shops for the save points instead right in front of boss rooms because it makes you journey a distance and possibly be down some health before fighting the boss. That's were the fear of a game over was designed to happen. 

Certain terrain features signify where monsters spawn from... 

Slimes - small holes in the walls
Bats - Larger cracks
Skeletons - Human bones
Ghosts - Coffins

... etc. There are some places on the bottoms of maps where these visual queues aren't there. I tried to limit the number of those. 

Yes, randomness has its disadvantages at times. Some designers choose to remove it completely. I tend to favor it because it makes replayability more enjoyable and developers have to replay their games a lot. If I play my own game a bunch of times and know where everything is going to be and when everything is going to happen, I get bored and have a harder time assessing if my game is still fun (to me, at least). For me, fun is the most important aspect of a game and the thing I shoot for most. 

I understand that no one wants to run away from enemies but I believe that games like this need some challenge to be fun. There are lots of opportunities to just mow through hoards on monsters but then there's times that things heat up a bit too much and you need to reposition yourself on the battlefield. That was the balance I was aiming for. 

You are sending the souls to Heaven, where they would have gone by now if not trapped. That's what the pillar of light represents. The black tentacles meant that those beings just got sent to Hell. 

These responses are purely my points of view, design decisions and concessions made to save time. I went into this project knowing full well that it would difficult to create an action game with RPG Maker and knew that it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea. I'm not saying that you are wrong or anything. I respect and honor your thoughts and opinions and am thankful you played my game and took the time to share them. 

And hey, for as many grievances you listed, I'm happy you still liked it enough that you played through all the way to the end. Thanks again and take care! 

(+1)

Sorry for the late answer, but I couldn't just hide forever :v I wanted to answer that ^

For the power-ups, I agree the disappearing feature could be pretty cool. Maybe did I forgot to mention (probably) that it'd be better not to have them disappearing like that. You know, having them switching from transparent and non-transparent very fast a few seconds before they disappear so you can know it would be pretty cool too :D but now that IGMC is over, maybe will you implement a better collision system? :P

Eh, maybe was it just me, but I felt like they were attacking me from far away. I don't know how, but I felt it .-.

Ehh, I don't play the game knowing it is designed to last an hour, as some games will be longer than that. So I just played it as I would do for any other game, 30 mins or 6 hours long. I didn't know you hadn't to grind. My bad, then ^^ I'm sorry for the harsh part about the game design, after reading it again, maybe I could've said it differently. So, the thing is, they are unlimited.  Having a save point in shops is okay, but having unlimited heal is not. Maybe make it so you can only heal yourself with it once, but can save an unlimited amount of times for the same pillars? And for bosses, only having a save point that doesn't heal, so if you lost some hp, you keep that amount of hp lost. Because honestly, maybe is it just me, but having to travel again to fight that boss again isn't what I enjoy much. It reminds me a bit of Dark Souls 3, which was indeed a great game, but not my type, as I prefer respawning and going directly to the boss to train on it until I know how to beat it.

Okay, I understand how they spawn now, thanks for clarifying it!

I didn't they to remove randomness completely, but limiting it. I don't know how your game is made, but having a spawn limit so you don't get overwhelmed by the monsters would be nice. And also having a minimum, though having 1 minute to rest from time to time is nice ^^

For the running away thing, that's just because when you have like 15 monsters all around you, you'd rather fight one of them close to it than try to stay away from it, as you cannot do that because they're all around you. But the thing is, if you do that, you get easily punished. Maybe my lack of controller skill is what made me lose a lot of hp (as it says it's better with controller, I followed that advice). But okay, I understand.

Mmh, that's what I understood, then ^^

Of course your answers are your points of view, as my review were mine. I understand that and I'm glad you took the time to answer it. I only hope you'll take time to correct some parts after IGMC is over, because it has potential and it could be very nice! :D

Thanks for taking the time to provide your point of view and ideas you feel would make it a better game. It is valuable information I can take in and play around with and see how it affects game play. As I said, I'm certainly not saying you're wrong or trying to argue with you or anything. Just stating why I made the design decisions that I did. Thanks again for your feedback and taking interest in this project. I hope you enjoy the rest of the contest entries as well. 

(+1)

'kay, I got it. The thing I said they were attacking from 2-3 blocks away... it's never more than 2 blocks. This time, it's the pixel movement that messes with you: event touch is triggered when the case the event is going to is next to the case where the player is. The thing is, as it's a pixel movement, it triggers it somehow too early.

Yes, I believe that you are correct. Due to my decision to use pixel movement, you can be standing in the middle of two blocks but since the game has to pick a tile as your position, the event touch can and sometimes does trigger from what appears as too far away. It's a flaw, I admit. I just tried to compensate with some extra hit points as I didn't have time to seek out a more elegant solution.