itch.io

Oh good, that's great that you're going to improve on those things. I loved the concept overall. Thank you for being interested in my game <3

Anyway, here's my review for your game! Now that Round 1 is finished, I am giving a review of each game without scores. The below is my review of your game without a score. :)

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REVIEW DISCLAIMER

Dear developer! Thank you for making this game :) Here's my disclaimer I'm placing before all my reviews - I appreciate all games, and I consider every creative work a gift from the artist to the audience. The very fact that you made something is worth celebrating! Being a judge of this game, as was stipulated in the rules, I had to play at least up to the first existing hour of every entry and judge the game on that alone - no more than that! If any gamebreaking bugs were found, the game would be disqualified, and I was to judge the game based on the submitted entry by the deadline - without any additional notes. Here is my overall impressions of the game. Again - thanks for creating it! I appreciate every entry, that you gave it your all, and I encourage you to do what you love - if that means making more games, then please do so! Don't let my (admittedly sometimes too brutal) feedback deter you from making future games - I really want you to succeed! Much love, Cash <3

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CASH REVIEWS: "Castle of the Stolen Stars" by Rubescen

I really liked that it used the pre-rendered Western style of graphics. The graphics were a bit dark, and I'm not sure I like the logo... the font isn't one that looks pleasing to the eye for me. However, in the title, I did like the visual of them sitting in a rubble area around a campfire.

"Once the world was balanced, but one by one, the stars began to disappear from the skies."

You are given a decision to choose between Callum the Orphan Blade, Irinna the Lamp Witch, and Yvellin the Robin Knight. I didn't get the chance to try all 3 of them, so I just chose. I liked the look of Yvellin, so I chose them.

I didn't like that the full stops in the window skin were so low below the rest of the font in the tutorial. It looked a bit weird.

I did like that the game stated that death would be common going forward.

There were common "D&D-style checks" that happened as you went through a non-linear graph of connected nodes. I liked the idea of risk and reward in the checks, but I didn't have a sense by the end that I was able to control whether or not the outcome would be beneficial to me. Whenever I tested a particular trait, it would have been nice to have a custom UI to see the traits, and then make an informed judgement on whether to use a trait for a particular action. In the end, it just seemed a bit arbitrary to me, and there are particular ways to make this information more well-conveyed to the player. I'd consider pursuing these in future :)

The feelings of the maps were quite nice and atmospheric, but over time, I got the sense, for instance, that the mansion was somewhat useless. Maybe it would have become more useful over time, but in my 1-hour playthrough, it wasn't made clear to me.

I really did enjoy when the new party member entered the fray. I do usually enjoy when more than one party member is in a party in an RPG. It usually allows for more dynamic party responsibilities than to have a single solo player.

Although there was some sense of non-linearity in the overall map, by the end of the game, I didn't really get a sense of how to play in a way that was strategic outside of battles. I just randomly chose choices of which trait to use and hoped for the best. This kind of system is used well in games like "Disco Elysium" where the traits are communicated well, and the chance of succeeding at an action is represented by a percentage chance of success. If I was given a percentage chance of success, and I had a better knowledge of what would happen upon success and/or failure, then I think that skill checks like this would be useful. As such, I think that the central mechanic of the game would need a little bit more reworking in order to make it interesting and accommodate strategy. As it is, I don't think I use any strategy when navigating the overworld other than trying to go down routes that will be more likely to have shops, if I recall correctly.

Within battles, they were a little bit one-note, but given the style of game, I was kind of okay with it. I would have liked to have a little bit more variety in battle, though.

Also, I think that there should have been an item to revive dead characters, maybe. Because Callum kept dying and then I was alone to just... die to the boss XD So yeah, I think that a few more "helpful things" in this regard would help make my experience less repetitious and more varied and strategy-filled.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

The thing I liked best about this game was the unconventional and interesting graphical presentation, the flavour and the emphasis on innovative overworld mechanics! I did like what I think you tried to go for. With a bit more work, I think you could implement an overworld system with more information given to the player, and more variation to allow for interesting gameplay. As it is, the overworld has the biggest possibility for improvement, along with some quality-of-life improvements to make battles a little more interesting.

Thanks for making this game! <3