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Wow DJ, this is quite the production!

The music is fantastic. I didn't realize it at first, but the italicized words are actually timed to the lead instrument to simulate singing (and to help the player understand that the lines are being sung, rather than spoken). It really adds to the idea that this is a musical, not just another bunch of text. I also caught whiffs of the Theme6 motif throughout the score - nicely done!

Having choices during the game was a good idea to keep the player engaged, but the grading felt a little out of place. I wanted to play Harold as dumb as possible!

I also have mixed feelings about the combat. On the one hand, the menus are trimmed down to *just* what you need, no excess (OK, having Defend is questionable since it's not really beneficial in any way). Battles are not long, and each character gets 2 skills so there's no information overload. It's also a way to keep the player engaged. On the other hand, I don't feel like they fit the overall design (or potential design) of the game. Since the story is more central to this experience than combat, it seemed a little odd that losing is a possibility at all. Having to take multiple turns in combat slows the pace of the experience down, and since there are only 2 skills per character, there's not much strategic depth.

The writing is good. It's written like a Broadway-styled musical, only one of the cast members is that lovable derp Harold and the rest of the cast has to scramble to work around him. I really felt like I was in the audience watching this play that the crew was doing their darndest to save from catastrophe. Having all of the auto-advancing text on the screen made it hard to keep up with sometimes (particularly the parts where the crew was talking while the announcer was addressing the audience - I wanted to read everything all at once), but I understand you had to do it in order for the music to match the text.

The graphics look great too. Excellent use of MV3D to make it look like we're sitting in the audience and watching a play. I don't know how you could possibly do it better in RPG Maker.

Here's what I think would make this game really cool - either as a post-jam update, a remake, or just if you use the concept again:

  • Instead of choices being pass/fail and having the player get a game over for making too many "wrong" choices, just have different endings based on the choices the player makes.
  • Instead of combat being a win/lose multi-turn fight for survival, make it a choice (or series of choices) that affect the outcome of the battle (bonus points if it also affects the ending, like the suggestion above).
  • This is entirely too much for a solo-made jam game (maybe even if you had a team), but voice acting. It would put this experience over the top! You wouldn't have to worry about players not being able to keep up with the text, and the songs could actually be sung instead of relying on the player to interpret things correctly.

In other words, I think if you approached this not as a turn-based JRPG with some musical elements, but rather an animated, interactive musical play that players can tell their own story with, this could be a legendary show-stopping experience.

Overall, great job, and I look forward to your next production!

Thanks dude, lots to reply to here! Music was a key point since not only is it obviously a stage play but I am just as obviously hungry for that Marsha's Melody award and those five Hamiltons. Happy the musical number in act 1 rubbed off on you; that was such a pain to compose and time!

Honestly yeah, the grading is a little counter-productive to Harold's character. He's the total dumbass we still love at the end of the day; why punish the player for making Harold act like how we all see him? You're absolutely right on the multiple endings thing; I really should have taken that approach instead of grading. I almost want to put that in the post-jam build, but between focusing on a prototype for my passion project and never wanting to touch Show-Stopping Hero again I'm not sure how I'd feel about such a radical overhaul. HawkZombie did mention he wants to see something like Show-Stopping Hero on a larger scale, so maybe in the future I could do a more fleshed out game like Show-Stopping Hero with those multiple endings.

Interesting approach on combat. I am going to have to defend myself here and say that since it is a RPG stage play, naturally the combat would be inspired by RPGs. Defeating your enemy is just as important of a choice as choosing the right line; no one wants to see the hero fall halfway through the play. I tried to keep the combat relatively simple while adding gimmicks here and there, such as the guards that alternate between attacking and defending and the stagehand which Defend is indeed the right choice for.

Surprising you actually get Broadway vibes from it! Early into development, I was asking around for a theater kid in the server to make sure my dialogue sounded enough like a stage show but eventually took it all on my own. I don't even think I was in a school play let alone any big Broadway production, and my theater knowledge is extremely limited. Glad you caught the feeling of everything falling apart and the supporting cast and stagehands having to improvise on the fly. I've organized events that went that way so it was something I personally associated with. As I said to everyone else who had this gripe, I definitely should've made the backstage dialogue last way longer. That might have to be done for the post-jam build.

Thanks for the 3D love! I wanted to practice MV3D for Harold Jam to see if my passion project would be feasible in it. Even though I'm set on switching engines regardless, it was a great experience nonetheless and my prototype will indeed use MV3D so I can practice 3D mapping. It's not hard to make MV3D look awkward, but thankfully the room/stage setting was in theory blocky enough so I could get away with MV3D. MV3D was also a godsend since it let me model the curtains as single events spanning multiple tiles, control ambient lighting and spotlights, and create an audience-level perspective which would have looked absolutely horrible in 2D. I think the extra time spent learning MV3D was worth it, and the MV3D community deserves all my love and praise for helping me along.

I need to take good note of those last suggestions. While I'm hesitant about incorporating them into Show-Stopping Hero since I frankly don't even want to open the file again, I think they're fantastic and I would absolutely put those in a similar game should I make it. Thanks again for the insightful critique!