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(4 edits) (+1)

Hi!

I enjoyed this game and think it has potential to be developed further given the time. I'll break it down into the different things that I was looking at whilst playing and say what I liked and hopefully provide some feedback that might be helpful XD.

1) Story - Started with an interesting hook, I always like to have something unusual that isn't fully explained and kind of gives you a 'you have to play to find out' feeling, keeps me intrigued. Ended with a nice little twist which is always welcome. Overall I can't fault the main story.

2) Characters - I liked the different personalities you were able to show off in a short amount of time. I'm sure you'll be able to expand them even more if developed further.

3) Graphics - The mapping was good making use of the assets available well. Some of the assets looked like they were upscaled making them stand out from the rest a little though. I'm sure you can sort this given more time in development though, so it's a minor issue. There were some passibility issues, like that in the cave whereby the cracks allowed you to walk on water. Again, a minor issue. Some the houses felt a bit big however and I'm finicky when it comes to door entrance scale. So if a door is one tile on the outside, it should be 1 on the inside but that's personal preference above anything, feel free to disregard that! The only other thing that struck me as odd was the church map, you enter by going up but inside you exit by going right. This felt a little weird for me.

4) Music - was pleasant for the most part although I'm not sure the battle music goes with the environment too well imo :( sounds a bit too futuristic for the more medieval vibe you've got going on. Easily fixed though :)

5) Fast Travel Map - I LOVED this (did you make the map yourself?) It was a really nice way to get around and to see what potential areas were around you lending itself to make you feel like the world is massive without actually having to travel from place to place.

6) Battle System - I know the system well in all honesty so I know that it's great and I know it takes a little while to really get into the many advanced strategies you can deploy. What was shown makes good use of it for the beginning of a game. It didn't feel unbalanced or unfair and had enough skills for you to get a good feel for it within the short time frame. So yeah, it's good :D

7) Tutorials - These were fine and explained the system well. One thing you could add is the ability to skip them (for those like me, who know the system already XD)

8) UI - Customised nicely. Gives it a fresh look and feel. Nothing to fault there.

9) Opening - LOVED that you had voice acting (and a nice voice too, whoevers it is <3). It could do with subtitles/captions though (I like to read along XD). And although I liked the custscene style pictures, it would be nice in the future to maybe have the actual events being played out on screen? Kind of like narrating a movie. Again, I liked it as is too but I think that would make it easier to follow along with what was being told to you, as it's quite a fast introduction to a new world, lore and story all at once.

10) General Pace - Overall it was fine. I'd like to see the tutorial stuff worked into the story perhaps though, maybe something along the lines of having to travel with Owin to find the cave and on that path you get introduced to the various fighting mechanics and maybe have to camp out the night and cook some food or something, introducing the cooking mechanic too. I know tutorials are usually the last thing to do though, especially with a timed competition (I know that well, considering ours were done at 2hrs before the deadline XD). But the tutorials worked fine overall. I think I read a comment saying you're reworking that section anyway, so this point may be moot and feel free to ignore it!

11) Size of game - think you could strip out some files to make it smaller (audio or images you're not using) cos just under 1GB is quite a lot. I know it's a bit laborious to get this done though (especially as the 'remove unused assets' thing built in can sometimes get rid of things you need that custom plugins using, if they haven't been written with that mind). It's a small issue but one to consider going forwards.

Overall: Lots of potential, especially with the story and characters, the stand out component of this game for me :D

(1 edit)

Thank you so much for the detail! This review was so helpful. Yeah I ended up doing the tutorials at the last minute so I have actually reworked them into the story but alas that was after the deadline for the contest lol. Such a short time to get it all in :) I’m glad we were along the same thinking though. The church was god awfully designed lol. I didn’t even recognize it until some other people pointed it out which thankfully has been fixed as well as a lot of the other mapping issues I found and others found after the fact and I definitely agree I need to add some subtitles to the intro lol. I got a little ambitious adding my voice in there that I completely forgot those :p all of these comments though that you made are wonderful and make me really happy that you took the time to play it and point it out. I did make the map myself also with incarnate. It was actually based on a book I’m also writing :) again thank you for your lovely comments and your critical critiques which is great to hear to help me make it better! I appreciate it! 

(+1)

Ah so it was your voice <3 It was a nice touch that I didn't expect and gives it a more personal feel.

I'll have to have a look a incarnate too, never heard of it :3

Glad you found the review somewhat helpful though. And you're writing a book too! So this game and the book have a connection then presumably? o_o

They do. I’m actually a romance write for work but trying to move over into full time game writing so this is kind of my first non romance writing piece. I write currently for blushing books publications. I’m excited for the change though since I’ve always loved video games and making them. :)