Sacred Earth - Alternative
by MirageV
Hey there MirageV, thanks for submitting a project to the 2022 IGMC. I was asked to judge your game in round two of the IGMC 2022 game jam. Here's some feedback about your project.
The title screen has nice music and art which makes for a good first impression.
While I'm not a big fan of visual novels I do like the font, text layout and presentation.
The writing is a bit lengthy, but worded very well. At times I feel like showing a picture or creating a scene in-game would have been better than just typing a paragraph.
The busts are animated with alternating expressions to go along with the writing which I appreciate.
I recognize Caz's Icons. They look good while matching the rest of the artwork that you've picked.
Simple menu layout and while it does scream RPG Maker, it's not bad. Everything you need is there in a clean window.
Customizing the menu sound effects could be a nice improvement. Confirm and cancel sound effect choice is an important one.
Node based travel works well here. Not every game needs maps that you walk around on. Bad maps will even take away from otherwise good gameplay. I think you made the right choice here.
I like the battle backgrounds, and actually all of the backgrounds that you've picked for that matter.
When starting an encounter, we're given the option to enrage them for +10 TP, or add player stats for -10. What about an option to change nothing for 0 TP change?
Making your tutorials skip-able is a good idea. Everyone learns differently and some people learn by playing not reading more text.
The combat system was a breath of fresh air. I didn't expect much in the form of gameplay when I go into a game that has the signs of a visual novel so when I saw the slick animations that you picked for the skills and the interesting customizations that were made I was pleasantly surprised.
The node system needs some kind of legend on the side that shows what each icon represents. It's impossible at first to know what each of these nodes will do, and thus a legend would help influence the player's first experience with it in a positive way.
Remove the 'properties' section of the status window by deleting that entry in the plugin parameters of the VS plugin. It's unused so it shouldn't even be there.
The description of the Ether items should also tell the player that they are getting elemental resistances and how much in the descriptions.
The menus and sound effect selection could use some work but overall I think that you've put together a really impressive project that feels different from most of the other projects in this competition.(That I've played so far anyway.) The writing is great, the story is interesting enough, the battle system is customized and the node system is a good substitute for using traditional maps. The game is presented well and I found it to be enjoyable.
Great job with this project, keep up the good work and I hope to see what you work on next.
-Drifty