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XCVG2 years ago(+1)

As usual, I saved the ShibeyFaceGames title for last. I don't want to say I'm saving the best for last, but I like to end on a high note and for the most part the Basin Lake games have all been excellent.

There's definitely a bit of roughness around the edges compared to some of the previous titles in the series. There's two very different art styles in use. Skipping through the third of the dialogue that's the same on subsequent runs is annoying. The music doesn't loop properly. The combat is basically just spamming clicks (it feels like you should click and drag to paint, but that's not how it works). The first time I played, fighting nightmares didn't actually run the clock down.

Of course, "rough by ShibeyFaceGames" standards still means a very well made, highly polished game. Though it suffers a bit from style mismatch, the art is still fantastic. The music is still great. There weren't any game breaking bugs, and the mechanics all worked well. I'm nitpicking about a good game that isn't quite perfect, not breaking down the major flaws of a seriously flawed one.

Despite or maybe because of the limited scope, I think this game has some of the best and most creative design in the Basin Lake series. Overall, it reminds me of some old flash games, but with some new elements I haven't seen before. Having to manage time and balance visting locations with fighting monsters is a great core mechanic. The visual indicators of good/bad interactions are a great help. The narrative integration of repeating to find the golden path into a groundhog day loop, with different title screens, was a great addition.

I liked the premise of the story, but I think it was a little on the sticky sweet side for me. I do like the Tama/Paisley romance in general, though. I also wasn't a fan of dancing around the issue with Paisley's mother rather than just throwing up a content warning and stating it outright (I'm still not 100% sure I interpreted this scene correctly).

It's definitely a downscope from previous titles, but oddly enough, I don't think it's a downgrade. It's not perfect, it's clear some issues stem from limited development time, but I think the more constrained design worked really well overall.

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ShibeyFaceGames2 years ago

Thanks for playing, as always, and for the thorough feedback! Glad you enjoyed this smaller entry into the series.

A couple specific replies:

  • The combat should allow to click and drag. When you click, an internal timer starts, and the faster/further you draw, the longer the paint stroke will be, allowing you to hit multiple enemies at once. Enemies crossing the trail after it's been painted will not damage them however, you have to nail them while dragging. It worth noting that combat was one of the most paired back elements in the whole game unfortunately. If I reuse this framework (and I might, soon time-willing0 I'd like to revisit and improve it.
  • This one is potentially spoiler territory, so if anyone's reading this without playing the game yet.... stop now... ok...... so, the implication with Paisley's mother is that she died from either childbirth or illness that coincided with childbirth. But if it all seemed a little vague, that's 100% intentional.  To be explored in a future game, though not necessarily anytime soon...
  • I'll have to think about the art-style going forward. I was intending for the backgrounds to contrast the character style so the characters would pop. I also fully admit that in additional to enjoying manga-style black and white characters, it saves a TON of time. I'd do the BGs the same way, but I felt like it would all blend together. It works better in manga since each panel is carefully crafted (and sometimes has no background at all). I think you may be the first to bring it up though, so I may just stick with it. We'll see hehe. 

Thanks again! I really appreciate the time you put into all this feedback, it's very helpful!

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XCVG2 years ago(+1)

Honestly I'd love to see more smaller, more experimental entries in the Basin Lake series going forward. I don't know if all of them will work out, but I think there's room to explore with less risk there.

  • I did get that I could paint across multiple targets, but it didn't really seem worth it to do so over just spam-clicking. Maybe something to tweak in the future. I absolutely get that combat is something that had to be pared down to limit the overall scope.
  • I'm still not a fan of this sort of vague storytelling in general, but if it's setup for something later, then I'm willing to reserve judgement until the possible future payoff.
  • I think the mix of art styles struck me as dissonant and odd because in some ways the backgrounds are "nicer" than the foregrounds. In particular, they have colour and shading, while the manga-style foreground graphics have no colour and only pattern shading. I think the paper texture and hard outlines present in the foreground graphics (both portraits and UI) clashed with the much softer and more natural backgrounds a bit. It might also be because the background elements have a hand-drawn look to them, while the foreground elements look more synthetic, probably because of the pattern shading. I do think a mix of art styles with the foreground standing out from the background can work, I just don't think this particular combination was the best.
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