itch.io

Thanks for your feedback! In response to:

• The story interested me though I skipped the intro

Fair. I’m gonna be moving the lore dump to a future chapter where the information will be more relevant. I’m glad my “map intro” worked for ya, though!

• To me, there's a dissonance between the title screen graphic (a map), the title "Dark Age of [...]" and the upbeat music.

It was a last-minute panic decision before submission. The background and music will change in a future release. Kinda digging the title, atm; simple, yet effective!

• I'm not a fan of liberal swearing.

That’s fine. In this context, the person swearing is a crude, very-much uncultured bandit who can be inferred upon by players as someone who does a lot more offensive things on the daily besides dropping the occasional “F” bomb. While yes, there is a fanatically religious theocracy in this game—and yes, worshippers likely won’t take kindly to swearing—your beginning area takes place FAR from church’s reach.

As for linguistic appropriation, one could argue that several Germanic or Anglo word variations could be used in place of our modern set of vulgarities, being as that this game takes place in a different world but borrows from languages originating from both archaic real-life languages. For simplicity’s sake, I chose the later option. Now, does this FIT in a fantasy setting? Personally, I agree. I like my fantasy characters to have some degree of interpersonal realism, and swearing can be one quirky way to convey that, depending on the type of character. I find the Netflix Castlevania to be a perfect example of great timing and use of swearing in a dark fantasy setting.

• Personally not a fan of pronouns being first.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. As a proud LGBTQIA+ community member, I’ve learned the importance of respecting and honoring individual identity, regardless of sex or gender. It is very common for pronouns to be the first thing you read about a person who is educated on LGBTQIA+ issues. Some people may dismiss my game as “woke garbage” for that, but that just means I’m doing my job right.

• Tutorial is done in 2 turns. Mage has no shot of seeing combat without a miss occurring. Zeb the zebra is pretty strong.

I would like to expand the tutorial a bit in the future; I just didn’t have time to do so during the game jam time period. Fortunately, Florence gets to shine in the next chapter. I left out a scene where she essentially starts a war with a gang of bandits by impulsively burning one of them to death. 😂😂😂

• Zion is a heavy name; I wouldn't name a fictional country after it.

I got bad news for ya: religious trauma is going to be a major recurring theme in this game. Also, this game originated from a 8-year old book idea, and “Zion” was one of the very few concepts that really stuck, due to its sheer importance in the story. Social commentary towards religion is not a new thing in video games; Final Fantasy X was a very well-done example of how harmful a powerful yet corrupt organized religion can truly be.

If your suggestion that my naming convention for a country inspired partially by Crusade-era Medieval Europe and partially by the concepts of American Christofacism is a bit too “on the nose”, be warned: the comparisons don’t stop just at the names. As you explore the game further, you will discover more horrendous atrocities committed by the Church of Zion, and I WILL be sure to include any trigger/content warnings I can think of at the beginning of my game as I continue to add content to future releases.

• The boss not moving but having a move range was confusing.

Maybe I’m in the minority, among SRPG enthusiasts, but seeing units with zero movement IRRITATES me to no end. Maybe I’m just interpreting the stats too literally, but I feel like to have zero movement, you’d have to have no legs, no arms, and no mobility devices. If a unit is expected to post up at the chapter goal, they’re not gonna wanna move and give the player an easy Seize, skipping combat with the boss (though it might be funny to have happen once or twice…).

…You know what? I might make that happen for the lolz. Gotta have at least one meme chapter/boss! Thanks for the idea. 😂

As for the rest, thanks for your input! I noticed some glaring mistakes after the fact, which are on my to-do list to fix. I’m grateful to have players like you helping me uncover ones that I missed. I hope that my next update will include more of what I’m actually capable of doing, as far as map building and storytelling goes; that chapter 1 map is admittedly weaksauce, I agree. I’m excited to eventually share my first arc finale map, which is a lot more elaborate in design! 😁