Thanks for the very good feedback!
- Having to click on the “base” tile that a character is on instead of being able to click anywhere in their body is confusing and can make you think that something isn’t interactable when it is.
The mouse controls are an inherent addition of using rpgmaker, when I play I only use the keyboard. I have mitigated this by making the clicking easier by adding an "area of interaction" to most events, but it still does not make it perfect unfortunately. On my page I recommend people going for keyboard but I get that not everyone wants to do so and hardly anyone reads that shit. I have some ideas on how to improve this in the future but rpg maker is a limited framework. Naturally it would be better if you could just make an entire sprite clickable, perhaps this can be solved with a plugin.
- The character changing direction rapidly sometimes when you try to move diagonally looks quite jarring, is the lack of non-cardinal-direction, non-grid movement a limitation of the engine/framework?
Many people have asked for diagonal movement, it is my personal preference to not use it, but I will take this into serious consideration and I am likely to change it I think.
- The main character’s default walking/running animations look very rigid.
These will be redone at some point, I am not pleased with them either. I have begun remaking some of the early game graphics that I am not pleased with but my main focus for now is to keep adding to the story until chapter one is fully playable.
- Explaining all the stats at once when you shoot the deer targets is near-useless, there’s no way you’ll remember any of them, you’d have to be screenshotting the explanations or something, at which point you might as well just put that explanation in the menu when you hover on that stat’s name.
I agree that it would be a good addition to be able to hover over the stats and get information but I am not sure if this can be done. Stats are pretty simple to learn, it's basically health, magic but affects certain hidden qualities and an alternative move currency that gets filled by attacking, taking damage and some lorerelated things. I could add some additional explanations perhaps but players who progress further does pick up on this naturally just by using them. The explanations are mostly there because the names and the effects are tied into the story, it's a clue.
- Enemies in the start seem to rarely hit any attacks. Intentional?
It is intentional. They have much lower speed values than later enemies. In the most recent parts some enemies get multiple moves per turn. People already think its hard, I tried making the speed "equal" and the ones who tried it out hated it.
- After walking back up to the swirling tree area, walking left or right actives the trigger to go back down to the bonefield. This is easy to do if you click anywhere that isn’t directly above the character, as the game tries to move horizontally first even if you click right above the player and only very slightly to the side.
This cannot be fixed, the transfer points are set and the reason they become almost to friendly is due to the "area of interaction". Lowering it makes it too hard instead, with keyboard it works as intended. If I can find some solution I will try to mitigate this.
- I just realised arrow keys do movement too, had presumed mouse movement was the only control scheme. Is there any reason for walking to exist when sprinting does the exact same but faster, and is the default when using the mouse? Though I would prefer to use the keyboard, I don’t like having to use both hands just to move (or awkwardly press the arrow keys and Right Shift with the same hand).
There is an option in the menu for having dash always on. I like to alternate between them.
- The red flashes from what I presume is the curse draining my health are too strong, they give me the same funny feeling that seizure-inducing gifs do (I am not epileptic but am mildly sensitive to the same flashes). Same goes for the flashes when touching into the deer that you can’t fight.
The flash effect is also inherent to rpg maker, what I could do is change the color red in the palette, but this would change a lot of other things. If you interacted with the doll in the area where you initially kill a deer tutorial guy explains how curse works. I tried to make the doll as obvious as possible. I will add a seizure-warning to a future build, later in the game there are some effects that are really intentionally obnoxious to get a point across. You can watch an example of this here, flashing lights warning:
- I totally get it if you’re going for a “tough as nails, doesn’t hold your hand” game, but yeah it feels pretty sucky to blow your healing items on not realising the curse is draining your health mega fast,
Curse is explained and is actually a key part of the narrative, but I think you may be correct. What I should do is add a message from the tutorial guy in combat for the two initial encounters where curse is first used.
- The 2nd time you approach the mirror that teaches gaslighting, it vanishes while the character is saying “I need to find her…”
Thanks for pointing this out, I have made this mistake plenty of times with the chests, it is easily fixed with a "direction lock".