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Very polished and fun!  Died a few times but I felt like I was an expert at controlling it by the end.

I'm not very good at shmups but I finally managed to win, game controls really well and it look and sounds great too!

The best way I can describe it is that the thing spawned in, the screen went POWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOWPOW and I blew up lol.  I wondered maybe if it spawned on top of me or something.

Its a cool game that kinda reminds me of the arcade games of the Atari era (no-nonsense and just jump right in to the gameplay, black background, lots of flashing!)  I managed to get six bosses.  I had the most trouble with the Launcher boss, but it was the Splitter boss that kind of istakilled me somehow (I couldn't see what happened due to the flashing lol)

Thanks a lot!  Writing this was a lot of fun!

Just added download versions for Windows and Mac.

This is a lot of fun!  I love the music and pixel art.  Managed to get S-Rank with no deaths (beat the final boss with one health left!)

Thanks for the detailed review.  You hit the nail on the head as far as one of my biggest issues with this game and the story I was trying to tell - it takes forever to get to the "game."  I wanted to show Chiyoko's life pre-magical girl, just for one day, but it kind of drags since there are few choices and pretty much nothing to do.  I've considered some ways to fix it, including trimming it down, or adding more interactivity to school / hanging out / etc, or adding a fight or dungeon during the nightmare sequence.  There definitely wasn't time to fix it during this game-jam, but I'm still considering it.

The 8-bit style graphics use the NES color palette but I actually did partially base them off of the MSDOS games I played many years ago.  The black backdrop with the ornamental UI frames were inspired by MSDOS KOEI games, though my pixel art doesn't really come close to those.

Thanks for checking out my game, and for hosting this game-jam!  I was wanting to make a magical girl story for a long time, so when I found out about this jam I kinda went all out.  I've already started on a post-game-jam demo, which fixes some of the issues and adds some stuff that didn't make it in.  I'd be happy to post updates on the discord, and I look forward to participating in the next game-jam as well!

I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I'm working on the game for the Continue-It Jam, so I'm hoping to complete it someday.  I'm still working out a better implementation of the daily activities in the game, so that aspect of it should improve!

Thanks for checking it out!   Winston was definitely the most fun-to-write character in anything I've done so far.  🤣

Thanks!  Winston is my favorite as well, he's fun to write.

Excellent art and music, and I love the character designs!  Unfortunately, I can't get past the first stage due to my hands not cooperating with the DF  JK key arrangement.  If it was four keys with no gap, or the arrow keys, I could probably manage it.    🤣

Thanks a lot!  Its been a lot of fun making it so far.  I'm looking forward to continuing it!

Thanks a lot!  I'm looking forward to working more on this project!

It's a lot of fun and very polished!  I wasn't very good at it but I still enjoyed it!

Excellent work!  It's really cool to see a game like this made in RPG Maker!  I love the character designs as well!

Excellent presentation!  The characters were fun and the graphics and sound are great!  For the mechanics, I feel like the batting could use a slight visual cue of some kind, as the angle makes it hard to tell how close the ball is.  The pitching also seemed a bit random - it didn't seem to matter where I aimed in determining where the ball went or whether or not it was hit.

It was still a fun game, even though I lost 12 - 1! 🤣

There were a couple direct quote references for fun, but I'm sure Madoka's influence seeped into more corners of this project than I realize since it's the only Magical Girl show I've seen.

Thanks a lot!  I did my best to format it like a classic (pre-Madoka) Magical Girl show, even though I've never seen one 🤣!  I'm really hoping I'll be able to continue working on the project, because it's been a lot of fun!

There isn't a way to save due to RPG Maker MZ's handling of Message Boxes.  You can't really do anything during a sequence of messages other than press ENTER or ESC, both of which just go on to the next message.  Adding a SAVE menu during the day kind of throws off the pacing, but I might consider adding them in places.  Other than that, I'm thinking I'll either add a "RETRY" option after a bad ending, or just make it so there are no bad endings and have the game continue after losing the battle (Winston intervenes and saves you, Chiyoko blacks out and unleashes some crazy latent power and drives the enemy away, etc)  I was moving towards the latter solution, but burned out and ran out of time.

Thanks for checking it out!  Yeah, it's basically a visual novel so there's a lot of dialogue.  Could probably be edited or trimmed down in places, but I kinda ran out of time.

Great soundtrack all around!  I enjoyed "Welcome to my Personal Hell" and "Decaying Tower of Thoughts" the most.

Incredible work!  I'm a huge fan of authentic sounding chiptunes, so this is one of my favorite entries so far!  My favorite track was Neural Reclamation but they were all amazing!

Nobody Can Hear You Pray is amazing!  If it was playing in a movie that I was watching alone at night, I'd probably have to turn on all the lights in the house.  Loved the whole soundtrack!

Start out by doing covers - just remake NES songs you like as closely as you can.  Not only is it a good way to learn how to actually use Famistudio, but you'll pick up on different ways to use the different channels.  One example - I never would have thought to use a triangle wave as part of a drum without hearing it first.  Note that Famistudio also comes with a ton of sample files that are actual NES music pieces that you can take apart, mess with, and learn from.

For channels, the usual setup is for the main melody to be on Pulse 1.  Use  Pulse 2 for harmony with Pulse 1.  Each pulse channel duty cycle has its own characteristics that you'll get used to the more you experiment.  The Triangle wave channel is usually your base and the Noise channel is the drums (Note: the Duty Cycle also affects the sound of the Noise channel so play around with it!.)  DPCM is most often used for drums as well.  You'll want to watch the tutorials on those - they're a game changer!  Once you know the basic rules of each channel, you can start messing with them and using them for other things, such as Triangle for melody and a Pulse for the bass!

Speaking of tutorials, the Famistudio tutorials are also extremely detailed and worth a watch.  I watched them after I made my first soundtrack and still learned a ton.  Things can actually get quite complicated when it comes to creating instruments - I'm still learning that part myself.

If you want to change your songs tempo (BPM,) click the gear icon next to the song's title on the song list in the upper right.  Click the BPM dropdown and select a new BPM.  If the BPM has a star (*) next to it, it is an "Ideal Tempo," which means the notes will be perfectly divided and nothing will get messed up. (It took me forever to figure out how to change tempo in this thing lol)

If your melody sounds too grating or "tinny," try decreasing the volume on the channel.  You can do that by clicking the VERY small arrow next to the magnet icon right below your channel list.  This brings up your channel effects.  Click the "Volume" button.  Then, to the right, click in the timeline where you want to change the volume.  Drag it up or down to where you want it.  This has solved the problem 9/10 times for me, unless there is just something fundamentally wrong with the piece.  There are other effects you can put in as well.

That's about all the good tips I can think of off the top of my head.  If there's anything I did in my soundtrack that you'd like described in detail, feel free to reach out to me on Discord!  (Discord name: "ayback")

I'm glad to finally find someone else who used Famistudio!  I was starting to think I was the only one.  Great job on the soundtrack, I liked Wonderous World of Dreams the best!

Great soundtrack!  Sounds amazing from start to finish!  Immortal Jungle was my favorite.

I like the main menu theme best!  And I'm glad to see someone else using an 8Bit style!

Love the style and energy in this soundtrack!  The voice lines were a fun addition as well!

I really like Unearthed Secrets, it has a great mystery vibe!

I like the surreal dream-like feeling of Fish Symphony!

Great Sci-Fi atmosphere in this soundtrack!  My favorite track was Zulturum.

Great soundtrack!  My favorites were "Hotrock Hollow" and "Tidal."  They kind of gave me a "90s PC Gaming" vibe.

Yes, the art was designed to be kind of a Super Turrican knockoff, with his awkward pose, weird expression and shiny chrome armor.

The first two tracks are very chill and atmospheric, and I really like Ocean of Discover for it's "High Seas Adventure" sound as well!

Great soundtrack!  I really like the Eel boss theme!

Great soundtrack!  I thought "Shadow Boxing" in particular was very catchy.

A very fun and whimsical soundtrack!  Excellent work on the writeup and art as well!

This visual novel changed my life!*

*The color palette burned my retinas off and the soundtrack made me deaf.