itch.io

I haven't finished this demo, but here are a few thoughts. 

Negative first:

• Look into texture groups. If you only take one thing away from this comment, please make it this. The long bouts of freezing that mostly stop after you've been playing for long enough are almost certainly because the game is constantly loading new texture groups. You can tell because they tend to happen whenever a new sprite appears for the first time. They're fairly easy to wrap your head around and will do a lot to make the experience feel 100x smoother.
• Hitboxes and hurtboxes could have a lot more player leniency. There were many, many times when I felt as though my attacks should have connected when they didn't, and many, many times when I felt as though an enemy's attacks shouldn't have connected when they did
• The bullet hell sections are really awkward to control. I've played 2 or 3 of these and haven't found a reason that I would ever need to fire in a direction other than right yet, so having to constantly hold down a trigger button just to face the enemy was cumbersome. Holding down a face button to fire while pressing the opposite face button to dash (while also still holding down the trigger to lock my direction) also felt really unnatural. Besides the fact that I was just awkwardly moving my thumb over so many buttons, I have problems with my wrist that were exacerbated a lot by constantly holding down a trigger and a face button while also managing dashing. If turning needs to be a feature for a later boss, it should be a toggle. If it doesn't, just force Bronto Burt to face right. I'd also say shooting should just be mapped to a trigger button so it's less awkward to move around while doing it.
• It is hard to tell sometimes when I can heal. Changing the color of the meter so it's visible at a glance when you can heal once would be really helpful.
• The second phase of the Moley fight is frustrating. Having a character that attacks low and a character that attacks high and/or in arches means you'll inevitably find yourself in a position where you have to take damage.
• Resetting a boss and dying take an annoying amount of time. This is really noticeable if you're going for the bonuses and will have to leave and return if you get hit more than a few times.

Positives:

• I like that you didn't just go with a lot of traditional boss fights. Even though the gimmicks didn't always land for me, I appreciated the effort to make each fight different.
• It's always fun to get new upgrades and increase your move pool in a game like this.
• It's impressive how many different moves you managed to telegraph in a unique way with very limited sprite sheets.
• It's just generally fun. Pogoing off of a boss feels nice, even if the hitboxes don't always match what you would expect.

Thank you so much!! This is all so sweet and in-depth that I'm sure whatever response I give will feel small.

I really appreciate everything you said, basically. I'm very glad to see you got what I was going for with everyone's relationships and the setup overall.

I really hate most stories that try to inject their abusive characters with depth and end up excusing their actions or redeeming them in some way. I think characterizing abusers as inhuman monsters is also reductive and shallow, though. Abusers often convince themselves they're in the right because they know they love the person they're abusing. It was very important to me to show that abuse can come from a place of love while still being harmful to everyone involved.

There is in fact symbolism with basically everything formed from the Break other than the mouth. I like hearing people's interpretations though, so I don't know how much I should give out publicly... I will say that if you find a journal entry near something weird, that section is usually related to what's written. All of the characters formed from the Break are also references to biblical stories. It's easiest to see with Hannah and Samuel, but even the monster that chases you has an internal name that references a popular Bible story. The dead lambs around him should be a hint as to which one. 

(Also, I love talking about my own writing, so if you want to get in touch offsite I can actually tell you more about why I wrote each section lol)

Thank you again for your kind words. :] Hopefully my next game can meet expectations too

This one was really cool. Definitely one of my favorite entries so far. Audio and visual design were genuinely unnerving compared to what I've come to expect from a lot of RPG Maker horror games.

The fakeout intro scene really stood out to me. You absolutely paid more attention to detail than most people would for something like that. Not just the default assets, but also the corny, self-referential writing worked wonders to sell me on the fact that this was just someone's awkward first project. It was just the right amount of cheese to lull me into a false sense of security before the actual game started. (Also a very good choice of audience; it would go over a lot of people's heads if not specifically submitted to a jam full of RPG Maker devs.)

It's very hard to make RPG Maker games feel unique, so it's super impressive that so many different play styles were pushed into this one experience. None of them feel too similar, even in their simplicity, yet they all still sell the idea of being made for a very old console/computer. The small details like the restricted color palette even across different rooms were also appreciated.

Most of my criticisms are nitpicks, honestly:

If I accidentally passed over tutorial text before reading it, which I did for the first two games, I had no way of getting it back. The second game was pretty self-explanatory, but it took me a while to figure out what I was doing for St. Peter's Cross. The square-pixel font used for some of these tutorials was also very hard on the eyes, so I'm not sure how much I would have processed regardless.

I like the slow pacing, but some of the cutscenes felt just a biiiiiiit too drawn out. With the game "breaking" in the intro, for example, things took so long to visually fall apart that, even after realizing what was happening, I'd assumed the game just actually froze in the middle of the creepy transition. If just a few seconds were shaved off, the anxiety wouldn't have that time to fade away. The same thing happened towards the last scene of the game, though I forget exactly what transition it was.

I get that the Devil's exposition at the end was kind of a necessity for a jam project—I know planning out a non-linear story is a process that can take months in and of itself—but I would have liked the details to be spread out over the course of the game a little more. It was just a bit obvious that the Devil wasn't talking to me as much as the writing itself was, so it felt a little unnatural to get the information that way. The censored Wikipedia screenshot was a really neat hint at what a subtle build-up could have accomplished, and I really liked starting to piece together what RSR was doing and what the screenshot might have had cut out of it. (On that note, it also frustrated me a little to get the full version of the screenshot later. I'd already gathered the general idea, and the last screen sapped the fun out of putting two and two together.)

My criticisms are always long-winded, but seriously, don't take it as a sign that I disliked this at all. Like I said, this is easily one of my favorite entries. I just tend to give verbose feedback to games I really enjoy because of how much potential I see in them; I like to be detailed since I think micro-adjustments are the only improvements to be made at this point. I'm very excited to see what you come up with in the future.

Thank you for leaving such a nice comment! It's really nice to hear when my writing gets any sort of emotional reaction.

I'm also really glad to hear you liked the combo lock puzzle.. There was a lot of back and forth on that one when I originally pitched it, and we weren't sure if people would get it.

I appreciate the feedback on the chase sequence a lot too honestly. It was very hit-or-miss when we had friends playtest (one person spent thirty minutes on it), so I was thinking about asking Jabberwocky to adjust it if we release a post-jam version. I originally wanted thicker hallways so it's harder to get stuck, but we just never looped around to getting it done.

(The Hedrik dialogue bug also came up in playtesting and was supposed to be fixed in the most recent update lol. thank you for pointing out it's still broken.)

I really respect how much original art went into this one. Making the sprites and all of the portraits was a huge timesink on our project, and a majority of our tilesets are adapted from pre-made assets.

The narrative was also interesting, and the interpretation of the theme is clever. I like the submissions that go for a more symbolic "devil" than an actual monster.

My only major critique is that the framing and setting confused me a bit. It seems to take place in a hyper-conservative Christian church in the early-to-mid 1900s, but there's modern-day slang, a casual reference to lean, a well-respected female priest, and a lobotomy(?) all in the same time frame. Some of it might have been intentionally fictionalized, but with a conflict so grounded in reality, it was hard to tell.

(To be fair, I also didn't fully get if the procedure was meant to be a lobotomy. It seemed like they managed to avoid all of the guaranteed complications while removing exactly what they wanted to, so it might have been more of a sci-fi style thing.)

Either way, I'm excited to see that you might revisit these characters in another game soon! I'm very interested in how their stories might develop.

I just added a text walkthrough to the downloads section if you're having trouble!

First, sorry my first comment wasn't super detailed or helpful. We're approaching a deadline, and it was super late for me, so I wrote it in kind of a panicked haze. I assumed the plugin was working as intended rather than being bugged somehow, but in hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if it's interacting poorly with another plugin.

I'm playtesting this one through someone else since I bought the plugin for him, so I'll have to wait for him to wake up to test it myself on a clean slate.

For more information, though (in case you wanted to quickly try replicating it), the issue isn't parallel events or a crash.

If we show a message normally without plugins, the game waits until hitting a confirmation key before running any code after it on the same Event page. (i.e. if we showed a message, then immediately set Self Switch A to true, Self Switch A would remain false until that message box was gone.)

If we ask the player to input text with this plugin, MV doesn't wait. All of the contents under it continue running. (i.e. If we call text input, then immediately set Self Switch A to true, Self Switch A will become true as we're still inputting text.)

Because of this, when a message is shown right under text input, MV seems to be getting confused on what to display where. The default input text is partially overwritten, and text disappears from the beginning of the box in a typewriter effect.

If it matters, the default input text is something like "(Type with your keyboard!)," parentheses included.

This happens consistently on MV, so if it's not a conflict with another plugin it shouldn't be hard to track down. Will update once I can test it myself with my teammate.

Using the MV version. Is there any way to make this pause the event processing as you would expect? Right now, everything continues to run when text entry pops up, which makes it hard to find a practical use case. If you try to show messages after running the plugin command, they just break entirely.

Hi. I'm working as a writer and helping with puzzles and art for a submission to this jam. I'm not the main developer, but I would like to be counted as having worked on this game.

I know some other jams allow you to form teams so you're all included on a game's submission page and can rate other entries. Is there a good way to do this with the RPG Maker Horror jam?

you should make a 2D platformer

you should make a uhhhhhhh like uhh ummmmm

where is my html version

amen to that my friend

this fucking rules

still sick

this is sick

unfortunately i think you have to take the L on this one

(If anyone cares, this response has some vague spoilers for the ending.)

I wanna preemptively say that I'm not arguing or saying you're wrong here; I'm not fully happy with the ending either. I genuinely just really like talking about my art and the reasons I make certain choices, and you're the first person to bring up the ending. (You can still think the reasons are bad.)

0. Thank you for playing and for your kind words! I really enjoy writing so I'm glad this slight dip into a narrative-focused game is resonating with anyone.

1. The exchange mechanic is meant to keep people from sticking with one combo for the entire game. Certain pieces might be more favorable to you, and I like the risk/reward of deciding whether to use them on an easier boss or wait for the chance to have them at the end of the game. Some bosses are already easier with specific movesets over others, though, so this might not have been necessary.

2. I mostly wanted the ending to be "disappointing" for thematic reasons. For one, gameplay-wise, it's hard to have a slow progression when the game is structured like it is. The format of "here's a specific insecurity, fight it, here's the next one, fight it" just didn't lend itself well to a traditional narrative. It wouldn't make sense to have the protagonist realize it's okay not to have a connection to their own sense of humor, for example, and then have the exact same conundrum over their talents. Having another ending would have required a really harsh flip in tone at the very end of the game.

From a narrative perspective, it's just impossible to say where an arc like this is supposed to end up. I feel like the "happy" ending that most similar stories present is the main character finding out the one thing that makes them unique, but I really didn't want to go that route. For one, it just isn't a realistic finale for a lot of people; it's much more common for them to be forcibly squeezed into a specific role they have no interest in just to survive. As people grow up and are forced into deciding their one area of study and their one career path for the rest of their life, the stakes become too high to really scrutinize their choices this much. Self-satisfaction and happiness become less important than just getting through each day with the money needed to survive. The game doesn't focus on these larger societal issues, but I still wanted to avoid a message that portrays the issue unrealistically.

I also don't think this style of happy ending gets at the heart of the issue, which is that everyone is just a collection of traits that they got from other people, and this is what makes us people in the first place. I mostly incorporated this into the bosses themselves. Even if they appear as individual, cohesive designs, each of them have different art styles for different attacks. Sense of Humor's pie attack shares an art style with the final boss, and its cross attack shares an art style with Talent, whose music attack shares an art style with Sense of Humor, etc. The protagonist is so wrapped up in their own insecurities, though, that it doesn't really cross their mind. (This is another reason I didn't think it would make sense to suddenly spell this realization out at the end of the game. They're just barely starting to realize self-acceptance is even an option as the game ends.)

TL;DR This inner turmoil affects real people a lot, as you pointed out, it's not something that you just get over one day, and I wanted to reflect that with an open ending that implies there's a lot more growth to undergo.

This was fun! I enjoy bullet hells a lot, and I liked the simpler focus of this one's projectiles. Not the most original use of the theme, but a fun time.

I don't usually make posts like this after a jam, but I'm really happy with how this one turned out! I tried a lot of things I haven't before, (e.g. a higher resolution, visual collage, a more emotionally-driven narrative) so I would really appreciate if you could try it out and leave a rating. Especially if you like weird experimental art, I'd love your feedback.

It only uses the keyboard, (or a controller) so it's playable even if you're just sitting in bed with your laptop. Just click on that picture and it should lead you right to the entry page!

Thank you everyone!

Super fun! Obvious that a lot of passion went into this. Only things that frustrated me were some of the hitboxes, mostly on the green boss, and the final boss's projectiles almost killed me after I had already beaten it.

Very pretty game. The character design was very cool

This one was very fun! Unfortunately couldn't finish it, though. The deaths are very unforgiving considering new concepts are introduced in every fight, and they will almost definitely kill you if you don't already understand them. I'd definitely play a version of this that had some kind of checkpoint system.

I really liked the visual style of this one, and in theory I think the gameplay idea could work well too. It did just feel a bit slow and tedious here, though, since there was very little to do or care about besides the random bullet patterns.

i'm not sure if you can use kirby sounds?

This was neat. I like the amorphous boss design. unfortunately couldn't really get past the second boss because a lot of its attacks were chained together in a way that just seemed impossible to avoid

i'm a little confused about exactly what i'm meant to be doing or what's happening. it doesn't seem like the levels are designed around letting you actually hit the boss, and it's completely gone in the last stage.. i thought it was just a 2D platformer for a while. i appreciate the effort and would like to see what you can make with more free time though.

thank you! the lack of healing was an intentional choice, since I wanted it to feel like one long progressive gauntlet. i do wish i had time to add a practice feature for individual bosses though, since there's not a great way to learn attack patterns without going through the other fights

it's a cute concept that can work well (e.g. sonic forces' bullet hell sections), but it feels like things are really hard to follow in this one. it might have worked better as a top-down shooter?

i don't know why the argument is "nuh uh it's good nuh uh it's bad." everyone's going to have different opinions. this just seems really hateful for a free project made in a week. 

This is super cute and fun!! Way more polished than I thought a crossover fan project like this would be

Leaving a mini-review in the hopes that something productive might come out of the sea of shit that this comments section has already become.

This game was my first encounter with Molly Moonn's content, but I was really excited about its aesthetic sensibilities regardless. The bit-crushed audio and minimalistic style of "animation" work very well to push the entire experience firmly into the uncanny valley, which is great for a horror game. The point-and-click style and the clunky UI also lend themselves very well to a sense of panic as you're being chased throughout the house, even if there's no real timer counting down to your death.

There are a lot of points where this clunkiness is definitely pushed too far, though. It's very hard to read most of the text even on a monitor with a decent resolution, and this is compounded a lot by the awkward vertical aspect ratio. The full game should definitely be allowed to move away from its TikTok roots and embrace being on the computer just a little bit more. At the very least, choose a thicker font.

The monster, if she can be called that, also really piqued my interest. The "seductress" who lures men in for some horrible ritual is sort of a common trope, but it hasn't really been explored in this exact form. The few screenshots I saw also looked really unnerving in a way that I was excited to see.

Sadly, again, I'm anxious that the developers of this game don't really know how to best utilize this idea. There is very little buildup or context for the demonic ritual going on in the basement before the monster reveals itself. To make matters worse, the protagonist seems far too eager to play along. Players are not allowed to sit with the discomfort that the game's presentation is completely steeped in for even a moment before being force-fed a (fairly bland) jumpscare animation. And they are fed this exact animation a lot. Even for as short as the demo is, its deaths manage to get repetitive.

The mystery of why the protagonist's brother went missing is really intriguing, largely because it lends itself naturally to a slow buildup. I really think the developers of this game should allow more room for a slow unveiling of details and a gradual rise in the uneasiness that surrounds the whole thing.

Overall, a lot of potential, but please make sure you know what you're doing for a long-form project.

God this shit was just mean-spirited. The hell was the point of linking to a video where you just repeatedly call a woman working on the game ugly? You're a grown-ass man

this is really impressive! whenever i used RPGmaker i always gave up on trying to add my own tiles and stuff. i really like the gubblebock