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Love it and feels pretty damn close to being complete! You've got a really good eye for pacing and exploration, even without a map everything felt incredibly concise and understandable, even the Halloween level. A lot of these kinds of games with limited camera angles tend to do a really bad job, sometimes jumping angles too heavily or not giving the right information on screen leading to foreground/background mismatches. Well happy to say this isn't that kind of game at all, not a single angle or camera switch felt confusing, it was an utterly painless experience to navigate the environment. Same could be said for the cutscenes, no idea what film experience you got on record but it was very professional. Speaking of the cutscenes, it might be better to let the player advance the text themselves? The intro in particular had some big words + long sentences that I couldn't complete. The character portraits are a really lovely touch, although I'd be nice to see some changes in expression or even some blinks + mouth movements. Gonna jump topics here to talk about the combat which I thought was fantastic. Dodging and auto lock-on are game changers that make this game stand out compared to contemporaries. The enemies had really neat designs and interesting attacks that caused me to purposefully lose some encounters just to experience them again. The type of enemy that closes in and does damage around itself felt a little unfair, maybe making that a quarter circle hitbox instead could work? Also, on account of the combat, the auto aim sometimes didn't work properly. Maybe it was shooting off angle or something, idk. The dodging would also use some work, either by making the step distance longer or giving invincibility frames. This became an issue during the attic boss leading to close calls and some unfair gameovers. The abilities also need player model animations otherwise there's a disconnect between player and action, very obvious whenever doing the fireball ability. 

You got something truly amazing cooking here that would no doubt see a strong audience when it's done. Well done!

I think you've got something really special here, it's got a lot of character to it and I'd be interested to see where this goes in the future. The movement took a very short learning curve to figure out as I'm not familiar with PC platformers but after a couple of mins it all just clicked. However the acceleration & deceleration were just a teensy bit too long which became obvious during the moving platform section. The dolphin dive was such a stupid fun mechanic I found myself doing it whenever possible especially on slopes. Not sure what future movement you got planned but absolutely you "have" to keep it in. Speaking of the platform section, and I know this is just a test level but it's worth mentioning, the timing for them were totally off resulting in waiting for a good minute to get a good lineup. Overall enjoyed this game a lot and excited to see what's on the horizon!

Found myself coming back to this several times, it's just got a certain kind of photobashy presentation (beyond the ai stuff) that's got me nostalgic for old Adobe Flash horror titles like Exmortis. Managed to get all the endings, fly me to the moon included, with little stress save for the second floor bathroom which decided to soft lock the game. The time mechanic felt a little under utilized but considering the short length of the game it's not that much of a complaint (Or maybe I'm dumb and didn't find time sensitive events, no idea). Overall still had a fun time and think this would be a good template to build another game off of if you're going that route.

Thank you for those kind words brother, I'm glad you enjoyed it :) Going forward, making more puzzles and getting voice acting is gonna be set at a higher priority (ideally I'd like the whole game to be voice acted but moneymoneymoney). There's also several Skeb artists long since bookmarked who'd make porn far better than I ever would so that also seems to be the plan. Thanks again and happy DD!

I'm sorry I... I can't do anything right... My only frame of reference is a moldy sock full of coins... Why God.

Aww but I like Jojak :(

Heh thanks brother! Better see you on DD!

WOW thank you so much for playing!!!!! You got a great sense of humor, made me laugh several times, and I admire the work you put into this. Those individual voices and multiple playthroughs is one helluva dedicated effort! Thank you! Long form videos like this actually have an impact on development too. Truth be told I was slowly watching this over the course of a few days a week ago and getting to see firsthand which jokes landed, which spooks worked, unnatural sounding dialogue, etc, helped me to revise past and present sections to be more effective. So thank you for this!

Also sorry about the copyrighted music :(

Sure! Go into the game folder with the exe then into the "game" folder and there should be a "saves" folder. Probably wise to make a copy of everything you see in this folder, otherwise delete everything in it! If you're tempted to just delete the "persistent" file (since this 'should' be where Ferarum stores all it's variable memory), well, idk but just proceed with caution. I did write special dialogue in the small case something like this happens (i.e. you skip an unskippable trigger) but it might screw up other things so best play it safe. I'll get around to making a dedicated button eventually, hidden in the games options.

Hi, I'd really like to make one at some point! Communities are just so much fun to interact with, I'm just really stupid when it comes to figuring out Discord haha. If/when one's out, I'll make a formal post on the game page about it along with a public link.

That's very generous of you! Though might hold off on the dedicated channel offer, just doesn't feel like Ferarum warrants that kind of thing yet, maybe midway through Act 3 or something.. That being said, I still don't mind joining your Discord space! So long as everyone else is cool with that of course. I have read a fair bit of your blog (please stop doing drugs) so I got a general idea of the kind of vibe and it could be fun. My Discord username is "joyniche", has a stinky rabbit thing as the avatar, so feel free to add me. That goes for literally anyone else reading this too, even mystery lurkers several months from now, I'll always be here.

It's pure insanity how someone can fight so hard for something they ultimately have no interest in consuming like why lie to others about it? For clout or rage baiting? It feels like every other week there's an old "problematic" IP that gets revamped with "modern audiences in mind" only to sell jack shit and bankrupt the studio, hell it's no wonder there's been so many layoffs in the gaming industry as of late. Who would've thought making shitty politically charged media leads to no sales?

Huh, that's a pretty good way of putting it. I still don't know if it's safe to model a personality after her, she's a bit unhinged and would 100% pull some illegal shenanigans for a smidgen of admiration. She's the kind of girl who'd take you out for snacks light the store on fire because the prices changed (they were on sale). Not in an evil kind of way mind you, just a comically bad misunderstanding of what's right along with narcissistic tendencies and small glimpses of self-reflection. I'm speaking straight yappanese, she's got big tits, bipolar disorder and would fuck anything that moves, she's perfect lol.

Oh right hahahah, guess I just have an extremely broad range of interests? At the time I was trying to get back into visual novels (specially with Gore Screaming Show and also Full Metal Demon Muramasa) but was reminded why I fucking hated them so much. Crappy CG animations, characters who don't shift positions, static facial expressions, these are AAA companies for gods sake and nobody thought to animate characters blinking??? Pissed me off so Ferarum was born out of that frustration. I really can't explain the macabre of it all, I have a long history with horror and overtly violent real life media so I aim to replicate the things I liked about those stories whilst leaving the crap behind. Not sure if this answers most of your questions but here's a photo of my bookshelf to get an idea.

For sure, it's tough times we live in and self-policing on social platforms with zero incentive other than to curb the wrong words, the wrong thoughts, is just cruel. It's no wonder you've made your own safe haven away from all the bullshit, if this is what it's gotta take these days then boy do I miss the 2000's.

Haha alrighty, I'll be there to read it once it's out then! And really? You actually like the edgey Jojo crap? I get embarrassed seeing the assets every day I was NOT cooking good that day lol. Hell, it's why Family Guy plays during the 50-ways-to-die speech, to distract from the blahblahblah going on. Ah well, edginess is too hard to shake off so expect more hahah!

Man, that'd be the dream! It only takes one hot shot to push a domino, seen it happen time and time again even with aforementioned Coffin.  Thanks for believing in it, to be making something so treasured to others makes me really happy so I don't mind talking with people about it!!

-If I may ask I'm so curious about the way your brain works with being able to create something like this. I want to pick the brain.

Please don't, I need it to survive :(

That's alright, I love reading peoples thoughts and opinions! Gives me a good gauge to see if things are resonating well with players or if certain things need to be cut out entirely so it's ALWAYS appreciated and I'll never consider it retarded :)

Thank you!! I'm excited for the next update too to be honest! It's got a couple of new Sven oriented scenes, more dinner scene art and more dialogue to help connect the flow a bit better. Censorship has and will always be a fat nothingburger to me and if anyone ever complains about it I simply do not care. Life doesn't have content warnings and people don't bleep their words in real life, any media that does is disingenuous to it's audience no matter how cruel/racist/sexist the subject matter is. That's what I think anyway and it's cool you seem to think the same way too. If you do feel like you've probably missed something, the game folders aren't archived or anything so it's alright to go poking around in them (so long as you don't mind spoilers haha)! There's also a helluva lot of shitty cut dialogue in the scripts too, non-canon of course but hey more content is more content. To answer one of the questions from your blog, yes, RNG plays a role some times but mostly during startup (before the logo comes on). There's an interview scene I don't think anyone has gotten yet, which is alright because it's Jojo edgelord shit anyway so no biggy.

I really hope it doesn't disappoint! It's still pretty far out there but when it makes sense you'll find the pieces have been here the entire time! And please don't put Ferarum on such a high pedestal! Yume Nikki, Song of Saya and Lisa are in a class of their own and easily S tier, it really doesn't deserve to be on that same level, though I'm extremely flattered you think that way! ｡^‿^｡

I don't mind at all! You can post whatever you like here for as long as you like :) Thanks for being so dedicated to this little game!!

Goodness! Thank you for such an incredible post and for writing about it on your blog!! It means the world to me to hear how much you've been enjoying Ferarum and that it's resonating with you on such a deep level! Also big thankies for sharing it with your friends, I hope they enjoyed it as much as you! Truth be told, I read your post/blog earlier today and it really inspired me and gave me such a burst of energy that I couldn't resist channeling it into creating more content for the next update. So sorry if this response feels a bit delayed...

Back on track, it seems like you've discovered pretty much everything already lol and your theories are pretty close to the goings on with Jojo and Frankie and the world, but that being said there's still a ton of twists and turns left to develop and a good chunk of lore that has yet to be fully exposed (which reeeeally should've been done earlier in the story, I'm just a retard when it comes to writing). Statues, the moon, and a "cow" farm. That's all I'll say on that hahah! I wonder if a human version of the ship of theseus could exist? Just food for thought. You're also pretty spot on with my inspirations too, I'm a big OG fan of Yume Nikki, DDLC, Coffin, and more niche stuff like Killer7 and Franken Fran (which isn't a game but inspiration nonetheless)! If it's funny, scary and sexy all at once, it has my interest and Ferarum isn't just inspired by it, it's built off that guideline.

It's amazing to hear that you're already considering cosplaying as Jojo, you'd be the first to do it! I'm a HUGE enjoyer of fan content and consider cosplay as one of the highest forms of flattery so I'd be honored to see your tribute of her! And I'm touched by your interest in art commissions. While I don't currently offer commissions, your curiosity means a lot to me, and I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future.

Sorry if this reply seems alittle short in relation to what you've written but again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words and for being a part of the early Ferarum community!! Your enthusiasm is what drives me to continue making and expanding the game, and I can't wait to share more updates with you in the future!

-Is it working?

It most certainly is! Thanks a ton for doing such an in-depth dive into Ferarum! It's seriously really awesome to hear your take on everything and it means a lot to me!! 

I'll start off by saying damn! Like you're right on target, word for word, bar for bar literally everything you said was dead center even the "gravity of consciousness" which we could be here all day talking about haha but no spoilers, I promise :) Jojo was written to be a perfectly imperfect human being, same with Sven. Sure they have long moments of clarity but they both sometimes get caught up in their own thoughts and emotions and they always need time to think, so as witty as Jojo can be sometimes she's also pretty par for the course; she can't do math properly, can hardly drive, loses track of her own ideas, stuff like that. Seeing perfectly perfect conversations in media pisses me off because people are supposed to slur and mispronounce words, people aren't truly perfectly perfect. So I'm glad you found the conversations (outside some of the schizo-babble lol) relatable! Also you're right, I've had a few complaints that the initial cafe conversation doesn't seem to go anywhere, that you're not really given a 'goal' to work towards and it's been a constant point of contention since Ferarum dropped so I'll probably revise it someday, otherwise yes I really did pour whatever popped out of my head hahaha. When it comes to the animations and models and stuff, they're all prerendered. There's no magic involved just a helluva lot'a rendering in Blender and hoping like hell it doesn't come out crappy!

Version 14 only has a few new scares (I think? Can't remember) so you're probably not missing out on much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It's a good thing you're going through the files too, reading all that code is crazy commitment well done!, good players like you with a sense of discovery will ALWAYS be rewarded! That being said I'm not really sure what constitutes as an ARG these days sorry but if you feel like it fits the bill then so be it! 

Nah that's fair, I wanna see more exploration too to be honest! Infact, the Tornado of Mega Death segments were supposed to have an early form of that, hence the minimap and all that really badly written unused Consola dialogue. All I know is the walk from the lounge to Jojo's guestroom is pretty far and Styx doesn't play fair...

Appreciation posts are NEVER stupid, I ALWAYS take them to heart <3 So thank you for writing this all out!! There's currently no Discord server, I'm too stupid to figure it out lol.

Thanks again and keep up the sleuthing!!

Thank you so much! :)

Hi! That's alright, you're allowed to comment anywhere or make any post, I really don't mind! Since this is still in development that's just where the game ends. In hindsight it really should've been a "go back to title" instead of a force crash so I'll change that for the next update.

Wow that was you?! Thanks man! But are you sure you don't want any credit? 

I forgot to say; for everyone who commented on Demo Day and elsewhere about bugs or sound problems or whatever, they should all be fixed in this update! Yay!

waaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Jokes aside, a DD55 review DURING DD56?? You're a mad man lol.

And thanks for the kind words brother, I'll take it to heart <3

I'm absolutely blown away by this and think it's criminal you've put this on itch for the low cost of zero dollars. I'd gladly pay good money for this on Steam, the quality is just that high. This really goes without saying as so many other people have already mentioned it but the attention to detail is insane. Explosions setting off car alarms in the distance, bullets occasionally penetrating through buildings and recoiling off things, fire spreading around on a farm/garden, even thinking about it I might've missed stuff but that sense of discovery makes me wanna fire up the game right now and see! The art is phenomenal and the ui compliments everything perfectly, I'd go so far as to call it one of the best ui's I've seen in a while it's got a clean aesthetic, works and doesn't obstruct the gameplay, again, it compliments it. I could sing high praises for this game all day (and I might) there's just one teeny tiny problem: the enemies are a tad too difficult to see sometimes. This goes for the player too, I felt a little disoriented after a good firefight and I guess this could easily be fixed by giving the player a brighter color to contrast against the muted background. If I can see those red fire trucks in that tiny Gameboy screen sized thumbnail to my left, I should be able to see the character. Just food for thought. Also, not that you've indicated plans for it or anything, just a precaution, if you ever feel tempted to give Landsword angled camera movements (which I know you can, I've done pixel stacking in GMS too lol), please don't. The 90 degree camera unifies the scene and anything else would complicate the controls.

Fantastic game, easy recommendation.

Even in the face of evil, friendship prevails.

I'm left wondering... What was it for? The anger. The bitterness. The violence. There's much hatred in Blorbworld, and no little Blorbino should see such depravity. I opted to help him when no-one else would. It's a cruel world to take such a journey alone. It wouldn't be fair. We visited the grassy plains and like Alexander the Great before us, trekked across the desert. To the caverns where we reprieved and onwards, optimistic, stubborn, long into the night across hills into the ice lands, so cold was it that the snowfall itself appeared frozen, suspended in midair. We arrived at a castle. Dangerously bereft of humanity. Blorbmanity. I failed you little Blorbino. We never found who sent that letter and I'm sorry. I sit here with you now, watching as you fall from the heavens, accompanied by Bach, of which musical score I'm unsure but it's beautiful. I'm sure you can move past it Blorbino. You can rest now, it's okay. I blorblieve in you.

Cool game btw I liked it.

I'm not the best at these kinds of games (only got to the slimes...) but I still had a bunch of fun! The presentation is pretty good, you've got a nice UI that doesn't beat around the bush and the attacks each have really nice looking effects that don't take up 90% of the screen like most other survivor-games fall prey to. I'm not sure how deep you wanna go with this since I assume you're still hard at work on Yark but with a little tweaking you could have a pretty solid side-hustle with this! That being said, here's some things that need spicing up:

-Please put descriptions on abilities. Sure, the pictures are descriptive enough but those first few playthroughs I was pretty confused on how to spec.

-Make the upgrades feel more impactful. I chose fire 5 times in one run and it never felt any bigger or stronger. It made getting to the slime section really difficult.

-Are there supposed to be keys in the game? The chest wouldn't open without one but I never managed to see one (maybe a skill issue on my part)

-If you walk into Monsieur Void at the start he just snatches you and the game ends. Ruined my first run in seconds.

-Please have mercy on my CPU :(

-Maybe another error on my end but I could only select upgrades/abilities using the mouse despite playing on keyboard. Not an end of world kind of deal just annoying.

-The music is awesome! Not a complaint, just had nowhere else to put this.

Thanks man <3 (ToM-hwuah?)

If we're lucky there'll be one soon! And thanks for the kind words brother, I hope life treats you well too!

This is awesome brother!! Thanks for making it <3

Thanks brother, I do too! This project will only EVER die if I die.

Hey man it's great to hear from you again! I'm glad you're still interested in this game even after all this time, it makes me really happy so thank you! I'm 30 minutes from flying out of the country for a month so I'll try to answer all your queries.

When it comes to secret stuff, even if they're shitposts or memes, they're still relevant in some way to the plot. Anything in-game is 100% related, anything in the files is sort of a mixed bag but generally it's just me getting bored and making jokes at my own expense. Also the phone number, from what I remember, doesn't work but you're right, I'll take it out as soon as possible anyway.

When it comes to the variables, Ferarum uses persistent.variables almost the entire time so that the player doesn't actually need to save the game. For that specific sequence I think there was an issue tying persistent variables to numbers, but you can see for the Interror portion (in it's own script) that I did use numbers instead of words. That's a good suggestion though, I'll have another look once I'm back.

Aw fuck, bloody knew something was gonna happen lol. Renpy's a bitch when it comes to capitalization so that W is supposed to be lowercase.

Thanks for all the help man, I honestly really appreciate it all and especially code reviews! Have a nice rest of your day and stay away from cute goth girls in cafes alright?

I love it lol, what's her stando name?

haha, big update!

I could only find one guy, I'm severely disappointed.

Pretty good foundation for a Survivor-esque game! I kept choosing the "more thunder" option but it seems to stop after a certain point, same with the projectile size increases so it'd be good to have a "Maxed" sign somewhere. On that topic does more thunder actually do anything? It just felt the exact same throughout my playthrough. Also some more descriptive card descriptions would be great too or perhaps even a way to see your stats while ingame. I'm curious to see where this game will go so keep it up!

Pretty good prototype. Got murked by the Yellow King, right at the end of my first playthrough, who decided to teleport inside a wall and mind explode me. The animations and art were pretty good, I'm a big fan of Post Void and Gun Godz so this felt right at home. The weapons still need a bit of tweaking though, as another commenter put it it'd be nice to have an auto reload. Also a couple of the weapons (either of the energy/laser weapons and the triple shot rocket launcher) are horrendously underpowered. They also don't seem to have any sound effects either which is jarring when compared to the pistol which does, but I guess that's already on your to do list. But strangely never saw the 3D skeleton guy, the town nor the crystal cavern from the pics. Could chalk it up to bad luck but I played through it 3 times and never saw any.  Anyways, really fun game, keep it up!

Loved it! Incredible pixel art and a really simple but solid gameplay loop with pretty fun levels. Level 12 is just a tad too tight and of the 252 deaths I got, around 100 was purely for that level alone.

Big thankies man! I'm glad someone likes Styx lol, his/her sequence was the most worrying to me to get right. 

I'm also trying to figure out how persistance works, I don't know if I need to keep the game running, I haven't even gotten to the B side yet.

-Persistance variables are variables that trigger and save regardless if the player decides to insta-quit. As you can imagine this makes testing a pain in the ass, especially since Ferarum has an ungodly amount heh. Basically the game always remembers what you did and do so play nice! As for keeping the game running, there's only one check right at the beginning for that which just changes up Jojo's dialogue a little. Nothing big but I fully intend to utilize it later for other stuff. B side is still a wee ways off!

The biggest mystery right now is Save.rar , well that and figuring out where to send my order form.

-That form is just a fun little thing as part of the Semen Inferno sequence. It's just a little nod to Doom so please don't send it anywhere or call anyone lol. Save? Good luck with that!