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Played through Episode 1. It was a fun little experience. It has a pretty short run time with only one dungeon so we don't get much time to learn about the main character, Alrick. I see this more as a proof of concept as Episode 2 gets worked on. It's pretty good and sets up ideas and concepts for the future. The combat was fine, albeit it simple, though it's still the beginning so that is to be expected. It has potential to be more complex in future episodes, which is always a good thing!

I did have some issues, for one, Catherine's Laeh healing spell was able to miss. Personally I just don't think a healing spell should be missable, it can completely ruin a fight and lead to game over at no fault to the player. There is also an elemental system in place, but as far as I can tell there is no way to know what enemy is weak to which element? 

In future episodes I would like to get more story and learn more about what a Mage Sword is and what they do around the world, in addition to learning more about Alrick and the other main characters. Overall it was a fun game with potential for more!

Glad to hear you liked the outfits! I spent way more time on that than I should have but I think it was worth it. 100% agree about the enemy HP for sure. I didn't want fights to be over in one round, but I overcorrected too much. I did not intend for the 2nd boss to be that hard oops chalk that up to not playtesting enough times/knowing my own game too well lol. Happy that you enjoyed it overall! :D

Congratulations to all the winners and everyone who put out a game! :) Very deserving winners up there and I hope they'll get even better without a deadline attached to them lol.

I used the Jam Trial version so I don't actually own MZ so it's gonna be a hard No for the foreseeable future lol. Even if I did own it, I don't think I would refine it, at least for the time being. (At a bare minimum I'd fix the small typos and other errors but nothing major. It will bother me a bit those are stuck in there). I actually finished the bare minimum I wanted with One Final Wish. I had plans for extra content and a NG+ but that was also extra and nothing I was going to push for. Maybe one day down the line when my other game is finally finished I'll go back and refine/remake it but for now it's just as it is. For now I'm just trying to work on my massive project that's been on my mind for years. 

But everything I learned while working on the jam as well as the feedback I got I've already put towards my main game so even if I never update One Final Wish again the mere existence of it helped shape my other works and that's good! 

I just wish I had dedicated more time to playtesting and balancing. It's not awful but there's definitely points that are too hard or too easy that could have easily been fixed if I just spent even 1 more day with playtesting.  

Honestly I've never really used Parallel eventing before so I wasn't about to risk it for this, but thanks for the idea it's something I'll have to look more into. Him getting the upper hand and using his skills first is a brilliant idea I'm sad I didn't think of lol. That would have been much better, but, oh well. Lesson learned for next time. 

Hmm, might be the case with the paralyzing. I wasn't able to do much testing with it so it was more hoping it worked than anything. Sucks if it doesn't work as intended cause it kind of ruins the whole status.

Thanks for all the feedback!! :) You make a lot of fair points and I 100% on some of them too. Just to go in depth on a few of critiques you mentioned:

-I opted to have no backtracking to mainly save myself some work, but you're very right that it should have been more apparent with the point of no returns so people were absolutely sure before going on. That's on me.

-Not a fan of using key items to change outfits either, but it was the only way I could do it. For each outfit I had to change the actor graphic and adjust a variable so that the game knew which outfit was being worn (for faceset reasons), and I needed a common event for that. I don't like it much either, but it was that or axe that feature and I didn't want to axe it.

-Betelguese's ultimate attack should have a long charge time and be stopped by Stunned (at least that's what my notes say. I don't have the free trial anymore so I can't actually check). It's possible I messed something.

-Full disclosure the optional boss was literally the very last thing I did before submitting, so it has very little work put into balancing and other factors. It was more put in because that was the purpose of the star fragments and I wasn't about to remove them for nothing. At least it's winnable lol.

-Very fair about the skills. It wasn't the easiest coming up with interesting ideas that were also practical, especially in such a short game. I opted to just have kinda general ideas with some interesting ones and see what strategy would come. You're very right about the Hit All magic (that hits allies too), in hindsight its just worthless and I could have done something else, but eh lesson learned. 

-Yes, the final boss is easier than I would have liked, but that's just how the stats lined up. I refuse to give a character inflated stats when they're on the enemy side, it's just not how I develop things. In this instance, it didn't pan out well. 

Thanks again for the feedback, I appreciate it! Honestly a lot of ideas put into this game were ideas I have for a future game, so I kind of think of this as a prototype for that eventual game, so knowing what works and doesn't will help when I get to that. :)

In the Judge's Roundtable stream on Friday I believe it was Touchfuzzy in the chat said that no results will be posted at all until all the judging is over. However, if you see another judge play your game (i.e. Teal played it in Round 1 and now HawkZombie is playing it) it's an indication that it's moved onto the next round. But they won't outright post the results until it's all over. 

Thanks for the detailed feedback! You make a lot of fair critiques, some I expect and some I can learn from for sure! :) I made a decision early to not let the player backtrack, strictly for the purpose of the Game Jam to 1)make it a straightforward game and 2)limit my workload a bit because I would've gone back and created all new dialogue after each event and that would equal a lot of development time.

Very true about players feeling anxious about missing things and not being able to go back (I feel that in games too) and I would love to go back eventually and make backtracking a reality (and more openness as well wouldn't hurt). As for star fragments, there are 5 total, one in each area, and the energy for the crystal (4 total) is all located inside the dungeon itself. 

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, because to me that's the most important thing I want out of making games. :) Still have a lot I can improve on but that will come in time.

Thanks for the feedback! :) If you're talking about Sirius (the red dragon in the last dungeon) then yeah that's the superboss of the game, and very little testing got done other than to make sure it was beatable. That and it's not well versed for being underleveled. 

I got up to the Thunder Boss before I stopped playing because I was tired of losing and I didn't feel like throwing myself at the battle over and over until RNG worked in my favor. The fight shouldn't have been hard at all, but the boss and 2 mooks kept using Storm and other magic dealing ~260-320 damage (yes the mooks were dealing the same damage as the boss) and I just died before I even had a chance to retaliate. Basically for every 1 turn of mine I got hit 3-4 times for a few hundred each hit. 

From what I played though, the game was fine. There's nothing truly bad about it, it's just a pretty decent and average game. For what it's worth, I enjoyed what I played and that is what we're really after. The character portraits are pretty charming and I like the whole tower climbing thing to find Jason. The puzzles were simple but enjoyable.  The combat was pretty simple, but I had fun nonetheless with it. The storyline was fine. I didn't get much of it (nor did I see the end so I can't say for certain) but it's got potential with what happens next. It's enough to get you interested in learning more, so that's good. 

While the combat was simple, it was also very easy. I mean that as, the first two areas of the game are a water place, and fire place, and Lucy has a thunder spell and water spell. So pretty early on you realize all you need to do in area 1 is just use Thunder. It's fine, it's not terrible, but it's not the most engaging combat. All you need to do is use Thunder (and freeze/downpour for area 2) for each battle and you win. No thought required. Lucy has a bunch of spells of different elements, it would have been nice to see her use them more freely. Maybe that happens later but in the start it just one thing.

Overall it's a fine game, and we all know how much work goes into making a game jam game something fun and enjoyable in that time. I think with some more work (and time lol) it has potential to be better! Good job on the game! :)

Thanks for the feedback! :) Yeah, balancing unfortunately had to get the short end of the stick due to time constraints. That together with the sub-optimal enemy AI (that basically just leaves everything to chance) it means some people will sadly get some bad luck and get wrecked. :( 

I also went with the 0 plugin route.  It was rough at some points because certainly things would have been more efficient, but it also kind of helped in a way because it narrowed down what could/couldn't be done and just let me focus on certain things within reach. Plus it helps stops feature bloat by just adding plugin after plugin lol. 

This so much. If I win, that's great, but it's not what I was really going for by joining. I wanted to learn about developing more and get better at it, and forcing yourself to make a game in such short time gets you to hone in on what's really important. And the end of the day if I made a game that people enjoyed playing, then that's a win for me. And if people don't enjoy it, then I know where I can improve.

Good luck to everyone that entered, and congrats on finishing a game at all, that's a huge victory for all of us. :)

There were so many hurdles I don't even know the biggest one lol. 

Just to name a few:

-The length. I 100% planned for my game to be short and under and hour. I.e. it would be a game that I myself could beat in like 30 minutes so that new players would be around the hour mark but, uh, that wasn't the case. It took my way longer.  So, uh, oops. Don't regret it at all if the game needs to be longer than an hour it should. If I lose points because the ending isn't judged, then that's how it is.

-The time limit. This is my first ever game jam. Heck, this is my first ever game I've finished (my other game is forever developing).  One month feels like a long time a few days in, but feels so short when you've only got a week left and still so much left to do. If I ever do a Game Jam again, I am 100% managing my time better now that I have experience with just how strict it is. 

-Myself. I get ideas for a game in my head and I just want to do them. So many things could have saved time if I didn't want to add a certain thing but nope that's not how I work. The worst part is I don't know if players will even notice or pay much attention to the smaller details. Maybe they will?  Either way, I remember Steel from Studio Blue saying that a Game Jam really shows what you as a developer focuses on in development, and I definitely focus on the smaller details rather than the bigger picture. 

Hey everyone! :)

The demo for my game, Untold Story, has been out for a bit and I'd love to get some feedback on how I can improve it and just to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't work. 

Untold Story is a turn-based RPG with a bigger focus on story and characters. It contains a wide cast of characters and NPCs to meet and get to know, and several dungeons to test your skills in battles. As a fair warning, there is a lot of dialogue in the game, so for those that prefer much more action, it may not be the best suited. If you're interested, you can read more about it at the game page: https://meowsticks.itch.io/untold-story 

Thanks for reading! :D

Image below is from mid-battle, showing of the party members, Roxy, about to use her Skills on a Monster.

Hey everyone! :)

I've finally got around to making an itch page for my game: Untold Story. You can read a lot more info and download the demo for yourself on the page found here, but here's a summary of what you can expect from it!

Untold Story is my take on turn-based JRPG games of old, where the player forms a party of characters and ends up saving the world. There is a large emphasis on story and character development, and is really a game where the more you engage and put into the world, the more you get out of it. The story follows Rover Wilson as he is mysteriously teleported away from his home along with a few of his friends. What starts as a simple quest to find his lost friends will turn into a grand adventure to save the world--but it won't be a simple task.

The demo features 6 playable characters, each with their own unique playstyle in battle. Players will travel the world, speak with over 70 unique NPCs to learn their stories, complete side quests for rewards, open treasure chests for goodies, and test their skills by battling Monsters and bosses that roam the dungeons. 

Currently the game is still in development, but the demo is available for download. It generally runs between 10-16 hours, but the playtime depends on your playstyle and amount of optional content you do. This equates to about 1/3 of the full game. 

Below is a sample battle to give an idea of how the game plays during combat. It is from an older build so there many be a few things that have been changed since then, but the general idea remains the same.