itch.io

Game took me about 29 minutes to complete.

Absolutely stunning visuals. Not only does it look nice, but there are a lot of little details that add to the experience. A good example that I thought was really impressive was when the light from energy bolt impacts were reflected off of tiles. 

However, there are a few minor issues that I noticed:

First thing I want to note is the screen space. Sometimes it feel as if there isn't enough room on screen? Certain enemies move so quickly that I have to shoot at them offscreen, and it happens often. It also makes knockback significantly more disorienting. (Also maybe the knockback could be dialed back a little?)

As for controls. I think it might be preferable to dash in the direction (left or right) that the mouse is pointing in? Because there were a lot of moments where I unintentionally dashed into something because of how the dash currently works. Could just be down to personal preference.

Even with the minor issues above I had a lot of fun with the game. Level design was good, etc. Good job.

One final thing I wanted to mention is that I tried plugging in my controller to see if it would do anything. Controller input caused the player's model to scale to ~0.5 or something (I'm assuming your using scaling to turn the player left/right).

There's a lot here and for what I assume is an early prototype. Some of the stuff here is pretty cool, like the day/night cycle and weather. Are the plants automatically watered when it rains? If so nice attention to detail.

That being said, there are a ton of problems, here are some notes I took while playing:

• Why can I use the Z key for confirming dialogue but not in game?
• Why can I use SPACE for interacting in game but can't use it for dialogue?
• Going to be completely honest, the control setup here is not intuitive at all.
• Please add tool tips. The huge info dump at the beginning makes it hard to remember everything. Maybe also a help menu outside the tutorial?
• Bug? Going into the room with grey tiled flooring and exiting causes the tutorial to repeat again even after finishing the tutorial.
• Can't get fishing minigame to work? Not sure what I'm doing wrong.
• Collision of wooden bridge is weird. Easy to get stuck.

• Please Sprite sort/Add collision to screen walls.

Anyway what's already there in the proof of concept is good, but this game needs a ton of quality of life additions as it stands.

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Played both characters that were available, and beat the game as both. Highlight was the spell effects. I did feel that thunder was a bit overpowered.

In terms of menus, I noticed that Masteries kept resetting after each game. Not sure if that's a bug or working as intended. Additionally, while the HELP button does the job, I think it would be cool to add floating tool tips to what each of the skills do in the Mastery menu. 

Also do you plan on adding controller support? It's not a necessary or vital feature but it would be a great quality of life addition.

Overall: It's fun and it looks nice, if a bit short. Good job.

• I'm curious how that clipping happened, did you walk through there normally and it was just like that? I'm assuming you had transformed into the small form prior so maybe the collision didn't change back?

I think I did transform beforehand. So maybe that could be where the issue stems from.

• Did the screen tearing happen even with V-Sync on in the options menu?

About that. I don't know why but checking V-Sync options causes the resolution issue to occur again.

• What controller are you using that's making motion inputs difficult? Does the same precision issue happen when you do the motion attack from neutral?

Xbox One Controller. Can't really tell if motion attack from neutral feels too different. But I did feel myself using those directional moves much less in general (at least when using the left stick) because of the input feeling finicky. However, it was easier to perform those moves on the D-Pad.

I played through the rest of the game after following your instructions.

Beat all of the levels including Boss Rush mode. Boss rush took me around 3 minutes (screenshot above). I would say that my favorite designed boss would be that cyborg horse thing with the axe. Worst is probably the generator mid-boss, because enemies don't do damage without attacking you can just walk into the boss and trivialize the entire fight.

Finishing the boss rush locks the boss rush option in the menu (shown above). Not sure what's up with that.

There was a part of a stage where I assume this is meant for a different form to be able to enter. Collision box jank maybe?

Also there was a lot of screen tearing. I don't remember if it was this bad with the previous demos, but there was a high amount of screen tearing this time around to the point it was difficult to ignore.

Additionally here are some extra notes I took while playing:

• First encounter with Khris I beat the boss but got unhenshined. When the other masked boss appear to fight me I was healed but I couldn't henshin back.
• Movement on D-Pad is fine but on the left stick requirement for accuracy is too high. Like doing the uppercut attack in the air requires really precise inputs with the stick.

Got it fixed. Here were the steps I took. (in case something like this happens again)

1. Deleted "Fxy" folder in "Appdata"
2. Launched game
3. Enter
4. Down x2
5. Spacebar -> Opened options menu and the game returned to normal screen size.

Here's something in hindsight that I noticed. While you need to press "Enter" to get past the title screen, you can't select menu options with "Enter" you have to use "Spacebar" (Note that I was doing this on a keyboard). Maybe you should make it so that it works with both? Also the game menu puts your selection over "Continue" even if it's grayed out, which shouldn't be the case, this is also the same when returning from the "Option" menu.

As for the game itself, I played through the entirety of the Mall. Not sure if there's more after that. I remember previous demo day entries having more levels than that so hopefully that isn't a bug. As for the Mad Bomber boss I just facetanked the damage and focused on getting hits in and that worked. I would say that the bomb explosions have a bit of readability issue as it was hard to tell where the hitboxes were.hanks for your patience in getting the game to work. 

Deleted "options.save" from  the game appdata. Re-downloaded and ran the game again. Still having the same issue. Maybe it's an issue with my computer? I haven't had any issue with other Unity games so far.

I played through the entire demo.

My favorite part of it was the final boss fighting "Dr. Moneybags". I was wearing the gun hat and it shot at him, interrupting him mid-conversation. I liked that there was an actual reaction to it in dialogue. Also on a related note, I wasn't able to see the full cutscene when he was defeated (because the gun hat destroyed him before the cutscene was over). It was funny, and hopefully that doesn't cause sequence break issues.

In terms of bugs, one thing I found was after beating that boss with spring legs and entering the room with the lore machines, somehow exiting that room caused me to get stuck underneath the boss door which had respawned. In fact, the sequence relating to that particular boss fight felt quite buggy in general, at least from my experience.

While combat was enjoyable enough, all the abilities you get whether that be the Eyes of the Shapeshifter, Hats with different effects, or that ladder arrow are really the things that kept me playing.

Hope to see more of this.

Been meaning to play this for a while now. Now that I've got my hands on it, I've got to say that it's fantastic. Got through all the stages + test stages, used an Xbox controller for input.

That being said I do have  a few minor nitpicks:

• (Xbox Controller) Why can't I use the left stick for the menu?
• (Xbox Controller) Have to pause the game from Level Select screen to exit to menu instead of "B" to go back.
• Fade transition happens twice sometimes?
• In "The Coast - 4 LEAPS OF FAITH" when crossing between the two platforms the sprite of the fairy vibrates a lot during the jump. Might be movement or camera issue? Doesn't look smooth.
• Can't tell difference between turning on and off the "Pixel perfect" option in the menu.

Otherwise I'm excited to see more.

Game isn't working. (Some kind of resolution issue?)

Graphics look great.

Controls are fine but there is one thing that bothers me. When pressing the run button regardless of whether the player is on the ground or not their movement speed will increase. This could potentially mess with precise platforming, as unlike the trail effects when running on the ground, there isn't a visual indicator that the player's movement speed is increased in the air while holding the run button.

Beat the boss and completed the demo. Wasn't able to find all the armor pieces (only found the helmet). Have to say I throughly enjoyed this.

As for the demo experience: initially the game was very difficult, but after learning how to use the grab properly and the hunger mechanic I started to get into the groove of things more. I have to say that the combat is very well designed and fun to engage with. I also appreciate the Hawaii theme. I saw the citations you left in the credits, you clearly put a lot of thought into this.

Here are some notes I took while playing:

• Was a bit confused by the icon used for the "Punch attack" and "Grab attack" in the tutorial. It looks like the trigger button but I'm not quite sure.
• I like how everything is themed around Hawaiian culture. Like how the opening is on a cruise ship, the items being local things you could find, and the pamphlets. Very unique setting and idea.
• Should indicate with a signpost that the tent (sleeping) is how you save.
• Sign should also indicate that running out of stamina in water will drown you. (I did find the pamphlet later, but I think this is important enough to be put on a sign.)
• Holding down left stick to run is a bit unintuitive. Maybe use a face button?
• On one screen the falling sound kept repeating, but I wasn't falling nor did I see anyone else fall. Probably an enemy out of view that keeps falling? Maybe you should make falling sound distance based?
• Platforming would be easier if the player had a shadow that you could use to see where you would fall after a dash.
• Once an enemy falls they have trouble returning and thus keep falling. Very annoying sound.
• Enemy went into the water, then got pushed into another screen, so I followed them there, but their stats (stamina) stayed the same, so they kept swimming without drowning.
• Enemies too willing to drown.
• Enemy grab attacks are a fantastic addition. Very cool.
• There seems to be some kind of parry system? I'm not sure how to use it. (At least I think I saw something like that)
• Hunger/food should also be directly explained to players, preferably through signposts. I was confused as to why my stamina was decreasing all the time until I read the stats menu.
• Grab attacks are really fun.
• Somehow had a chicken of 0 count stuck in my item use wheel. It stayed even when I added a 10 stack of chicken.
• Somehow able to overload bag space (like 21/16) I don't remember how I did it, but I remember it happening accidentally.

Overall, good job.

Good call. Going to work on that change now.

Thanks for playing!

To start off, I didn't encounter any significant or notable bugs/glitches during the ~2 hours that I played the game, which is very commendable.

Now as for the game itself. There are parts of this game that are really good, but at the same time there are noticeable flaws that hold the game back.

For the good: 

• Cutscenes are nicely animated.
• The inventory and item pickups are very well fleshed out. I was surprised to see my attack and abilities changing depending on the items I was carrying. It gives loot much more value than just a stat boost. 
• Boss fights are challenging and interesting. Even though I wasn't able to beat that Elf archer boss (don't remember her name), I feel like I could if I had kept playing. 
• Music is very nice. Did you make it yourself? It feels like there's a bit of Touhou influence there.

For the bad:

• Environments look very drab. I feel this is because areas heavily focus on using one color, like the castle area (walls, floor, etc) are all gray and the forest is mostly green (treetops, grass, etc). It's understandable if this is being done so that there is visual clarity when dodging. Even still it can get very boring.
• Too many particle effects. While sometimes it helps to give visual clarity when there's too many things on screen it just becomes a mess of shiny light. In some cases it can also cause performance issues. For example, there's that level where you fight that girl who makes five clones of herself (forgot her name) and when those flying slime enemies started attacking there were so many particles that it started to tank the performance of the game.

One last thing I'd like to mention that doesn't quite fit into good or bad is the focus mode (pressing shift to slow yourself down, like in Touhou). I didn't really find a use for it as most of the time the dodge was sufficient and bullets move too quickly for it to be useful. Maybe it's more useful in a later area.

With that out of the way, here are some notes I took while playing:

• Almost blinded by the level up text, maybe too flashy?
• Fire/Flamethrower attack (Fiera) can go through walls. Is this intentional?
• Some tutorial prompt should tell you, that you can switch between characters with Tab/Numkeys (Maybe I missed a textbox?)

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I feel that the game still needs a lot of polish. Still fun to play, but it needs polish.

• The "Mad Bomber" boss doesn't have a hurtbox, so I can just walk into their sprite and hit them over and over, because of the positioning most attacks miss me as well, making the boss much easier than it should be. Makes sense if this is an easy early boss. The slime girl boss in a later level doesn't suffer from those same issues. The miniboss that appears with the text "Disable the Generator" also suffers from this problem.
• (In sword fighting form) Down attack inputs in general are too finicky. I have to hold down while pressing the attack button at the same time. 
• (In sword fighting form) Inconsistency of the effect of attacks during a combo. For example, while running left or right, the first attack allows me to continue forward while the next attack stops me in my tracks. Another example is attacking while falling. The first attack does nothing but the second halts my momentum in the air. 
• Moving sometimes causes sprite pixels to snap into place, making things feel disjointed. This is especially bad in the sewer area looking for the Slime girl. Are you using Unity's Pixel Perfect Camera 2D component? It has a tendency to snap pixels into where they shouldn't be when a camera is in motion.
• Dash momentum is preserved when jumping mid-dash, which is fine, but it's preserved while wall climbing and if you jump from a wall climb, that momentum is still preserved, regardless of whichever direction you jump in.
• Enabling the option to show enemy HP bars in the options menu crashes the game, and essentially makes the game unplayable.
• Jumping pad bug (check image below)

• Camera tracking jittery in boss room when wall climbing (check image below)

For a final comment, I think the sword fighting form should be more snappier. I'm not sure if it's the amount of frames or something but compared to a similar moveset like Zero from MMX games it feels more stiff.

I'm glad to hear that the orb wasn't obstructive. I was bit worried that players would be annoyed by it.

Thanks for playing!

I'm glad you like the designs! Currently working on even more, hopefully they'll leave a good impression too.

Agree about the mana thing. Knockback on the enemy another thing I need to add as well.

Screenshots are from a previous Demo Day build, I really need to update them. As of right now everything in the prototype is just the first screen.

Thanks for playing!

Lock on is a good suggestion. I'll consider it.

As for the screenshots, they are from the last DD, I really need change them. As for the current version there isn't much beyond that one screen.

Thanks for playing!

Yeah I really need to move away from WebGL. I was rushing to get things in last minute and didn't expect WebGL to handle lighting so poorly. 

About the attacks. Enough people were mentioning it as an issue, and so I dug through the code and found out that there was a bug. Basically the function to set the speed of animations was only being applied to the player but not on enemies, making the player significantly slower than enemies. I've fixed that now (reuploaded a new WebGL build and removed Lighting temporarily), but I'm going to spend some more time readjusting and fine tuning values. As for a charge attack, I'm not too sure about that, I'll think about it.

Enemy reactions are also something I need to work on.

I think I should have something more complete by next DD. Thanks for the feedback!

Noted. I'll keep that in mind.

Played up until I got the double jump.

The atmosphere of this game is phenomenal. The sound all of the robots make, their designs, and animations are really great. That being said, there are problems. Most notably the slow moment and how it negatively impacts the combat. In short, it is difficult to move or dodge out of the way when an enemy attacks you. I think the problem mostly lies with the dash which has multiple issues.

1. The dash isn't mentioned in the tutorial (at least up to the part I got to, and even if it is mentioned after, such a core mechanic should be mentioned very early anyways)
2. The button mapping for the dash, both on controller (in my case an xbox controller) AND keyboard is bad. In the case of the former the button mapping does not work at all as pressing the left stick down opens the map and left button opens the module menu. On keyboard and mouse it's the middle mouse button which is just a bad choice if you want players to consistently use the dash as the middle mouse button input is very annoying to use.
3. You can only dash while already running. This makes dashing in cramped areas very difficult, and because you need to enter a running state before dashing this increases the likelihood of you getting hit before you can even dash.

Now the dash isn't necessarily the only problem with the combat, but it is one of the more noticeable flaws. A minor flaw is the fact that enemies have similar color palettes to the background (and each other) so they blend together. This makes it difficult to tell when enemies are telegraphing their attacks, again increasing the likelihood of being hit. 

Also, this might have been a personal problem, but save stations not healing you is incredibly punishing. I'm okay with the save stations not recharging the Nano Modules, but I think interacting with a save station should heal you. Towards the latter end of my playthrough I got to a point where it would only take 1 hit to kill me, and the game became unfun because of it.

Beyond that, here are some assorted notes I took while playing:

• There is a bug where you can select to load a game even if you haven't ever started a new game. Causes an infinite loading screen.
• The D-Pad is fine but using the joystick on a controller (in my case an XBOX controller) causes weird inputs sometimes (like skipping over menu buttons)? Hard to explain.
• Not clear where you can ledge grab or not. Maybe mark it visually?
• Not sure what my remaining health is? UI bit confusing on that part, could just be me.
• Bind healing items/consumables to a button? (If you can, it's not clear)

There was a softlock, pictured below. The box blocks you when you pull it back to the right.

This game is weird. I thought it would be mostly a shitpost thing but there's surprisingly a lot of thought put into this. Because at first I thought I could just spam the quick attack to stun lock enemies and you can, but they can also block and enemies are usually never alone so that strategy isn't viable all the time. The way things are sort of reminds me of Overgrowth? The game is certainly unique.

Also while playing I took some notes:

• Maybe add some SFX for when you block? It would help a lot with feedback since I'm not sure if enemy attacks are missing or if I'm blocking them properly.
• Tracking is insane when locked in. I did a flying kick while an enemy was jumping. They jumped behind me and then suddenly my flying kick did a 180 degree turn and hit them in the back. I mean it was cool, but I'm wondering if it was intentional.

There's a lot more here compared to DD50, great progress!

Other than that, here are some things I've noted while playing:

• Tables can be arranged in a way that blocks customers from physically accessing (walking to) merchandise they can purchase. Is this intentional?
• Buyers still come into the store even if there's nothing to sell. They still go to the register to interact but just leave after interacting since there's nothing to sell.
• If you give a bad price people just seem to take stuff with them without putting it back? Not sure if this is intentional?

Good job on all the improvements!

Things still feel very janky. Keyboard controls are also completely broken, I'm not sure if it was like that last submission, but I couldn't get anything to happen with a keyboard. 

I think at this point there are way too many different systems implemented. Last time I commented that it was interesting how the game had all kinds of different features and mechanics, but I feel I need to backtrack that. You should probably give the features you've already implemented more attention rather than adding anything new.

As usual there are bugs, just one I found in my short playthrough was: If you crouch right in front of the cube face and jump nothing will happen, but if you sleep right in front of the cube face then jump your character will constantly be pushed backwards. 

Finally, since people keep mentioning Maplestory, maybe try out Maplestory DS for inspiration? It's a singleplayer Maplestory game, which is what I assume you are going for.

This new build was uploaded at the last minute so it's a little barebones. Also there seems to be a bit of slowdown/lag, most likely because of the 2D Lights not working too well with WebGL. I'll have to do something about that next demoday.

Good to know that the game is functioning as intended.

As for everything else: performance-wise, the game runs very well on my machine (I have a 1060, i7 for reference). I never had any significant performance dips no matter how much wind and fire I spammed. 

Overall, this is a pretty cool tech demo and I'm interested in seeing where you'll take this concept.

Very quaint turn-based RPG. Overall, very simple (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

Here are some notes I took while playing:

• Beat Archmage as Level 11 Wizard. Took around 5 to 6 hits to finish off the Archmage
• The art, text, and UI fit the atmosphere of the game well. 
• Sound effect for spells occur when selecting the spell option, not during when the spell animation is playing.
• Can interact with NPC that is behind bookshelf, probably not intended behavior.
• Enemies need more animations. Screenshake is nice but there needs to be something more substantial.
• References to other games are nice.

The game was relatively short, but it definitely piqued my interest.  I really enjoyed the writing which felt like a cross between the writing styles of an Isekai story and a Western storybook novel. It had that fable-ish charm to it. Another thing that added to this feeling was the art style. The anime influence was there sometimes, but it felt closer to something in a Disney film (Sleeping Beauty in particular). Definitely amateur in some respects, still enjoyable. 

As a random note, I enjoyed the little animations that followed the dialogue, those are always a nice touch in VNs.

Overall I think you have something unique here with the anime-Disney hybrid aesthetic, I liked it.

This has a lot of potential. However, the game as it currently stands is in an incredibly rough state, which makes sense since this is an alpha. Below are some points I wrote down while playing.

Things I liked:

• Aesthetic and music are very enjoyable. They fit the game very well.
• Core gameplay is solid. (Using cameras to move around and check on inmates, scheduled behavior, etc.)

Issues:

• Performance takes a major hit when prisoners are moving all together to another screen. Typically this causes frames to dip from 40 -> 20 frames. Notably this happened consistently when the prisoners simultaneously leave the cafeteria.
• Can't use the cleanup option? (Unsure of how the mop works)
• Around day 5 the option to send someone to solitary confinement broke. The robot that was supposed to move prisoners stopped responding and selecting the option did nothing.
• In the bathroom there are three toilets but the prisoners only seem to gather behind one.
• The word "cannon" is misspelled as "canon".
• How to switch back to hand cursor after selecting electric shock/megaphone? (If there was a way I couldn't figure it out, and I don't remember it being mentioned)
• Make cursor appear ABOVE the UI icons (clock, room buttons, megaphone, etc.) instead of underneath.

Suggestions:

• Hand cursor changing sizes per screen can be annoying. (however, if this is a stylistic choice, then it might be better to keep it.)
• Maybe have some kind of mood indicator?
• Weird jumpscare when someone dies? (Don't like this, hard to tell who the perpetrator is? Even more difficult since it's hard to differentiate prisoners from each other, since they have the same sprite)
• Add some method to speed up time? (Each day is too long)
• Have some kind of ticking clock animation to make it easier to see that time is progressing.

Regardless, what you have here is a solid base to work on, but it needs a lot of polish.

Not sure if this is a bug, but this is happening to me:

I don't know how to describe it but I think a clump of goblins spawned in one place and start spawning bushes behind themselves while they run around? Is this intended?

Yeah, I'll have to figure something out.

Thanks for mentioning that. Will most likely spend a significant amount of time trying to get enemy behavior right, currently there seems to be a lot of jank.

Noted. 

A dash was going to be added for this build but I couldn't finish the animations in time. The framework of it is still in the game as pressing space cancels the current animation being played (and then the player would execute a dash/roll maneuver). I think that will make this a lot more easier.

As for movement speed, I'm concerned that the player being able to move too quickly will trivialize encounters. For now I want to keep it as is, but I understand where you are coming from.

I do plan on adding a ranged attacks. Probably as part of some kind of magic system.

Fixed up the second thing you mentioned on the new build. The origin point of the player and enemy is set near their feet, at least for collisions.

As for the first point, not exactly sure what to do about that, since I want attacks to happen outside of the player's hitbox (unless the player is performing some animation that is an attack).

Thanks for the feedback!

This is mostly a showcase of minor changes worked on including:

• Blue detector tiles that turn red when Player/Enemy is near. (For some future functionality)
• New test enemy
• Enemy behavior and pathfinding
• Hurtboxes (When green it means no damage is being done by a hurtbox, when red it means that hurtbox is doing damage)

Checked the new build and it seems like those issues have been fixed. Good work.

Playing through it again I found some additional things:

• If you have a charged attack when your Henshin is cancelled, the charge attack sprite and sound effect still plays. This issue even continued into the menu.
• During dialogue you can still transform(?)

I wasn't able to get very far.

Despite the assets being flipped, they look really good. (Spritework in general looks really beautiful).

Core gameplay is solid and could be expanded further. I like how you can cancel attacks into the shield.

Also, I don't know if this is intentional but on the main screen it says "ULOCKS", did you mean to write "UNLOCKS"?

Other than that. Very good and workable base game. I'd like to see this developed further.

Everything implemented right now is very basic, but mechanically solid.

Sometimes while serving customers I'll interrupt their dialogue and it'll repeat twice or more when I press interact more than once. 

Other than that, I'd like to see where this goes!

I know someone has mentioned it before, but this reminds me of Maplestory. 

Beyond that, I think this has a lot of potential to be good. The sprites are really well made and the UI is surprising clean. Additionally there's a lot of interesting features and mechanics, like the day/night cycle and 2D lighting.

That being said, this game janky and needs some work. Some things I've noted are:

• Collision detection. You can stand on top of enemies and sometimes enemy attacks will cause the physics to bug out via collision (Like an attack launching you halfway across the screen).
• Combat needs a lot of work. Others have already mentioned it, but only being able to attack while jumping is not very good. 
• Not enough detail on what levelling up does. (I never really understood what it does, how it works, etc.)
• Occasionally environmental details get layered over the UI

Either way, you've got something really interesting here. I wanna see where this goes.