This game was super pretty. The busts and animated sprites were really well done.
I don't know if playing the other games were a requirement, but the characters were hard to get to know and it was hard to isolate the small issue that was solved in the story from the big picture. I was taken by surprise by how sudden the ending seemed. I hesitated in writing this review, because I am also creating a large world and I am facing the same struggles. I am still having trouble with this problem myself, so pointing it out to another seemed weird, I guess. I could also be totally off base here and my ADHD brain just couldn't handle everything.
I was committed enough to the big picture to be sad it ended when it did, so it is still very interesting and has so much potential.
As for the gameplay, while the animations for the skills were neat and the battle system was more unique, I did not have full control of the whole party. I understand they would probably come and go normally, but in this game they were in every battle and that made it odd to not have control.
Some randoms would have been a fun way to see more of the skill animations without worrying about death too much like in a tougher forced fights. If you would rather stay in a more visual novel format, it would be nice to have choices sometimes. I know time was probably a factor here, so please just take these as ideas.
I wish they had two separate categories for creativity. I can never tell to judge it on art, music, or adding some kind of technical unique touch. I usually see it as interactive features, but the style and consistency of the art and sprites was very well done here. That's where I put those points, because I thought presentation wasn't enough. Honestly, I'm not very good at pixel art or animating spites, so it looks like magic to me! Thank you for making this cute game.
This game is amazing, and I can't believe it was made in RPG Maker. Only critique (serious one, the next is a huge opinion), I got so lost in your story and art there were small points where I was poking chairs until Oliver would sit and I didn't know you had a menu. It's small and nitpicky, but other than that the only fault I can give is (here it comes) if you are going to fill a city with cats, please make them able to receive pats!
I'm being serious when I say this is solid. (for the record, I only played part of it, but that's because I'm too busy to finish it right now) Anyway, the characters are interesting. Between the drawings you chose of them to use and what they say for embellishment (or getting to know them) they are able to carry the story to a point where I'm never slamming down the spacebar. I already liked the character that became the victim. Trying to do this without spoiling is hard, forgive me. I felt something when they died.
The story and the characters feel like they are one instead of two separate parts. That is extremely hard to do. I hope you can carry this talent through every visual novel you make, but stay humble and open to learning. (I don't like saying cheesy stuff like that usually, but I was arrogant when I was young and that was my biggest mistake) I cannot wait to see what else you can come up with. Thank you for making this game!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I really appreciate it. Combat is still my weakest area, so I leave the options open in my plug in for the player to adjust. I do not like escape penalties either, I do not ever think I'm going to do that. In my options menu, you should be able to adjust randoms, and if you can open the menu, you should be able to save anytime. I also have the autosave trigger on leaving an area, and after every successful battle.
With my art, I'm mostly just trying to improve. I am still struggling with objects and scenery, but the story is intended to be part of something bigger, and to complete the jam on time, I had to cut a lot of character development. I plan on coming back to these after expanding my game portfolio, so I can improve on them more. I feel like there is so much more I can do for my games. These game jams motivate me to just get something done and out there. Thank you so much for playing my game!
This was super cute! It had it's share of collision issues, and some portrait work would have been a great add, but the city was very explorable and well mapped out. Also, you should add some comments or notes on random places (like bookshelves, draws, windows to stores ect), it's a really good way to give more personality to the characters, like you did with the sand bucket. The sand mirror was my favorite puzzle!
The story was very nice, and you had the best city. There's only one game I did not complete, but it is so cool you fit in a lock picking game when others (including myself >_<) did not fit it in. I don't remember any others with that, again I did not finish one game, so not sure if correct on that.
Overall, this is an amazing first RPG Maker game! Honestly, most of my critique was mostly ways to add to what you have already done, so it's really just advice or an idea. The only actual critique is to double, even triple check your collision. I hope you make more games, and keep having fun with it!
Hi! I tried to play your game, but it seems like when you deployed, RPG Maker did not send over your whole img folder set for this project. This means after I hit start on the title it crashes with an error message saying it cannot find the img it needs. This happens to me all the time.
The folder in img that usually effects my projects is the pictures folder. If you do not encrypt, simply check the deployed folder, and see what is missing. 98% of the time its img. 90% of the time its the pictures folder within img folder. Then, just put the missing files copied from your project into the matching folder in deployment.
If you encrypt (or I'm a dummy and you have to do this anyway), deploy a copy without excluding unused files, it will be beefy. Then deploy excluding like normal, then take the files from the beefy file you need and stick them in the one that has excluded unused items.
I'm so sorry if this sounds overwhelming, but I suggest starting your search with the pictures folder in images and if that doesn't look different boot the errored game and read exactly what it cannot find it will say something like "Cannot find File: img/pictures/png" That's an example, but the folder breakdown and filenames should be familiar to you. Start looking there, that's where they lost your files in transfer.
I really hope this helps. I want yo save someone from suffering the same frustration I had when starting out. Even for this jam I had to do this trick to get my game to run. I wish you well, and I look forward to playing your game when you can fix it. Also if you have questions, I'll do my best to answer. I'm no genius at this program, but I wanted to try to help based on my experience with it. Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you for your feedback! I'm trying to learn more about putting my art and stories into games, because I play way more games than I read books. I feel like these jams teach me more than I ever do on my own. Also, I am in process of some redesign and those busts were made before I learned about how to make pictures fit the game engine. I sadly used a lot of older things, because so many unexpected things happened in the past few months >_<... I will definitely use your valuable feedback to help me in the future. I am truly thankful you took the time to write this. Thank you so much!
Oh my gosh, thank you! I really appreciate the feedback, and your video was super nice. I didn't get a chance to do a few things, and not only did I have little time to tune the combat, but I'm also still trying to figure out what is best, so thank you so much for all of your insights on my combat. Combat is the area I have the most trouble with right now. Hopefully next time my grammar and timing will be a lot better too. Thank you so much for all your pointers, this means so much to me.
I'm going to open this with I have never seen an RPG Maker game like yours before. Structurally, you can tell, but the way your story and mechanics go, I think it really stands out. I did not really see the theme until quite a way in, but I loved the twist.
I found the game to be on the difficult side once I hit Layer 4, but that could be just how slow my reaction time is to an active battle system. My biggest critique is the red menus and message boxes got hard on my eyes. I can only suggest that in the future you ask a couple of people who haven't been staring at it the whole time to see if it looks readable. Red is a very powerful color, and getting a balance between a good shade that fits your theme and is also readable can be difficult, especially since the color wheel in the RPG Maker database looks nothing like the actual menus in the game. I'm sorry if that sounded picky, but the database is such a liar with color.
Overall, I thought the hook was a little weak in the beginning of the story, but that dungeon was amazing and sucked me right in. Like walk into that first bit of sludge, and wow. It really made me eager to explore your creative dungeon. I'm glad I got as far as I did, because being left with that twist was amazing. This is a very solid game, I mean, the worst comment I have is about something like window color, and that the intro was slow. This one was fun and that's the best part. Thank you for creating this.
I really enjoyed this one! The characters looked good, and the gameplay was really fun. I guessed the direction on the first try, so I went back to see what happens if you don't pick it. I hope I'm not spoiling. I loved the boss names too. Again, the guidance on how to play was clear and I ranked that with gameplay. I also got into the small story more than I thought I would.
My biggest critique is the light path at the end (unless I missed something!) was just a literal path, and the ending was very sudden. Other than that, it seemed rather solid to me.
Thank you for making this! I look forward to seeing an expansion if you decide to do it.
Unfortunately, the Mac issue is much more complicated than I thought. I have someone with a little more experience with tech issues looking into it. It may take a while, but I'm hoping to fix it and still make this Mac compatible. I loved my Mac Air, and I was always sad not many games were playable on it. Thanks for reading!
I had to take the Mac Version down, because it doesn't seem to work. I'm looking into the problem and trying to fix it. Hopefully, it will be available soon!
Thank you so much for your critique. I'm very new at this, and one of the things I learned from this experience is to look at the big picture before I get too involved. Three days goes by very quickly!
To answer your question, that was a mistake. I'm so sorry that was confusing. I was using the flat code for the event and forgot to change the choice names. Thank you for pointing that out.
I'm working on fleshing out the story better, and I'm really happy about your combat critique! This will help so much!
I am going to go back and improve the game later, so I thank you very much for your valuable feedback.
Thank you so much for you kind words! Enemy composition kind of fell off my radar towards the end when I realized I haven't coded the story events yet... Still, I'm new to this, so I glad to have received this critique. I have a few more games and stories planned for this universe (also I plan to improve on this one), so I hope you'll stick around to see the rest.
I really liked it! It was a different way to interpret the theme, good story, good characters. I just didn't like how no matter which end you got you got a game over screen after. Maybe a simple "The End" would be more rewarding. Real fun game!
Posted this on the game's page, but in case you didn't see it:
That was different. I liked the concept a lot. One small critique, though, I think it could've used a little more character development. I would've liked to be more attached to the characters. I know it's hard with the time constraint, but I think this game is worth coming back to later with those extra touches. Loved the creepy vibe and the simple console with the hint. The concept of the rooms changing was also awesome.
That was different. I liked the concept a lot. One small critique, though, I think it could've used a little more character development. I would've liked to be more attached to the characters. I know it's hard with the time constraint, but I think this game is worth coming back to later with those extra touches. Loved the creepy vibe and the simple console with the hint. The concept of the rooms changing was also awesome.
