Thanks. I had fun figuring out how to make it work, so I'm glad people are enjoying it.
Ugh, thanks for pointing out the error, too bad I can't fix it during the jam. Really bad that it was copy/pasted into all three of the "good" endings.
Zyphli
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I thought this was well done. I like that you add voice acting to your characters. Good mapping, I really liked the dance club and dancers.
As far as gameplay, I felt like running between ! markers took away from the "investigation" part of it and there wasn't really a chance of failure. But do understand it for a jam that players need to be able to finish in a short time.
And to echo the previous comment, the cast of characters was great.
Oops, I had to go back and check. The Party menu with auto / options / escape was supposed to be disabled and not usable. Bug!
Someone else mentioned the sound in battles too. Definitely something I have to work on for next year.
I knew the RTP map here was a big risk, but I still wanted to pay homage to the "real" Harold. To me, going in isn't bad, but it always feels like slap in the face when you come back out. One day I do want to revisit that realm and learn to actually make good puzzles.
It's weird, but because I've used PVG graphics since Ace, I immediately delete most of the database and assets as soon as I start any new project. I never actually thought about Harold before last year's Jam. So now Haroldverse is how I think of him and will probably connect to all of my future Harold Games.
Maybe next near I can rescue the remaining Daydream Harold from his dreary life. Is he the Harold of Wisdom? Hmm...
Thanks for the great feedback.
Lost opportunity, the church map was built to be fully playable, I just didn't see any reason to let the player wander around, sorry.
- Really, I didn't want to have to fill in descriptions for all those headstones - so portal the player away from it.
The sprite animations were something I really did want to work on here, since they are one of the things I love most about using these assets. I'm glad to hear they were appreciated and worth it.
I'll have to pay attention to the sounds of other people's battles, to see how I can improve that. Honestly, all I can think of at the moment is the menu click sounds that most games have that drives me insane, or the "cast animations" before a skill is used. If there's something I'm missing, hit me with it.
Thanks for the feedback.
I feel like "Wasn't That Innovative" is a good description of my entry.
I did try to keep the battles on the easy side since I didn't expect turn based battles to raise any excitement in that category anyway. It was more about refining my follow up and buff-induced skill system, and working on setting up the "in-story" tutorials for my battle system.
Apparently I do need to add something new to it, if it wasn't clear that Oldhar uses a Taunt, which is why you couldn't switch targets for part of that battle. One of the Harolds should have commented on it. Thanks for pointing that out.
I am glad to know that you enjoyed playing it.
As the first game jam that I have actually submitted a game in, this was a lot of fun.
- What did you most like/dislike about the jam?
What I liked most was seeing some of the creative things that everyone else did with their games.
For someone who likes trying to make games, I don't actually play many (indie or commercial). So playing all of the entries was an enjoyable experience.
I don't think there was anything I disliked about it.
- Where did you hear about the jam?
Announcement on the Studio Blue Discord
- What inspired you to join/submit?
Actually managing to finish something I thought was worth sharing.
It helped that reading the themes for it triggered the idea for the storyline almost immediately, so instead of trying to force a story into being, I had time to actually enjoy making the game.
- If you didn't join/didn't submit, what was the barrier?
NA since I did submit, but in past jam attempts it has always been inability to create/complete a cohesive storyline.
- Future theme suggestions?
So many good ones have already been posted, I don't think I could add anything new or unique to it.
- Do you have any assets you'd like to make available to the community for next year?
Unfortunately no - any custom assets I created would be worse than stick people drawn by a one year old.
And this folks is why you don't beta test your own game.
Recharge - yep, I feel dumb. I just pulled up the project and don't know why it's set to target Enemy and not user.
Same with Bandages - they were supposed to be usable on other characters. Two dumb moves on my part, especially after making a point of putting it in the book.
I did turn the volume way down on a lot of the skills because RPG Maker sounds are just so loud, so some may have gone too quiet. I'd have to go through various sounds used again, after going through those battles so many times to try to have a semblance of balance, I started getting numb to the sound effects. Now that it's pointed out, I'll try to make sure to be more aware of them in the future.
I supposed that skill really did need a different action sequence. I got lazy so each animated hit did 2 hits of damage.
Thanks for playing, and really thanks for the feedback.
Thank you, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I'm particularly happy to hear that the idea for it has gone over well since story is why I don't publish any games.
I agree about knowing what enemies used, but enemy skills were a casualty of jam timing. I stopped them from showing in the last published update because enemies were using generic skills called "Melee -> Combo1" or "Holy -> Combo2" that controlled their follow-ups and AI rather than unique skills with names flavored to their class or weapons, so looked tacky to me.
And thank you for playing.
Overall, this was pretty good. I liked the story and the idea behind the gameplay and light shards, and loved the the constant chatter during the battles.
The blindness mechanic did get a little tedious after a while though since battles did not drop gold to buy more eyedrops, and the healing/mp items did so little that I felt like I had to hold on to them and not sell them for more eyedrops.
Mapping was pretty good in general, though I did come across a few places where I could walk onto walls or through objects, so that is something to watch out for. Also, walking up to a door from outside went inside, but it required pushing the action button to leave a room, that should be activated by just walking to the door / edge as well.
Also watch your message boxes, there were places where the text went beyond the box so got cut off. Liked the changing expressions in them though.
But still, overall quite enjoyable for a first game.
Thanks for playing, I'm glad that you liked it. Sounds like I should not have nerfed the smoke bombs on the last day. I feel like I could have spent a couple more weeks balancing the battle system. If it seems to go over well here, I'll keep working on it since I'd like to develop it further for use in a real project.
I'm not surprise to hear the writing had misses, that is definitely my weak point. It's why I have never actually released any kind of game before.