First of all, thanks for taking the time to reply with so much feedback.Cooldogephone wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 5:55 pm My review after finishing the current game. It was about a 15-18 hour ride in total... you mileage will very depending on how long it takes you to figure out the back-track sections.
I'll divide this up into game-play and narrative as it certainly is some of both. I want to make clear that I really enjoyed the game. I will certainly play any and all future releases. Save game compatibility was good. I only ran into a few minor bugs which resolved themselves by quitting and re-loading the game. Again, 10/10, 5 stars, excellent game. Would, and probably will, play again.
I WANT MORE OF IT NOW, DAMNIT!
- Spoiler: show
- Generally: very, very unique idea in terms of gameplay. It feels like a combination of pokemon + final fantasy.
The combat mechanic is an excellent idea. It isn't just "stroke for x time, press attack button, repeat". Rather, I think you did an excellent job giving the player agency within combat. The player feels as if they directly influence combat. I think the idea to do full tease or to do one of the lines is a fantastic idea. It makes the combat tactical and fresh.
On the specifics: for basically everyone except the summoner, the most used skill is either going to be attack or to transfer TP to MP to the male hero. The male hero has the best attack ability, and until you unlock the ability for the women to "stroke" they essentially become banks for more MP. The mind ability doesn't do much. True sight is only useful in the castle (more on that section later). For the summoner, however, her ability to summon the nymph which rejuvenates you is way, way too strong. There is essentially no situation where you will not have that going. Once you have that ability combat becomes a bit of a slog because it is a bit too easy and becomes: swing, swing, swing, summon... swing, swing, swing... swing, swing, swing... swing, swing, swing... repeat... I'd suggest a nerf or some sort of cost to control that. Especially in some late game encounters I'll rest, rest, rest, summon just to get that effect going before actually doing any combat if I think I'm strong enough to kill the opponent in one round.
On that note, it would be cool if I could choose what fires first. I would like to be able to chain a tp->mp conversion into a big attack. In the current game, I can't do that because I have to go sequential and everything kinda happens at the end of the round. I wish I could summon, swing, swing, swing instead of having to do the swings first.
There were a few too many times where opponents would only have one stroking line on the tease with two rest 50s. I think the giving out of rests are a bit too generous. Making the rests less generous would also allow for support actions to have more effect. If I already have three rests in the list, why would I spend points to do another one? Additionally, having only one actual tease line dramatically slows combat because you don't get the 2x bonus. Something to think about for the lower tier enemies that don't really matter. All of the more scripted encounters are great. All of them are well balanced and feel great. Its just having to do the "stroke a bit" action 4 times in a row that gets annoying when it is a 100 hp normal enemy.
I think that enemies also don't really attack you with status effects. That could be a cool mechanic which was a bit under-used. I think a standard medic enemy that needs to be killed with aoe is a cool idea too which could be weaker than the boss version. That was the coolest combat in the game because it had more complication and interaction between combat participants. You have an excellent combat base here, and I think you can add a lot more complex / creative things for what the enemies do later in the game with this base. In the early part of the game I think you kept it good and simple so that the player can understand how combat works. I just think later in the game you could add more combat variance and complexity to keep the player finding new stuff and being invested in the game.
WAY, WAY TOO MANY RANDOM ENCOUNTERS. This wasn't such a big deal for me in the early parts of the game. You explore new areas, see new enemies and you are constantly making progress. However.... once you get to the castle and you have to back-track around and around to figure out how and what it is you are supposed to do... yeah... it is a real, real drag. I was fully intending on beating the game without the cheat items given... however, I really started to get frustrated. By the end of the game, the second I saw that I had to go to the castle... again... I went from half-random encounter chance to zero without any guilt what-so-ever. POTENTIAL SOLUTION: cap the number of random encounters the player can get in sections which require significant back-tracking or have a puzzle element. It is hard to keep a mental map of the confusing castle in head, dick in hand, all while being interrupted every 25 seconds for a long drawn out sequence of the same. Another idea would be to combine the below with loot drops to make the player feel like they are actually getting something out of the combat...
Items/Crafting could be used more. I did, in general, feel satisfied. But, I couldn't help but think that the inventory wasn't used enough. I felt wishing for my character to level up more, get some cool gear, etc. I think that would have made the game better. Maybe I got unlucky or didn't find the secrets to give me that way cool cock-sword or whatever, but I felt like this could be an area that could massively improve the sense of progression... if more cool shiny things were thrown at the player that effected combat, I'd play more of the random encounters. HP really isn't enough of a reward.
The castle... urrrg... What a mess trying to find what to do. It is a real, real slog. Partly for my own stupidity in not using the number for the laser thing in the front hall... but even that aside. It is a real-back-track fest. Giving the player a map in their inventory of the castle once they have been to every room would have been nice so that the player can move efficiently. I had to make a map myself so I could plan movements to minimize random encounters before my will broke. But, when the player is stuck and has to walk all the way from the secret lab, around the walls of the castle, back underground and all the way around... yeah, that's a slog with the random encounters, especially if they have trouble figuring out that there is that single piece of water they can run over that is different than every other water in the game. I LIKE THE PUZZLE, BUT, with random encounters on, if I wasn't already invested I would have quit playing the game the second time I heard that I had to go to the castle. I imagine on my second-playthorugh the castle will cause less problems since I know where everything is... but a lot of time was spent wandering around making sure I didn't miss something and beating the same maids over, and over, and over again with no reward what-so-ever.
LOVED THE MINI-GAMES! Really, really cool! I really enjoyed the performance mini-game. Super, super cool. I also liked the way that you were able to make boss encounters feel different with different combat mechanics in their rounds. ALL OF THE SCRIPTED SEQUENCES ARE FANTASTIC!!!! 11/10.
COLLECTIBLES ARE AWESOME!!! 10/10 on the photo-sets. Love the idea! Keep putting those in there! Kept making me want to explore and find more.
BUGS: There are several times where a manual page 20 fails to load. This will allow the game to run until you hit a loading screen. At which point it gets into a locked loop. FORTUNATELY: the game saves where one is after the loading screen, thus simply closing and re-opening solves the issue entirely.
Narrative:
Quite the cool plot. On one hand it is a standard boy goes to girls school type of idea. Not surprising to anyone, but boy does it take a really, really cool turn. Huge fan of the story. I really like the dueling worlds narrative. I like all the characters. They are generally well written and each have their own personality. I do think Anita might be a bit under-developed to turn out to be the supreme villain. GIVEN, HOWEVER, this is just a part of the larger game.
Some super minor typos in the early game. Nothing that prevented understanding.
You kinda trick the player in the first series of quests by posing a false choice with having to do a study date with each of them. I think that's a great idea to get the character development in and introduce each character, and then to actually get the plot going in a single, needed, direction. I think that this false choice is something that would be cool to return to in the later parts of the game. I think you did good not to branch out too early.
One minor issue: I often got abilities for characters before they were explained to me by the tutorial.
Really enjoyed the world building with all of the mythical creatures and the people you meet along the way. The world seems to make sense, but its just a bit off. I like how each character's (even the minor ones) setting reflects their own mentality in a way. I do think that there is potential for having enemies that are more biome specific. Potentially choosing different outfits for different landscapes that one is in. I am thinking of a winter island or a desert island giving different general themes to the enemies you face.
I really like how meeting new people creates new enemies!
The Ms. Betty / Anita tension with who is the real bad one is great. Really want to see where this goes.
I really appreciate it!! It helps to know what people think for tweaks, rebalancing, and Part 2!!
- Spoiler: show
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The Tease list was actually a way to make it not just you attack, I attack type of back and forth. I remember an old tease I played a long time ago which had a list of stuff to do per page, and I though, that would work.
Having said that, the Tease list was also a product of me being new to making these games with the software I had. This is my first game, and I used it as a learning experience. The most important lesson so far? Don't put any whitespaces in file names.
Critiques I might be able to do something about:
When there's only one line, or only rests.
I might be able to make an accessory which will always allow you to do a stronger skill, like stroke 50 for example.
Status Effects
The status effects were mostly to effect the girls. There weren't too many to effect you or your teammates. There's some I added later, but they were more to augment your skills. I like the idea though, and will probably add some, though I'd need to think about what they would do.
Do you have some examples of which ones you think could have been implemented more?
The random encounters:
Yes. I will likely tweak the encounter rate in Anitas castle for sure. I agree that is a place where I think there's more wandering around. There's actually a super low rate in the casino too! Not sure if it's even noticeable. One problem with the game making engine is you can only change the max encounter rate (i.e. maximum number of steps before encounter). But not the minimum, so even if I set the rate super high, it's still possible, though less likely to get another encounter soon after. I will look into that.
Items Crafting:
I did have all those outfits in the end game, but they are more for the teammates, and not your character, but yeah, I should add more stuff.
The castle, yeah that was meant to be puzzling, but I guess the encounter rate needs to be set much lower so it's not annoying. A few here and there should be enough.
Mini-Games:
By Performance, do you mean the Theater performances?
Did you play the casino games at all? I'm particularly proud of those.
Had to make all the games from scratch.
Also curious if you took out a line of credit.
Collectibles:
Yeah, I'm glad they served the purpose, makes you want to go in and see what's in a room.
Manual Bug, which version do you have? I thought I got all those, but I may have missed one or two.
On the Narrative,
Yeah, Anita was supposed to be a bit of a mystery, but more will be explained in part 2!
The choice of the study dates was originally going to lead to more differences depending on who you choose first.
Right now, if you Whichever you choose first, from Hailey or Destiny, that's the one who's town you'll go to first and free, and you'll get them as a playable character first. The only difference is, if you have Destiny first, when you go to Hailey's town, you can discover the hidden room in the item shop. Otherwise, you'll need to come back later for that during the endgame stuff.
My original plan was to make the choice have more impact on the game later, but it ended up being too complicated at the time for me to figure out.
The Biome specific idea is possibly how I might handle part 2.
Quick insights on how I plan to do part 2:
There will be more open world exploring of the real world.
There will be less linear options, so you will be able to pick which dreams to do next.
Of course, more story explaining what's going on with Anita and Betty, and the Dreamscape in general!!
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the critique and praise, I really appreciate it!!!
I hope part 2 doesn't take me as long since much of the framework is already build.
), but will make some general considerations:
