First, I want to say that the sprite and tile work is charming. Very unique art. I didn’t run into any game breaking bugs or soft locks.
The title screen and first map not having any music is an odd choice and when the music came in on the third map it kind of scared me because I got used to it being silent. I also feel like the windows on the title screen are all over the place with the options menu opening opposite of the title menu. When starting the game, I like how the HUD tells the player what buttons to interact and call the menu with but it doesn’t tell the player how to move (with arrows) and not having mouse movement and WASD is an odd design choice in 2024. I’m also not sure your game benefits from having pixel movement. It makes interacting with NPCs and the environment awkward and for me, is uncomfortable not having WASD movement. Pixel movement in RPG Maker tends to be a little janky to begin with.
Menus are okay. I really like the scrolling text from right to left on the description/help window, that’s really cool. Once again, like the title screen, the windows are kind of all over the place. Your equip menu has blank equipment slots with no names but can be highlighted and selected which is weird. If there’s nothing there just delete the empty slots. I am also not a fan of the UI sound fx. They don’t seem very fitting to me.
I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing other than wandering around. I’m just plopped into this world without any direction or clue of what people are talking about or what’s going. Your profile says your first language is English but a lot of the dialogue is phrased rather oddly. For example, “Did you get the box of gifts I supplied into your room yet?”
In the room where the Gift Pixie lets you upgrade your stats, you can walk on the black space at the bottom of the map and the piano looking thing seems to be facing the wrong way of how you would actually place it. When talking to the Gift Pixie, the choice box has only CELESTE and then blank spots with no names.
Saving at the “restroom” starts the save slot on save slot#4 or five even though the other slots are blank. It would be nice for the player to know that this also provides a full restore. I had to check the menu after saving to know this.
On the First floor studio where the battles take place, I had no idea the squares trigger battles and once I moved onto one, I got into 5 consecutive battles before I could leave the square thanks to the pixel movement. Some instruction or tutorial would be nice. I guess the battles were alright, most things died in two hits. Enemies are very unique looking. The battle commands have CRAFTS in all caps but all the other commands are only capitalized on the first letter. I talked to Babin twice before selecting the other option and he joined my party. The two dialogue options aren’t clear of what they’re talking about. When Babin does join the party, his event sprite and follower sprite are both visible on screen during dialogue.
There's also some unnecessary files in your game bloating the download. Such as a zipped plugin demo and Mog's battlehud templates.
I know this is supposed to be a tech demo, so the story isn’t really there but I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, where I’m supposed to go, and what people are talking about. A little context would probably go a long way here. So after wandering around for ~30 minutes, I stopped playing. Good luck with your project and hope to see your game improve!
