MV - Dream Chaser - Demo

● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY
Started by Dails 15 posts View original ↗
  1. Hello everyone, I have finished my game for a JAM and I would like to share it! It is an RPG with attacks where you have to block and execute with minigames. I hope you like it and if you try it, let me know what you think!

    dreamchaser2.png

    portada2.png
    Synopsis

    Dream Chaser returns to join the JAM with a new storyline! With more playable characters, new combat mechanics, and some graphical improvements!

    You play as Daría, a dream hunter who must fulfill a role that has been a tradition in her family for years. She is one of the few people capable of hunting down the dream creatures that threaten to destroy people's minds. Balancing this dangerous duty with school makes things tough for her. Could she have someone to help her through it all? Let's hope so!

    Screenshot_282.png

    Gameplay and combat mechanics have been revamped! Now there's a system of orbs that generate based on your mood. Precision in your attacks is crucial, requiring well-timed blocking and striking. Use your skill and strategy to overcome challenges!

    Screenshot_280.png

    A journal has been added for you to read Daría's thoughts on her situations and surroundings. It also includes a section to review tutorials if you get lost, in addition to collectibles!


    Screenshot_281.png

    Link: https://dails.itch.io/dream-chaser
  2. If you'd be ok with it, I'll give this a play on my channel.
  3. Say, the art for this is sick as hell! Added to the queue!
    Also that smile in the poster....:kaophew:
  4. OneManIndie said:
    If you'd be ok with it, I'll give this a play on my channel.
    of course! Send me the gameplay when you upload it!
  5. The art and the screenshots look super cool!
    I'll definitely give it a try when I have some spare time and share back my thoughts on it.
  6. Art looks great!
  7. Oooh that looks neat! Nice job with the mapping and the art style.
  8. To those who are going to play the game, please check for new updates to the demo. This is important because I fix bugs and other aspects of the game to ensure you have the best possible experience.

    The 0.1.2 demo was recently uploaded. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading!

    Link: https://dails.itch.io/dream-chaser
  9. Heyas, I gave your demo a try but ended up softlocked in the fight with the yellow gummy bear because I was no longer able to use Knife Throw. Unfortunately that wasn't the only bug I ran into, I had to restart a few times because screens would stay black after cutscenes...
    Feedback
    I noticed a number of lines of dialogue and menu descriptions were left in Spanish, which is a shame because it makes it harder to follow the story. I understand that English isn't your first language, so it would be good to find an English editor to help you polish up your writing so that it really supports your story. Right now some of the dialogue reads awkwardly and the whole interaction with the vending machine is still in Spanish, so while I could get the general vibe you were going for I didn't know exactly what was going on. Another big problem was in battle with the blue gummy bear, one of its attacks had the line 'molesta Daria' which was extremely concerning... Until I google translated and realized you meant 'bothered Daria', a totally different situation. Going through your whole game and double-checking or rewriting the words will be necessary to make your game the best it can be.

    Now onto the spots where I got trapped. First place I got trapped was by the vending machine, I had walked up to it in Lucid Sight mode and then turned it off, and was somehow closer to the vending machine than I was supposed to be so I could only spin in place until I reactivated Lucid Sight. Check those events to make sure they're set the same so that players can't get stuck there. Then I bought some drinks and went to give one to the smoking girl, but when they moved to the bench the start of the event where I had the yes/no choice replayed so I could choose 'yes' again and that would leave the screen totally black even after the cutscene finished. So I had to restart and make sure to choose 'no' there, and then if finally played how you intended. I did manage to get the game to lock up during the shift to the dream world too, but I was unable to recreate that one so I don't know how or why it happened once.

    Speaking of giving the smoking girl a drink, the event took both a Life-Cola and a Chocolate Milk from me! :kaolivid:If the game can take more than one item from the player, make sure to give the player a choice since the Life-Cola was a third of the price of the Chocolate Milk and I couldn't afford another one... Not that I ended up using anything in the battles since I got stuck quickly when they started.

    I do like the concept behind battles, though I didn't get to try it out for too long since I got trapped in the second battle. QTEs can be a great way to add more interaction into a battle, but your current QTEs are a bit too rough to time properly. I would hit the button thinking I nailed it, but then the arrow or green dot would shift so I failed the attack. If you're using a plugin then you need to check them to make sure they're working properly, and if you're eventing them then you need to adjust them to show properly. I did really like that failing a skill's QTE didn't use up any orbs, so that was nice since I failed pretty often, good choice for that.

    As I mentioned earlier, Knife Throw broke for me during the yellow gummy bear fight so I couldn't win or end the battle. It worked a few times, but I decided to get three orbs to see how much damage that would cause and then Knife Throw just never popped its QTE up again. I used Cheer Up to get my orbs back down to two, but that didn't fix it either so I literally couldn't kill the yellow gummy bear. I don't know why it stopped working, but that is a massive issue if it happens randomly to players. Which was a shame, since I did really want to see where this game was going. :rswt

    There were some less game-breaking bugs and oddities too:
    • The plants moving in the wind is a great touch, but the tree branches move during one frame which looks odd
    • Life-Cola can be used in the menu even if Daria has full HP
    • The numbers in battle are hard to read
    • You mention a journal to review tutorials, but it didn't seem to show up early in the game
    Overall, you have a great look going for your game and an interesting premise, but the current bugs just made it unplayable for me. Take some more time to polish up the mechanics and to find an English editor to help fix up your dialogue, and I bet you'll have something great here.
    Good luck with your demo! :ptea:
  10. hiddenone said:
    Heyas, I gave your demo a try but ended up softlocked in the fight with the yellow gummy bear because I was no longer able to use Knife Throw. Unfortunately that wasn't the only bug I ran into, I had to restart a few times because screens would stay black after cutscenes...
    Feedback
    I noticed a number of lines of dialogue and menu descriptions were left in Spanish, which is a shame because it makes it harder to follow the story. I understand that English isn't your first language, so it would be good to find an English editor to help you polish up your writing so that it really supports your story. Right now some of the dialogue reads awkwardly and the whole interaction with the vending machine is still in Spanish, so while I could get the general vibe you were going for I didn't know exactly what was going on. Another big problem was in battle with the blue gummy bear, one of its attacks had the line 'molesta Daria' which was extremely concerning... Until I google translated and realized you meant 'bothered Daria', a totally different situation. Going through your whole game and double-checking or rewriting the words will be necessary to make your game the best it can be.

    Now onto the spots where I got trapped. First place I got trapped was by the vending machine, I had walked up to it in Lucid Sight mode and then turned it off, and was somehow closer to the vending machine than I was supposed to be so I could only spin in place until I reactivated Lucid Sight. Check those events to make sure they're set the same so that players can't get stuck there. Then I bought some drinks and went to give one to the smoking girl, but when they moved to the bench the start of the event where I had the yes/no choice replayed so I could choose 'yes' again and that would leave the screen totally black even after the cutscene finished. So I had to restart and make sure to choose 'no' there, and then if finally played how you intended. I did manage to get the game to lock up during the shift to the dream world too, but I was unable to recreate that one so I don't know how or why it happened once.

    Speaking of giving the smoking girl a drink, the event took both a Life-Cola and a Chocolate Milk from me! :kaolivid:If the game can take more than one item from the player, make sure to give the player a choice since the Life-Cola was a third of the price of the Chocolate Milk and I couldn't afford another one... Not that I ended up using anything in the battles since I got stuck quickly when they started.

    I do like the concept behind battles, though I didn't get to try it out for too long since I got trapped in the second battle. QTEs can be a great way to add more interaction into a battle, but your current QTEs are a bit too rough to time properly. I would hit the button thinking I nailed it, but then the arrow or green dot would shift so I failed the attack. If you're using a plugin then you need to check them to make sure they're working properly, and if you're eventing them then you need to adjust them to show properly. I did really like that failing a skill's QTE didn't use up any orbs, so that was nice since I failed pretty often, good choice for that.

    As I mentioned earlier, Knife Throw broke for me during the yellow gummy bear fight so I couldn't win or end the battle. It worked a few times, but I decided to get three orbs to see how much damage that would cause and then Knife Throw just never popped its QTE up again. I used Cheer Up to get my orbs back down to two, but that didn't fix it either so I literally couldn't kill the yellow gummy bear. I don't know why it stopped working, but that is a massive issue if it happens randomly to players. Which was a shame, since I did really want to see where this game was going. :rswt

    There were some less game-breaking bugs and oddities too:
    • The plants moving in the wind is a great touch, but the tree branches move during one frame which looks odd
    • Life-Cola can be used in the menu even if Daria has full HP
    • The numbers in battle are hard to read
    • You mention a journal to review tutorials, but it didn't seem to show up early in the game
    Overall, you have a great look going for your game and an interesting premise, but the current bugs just made it unplayable for me. Take some more time to polish up the mechanics and to find an English editor to help fix up your dialogue, and I bet you'll have something great here.
    Good luck with your demo! :ptea:
    I'll keep the bugs in mind and try to fix them when I have time or desire. For the moment I working in another project. Thanks for trying the demo.
  11. I wanted to cover Dream Chaser because it looked quite promising. The Feedback Festival helped push me to make this review, but trust me when I say I would have picked it out regardless.

    I tried to play this to the end, and even made to Nexa's second phase, but the game crashed due to the game eating so much memory it exploded. I was already exhausted so I just decided to stop there.

    --

    Dream Chaser Review
    + Love the style. There's a lot of effort put into this just from the title screen.

    + How did you rig it so the game doesn't immediately go to black when you start the game in MV? Because it's quite impressive that the game has a seamless transition from title to map.

    + I love the way these characters look, they're very adorable. As well as them having actual like, blinking and talking frames for their big CG busts.

    + Completely custom tileset! And some of it is animated too, very nice.

    + Big plus for having different menu sound effects that are not the RTP default

    + I like the idea of immediately starting off the game with interactive elements like the Vision sight, even if it does make the game's lighting a bit funky.

    + Diagonal movement! I also notice that your character has different frames for walking vs. running. Pretty cool.

    + I like how the dream world looks and the fact everything is animated.

    + I find it very interesting how you have on-screen displays for things like the autosave and the prompts for combat.

    + Oh you have custom battle input things in this! Very cool! As well as being able to see how much HP the enemy has.

    + I do like that you spread your tutorial across different battles instead of dumping all of your mechanics in the same fight.

    + I do like that you have a quick button to activate your effects instantly instead of having to go through a menu for them. (Even if you don't like, get any others after the candy world...?)

    + The maracas with faces are quite disturbing, I like them.

    + I do like that all of your characters have different weapons, and that even when you miss with the shot special, it does something interesting (ex. Celia and Sara argue among each other)

    + It does take a while but I do like the PREMISE of the story, where you have different people with the ability to delve into "nightmare worlds". Even if it's explained haphazardly.

    + Love how every enemy has animations, and some even have their own gimmicks, like the teachers that ask you questions. The battle scene in general looks very nice, even the HUD.

    + Oh my god, you actually drew Handsome Squidward with duck legs (or whatever else) depending on the answers you had the player give. Not half bad. Very cool boss fight, even if it is an idea from Deltarune.

    + The variety of the game is pretty insane for RPG Maker. Throwing cakes at people with a reticle, an actual running obstacle course, etc. Sure, it's a bit jank, but it shows you really care.

    + Despite all my issues with the writing, I do like the camaraderie that forms with the girls. Just wish Sara wasn't so rude - she's actually way meaner than Celia, who started off as a bully wow. And even then, Celia had an actual compelling (enough) sob story. That moment when she drags her new friends across the finish line was actually quite sweet.

    = Oh, this is one of those games that preloads every asset before the game starts... interesting?

    = Touch input is removed. Huh.

    = Oh you just do 2 mazillion damage to the tutorial enemy once you're the right element. Okay.

    = You... have the same animation play like when you put on effects in Yume Nikki. Even down to calling them "effects". Hmm. (Dream Chaser vs. Yume Nikki)

    = There's also the 3, 2, 1 sleeping counter from Yume Nikki. Hmm. (Original for reference, the Dream Chaser one passed too quickly for me to screencap it)

    = ... Clown music for the first teacher fight after such a long stretch of no music?

    = Are Celia and Sara based off of Sabitsuki from .Flow and Urotsuki from Yume 2kki? Oh god, this is why Celia has saws for weapons! The chainsaw!

    = What even is Nexa? Is she supposed to be like, Joseph's dream girl turned evil or something? Or is she a nightmare creature herself that snuck into his head? I like the former explanation better.

    - (!!) It's not all translated because the save menu says "Continuar autoguardado". There's also just a lot of lines in the actual game that are kept untranslated in Spanish. (You are very lucky I'm also fluent in Spanish.)

    Instances:
    * Vending machine you start out near
    * The description of your equipment
    * When the yellow bear yells at you, which results in them being called the Spanish words for Blue and Yellow afterward.
    * When the bear uses taunt, it refers to him as "Osito" for a second.
    * When you defeat the blue bear and Yellow wants to fight you, it calls him Amarillo for a second
    * You still have "level" called "nivel".
    * The decapitated gummy bear heads
    * When trying to leave the stop light room
    * Student on second floor
    * During this demonstration
    * When you pick up the egg in the dream world
    * There's a whole bunch of students in the dream world that speak in Spanish.
    * After you leave the art classroom
    * The vending machine outside the cafeteria and art room

    - No keyboard rebinding. Get Yanfly Keyboard Config.

    - Hmm. It is also obvious English is not a first language because the first choice upon starting the game reads very strangely:
    * "What was I doing, me, a teenager, at this hours of the early morning, at this place" is not correct English. Just have them say "Why am I even here? It's because..."
    * "Watch if someone pass by" should be "Watch if someone passes by.".

    - Whoa. Why does... the equip screen have only one row for its equip options? The game also has a very odd screen size which makes the cursor go off the menu at times.

    - The writing seems to be all over the place. Had to groan when the talking cushion said he was sick of having people sit on him, but the instant Daria said she wanted to, he changed gears because he's a pervert? Pretty dumb.

    Plus, the random over the top swearing in the candy world was just goofy and not in a funny way, it was just stupid. (ex. "What a " just being thrown out there as the joke)

    - "No way I am that sick. What kind of weird fetish would that be?" and "Are you being racist" (when Daria says the gummy bear isn't a real bear) are both wretched lines and trying too hard to be funny.

    A lot of the dialogue is like this, which I didn't find endearing. It felt very awkward and a lot of the back-and-forth didn't land, not helped by the characters talking a lot when you get more allies.

    - Ahhh... you have all of this effort yet you use the RTP sound effects for combat...

    - Strange how enemies have all of these animations yet they just blink out of existence with no sound after they die.

    - Really hate how defending works, since it doesn't trigger the instant you press the button which is when it would make the most sense. Plus, the inputs in general are very hard to do! You have to really focus, which makes combat quite stressful.

    (I do like that you don't waste your MP (orbs?) unless you get it right at least.)

    - (!!) Oh... this has the moods from OMORI... like almost straight up, even down to how they function in combat as elemental weaknesses. That explains quite a bit. (Original for reference)

    - (!) AH. THE GAME DOES NOT LIKE IT WHEN IT TARGETS EVERY ENEMY. Framerate dropped to like, 5 in that moment.

    - I don't know what the point of the "fullness" meter is if you can eat even at maximum meter, especially given that you run out of fat by walking anyway.

    - (!!!) Not a fan of how quickly we swerved into dark territory by having Daria nearly die from the maracas. Especially since she arrive home to her mother all bloody, and the mom doesn't do or say ANYTHING to her... and then Daria's just fine the following day, like nothing happened.

    It feels like there's an entire chunk of the scene missing, which is already strange enough because the maracas fight already felt strange and underwhelming, since it's one of those fights you can't win because of Plot (tm).

    Even if our mother was a former "hunter", you would think mom would have a bigger reaction to seeing her daughter come home near dead and soaked in blood. Like... what the hell.

    - Did you forget to remove the black cinematic borders after losing to the maracas? It only really went away after talking to the teacher. It's also strange that there just is no music even when you're going to school, like it doesn't seem done on purpose.

    - Wait, so you address the injuries at school, but not with her mom? Come on. This teacher acts nicer and more attentive to her than her actual mom!

    - I think it's pretty silly that you have the "dream" stuff in the real world, like you just manifest a knife.

    - This is just looks like another piece of wall, not stairs that lead downward. You should add shadows to indicate it goes down.

    - "No one asked you to interfere" has the last bit of "interfere" get cut off by the box.

    - The skill description seems cut off.

    - I've never seen an RM game do this when you switch to other characters in the status screen. Very strange glitch.

    - That... looks not good for your save screen.

    - (!!!) Why is Piranha Plant's Lullaby from Super Mario 64 in this when you sleep on the pile of pillows? You're not allowed to do that.

    - (!!!) I think my biggest issue with this battle system is that the emotion points go away after you win or run away from a fight. I feel it would incentivize you to use your skills more if you always started with 1 or 2, instead of having to start from 0 every time. Or at least 1 point in everything for a boss fight.

    That, and Flow isn't really used much for anything. Yet it's strange how there's three different items that all restore the same amount of Flow (30) and even cost the same (Chocoleche, Creamy Milk, Whole Milk). It seems pretty pointless.

    The combat also became pretty dull after a while - due to how limited I felt with my skills, I just mashed attack and ignored the emotion system. You know, unless I wanted more damage in the form of making characters angry.

    - Another example of the strange tone: Joseph is unconscious and surrounded by fire. What do we do? Go into his nightmare world to wake him up. And yet when we're in there, we waste a lot of time doing silly stuff.

    It just doesn't make sense to make the circumstance of entering his mind so intense and time-limited, yet when we're actually in there, we waste time drawing giant skeletons with sexy legs and crocodile heads and having food fights. It doesn't seem cohesive.

    - The section where you have to guide Celia's saw-table across the sea of papers is very finicky and even just barely tapping the top left corner of your table leg will wind up resetting the map. Oh well.

    - "I thought those were extincted" is not correct. You say "I thought there were none of you left."

    - Uh, whoa. That's a nasty glitch to have for the Nexa boss fight.

    - The Nexa boss fight takes an incredible amount of time only for it to just be YET ANOTHER forced loss fight where you don't really do anything but wait for her to throw a giant ball of papers at you.

    - Her text cut off here!

    - (!!!)The game is extremely resource intensive! But not in that it lowers framerate. Instead, I notice the game uses like, 2k MB. If it goes up after a certain amount, the game just... explodes. I'm not sure if it's because of a plugin you're using or because of how RM games work with preloading, but having to repeat content because the game ate too much memory is not fun!

    My computer ate like, 2700 MB of ram and then died right at when Nexa's second phase begins. I did not want to repeat all that content, especially knowing I couldn't skip to the end, so I just stopped playing.

    I'm very conflicted. The game has a huge amount of heart from its art, the combat system, the imaginative worlds you go through and even the relationship that forms with the girls. The amount of variety the game has is insane, and is definitely something to be celebrated for.

    But Dream Chaser also suffers a lot from poor direction and copycat syndrome. The writing quality is very spotty, and a lot of the "jokes" are just characters swearing at each other and that's it. The game can't make up its mind if it wants to be wacky and crazy or serious and sad, and this is without considering the several blatantly untranslated Spanish lines.

    It didn't feel very cohesive - it just kind of felt like everything you liked mashed together (OMORI's emotions, the transformations from Yume Nikki, Undertale's input motions for combat, etc.). The combat also became pretty dull - I was able to mash attack and ignore the emotion system if I just wanted to get through combat.

    There's also the issue of the poorly optimized code, since the memory just kept building until the game couldn't handle it anymore and just kills the game window. There's also a lot of little (unintentional) glitches and frame drops that hindered my experience.

    You should also really get to removing anything that's copyrighted, like the Piranha Plant's Lullaby song that you snuck in.

    The amount of effort you put in, however, is not something to be underestimated. I really want to emphasize that, because there is a gem in hidden here. But Dream Chaser's low points and the two crashes I experienced really made it hard to stomach after a while.
  12. RCXGaming said:
    = Oh, this is one of those games that preloads every asset before the game starts... interesting?
    That's not good practice - RPG Maker has asset loading, caching, and garbage collecting built in.

    You should only preload specific additional assets if you really need to, and only when they're actually needed - and then discard them after.
  13. RCXGaming said:
    I wanted to cover Dream Chaser because it looked quite promising. The Feedback Festival helped push me to make this review, but trust me when I say I would have picked it out regardless.

    I tried to play this to the end, and even made to Nexa's second phase, but the game crashed due to the game eating so much memory it exploded. I was already exhausted so I just decided to stop there.

    --

    Dream Chaser Review
    + Love the style. There's a lot of effort put into this just from the title screen.

    + How did you rig it so the game doesn't immediately go to black when you start the game in MV? Because it's quite impressive that the game has a seamless transition from title to map.

    + I love the way these characters look, they're very adorable. As well as them having actual like, blinking and talking frames for their big CG busts.

    + Completely custom tileset! And some of it is animated too, very nice.

    + Big plus for having different menu sound effects that are not the RTP default

    + I like the idea of immediately starting off the game with interactive elements like the Vision sight, even if it does make the game's lighting a bit funky.

    + Diagonal movement! I also notice that your character has different frames for walking vs. running. Pretty cool.

    + I like how the dream world looks and the fact everything is animated.

    + I find it very interesting how you have on-screen displays for things like the autosave and the prompts for combat.

    + Oh you have custom battle input things in this! Very cool! As well as being able to see how much HP the enemy has.

    + I do like that you spread your tutorial across different battles instead of dumping all of your mechanics in the same fight.

    + I do like that you have a quick button to activate your effects instantly instead of having to go through a menu for them. (Even if you don't like, get any others after the candy world...?)

    + The maracas with faces are quite disturbing, I like them.

    + I do like that all of your characters have different weapons, and that even when you miss with the shot special, it does something interesting (ex. Celia and Sara argue among each other)

    + It does take a while but I do like the PREMISE of the story, where you have different people with the ability to delve into "nightmare worlds". Even if it's explained haphazardly.

    + Love how every enemy has animations, and some even have their own gimmicks, like the teachers that ask you questions. The battle scene in general looks very nice, even the HUD.

    + Oh my god, you actually drew Handsome Squidward with duck legs (or whatever else) depending on the answers you had the player give. Not half bad. Very cool boss fight, even if it is an idea from Deltarune.

    + The variety of the game is pretty insane for RPG Maker. Throwing cakes at people with a reticle, an actual running obstacle course, etc. Sure, it's a bit jank, but it shows you really care.

    + Despite all my issues with the writing, I do like the camaraderie that forms with the girls. Just wish Sara wasn't so rude - she's actually way meaner than Celia, who started off as a bully wow. And even then, Celia had an actual compelling (enough) sob story. That moment when she drags her new friends across the finish line was actually quite sweet.

    = Oh, this is one of those games that preloads every asset before the game starts... interesting?

    = Touch input is removed. Huh.

    = Oh you just do 2 mazillion damage to the tutorial enemy once you're the right element. Okay.

    = You... have the same animation play like when you put on effects in Yume Nikki. Even down to calling them "effects". Hmm. (Dream Chaser vs. Yume Nikki)

    = There's also the 3, 2, 1 sleeping counter from Yume Nikki. Hmm. (Original for reference, the Dream Chaser one passed too quickly for me to screencap it)

    = ... Clown music for the first teacher fight after such a long stretch of no music?

    = Are Celia and Sara based off of Sabitsuki from .Flow and Urotsuki from Yume 2kki? Oh god, this is why Celia has saws for weapons! The chainsaw!

    = What even is Nexa? Is she supposed to be like, Joseph's dream girl turned evil or something? Or is she a nightmare creature herself that snuck into his head? I like the former explanation better.

    - (!!) It's not all translated because the save menu says "Continuar autoguardado". There's also just a lot of lines in the actual game that are kept untranslated in Spanish. (You are very lucky I'm also fluent in Spanish.)

    Instances:
    * Vending machine you start out near
    * The description of your equipment
    * When the yellow bear yells at you, which results in them being called the Spanish words for Blue and Yellow afterward.
    * When the bear uses taunt, it refers to him as "Osito" for a second.
    * When you defeat the blue bear and Yellow wants to fight you, it calls him Amarillo for a second
    * You still have "level" called "nivel".
    * The decapitated gummy bear heads
    * When trying to leave the stop light room
    * Student on second floor
    * During this demonstration
    * When you pick up the egg in the dream world
    * There's a whole bunch of students in the dream world that speak in Spanish.
    * After you leave the art classroom
    * The vending machine outside the cafeteria and art room

    - No keyboard rebinding. Get Yanfly Keyboard Config.

    - Hmm. It is also obvious English is not a first language because the first choice upon starting the game reads very strangely:
    * "What was I doing, me, a teenager, at this hours of the early morning, at this place" is not correct English. Just have them say "Why am I even here? It's because..."
    * "Watch if someone pass by" should be "Watch if someone passes by.".

    - Whoa. Why does... the equip screen have only one row for its equip options? The game also has a very odd screen size which makes the cursor go off the menu at times.

    - The writing seems to be all over the place. Had to groan when the talking cushion said he was sick of having people sit on him, but the instant Daria said she wanted to, he changed gears because he's a pervert? Pretty dumb.

    Plus, the random over the top swearing in the candy world was just goofy and not in a funny way, it was just stupid. (ex. "What a ****" just being thrown out there as the joke)

    - "No way I am that sick. What kind of weird fetish would that be?" and "Are you being racist" (when Daria says the gummy bear isn't a real bear) are both wretched lines and trying too hard to be funny.

    A lot of the dialogue is like this, which I didn't find endearing. It felt very awkward and a lot of the back-and-forth didn't land, not helped by the characters talking a lot when you get more allies.

    - Ahhh... you have all of this effort yet you use the RTP sound effects for combat...

    - Strange how enemies have all of these animations yet they just blink out of existence with no sound after they die.

    - Really hate how defending works, since it doesn't trigger the instant you press the button which is when it would make the most sense. Plus, the inputs in general are very hard to do! You have to really focus, which makes combat quite stressful.

    (I do like that you don't waste your MP (orbs?) unless you get it right at least.)

    - (!!) Oh... this has the moods from OMORI... like almost straight up, even down to how they function in combat as elemental weaknesses. That explains quite a bit. (Original for reference)

    - (!) AH. THE GAME DOES NOT LIKE IT WHEN IT TARGETS EVERY ENEMY. Framerate dropped to like, 5 in that moment.

    - I don't know what the point of the "fullness" meter is if you can eat even at maximum meter, especially given that you run out of fat by walking anyway.

    - (!!!) Not a fan of how quickly we swerved into dark territory by having Daria nearly die from the maracas. Especially since she arrive home to her mother all bloody, and the mom doesn't do or say ANYTHING to her... and then Daria's just fine the following day, like nothing happened.

    It feels like there's an entire chunk of the scene missing, which is already strange enough because the maracas fight already felt strange and underwhelming, since it's one of those fights you can't win because of Plot (tm).

    Even if our mother was a former "hunter", you would think mom would have a bigger reaction to seeing her daughter come home near dead and soaked in blood. Like... what the hell.

    - Did you forget to remove the black cinematic borders after losing to the maracas? It only really went away after talking to the teacher. It's also strange that there just is no music even when you're going to school, like it doesn't seem done on purpose.

    - Wait, so you address the injuries at school, but not with her mom? Come on. This teacher acts nicer and more attentive to her than her actual mom!

    - I think it's pretty silly that you have the "dream" stuff in the real world, like you just manifest a knife.

    - This is just looks like another piece of wall, not stairs that lead downward. You should add shadows to indicate it goes down.

    - "No one asked you to interfere" has the last bit of "interfere" get cut off by the box.

    - The skill description seems cut off.

    - I've never seen an RM game do this when you switch to other characters in the status screen. Very strange glitch.

    - That... looks not good for your save screen.

    - (!!!) Why is Piranha Plant's Lullaby from Super Mario 64 in this when you sleep on the pile of pillows? You're not allowed to do that.

    - (!!!) I think my biggest issue with this battle system is that the emotion points go away after you win or run away from a fight. I feel it would incentivize you to use your skills more if you always started with 1 or 2, instead of having to start from 0 every time. Or at least 1 point in everything for a boss fight.

    That, and Flow isn't really used much for anything. Yet it's strange how there's three different items that all restore the same amount of Flow (30) and even cost the same (Chocoleche, Creamy Milk, Whole Milk). It seems pretty pointless.

    The combat also became pretty dull after a while - due to how limited I felt with my skills, I just mashed attack and ignored the emotion system. You know, unless I wanted more damage in the form of making characters angry.

    - Another example of the strange tone: Joseph is unconscious and surrounded by fire. What do we do? Go into his nightmare world to wake him up. And yet when we're in there, we waste a lot of time doing silly stuff.

    It just doesn't make sense to make the circumstance of entering his mind so intense and time-limited, yet when we're actually in there, we waste time drawing giant skeletons with sexy legs and crocodile heads and having food fights. It doesn't seem cohesive.

    - The section where you have to guide Celia's saw-table across the sea of papers is very finicky and even just barely tapping the top left corner of your table leg will wind up resetting the map. Oh well.

    - "I thought those were extincted" is not correct. You say "I thought there were none of you left."

    - Uh, whoa. That's a nasty glitch to have for the Nexa boss fight.

    - The Nexa boss fight takes an incredible amount of time only for it to just be YET ANOTHER forced loss fight where you don't really do anything but wait for her to throw a giant ball of papers at you.

    - Her text cut off here!

    - (!!!)The game is extremely resource intensive! But not in that it lowers framerate. Instead, I notice the game uses like, 2k MB. If it goes up after a certain amount, the game just... explodes. I'm not sure if it's because of a plugin you're using or because of how RM games work with preloading, but having to repeat content because the game ate too much memory is not fun!

    My computer ate like, 2700 MB of ram and then died right at when Nexa's second phase begins. I did not want to repeat all that content, especially knowing I couldn't skip to the end, so I just stopped playing.

    I'm very conflicted. The game has a huge amount of heart from its art, the combat system, the imaginative worlds you go through and even the relationship that forms with the girls. The amount of variety the game has is insane, and is definitely something to be celebrated for.

    But Dream Chaser also suffers a lot from poor direction and copycat syndrome. The writing quality is very spotty, and a lot of the "jokes" are just characters swearing at each other and that's it. The game can't make up its mind if it wants to be wacky and crazy or serious and sad, and this is without considering the several blatantly untranslated Spanish lines.

    It didn't feel very cohesive - it just kind of felt like everything you liked mashed together (OMORI's emotions, the transformations from Yume Nikki, Undertale's input motions for combat, etc.). The combat also became pretty dull - I was able to mash attack and ignore the emotion system if I just wanted to get through combat.

    There's also the issue of the poorly optimized code, since the memory just kept building until the game couldn't handle it anymore and just kills the game window. There's also a lot of little (unintentional) glitches and frame drops that hindered my experience.

    You should also really get to removing anything that's copyrighted, like the Piranha Plant's Lullaby song that you snuck in.

    The amount of effort you put in, however, is not something to be underestimated. I really want to emphasize that, because there is a gem in hidden here. But Dream Chaser's low points and the two crashes I experienced really made it hard to stomach after a while.
    Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed review—looks like you really put a lot of effort into it, with images and everything! o_o

    First, I’d like to point out something about the tone of the review. I understand that your intention wasn’t to offend anyone, but in some parts, the comments come across as a bit harsh or mocking. This doesn’t always help the person receiving the feedback, especially considering this was a project I made in my free time for a JAM. A bit more tact in the “cons” section would have been helpful, although I do appreciate your honest and straightforward analysis.

    That said, I’m not taking this personally. In fact, I really appreciate the overall reflection you provided about the game. That part in particular was helpful and didn’t have the tone I mentioned earlier, so I truly value it.

    I’m glad you liked the art, even though the humor might not have been your thing (which is fair—humor can be subjective, but I get the issue you pointed out xD). I admit the game didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. Fixing things like bugs, combat, optimization, or even parts of the story would take a lot of effort, and right now, I’m not interested in continuing this project in the near future.

    That being said, I’ve decided to start a new project from scratch, carrying over the concept of the dream hunters but this time with a more original combat system, a fresh story, and more unique characters. I feel this first attempt, despite its flaws, gave me a lot of experience in development and art, and that’s something I really value. I’m confident the next one will be much better, and I’m quite happy to have gotten this far with this project.

    Once again, thank you for your review. Aside from the point I mentioned about the tone, it has helped me reflect on some areas I can improve. Hopefully, you’ll like the new game I’ll be working on!
  14. Dails said:
    Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed review—looks like you really put a lot of effort into it, with images and everything! o_o

    First, I’d like to point out something about the tone of the review. I understand that your intention wasn’t to offend anyone, but in some parts, the comments come across as a bit harsh or mocking. This doesn’t always help the person receiving the feedback, especially considering this was a project I made in my free time for a JAM. A bit more tact in the “cons” section would have been helpful, although I do appreciate your honest and straightforward analysis.

    So funny thing. I... actually forgot the game was made for a jam, just that it was a demo. I didn't read when I downloaded the game file. Oops. I thought it was a more-or-less complete game, and it felt like one.

    That does explain some stuff. Very ambitious in hindsight for the limited amount of time you had.

    Also, all of my thoughts were written up as I played the game. So every point is my exact reaction to that moment.

    Dails said:
    That said, I’m not taking this personally. In fact, I really appreciate the overall reflection you provided about the game. That part in particular was helpful and didn’t have the tone I mentioned earlier, so I truly value it.

    I’m glad you liked the art, even though the humor might not have been your thing (which is fair—humor can be subjective, but I get the issue you pointed out xD). I admit the game didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. Fixing things like bugs, combat, optimization, or even parts of the story would take a lot of effort, and right now, I’m not interested in continuing this project in the near future.

    That being said, I’ve decided to start a new project from scratch, carrying over the concept of the dream hunters but this time with a more original combat system, a fresh story, and more unique characters. I feel this first attempt, despite its flaws, gave me a lot of experience in development and art, and that’s something I really value. I’m confident the next one will be much better, and I’m quite happy to have gotten this far with this project.

    Once again, thank you for your review. Aside from the point I mentioned about the tone, it has helped me reflect on some areas I can improve. Hopefully, you’ll like the new game I’ll be working on!

    I'm glad you found value in it, even if I came across as harsh. :)

    That's the main reason I do reviews.

    Though I do have one burning question.
    Spoiler
    Who was Nexa supposed to be?