VXAce - Northwall v1.0.1

I really didn't care for the backview. Honestly, the frontview battlers don't bother me at all (they just remind me of the SNES RPGs like Final Fantasy, which had plenty of battlers that didn't face the party), and I had no idea that anyone was bothered whatsoever by it until Ksi played. You and her are the only people to make any mention of it.

If it's something that would be a relatively easy fix, I would consider it, but so much work has already gone into animating and editing the sideview system that I really don't have any plans to change it at this stage. I've got too much else to focus my efforts on in order to get the game completed.

I may be able to edit the foreground battlebacks, it's something I might consider. I'm not particularly handy with that sort of art, though, so unless it's just copy-pasting something further up, it may not be feasible.

It's just copy paste or simply resize so I think you can do it...


as for the battlers, there are some that isn't obviously not looking at the party, but most of the default ones are too obvious... and I think the fact that the actors are pixel art while the battlers aren't makes the difference much more obvious... If you really wanna pursue that, I think making them a bit higher in position than the actors can minimize the weirdness of it... though I doubt that it can completely erase it...

I may end up being able to move the actors down, eventually. The party's actually pretty complex by the time you get a third member (beyond the starting party), such that I haven't been able to figure out a unique, important role that a 4th party member would really bring at this point. If I still can't figure one out, I may have the game finish as a 3-member affair, in which case I could move the whole actor line down a decent amount.

Ultimately, though, it may end up being a very last priority kind of thing for me at this stage. The game will never be perfect, and there are some design choices that some people will like, some people won't, and some people won't notice, mind, or care. That the enemy battlers are not specifically designed to face the party, when the only option is to basically create completely custom ones, is one of those things that's minor enough that I definitely won't be doing anything about (perhaps if it were a commercial project or I was working as part of a team where someone wanted to tackle that).

The positions of the actor line-up is something I may be able to touch up, but I'll likely come back around to it after I've taken care of more important things - like getting the game to a completable stage as far as the story is concerned.

I like the idea how Varsena has all those emotion forms to be used in battle. That opens up so many doors for different strategies. It would be good if each one of them had a number of very distinct skills that sets each apart from the other. I am assuming they all retain their strengths and weaknesses as well (e.g. Rage having high Atk but low Def, etc etc)?

Elblum seems like a nice town already. Looking forward to step a foot in it.

In regard to the battlers discussion above, I generally am not a fan when front-view battlers are used for a side-view battle system. It does look sort of weird. However, so many other games do this that it doesn't seem so weird anymore. Basically what I'm saying is that I personally wouldn't do something like this in any of my own games, but I don't mind it too much when playing other people's games, because then it all boils down to personal preference. As a suggestion though, although side-view battlers are hard to find, you could try to simply use sprites instead. I mean you've already used those for some of the battles in the game. It probably wouldn't be too hard to simply add some more sprites to the game for the remaining enemies/bosses. (I could help out if you need some edits to be done on some of them, if those edits aren't too hard to make).

wait, there's already some enemies that uses sprites? then all the more reason to work out on it because: consistency

The battles where you fight against sprites are when you're fighting former/future party members, and only under those circumstances, so it is consistent with the game's logic. However, if I were to switch to enemy sprites, I would require the following side-view enemies for what's currently in-game:

1) A large ogre (not 32x32)

2) A large spider (not 32x32)

3) A large plant (because it's 4 enemies in 1, so not 32x32), so basically a plant body with no vines, then 3 vines, each with their own 3-frame animation

4) A snake

5) A large red worm (not 32x32), not earthworm-like, but more sandworm from Final Fantasy

6) A large blue worm (not 32x32)

7) A treasure chest mimic

8) A large werewolf (not 32x32)

I could potentially use the RTP sprites for the green slimes, the rats, the hornets, the bats, the soldiers, the general, the orcs, and the bandits, plus the custom werewolf sprite for the girl (though it's not nearly as impactful as having the larger one, an issue also facing the general). However, I'd also need to come up with enemy sprites for the next dungeon's enemies, as well as for the last dungeon's enemies, including bosses for both. Additionally, I'd need to go back and rework all the animations I'm using, because many of them are designed for larger enemies.

While I understand your point about sideview actors and frontview battlers, the problem is that the amount of resources, time, and work required to change something that is ultimately a very forgettable issue is not going to be worth it to me - or, at least, it won't be until the game's already done and I'm just looking at possible ways to tweak it for fun. That is, unless there's an easier solution than custom-creating a completely new cast of enemy battlers or sprites and overhauling all animations that affect enemies (if the sprite route is chosen). It may end up bugging me later on enough that I'll make fixes to it, but I've got far bigger things to tackle for the foreseeable future.

I'm certainly open to suggestions if you do know of some resources already created somewhere, or if someone's willing to volunteer that level of work and time (which I don't expect because that's asking quite a bit of someone for nothing more than gratitude and acknowledgement).

And yes, Matseb - Guilt cannot use any damaging attacks, Rage gets a 150% ATK boost at the cost of 0% DEF, and Despair gets a 30% agility loss. Their skills are identical to the ones used in the battle against them, so Despair gets Ennui, Melancholy, and Energy Sap (as well as having access to Freezing Blast), Rage gets Pummel, Scorching Rage, and Blaze (as well as having access to Flame Pillar), and Guilt gets Remorse, Conviction, and Penance. The forms will pick up a couple more abilities as Varsena levels, and I'm still looking to implement a couple unique skills to Varsena's normal form (she currently has Elemental Shield and Lightning Strike as unique-to-normal-form abilities. Lightning Strike does not cause any debuffs, but deals more damage than Flame Pillar or Freezing Blast, and has a 40% variance, so it's got a huge possible range of damage).

Just a quick preview on the next dungeon after you're done exploring Elblum: Mount Flarus. I still have quite a long way to go before it will be ready, but I'm able to walk around and interact with the mini-puzzles, so I thought I'd drop a little sneak peek on what I've done so far with it. It's still subject to change if I decide I don't like the way something looks or functions, of course.




If you check the change log in the OP, you'll find I've also made several updates to some of the earlier areas of the game, most notably the gabs and conversations involving Rick, Ben, and Marion, as well as simplifying the chest event in the ruins so it should take a couple minutes at most, instead of 15-20 (because that's just ridiculous). I'm also looking at perhaps lowering the TP cost of searing light and holy barrage to something like 8 instead of 10, to allow the cleric to use his holy damage spells a smidge more frequently. In my own playtesting, I'm still running into instances where he has nothing to buff, nothing to cleanse, nothing to heal, and not enough TP to do significant damage. I'm considering perhaps removing the choice of "ATK mace or MAT mace" that the cleric gets, and just giving all his maces flat upgrades to both stats, so that you can fill those gaps with a normal attack.

Looking nice. I like those bell-sounding crystals. I wonder what sort of puzzle that will be. The atmosphere is very nice too. One thing I would suggest though is to perhaps make those rocks roll a bit faster. If there'll be puzzles in that cave where you have to move rocks a lot, it can be a bit frustrating if each one takes like a second or two to be moved. 

Just the one, really, since the treasure chest contains a puzzle piece - and you need to collect 6 of them, so I didn't want the puzzle to be too terribly time-consuming. Ditto to the crystals. I don't think it would be too obtrusive to increase the rocks' speed a step, so I'll probably do that.

Hey everybody - a big version update today! Major new content includes a new town, Elblum, and a new dungeon, Mount Flarus, as well as the first time you get to use your new party member!

You can find the collected preview videos I made while crafting this particular version update in the spoiler below:

Elblum is a town populated by magi, and it's the only place on the small continent where magic is taught. They're fiercely protective of their craft and a bit xenophobic, but the cleric has run out of options for anywhere else to turn for help. If Elblum cannot get him back to Northwall somehow, then all may be lost.

The town is much larger than Aylan was and even has a couple side quests. One will get you a discount on items from the item shop, the other will unlock the cleric's transformation ability - angelic form. This allows him to turn into either a fury form or a mending form, which get free spells and a 60% boost to either damaging or healing abilities.

Once you're done exploring Elblum and figuring out just what you'll have to do, it'll be off to the nearby volcano to the North: Mount Flarus. The heat of Mount Flarus is so strong that elemental wards are required just to be near it - yet there seem to be signs of someone from Elblum already being there. Varsena doesn't seem too optimistic about who it might be - but there's no other choice except to push on into the heart of the volcano.

Along the way, you'll find a series of mini-puzzles that culminate in the last of three of Galarand's spellbooks, before finally encountering the most complex boss of the game so far. He felt so special, I even gave him his own theme music - after all, if everything goes according to plan, then the next stop will be the return to Northwall (finally!). It's a decisive battle! It's also the first boss fight of the game I have been unable to beat using minimum XP and starting equipment (that is, if you were to run from every single random encounter, never buy any equipment, never gain any optional items through solving puzzles... Basically gimping yourself as much as possible. While it's hard, I've been unable to beat all the other bosses so far under those standards. Not this guy, though. Not even close).

This version update also includes a handful of changes to earlier content that players have already seen. Listed below is a list of all changes made to content that had already been released in previous builds of the demo.

New Abilities

- New ability: Divine Burst. Deals 160% MAT holy damage. Deals an extra 50% damage to enemies afflicted with holy fire (caused by searing light). Is affected by angelic fury (which allows for a possible whopping 768% MAT damage if the target is afflicted with searing light and lunar wound).

- New ability: Lupine Speed. Increases agility, evade, and magic evade by 25% for 2 turns. Removes slowing effects.

- New ability: Saint's Watch. Protects against death state for 3 turns. If target has 0 HP when the effect wears off, the target dies. Learned from Galarand's Manual.

- New ability: Righteous Strength. Seals holy skills, but increases attack power by 50%. This allows the cleric to deal good damage while low on TP.

- New ability: Dispel. Removes most beneficial buffs from an enemy.

- New ability: Unburden. Removes all debuffs from an ally and transfers them to the caster.

Ability Balances and Tweaks

- Removed the following abilities from the command menu: Focus, Taunt, Motivate. These were unclear in their purpose because skills on the command menu do not get description boxes. The characters who use them have instead had their command menu reduced from 4 to 3 commands, and the corresponding abilities have been added to their "Special" menu with descriptions for their effects.

- Taunt renamed to Distract to clarify its purpose.

- Blind has had its hit reduction bumped from 70% to 85%. Since all enemies have a 95% chance to hit, and all actors have a base evade chance of 5%, this should mean that any blinded enemies will only have a 5% chance to land attacks. Almost all enemy attacks are either physical or magical attacks (not certain hit), so if you're getting hit a lot despite the blind status, please let me know what abilities they are so I can double check the database. Otherwise, you just have really bad luck.

- Changed scan's icon.

- Changed meditation's icon. Meditation cost lowered to 4 TP.

- The cleric and Coravis now start with 15 TP and 8 TP, respectively. Since the first battle (with Ben and Rick) already explains how to build and use TP, these lessons didn't need to be repeated in the other two tutorial battles, so now the cleric will start with enough TP to use searing light once and Coravis will start with enough TP to use thunder slash once.

- Scan now generates 3 TP.

- Fixed a bug where the combat log would display "\N[8] uses Swipe!" when the girl uses Rapid Strikes.

- Most player abilities have been changed from "certain hit" to "physical attack" or "magical attack." Enemies, unless special, still have a 0% chance to evade and actors still have a 100% chance to hit. However, some enemies have physical damage reduction or magical damage reduction traits that certain hits were ignoring.

Item Balance and Tweaks

- Steel Mace renamed to Iron Mace.

- All maces have their stats changed to scale linearly as upgrades. Previously, some maces provided a good amount of ATK, while some maces provided a good amount of MAT. Now, they should provide more even levels of both. This is to make sure the cleric's basic attack remains relevant as a filler when no buffs or healing are needed, but the player still wants to generate TP without basically "wasting" a turn doing almost no damage.

- Moved Galarand's Codex (reward for saving Cosgrove in the East Silth battle - yes, that is possible) to Mount Flarus. Moved Galarand's Manual (reward from Mount Flarus puzzles) to saving Cosgrove.

- Marion can now wear accessories.

- Wood Shields can now be sold for a couple gold.

Enemy Balance and Fixes

- The orcs had their HP reduced to 23 so that searing light will always kill them from full health.

Mapping Fixes and Tweaks

- Removed the castle from Elblum. It's not important to the story and would've required many hours of mapping for effectively nothing.

- Removed the limitation on dashing in the forest. The cave is now the only place in the game you can't dash.

- Removed the puzzle explanation from the flowers in the forest. Seemed a little too "hand holdy" to have it. Marion will still interact with one flower so the player can see what happens if you do so.

General Changes

- Made some fixes to the Guilt sprite.

- Adjusted actor battle positions to look more grounded and less like the top of the line is floating.

- Adjusted several enemy battle positions to look more grounded and less like they were floating (except the ones that can fly).

- Added an in-game explanation of the encounter bar at the beginning of the cave, where you first see it.

- The chest event in the ruins has been reworked. There is no longer a cipher to decrypt the password, and instead the hint for the password has been made more blatant (which would've been the ultimate result from choosing "study lid" over and over). The event was taking far too long, so now, whether you're right or you're wrong, it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes.

- Rewrote the gab conversations in the cave and the forest. They should pertain more to the story now, instead of seeming like idle chit-chat.

- Rewrote the opening dialogue of the game to give a little more hint as to Northwall's purpose, make early mention of Galarand, and suggest that the attack is more surprising than previously considered.

- Rewrote the conversation with Coravis early in the game to make mention of time passing since the opening attack, as well as to foreshadow the storyline concerning Silth.

- Ben and Rick no longer leave the town before you.

- Rewrote much of Marion's dialogue to make her seem less sympathetic from the get-go, as well as for the cleric to make mention of the demon to her before they leave for the forest.

- Rewrote the choice of murdering the girl or not to make it more clear that the cleric doesn't agree with it either way, and that selecting to kill her only means he hesitates to prevent Marion from doing so. The choice still has an effect on several conversations throughout the rest of the game, and will have an effect on a late-game battle. However, it should now be significantly more clear that Marion and the cleric are going to be at odds with each other from their first meeting.

- Added a little more explanation to the first battle to explain TP generation (since it's different than the standard system) and the use of impale (since this has not been 100% clear).

- Added a little more explanation to the ogre battle with Coravis to explain the purpose of that fight (that some enemies have non-standard weaknesses to certain special abilities). Also added a lightning vulnerability to the ogre to show that some abilities do more damage against enemies weak to an element.

- Fixed up the gab events so you won't miss any if one pops up right as you hit a screen transition or a random battle. The way the gab events work is to progress the conversation on a variable count (CaveGab, ForestGab, FlarusGab, etc.). Now, each time a new gab pops, it will wait 120 frames before adding to the variable. This way, if you don't get at least 2 seconds to read the gab before moving to the next screen, the event will loop back around and play the same gab again. Since the parallel process is only paused for battles and not aborted, however, an additional page was added to all troop events in the relevant areas to subtract 1 from the gab variable. This means whatever gab was displayed prior to that battle will be displayed again when the battle is over.

- Added Yanfly's System Options script to the game. You will automatically dash now without holding shift. This option can be turned off, and you can lower the volume of the music or sound effects, as well as change the window color.

- Added in Yanfly's Battle Commands script as a very roundabout (but the only one I could find) solution to a conundrum I was facing. The short of it is, you will now be able to see most of your party's abilities in the party menu, such as the cleric's holy skills, the girl's transform skills, and Varsena's manifest skills. Things that are unlocked in battle - like fury abilities or the actual spells/abilities unlocked by Varsena's various forms - are still not viewable from the party menu, but there's more transparency to what each character can do now than there was previously.

- Added in Victor's Custom Slip Damage script. Certain states now have elements attached to them, such that resistances and vulnerabilities will now affect their damage. For example, burn will now be affected by fire resistance/vulnerability.

- Fixed a bug where the Aylan shops were selling fewer items after defeating Marion than before.

- Fixed several bugs in the desert cutscene.

If you happen to have a save file from an old version of the demo that you wanted to continue playing from, let me know and I'll make sure there aren't any compatibility errors. Worst case scenario, I'd be happy to create a version of the demo that will jump you ahead to where you left off with all your decisions, equipment, items, etc. in tact.

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Updated the Features, Story, and Screenshots section of the OP, as well - planning to take a break for a bit before beginning work on the final areas of the game. Preferably, I'd like to actually get some more feedback and then do touch-up on the stuff that's already been implemented. I'd especially love to hear about Silth, Elblum, and Flarus.

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Updating the links with a fix to the last boss available. He has an ability called mana burn that drains your MP, then deals damage to you based on it. The problem is, if you were low on mana or didn't have any mana, it was still doing damage to you as if you had more. This has been fixed, and mana burn will now properly deal damage in proportion to the amount of mana you have, not your maximum.

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Updated the links with a few changes, listed below:

- Lowered the Aylan boss's attack from 100 to 85. Also lowered her health from 1200 to 1000.

- Changed Hybrid Form to provide immunity to the broken debuff, which is supposed to be effective against weapons and armor (which hybrid form doesn't exactly have).

- Lowered the East Silth's boss health from 1150 to 1025 and lowered his magic defense from 35 to 15.

- Fixed a bug with the Belzar fight where active crystals would not cast their abilities or provide Belzar with their buffs if they were between 2 and 4 health.

- Removed Guilt, Rage, and Despair's resistances to Lightning, Fire, and Ice, respectively.

- Added a recover all to the end of the campfire scene.

- Belzar's abilities Magic Boost and Defense Boost (provided by the Ruby and Amethyst, respectively) now wear off after 5 turns. Previously, they would last indefinitely unless removed by dispel. Regen's duration has been increased from 4 turns to 5 turns.

Saw a bit of your let's play I only watched a bit to not spoil stuff for myself. I'm going to try this for sure :)

I'm busy as hell right now, but I still found a couple of hours to play Northwall again (I have to finish Dreadmurk too).

Here are some quick thoughts and some bugs reported:

So... It turns out the forest cliffs were littered with all sorts of passability issues as a result of placing flowers, grass, and other assorted scenery bits. There were actually about 8-10 more spots in addition to the one you pointed out that needed to be fixed up.

The moving before Marion talks thing turns out to be a problem where my "wait 60 frames" command was part of the parallel process that moves everyone where they need to be for that scene, instead of part of the autorun that the parallel process triggers. So that's been fixed.

Kind of surprised I slipped on the Belzar thing, since I recall actually encountering that problem while making that area and pointedly thinking I needed to fix it. I guess I didn't. Now I definitely did.

The vines I actually encountered during my streamed playtest, and was tempted to leave it as is - they are vines, after all, and it only lets you climb to the top of them and back down. I decided to go with my initial reaction, though, which was, "Oops, that's not right." I made the vines not passable.

Thanks for the bug reports - I've got them fixed on my end, but I'll wait until my next version release to put them in the download since they shouldn't be too egregious.

And thanks in general for playing my game and providing feedback, Dalph. In regards to a couple of your points:

Was requested to LP this a couple days ago, so here you go. Feedback and all inside.

Damn, the Chest event was really something. It was an amusing riddle, to be honest. Too bad you took it out. :(

I got a lot of complaints about the chest event from various people. The one I agreed with the most was, "It takes too long." You can't really solve it without some mental gymnastics or getting a pad and pen and doing it without using game resources. Even if you solved it pretty quickly, it often took 10-15 minutes - which, all things considered, made it probably the most time-consuming thing in the game (a distinction I'd rather hand to the endgame boss when I get to it). I decided to keep the same password, but make it much simpler - either you pick up on Maestro's hint (or solve the riddle on the chest), or you get some extra experience for killing the boss (or, because it's an optional event, you just skip it altogether). Either way, the event should be finished within a few minutes instead of a quarter of an hour.

Since the goal of this game isn't to be a puzzle game, but just to be a game that has some puzzles in it (all of which are optional so far, barring one, and I'm still not 100% about keeping it that way), I don't really want them to be anything that take excessive amounts of time. They're just supposed to be fun diversions for people who enjoy that sort of thing, with rewards that will make the game easier without being necessary to get. There is one player in-particular who routinely has called my puzzles lazy and elementary, but I've also seen some LPs where people take a fair amount of time on any particular puzzle, so I think, for the most part, I'm happy with the level of challenge they're currently providing.

If I get a lot of demand to bring back the "tic-tac-toe grid" cipher, perhaps I'll add in another optional puzzle somewhere that people can tinker with, but the feedback was mostly negative on it just on principle, so I removed it.

Thanks for taking the time to do a LP of my game, Indrah (I'm curious who recommended it to you). I've been away from my computer and haven't had a chance to really examine your feedback in detail yet, though I gathered that you really didn't care for the game overall. I'll take a look at the video when I have some time and see if I can't address some of the larger issues to make it more fun.

So Indrah played the game and disliked it(?), while I don't agree with some of her points it's ok, everyone are entitled to their opinion. From an objective view (and not subjective by any means) I still think that the game is overall pretty good and the writing is very good too, so I don't think you should change much tbh.

And if you're wondering I wasn't the one who suggested her to Lp it, I wasn't even around back then (I recently returned from a 6 days absence due to some RL issues).

When I originally started receiving feedback from this game, I was much more likely to generally make changes in accordance with the feedback. This was because, when originally setting out, I really wanted to make a "good game" by definition of "something the highest number of people would enjoy."

I've found this kind of ends up making the game feel a little schizophrenic at times, though. As I've gotten more feedback, some of it has been in direct conflict with other feedback - for example, Hesufo's comment about being sad to see the chest cipher gone was a bit surprising to me. Some people tell me the battle system is too hard, some people tell me it's great.

Over the last few months, I've really started taking more to the idea that I need to make a game that I enjoy working on, and that I would enjoy playing. The more I work on the game, the better my vision of the overall project becomes, too. I like to take feedback and figure out what I agree with and what I disagree with, because there's always going to be some of both, and if I try to change the game based on feedback I disagree with, I think it's going to ultimately hurt the final product.

In my recent playtest, I felt the opening dialogue and scene with Ben and Rick lacked a bit of punch. I've changed the intro scene several times - in fact, the game used to open in the village of small wooden shelters. I decided all this talk about the fall of Northwall didn't lend enough weight to the starting point of the journey. The whole driving force behind the plot was a past event that the player didn't get to see - so I thought, "Well, why don't I open it at the fall of Northwall instead? That will provide a good action beat to jump the player right into the game, too."

While it was not my original intention, the whole beginning of the game really serves as a tutorial and foreshadowing for all the things to come. I can use Ben and Rick's battle to explain building and spending TP, as well as establishing that the basic attack is often not good enough. I can use the cleric's battle to explain that some enemies have different kinds of defenses, so a high physical defense might mean a low magical defense. I can use the captain's battle to explain about elemental weaknesses and that some specific boss fights have scripted responses to certain abilities (something I'm still going back and implementing, actually). At the same time, I can use the scene jumps to give everything a feeling of chaos, that the whole fort is being attacked in every location - on the ramparts, where Ben and Rick are; in the civilian quarters, where the cleric is; in the main halls where the captain is; and in the barracks, where the party groups together and is presented with a boss battle that checks to see if they learned the lessons from the first 3 tutorial battles.

But Indrah brought up a good point in her feedback - who exactly are you supposed to identify with if, as soon as you start to learn about a character, it jumps to something else? She made the point that I need to make the player care about these characters more, but I don't want to spend too much time trying to falsely develop emotions by providing lots of backstory and history and lore in the first 5-10 minutes.

So I added in a small additional scene prior to Ben and Rick's conversation on the ramparts, where we discover Ben is actually interested in learning more about Galarand and Northwall's clerical studies. We get to name the main character (establishing a stronger connection with him than the other party members) right away, before any battles happen. I really want the character development to come from their actions, so I didn't add a whole lot of dialogue to the beginning. Just enough to help the player figure out where they are.

Indrah also suggested that it isn't clear what Northwall is, or what its purpose is. There's a more in-depth explanation of Northwall's history between the girl and the cleric when they go out to Silth, but that's more than an hour into the game. The player needs to be grabbed earlier than that - but if what I have are a bunch of guards, clerics, and civilians that have spent their whole lives at Northwall, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for them to sit around talking about its history in great detail, would it?

So the additional scene has a few lines to provide at least an initial bite of information in the form of one of its older clerics commiserating - Northwall is the fort the player starts in. It's been around for 25 years. It's been pretty peaceful since its construction - but not to Sixtis, the cleric's mentor, an older man who presumably was around when Galarand was. There's a mention of an incident involving a corruption or curse early in Northwall's history, something that Sixtis felt as "a darkness." This is also a bit of foreshadowing for the girl's storyline, partially to establish that even though people can be cursed, there is precedent for it being cured. However, it also helps lend a little weight to Sixtis's premonition.

So now, when Ben and Rick have their conversation, there's a stronger sense of what the hell they're talking about. It also gives the player a couple moments to gather their bearings and establish the setting before it's torn down around them.

There was a viewer during her stream that was additionally egging her onto various complaints by repeatedly complaining about what he didn't like, in addition to trying to speak on my behalf about the game and its development (falsely so). So some of her feedback was based on gross misinformation or an already biased view, but that's not something she really had much control over. I just feel it's unfortunate she had such a strong negative presence in her chat instead of letting her decide things on her own.

A lot of what was brought up during that LP about the story are things that would've been addressed, too. She felt the cleric was too bland of a character, but his views are not really challenged until he gets to Aylan - where, from there on out, every single party member constantly challenges him. She was disappointed that TP was slow to build, but by about level 4 or 5 (so about the time of the forest), you get access to a good variety of abilities such that you're not "waiting around" on TP so much. I could put these abilities in earlier, but she also made the comment that Ben and Rick starting with 5 abilities was "a bit overwhelming," so it seems in my best interests to keep the game pretty simple up through the cave (especially since pretty much everything with Ben and Rick is really just practice before the game begins at greater length).

She gave it a rest quite early on because she was so supremely uninterested in the tight field of view in the cave. While I disagreed with her suggestion of expanding the field of view to almost the whole screen, I decided it was fair to expand it a little bit more to have some semblance of where you're going. I wanted the cave to feel claustrophobic and like it would be easy to get lost, even though it's actually pretty much a straight shot through the cave. It's pretty much impossible to get lost and there's only one way to go (because it's the first dungeon), and it's a small map - but you wouldn't know that as the player going in. So her complaint about the field of view being too tiny is legitimate from the point of view of someone who hasn't played before and doesn't know if I'm going to treat them very fairly.

So I didn't agree with the notion of expanding it as much as she suggested, but I did expand it such that you can generally at least see to the end of whatever hallway you happen to be in. It still makes the cave feel plenty closed-in and overbearing, without making the player feel like they're wandering around blindly.

I think it wouldn't be too unkind to say that people who have played as many RM games as Indrah can expect the worst out of anything. There is no way to know that Ben and Rick are plenty powerful at level 1 for the encounters you will face in the cave, so it's hard to argue her point that she felt cheated by having them not level at all. There is no way to know that I'm not forcing her to blindly wander around a huge labyrinth of a cave with a field of vision four squares in diameter because she hasn't had a chance to see any other dungeons yet. There is no way to know that I won't literally expect her to impale every enemy she comes across, because of the five battles she's faced up to that point, two of them pretty much mandate its use - the bandit and the red worm.

She also expressed a dislike for puzzles in general, so I imagine she wouldn't care for most of the optional content - the cave platforming event, obviously the chest riddle, the flower puzzle. For how much she seems to hate puzzles, I imagine she would've put the game down on the West Silth 3F if she hadn't put it down at the cave.

So... Yes, I agree, Dalph, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Indrah said repeatedly that the game seemed promising, but ultimately, the story and the characters didn't draw her in. I expect that, if she were able to play the game a bit more, she'd find the plot development and characterization she was looking for, but I don't want to dismiss her critique that the intro isn't grabbing the player enough.

Anyway, I do appreciate her feedback, ranting and negative though it may generally be. :) I've made some changes to the early part of the game after taking her feedback into account and I feel a little happier with the result. The player gets an extra couple moments to figure out where they are and what's going on before the action starts. Ben and Rick now have a little bit of progression instead of only being level 1, though they are still capped to be less powerful than the cleric (on purpose - he's supposed to be noticeably more powerful to make him stand out more from rank-and-file soldiers. He's not the squishy cloth priest that most games have). The cave does not restrict your field of view so tightly. The civilian encampment is not so dark any more. Guard's Mark is now a free-cast ability, such that Ben and Rick now have 3 free abilities and 2 that cost TP.

Will there still be people who dislike it to the point of not wanting to play beyond the first 20 minutes? Probably. Am I going to make sweeping changes in accordance with all of Indrah's feedback? No. Some of them were points of just wanting different things out of a game (like a full restore after each battle). But she had some good comments that I felt helped make my game fit just a little bit more with what I want it to be.

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Just updated the project in the original post. You can find the list of changes here:

- Made several passability fixes to the Aylan forest maps.

- Fixed a bug where you could move outside the Aylan inn before the boss confronts you.

- Fixed a bug where Belzar's body magically turned into someone else. He's magical, but not that magical.

- Marion now starts with 10 TP when she joins your party. This should allow you to use sword dance if the first battle you happen to encounter is a carnivorous plant, which is otherwise a sort of rough start without either holy barrage or a small pool of TP for Marion.

- Added Yanfly's Buffs and States manager so you can see how many turns are remaining on any particular buff or debuff. Note that turns do not happen in a static order with the PCTB system, so it's more of a general idea of how long the state still has.

- Fixed a bug where Rick's face would display on some of Ben's lines.

- Gave Ben his own icon for the order gauge instead of using Rick's.

- Removed the child from the survivor's village. Most likely fate? Dead.

- Removed the non-gray tint from the survivor's village nighttime effect. This will make the area outside the lanterns' scope of light more visible.
- Ben and Rick now have a maximum level of 2 instead of 1.

- Guard's Mark has been moved from level 1 to level 2.

- Guard's Mark now also decreases enemy defense and magic defense by 25% in addition to causing flurry to do double damage.

- Guard's Mark no longer costs TP to use and generates 2 TP on use.

- Introduction has a new scene and reworked dialogue to help establish the setting a little more before throwing the player into the tutorial battles.

- Ben and Rick had small modifications made to their dialogues.

- The cave light now extends a little farther, allowing you to see about 3-4 squares around you instead of about 2.

- The cave boss now takes double holy damage when Guard's Mark is applied to it. Rick (or Ben if Rick is KOed) will make mention of this vulnerability when the mark is applied.

- The red and blue worms have had their HP reduced by 30 to compensate for Ben and Rick not starting with Guard's Mark.

- Lowered the encounter rate in the forest maps slightly. They're pretty small maps, so it still needs to remain relatively high or the party can go through the whole forest without ever getting into a battle (thus preventing proper XP gain). This will cause some players to encounter all 5 battles quite early, and some players to only encounter 1-3 battles through the whole dungeon.

You've pretty much said it, man. The feedback from players will always be so diverse, subjective, and contradictory to one another in many regards that if you had to take on board all of it, the game will never really have much of a direction and could end up as a mess. So you're right to stick with your original vision of how you want the game to turn out. I find it that it helps to prioritise what I want the game to deliver. Some aspects of it will stay in the game regardless of what other people say, other aspects might be changed slightly to make it more fitting for the player, and finally there will be some features that can be easily removed because they're not adding much to the game. (Also, can't believe some viewer actually instigated more negative stuff about the game by saying false stuff about it on the stream).

I personally thought the game didn't have any huge weaknesses. The puzzles were nice (I've done all of the optional ones that I encountered when I played the earlier demo), the battles were fun and made me think (even if a couple of the boss fights were a little too hard for my liking). The story and the atmosphere were great too.

I'm yet to play this new part of the game, so I'm hoping to get onto it very soon and will be sure to leave the feedback.