Event - RPG Maker Web Feedback Festival

The opening battle was visually unappealing. It appeared to be taking place on a well mowed lawn. To have such a big expanse of greenery helped the sense that I was being given an out of context bit of lore which didn’t actually convey much of anything.

I was asked if I wanted to “look like this”. I said yes, and ended up with Alex whose face image and the clothes in it looked nothing like the image I had selected.

Again no context for the opening map. Okay, I get that Alex doesn’t know what’s going on, but just having him run around collecting chests didn’t help my sense of immersion into a new story. He just accepts that there are random chests giving stuff that’s not much use. I have never been a fan of invisible walls at the edges of maps. Again it breaks immersion. I prefer it when there are visible barriers to prevent me going somewhere, not some sort of cosmic “thou shalt not”. The exit is south, but the entrance to the next map is from the west. This looks odd.

I started off as a swordsman. No skills. Not funny when I met my first troop of 4 crows. I think you could usefully look at your RNG. It took me 17 turns to kill this lot due to misses and evasions, while I was taking a lot of damage over that time. I had to use my only potion. Not surprisingly the next troop of 4 goblins gave me game over as I couldn’t heal up again. One potion is a bit less than is needed. The encounter rate can be a bit punishing and assuming that the player will get to the chest with the next one is a bit optimistic. In all the battles with the goblins they dropped a potion just once.

I started again, this time as a knight. Now I do have skills – but as I’m solo at this stage they are of no use to me. My first troop this time is 3 goblins. I take no damage but I am constantly put “off balance”. Again the RNG needs attention. I was locked into this for 15 straight turns and the rest of the time it was about 50:50. This is not engaging. I was bored. Then it was the Wolfman who dealt over 400 damage. There goes my potion again. I got a wolf pelt. No indication what to do with it. Do I sell it? Keep it for a quest? Dunno. The same with the feathers. I think it would be helpful if this info were included in the item description.

Did the teleporting thing to different locations which works well. Encounters with the crows were consistently frustrating as I spent much of each battle blinded. As my HIT rate isn’t great to start with the extra debuff to that really added to the length of the battles. Their use of Eye Poke to inflict it was too frequent. I spent multiple turns blinded and missing.

Having cleaned out all that I could in this location I decided to stop. Battles were not engaging and given the often high encounter rate that was a serious problem.

A small matter of mapping. You can see from the mini screen shot that your cliffs have a blue corner instead of showing grass. Because those corners are transparent to allow you to put them on any terrain, They must be above the ground level, otherwise that transparent bit wipes out the ground tile.





Overall I feel that this game needs extra attention. RNG, skills which are either non-existent or irrelevant, encounter rate and drop rate could all usefully be reworked. Using default music and sound effects might be something you want to revisit.

I'm sorry that this is rather negative, but I thought that in the long run it is better to give an honest opinion.

A review (sort of). Some of my points will be referenced by mini snip shots, rather than trying to describe who was doing what, where.

I have played the demo up till the point that Damian is heading to West Street.

I might have gone on a bit longer, but I couldn't take any more of the sound effects for the messages. I would strongly recommend that you make this optional, as it would be shame to have people quit before they even start.

I think this game has potential, and I note that it is only in Beta, but I think it might benefit from a rethink on a couple of points.

Perhaps make the initial battle tutorial optional? Most people playing don’t need to be told this. Even if they do, the second tutorial is still telling the player to use items wisely, and that they can fight or escape. Once would, I think, be enough.

I hardly ever had enough TP to use a skill. I only got enough if I attacked often enough or got hit. I have no problem with TP not being carried over, but it is possible to start each battle with more than the rather miserable 5 that they seemed to have. I think a random number between 11-18 works quite well.

I think it is helpful for the player to have some idea of what the percentage chance is for a skill to inflict a status effect. How else can I make an informed decision about whether to risk using it or not? Though perhaps all of them work 100%? Again, it would be good to know that.

Not every player will have English as their first language. Item description for carrot : “May heal blindness or raise defense.” So does “may” mean that it randomly won’t do those things? It says that it is heal blindness OR raise defense. Do I get a choice? Or again, is it random which it does? Same with apple “may” heal poison “or” confusion. My guess is that it will heal whichever status affliction you have, so that it’s dual purpose. But it’s not clear.

Save crystals. So can’t I save anywhere? This element has been discussed on many threads and in general it is thought that players prefer to be able to save anywhere. RL has its demands, and many players might have to leave the game quickly.

I liked the music, but I was a bit disappointed that you seem to be using all the default sound effects. Even if you only changed the cursor sound that would make a big difference as it is used so much in the menus.


Overall, as I said at the beginning, I think this has potential, and I would encourage you to continue. If I were to stress just one thing, it would be to make the message sound optional. Too many players don't like it.

In the main I enjoyed playing this. The mapping was well done, the music fitted extremely well and gave the right tone for the game. Dialogues were well written, with plenty of jokes without it becoming too much – a difficult balance to strike.

The combat was fine apart from one point which definitely detracted. I could not find a way to choose which enemy to target. I left a query on the thread, but when I saw you didn’t come to the forum often I decided to carry one. This inability resulted in me dying unnecessarily. I wanted to target the enemy which inflicted sleep, but couldn’t. Before I’d defeated the front row enemy, Ossian was asleep so I was on my own, and then I was put to sleep as well. The inevitable happened as although taking damage woke me up, I was instantly put to sleep again.

Only having one revive item – I may have missed another – again gave me another game over. Bones died. I revived him with 10 HP. The enemy had the next turn and killed him again. With nothing left to revive a second time, Ossian couldn’t hold his own against 2 enemies and went down as well. As candies only give 10HP, which was the only healing drop I had, I wonder if you might consider giving the player a second revive? Being sent right back to the beginning is a bore, unless one uses a save nearer the moment of defeat, but that wouldn’t necessarily deal with this problem. If I’m low on HP exactly the same thing could happen again.

The puzzles were fun. I even managed to get the puzzle to open the door which in turn opens the tree for the skeleton key. Normally I struggle with this one and usually end up just choosing randomly until something happens, but this one I could work out quite quickly.

I had to bail out on the stealth section, I just couldn’t complete it, which was a shame because I was looking forward to playing further.