• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS
KO Cupid is a short RPG about responsibility, attraction, and surviving trauma.

Kacey, a noble bastard, and Juneau, a curious dumbass, get caught up in a deadly plot, their messy pasts, and a healthy dose of troubled romance.

Features:
-Fleshed-out queer characters
-Fun, fast-paced turn-based RPG battles
-Fully customizable difficulty and encounter rates

Content warnings:

-Sexual language, but this can be turned off before the game begins
-Depictions of anxiety and PTSD
-Very light gore (a small amount of blood, and violence between monsters and humans; there is no human-on-human violence)
-Some characters do not know how to handle a person having a panic attack, struggling with their ADHD, etc. However, no character is purposefully malicious about these things
-One character makes a second unwanted advance on another character, then backs off entirely

Latest Blog

Working.... Slowly..........

Hey yall. I've been working on writing the next chunk of the game. I'm letting myself loosen it up a bit -- not a lot, don't want to really add scope -- but give a bit more breathing room and playtime to stuff that I was originally gonna gloss over.

A little snippet between Juneau and new character, Salle! Salle is a childhood friend of Juneau and Val who is now a successful musician. She used to be a member of Guild Cupid with Valorie, before Valorie took over as guild captain.

  • Production
  • Craze
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 07/11/2019 01:58 AM
  • 09/24/2021 11:51 PM
  • N/A
  • 34619
  • 24
  • 411

Posts

Pages: first 12 next last
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Been playing the Rainbow build for the last two or so hours, and I absolutely love it! The characters are all charming and funny (Juneau is my fav) and I can't wait to take them on dates, the quest-based progression is a lot of fun, and the battle abilities are varied and make you want to try out all the characters' skills :DDDD

A ton of awesome ideas here, like dating characters to raise level caps. Also a lot of cool polish, like dialog displayed at the top of the screen during battle and fun scenes you get sometimes when resting for the night.

Only thing I don't like is that the skip text button is mapped to the same button as dash, which means sometimes I skip text that I wanted to read (and I don't wanna miss any of the character's witty quips).

PS: The "cute" and "sexy" modes were an awesome idea, letting things get steamy if you want or just staying cute (tho I haven't gotten to the dates yet so I don't know how exactly it works out, but I'm looking forward to seeing). Gotta remember that idea for some of my future game ideas if I ever decide to make something more sexy that usual XD
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
unity
Been playing the Rainbow build for the last two or so hours, and I absolutely love it! The characters are all charming and funny (Juneau is my fav) and I can't wait to take them on dates, the quest-based progression is a lot of fun, and the battle abilities are varied and make you want to try out all the characters' skills :DDDD


i was worried people might dislike juneau since she starts off as kind of a bully... she's more self-aware than she lets on though, and i hope her development through the actual main story (of which there's basically none in-game now lol) keeps her likeable instead of going flat.

unity
A ton of awesome ideas here, like dating characters to raise level caps. Also a lot of cool polish, like dialog displayed at the top of the screen during battle and fun scenes you get sometimes when resting for the night.


thanks! those parts are my favorite to make, soo... works out well

unity
Only thing I don't like is that the skip text button is mapped to the same button as dash, which means sometimes I skip text that I wanted to read (and I don't wanna miss any of the character's witty quips).


yeah this plagued libby at least once too. i'll add some menu options and change the default.

unity
PS: The "cute" and "sexy" modes were an awesome idea, letting things get steamy if you want or just staying cute (tho I haven't gotten to the dates yet so I don't know how exactly it works out, but I'm looking forward to seeing). Gotta remember that idea for some of my future game ideas if I ever decide to make something more sexy that usual XD


heh heh... but yeah ultimately the game is meant to be "grindy guild game" than romance sim, especially since (spoilers? lol?) the end results for Kacey and Juneau are story-related and canon.... though i think the first dates set that up pretty clearly anyway (i mean, erina's straight, for one.) so yeah, i didn't wanna force the naughty bits on anybody who just wanted a goofy guild game.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Okay, I have now gone on all the dates and I have to say, I adore this game :DDD So good!

The fact that you can't influence the end results for Juneau and Kacey would normally be kinda a negative for me, but really, the characters are so charming that just interacting with them and seeing how they bounce off our two leads is reward enough! I, like Jeneau, also wanted some flirting with elf girl, but if she's not comfortable with that, it was still very cute to have a picnic with her and with Kacey.

I find this game inspiring in several ways, especially in that it broadens my horizons for how you can do a romance game. It's also a fun game to chill out and grind some levels/ingredients. Really like it and I hope you'll continue it! :DDDDD

Also, after about two dates, I was like "Where are the steamy dates?" and then the next three were extremely steamy XDXD Very nice!

author=Craze
i was worried people might dislike juneau since she starts off as kind of a bully... she's more self-aware than she lets on though, and i hope her development through the actual main story (of which there's basically none in-game now lol) keeps her likeable instead of going flat.


I find her personality likable despite being kind of a jerk. She's still so fun and gung-ho. Plus the fact that her guildmates don't let her off the hook for her actions/comments helps a lot, too. Also any heroine who wants to date all the girls is an A+ in my book XD
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Thanks for the continued comments, unity!!

Yeah, I think I'm gonna stick with this one for now. I already did a few more maps and have planned out the next five levels of quests. the big block right now is that i'm working at a camp in the middle of the woods so no progress for three weeks... but i'll get back to it after!

and yeah, some people are steamy... some will become steamy XD

thanks again for the inspiring comments. at least for you, it's checked off the things I wanted to check off (fun characters, ability to "idle"/grind optionally, goofy romance).
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Wonderful! ^_^ I'll be looking forward to more :DDDD
Gretgor
Having gotten my first 4/5, I must now work hard to obtain... my second 4/5.
3420
So, as I've probably said to literally everyone within earshot in the last few days, I'm checking out every entry on the 50 Days of Representation jam, and leaving my impressions on each. This one's a demo, so I'm just gonna put up a comment.

I decided I'm gonna put the whole thing in hide tags from now on to keep the gigantic comment from pushing every other comment off page. (Spoiler: it's a good demo)



Overall thoughts

KO Cupid is a turn-based RPG with a lovely LGBTQIA+ cast and a nice story full of friendly mishaps. This short demo is quite a lovely piece, a bit more comedy-esque and heart warming than most jam entries I've been seeing, and I was needing that after some more hard-boiled entries put me in a somber mood (pretty good entries, mind you, but with rather depressing stories).

I'm not going to comment on the stuff Craze is already aware of (i.e. the stuff listed on the blog post on the project page), so I'm gonna focus on everything else.

Stuff I like

- The choice of music is fun as heck. Upbeat, relaxing, sometimes sad, sometimes serious, etc.

- Enjoyable writing. You get to pick whether you want the writing to have sex jokes, or just silly cuteness, I find that super cool. The lovable cast really help in the writing department too. I also like how the game is comedic most of the time, but still tells a compelling story, with nice emotional moments and stuff.

- Maps are conducive to exploration, with not only treasure, but also some funny little character interactions to find.

- Cool looking, cartoony monster sprites.

- I like that we can adjust the difficulty to something that suits us (more on that later).

- Lovely LGBTQIA+ couplings with a cute/funny story to them.

- "Chat" feature in the menu reminds us of what we have to do, so we never get lost.

- Game doesn't front-load tons of textual information about battle system, instead allowing you to learn about those things by chatting with NPCs.

Stuff I don't like

- I feel like the random encounters take too long to end. I mean, I thought this was a problem on my part at first, but they really do take too long. "Oh but you can adjust the settings to your heart's content!" Yes, I can, but I really feel like I shouldn't have to. I eventually adjusted the settings to diminsh the enemies' power and encounter rate and was able to enjoy the game, but the default settings are garbage.

- This one is just personal taste. I also developed a hatred for being interrupted in my exploration by random encounters out of nowhere along the years. I used to be okay with that in the past, but nowadays it just kills my joy.

- I feel more than a bit patronized by the massive arrows pointing to where we can enter. Is that really necessary?

Final thoughts

In spite of the few annoyances I had with this game, it is quite good. I believe some of my annoyances narrow down to personal preferrence. A long time ago, I used to love the formula of turn-based RPGs with random encounters. Nowadays, not so much. Maybe that's the problem I have here, or maybe not, I dunno.

Regardless of that, I can't possibly discount points for the game not appealing to my particular tastes, and I think this is a nice 4/5. The characters and writing are good, exploration is good, but the battles could be better balanced so the player doesn't have to do it themselves.

Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
did you play on normal initially? i'll admit that there's some retooling i need to do on the 'normal' difficulty settings. that's the issue with playing a game you designed, right lol? especially because i want this to be an easy entry for people who just want to play for the narrative.

thanks for the mini-review! a few more responses:

first off, thanks again. glad to see you liked it :)

you can definitely play this whole game with encounters off (outside of very few select missions, like the boars at the start)... but i'm not sure how much i want to push that.

assuming you played on normal, you're the first one to mention that the initial enemy hp is too high, but other people have suggested that i change the scaling on that anyway and not let people even take it above 140% or so. i will probably be doing that, because while I know how to wreck my enemies' shit... yeah, i get it.

lol nobody's mentioned the arrows as a negative yet. but thinking back to even like ff7 having a toggle for them... i can probably add a menu option to turn them off.


edit: damn RMN HATES updating game profiles huh. i wrote up a content warnings section yesterday and now it's still the "AHHHH" message up there... *rewrites*
I'll be checking this out in the coming week if you'd like more feedback, Craze. Just...I can go overboard with my feedback xD
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Sounds fine to me!
AtiyaTheSeeker
In all fairness, bird shrapnel isn't as deadly as wood shrapnel
5424
Holy cow, this game is inspiring. Can't wait for the finished version, as the event demo was already chockful of awesome gameplay, fun dialog, good mechanics and amazing characters.
I’ve only played about 30 minutes of the new demo so far but I’m enjoying it a ton so far. The most enjoyable part so far for me has been the characters. Great moments between each other, and it’s been fun seeing how they interact not only with other characters but the environment as well.

Combat has been great too, but I want to play a bit more making any other comments.

unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Finally playing this version of the game, sorry for the delay XD;

I'm only on the second dungeon, the underground steam mushroom one, but I'm already remembering why I loved all these characters in the first place! Juneau is still my absolute favorite, but Kacey is SUCH a likable and interesting guy, and I want Aspen to marry me (I doubt she'd be interested tho XD)

I'll let you know when I finish what's available, but just wanted to say that the game's charming and fun as usual, even if the type of game it is has changed a since the previous version.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Thanks all!

hey, aspen does have a softer side lol! it'll take a long time for her to pull away from kacey, though... sometimes loyalty is a double-edged sword. plans keep changing even within this one game, but currently it'll take four games (including this one) before she finally falls for somebody who's introduced in the next game

edit: admittedly i haven't been working on this much... i had to start working in-person again after the pandemic summer. but i haven't started anything else either and i think about it a lot so i hope i can dive back in soon.
I played it on Hard and beat all the bosses so far.

Feedback (spoilers):
- The skills/passives are well designed and give each character a unique flavor for theorycrafting.
- I really like that there is no XP gain, everything is gear-based.
- I am aware I can change difficulty/drop rate on the fly, but I will never do it because it cheapens the experience.
- Hard mode feels more "grindy" than "hard".
- The toad oil/boar meat NPCs that give you a ton of money are a neat idea. It's a good way to suggest to a player "hey, if you find an area with lots of this specific monster, it's a good grind spot."
- In town #2 everything's super expensive and I got anxiety over whether I made the right choice on whose gear to upgrade, and which of the two high-end weapons per type to take.
- Water mage AoE sleep + focus stacking is OP against all normal mobs (even ones that resist water) and some bosses.
- The bow man's debuff-extending skill is OP on bosses. Dropping it from 2 to 1 hit might be interesting, but the concept of "extend every debuff" scales way too hard. Skills like "hit the enemy N times, where N is the # of debuffs they have" scale linearly and are more manageable.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Hey again azala!

On the whole, I agree with you on a bunch of this. Since the demo, I've tuned "Hard mode" some -- you literally can't tweak HP% above 120%, for example. I also hope to, in a full game, do some different weighting/all-out replacements for monster troops based on your overall difficulty.

Also yeah Aspen and Claude are OP. I'm actually mostly okay with this. I'd rather lean toward everybody feeling absurd than not, then challenge the player with encounter design than nerfing their abilities. Buuuut those two specific abilities might need another lookesee lol.

And yeah, so, originally Marshton was meant to be the town for both the swamp dungeon and the dungeon after it. It... still is, but I've added a chunky sequence before you're let free after the demon battle in the swamp temple. I'll be removing the more expensive items from the shop until you get control of Kacey again, I think, so it feels less intimidating.

Thanks for the feedback!
Hey Craze I don't think I ever told you this, I have played a couple of your games like DEViL::ender, Epic Monster Dungeon Explore! 2, GEAS, In Praise of Peace, Obelisk: Devilkiller, Owlpocalypse, Super Battle Kiddo Experience!, Teenage Costume Squad and Wine & Roses (I had to look some up to remember the titles) I've also not played much of but seen parts of other games. I think you always have really good different ideas in your different games and you definitely know what you are doing, I wish you luck trying to make your next few games. :)
Truly the Utada Hikaru of RPG Maker!
Hi! I downloaded this game, but the font doesn't load right. I even installed the RTP, yet no change. What am I supposed to do? It looks like this.
https://imgur.com/a/O6veWTt
Pages: first 12 next last