Potty Quest

... but this is not Toilet in Wonderland (ever played that game?)!
No, Potty Quest is a sort of... trailer? Appetizer? Prototype? Demo?
Well call it what you want, but it seems that the name of the game is Bardsong, and this is just a quest. A Potty Quest, in fact where the adventure consists in a single dungeon and we have to find t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶t̶... the toilet!

Yes, anyway in this game we start choosing the difficulty (easy or normal) and naming the two protagonist, the main character, a dog wizard and the girlfriend, a cat wizard, both are apparently students at a school of magic (called New Agloe Community College) and I named them Dobbin and Muffin, so I will use this names during the review. Other characters like those during the intro cutscene are already named anyway they will have little to no relevance to the story. Or, better, the dungeon exploration!


Sweet? SWEET??? A room with deadly red slimes (the firebreathing ones) isn't exactly sweet!

So Potty Quest is a simple dungeon delving adventure of a dog wizards inside a labyrinthine basement with doors and ladders that provide access to various areas, but to explore every room you also need some keys that are found scattered aroundm, like the music tapes that are used to... well change the music in game! Seats with tables provide the possibility to rest and recover, there is a lot of loot hidden in various places, and the vending machines are useful to buy consumables, that can be used to resurrect party members and/or heal them. And no there is no way to recover MP (Mana Points, Magic Points, whatever!) but first let's see our characters:

Dobbin the Dog can equip various items like baseball bats, jackets and rocks, and has two interesting gimmicks: the first is that he automatically restores the points used to cast spells (one each round while he does something else like attacking), the second is that he has no spells... except for one that lets him use the spell of the target against itself, and after some tries he can even learn permanently that spell (like some sort of Blue Mage, or like Taran from A Blurred Line, if you play that old game!). I admit this is a bit random since I learned some spells on the first or second try, in other cases... there was no chance! I mean I was never able to learn the healing spell used by the green slimes (the weakest opponent) despite using it a thousand of times. Weird!
Muffin the cat is instead a more classical mage character: she has a plethora of abilities including one to scan enemies, buffs magic attacks and a healing spell, and even a skill to recover Magic Points (or to restore those of the allies), since she doesn't regenerate them. Only problem, this spell cost 2 MP so is you are at 1 or 0 your only chance of recovering them is to rest!


This guy depleted our Magic Points reserve (but Dobbin is already regenerating them!) so he deserves a good beating, I guess!

Now the opponents: there is a reasonable variety of enemies, from various kind of slimes (different colors = different abilities) to ghosts and other bizarre creatures. All of them are visible and often avoidable and not really aggressive, except in some cases, anyway no random encounters, and you can also save anywhere! At these conditions I could play normal with ease, I'm a pro! (but do not underestimate enemies in this game, you can die pretty easily, even if level 4 was enough to complete the game on normal). There are even bosses, one obligatory, and the other(s?) optional, but don't worry despite the title of the game there won't be Crap Golems, unlike two (yes, not just one) other Rm2k3 games I played!

The game is in fact a cartoonish lighthearted adventure, and the graphics that are mostly custom or edits (those ghost and snakes were somewhat familiar, not to mention the boss!) that are also colorful and cute, it's just a pity that the game is often dark (and even darker in some areas!) but it takes place in a basement so I guess that's totally appropriate! Mapping is also nice even if I found some errors here and there: for example in the room with the blue slime there are some floor tiles with invisible walls, and the loot is decentralized from the chest you have to interact with. Also I found a door that cannot be opened and gives no description (close/locked or else!) in the room with the friendly ghost.
Finally there was a but the first time I played the piano: Dobbin was stuck there to play endlessly and I could move the camera all around the map... weird! The second time I did that I was instead able to stop playing and leave. Uhm ok, at least I had no but that froze the game when using the first ladder, but probably it was an older version of this game.


Here's my score! Anyway I've found one of the extra companions, but unfortunately I wasn't able to recruit that guy. Maybe I chose the wrong dialogue choices? I'll try later! Now it's your turn, do your best!


Final Verdict
Potty Quest is probably a sort of secondary quest of a bigger game, at least I hope so, because I had fun. Oh besides combat and exploration of the labyrinthine basement there is also a cart-pushing game that works as those barrel-pushing/boulder-pushing/crate-pushing minigame. You know these don't you? Well I like them! Anyway see above my stats and learn that I surely missed some extra content, like the additional party members, anyway I'll give another look later. Now, why don't you try to beat my score?

Considered everything my rating for this demo is 3.5/5, but the full game will probably earn a 4 or even more if the quality is this (and the little flaws will be fixed).