Kale's Adventure

Hello rpgmaker players!
Here we have another RPG Maker 2003 game made this year by Lavendersiren for The Legend of Gaymak: Queer Awakening event. I admit I expected a classic game with classic rpgmaker ATB battles, like others I played from the same developer, instead NO: Kale's Adventure is a short action game adventure starring a 14 year old tiefling fighter, Kale Omino.

Kale, after climbing Mt. Dew he's sent to anothe world and his legs upon arrival, thus having to stay at a hospital for a lot of time. But being stuck here is not enough, and Kale also has news of his home world being wiped out, making him the last of his race. While mourning his loss, he falls asleep... and then wakes up in a different world, the land of dreams. Here Kale is attacked by Dylan, a mysterious spellcasting executive but he's saved by a strange 40 year old purple creature names Turby Purplekins.
After they fled, Turby offers Kale to accompany him to the Labyrinth of Nova, where it will be possible to restore the world of Plit. And this is the beginning of Kale's journey...


Well, that's a question you should probably ask the developer of this game!

As I wrote before, Kale's Adventure is an exploration game with real timed battles: the controls are very simple, you move around with the arrows, attack/interact with Z or Enter and the Shift key to switch between the two attacks (Kale's spear and Turby's ice spell) and the "interact" option. You also need to press Esc to access the menu if you want to save or if you need to use a potion to recover the hitpoints, that are shown in the upper left left of the screen. Aside from battles and exploration, there are many dialogues and cutscenes about Kale's journey of discovery.

The game uses lots of different assets: there are some heavily edited tilesets and sprites, refmap and classic rpgmaker 2003 Rtp assets, and also the dialogue window is custom made. The game includes also many original cutscenes drawn by the developer (some are really fantastic! I liked the ending and also the part with Dylan throwind the ball... nicely done!), like in the previous games, like the portraits, and that's an aspect I like a lot because it gives an identity to the game. Same goes from the various locations, well there isn't a lot to say since the place is a dream and a dungeon... but it was not bad at all. Music is also fine, there are some music and sound rips from TES: Arena and Kirby's Dreamland 3, but also themes from Vgmusic and a minimal use of Rtps.


Yes, YES, YEEEEES! I want all the POWER! Muahahahahaha... uh, sorry! I mean, ok, sure I'll be worthy of that!

The game unfortunately has some limitations, mostly due to the fact that Rpgmaker 2003 is not really suited for actions games: you can easily take advantage of gaps and obstacles to trap enemies and hit them with ho risk, since the spear has a range, it also makes a lot of damage and I admit I was able to complete the game without using the ice spell once. The spear is also very useful to break down doors (that are oddly restored each time you re-enter a room, but ok) since some of them are trapped (I know that they can be distinguished by the harmless ones if you look carefully, but why bother?)... so stay safe!

Another issue is that doors are 1 tile wide, while most corridors are 2 tiles wide, so it creates a weird situation in the case of horizontal corridors, where you have to stay on the upper line of tiles to reach the door, but you can still walk on the one below to "cheat" and for example avoid the golem that stands in the way! And yes, the game has no levels, so no need to fight battles, just run. Finally the first part where you run from Dylan it took me 2/3 tries since I was not sure where I was supposed to go... but ok, there were no real serious issues or problems with this game.


Stay safe! Keep your enemies distant and strike from afar with the spear! OR avoid them, your choice!

Final Verdict
Ok, once again a really good work made by Lavendersiren: I absolutely LOVED the story, the cute cutscenes, and concerning the characters I only would like to see them again since it's a pity to have them relegated to such a short game. As an event game is pretty good, the only flaws are probably relegated to the gameplay that it's not probably refined or memorable but still works well and complements the game that otherwise would be a sort of interactive visual novel.
In the end this is a pretty good game that is focused on the theme of the event and provides and enjoyable experience, from the beginning to the end. For the first time I'm going to say that's the beginning/intro that I would have a bit more fleshed out/detailed, instead of the ending that's simply perfect, anyway I told my opinion, now if you are curious give it a try!