Intro

"The Stairway" is an atmospheric adventure game developed by quiesphere using RPG Maker 2000 that takes anywhere from roughly 30 to 60 minutes to complete based on your skill level at these kinds of games. As such this game may clock in at way less than an hour for some or even most people. Though, I suppose the real question is this game any good or not.

Story
Summary

You play as Stella whose been invited to a party by her friend Nina. However after being at the party for a while your friend is nowhere in sight so you decide to wander around to look for her and manage to stumble into an interesting stairway.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

On the plus side this game is extremely casual. After all this is meant to be an atmospheric experience than a game you play for it's gameplay. At the same time this means the overall narrative is a bit on the weak side. While the stairway itself is rather mysterious and it's nature somewhat interesting. The game itself seems to lay down a bit of groundwork for future games since it seems to hint at Stella gaining more powers beyond the power the stairway itself represents. Though to avoid spoilers I won't give away what the stairway is.

Gameplay

On the gameplay side of things the game is simply a series of quests where you need to find hidden or missing items and return them where they belong for the most part. As such the game really isn't that engaging unless you really like looking for hidden items. And if your decently good at searching for stuff you'll probably get through this game faster than the developer intended.

Graphics

On the visual side of things the game relies entirely on original assets. Though, I do admit that I have a few issues with the facesets. This is because most of them are done in a highly stylistic way where the character's face is done in black and lacks features such as mouth, nose, or eyes.



On one hand this does make some sense considering the nature of her power and how she ended up there accidentally. So it would make sense the character's would be lacking in detail on this trip. At the same time I feel a lot of emotional depth is lost when characters are missing such pivotal features since they can't form facial expressions.

Though to end on a more positive note the game's end screen is enjoyable much like the end screen in "Omen of Rain".



Though much like "Omen of Rain" I really wish this game included more images like this.

Sound

Sound wise the game uses a combination of the RTP and what appears to be most freely available resources found on various sites. Though it is a bit weird I need to look at a text file named instruction manual in order to see the credits for the game's music and sound effects.

CREDITS

MUSIC
Music Egg: http://ontama-m.com/index.html
*CAMeLIA*: http://agnello-pecora.chu.jp/CAMeLIA/
Maou Damashii: http://maoudamashii.jokersounds.com/

SOUND EFFECTS
RPG Maker 2000 RTP
Psycle (software)
Free Sound Effects: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgsDULVtTRBOlC7m73NII7Q

Conclusion

On the plus side "The Stairway" has a much more decipherable story than "Omen of Rain". At the same time this project is more about it's visuals and the music combined with them then it's gameplay. So if your looking for a casual game where you need to find some rather easy to track down items in my opinion. This can be a rather enjoyable way to burn some time after a stressful day at work.
At the same time I can understand why some people might find this game rather boring since it really doesn't challenge the player in any meaningful way, but I really can't hold this against the game itself since it was never intended to be challenging.