A Hint of a Tint

Hello, players!
A Hint of a Tint is a RPG Maker XP game made by Flowerthief made originally in 2013 and later re-released in 2019 with an updated version that included bug fixing and rebalancing.

This game has two different modes: the Story Mode that teaches the basics of the game and offers an easier gameplay, letting to re-start from a room where you were defeated. In the Survival Mode instead there is no story to follow, and the game is focused on the battles and is unlocked after finishing the first mode. Both modes are roguelike, but the first is a sort of simple rpg, and the second a true roguelike experience.

Anyway let's talk about the story of the Story Mode: this is an adventure that starts pretty light hearted but later becomes darker. The protagonist is Mandy, a young woman that is transported to a mysterious and strange fantasy world populated by female half-human and half-animal creatures: centaurs, harpies, mermaids, catgirls, and other less common hybrids like bee-women or butterfly-women. Yes, all reatures are female and are known collectively as Flesh of the Tail.


To be honest, this isn't something I'd say to a centaur!

The Flesh of the Tail is convinced that Mandy has been newly created by a device known as a Spawn Symbol, and most of the creatures are disappointed at her appearance, since all were waiting for a Tailess (human) male to appear! And that's because all of their races require them for procreation.
Tyalinne, a Bee Soldier, is one of the many Flesh of the Tail searching for a human male, but she's secretly followed by the Assassin Bee Dyonne, on the order from the Bee Queen who’s beginning to doubt Tyalinne’s loyalty. Meanwhile Mandy discovers that the pink water of this world is fine for the creatures but undrinkable for humans... this is just the beginning of a story that will involve time travel and even some biblical themes.

The gameplay of A Hint of a Tint is about navigating mazes scavenging items and facing creatures. Items are useful to gain abilities, recover lifepoints or increase stats, while combat is pretty basic: you simpluy have to go against enemies and win by having more life and/or more attack power. But you can also bribe enemies into becoming your friends, avoid them using stealth, make them fight their enemies or throw items and damage them with various status effects. There are various strategies available but battles can be avoided for the most part and in the Story Mode the game is pretty forgiving in case of defeat.

Graphic in this game is pretty good, the various characters are edits, there are some custom assets and they merge well with the rest of the classic Rtp graphics. The environments are ok, nothing that really stands out, like in many other roguelikes, the environments can be too indistinct. On the other hand the music is very good, and sounds are pretty much ok!


Even a kiss can be a weapon too!

Final Verdict
A Hint of a Tint is a very good game, with a very interesting story, nicely done art and a system that's not the same you may have seen in other rpgmaker games. Overall this is a solid and enjoyable adventure game with many surprises. This is a good game (so, as you can guess it's 4/5!) I can recommend also to those players who do not normally play and like roguelike games, well done!