Dead Moon Night is a short, lighthearted RPG made by Indra and Fomar0153 for the All Hallows' Event contest. It's a fairly well polished game - especially when considering the time frame - though there are some breakdowns in gameplay and pacing, as well as a few minor faults in dialogue. Despite these issues, the game is very solid and I think players will enjoy it.

But what truly brings this game to "good" status is this cute little guy right here:



Both his portrait and character are a riot.

Story
One of Dead Moon Night's strengths is its storyline, which is set in Arum, a shared RM setting. It's a short Halloween spoof starring Morten, an egotistical overlord. Poor Morten is in a bit of a bind: he needs to re-assemble his skeleton, which has been scattered throughout the game world. To accomplish this goal, he acquires the assistance of various monsters from traditional Halloween lore - werewolves, ghosts, and so on - while being carried around by an airhead named Mariah.

Each of the characters has a distinct personality that is augmented by the color of their dialogue. Mariah is rather dim, calm, and vague, so her dialogue is colored blue; Morten is rude and aggressive, so his color is red. This is a technique that other games should use! These characters, combined with the silliness of their banter, give Dead Moon Night one of the more entertaining stories made in RPG Maker. The story itself has a few twists and turns, and I bet the amusing ending will take most people by surprise. It could have used some more foreshadowing, but oh well!

There were a few faults with the story and its presentation. I found a moderate number of spelling, grammatical, and wording faults in the dialogue, but these only culminated in a minor problem. The errors were overshadowed by the dialogue's sheer fun factor. The only other major fault in the story is that some of the cutscenes were overlong. One boss battle near the end of the game was preceded by a lengthy cutscene. If a player struggles against that boss, he or she will get frustrated from having to re-read or skip through the dialogue. For this reason, I prefer to save the lengthy cutscenes until after the battle. Lastly, I would've liked to have seen a few more references to other games in the Arum universe.

Overall, I'd give the story:



Gameplay

In short, Dead Moon Night's gameplay is good in concept, but shaky in execution. Nevertheless, the flaws don't manage to drag the gameplay down to the point where it's unplayable or mediocre. The battle system is where most of the issues lie. Players do not purchase equipment (or anything, for that matter) and characters don't level up. Instead, monsters drop equipment called "Mods", which either boost a particular stat or enable a skill. Some of the mods can be used in conjunction with each other to create special builds. For instance, if a character has an ability that deals damage based on the defense stat, players can equip Mods that boost that character's defense to make optimal use of the ability. There are a variety of combinations and builds that players can experiment with.

Unfortunately, some battles force players to use that one optimal build (and the super-powerful skills associated with it) or they will get slaughtered. This is mainly due to the balancing of the game, which is geared toward hard-hitting enemies with low HP. Thus, battles are extremely fast-paced. This, combined with the inclusion of overpowered skills, makes certain builds completely useless. The developers did a good job mixing in enemies with high defense or resistance to physical attacks, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of build options are underused or pointless.

The game has two extremes: either players figure out the optimal build and power their way through the game, tweaking it every so often if they run into special enemies; or they fail miserably until they find the right combination. The problem is that most RM players will be savvy enough to figure out the optimal combination quickly, thereby diminishing the whole point of having customizable builds in the first place. The game's challenge also becomes very underwhelming once the player identifies the optimal builds; battles (and even bosses!) become a two-turn cakewalk as long as players don't goof around. I'd like to see longer, more attrition-based battles thrown in to test the player's ability to survive beyond the time it takes to unleash the super skills. Attrition battles would also make use of all those healing items that players can find scattered throughout the world - I never used a single one. Thankfully, the final boss has a little wrinkle in it that prevents a two-turn easy victory.

Another issue with the balancing is that the first couple of battles are the hardest in the game. Heck, the first battle requires the player to use spam one particular skill (amongst many) or face a quick game over. Once players gain their first mods, the entire opening area becomes a complete cakewalk. The battles do start to get interesting later on.

I had no problem acquiring the special Mods needed to power through the game. This is a good thing in a short game, as grinding for Mods would've made the game tedious and bloated. As a matter of fact, there was actually an overabundance of Mods; I had so many extras, and I couldn't sell them because there's no money system. This problem could be resolved by having some sort of Mod Synthesis setup, wherein players either combine Mods to create stronger ones, or trade 'em in for more powerful variations.

The dungeons were fairly well designed, but I would've liked to have seen more treasure and environmental interaction. Perhaps some Mods should've been obtained through treasure instead of battles. Thankfully, the cave dungeon had a decent amount of interaction: it requires the party to manipulate certain creatures to create bridges, revealing hidden hallways, etc. There were also a few too many enemy encounters in the dungeons - I ended up fighting the same enemy again and again, long after I had mastered the fastest way to defeat 'em. More enemy variety would've helped to breathe life into the Mod/Build system.

One nice touch is that each character has their own little gimmick. For example, Robin had a Confidence accumulator; some skills increased or decreased confidence, while other skills used Confidence as a variation of MP. Another character has a damage percentage modifier, and yet another one can unleash a special elemental attack based on the spells it already used. These gimmicks can be turned into a serious advantage by equipping special Mods. Mod/skill synergy is the key to survival in Dead Moon Night.

Despite these flaws, I found the game quite enjoyable. There were stretches where I was bored because of the ease and frequency of battles, but these segments didn't hamper my enjoyment all that much. One other thing: there are a few QTE minigame segments. I kind of wish there were more of 'em scattered throughout they game; they add another cool wrinkle to the experience.



Presentation
Dead Moon Night is a well-presented game, featuring enjoyable music and competent mapping. Some of the tilesets were edited, giving the game its own unique look. Areas are perhaps a little too tightly mapped and cluttered, making it difficult to avoid some of the game's touch encounters. Thankfully, most encounters do not respawn. One other minor issue was that the style of the music seemed a little inconsistent; some of the tracks didn't mesh together all that well. The custom sprites and facesets are absolutely adorable and fit right into the game's lighthearted style. The game's a fun Halloween spoof, and it's presented as such.



Conclusion
Dead Moon Night is a solid game all around, except for the shaky execution of the battle system and some minor faults here and there. It's a short game, perhaps too short given the scope of the battle system, and some of the areas that are present are overloaded with enemies. This inflates the game's length a little bit; the content is that of a 90-minute game but it ends up being close to 2-and-a-half hours. With all that said, it's time to give the game a rating. Forgive me, Morten, but I must saw off half your skull for the final rating:



With a little more polish and balancing, this game would've been truly exceptional. As it stands, it's still quite good. Give it a whirl: you might enjoy it!