Hello!
Welcome to another short adventure, this time it's Trials and Tribulations, an entry for the 2014 Indie Game Maker Contest by Silvestre made with RPG Maker VX Ace. In 2014, of course! This game took me about 30-35 minutes to complete, and it can be classified as a puzzle-dungeon, even if the usual rpgmaker combat system is also present, but mostly used for one-to-one duels.

Anyway, as I always do, let's start from the story: the game is set in the fantasy world of Arum, in the country of Westercrest, where we meet our two protagonists. Emilia and Kato are married, they live in Wyvernholt village, and they are two adventurers, she's a healer, and he's a swordsman. The perfect party I would say (we have both healer and warrior dps!), unfortunately during their last adventure they killed a demon that cursed Emilia and now she's lying in bed, dying. And no one knows how she can be saved!

But... there is a legend about the Cave of Trials, a place where it's possible to find the Waters of Life, that can cure any disease or curse. The problem is that few returns from that place.


Waaaaaaait! What about NO???

Ok, so Kato, our alter ego and playable protagonist travels towards the Cave of Trials, and as the name suggest, this is a place where he'll have to overcome many challenges, solve puzzles and also fight for his life!

Trials and Tribulations is a linear adventure where each room/map will present some kind of puzzle or task: there are classics like sliding puzzles, pushing boulders/barrels/crates, riddles, adventure segments in which you have to find some kind of item and use it in the right place, and also obstacle courses. Some parts are also timed, but the difficulty is medium-low and also there is plenty of time to complete the few timed sections. Anyway there are some parts I liked a bit less, like the invisible maze or the symbol parts, in which you have three boulders to cover three symbols that remove three rocks in front of the exit. The problem is that there are five symbols, but you do not know the three that you have to cover, so it's a matter of trying, exiting the room to reset, re-enter, and re-try... meh! Finally the lava bridge was a weird part, I won't spoil but I imagined was more complicated than I expected, due to the possibility to fight or push away the enemy, but apparently no one of these actions is the right answer. Or not? (I mean, I did not unlock the second ending, but I believe that's where you can do that. Still, not sure about this!)

Then there is combat! Kato has three actions: light attack, heavy attack and parry. Light attack just causes damage, heavy attack causes the same damage AND the enemy may be staggered and lose next round but has a cooldown of one round (some enemies seems to be more susceptible to a light attack than a heavy and others the opposite), parry... is the best! If successful you counterattack if attacked and deliver damage, if it fails you will just get damage. But some enemies are faster than Kato so you would be probably hit anyway, moreover some enemies can use parry too and you risk a counterattack!
Since there is no experience level or loot gained from battles, sometimes it is best avoiding opponents, anyway this is possible only in some circumstances.


WHAM! Well, looks like that this time defense is the best offense!

On the upper right of the screen there is Kato's life bar, because you cannot just lose energy in combat but also during the exploration, walking into a trap or doing stupid things. Pay attention, because you can only save at the crystals, that are well distributed but I wished there were a couple more, especially in a particular place since I had to replay a combat encounter and some tasks, anyway given that this is a pretty short game it still was not too bad.
Concerning healing Kato (that obviously cannot rely on his healer wife for obvious reasons), even if there are no shops in the Cave of Trials, there are a lot of healing herbs and some potions that can be found here and there, especially if you explore each map carefully, even if sometime this means risking also finding new enemies or traps!

All good so far, except maybe for some puzzles I did not like, but there were also some bugs: the first is when you find a particular character and you can be aggressive or defensive, and even if this won't change at all what happens next, being defensive means that Kato will step backwards... BUT if you had a tree behind you (and this may happen since that character you will talk to is wandering around the map) Kato won't be able to finish his movement and you'll be stuck (and forced to reload from the last save/crystal)! Also when speaking with the dragon, if you fail answering his three riddles you can retry, but looks like that no matter what, he'll always treat like you failed. Pity because the questions are randomized and that was pretty cool.

Mapping is ok, graphics are nothing special since there's a lot of Rtps and other resources that aren't that original but at least they are used well, in any case most maps are functional to the puzzles and they're overall well made and I cannot notice any error or bug. I just find a bit weird the decision of using maps that despite being connected they are widely different one from the other, we have deserts, ruins, woods, caves, snowy areas, a volcano, etc etc... but uh it's ok! Charsets and facesets of the various characters comes from a pack but they're pretty good in my opinion. Same is for the custom music, that is very atmospheric and appropriate, and there is nothing out of place.


I hate mazes. Don't you see a maze here? Because it's invisible! Even worse!

Final Verdict
Trials and Tribulations is a simple but entertaining adventure with a heartwarming love story attached, the puzzle are a little easy but I think that this was a pretty good game, also considered the restrictions of the Indie Game Maker Contest.
It's a pretty ok game, the puzzles are many even if there's nothing really original or new, unfortunately I found that couple of bugs that otherwise would have made this an even better experience, anyway it's not too bad!