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Bah, ram, ewe, to your gam mak be true.

  • pianotm
  • 02/22/2015 04:29 AM
  • 1423 views
Name: Black Sheep

Developer: Deeno, who says the game is made by his friend, 1550

Story: You play as Nina, a girl haunted by nightmares about black sheep. Nina's brother has always been there for her and helped chase away her bad dreams, but now he's gone and she's all alone, trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her brother. Suffice it to say, this game takes place in her dreams. Deeno tags it as a puzzle and mystery game but it almost feels like a horror game. It doesn't do such a good job scaring, but it's definitely high on the creepy scale. There isn't much in the way of actual writing except for dialog. The dialog is mostly fine, but watch out for some broken syntax; it isn't too bad but if you're rolling along, it can knock you out of the mood the game produces while you try to decipher what the offending sentences say. In most games, it's not a problem, but in a game like this that is trying to create flow and atmosphere, it's important to point out.

Graphics: The maps and sprites are basic RTP. The maps are constructed well and most of the maps look fine, but there was something with the forest chipset that really stuck out to me. It doesn't match. The tree trunks and canopy cover have the appearance of a converted RM2k3 chipset and it doesn't seem to go well with the VX Ace ground tiles. The trunks are backed with black, causing them to border sharply with walking tiles. Overall, it's a very ugly effect. I would recommending setting the black background to transparent on this particular tileset and recoloring the black that needs to be visible a slightly different shade. There is artwork shown occasionally in pictures and these are very nicely rendered. It would be nice to see more work of this kind in future games.

Sound: Players may want to turn their sound down for this, tough you may miss a few sound based queues that aren't absolutely critical to figuring out what's going on. For the most part, it isn't too bad. You hear a man crying from time to time, the sound of crickets in the front yard, a hooting owl in the forest, running water by the shore, and crashing waves by the ocean. Additionally, you also hear an obnoxious whinnying horse as you back out of your menu screen and at various times throughout the game and in the forest glade and in the alternate yard, you hear buzzing insects; loud, incessant, and maddeningly aggravating. These are sounds where the developer needs to exercise some finesse and frankly doesn't.

Gameplay: This is essentially an item hunting game. There are a few thought puzzles in the game, notably the reverse glass world where you have to input the correct time, but mostly, for each task, you have to find something, whether it's flowers, or the materials needed for a dream catcher. Usually, the tasks are fairly clear, but there are a few that aren't readily discernible. Are a few sudden death points in the game that come without warning, except in one case that'll be obvious, so save often.

Glitches: One; the way ceiling tiles works in VX Ace is that your character sprite simply can't mount the tile. If you were to somehow do so, you'd be able to walk along the ceiling. On a tile in which your sprite is able to touch the side in which the ceiling border isn't present, you can do so. On the bathroom map, there is a soot stain on the ceiling that's set to passable. If you come in the door and go to the right, you'll be able to stand on the ceiling and walk freely on it until you reach the cracks, which aren't passable.

Conclusion: A good early effort for a game developer and there is some fascination value to it so I would say it's worth a look, but on the whole, it's pretty well average.

Posts

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Thank you for playing this game and give your time to give us review.

Yes, this game may be average but since it's the first game, we also want to develop more and hope in the future we can make a better game.

Thank you so much
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