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VERSION 1.3.3
(Current version in development: 1.3.3)

Annabelle finds a strange visitor in her room, bearing some bad news: Beasts are destroying a world under her bed. If Annabelle does not defeat them, they will do the same to Earth. She has two choices: Risk death, or be helpless against it when it comes.

As she fights her way through the four biomes of the “Domi” she will meet four survivors. She needs their help, and they need hers. Your choices will decide their fates.

Adventure, puzzles, turn-based battling, multiple endings. Custom and unique graphics and music. Your actions and dialogue choices decide the fates of the characters you meet.

Sample Soundtrack:
https://soundcloud.com/caitikoi/sets/qui-domi-sample-audio

(Background image by dragol)

Latest Blog

4 Years Later

The Kickstarter failed, backers were refunded, and Qui Domi has gone into a state of indefinite hiatus. However some interest has come back to it from my current audience in other fandoms. I'm releasing the current full copy of the game, including the alpha carnival world. There are unfinished assets, incomplete game mechanics, but, you are free to test it out.

Keep in mind there are a few hours of gameplay before that, as the carnival is the 4th world, there are three others to traverse. I hope you enjoy!
  • Hiatus
  • Koi
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Adventure Puzzle RPG
  • 02/28/2015 11:32 PM
  • 06/14/2023 06:14 AM
  • N/A
  • 204280
  • 138
  • 133

Posts

author=Pancaek
Koi stated that they made the monsters free roaming, and not random encounters, so you could get away from them if you want to. The 'escape' option is a completely different story, as you often can't escape from monsters, and you can't choose when you hit a random encounter anyways. In the free roaming monster system, the player is encouraged to try and avoid monsters if they don't feel like fighting them. Simply saying "yeah you can run from them if you want but you're not suppose to all the time" doesn't make any sense. How is the player suppose to know when they are and aren't suppose to avoid a monster? What's the point of avoiding monsters in the first place if you're not suppose to be able to do that?

I don't know anything about this game, but if what unity said is true about touch encounters, then I have just this to say:

You can't be new to touch encounters, right?
author=unity
Touch encounters are nothing new in RPGs. Raising your level to be able to take on higher level enemies is also pretty common sense in RPGs. Whether you do it by walking around until a random encounter shows up or by engaging monsters you can see on the map, it's mostly the same.

If you touch a monster and take damage, that should tell you "don't touch monsters." If you touch a monster, are taken to a separate screen where you can fight them, and then get rewards like EXP and items for doing so, then it should be clear that the developer put them in for a reason and that maybe, just maybe, avoiding all of them might have consequences.

If you don't like that, that's fine. But to call it bad game design is irresponsible. An entire genre has been built on that foundation. And you may not like that genre. But a lot of us do and are trying to make games a certain way.


No, I personally happen to love the RPG genre. Nothing I'm saying is based off of my personal feelings. I'm talking in response to another player who saw that the game allowed them to get through it without having to fight, and then was told that they're not playing the game right.

If you allow a certain play style, and then tell the player they're wrong for playing that way, it's bad game design. It doesn't matter how many other games do it.

You can easily get around this by having key monsters that are impossible to escape, and give you the bare minimum EXP that you need to survive the game. If you choose to fight more monsters than what the game makes you to, then you can, and it'll make the game easier. But at the same time, you don't have to fight monsters unless the game says so. Similar to how the "escape" option is only available at certain times.

author=eplipswich
I don't know anything about this game, but if what unity said is true about touch encounters, then I have just this to say:

You can't be new to touch encounters, right?


No, I'm not new to them. I use them in my own game.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Pancaek
No, I personally happen to love the RPG genre. Nothing I'm saying is based off of my personal feelings. I'm talking in response to another player who saw that the game allowed them to get through it without having to fight, and then was told that they're not playing the game right.

If you allow a certain play style, and then tell the player they're wrong for playing that way, it's bad game design. It doesn't matter how many other games do it.

You can easily get around this by having key monsters that are impossible to escape, and give you the bare minimum EXP that you need to survive the game. If you choose to fight more monsters than what the game makes you to, then you can, and it'll make the game easier. But at the same time, you don't have to fight monsters unless the game says so. Similar to how the "escape" option is only available at certain times.


You certainly can, and in many games, that works just great. But do you really feel that all players have to be force-fed EXP this way in every game, without exception? I feel like that's a very limiting way to look at the issue.

Again, the truth of the matter is that any game has strategies that work well and others that don't work so well. A player can, in fact, make mistakes. We can, in fact, have games where part of the challenge is to find the best way to play the game. We can, in fact, have situations where players have to go out of their way and put in effort to prevail. Some players in fact very much enjoy those types of games.

You may find it distasteful when a developer tells a player that they're wrong for playing that way, but you are telling the developer that they are wrong for developing it that way, and I find that very distasteful, especially given your inflexible definition of "bad game design." No doubt there are various ways that the game could be improved, and your solutions are great if that's the direction the developer wants to go in, but as someone who has played and enjoyed games that employ what you'd "bad game design," I think you're making some pretty flawed assumptions here.
If you have to have a certain amount of EXP to progress in the game, it's forced-fed EXP either way. The only difference is one of the options tricks the player into thinking they have a choice when they really don't.
Congrats with transforming into buzzing game, lvlup'ed Koi ~
And with KickStarter.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Pancaek
If you have to have a certain amount of EXP to progress in the game, it's forced-fed EXP either way. The only difference is one of the options tricks the player into thinking they have a choice when they really don't.


You have a good point. Though, the amount of EXP any one player needs to pass any given battle isn't a static value. Given that fact, I'd generally agree with you that you want to keep things fair and manageable.

But at the same time I still have a lot of fun in games that don't always hold my hand and let me take chances. They don't have to be super cheap about it, but I respect a game that does something like say, at the start of the game, go "Here's the last boss, you can go challenge him now. It's probably not a good idea but you can sure do it." Then the game allows you to wander the world, take risks, and learn about what gets you killed and what allows you to keep living.

I certainly don't think all games should be like that, but I don't think games like that should be deemed inherently "bad" either. I also think allowing players to experiment in ways that might get them killed can also be a lot of fun, if it's done right.

I get the sentiment you're going for, and I think it's going to do well for you if you stick to that. A lot of people love that. I do, most days, as well, especially if you throw me in an interesting world with characters that connect with me. But I'd honestly be pretty disappointed if we only had games like that. I think we'd lose something, something that could potentially be pretty interesting.

To be honest, throwing around the phrase "bad game design" does irk me more than it probably should. I think you've provided a lot of great food-for-thought in this discussion. Even so, I feel like if you didn't cast down judgement like that then it would foster a lot more useful discussion.
I'm just gonna say this: I'm going to make the monsters drop more EXP, making grinding less of an issue. I expect players to battle perhaps at least half of the monsters. If a player runs away from every monster in a game that tells you it's your job to go down there and kill them, that's the player's fault. I mean that's the very first conversation you have in the game, you're told to fight the monsters.

I'm going to consider the stat boost after boss fights. I'm not hopping on that idea immediately because I'd have to spend a lot of time retesting and tweaking the stats of the monsters and the amount of items found in each area... just a lot of tedium.

Red_Nova is helping me with making the player a step away from monsters after escaping, so running away is not so difficult.

And lastly, I'm trying to design more monsters to appear in each biome to add variety. The truth is I am really not good at making monsters so those are gonna have to wait to debut in the final release.
author=unity
You have a good point. Though, the amount of EXP any one player needs to pass any given battle isn't a static value. Given that fact, I'd generally agree with you that you want to keep things fair and manageable.

But at the same time I still have a lot of fun in games that don't always hold my hand and let me take chances. They don't have to be super cheap about it, but I respect a game that does something like say, at the start of the game, go "Here's the last boss, you can go challenge him now. It's probably not a good idea but you can sure do it." Then the game allows you to wander the world, take risks, and learn about what gets you killed and what allows you to keep living.

I certainly don't think all games should be like that, but I don't think games like that should be deemed inherently "bad" either. I also think allowing players to experiment in ways that might get them killed can also be a lot of fun, if it's done right.

I get the sentiment you're going for, and I think it's going to do well for you if you stick to that. A lot of people love that. I do, most days, as well, especially if you throw me in an interesting world with characters that connect with me. But I'd honestly be pretty disappointed if we only had games like that. I think we'd lose something, something that could potentially be pretty interesting.

To be honest, throwing around the phrase "bad game design" does irk me more than it probably should. I think you've provided a lot of great food-for-thought in this discussion. Even so, I feel like if you didn't cast down judgement like that then it would foster a lot more useful discussion.


Yeah, that makes sense. I'm not a fan of hand holding games either. However I still kind of feel like it would be nice if the game didn't punish you for something it allows you to do. (avoiding monsters.)

Also, when I say "bad game design" I don't mean that the whole design of the game is bad. I mean that, the one particular design decision that was pointed out was bad. I'm not trying to pass judgment or trash talk Qui Domi in any way. It's a really good game, much better than my game for sure.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
However I still kind of feel like it would be nice if the game didn't punish you for something it allows you to do. (avoiding monsters.)


I think it's obvious enough for RPGs that if you flee too many battles you might not be strong enough to defeat later ones.
author=CashmereCat
However I still kind of feel like it would be nice if the game didn't punish you for something it allows you to do. (avoiding monsters.)
I think it's obvious enough for RPGs that if you flee too many battles you might not be strong enough to defeat later ones.


Well that's what I'm hoping.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Wow, that background image by Dragol looks absolutely amazing :DDDD
author=unity
Wow, that background image by Dragol looks absolutely amazing :DDDD


I know right? This is the second beautiful piece of fanart she's made for me, and this time I just had to ask her if I could use it. I'm actually going to base the look of biome 4 off of it (it's better than what I already have going omg)
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Totally! :D I think it will make for a wonderful biome as well! ^_^
author=daiconv
I love the art and graphics!


Thank you so much! There's still a lot more to do orz
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
I generated a game-breaking bug right at the start. Normally I'd e-mail it as requested but this may screw over other players and nobody likes restarting so I'm mentioning it here.

Version: Demo 1.1.1
Cause: At the save tutorial you can't progress until you eat a candy. You can't eat a candy if you're at full health. You're guaranteed to be weakened because of the flow of the previous battle. However if you use a band-aid instead you can't eat the candy anymore since it won't let you eat candy at full health. Since there's no other way to take damage the tutorial can't be completed and you're forced to restart from the beginning.

Severity: Really low, actually. If you're playing the game normally and not intentionally looking for bugs then it serves you right if you don't follow simple instructions and need to restart. Still though it's an easily remedied inconvenience.

Recommended solutions:
-Add a monster to one of the previous areas which can damage you further.
-Enable healing while at full health
-Change up the save system entirely
-I think you should just move where you get the band-aids to the screen after the save tutorial or something to prevent this from happening.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Dragnfly
Recommended solutions:
-Add a monster to one of the previous areas which can damage you further.
-Enable healing while at full health
-Change up the save system entirely
-I think you should just move where you get the band-aids to the screen after the save tutorial or something to prevent this from happening.


And a good way to do this is to give candies a buff. I'm not sure it'd help at all with a game that doesn't use an ATB, but an agility boost called "Sugar Rush" would be an excellent use for this.
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
Normally you can heal (in battle only) even if you're at full health. Since that tut has no other enemies around though, you're stuck if you heal to full with a bandaid. You can't get stuck anywhere else unless your resources run out due to candy healing so little.

IMO the problem is with the save system itself. It causes some issues and doesn't really bring anything good to the table. You have a bazillion save points on some maps when games normally have save points wherever they need to be and treasure wherever it should be. They're two different things. Making a save point at almost every treasure chest made me almost sick of seeing them. I got super paranoid about what dangers would be coming until I got so used to them that I didn't feel any tension at all. And for a game with such strict resource management in combat to have all the tension sucked out of it, it's almost heartbreaking.

To me the save system and the combat really drug the experience down (as well as some beefs with the controls which I forgive a little now, looking at the screenshots). I love the art, story and especially the characters. Annabelle is great. The dev put in loads of flavour and accounting for an absolutely shocking amount of player deviance. Hell, he even gave Annabelle unique left-facing and right-facing sprites and her battler gets all stained and cut. It's an amazing amount of effort in that regard.

I love how the story reminds me in a way of Fragile Dreams with how you
get to a new area, make a friend, part ways at the end of the area, repeat.
. Man that was a beautiful game. But come to think of it while I usually ream that game for it's horrid controls it also had a faulty resource management mechanic (weapons had durability but rather than a gauge they just broke at completely random inervals, you know, to make each playthrough "unique").

All in all I'd say it's an enjoyable experience and I'm anxiously awaiting more but the stuff that brings it down brings it down hard. I kind of wish it were a book or something instead of an RPG. ... oh geez I said the same thing about Fragile Dreams too LOL
author=Dragnfly
Recommended solutions:
-Add a monster to one of the previous areas which can damage you further.
-Enable healing while at full health
-Change up the save system entirely
-I think you should just move where you get the band-aids to the screen after the save tutorial or something to prevent this from happening.


I can just remove the band-aid from the first chest to remedy this problem. I am not going to remove or change the save feature.
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
I like the save system. It's pretty unique.