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“THERE IS NO NIGHTMARE IN DAYBREAK. THE CITY IS ABSOLUTELY FINE. PLEASE FORGET THAT IT EVER EXISTED.”

Weird and unfortunate things are happening in the city of Daybreak. To the rest of the world, the city seems to have simply vanished, but inside, it has become a playground for mysterious beings who see humans only as hosts for their own amusement.



Alicia’s a bit strange. She still likes to wear her old baseball jersey, even though her team disbanded over a year ago. She can see otherworldly creatures that no one else seems to notice. She also has weird powers that she keeps hidden from the rest of the world. But when she receives a call for help from her niece in Daybreak, she’ll do anything to save her.

Caught up in the struggle along with Alicia are Miriam, a secretary and gun aficionado who only wants to escape the city, Lamar, an overworked middle school English teacher, and Dottie, Alicia’s niece, who has been captured for some nefarious purpose.

Explore what’s left of the ravaged city and find your way through surreal otherworldly areas that connect the broken urban shell. Encounter any other citizens who have survived and make contact with the strange entities that now inhabit this realm. Survive. Or be swallowed up by the city and forgotten forever.


  • Co-written and edited by Sooz!

  • Surreal tilesets by Roden!




  • Icons by unity and Caz!

  • Luna Engine Setup by BCj!



​Controller Support: If you'd like to play this game with a controller rather than the keyboard, then press F1 while the game is running and select the "Gamepad" option. From there it should allow you to remap the controls to your controller.

I know not every controller works with RPG Maker but I've gotten both a wired XBox One controller and the wireless 8BitDo controller to work with it, just from my own experience.

Window Size: You can double the window size by pressing F6, or go fullscreen by pressing F5.

Warnings: Game contains flashing lights and swearing.

Content Warnings: *sorta-spoilers?*
Show
Child death, sounds of babies crying, last moments of a parent, mentions of suicide, general creepy stuff

Latest Blog

NOW ON STEAM! Weird and Unfortunate RELEASE!

Click here to see Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening's STEAM PAGE!!!!

I finally pushed that big shiny launch button over on Steam, and now Weird and Unfortunate is up there and available to play, still for free!



I go by Sapphire Dream games over on Steam as a bit of rebranding, as I've been struggling for a while with the fact that "unity" is easily confused with the game making engine and I couldn't think of a way to remix it to sound unique.

This is my first game on Steam so I'm hoping I did everything right, but all my testing with the achievements and everything seemed to work, so fingers' crossed!

Huge thank you to everyone who wishlisted the game and promoted it on Twitter and itch and elsewhere! I really appreciate it!

Would you like to see any other of my games on Steam? I've already started tweaking Luxaren Allure for a possible Steam release, but we'll see how that goes.

Thanks again everyone!!! :DDDDDDDDDD
Make some new friends!
Awesome character art by MakioKuta!
Surreal areas with amazing tilesets by Pizza!

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unity
You're magical to me.
12540
08/05/2021 11:35 AM
author=Error
Terrain made from dismembered body parts, drinking celestial saliva to heal...this should be fun. And disturbing. But I had no need to say it twice.

Also, hi. :-P

Hello Error :DDD Nice to hear from you again! Hope you enjoy ^_^
Error
15
09/09/2021 03:41 AM
Enjoyment is a thing that happened. I also just did a double take watching the credits. :-P

I have a cold and don't feel up for analysis, so for now I'll just say that I finished it and loved it. More later.

(edit: my magic number was 74. I don't know out of how many, but I know I'm missing a few things.)
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
09/09/2021 08:03 PM
Thanks very much, so glad you loved the game! :DDD

Hope your cold gets better soon!

author=Error
I also just did a double take watching the credits. :-P

Haha, didn't expect that, did you? XD
Error
15
10/04/2021 09:33 PM
I did not. :-P And my cold did get better, though it took a while. Then I spent a couple weeks procrastinating on saying more here until I felt guilty about it.

I haven't forgotten and I promise I'll have more comments in the next day or two.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
10/04/2021 09:48 PM
author=Error
I did not. :-P And my cold did get better, though it took a while. Then I spent a couple weeks procrastinating on saying more here until I felt guilty about it.

I haven't forgotten and I promise I'll have more comments in the next day or two.


No need to feel bad! I'm glad you're feeling better! :DDD
Error
15
10/13/2021 12:25 AM
.

So apparently I wrote "a day or two" when I meant "a week or two". That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So! Weird and unfortunate things are happening, and lots of people are dead. Woo!

I loved it, but didn't know if I would going in. Urban horror isn't my usual genre, and I've never liked front-view Earthbound-style battles as much as side-view FF-style battles, and a save-the-child plot hook is...not an element for which the target audience includes me.

But I do love things that are dark as hell, and there were more than enough horrible things happening to keep my attention, and at some point I started to capital-C Care. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly when, which is a shame because that would probably be useful information.

I waited way too long to write up thoughts, so I'll just have to see what I can remember. Pardon the giant wall of text. I was too determined to write *something* to take the time to write a smaller one.

Mechanics:

The skill system was simplistic on its face, but presented interesting and meaningful choices, which is exactly what a skill system should do. It's a bit awkward to use, but I'm guessing "walk around an abstract map to pick out skills" was a workaround for RPGMaker limitations. It worked well enough and I hope you don't mind if I consider stealing it.

There are far too many quality-of-life details to list them all, but they were much appreciated. I'm thinking of things like indicating examinable objects (a feature I remembered from LA), providing maps, the boss warning (no fear of missing missables!), item descriptions that state what can be safely sold (ditto!), recording tutorial information as items for later perusal (a workaround for no in-engine help?), notes about how to rebind the controls, skill descriptions that are actually useful... I'm forgetting a whole host of things, but you've obviously thought hard about routine RPG annoyances and endeavoured to fix them.

(I do wish there was a way to *interactively* rebind the controls, so I don't have to experimentally figure out which button on my pad corresponds to RPGM's notion of "A" or the game's notion of selection/cancel. But that's a gripe with RPGM, not WaU)

Replacing the traditional "fight" command with a more interesting set of basic skills was a good move. So was making areas "empty out" so players who like to search thoroughly aren't constantly frustrated; the usual method (encounter-preventing equipment) has issues.

While there were a few spells I didn't get much use out of, there was no obsolescence. Spell selection was limited, but almost everything stayed useful. The spell design and differentiation feels more like Lunar than Final Fantasy (in a good way).

I'm not sold on the arrangement of enemy types and weaknesses. It's not *bad*, and it's certainly something new, but it usually wasn't obvious why type A had weakness B. Some of them made sense, others didn't, and I couldn't deduce them, only memorize them. Rather than memorize them or keep checking the in-battle help text, I mostly just used area spells to probe weaknesses on the fly.

I remember a number of puzzles having relatively subtle clues. I appreciated it but can't remember what they were now.

Zlonyth's private rooms and commentary were awesome and I always looked forward to finding them.

Balance:

I played on the highest difficulty with a couple of additional handicaps: No selling items and no permanent-stat-boosters. My perception of balance is colored accordingly.

Mooks remained dangerous-but-beatable throughout the game, which IMO is the most important balancing act. This section is full of nitpicks, but they're exactly that -- nitpicks.

Opportunities to heal felt few and far between, especially in the early game. I am not sure if this is a plus or minus; it was frustrating, but it also turned health and psi point management into an interesting optimization problem, at least until Lamar joined (and psi management stayed so until near the end of the game).

Lumin Flash seems too powerful relative to Alicia's other skills, its cost, and the stage of the game when you get it. She opened with it in nearly every battle, all through the game. I'm not exactly *complaining*, it preserved my ass excellently, but maybe it should have been more expensive or further down the skill tree.

Scourge Rot was the majority of my damage for a long time. Eventually monster HP outpaced it, though, to the point that I stopped bothering. So, oddly, it was too strong early on and too weak in the endgame.

Miriam's bullets seemed too rare relative to their worth, and (most of) her spells too expensive. For much of the game, I had trouble finding something for her to do after blinding (and later corroding) everything. Her other options often didn't seem worth the resource expenditure.

I'm not sure what the Right Thing would be here. Maybe expanded bullet effects. As-is, they only end fights faster, they don't help control the battle or otherwise get you out of trouble. Their rarity makes them impractical to combo with Overdrive, and maybe Overdrive itself should have been cheaper. Its opportunity cost is high at the beginning of a fight (where it competes with applying blind and acid one turn earlier), and it takes three turns to turn a "damage profit", and by then you've spent ~100 out of ~150 MP.

Dottie's chess pieces also seemed unusably rare until endgame, but in her case it's justifiable because their benefits are gamechangers.

The Princess area of the final dungeon was *exactly* as hard as it should be. Those damn Fiendish Minds stopped me dead just as I started to think things were getting too easy. :-P

Story:

Hidden for spoilers:
Show

I went through a good chunk of the early game expecting a betrayal. I only stopped expecting it because the mechanics were so wrapped around the human-evocation alliances that any betrayal would require completely changing them.

(it is not clear from the stinger scene whether the betrayal hasn't happened *yet*, or if you just want it to look like that.)

Zlonyth was my favorite character (despite his background role), but I think Elothu was the best-written. I'm not sure if you were going for a blue-and-orange morality thing with him, but it's how he came across. He doesn't seem to have a *moral* problem with the Inner Evocations abusing their hosts, he just finds it *distasteful*. He appears arrogant, but it's not actually self-aggrandizing, because it's not about him; he just values a certain kind of superiority, and doesn't hesitate to ascribe greater superiority to those he thinks deserve it.

Viola and Erick...I have mixed feelings about. Their deaths were so sudden that it was hard to get worked up over them at the time. On the other hand, when they showed up again later as creepy not-exactly-undead, that part definitely worked.

Obsidian (name check?), by contrast, was unreservedly heartbreaking. I still have Dottie equipped with the hairband charm because yeah. And yes, I did try to save her and I'm guessing you enjoyed plotting the result. Also, I have a suspicion that Obsidian was supposed to be the same girl who was previously bullying Dottie at school, though I can't look up the relevant dialogue to be sure.

(It will be awesome and/or horrifying if there actually *is* a way to save her. I couldn't find one, but if I were writing this, I might hide the method in Expanse-speech somewhere so that the player can later feel guilty for not putting the effort into decoding it...but I'm an evil bastard)

Margaret's late-game upgrade made me smile. A small nod towards sentimentality. Kind of like taking the Cael Hammer into the last level of Bastion. :-P

Uiroq's presence makes me wonder if this is supposed to be in the same multiverse as LA, or if it's just fan bonus.

I didn't see Sadie coming. I feel like I should have.


Misc:

As with LA, I got that last-dungeon feeling well before the actual last dungeon (specifically at the temple, IIRC). I didn't get the same sense of gruelling-ness, though, possibly because WaU mostly doesn't have "towns" in the traditional sense to break up segments, so I didn't feel their absence as much. I don't know if that decision was inspired by anything in particular, but I mentally mapped it to SMT3, which was the same way.

"A resource never used is the same as a resource never earned." Spoken like someone who's saved way more elixirs over the years than they should have. :-P

The school "dungeon" stuck out to me. It felt too long, but it was magnificently creepy. Grade schools creep me out to begin with, so I was primed for it. The Fool's Key areas (did they have a name?) also got progressively creepier throughout the game and it was great.

I've yet to find the daughter's heart in the final dungeon. I found the clue regarding its hiding place, and I found the door that I think it's behind, but I lack the key and haven't been able to find it.

I've heard nothing about the key from any of the NPCs I can reach. It may be in Makyo, which I haven't explored much yet. I'm debating whether, before putting a lot of time into it, I should replay the game with the language decoding on. It might contain things that would be useful to know.

Speaking of which, the decodable expanse languages. I *love* the concept (which is unlikely to surprise you, after AD), but never actually tried to decode them. The trouble was that I had no good way to transcribe them for later analysis. I can't copy-paste out of the game; and the letters don't resemble English ones so I can't type them into another window; and I have arthritis, so physically writing them down would be slow and painful. Nevertheless, I wanted to know what they said (I kept expecting them to contain warnings that the evocations were about to betray me, or something), and I'll play again to find out now that I can decode them. I'm not sure what to expect on the scale between "interesting but nonessential material" and "complete reinterpretation of events," but I look forward to finding out.

In retrospect, I should have taken screenshots whenever Expanse text came up; that would have worked just fine for transcription, and I'm pretty sure the language itself is normal English text with a custom font. I puzzled out a few lines along the way just eyeballing it. Oh well, too late now.

{edit: and now that I've reminded myself of custom fonts, I remember noticing that the designs on some of the walls in Daybreak look suspiciously like someone speaking in hands...}

---

And, wow. I wasn't expecting to write a thousand words when I started typing, but I'm guessing you won't mind. I'm sure I had more to say, but at least for the moment it's lost in the last two months of memory. This will do for now.
Malandy
357
10/13/2021 01:45 AM
author=Error
I've yet to find the daughter's heart in the final dungeon. I found the clue regarding its hiding place, and I found the door that I think it's behind, but I lack the key and haven't been able to find it.

I've heard nothing about the key from any of the NPCs I can reach.

----

Well, if the items you're talking about are the ones I think you are... Well, they're pretty hard to find, and they're not in the Bonus Boss area, and not blocked off by any points of no return.

Answer as a question:

Show
Did you explore the mine?


----

What Difficulty are / were you on? Because all difficulty information of a review depends on that?
Error
15
10/13/2021 04:37 AM
Well, if the items you're talking about are the ones I think you are... Well, they're pretty hard to find, and they're not in the Bonus Boss area, and not blocked off by any points of no return.
I meant to avoid looking under the hide tag, but it showed when I hit quote. Thankfully, the answer to your question is yes. That's where the clue said to look, and that's where I found a locked door (and assumed, admittedly without evidence, that it was related). I just haven't found a key for it. I did find and use the two bones; as far as I know all I'm missing is the heart.

Now that I know the solution is find-able without exploring hell, I'll take another crack at it.

What Difficulty are / were you on? Because all difficulty information of a review depends on that?
Hard, with additional handicaps. I did say that right at the start of the section. I even cited that reason for mentioning it. O_o
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
10/13/2021 02:15 PM
author=Error
So apparently I wrote "a day or two" when I meant "a week or two". That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Wow! This write-up is very detailed and insightful! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! :DDD

author=Error
I loved it, but didn't know if I would going in. Urban horror isn't my usual genre, and I've never liked front-view Earthbound-style battles as much as side-view FF-style battles, and a save-the-child plot hook is...not an element for which the target audience includes me.

But I do love things that are dark as hell, and there were more than enough horrible things happening to keep my attention, and at some point I started to capital-C Care. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly when, which is a shame because that would probably be useful information.

I'm very glad you were able to get into it, despite it not being your usual cup of tea ^_^

author=Error
The skill system was simplistic on its face, but presented interesting and meaningful choices, which is exactly what a skill system should do. It's a bit awkward to use, but I'm guessing "walk around an abstract map to pick out skills" was a workaround for RPGMaker limitations. It worked well enough and I hope you don't mind if I consider stealing it.

Yeah, that was it exactly, a way to work around limitations, and feel free to steal it for any future projects if you like :D Originally I was going to have you "buy" skills from a shop menu, but that lacked the flexibility I wanted. Tho I have an idea for buying skills from a menu that *might* work that I may try in Luxaren Allure 2 if things go well.

author=Error
There are far too many quality-of-life details to list them all, but they were much appreciated. I'm thinking of things like indicating examinable objects (a feature I remembered from LA), providing maps, the boss warning (no fear of missing missables!), item descriptions that state what can be safely sold (ditto!), recording tutorial information as items for later perusal (a workaround for no in-engine help?), notes about how to rebind the controls, skill descriptions that are actually useful... I'm forgetting a whole host of things, but you've obviously thought hard about routine RPG annoyances and endeavoured to fix them.

Thanks! I'm still trying to find new ways to further improve quality of life, and this game was a learning experience in that regard. For example the maps were added in response to feedback and watching people play. If at all possible, I think having a map function for every dungeon in future games would be really nice.

author=Error
(I do wish there was a way to *interactively* rebind the controls, so I don't have to experimentally figure out which button on my pad corresponds to RPGM's notion of "A" or the game's notion of selection/cancel. But that's a gripe with RPGM, not WaU)

Yeah, that's an issue with VX Ace, I'm hoping newer makers are better about it (I'm working with MZ now, and as the default settings for controllers work for me, I haven't looked into rebinding yet).

author=Error
I'm not sold on the arrangement of enemy types and weaknesses. It's not *bad*, and it's certainly something new, but it usually wasn't obvious why type A had weakness B. Some of them made sense, others didn't, and I couldn't deduce them, only memorize them. Rather than memorize them or keep checking the in-battle help text, I mostly just used area spells to probe weaknesses on the fly.

Yeah, I was really happy with the idea when I came up with it, and some people take to it like a duck to water, but others don't, and now I can see that maybe it wasn't as elegant of an idea as I thought it was initially. Not sure how I can modify it to be better for a possible future WU 2 or spin-off, but I'll keep my thinking cap on.

author=Error
Zlonyth's private rooms and commentary were awesome and I always looked forward to finding them.

I'm glad! :DDD Had a lot of fun with Zlonyth! Huge thanks to Sooz for how Zlonyth talks, I could never have pulled that off without her!

author=Error
Balance:I played on the highest difficulty with a couple of additional handicaps: No selling items and no permanent-stat-boosters. My perception of balance is colored accordingly.

I agree with a lot of what you said in your Balance section. Tho I am curious as to why you decided not to use stat-boosters, as I had hoped they would allow players to tweak characters a bit, such as allowing certain characters to have expanded PSI point pools and adjust physical and psychic damage.

author=Error
Miriam's bullets seemed too rare relative to their worth, and (most of) her spells too expensive. For much of the game, I had trouble finding something for her to do after blinding (and later corroding) everything. Her other options often didn't seem worth the resource expenditure.

I'm not sure what the Right Thing would be here. Maybe expanded bullet effects. As-is, they only end fights faster, they don't help control the battle or otherwise get you out of trouble. Their rarity makes them impractical to combo with Overdrive, and maybe Overdrive itself should have been cheaper. Its opportunity cost is high at the beginning of a fight (where it competes with applying blind and acid one turn earlier), and it takes three turns to turn a "damage profit", and by then you've spent ~100 out of ~150 MP.

Dottie's chess pieces also seemed unusably rare until endgame, but in her case it's justifiable because their benefits are gamechangers.

If there's one thing I took from making and balancing battles in this game, it's that I don't think I want to tie skills to items like this in future games. It makes it way too hard to balance and like you said, Miriam's bullets are often just "battle shorteners."

It doesn't feel right for the kinds of games I make. A lot of things in this game were experimental for me and this is one case where I'm not super happy with the outcome. It doesn't break or ruin the game IMO (which is why they're still in there) but it does influence how I'll approach similar mechanics going forward.

author=Error
Story:

I'm not going to go too in-depth in responding to your story points, but I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts here. Thanks so much for that! :DDDD

As for the one mystery character you mentioned, I in fact did not allow you to save them through any means. In the future I think it *would* be fun to allow you to save a character like that through a very esoteric method, so I'll keep that in mind for future projects.

Also they are exactly who you think they are, tho I did poorly by giving them so little focus in the story before they joined the party. Again, something I hope I can improve on in future games.

author=Error
Margaret's late-game upgrade made me smile. A small nod towards sentimentality. Kind of like taking the Cael Hammer into the last level of Bastion. :-P

Haha, I love doing stuff like that XD

author=Error
Uiroq's presence makes me wonder if this is supposed to be in the same multiverse as LA, or if it's just fan bonus.

I needed a hell-merchant, realized I already had one from LA, and just ran with it. Who knows, maybe the games' netherworlds' are connected somehow. I'll probably use him again if I have another near-hell dungeon that needs a shop XD

author=Error
The school "dungeon" stuck out to me. It felt too long, but it was magnificently creepy. Grade schools creep me out to begin with, so I was primed for it.

Thanks! That dungeon was, in hindsight, waaaaay too big. And it was followed by a Vedim area. It just puts the breaks on the plot in a way that's not good for pacing. I love the place but yeah I went way overboard on its size.

author=Error
The Fool's Key areas (did they have a name?) also got progressively creepier throughout the game and it was great.

Thanks! Those were probably the most fun to make, and I felt like they were a good break from the usual cycle of battles. As for their name, I just call them "Fool's Spaces"

author=Error
I've yet to find the daughter's heart in the final dungeon. I found the clue regarding its hiding place, and I found the door that I think it's behind, but I lack the key and haven't been able to find it.

I've heard nothing about the key from any of the NPCs I can reach. It may be in Makyo, which I haven't explored much yet. I'm debating whether, before putting a lot of time into it, I should replay the game with the language decoding on. It might contain things that would be useful to know.

The Princess Heart, the Blue Face, and the two Triangles were put in as a "I wonder if anyone will find these" sort of thing (and yes, of course people found them, no matter how mysteriously I hid them).

If you want a hint...
Show
To get the princess' heart, find the red pac-man-looking-area in the Mind Mines. One of those paths to the north in red-area leads to a mines' room with a minecart with the prize inside.


Give that to the princess to get that key you are missing. If you want more exact instructions, let me know.

author=Error
Speaking of which, the decodable expanse languages. I *love* the concept (which is unlikely to surprise you, after AD), but never actually tried to decode them. The trouble was that I had no good way to transcribe them for later analysis. I can't copy-paste out of the game; and the letters don't resemble English ones so I can't type them into another window; and I have arthritis, so physically writing them down would be slow and painful. Nevertheless, I wanted to know what they said (I kept expecting them to contain warnings that the evocations were about to betray me, or something), and I'll play again to find out now that I can decode them. I'm not sure what to expect on the scale between "interesting but nonessential material" and "complete reinterpretation of events," but I look forward to finding out.

In retrospect, I should have taken screenshots whenever Expanse text came up; that would have worked just fine for transcription, and I'm pretty sure the language itself is normal English text with a custom font. I puzzled out a few lines along the way just eyeballing it. Oh well, too late now.

Yeah I think screenshots are the ideal way to go. I only found this out recently, but if you're on a window's machine and press the windows button plus Print Screen, it'll save a screenshot of the printed screen directly to a folder in your Pictures folder. Super useful!

If you ever decide to do a second playthrough, you can call up the password screen to input the code to auto-translate the languages by pressing Q as the screen scrolls up to Dottie's house.

author=Error
And, wow. I wasn't expecting to write a thousand words when I started typing, but I'm guessing you won't mind. I'm sure I had more to say, but at least for the moment it's lost in the last two months of memory. This will do for now.

Thanks again for all of your thoughts, it was an enjoyable read! :DDDDD And I'm so glad you ended up playing the game!

I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for an eventual Luxaren Allure 2. No promises yet, but if I can figure out the plot and systems, that may be my next big project! Here's hoping.
Malandy
357
10/14/2021 12:05 AM
author=unity
I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for an eventual Luxaren Allure 2. No promises yet, but if I can figure out the plot and systems, that may be my next big project! Here's hoping.


Oooh! Good luck! ... *Me, still not having beaten the game...*
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
10/14/2021 12:15 AM
author=Malandy
author=unity
I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for an eventual Luxaren Allure 2. No promises yet, but if I can figure out the plot and systems, that may be my next big project! Here's hoping.
Oooh! Good luck! ... *Me, still not having beaten the game...*


Hopefully it'll be playable just fine even without having played the first one :D
Error
15
10/14/2021 09:28 PM
author=unity
Originally I was going to have you "buy" skills from a shop menu, but that lacked the flexibility I wanted.


I'm curious what the obstacle was. If I had to guess, it would be handling skill prerequisites.

(Context: RM's available customization hooks seem...not well documented. It's not clear to me what's easy, what's hard, and what's impossible.)

author=unity
Yeah, that's an issue with VX Ace, I'm hoping newer makers are better about it (I'm working with MZ now, and as the default settings for controllers work for me, I haven't looked into rebinding yet).


I have MZ (and also Ace, but I only ever used it to mine LA). I looked at MZ's input code a while back, and I *think* I saw a way to do interactive rebinding, but I haven't tried it.

author=unity
Yeah, I was really happy with {the enemy types} when I came up with it, and some people take to it like a duck to water, but others don't, and now I can see that maybe it wasn't as elegant of an idea as I thought it was initially. Not sure how I can modify it to be better for a possible future WU 2 or spin-off, but I'll keep my thinking cap on.


(epistemic status: talking out my ass) Such systems should either follow well-defined rules (e.g. opposites on an element wheel), or match everyday intuitions; otherwise, they come across as arbitrary. WaU's system looks like it's trying to take the latter approach, with mixed success. Examples: it makes intuitive sense that armored or spectral targets are resistant to physical skills, that nightmares are resistant to terror, or that machines are resistant to terror and sorrow. It's less clear why the Mystic type is weak to sorrow and resistant to the others (though I can sort-of-see it if I squint), and I can't see an underlying theory in the Oddity resistances at all.

Mileage probably varies a lot by play style. I care a lot about fair-play-insight mechanics because a lot of my enjoyment comes from learning the rules well enough to exploit them.

(on editing, I remembered that in the early game I had additional issues memorizing the icons themselves. A label or context-help button (a-la select in FFT) might have closed the gap)

author=unity
author=Error
Zlonyth's private rooms and commentary were awesome and I always looked forward to finding them.
I'm glad! :DDD Had a lot of fun with Zlonyth! Huge thanks to Sooz for how Zlonyth talks, I could never have pulled that off without her!


Thanks, Sooz! :-)

I always had the impression LA was close to a one-woman show. Is WaU different in that respect, or was I wrong to begin with? Makes me feel a little bad for not crediting more people in AD's author's notes.

author=unity
I agree with a lot of what you said in your Balance section. Tho I am curious as to why you decided not to use stat-boosters, as I had hoped they would allow players to tweak characters a bit, such as allowing certain characters to have expanded PSI point pools and adjust physical and psychic damage.


It was just a well-defined way to increase the difficulty without fundamentally changing the game. If I had run into something I couldn't beat without them, I would have relaxed the restriction.

(NB: that does not necessarily mean Hard is too easy. I'm probably not a good metric.)

If there's one thing I took from making and balancing battles in this game, it's that I don't think I want to tie skills to items like this in future games. It makes it way too hard to balance and like you said, Miriam's bullets are often just "battle shorteners."


I notice that Dottie's eldritch spell was limited in a different way, but worked out fine. The difference seems to be that there was an opportunity cost for *not* using Eldritch Eye. If there were a similar cost to not spending bullets and pieces (a capacity cap, maybe?), spending them might feel like a better option.

I did smile at the line about an unspent resource being equivalent to an unearned resource. On some level I knew I was failing to learn the lesson.

(hidden for spoilers, not just for WaU but also classic FF)
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author=unity
Show
As for the one mystery character you mentioned, I in fact did not allow you to save them through any means. In the future I think it *would* be fun to allow you to save a character like that through a very esoteric method, so I'll keep that in mind for future projects.
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I was only partly serious, for the record. I'm reminded of all the contemporary complaints about Leo in FFVI or Aeris in FFVII, and those stories wouldn't have been improved by a revival option.

But it's fun to think about, and I'm sure there's stories where one could get away with it. Probably those where the death isn't character-defining.

(fun fact: I don't know if you played FFVI when it was current, but at the time there were a lot of hoaxes claiming that Leo could be saved or revived. All lies. Then, something like twenty years later, someone actually found a way to do it. It was totally unintended by the developers, required massive bug abuse, and was 100% awesome.)

author=unity
Also they are exactly who you think they are, tho I did poorly by giving them so little focus in the story before they joined the party. Again, something I hope I can improve on in future games.


Oh, I don't know about that. It felt like genius bonus to me. Or at least it made me feel like a genius for spotting it.

author=unity
If you want a hint...


Mrgh. You might want to move that under hide tags; I didn't want that much of a hint. -_- But I was already looking in more-or-less the right place, so not much harm done.

author=unity
If you ever decide to do a second playthrough, you can call up the password screen to input the code to auto-translate the languages by pressing Q as the screen scrolls up to Dottie's house.


You were a step ahead of you; one of the guys next to the machine says as much. :-P

author=unity
Thanks again for all of your thoughts, it was an enjoyable read! :DDDDD And I'm so glad you ended up playing the game!

I've been doing a lot of brainstorming for an eventual Luxaren Allure 2. No promises yet, but if I can figure out the plot and systems, that may be my next big project! Here's hoping.


You're welcome. It's nice to be appreciated. :-) And whenever LA2 is in the cards, I'll jump on it with both feet.

On another note, back when I wrote AD, you offered to give me feedback if I ever dove into RPGMaker. Is that offer still open? I have a project in mind for the near future (if I can solve a certain structural issue with my intended plot), so I might want to take you up on it soon.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
10/14/2021 10:21 PM
author=Error
author=unity
Originally I was going to have you "buy" skills from a shop menu, but that lacked the flexibility I wanted.
I'm curious what the obstacle was. If I had to guess, it would be handling skill prerequisites.

(Context: RM's available customization hooks seem...not well documented. It's not clear to me what's easy, what's hard, and what's impossible.)


It's been 5 years so I don't remember exactly, but I assume it was something like that. I just remember it not feeling smooth or intuitive enough, for some reason.

author=Error
(epistemic status: talking out my ass) Such systems should either follow well-defined rules (e.g. opposites on an element wheel), or match everyday intuitions; otherwise, they come across as arbitrary. WaU's system looks like it's trying to take the latter approach, with mixed success. Examples: it makes intuitive sense that armored or spectral targets are resistant to physical skills, that nightmares are resistant to terror, or that machines are resistant to terror and sorrow. It's less clear why the Mystic type is weak to sorrow and resistant to the others (though I can sort-of-see it if I squint), and I can't see an underlying theory in the Oddity resistances at all.

Mileage probably varies a lot by play style. I care a lot about fair-play-insight mechanics because a lot of my enjoyment comes from learning the rules well enough to exploit them.

(on editing, I remembered that in the early game I had additional issues memorizing the icons themselves. A label or context-help button (a-la select in FFT) might have closed the gap)


Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'll see if I can work something like that into my next MZ project, there's some plugins that look promising.

Again, still not sure what I'll do with future projects in the W&U setting, but I'll have some time to stew on that and see how I feel in the future. If you could see what weaknesses and resistances you're hitting just by selecting the skill (before you confirm anything) then that could probably help a lot.

author=Error
Thanks, Sooz! :-)

I always had the impression LA was close to a one-woman show. Is WaU different in that respect, or was I wrong to begin with? Makes me feel a little bad for not crediting more people in AD's author's notes.


When it comes to writing, originally I did all of it in Luxaren. But Sooz and I are roommates, so I'd often show her parts I was struggling with and get her input. Somewhere along the line she offered to just be a cowriter and we've been going like that from Luxaren to Weird and Unfortunate.

Basically, I write the script and then she re-writes it. She has a much better grasp of character voice and showing rather than telling. I'm often too straightforward and have a much weaker grasp on how people talk casually. She's been a life saver for me and has made these projects a ton better, IMO!

author=Error
I notice that Dottie's eldritch spell was limited in a different way, but worked out fine. The difference seems to be that there was an opportunity cost for *not* using Eldritch Eye. If there were a similar cost to not spending bullets and pieces (a capacity cap, maybe?), spending them might feel like a better option.


Yeah, a capacity cap could have worked well. At that point I could have sold them in stores too, if I wanted. Definitely something to consider.

author=Error
(hidden for spoilers, not just for WaU but also classic FF)
Show
author=unity
Show
As for the one mystery character you mentioned, I in fact did not allow you to save them through any means. In the future I think it *would* be fun to allow you to save a character like that through a very esoteric method, so I'll keep that in mind for future projects.
Show


I was only partly serious, for the record. I'm reminded of all the contemporary complaints about Leo in FFVI or Aeris in FFVII, and those stories wouldn't have been improved by a revival option.

But it's fun to think about, and I'm sure there's stories where one could get away with it. Probably those where the death isn't character-defining.

(fun fact: I don't know if you played FFVI when it was current, but at the time there were a lot of hoaxes claiming that Leo could be saved or revived. All lies. Then, something like twenty years later, someone actually found a way to do it. It was totally unintended by the developers, required massive bug abuse, and was 100% awesome.)




Haha yeah, I played those games when they were first out and I remember hearing rumors like that XD I guess it's just natural for people to want that sort of things in games, tho that makes the possibility even more fun.

author=Error
Oh, I don't know about that. It felt like genius bonus to me. Or at least it made me feel like a genius for spotting it.


Haha, then I guess I did some good! I'll consider that a victory, then!

author=Error
author=unity
If you want a hint...
Mrgh. You might want to move that under hide tags; I didn't want that much of a hint. -_- But I was already looking in more-or-less the right place, so not much harm done.


Terribly sorry about that, there's been a period where I'm constantly getting asked that over on the Itch.io page and I've gotten into the habit of just telling people. I've gone back and hidden it.

author=Error
You're welcome. It's nice to be appreciated. :-) And whenever LA2 is in the cards, I'll jump on it with both feet.

On another note, back when I wrote AD, you offered to give me feedback if I ever dove into RPGMaker. Is that offer still open? I have a project in mind for the near future (if I can solve a certain structural issue with my intended plot), so I might want to take you up on it soon.


Yeah sure, I don't see why not :DDD It'll depend on how much time and available brainpower I have at any given moment, but I'd still love to give feedback!
Varn
0
10/15/2021 05:58 AM
That's not the classic FF spoiler I was expecting.

Show

Forget rumors of saving Leo. FF6's Cid will 100% die on your first playthrough if you aren't using a walkthrough. Eventually, you might figure out - or hear online - that you COULD have saved him, by catching only the fastest fish. And keep Celes from attempting suicide as well...


At least, that's more what I was thinking of when talking about a way to save poor Obsidian.

Pssst ... do it in a patch. Do it! :)
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
10/15/2021 11:29 AM
I remember reading an article, or perhaps a series of articles, about how one can break FF6. It involves...

Show

...using the functionality of retaining various points of data, such as levels, spell-learning, maybe gold and inventory, when the party dies. As I recall, you use the very first save-point, with only Terra, Biggs, and Wedge in the party. Then proceed to play the game normally up until you re-recruit Seltzer, and get the airship in the World of Darkness. Fly it to Zozo, then purposefully allow the party to be slain. Or something like that!


...a certain quality-of-life feature that the game tells you about up front. The intent of the feature may have been well-meaning enough, but, well, yeah.
Dyhalto
7536
12/12/2021 05:19 AM
Phooey.
I don't know what to do with the Blue Face. I imagine it has something to do with getting the Left triangle (I found the Right), but I don't know where to take/use it. I've crawled all over hell's half acre (no pun intended) twice over and don't have a clue.

At least I managed to beat the entire game + superboss on Nightmare (⌐■_■)

CRUSH ENEMIES AND SURVIVE!
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
12/15/2021 12:56 AM
author=Dyhalto
Phooey.
I don't know what to do with the Blue Face. I imagine it has something to do with getting the Left triangle (I found the Right), but I don't know where to take/use it. I've crawled all over hell's half acre (no pun intended) twice over and don't have a clue.

At least I managed to beat the entire game + superboss on Nightmare (⌐■_■)

CRUSH ENEMIES AND SURVIVE!


Well done :DDDDDD That's super impressive!

As for the Blue Face

Show
go to the Princess Zone and look for a door hidden behind a pillar in the northwestern area


Thanks for playing the game so thoroughly :DDDDDDDDD
Dyhalto
7536
12/15/2021 03:43 AM
:O
Show
Doors hidden behind pillars? That's dirty pool!
I was king of hoping there'd be some plot maguffin that made the sealed princess nice, but Neo Vindlum is cool too. Also, I beat it's superboss as well >:D

I don't get to say I 100%'ed the game all by myself. Poop :(

But I'll be sure to do so in Luxaren Allure 2 >:DDDDDDDD
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
12/15/2021 12:10 PM
Sorry XD;

I'm sure you will in LA2. I'm excited to make it and am already planning to have at least one postgame dungeon in there, too! :DDDDDDDDDDDD
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
12/15/2021 02:20 PM
One post-game Dy-hard dungeon, no less! XD
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