A Gang of Weirdos

Are you ready to meet a... gang of weirdos?
scitydreamer is the developer of this surreal adventure game, made My First Game Jam on itch.io with RPGMaker MV.

This game is a short, linear adventure with a mysterious gunslinger protagonist, aptly named MX.Gunslinger, a last member of the race of the Astrals. In the beginning/prologue/tutorial our protagonist meets the friendly Mr. Keepe, a merchant, and tells him that he is looking to revive his world. To do that, he has to collect the souls of other dying worlds, and Mr. Keepe, that sees this as a chance to make some money, joins him. He will not be the only one, and during this short (1 hour and 30-45 min) adventure we will learn his and other characters' worlds' stories.

The gameplay is pretty simple: we start at the camp where we can save, rest and buy items from Mr. Keepe, then we have to enter a portal and look for a soul of that dying world. Normally this means exploring the place and facing various dangers and hostile creatures, from robots to giant worms, visiting weird surreal places like for example a world populated by living road signs. Luckily there are no random encounters, all enemies can be seen and avoided, but you can also run away from combat, anyway there are no shops (Mr. Keepe is the only one but luckily he restocks his goods after each sets of worlds visited) so be sure to be well equipped and have enough consumables before venturing forth. The red radios are the save points, so remember to use these whenever you find one (ah the importance of music!).


This guy had more or less the same idea... but WE are the protagonists, I am sorry!

Combat it's the classical side view complete with animated battlers where you have different special abilities (that cost mana points, of course) for each character, for example MX.Gunslinger has different bullet attacks and is the main damage dealer, then there is Herb the happy cactus that is a healer, and Sylvian the scientist that has has different buffs and debuffs. In the end I found combat encounters to be fast and rather easy, including those against the bosses, characters get useful new abilities when they level up and if you really want there are some places where you can grind, but there there isn't need at all!
Anyway since you will get some money from the combat encounters remember to spend them in order to upgrade your gear, buying bullets for MX.Gunslinger, shoes for Herb, etc...

Visually the game is pretty unique as most of the sprites are custom made by the developer. You may like them or no, but they create a rather unique setting composed by a varied assortment of locations and creatures. All is colorful and simple, maybe too much sometimes as in the case of many maps that are big and rather empty, anyway for a short first game that's more than enough. I appreciate the originality and creativity, speaking about the characters I especially liked MX.Gunslinger, the protagonist, but also Mr. Keepe, that unlike most the merchants from other jrpg and rpgmaker games it has a rather interesting personality and many things to say (despite not being a playable party member, he is more interesting than Sylvian for sure). Story is simple, linear but good and I loved the ending, a lot, I don't know why maybe it's me, but I found it very emotional.

Uhm I do not see many things I could criticize, maybe the presence of some typos, the absence of different tasks (but for a short game it's ok!) and the emptyness of some maps. But nothing really bad.


I'm trying my luck with this special attack against those grim masked men... how will it end?


Final Verdict
"Never judge a book from the cover" they say, and in this case they are right: this game is a nice, short original story with a surreal and stylized look that leaves a lot to the imagination of the player. Not bad story and game at all, I mean I felt compelled to play until the end, combat was a breeze and no opponent was really tough (they all took some turns to dispatch, and healing with Herb kept me safe), but that's ok since this let me focus on the story and the exchanges between the various characters, including party banter (Herb is really adorable). The dialogues range from humorous to serious and deep matters, and that's something I like a lot!

In the end this is a good and original game, maybe bit rough or just a prototype for a bigger, more complex adventure (scitydreamer's next game were even better, all of them, but this reminds to me of To Crime Nirvana for a similar bizarre trio and the different locations/bossfights) but still enjoyable.