Creaking

Intro

"Creaking" is a short game featuring turn-based combat developed by Craze and Subzero_Dragon for the Swap in the Middle with You event held back in the early months of 2016. An event where one person would begin a project and another person would finish them. In the case of this project it was begun by Craze and finished by Subzero_Dragon. Though oddly enough the only projects Subzero_Dragon has ever finished on this site were both part of this event. Though, I'm hoping I'll enjoy her other entry in said event more since this game leaves me with rather mixed feelings even if she was paired up with Craze for both projects. Albeit this game really isn't meant to be enjoyed if Craze's comments are anything to go by.

Craze
it wasn't meant to be too fair or pleasurable.it's old people hitting things with canes. if you felt frustrated but eventually got through it, my intentions were fulfilled. same with liberty complaining about the herbs being shit recovery items even though they have a restriction. this was not about "proper" gam dezin, it was about making you hate everything.

I don't know if Craze managed to make me hate everything, but considering the main focus of this game is combat. He definitely managed to ruin that for me. Though, I suppose I should dive into the story before I talk about gameplay and how to trivialize this game.

Story
Summary

You play as a group of six villagers traveling back to their hometown. Unfortunately it appears they've taken a rather dangerous route back home that will require them to overcome various wild creatures and monsters. And not everyone is going to make it since several deaths in this game are scripted.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

I'll admit the only upside I can really offer this game's narrative is that it's brief. At the same time the overall silent nature of the game's protagonists means it's hard to really care about any of them. So even when Agnes and the other one dies it really doesn't effect the player that much. I can't even say the game deals with the grief the playable cast feel since they don't have any lines to discuss it. In fact, the only time you feel any impact from the deaths is when your told your herb gathering efficiency has been decreased due to losing Agnes, but even that impact can be avoided if you play this game following my advice.

Gameplay

As mentioned previously we have access to six party members at the start of this game, but all of them are rather weak to say the least. To be fair several of the party members are super old ladies wielding canes and one is an underage school girl whose about as durable as a wet piece of paper. Suffice to say the last thing you want to do in this game is fight random opponents. To make matters worse winning fights in this game doesn't net you experience or strengthen your characters in anyway. So it's not like winning nets you any rewards beyond gaining back three hit points and one energy. And your probably going to be spending more resources than that in order to win the fight.

Of course the real annoyance in this game are the boss fights which tend to be endurance tests. And when your party is as fragile as glass there not really going to hold up that well during said fights. Thankfully you do get some healing items and herbs to help out, but even those items are rather weak with healing items only recover small amounts of health and energy and herbs being even weaker and restricted to the person using the item command. Suffice to say combat in this game is pretty rough and is far more frustrating than it is rewarding.

Outside of combat the second half of the game includes a few puzzles whose difficulty is pretty low for the most part. The only one that will probably mess you up is the button pressing puzzle since one of the buttons will cause one of your party members to die. Thankfully this button doesn't need to be pushed in order to beat the puzzle. So my advice is to simply save scum in order to avoid the unnecessary death since you'll want a party of four for dealing with the final boss.

Tips and Tricks

Which is why I'm going to leave people with some tips and tricks for this game that make it a lot easier to beat. For starters you can run from fights in this game. And my advice is to do so. In fact, you still gain back three health and one energy from a fight even if you run away from it. So you can abuse random encounters and save scumming in order to heal your party in this game.

My next tip is to abuse Eddiston's thwap skill. While this skill isn't super accurate it can stun lock a boss for several turns if it connects. And this allows the player to easily focus fire on weaker ally units while the boss is unable to do anything. In fact, this skill can turn the fight against the game's final boss into an absolute joke and make the fight against "she who watches" a lot easier as well since said boss can't resurrect her allies while stunned.

My next tip is to simply skip over the herbs. While they do provide you some additional resources you'll also get into more random encounters trying to gather them. And while you can run away from said fights and should. You won't always succeed in running away on your first attempt and some of the enemies in this game can inflict poison. So it's best to avoid unnecessary fights where possible. And to be honest I didn't use any of the healing items provided by Craze and Subzero_Dragon in order to beat the game. So the herbs really aren't needed if your running away from random encounters.

Graphics

On the graphical side of things the game relies entirely on the RTP for RPG Maker MV but considering this is an event game that really doesn't come as a surprise. Add in the fact that Craze is an experienced developer and the first half the game features some pretty solid mapping. The second half is a bit weaker, but the small nature of the castle combined with the darkness means the castle still looks decent.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game is simply average in my opinion. Which in my case means I found the game's music and sound effects rather forgettable, but at the same time nothing in the game stood out in a bad way either.

Conclusion

"Creaking" is a combat heavy game where you'll spend most of your time running from fights. As such the main focus of this game is the last thing you want to do. Add in a narrative that isn't all that engaging and your left with a combat heavy game that has nothing to carry it. After all, the boss battles can be easily cheesed if the goddess of RNG on your side. And while I realize this game is partially rough because it was an event game. This game is also a bad experience on purpose. As such my general advice is to simply avoid this game. After all, my tips and tricks will only help you so much when it comes to turning this game around.