ANNELAURANT'S PROFILE

Hello, I'm Anne! I make art, write stories, and apparently develop games now! Occasionally I sing and compose songs.

Search

Filter

Game submitted! Awaiting approval!

author=Strak
Looking forward to checking it out!

Thank you! Hopefully I can roll out the demo within mid November 2022. Right now all I have are screenshots and a game profile, and my game is still filled with bugs, bugs, and more bugs! I need a strong repellent! XD

Bloodstained Hands Review

author=Strak
Hey, thanks so much for the review! I always appreciate the feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed the game!


Aww, you're welcome!

Also, I'm glad you noticed that the overworld towns actually do represent the town layout! It wasn't a huge detail, but it was something I was proud of, and I don't think anyone else has pointed it out yet, so I appreciate the nod!


I appreciate the small details and I had to stop and stare at the Overworld towns when I noticed something wasn't quite "right". And when I did realize how the Overworld towns reflected the actual maps of each town I was like, "Woah, these are some CUSTOM stuff."

And finally, saying that this game is not just a game, but an experience, that's gotta be the best compliment anyone has given me for this game.


The alchemy, the quests, and the battles carried it so solidly that I was willing to grind to Level 99 on my first playthrough if that meant I can beat all of the optional bosses before I face the final boss.

Excellence in Narrative - Pacing

Prefacing this with, "I'm someone who gets very easily bored with reading. Even if I'm a writer. Even if I'm writing for my own game. Even if my actual day job, in fact, involves reading huge walls of text."

I don't fully agree with your Method One. Having the players mash the button to go to the next line of dialogue seems pretty excessive, and it's definitely something I didn't like to go through back when I had to replay scenes to get screenshots for my review of your game. I wouldn't recommend "line breaks" for ALL the dialogue; I would want it used sparingly and as an effect, not a mandatory part of every dialogue.

However, I do like having pauses between sentences. Sometimes I utilize the short pause between phrases or words or even letters/characters. These pauses suggest the manner in which the character is speaking and thus gives me a better flow of how to perceive the words I'm reading on the screen. (Yeah, I kinda disagree with the first commenter. While people can have different headcanons for how a character speaks on a written medium, the writers are allowed to suggest how their own characters speak their words and sentences. Also consider that there are people like me who see a wall of text on one go and instantly lose interest, and sometimes presenting messages in small chunks can make it easier for us to absorb information.)

Also, very obviously, Method One is not applicable to all games. Text-based adventures, for example, requires the dev to present everything as a wall of text. But I do think Method One is one way to at least introduce a bit more flavor to RPG Maker engine dialogues.

I do agree with your Method Two, meanwhile. The OSI can add nice breaks between walls of text. Like what the commenter above says, even the basicest of actions you can do with your chosen engine - animations, bubbles, and movement routes - can add a little more flavor to the dialogue.

I agree with both sentiments that OSI is underutilized and excessive. For me, it is underutilized in that many games will let dialogues go on and on without even having a single change in the screen beyond the dialogue boxes, and it is excessive in that devs will sometimes have OSI occur while they're trying to give important information in dialogue boxes, making it difficult to focus on just one aspect of the scene.

The only thing I would want to add is my own advice and personal guide on (dialogue box-related) pacing, which is related to some of the sentiments that the first two commenters implied:
  • cut your dialogue and/or narration,
  • learn how to express ideas in less words, and
  • assign a rough number of dialogue boxes that would feel acceptable before the boredom or reading fatigue sets in.


After all, pacing isn't just "how do I make sure the player is reading the important information I placed in the game"; it's also "how do I make sure the player can follow what I'm trying to say in my game".

Bloodstained Hands

Woops I forgot to post this! It's about my personal stats for the game. I haven't actually defeated the final optional boss because I can't put enough attention to do it. XD

Anyway, this post contains total MAJOR spoilers. (For other players: don't open if you haven't finished the game yet!)

I first finished the game with my active party at average Level 50-ish; the one where I finished all the hidden/optional bosses I could find in the first playthrough was at Level 55/56.

My winning active party consists of: Rain/Fang, Grey, Matthew, and Shadow.

In order, my favorite sidequests are:

Exports - Love that around the world trip I made, and I also adore your brilliant usage of the NPCs who just seemed they were just complaining about their day-to-day lives.

The Academy - The focus on Grey was an amazing change of perspective. Also, it was my chance to level up Grey's spells without the other guys in the way.

Treasure Hunt - For the unbreakable lockpick. I love the lockpick mechanics; I just hated breaking my lockpicks and having to buy them all the time! I carry like 20-30 lockpicks everytime I go out of the Sanctuary. XD The Alchemist might have paid me lots for doing missions for him, but I also paid him lots for the lockpicks.

Boss fights:

The boss fights against the generals and Kain annoyed me (in a good way) when I discovered they would heal themselves. Well, of course, why didn't I think of that? XD

Kouryuu was the hardest boss fight for me. I had to level grind in Abyssus to do this fight without having everyone die on my every 2-3 rounds of Kouryuu's attacks.

My favorite boss fight is Crevasse. I probably just didn't level up enough for her, but she was tough in a good way.

Bloodstained Hands

Thank you for your patience; I just submitted a review!

It's way more difficult to get the right kinds of screenshots VS playing the parts of the game I need to get to to grab screenshots. XD I almost got pulled into playing into the Amethyne arc, hahaha!

Bloodstained Hands

Hi, Strak!

I'm so sorry I haven't spoken in so long. Truth is that I've had difficulty with the last optional boss due to my short attention span and I've been procrastinating with getting non-spoiler screenshots (boo hoo all of my saves are in the later parts of the game), but I want to assure you I've had my review saved in my files for so so long!! XD Also, I totally waited for the Misao nominations and voted it, and wow congrats!!!

Anyway, the other reason I've been busy is that I started work on an original series and a game. Yipee! BSH did influence me to start on it, especially with how long you mentioned you worked on it. I'm looking to release a formal demo before the end of this year. (The informal one was distributed to trusted friends.)

Enough of me. If the game's been updated since I last popped in here, then I'll be glad to pick up the latest version, grab some screenshots from it, and submit that review. You deserve that additional review. I have no idea why there's only one until now. So sorry I dropped off the earth for a bit, but I'm still here! And congrats on the newer release(s)!

Oh and are the old saves compatible with this latest release? I think the version I have is 5.9. Even so, I don't know, the game wasn't that hard to master compared to how your blog update made it sound like. Or at least for me. I enjoyed the grind. XD

Anyway, thanks man! (I sound so hyper. I'm just excited for this new version release!)

Bloodstained Hands

author=Strak
Hopefully beating them isn't too much of a grind, but thanks for pointing that out, I realize it's not exactly the best "feature" and I may remove it later.

It was actually pretty funny to discover because I took both spellcasters for my "final" party build (no they will not be my actual final party build) and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't doing any damage lol. XD Fortunately, it wasn't too much of a pain to defeat without the spellcasters. XD

author=Strak
Also, out of curiosity, did you manage to find the secret final boss? You mentioned your party was at max level, I'm curious if you've stumbled across it yet!

Yup. ;^) It's a pretty sneaky one! I'll tell you if I beat it lol.

Bloodstained Hands

Hello! I'm almost finished with my New Game Plus. I kinda ran into what seems to be some bug? This is part of the last two main quests. (This is in V 5.9)

My active party is at Lvl 99, but they can't do magic damage to the White Dragon or the Black Dragon. The magic damage registers as some sort of purple orb/shield. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature, tbh, because I remember I didn't have a problem defeating them using magic-based skills. But at the same time, I know I can defeat them without using magic-based skills; just that it takes a long time lmao.

Bloodstained Hands

I'm halfway through my New Game Plus playthrough, and I'm actually surprised to find there's another secret I didn't discover in my initial playthrough from v5.6! XD

(Spoilers underneath)
For your reference, it's that thing in Topale. I'm so money grinding for that.

Also, I'm at level 73 now. Do I need ALL characters at Level 99 for the secret final boss, or just my active party? Thanks in advance!


I'm gonna chuck in a review soon. I just need to create some screenshots and upload them somewhere so I can put them into the review.

Bloodstained Hands

Dude, I am so STOKED for New Game Plus with all the updates you made for the game! I'm so glad I put off playing the New Game Plus Mode until now.

Also, thank you so much for squashing the bugs and upgrading the game. I hope you learned a lot about game development! Good luck on your next project. :D
Pages: first prev 123 next last