DECENTTREATMENT'S PROFILE

author=aquatorrent
i'm kinda surprised that you still revamp the graphics although it already looks good to me. can't wait to see how it ends up on the final result.

yeah, i could see that the game hadn't focused on the narrative in that version. i believed i have uncovered all dialogue options in the game but i couldn't make out the story at all (i got the gist of it but there weren't much to begin with). it's nice to see that you're already planning on how to make it better.

i can understand how people stop playing at the beginning after dying several times. i also got frustrated with the difficulty at first, not to the point of quitting though.

i didn't notice that you can use the chariot to not damage the floor. i mean, i kinda "cheated" and used it to pass through "broken" tiles to inspect the left wall once, but i never figured that you were meant to use it to pass the tiles.

i didn't have any problem with using the tarot since you can switch it on the battle without wasting your turn, but i can see how that could be annoying to some people. hope you'll make more features like this! by this, i mean the chariot, of course.

that's good to hear! the missing sfx were the most annoying ones. luckily i can disable it by copying and renaming other sound effects to the missing ones. i won't last playing the game if i had to click that retry button every minute because of it.

i just rechecked my notes and i noticed that i missed some things in the review (minor things though, not sure if you have fixed them or not):
- the character looks weird when they are walking since the feet moves too late
- the character selection when you select equipment in the menu is not clear enough. I thought the game freezed after you do that.
- lantern is automatically switched off every day even though you finished the day with the lantern on. IIRC, you also need to inspect the place where you can ignite the lantern twice instead of once because of this.

author=dethmetal
Hey. I just finished playing for today. I took a bunch of notes as I played, which are hidden down below. Many of the gripes are VERY minor - I just wrote down everything I thought of as I played in case it might help you. I haven't finished yet, so I will give my overall thoughts another time. I was very interested in this game when I heard about it today because the concept is very similar to a game I'm making called Memories From a Dream.

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The presentation is wonderful. The font choice, message box graphics, music and graphics are all great.
The cursor isn't centered on all of the font icons, particularly the door/quit icon.
You might consider renaming the "Store" option at the blacksmith to "Shop". My first thought was that it's a "store items" option. That might just be me, though.
The framerate dips very low for me in the village. I'm not sure if this can be rectified.
When you are presented with the battle results, it would be great if you could make the status window behind it dissappear. It looks a bit sloppy as is, but it's not a big deal.
In the room where you learn about secret passages and hit the switch, it wasn't immediately clear to me that I was losing health despite the screen flashing. It might be helpful if you show an HP bar on screen as well while this is happening.
A switch to reset block puzzles if you render them unsolvable is always welcome, especially when there's not a quick way to leave the map and come back.
The bladespawn shouldn't be able to run across spike traps. I was left with very little health due to stepping on a spike trap and getting pushed on to another one, and the bladespawn kept chasing me and intiating battle. No matter how often I fleed, it was impossible to get away because the spike traps would be in my way. I got VERY lucky and managed my make my way back to the village with 1 HP left and not enough FP to flee another battle. It's nearly impossible to escape the bladespawn if necessary in the well. This could be rectified by making enemies wait slightly longer before they begin chasing you again, and by making it impossible for them to cross spike traps.
Once I rested, I nearly enjoyed the bladespawn fight a great bit. It taught me how to parry and hunker down very well. However, the thing still had a bit too much health, in my opinion, unless there's something I'm missing. Even with an optimal strategy (parry followed by hunker down; repeat until you need to heal) I could only just BARELY win due to running out of healing.
Once the Grikk Geists turned invisible, there was NOTHING I could do to damage them except use a firebomb. Is this intentional or did I miss something?
I gave up on the Oil Cave/bottom of the well. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to lower the spike wall found south of the healing mushroom. Now, I head south of town.
Don't take this following note too seriously, because this may be an uncommon opinion. I dislike pixel movement in RPG Maker games. I never think it looks quite right. It doesn't look like the character is taking steps when implemented, it instead looks like they are sliding and hovering all over the floor. I also find that it sometimes makes it harder to line up and activate events correctly. For example, I sometimes find it tricky to pick things up off of the floor because I'm not lined up correctly. I don't think pixel movement adds anything to RPG Maker games, at least in my experience. Again, this is basically just a mini-rant that you can ignore. I wouldn't let my dislike for pixel movement change my opinion of this game in any way.
The game crashed for me when I went down the rope in the northeast corner of the forest near the cabin. It completely stopped running unexpectedly without even an error message. I lost a ton of the progress from this due to the limited save mechanic so I will continue later. I think there's a lot about the game that I am not fully understanding yet, perhaps, but that's on me (I am always clueless during the first portions of games).
Overall impressions so far: Very, very promising. I am a huge fan of Dark Souls (I am going to take a wild guess and say that you are as well) so naturally I love playing games inspired by it.
The graphics are very nicely done. I especially like the monsters. Wonderful work.
One last thing - The introduction voiceover would sound AWESOME with a reverb or delay effect added. If you have access to audio software, give it a try. If you don't, feel free to send me the audio file if you'd like. I have experience in audio engineering and would be happy to help.

author=Yeaster
Beautiful artwork. I think I might have found someone I want to work with, but seriously, thanks for your interest.