DRAGNFLY'S PROFILE

I remember a long time ago some game didn't work because I didn't know VX and VXA were different. I just thought people called VXA VX because they were really, really lazy. LOL

Ah, Are You Afraid of the Dark. I remember when the show came to YTV and they had that ad campaign where you tried to guess what the show was called based on their vague hints. I remember that I guessed "Oracle" and my (older) brother asked if I even knew what that word meant. LOL.

Anyway, opinions, bugs, problems, etc:

Tyler

-that's an absolutely gigantic parking lot for only having 4 parking spaces in it LOL

-I went to the right first and into the warehouse. LOL complete logic break. Maybe block that area off until it's needed? You could have a car parked in front of the entrance and have her comment on how there's all that space in the lot, yet the driver still had to be an ass and park blocking the path.

-Outside Novis Apartments, the left garbage can in on a bad tile. On that note, in the apartment lobby see if the area behind the landlord's (HUGE) desk looks better if you Shift-click the bottom border of the carpet instead, to make it look like it's vanishing behind your makeshift front desk.

-Typo in the big reveal in Tyler. Your -> You're. I recommend doing all your game text in a word processor. It's a great way to avoid little hiccups like this. Personally, I suggest a web browser with Grammarly (free) installed. I just copy/paste it all in a blank gmail message. That way it auto-saves frequently too so you have a free backup as an added bonus.

-Typo in, I think, the ending. see their mom's -> see their moms.

-Typo in the epilogue. nightmares eventualy -> nightmares eventually.

-care-takers method -> caretaker's method.

-When you check the crack on the wall in 104 it says "no wonder she's being evicted" but she's not. That unit has been vacant. 103 is being evicted.

The Maniac
-http://i.imgur.com/DpPknPV.png I can walk on my car!
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Penelope
-for the test of knowledge, the clue on the 3rd statue seems reversed. A -4 won't get you anywhere.

Bloopers
-Bloopers should only unlock after you see the stories. Also, there's a critical oversight here. More on that below.
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Sorry that I didn't finish it. I did all the stories and then went into bloopers. When the gag reel is done your only options are editing the options for some reason, and returning to the title screen. So you need to replay a story to get the option to vote again, or go through the intro bit again to be able to load the game.

After seeing everything I went to save before voting, and the game went right into The Maniac again. So I had to restart and reload a save, but then it didn't have the option to vote anymore so I'd have to play through a story again. I just quit instead. Based on the existing stories, voting to see the ending or possibly some final story wasn't worth the hassle.
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Some things to help you out:
-The entire project needs a spelling/grammar check. My recommendation of not writing your only draft in RM itself still stands. Grammarly strongly recommended.

-The mapping is pretty bad. Don't feel like you need such gigantic areas, especially indoors. You don't need to fill the whole 17x15 tiles or whatever a screen is. If you're finding there is a lot of empty space, either fill it sensibly or shrink it and your game will look a lot better.

-The stories themselves were either meh or ok but the setup is good. I never really felt threatened or challenged, though, and horror is one genre where at least some challenge is important. If you're not threatened, either mentally or physically, it's not scary.

-As for saving anywhere, normally saving anywhere is a good modern convenience. Players are used to it. The only times to not allow it is when you want to make sure you're in control of the switches and checkpoints or for adjusting the difficulty curve. For this game, I'd say saving anywhere would have been a big benefit. The stories being short donen't change the fact that you still have to redo areas with no gameplay merit, and narrative merit is usually only valuable the first time. You want that to be as little as possible.

I'll likely come back to it to finish the game off another day.

EDIT: I strongly recommend using a proper start/load/exit title screen. You shouldn't have to start a new game in order to load a game.

likely something wrong on my end. I do indeed have the Australian Sunrise *whip crack* font installed. I'm sure there was another game recently that I played which used Australian Sunrise *whip crack* but I think now it was ok, since the last time I had this font problem was, I guess, ages ago.

-badges
How about a free contest among players. The first one to find all your badges in a chapter gets to try your next chapter early or gets a wallpaper or something? Get that motivation out there or whatever.

I really respect solo devs who are making an effort. It's so freakin hard. It really is. I've used Google Docs/Word, Google Sheets/Excel, yEd, Homestyler, Photoshop and even Minecraft to keep my puzzles and maps organized and there's still always issues. Then there's just applying the good ideas well, rather than just using good ideas. Yeah, solo is rough but developing in a team has it's own set of problems and no guarantee of eliminating the ones from solo development. We have to just work with thatever we feel best with.

(answering your comments.)
-settlement
12) I scoped out the entire town before going to be base camp. I'm one of those players who anticipates what will move the story forward and tries to check everything else first. So they were stationary before I talked to them. If they were moving into position, I hadn't left the area with the cars or the very bottom left part of the map yet, as I was looking for... whatever there was to find LOL.

-tower
18) Wow, I got really good at doing that then. When I do face real enemies, they're freakin dead.

21) (sorry, this will get long) I hear you about the tilesets not supporting all 4 directions. I recently played one and I was like "is that a sideways-facing door? OMFG is that a sideways facing desk lamp!?". That's a really valid reason. It's a pain in the butt that they don't just make everything face all 4 directions.

I likely noticed the other instances too but didn't physically note them down. I do still try to enjoy games while going through them so I often just make a mental note since I play fullscreen on a big display and have to alt-tab out to make notes. Immersion and all that LOL. Most times, if I forget to note things as they happen then it just means the game really sucked me in so it's a compliment in its own way.

Now, by saying I couldn't have the player enter from the right because the room above it is a giant hallway extending toward the left, do you mean in the map editor itself or do you just mean in the logic of the structure? I'll try to explain better.

Assume you have a hotel lobby with a blue police box in it.... ok that's the worst example possible. Starting over...

a) I guess what I'm meaning to say is that if all the maps for one floor are on the same map in the editor, you're using Transfer Player events on doors anyway so the rooms don't have to be laid out perfectly in the editor. In fact the order they're in is purely for organizational purposes. The editor doesn't care.

b) If you mean from a logic standpoint, the player won't notice 99% of the time. They'll for sure notice the change in orientation like you currently have it because it's so discombobulating, fools with the right/left-hand rule most players use and, for really complex dungeons it prevents the player from easily making their own map to find their way. It also doesn't hold up from a structural logic standpoint because changing orientation is far more illogical. If this is the case, then the bad points far outweigh the good.

22) Oh, I thought I had the latest version. Cool.

For typos and stuff, I do always recommend a word processor or just Gmail and Grammarly. Sadly Grammarly doesn't work with Google Docs or I'd just use that. It'll find a crazy number of false problems (even more if you're not writing in USA English. Actually, I see now that they fixed their borderline racist explanation for that) but that's why we always need the human element.

Anyway, I'm going back in. I've got a few more keys to find yet. Some players will no doubt want the doors to say what key goes to them or even just hint when you check it and don't have the key. It will reduce backtracking if the player can go "Oh, I just got the Warden Key. The Warden Door was a few rooms back."

EDIT: Oh yeah, not being able to go left or right when you're on stairs and the footstep sounds not playing in any form when you're walking behind a south wall.

EDIT2: In the room where you first meet the hostile, if you check the gate it says it's too dark to see. We know she has a flashlight so maybe some other reason would be better.

Also,

EDIT3: The ball part of the blue orb pillars do that few-frames-flicker thing when you action on them too. (clear sign that I'm searching really hard for a missing item: I'm even checking the orbs). Torches too.

author=Nedras
So is Pocket Mirror the new Pom Gets Wifi? I feel like it's gonna be #1 forever. xD

It's very carefully produced and hyped so I'd say likely. I mean, I've got a lot of crap to say about the game (like saying that it properly depicts DID is a load of absolute donkey crap) but the effort in presentation is very admirable, the music is solid and the art is indeed far above the average. Credit where credit is due and all that jazz.

I think there are some games in the works that will 100% dethrone it if they're hyped in a similar way but that's all up to when they actually get done and if the devs decide to rush them for a week of fame or polish them to make an eternal legend.