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Exeunt Omnes
A game of strategic sophistry. Convince or crush the teenage girl who wants to end your reign of evil.

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Akiva.png

'twould be awesome though if the head guy from the masked cult with a heavy black-and-blood color scheme actually turned out to be nice and sweet all around. Like, you know, he got into the look as a teen because it seemed edgy, but nowadays he mostly does paperwork for the cult's charities.

RMN Secret Santa 2014

Haha thanks to my mystery reviewer! That was very nice, and I can only agree on the useful criticism, but I have no idea at all who you might be!

Opinion: Stop Rating Demos, It's Unfair...To Completed Games

I agree, for people like you and me, stars are going to be a factor - but not the only one, which is what really counts in the end. If the title, screenshot and snippet are interesting enough you'll take a further look, see the gamepage, perhaps browse the reviews to see why there's such a contrast between the score and the apparent value. People who decide based on stars *only* are probably those who never opened a novel in a bookstore just because it looked interesting.

Anyway people are angry at rating systems all over the internet and yet if you allow enough people to cast a vote rather than try to limit it, scores can be quite robust (even to unfair attacks) across various systems and especially in terms of relative ranking.

The Book of True Will

author=NeverSilent
I'm glad you enjoyed most of it even if you're generally not too much of a puzzle fan. I honestly expected people to be quite challenged by the last two Reflection puzzles
Actually I would have been challenged if I hadn't spent an incredible amount of time on the very first reflection puzzle, figuring out all the possible tricks
like using the character who is pushing the lever as one of the reflectors, or having a trajectory that goes through the same character twice. For some reason in the first one I was completely unable to think that the character reflecting the balls that will hit the two aligned crystals should be to their left rather than to their right!


I have to agree with Marrend that the "nine times" was a bit frightening at first, although in the end most of the nine were rather quickly solved. The only problem with the flashback alternation thing is that it can seem daunting to do N variants of a puzzle mechanics all at once before progressing, but I for one didn't mind so much. The only thing that felt too long apart from the first puzzle was the one with the fireballs, but then my reflexes suck.

if you think I managed to tackle it in an understandable and somewhat tasteful way, that already makes me very happy.
You sure did ;) I guess it's also a topic to which I have given a lot of thought so there are few arguments that I haven't gone through before, but it would be nice if other people could genuinely learn something from it.

The Book of True Will

Just finished it!
(in a little less than 2 hours)

I don't know whether I played the original or the revised version but I managed to complete the first puzzle just before it exceeded my threshold for frustration. Removing one level or putting a count of remaining levels somewhere would be welcome; I had no idea how far along I was, and it can be pretty discouraging for a very first event 30 seconds into the game.

Apart from that, the puzzles were generally well balanced. (I have a limited love for puzzle games but I thought I'd like to see where you were going with this). The least original was perhaps the one with the painted tiles near the beginning, most others were qute inventive. For some reason I got intensely stuck on the very first puzzle with the light balls (like for 20 minutes, trying totally overcomplicated things), then breezed through the next ones, but I enjoyed the idea. I'm not a huge fan of both puzzles involving fire, for different reasons, but you did a good job in offering a diversity of things to do.

Concerning the story, I really liked the alternation of gameplay and flashbacks which made for a nice in media res while providing context fast enough to keep me interesting.

I appreciate your courage in tackling a non-trivial topic. On one hand I would have gone for a little more subtlety at times, on the other hand people tend to be especially unsubtle about this, so, well. You do get the message across, which is what really counts I guess ;)

OMNIS - the Erias Line (DEMO)

author=Elder71
With funding (not to bang on about it) I'll have more room for creative expression. Have you read anything by China Mieville, perchance?
Well I'll be sure to chip in anyway! (NB: I would have contributed scripts directly, since what you are mentioning isn't extremely involved, but I already have too many projects to commit to anything without a huge probability of dropping out. Hope you'll find a good and cheap scripter!)
And I have read MiƩville, if he is among your chief references I can only approve of your taste ;) I've also reread your setting description and there is something reminiscent of Iain Banks there. So I may well be surprised by what you end up doing with these ingredients.

OMNIS - the Erias Line (DEMO)

Elder71> And thank you for your prompt and sensible response, which is a notable quality in a creator ;)
I am glad to hear that the demo has improved on those fronts, I will be sure to try it and hopefully lay my criticisms to rest!

In any case, I have no doubt that this is a work in progress and that it can improve. Perhaps my tone was a bit harsher than necessary, since you appear to have this at heart too. I've just seen too many projects do much better on style than substance, and it is a shame when they have as much potential as yours, so I reckon a small nudge early on can be useful.

Tropes are not inherently bad (and you can hardly avoid them all), and I am quite sure that the story may reveal its strength later, but that's not the message you want to put in a demo. There should be a large enough hook that one can guess at the depth behind. Your hook is perfect in terms of atmosphere (for all its tropeyness, the haunted mine is really well done and works perfectly as a set piece, then the tone change with the train and the countryside are much welcome), but less so in terms of narrative. I may backtrack on this after checking the new version, though.

As for the gameplay, what there is now is certainly not bad, and it could be sufficient if that is not your main focus. (Edit: crucially, it is rather enjoyable in an unobstrusive way, which is also what I think of a lot of commercial JRPGs - you don't play them for the battles, but those are not a pain either).
But if you or someone else in your team can give it some thought, it would be nice to have something that goes beyond sufficient and into daring. I've always felt that the RPG community is neatly separated into story games with okay gameplay, and inventive mechanics with no story at all, which is sad.

That being said, once again I am quite sure that you will have no trouble selling it in the present state. Most of your audience on KS and beyond have different (dare I say more conventional) expectations, and you cannot be perfect at everything nor please everyone. So I certainly won't blame you for choosing your focus and keeping at it!

OMNIS - the Erias Line (DEMO)

shayoko>
1024 for the passenger cars, the other codes you find by asking people.


I have finished the demo and I thought about writing a review, might do it later.
For now, random comments (and a disclaimer: I played version 13):

- Overall, I was extremely impressed by the presentation. Incredible graphics and atmosphere! This is something you can take to KS and commercialize, no doubt.

- The slowness. For the love of Dogg, please make everything faster and more responsive, especially in battle (waiting for 5 seconds between each action is painful, a fortiori when a counter is ticking down). But cutscenes and interactive displays are also guilty of this. It seems like you're already working on changing this, which is good.

- The writing was generally good, though it broke down in a few places and especially at the very end where it feels rushed
Obvious setup is obvious, yet Dillon reacts to it in the cliche way, then is instantly convinced, then angry people suddenly appear, and all this five minutes after we get to know Aunty. Judging from the rest, I'm quite sure you can do much better ;)


- I liked the train personel caring more about their salary and their job than about what's going on. Having a neutral third party and more involved conflict dynamics made a nice change from constant opposition.

- Speaking of which, why do I have to fight so much wildlife? :P

Finally, a non-constructive opinion: I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend it without hesitation, but I am sorry to say it feels somewhat derivative. Like a very nice jigsaw puzzle made out of well-worn RPG mechanics and tropes given a paint job.
(sure the Resistance seems as bad as the Evil Empire, but you have the mysterious omnipotent badguy who experiments on the heroes, the mines of Dug-Too-Deep - which somehow connect to a train station, and so on)

Most of your players probably won't care, and this feeling wasn't that strong in the first part of the demo, but still. Rather than a criticism, I invite you to take this as a plea: you are doing something extraordinary on the aesthetic front, please do consider putting the same degree of creativity and effort on gameplay and plot and you will have a fantastic game.

Account Mu

Finally played it and it was pretty darn good. I tend to have very little patience for puzzle games, but as people have pointed out, your game does a great job of introducing things subtly and having puzzles just obvious/devious enough that it never gets boring nor frustrating.
Also, I enjoyed the narration (limited as it is for now) and the general aesthetics, I really wonder where you're going with this. I do like a narrative undercurrent in a puzzle game (the only ones I finished in recent memory were the Portals).