HOUSEKEEPING'S PROFILE

-First off, the ending assumes that I played the game because the idea of medieval people in space interested me. I actually find that concept ridiculous and hoped this would be a joke game. The reason I tried this game was because of how active you were on the forums, and I was curious to see what your work looked like.
-The battle system, I think, was actually tuned pretty well for me. I like how you balanced the enemies to compensate for the dedicated healer. Each of the characters has a clear role in the party, and the game wasn't long enough for that to become tiring or for the player to need to max out their skill charts. Battles were difficult without being ridiculous; I think the battle with the knight and the succubusy chick was the strongest moment of the gameplay for me.
-The mapping did a good job of setting the scene; I liked the glass space deck the best.
-The music sounded more like a selection of tracks from your personal playlist than a soundtrack that captured the atmosphere of the ship. There were still some okay tracks--I especially liked that little minimalist piece that starts out basically silent and slowly builds--but it didn't function well as a soundtrack.
-It was very difficult to connect with the characters given the short length of the game. I found the black mage a little interesting, but she wasn't rounded out as a character; none were, really, but that wasn't the point of the game, anyway.
-Alright, let's talk about the ending. It was terrible. Really, legitimately terrible. There has never been a compelling piece of literature that just straight-up tells you its internal philosophy--well, maybe religious texts, but I don't particularly find them compelling, either. When you make a game, write a story, a play, a screenplay, or whatever, don't come to the table with a message. Your goal shouldn't be to deliver your message to the audience. This is because: 1)you're not a genius and 2)your audience isn't stupid.

I'm telling you this coming from the perspective of someone who started out his writing career doing similar things. I thought, "This is a nifty philosophy, I should write a story that shows this!" and among these stories, hand to God, was about how the journey is more important than the destination. It was the first story I ever wrote in college. I didn't do it as directly as you, but I look back at those stories now and I'm ashamed, mainly because in order to write a story like that, I had to assume that my audience consisted of mouth-breathing homunculi rather than actual people who have spent just as much time thinking and dreaming on this planet as me. When you're making something regarding a philosophy, you should look at a theme or idea that you want to explore that maybe you don't have a clear answer on.

I hope that wasn't too harsh, but it was how I felt, and storytelling is my background.

-The jar ghost on the 27th floor gets stuck in an infinite loop. He's the opposite of helpful, the fucking dick.
-You can get infinite leona's family emblems and the pink ribbons from the cat.
-I fought the rock dragon twice.
-When you go to Ezekial's abilities and you hit left or right while the cursor is on his character portrait, the game crashes.
-The game also crashes after resurrecting Saint Selene--what a bitch.
-There was also a passability issue in the town somewhere. I wasn't writing glitches down when I found it, so I don't remember exactly, but I walked through...something...on a table I think...in one of the houses? Sorry I couldn't be more specific.

-I liked your emphasis on long-game mechanics rather than short-game mechanics. Alma's research made leveling way more interesting. Elsa's ability was also cool, and I like how you made the crappy bone skills the abilities you have to use the most in order to unlock Elsa's gear since it produces that nice handicap-for-future-rewards dynamic. However, since I'd rather hit things harder than take hits better, I liked her death knight gear more, so you probably should have made the bone gear have better stats to provide a better incentive. Ooze's feeding system was also a nice little addition.
-Battles were mostly super easy, but that goes with the long-game mechanics, so it doesn't bug me much. I would have liked the last boss to be harder, though. The secret bosses were a little harder. I liked the dragon-summoning lady, but I still just steamrolled her, and since I stacked poison on her, I couldn't space out the fight to avoid fighting all the dragons at once, which I think was the intent. Since Ooze's maelstrom was hitting for around 5k, though, the dragons didn't last very long.
-I liked your Soul Blazer "save the villagers" mechanic, but, at the same time, I really hated the villagers. Most of their dialogue was inane, and I had no idea who the villagers I saved were. Because of this, I didn't talk to any saved villagers until I had all of them, and then I just jammed through their dialogue until I heard a happy beepy sound and got my merchandise. It would have made more sense to me to have a smaller town that's completely empty when you start (like Soul Blazer did). This way, each rescued villager is so much more significant instead of just one more face talking about their banal existence.
-Speaking of dialogue, I felt this was a weak point in general. The exchanges felt a little stock at times when they weren't conveying basic plot progression. At other times, it felt like it was just connecting to this larger world that I had trouble caring about, even after playing Grumpy Knight. It's like, referencing the events of Grumpy Knight is supposed to make the player see that this is part of your larger blanket of work, and they should recognize those other games in an "in crowd" sort of way. But, what that did for me was just feel redundant in the context of the larger world since I was already familiar with those events, and, in the case of Alma and her constant discussions of her husband, it felt like tacked-on information. Very little of the story was conveyed through action; it was mostly dialogue, which made it much harder to enjoy.
-That said, Indra, I think you're really good at making the characters' distinct personalities shine through, you just have to think more about them in terms of how they evolve over the course of the game. When I look at Elsa and Alma at the beginning of the game as opposed to the end, I don't see them gaining much. They may be a bit more friendly with each other, but they weren't really at odds at the beginning. Ooze, too, is roughly the same as when you first found him. They all have distinct personalities, but they're all flat within the confines of this game.
-Too, the secondary cast was pretty forgettable, including the villains.
-The length of the game was insane for a month. I think the gameplay was successful enough, but this was a really weird choice for this contest considering the hour stipulation.
-Also, the Ezekial section seemed like fan service, which is fine, but for the game as a single unit, it was kind of a slap in the face. The rest of the game is focused on long-term character progression, so for the final fights the player has to play as someone else entirely? Too, though he spirals out of control, if you don't grind before that first fight, it's a NIGHTMARE. I won it through SHEER GRIT and COMPULSIVE ITEM HOARDING. Then I grinded to 38 or so and obliterated everything, which was fine, but forcing the player to grind kind of removes the urgency of the imploding Sunken Spire.

Overall, this was still a fun game. The maps were also cleanly executed--especially the town--and the character portraits were gorgeous. Some of the music kind of blew, but the soundtrack as a whole worked for me, especially that rad music that played around the lake. I think this is my favorite of the competition so far.

-The battle system was a cool new riff on the RPG formula. It felt like smart strategies were consistently rewarded, and I never felt cheated.
-Conversely, the battles tended to feel pretty samey. The addition of combo attacks didn't really change my strategy, as the group hitting techniques weren't strong enough to justify using, as it made more sense to knock off the enemies one by one to avoid having enemies target one character. So, my strategy was the same for every fight, with some slight adjustments (e.g. brace and shield bash) on bosses. I think you guys just needed to spend some more time adding more twists on the battles. Battles also felt a bit long because of this and the number of identical/almost identical fights.
-The story was pretty shallow. It felt like it was a part of something larger, which it probably was, as evidenced by the unexplained rifts. The characters didn't really have arcs, but their personalities did come through, so I could see them all functioning in a larger narrative. As a standalone story, though, this one didn't really work. The villain was flat and evil for the sake of it, and the whole thing with Eric didn't hold any weight since Eric's past was hidden from the player (other than that short explanation via dialogue with Taraja).
-Likewise, the storytelling was done mostly through dialogue, which made it slog a bit for me. Combined with the slow battles, this made the game feel longer than it was.
-The mapping felt functional and did a good job of establishing the post-apocalyptic world.
-The music was a little simplistic for my ear, but it fit the scenes.

Overall, this game just felt too much like part of something rather than a standalone game. It's pretty clear that you guys like dense, fully realized lore, which some people really go for. The characters, though, felt like they could use a bit more events in the story to make them more kinetic.