MERLANDESE'S PROFILE

Awesome. I was pretty stoked to read this review! My only immediate regret is not naming the game Le Mot de la Fin. Dammit... XD

The great thing about this being a contest entry and still getting great input like this is it allows me the chance to implement user feedback whereas I had very little of it during that thirty days. A lot of what you've said here is extremely helpful. :)

It's also nice to hear about similar games. I've been made aware of The Logomancer recently, but Profit Motive is new to me. If it has some similar things happening in it, that means I get to play a new game that I know I'd like! Thanks again!

author=argh

I'd say that he likely developed that line himself in his ignorance, maybe to make himself feel better.

Okay. It's just a bit contrived that it's exactly the same as a saying in our world, is all.

Oh, definitely. It's 100% contrived. XD Usually the "hero" of the story is the person who doesn't know what's happening, and we learn from playing as the ignorant character. But in this, Whitty knows the world and we have to use Seymour as the somewhat relate-able person. So his concepts and ideas--even his contrived saying at the end--are things that we can understand but don't make sense to anyone in that universe. Something that's a useful saying to us is just the ramblings of an ignorant person in that world, and Whitty's quick to point that out for him. XD Justifications aside, hopefully it didn't ruin the sequence. :)

Interesting stuff about the cut content. I kept expecting photography to be a Chekhov's gun but it never came up again. I do agree that the ending makes more sense thematically as a reward for beating the optional superboss, but yeah, it's a bit much. (Personally, though, I found Sandhoff far more difficult since she's the only one with the "defensive" skills, which requires more strategy to deal with. With Boasting, you can just irritate and aggress and you're done, like with everyone else.) You have to do an incredible amount of level grinding to even engage him at all. The leveling aspect was largely unnecessary, I found - I spent most of the game at a very low level, because you can coast with good skills (and you can get bows without fighting). And of course, you don't actually need a high level for the final battle - is it even possible to lose that?

(And is there a level cap? I kind of wonder if it's possible for a sufficiently dedicated person to autowin the final battle...)

You're right about Photography almost being a Chekhov's Gun. The instance she finds the portrait has her pondering her strengths in photography for half a second. It's not a strong Gun, but there was originally going to be a Photography Lock there. In the end, her career as a photographer is more world building than a narrative aid. Some could chalk that up to bad writing; and they'd be right. XD A better story would have made the finale hinge on that somehow, I think.

The game's built so that you don't have to match the opponents level-to-level, so that's a good thing. There's a bit of built-in designs meant so that the game can feel rewarding and not impossible within the time constraints of the contest. I didn't want there to be more grinding than there was learning. That said, the level difference may feel unnecessary, but it's important for the narrative. If I put you up against the AI of the enemy and told you they were stronger than you, you could prove me wrong every time. There has to be a reason why the professor, for example, is better at discourse than Mrs. Prattle, and that gets displayed mechanically by the inherent impact levels have. By being twelve levels higher than someone, you are automatically better at discourse than them. That's also why the professor is LV.40 by himself, but gains 60 levels when using The Mouth; that difference in level means nothing for the battle itself, but it means everything for the nature of the machine.

And yeah, Sandhoff's defensive skills make her harder. It's why I gave them to her, since, in a way, she's the penultimate boss. In the new version Boasting has every skill, just like the professor does, but there was no point in fine-tuning him as an optional character for the time restraints. XD Likewise, Seymour stops following your level (in the update) at LV.28, and Boasting will stop fighting you at LV.40. With no one else to fight, you max your level at 40.

That means you can win the first fight against the professor (and some people have), but the story doesn't change. The professor asks politely if Whitty will pretend that he just won for the sake of the story. XD

(And a random aside - after Seymour was called "anti-social" I was actually half-expecting for that to be intentional and for it to turn out that he was the evil mastermind behind everything. XD That would be kind of cliche, though.)

I'll definitely change the term there. No reason to give people the wrong ideas about Seymour... although I do worry sometimes. :P

I really appreciate all of this input! You've given me some good ideas for what I can do to make the update better. :) Thank you.

author=Kylaila
Loving JRPS, and then dropping Catherine and Majora's Mask. You, sir, are cool in my book!

Glad to hear it! The bonds have already begun to form...

author=kentona
Welcome to RMN! Enjoy your stay! *takes a sip of his McDonald's large double-double* so uncouth am I

Sometimes you can't beat convenience. XD

author=Marrend
Your name sounds awefully familiar!

Haha! Yep, that's me. :P

Hey, everybody! I'm Merlandese. :)

I dropped by here to upload a game for the Indie Game Maker Contest 2014, but it's not so cool to drop a game and run off into the wild. I can't promise to be too active with a mixture of other forums and low internet in my life, but I'm fairly strong at dropping by and reading existing material. Lurking, I guess. Although I'm not a fan of the term. XD

About Me:

I dig JRPGs. I make games and music, but I also work at a local coffee shop. Coffee slinging is probably my favorite real-world job, although I've had quite a few with sound better on paper.

Here are some selected favorite games so we can all bond.

Favorite RPG Maker Games:

Quintessence - Kan's unfinished Quintessence series is what made me actively work on games with internet communities.
Sunset Over Imdahl - Imdahl's aesthetic and simplistic approach has influenced how I prefer to design games.
Halloween Bash - HB is a real gem, filled with character and flavor, but also with a solid battle system that doesn't wear out its welcome.

Favorite Mainstream Games:

Chrono Cross - Every detail of this game has me in its grip, even today.
Catherine - No other game carefully introduces the player to a situation wrought with anxiety while also compounding those feelings of anxiety in the puzzle mechanics.
Majora's Mask - The massive amount of subtlety in this game's world and atmosphere is baffling, especially considering that there's nothing subtle about a mouthed moon.
Resonance of Fate - Underrated as hell, RoF makes a truly brilliant, complex, and unforgiving battle system that has all the strategy of a turn-based affair while looking and feeling like an action game.