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A Snowball's Chance

I did not realize there was a next room over, thank you.

A Snowball's Chance

Hey, I don't know where I'm supposed to go after opening the crystal chest. Was it supposed to have something in it? I'm trying to find the compass rose and I feel completely lost.

Fiora Review

Hey, I'm Nyx, I'm the designer and writer for this game, and I'm also responsible for the symbolism I apparently fucked up. There's a few things that have been on my mind about this review for a while, and the general reception this game has gotten from both inside and outside of the RPG Maker community, so I'll say my thoughts here.

Fiora is a very personal game to me. A lot of its story is based on my own experiences with gender identity and mental illness. It's not just a story about walking through a desert and fighting shadows, it's about fighting yourself and finding yourself. I didn't want to make these themes too explicit in the actual game, because I knew that if I did, their impact would be reduced. The enemies in this game are based on aspects of the main character's psyche, and to some extent my own, and the Identity system is a literal interpretation of how I change my identity and sense of self to fit an emotional situation. People in the transgender community such as myself understand these ideas much more readily, so I understand if any of you here didn't quite see what I was going for. A lot of the design decisions I made, like Resolve being overpowered or enemies still spawning even after the fight against your past self, were intentional to convey a specific idea. Just because you have a new identity doesn't mean your inner demons go away, but you now have the tools to better fight them and the resolve to do so. A lot of people have told me that the very end of the game seemed off to them, but to me it is the perfect end for this chapter of Fiora's story. I'm hoping you can at least begin to see where I was coming from with this game's design and direction.

A similar thing I want to address with this review is the complaint that the gameplay "isn't fun," and that fun should be the primary goal of any game. This is an understandable viewpoint, and I will admit that the game's design as an RPG is rather lackluster, and that wasn't intentional. I'll own up to that, that was a legitimate mistake. But what wasn't a mistake was choosing to emphasize story and meaning over typical fun. There's always a place for fun games in the world, but if we're going to progress as a medium of artistic expression we need to move past fun and towards empathy. Certain parts of Fiora, like how most enemies are too powerful so you have to run away from them, are reflective of the way one runs away from their demons when they're unable to properly take them on. Having an easy time with them from the start would change the feel and message of the story entirely, in a way that would negate the underlying point of the game. You're right to say that Fiora isn't fun, but fun isn't always what a game is trying to be, and I feel like if the gaming community understood this more, we'd get a lot more kinds of games.

The last thing I want to mention here is the music. Now, I understand that the reviewer for this game had non-functional audio at the time of playing, but calling this music auto-generated is insulting to the effort me and my friend lavendersiren put into the game's score. The title theme for this game, as well as certain overworld themes, were written and composed by me, and then later arranged by LS to fit the mood and atmosphere of the occasion. We also made use of leitmotifs several times throughout the game, you can even listen to the soundtrack here to confirm it for yourself. This point is a minor one, especially coming from me, but I do feel it is important to mention just to verify that everything about this game comes from us.

Now, I cannot make you, or anyone, like this game. I'll admit it's not for everyone, and certain parts were rushed to meet an appropriate deadline. But I hope that this clarification and seeing my perspective can shed some light on what this game is trying to be, and how it's meant to be approached. I hold no ill will towards anyone here, and I'm wishing you all the best on your future endeavors. But if you want a game about trans identity and confronting yourself, this is the game for you.
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