OLDPAT'S PROFILE

Pretty nice artworks. I too believe the rat tail could use some extra details but good job anyway. Keep em comin'!

Thanks, MadJak, and sorry for the late response.^^'

And is concept arts time for my next project!

#1

Direct Link: http://i63.tinypic.com/bfm8uo.png

And #2

Direct Link: http://i65.tinypic.com/rkzhn9.png

RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSH! We need this!

Whoops, double post^^'

author=atasuke10
My feedback isn't so different from the review actually, I just don't particularly agree with the scoring. Though the only cutscene that really made me go "I want to play already" was the one before the first mission. Generally Imo you want to throw your players into the game as fast as you can with a bit of context and give them cutscenes after they struggled in the game so they feel it as a "break". Or at least that's how I feel about long cutscenes. The first one was too much for me because I haven't played yet, but afterwards I enjoyed them all really. I wouldn't say they were badly spread, I actually think for someone with a liking to long cutscenes it was fairly well balanced.
The gameplay gave me some "grr" moments but nothing buggy, I just sucked and picked a difficulty not suited for nooblet me :D
The art speaks for itself, along with the atmosphere. They were both pretty fitting for the game so no qualms there.
I didn't notice it was a translation and found no real mistakes that threw me out of immersion.
(Sidenote: Commercials were a really good idea, and I don't think I'm alone with that feel :D)
About character development, I didn't get too immersed but it was enough to get me through the game, there's improvement to be had there, but it was fine.
sorry for the weird comment its too late right now but had to write it toda xP

Thank you again, Atasuke. That comment is not weird at all imo. xD

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Making the cutscenes shorter at the beginning and then a bit longer on crucial plot points would've been great.

I had to make this game in one month and a half for a Short Game Contest, so a lot of things proved to be... difficult to balance for me. I did what I could.

I'll have all the time in the world for the sequel. I'm planning on balancing gameplay and story a lot. I can't wait to show what I've got in store with that chapter.

I'm also really happy to know that art and atmosphere proved to be good, a lot of effort was made to make them look nice and fitting.

Characters still need to develop a lot, yeah. The fact is, the whole story still needs to be told. I had time to simply tell the story about the conflict between Florien and Anabelle, that one has a beginning and an ending. But a lot of Karma Flow's full story is still missing.

Glad to know the translation worked, as I'm... beginning to worrying a lot about this.

I'm really glad to know you liked it. Thank you again (again), Atasuke!

(You'll have to excuse my English from here on out. T_T)

Ok, first off:

author=atasuke10
I've also played it and you're treating 4 star as a godlike rating or something. This is definitely higher than 3-star tier mind you.
I agree with most of your points though but the rating you gave it doesn't really correlate to them imo. Though here's the thing about the exposition point. Many players prefer lengthier cutscenes, more plot in general (not including myself). it's mostly important to have the cutscenes be short at the start, and once the game has the players, those players who like longer scenes, generally prefer those longer scenes and not as much gameplay. But that's just a matter of taste. I did feel like the initial cutscenes were too much but I was alright after that. Even though I'm pretty impatient with them.

Some of the bs things that happened to me did feel a bit rpg maker esque but that's all the limits of the engine, can't downrate the game based on it.

So yeah, the point is that there are a very minimal amount of issues so I feel like 3 star is unjustified. I'd say its a a 4.

Sorry if I didn't reply to you too, Atasuke.
It's nice to see that you think this game deserves much more and that you liked it.
Thank you so much! This comment of yours, together with the review, made my day.

But rating aside, I think Pianotm did a good job in pointing out the game's pros and cons.
The game is, in fact, packed with lenghty cutscenes and engine limitations. I tried to work in order to stay inside those limits but it's RPG Maker 2003 after all and the game I made is completely far away from what is the developer supposed to do with that tool.

I would love to get your feedback as well, when and if you can/want. Not a review if you're not willing to write something like that down, just a comment would be nice.

Thank you again, I'm really glad you liked it.^^

Second:

@Dragnfly and @CaveDog you did a wonderful, an amazing job with checking in on the translation and the overall game. Despite the little time you had, you were amazing and I couldn't ask for more than that.
I wouldn't feel "guilty" if I were you. I mean, the problem here seems like is far from simple spelling or grammar issues.

The "accent" thing, in particular, is something I wanted in order to give more characterization to each and every one of the game's characters.

We discussed about things like that Pulcinella's "hella" or Marty Rivers's made up words. They were all on purpose.

The Karma Patrol stuff it's still there, but I never saw it as such a big deal.

But... I have to admit, I feel pretty confused now.
In the review it is stated that the English translation is "cumbersome, grammatically questionable and confusing".

Now it's all a "No, it's fine, but that accent though..."

I don't quite get the main issue. Is it the accent? What's with the grammatically questionable thing and such, then?
The fact is... in the review, the issue sounded WAY more serious and "huge" than it sounds now.
In fact, I was kind of surprised, as I thought the translation wasn't all that bad given the fact that a lot of English people played it and them, together with Let's Players which for obvious reason gave me "real time" reactions, never showed sign of "what the hell am I reading?".

Just... trying to understand the issue here, that is all. Sorry if I'm maybe a bit slow here.

Aaaaaaaanyway...

No problem. I'm sorry it took so long. I'd have gotten to it sooner, but even after real life got out of the way, I just wasn't feeling too much up to doing anything.

You don't have to worry about anything. I was aware of your situation as you explained to me, and the last thing I would do is force people to play and write a review for the game when they already have their own things to do and/or they don't want to (as both are time consuming tasks after all).
I would be much more happy to see people playing the game because they feel like it, because they feel it's good and deserves a chance. Not because they have an obligation.

So thank you so much for this review, which I liked a lot.

Well, it is a review as opposed to playtest, so to a degree, so this was really a matter of opinion for me. I knew others would feel differently. It was just how I felt.

It's true and, in fact, it's not like you don't have a point. I mean, your opinion is understandable. Let's just say I felt like this is Florien and any other type of characterization would completely disrupt who she is. That "mercenary trope" is something I used for a lot of time now as well, so I needed something new. The whole point of Karma Flow is taking the basis and creating something fresh. Not necessarily original, but fresh.

Mostly, I wanted to depict Florien as "human" as possible. She's not an hero or a silent protagonist or a skilled antagonist or whatever.

The whole point was creating some sort of anti-hero with a lot of dislikable traits but with a tragic past and some kind of reason behind what she does that would make the player understand why she acts like that, relate to her through that.

I hope that from the sequel onward, her character will finally grow on you.
She will evolve more and more as the saga progresses, I can guarantee that.

Oh, I forgot to mention, your start screen (the one before the title screen where you can link up to Game Jolt), defaults to windowed screen, and it causes all of the menu options to overlap the text. It's a technical issue that had nothing to do with the actual game so I wasn't bothered about it, but I did think you'd want to know (and I still forgot to mention it).

W-woot?