RHYME'S PROFILE

Thank you very much for the review!

It's been a very long time since making Substar, and I've generally felt the same way about some of the dungeon gimmicks and the Ex Clear mechanic.

I remember when I'd actually be tolerant enough to play through my own game several times but retrying Substar now, I definitely feel the more frustrating side more often (hah).

Encounters were actually score-based, the tile you stepped on would increment an internal score that upon reaching a certain value, triggers a random encounter.
On average you'd have 15-20 steps to get a random encounter, but depending on which region you walk around it could be as low as 5-8 or as high as 30-40 steps.

A lot of the plot was left unfinished, unfortunately. There were plans on making NPCs appear in the dungeon, events triggering when you eat in the cafeteria, and a host of optional bosses with their respective quests (which never made it to the game - a lot was due to my excitement at having a game somewhat finished actually!)

I'm glad you find the game satisfying, however!

author=Shinan
Like red is incredibly well established so trying to buck that trend is always going to be a bit of a challenge.

author=LockeZ
But seriously WTF is up with that screenshot of a menu on the upper right where the increased stat numbers are red and decreased ones are blue? That's confusing as hell. Don't do that.

This is actually exactly what I meant! I don't SEE red being such an established color for "bad". I come from playing a lot of games where they use red/orange as the "positive" color and blue as the "negative" color, extending all the way to yes, stat changes! It came to mind when I was discussing my buff icons with a friend and he pointed out that they were upside down because he expected the buffs to be blue and debuffs to be red, while I had the natural instinct otherwise. Show me a picture of a game where the negative stats are red and it made me do a double take.

Also all the screenshots on the right side are games that use red as a positive color! (default rm only applies that to the standard buff icons though!)

Red is often used as a color for happiness, courage, success, strength, and fortune and so on, especially in China (see all their red ceremonial stuff? thats why), while blue can also just as easily indicate damage (turning blue, bruise, sadness, torment)
Notably, green is almost never used for a negative effect, though. At most, it would be the color for Poison visual effects or icons. Generally when green is paired with red, red becomes a negative color, but when paired with blue, it's not always the case.

While the opening post is worded rather divisively (its all chaos) I feel there is definitely a solid ground to think that "red is strong and blue is weak" can easily be communicated to a player. (Also because some of the games I've been recently playing do that color coding its been working on me)

On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing blue being used to signify something positive. Blue, as much as I try to interpret it, doesn't really scream "powerful" at all. Its loyal, humble, and calming, but it isn't "strong". I feel like it is wrong to use blue as a "buff" outside of maybe MP regeneration/healing/protective effects.

In particular, the line
draw_text(x, y, 72, line_height, Vocab::level_a)
That number determines the "draw width" of the text! If it squishes again on stuff like Level 100, you can raise it even further to make it fit more.
Do note that it can potentially over-draw to the HP gauges if the width is set too large.

o!

I've been waiting for this!

author=Ratty524
Thanks, Rhyme! I actually forgot about that stamina system until you brought it up. My bad. Do different skills have different stamina costs?

The combo results themselves do not, but the Runes required to perform the combo spells do. Once you cast 3 Runes, the spell is guaranteed!