KUMADA'S PROFILE

Re: evasion.

I think this is where a bundled walkthrough/system reference document would help a lot. There's some general theory that goes into a McGee game that the casual player may not pick up on immediately, largely because the game chucks a couple of rpg conventions out the window without really telling anyone (see also Vermicide, Everything Turns Gray, and To Arms!)

Hit and evade are typically a big deal, and are heavily modified by equipment.

Status buffing and condition-stacking are serious business.

Staying power is less important than unloading everything you have onto an enemy and finishing the fight before it's even started.

Stun-locking works, and is sometimes a valid strategy if you can spare the resources (belladonna berries alchemized with belladonna berries.) Limited resources prevent this from being total cheatyhacks, and instead make it a tactical decision.

This is all just general theory, and it'll come to any player if they play for long enough, but bundling this all into a sort of strategy guide would cut down on initial frustration (and also on some initial innovation, which I think may be why Max made the help document that came with the game so brief.)

I do agree with Versalia on a few points.

The game really should let you out of town before you've built anything, because that can actually be the cornerstone to a valid strategy. The lore books in the house are also inescapably long, and need some sort of emergency eject button.

I'm guessing that having to equip an item before you can mine the proper resource has a lot to do with the memory-intensiveness of making a script that checks your whole inventory for an item rather than just checking your equip slot. However, if I'm wrong, not having to swap around weapons frequently would speed up gameplay.

Craze, I'm not sure I'm seeing whatever it is you're seeing with the menus. What is it that you're seeing, by the way?

The only in-game menu that has ever left an impression on me was the one-of-your-team-mates-is-dead menu from Earthbound. It was pitched at exactly the right frequency of red to cause cerebral hemorrhaging at a distance of fifty feet. Unless a menu is causing me serious, unrelenting physical pain, I tend not to pay much attention to it, and this is fine. When I pull up a menu, I'm not looking at the menu itself. I'm looking at the objects in the menu. It's like the plate your meal comes on at a restaurant. Even if it's really, really pretty, it's still incidental to the meal.

I stand corrected.

I know I've done that with stuff before, too.

Incidentally, this game could benefit from one or two more melee weapons. Maybe something intermediary between the laser rapier and the wrench?

People might get twitchy around the gorgon and the excavator. Unless you're going to specifically give a shout-out to the franchises that inspired them, it may be safer to use expies.

Anyone in the thread have suggestions for alternative names?

(also, McGee, you put a chainsword in Iron Gaia. Pot. Kettle. Black.)

Spellsword is an extremely straightforward class. I don't think this necessarily means nerf times oh boy, but it does simplify the game down to doing one thing and doing it well.

Honestly, I think having an easier class makes the game more accessible, so this isn't necessarily a bad thing.