PHLIM2'S PROFILE

Wow, thanks a lot for your review. Some positive and helpful comments there! Now for some responses:

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Thanks again for reviewing this. If you, or anyone else wants to help me in any way you can, please, feel free to drop me a message!

author=silenthilllz
for some reason the game just stops working when I'm in the opening of the forest. I can move around, but I can't run or do anything.

If by that you mean Yuuichi stops in the middle of nowhere, it's a very inexplicable bug which I later fixed.

If you walk to the right-hand side of the bridge, the cutscenes should resume as normal.

If you downloaded SFM-Demo-002.rar, you have to press F5. I've removed the "True fullscreen" feature in the update. Make sure to download that one instead. ^^

(Should be called SFM-Demo-002_5.rar)

I'll be uploading an updated demo very soon.
It'll be the same length, but will have a few updates/fixes.

- Is it just me or there's a notable difference of artstyle? Michiro (green-haired kid) looks chubbier than Miho (the silver haired lady). The difference is also notable at how their portraits are colored, given that Miho's portrait got more color details. The contrast is shown even more if you want to compare between the status screen and the portraits while talking. The status menu ones are only using base colors without any shadings. It's not about the quality, it's about the consistency.

Mmm, yeah. Michiro's artwork was done a week after I first started the RMVX version of SfM, and Miho's artwork was done a whole 4 months after. This will be why Michiro's looks chubbier.

Michiro's artwork was coloured by someone entirely different, but Miho's was done by the main artist at the time.
The new artist will be doing the sketches, I'll be lining them, and another artist will colour them.

As for the status pics, they were just base-coloured by me to show the other artists the main colours. However, when the old artist dropped out of the project (for reasons unknown), the artwork never got finished.

- I don't think counting the milliseconds is anything necessary. It's more like giving the players a feel to rush. I don't think this game needs to give feel to rush at all times, either.

The new menu system I'm working on will remove the milliseconds entirely.

- Thankfully, option to turn of voices is available. The voice acting isn't that bad. But at times, the intonation doesn't that fit (to my imagination).

Doesn't this go with most voice acting in games these days? lol...
Anyway, since I can't really converse with the VAs with a microphone, I can't help them say the lines as they're meant to be said. The best I can do at this point is say "eh, close enough".

- The 8 direction movement is legit, but somehow, why did I see that Michiro can step the roofs while walking diagonally?

I saw a script somewhere that can fix this, but I can't remember where it is.

- Seems that Miho's voice a little too squeaky to me?

Eh, she's 13. x'D

- Miho's quote... "Don't ever call me cute again, or I'll gouge your eyes out." What has happened in her life!? What kind of little girl that will say something as sadistic as that!? Which girl who will hate to be praised "cute"!? She must've been through a hell lot of problems too heavy for her age... Or... Is (s)he a boy!? (*runsawaybeforegetshot)

She just has a bad temper whenever someone calls her cute. However, her quote will be changed by the next demo. That was just a placeholder. xD

- Is there any reason to not be able to run in the (giraffe) forest, at the starting point?

(lol, I called it Kirin forest before I knew what "kirin" translated too. Funny how it translates to Giraffe! xD)
At the moment, there's a bit of trouble regarding beating Yuuichi to the bridge. This'll be fixed, as I've now got a script which fixes RMVXA's transparent event/event collision problem.

- The Extra folder, isn't it confidential? Are you sure to let us access them?

I'm working on making things accessible via save data. I've already put this to the test with a fan-made "Ib" game I've been working on, so I should be able to implement it to SfM.

- I sympathize Yuiichi there. While he's not a womanizer that will get a woman he'll like (bishoujo games staple), he doesn't have any portraits. It's unusual for a non-main character playable character. Wait, his portraits and such aren't completed yet, I see, since he already has his own portrait (colorless) in the menu scene. He looks far younger than I expected from his voice and sprite.

At the moment, the new artist for the game (not the same artist who did the artwork in the demo) has an artist's block, but will hopefully be working on it soon.

- The number fonts in battle feels squeezed, making them not that comfortable to read.

I'm still playing around with these to work out what would look good.

- A little strange that the battles lack any voice-overs while the dialogues bear some. The usual is the opposite.

Eventually, I'll be having voices in:
- Key events
- Battles (Basic Attack / Skills only)
- Cutscenes

- Sorry for much comment of anatomy... I can't stand it :P It's only about Michiro. Is she wearing a kind of skin-colored pantyhose? If not, why her belly button and (sorry) mound of venus (cleft between navel and thighs) aren't visible in her status menu portrait?

Ahahaha, I guess the line artist missed her belly button out, lol. Again, the new artist will be redoing the status pics. :)

- Why can highlight the spoils if you don't need to do anything?

Blame Yanfly for this. His aftermath system makes the item window selectable for some reason. I'll set the index to -1 and "deactivate" it, ready for the next demo. ;)

- Reminder of used commands in battle HUD is a pretty nice touch.

You mean the tutorial? If so, thanks. I thought a lot of people might have trouble getting the idea of the battle system.

- The big tree seems to have a contrasting style between other tiles and characters.

Hmm, I do kinda suck with tilesets, lol. I've been trying pretty hard to find something (or someone) that'll make it match with the tileset.

- Battles are redundant, the usual illness. Maybe you haven't paid attention to combat yet? So redundant that I prompted to escape without any particular reason but stay away from boredom. The only variation I found was only an attack that inflicts paralysis. The bosses' strategy aren't that worth yet, either. More than that, characters (Yuiichi and Michiro) have to be hit often to activate their techniques... And as I battle, I understand your need for spriters more. Seems that the normal charsets don't do enough justice for a fully depicted (illustrations and such) characters.

Yes, I noticed that the battles ARE plentiful. I shall remedy this immediately!
On top of that, I've been looking for some assistance with making monsters more balanced and worth fighting.
The forest sludge (green slime) usually causes poison upon attack, but other than that yeah, the enemies do lack a lot of status-inducing attacks at the moment.
I agree that the forest's boss does lack a lot of skills, and just requires a load of basic attacks to defeat it.

- The Mode 7 is pretty cool, although I think it's a little unnecessary.

I feel so too, but the entire RPG Maker series' airship system just looks plain to me, so I felt I should improve it with the Mode7 thing.

To anyone else who played: You may have noticed the world map was slow as hell, right? This was because of the tileset animation speedup script I added. The refresh rate made the world map run terribly. I apologise for this entirely, and it will be fixed in further releases!

- The Journal with different writers (and even responding the earlier journals) is a very nice touch.

Thanks. I've tried hard to make each entry have a personality based on their writers, lol.

- The characters' personalities are fleshed sufficiently, I think.

Mission accomplished then! xD
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In general, thanks for the HUGE feedback, wltr3565! I'll be taking on-board every thing you, and other people, say. (I've had another large feedback post to answer from another place, lol)

As mentioned in the "battle sprite" post by yourself, I do require some new sprites. Everywhere, in fact. I intend now to use a "slightly taller chibi" spriteset, and possibly find someone who can help me out for the battle sprites, someday, somehow. Maybe someone who can also make animated monster sprites too.

So far in all the comments I've received for the game, there has been no mention of the music in the game, lol.
v( o.o)v Sure, a few were snagged from RPG Maker DS and XP, but a few were composed for/by me:

- Suspicion
- Mika + Maka's Theme
- Boss Theme
- Mira Waterway
(There are more in the "Audio" folder that were composed by me/others.)

But yeah, the new menu system looks a butt-load more attractive than the demo's. I just need to get it in there. (I made it in a separate project, lol)

Anyway, thanks again. Hopefully things will be improved by next time!