UNITY'S PROFILE

Yeah, in my testing, I didn't find a need to use the first town's inn either. But I should have been a better tester and checked it out anyway ^^;;

Thanks very very much for your feedback, and an extra big thanks for finding that game-breaking glitch. I'm really sorry you had your game end prematurely like that; I really need to work harder on making sure I've tested and retested absolutely EVERYTHING before releasing a demo; a player shouldn't have to experience something like that ^^;;

Your writing criticisms are really gold for me. As much as I hate to admit it, writing is a weak-point of mine. Everything you suggested will improve the game, so I'm going to rewrite a lot of dialog to try to define and flesh out the characters better, using your suggestions. ^_^

author=Red_Nova
For being Karuna's squire, Chisa has some REALLY good starting stats. Since she levels up to Karuna's average pretty quickly, you may want to lower her attack and defense SLIGHTLY. Just the values at lv. 1 and 2.

Good point. Chisa starts out being really good at her role which makes her seem a lot less like an assistant. I'll definitely lower her level one and two stats!

author=Red_Nova
The music and sound choices were excellent! The game was really pleasing to the ears!

Thanks! :D I went looking for songs that I hadn't heard before (so I wouldn't have an attached nostalgia for them) that were in a style that I really like, so I'm very happy that it sounds good!

author=Red_Nova
Oddly enough, Karuna's sprite seems to have the least work done on it. Her body has very little shading, so she looks more like a red block. Which is strange, because EVERY other sprite looks great.

It was because she was the first sprite I worked on, and I learned a lot by the time I was done. I'll go back and polish her sprite a lot and hopefully it'll look as good as the others. ^_^

author=Red_Nova
The prices on high level equipment seem to be WAY more than needed. I don't want to shell out an extra 200 Vei for an item that only add 2 extra stat points.

I wanted to make it a tough choice of which gear you could get and what you had to leave behind at the start, but you're right. I'll adjust the prices to be less outrageous.

author=Red_Nova
Spells should probably have more cost to them. Because the beginning of the game was WAY too easy. I could heal myself so easily that I didn't need to use items until I went into the Tidal Cave.

I'll increase the cost of healing spells. Do you think that Merel's attack spells are too cheap as well? I was going to make her hit-all and stronger spells increase in cost by a lot, but the low level ones are cheap so they can be used a bit more if you run out of MP.

author=Red_Nova
Speaking of that, The Tidal Cave was SUCH a fun area! I really loved the design and mechanics of it. Keep that up!

Thanks! I recently played through Housekeeping's A Long Rope to the Top of the Sky and loved how he had varied dungeon mechanics so I'm trying to make really memorable dungeons! Here's hoping I can come up with neat things in the rest of them that will make them as fun as the tidal cave! :D

author=Red_Nova
After the first boss, the game got really challenging. Good job on that!

Thanks! That's just what I was going for!

Again, a ton of thanks for your critique! I'll be working hard to polish the characters and dialog so players can get into them better!

Thank you so much for playing, and for your great feedback! :D

I'll address each of your points below. (I couldn't seem to get the Hide function to work with the Quote function, so if anyone wants a completely spoiler-free playthrough, then skip the rest of the post ^^;;)

author=urano23
Finished the demo(damn, I thought it was a bit longer <.<)

Oops. Did I get the time wrong? Sorry about that. Maybe I should have added 30 minutes more to my estimate.

author=urano23
I've said this many times but whatever. The beginning is too rushed. No introduction, no presentation to the characters and no backstory. Karuna just suddenly appears in the king's room. The king's speech is hilarious though.

I wanted to do a quick introduction and turn control over to the player as soon as possible and deliver backstory as you go. I'm not sure if that was the best method. I'll be thinking about a way to open the game better.

author=urano23
I love the custom graphics. It makes the game so unique and gives it a style and identity that many rpg maker games lack. Good job on that :D

Thanks! It's my first time doing pixel graphics, so I'm really glad you liked them!

author=urano23
While I love custom graphics(and I hate to say it but) I really don't like the faces. I don't hate them but I'm not completely satisfied. That's a personal opinion though. I'm not saying they are bad I just don't like them.

I actually completely agree with you here. I'm not very good at drawing faces. I tried redrawing them several times but never could get them to the quality or feeling I wanted to. I've considered the possibility of hiring someone to redraw all the faces and the couple of cutscene drawings, but I can't afford more than a few hundred dollars for all the work and I'm not sure if I can find someone with a cool style who would also do it for a price I can afford.

author=urano23
I loved the battle system. Battles are long but not too much and every enemy looks and feel unique, instead of being the same enemy with different graphics. And I like the idea of making the battles tougher the longer they last.

Hooray! I polished the battle system a lot, so I'm ecstatic that you enjoyed it. I also wanted to make sure that I put in new enemies very often so battles don't get as stale. I'm going to up the deadliness of the new moves that enemies get as time goes on in future dungeons so the tension stays at a good pace.

author=urano23
Why are all the main characters women? It's not bad or anything I'm just curious. And while we're on the subject, why are they all lesbian as well? Again, I have nothing against neither women nor lesbians. I'm just curious.

To be honest, I like lesbians a lot and lament their absence in games. So the answer to the question is "pure indulgence on my part," even though I may have gone overboard XD. I hope this won't put too many people off or alienate my audience, but if it does, I'll accept it because that's the path I took.

Though perhaps I should warn the players a bit more before they download the game. "Light yuri themes" might be not near enough warning when all playable characters are lesbians and part of the plot hinges on a lesbian romance.

author=urano23
The plot is a bit cliche and simple but it's enough and the characters are likeable so it's okay. It's hard to make a non-cliche story nowadays.

I'm so glad you liked the characters! I took the most cliche Dragon Quest-esce RPG plotline and ran with it, hoping that the characters and the unique spin on some of the events would carry the game. In the future I do indeed want to tell more unique stories, but for this I just wanted to have some fun with the RPG formula and see what sort of story I could tell with it.

author=urano23
The first boss was awesome because it has a rare and interesting fighting style but the second one was rather dissapointing. It was a standard giant squid boss. Nothing special. Also, you should tell the player that there's a boss up ahead. I mean, I know it was abvious but I didn't know exactly if I was close or extremely close until I had the squid in my face. I didn't even heal myself or save the game before the fight. Half the responsability for that was mine for not paying attention though.

The point about telling the player about the upcoming boss is something I'm very glad you brought up. With no save points (since you can save almost anywhere) the bosses don't have any warning. I'll fix that right away with signs with flashing skulls before the boss so that you know that they're coming.

As for the battles themselves, I owe most of the success of that first boss battle to LockeZ, who came up with the cool ideas for me in his "design a boss" thread on this site. The second one I designed solely on my own, and I see now that I didn't put enough thought into it. I'll work hard to try to make future boss battles much more memorable.

author=urano23
You give us too many items that are unnecessary. I always heal myself with skills anyway so it's pointless. I rarely use a healing potion and, while mana potions are useful, I didn't need it. I'm not saying not too give the player healing items, I'm saying you give too many and just fills the item bag with tons of items I'm very unlikely to use.

I understand. I went a bit overboard with that. Aside from reducing the number of items you find, I wonder if I could help fix that problem by having some of the new crafting items use a lot of curative items in their recipes, thus rewarding you for not using those items with unique loot.

author=urano23
NPCs are great because it's not a waste of time to talk with them(many games fail at that). I feel like it's useful to talk with every NPC either because they will say something useful, something interesting or just something funny.

Dungeons are designed in a fun way as well. It's not just a "walk until you reach to the end" type of dungeon.

Thanks a lot! I wanted to keep dungeons relatively short and interesting and keep the NPCs from being too much of a bother, so I'm happy both worked well ^_^

author=urano23
I think I'm not forgetting anything. Overall, I like the game. It has tons of potential. I'm really looking forward to the full game :D

Again, thank you so much for playing! I'll work hard to address your concerns and make a game that you (and hopefully everyone else who plays) will enjoy! :D

You're welcome! :D

Even if the game wasn't called "Depression," I found that the game feels like something is off and strange even in the very beginning. Hopefully other players will also pick up on that.

author=calunio
But I'll admit my design faults: the first part of the game (the forest) was supposed to be a bit more fun/engaging. For a number of reasons I decided to make a linear path instead of a proper dungeon (functionally there's not such a big difference), but I guess the fact that players weren't able to cross such a small path without grinding a lot was too frustrating.

I won't say that first part is devoid of fun; I was entertained by the early grinding and finding new equipment via enemy drops. You also get your first party member to make things a bit more manageable. I also loved seeing what enemies would show up. I found them very creative, like "Fear" that paralyzes you and "Envy" that drains your HP and MP. I personally don't see this first area as a failure, though I guess at that point I was bracing myself for what was to come; I knew things probably wouldn't stay this manageable.

author=calunio
I'm just curious about when did you decide to quit the game. Though dying (either in battles or by losing XP) is a valid way to end the game, there's actually a proper ending. I haven't heard from anyone actually getting it, though.

I was quite set on getting to a proper ending when I first started, but after a lot of dying I was starting to consider the possibility that failure was the only option. The farthest I got is when (spoilers)



Given that there is a definite endgame, and I have an older save file where the curse had not yet grown quite as terrible, I'll probably reload from there at some point and see how much farther I can get.

Thanks a lot :D