Holy shit man. That just made my day. Now let me reply to every detail.

I'm working on character portraits. I almost included them in the demo, but I didn't because I didn't have one for everyone. I guess I should just stick with the important characters though. Everyone else will remain faceless. Name colors is a good idea that I didn't think of.

Can't be too hard, I imagine. Just have to dig through this dialog engine a bit.

I thought it was actually a bit quirky. But the sylphs are supposed to be different from humans so I went all out on the fish-helmet.

I forgot to post controls. I'm such a dick. You probably missed spells, eh? You might have a much easier time once you figure out how spells work.

For the first attacking enemy, they're pretty tough. But the reason I left them there is because they introduce a big concept that I'm keeping throughout the game. That's observation and memorization. Their attack pattern is pretty simple. They move towards you, throw something, and run. You can either use your own projectile or just berserk on them. I usually use a combination.

That's a new issue actually. It's not 100% important at the moment since for me, it falls under "polish," but I have spent a lot of time with it.

Again, my bad for not posting controls, and it's presented in the original demo. "A" charges your Ether Points when you deplete them by casting. You've got a cooldown so you can't spam charge, but I might remove that and allow you to charge as long as you hold the key and stay still.

Basically, the X key is the run key. That goes for everyone, and her animation is simply a floating one. In this demo, she can't fly (due to the windstorm), but it might be something I'll look at adding in the future. The toggle idea is a good one. If anyone else agrees, speak up.

A resprite would be a good idea. Thanks for pointing that out. The idea was that their movement is supposed to be predictable. They're annoying, but once you learn their patterns (being the dumb enemies they are), you can kill them no problem. Like I said, they demonstrate a need to observe.

That would be the font inconsistency bit I referred to. I hate it so.

The boss works in phases. This one has four, triggered by his health pool.

Again, observation and memorization. Once you see openings to attack, it becomes very easy to whittle his health down and finish the phase. Sometimes, berserking actually works, especially on the second phase.

Another observation attack. He waits for a bit, goes for you, leaving the puddles in the way, and if you stand in it, you take damage. Here's the problem though. You didn't know how to switch spells, so you didn't know that only one spell can hurt him. Same goes for his final phase.

He's not necessarily evil, just doing what all sylphs do and River doesn't like it. The lampposts tell you that you're near your destination (the human village), so the boss is the only thing standing in your way.

If you're talking about the previous demo, the flower was a boss fight that everyone said was difficult due to damage.

I didn't even run across that. That's exactly what I like people to catch.

The HUD is a huge work in progress. I've got to spend some time with it. I might hide it at some point. I might make it so you can see your own health and get alerts when your EP is low. I need some help in this area though.

Again, me posting controls probably would've made sense. I'll post a video of the fight for those who want to see as well. It won't have sound though, because my computer doesn't have stereo mix/wave out.

Regarding the character:

Her outfit was experimental, but I accidentally stuck with it. The entire graphical style is based on Earthbound/MOTHER 3, so it's entirely intentional.

I thoroughly enjoyed your review, and I hope to hear more of your input. I'm always open to gameplay suggestions, though this demo being placed very early game isn't supposed to be super exciting. But if you have ideas of how to make it more exciting, by all means, share.

I appreciate the time you took. Thanks.

Here's the tutorial video. Low quality, no sound, but shows you an idea of how to play the boss.

Also, something I forgot. The flower is the boss's temporary portrait since I haven't had time to sprite one.

EDIT: Just found a bug upon beating the boss. You'll see two characters. One can move, one can't. It'll be easy to fix, just a part in the engine related to character persistence and cutscenes. I'll leave it there for now.

Define weird. If you mean out of character, it kind of is. I think I wrote this when I was dead tired, so I have some editing to do.

There is a working inventory already. It didn't have a place in this demo though, because there's no need for River to collect items, just walk around and fight things.

Describe the spellbook though. You can select spells outside of combat, like I said before, but if you're talking about anything else, you'll have to describe it a bit.

Yeah, I don't know why the hell, but I just saw that. It doesn't matter a ton, since she's not supposed to be able to level, but in the actual game, it increases your health and EP generation, along with other things like your power. You also learn new spells as you level. Things like an absorption shield and healing, and she gets much more devastating attacks.

I've only got a vague idea where I'm taking the game. I've got the basic story down but as far as features, keep the suggestions coming. Chances are I could use them all.

One thing I AM contemplating though, is whether to only allow one character to be playable, or allow you to switch between characters whenever, so the tactics you learn with each character aren't lost. It's a gamble, so I need more input on it.

I can work on a spellbook. It'll take me some time to figure out how it'll look, but with a design, it should be pretty easy.

I put a lot of work into the game already. When I posted this here, I already expected to have a lot of work ahead of me. What I need to figure out though, and I'll get specific help for this, is if the gameplay will flow well with the story. In other words, does the story support playing multiple characters? I'll take some time to think about it.

Joypad support would probably be easy, but I don't have one to test it out on, so I'll have to wait on that.

Other than that, controls are awkward, I agree. I already developed a feel for them so it's becoming less noticeable. If someone would take the time to map out a whole control scheme, I could do it in a flash. I'm not as big of a gamer as some, and what I know doesn't apply to others.

C might become the cast key. S is a bit hard to reach. A doesn't need to be used a whole lot, same with Q and E. I'll get this figured out. Might even map items to the number keys for ease of use.

You've got me thinking about this kind of stuff early. It's good to worry about these core parts at this phase. Again, I appreciate your time.

To everyone else, I still want input, as it would help influence me a lot better with more opinions. So stop being shy, goddammit. <_<

Here we go!

Things which absolutely annoyed me

1. The second time I played (I accidentally quit the first time), I skipped the cutscenes, and the storm "sound effect" played over… and over… and over… again… Until I gave up and turned the computer sound off.

Pretty sure it was a bug. In either case, I suggest you change the sound to something slightly less annoying (the wind sounds buzzy and noisy, on my earphones at least)

2. The black background behind your stats in the combat menu. Not only was it unnecessarily big (though I suppose the extra part was to accomodate an extra NPC), it kept obstructing the view of the boss.

You should reduce the size of that black spot of annoyance to a required minimum (only increase it if there are actually extra NPCs or whatever else appears next to the stats), and maybe even make it transparent, or figure out some other way of making what's behind more visible.

(the boss healthbar was less annoying, maybe use something more similar for the character stats, with some more visible stuff in the background instead of the black rectangle area)

Things which annoyed me less but should still get fixed somehow

1. The enemy hitbox was a wild guessing game. At first I thought I was supposed to hit the orb, then that I'm supposed to hit the shadow, and as it turned out, it's not exactly either (though closer to the second part).

Either make it more clear where the hitbox is, or highlight the enemy when the player attacks/casts a spell, or at the beginning of the battle/when the boss changes form. I can imagine some rectangular "scan" effect homing on the enemy at the beginning of combat (or maybe when a player presses something, like an extra key for highlighting enemies as a combat aid).

Alternatively, increase the hitbox of player's projectiles. At first I found it almost impossible to hit the boss when shooting vertically, and when it comes to melee attacks (Ether Spear), it's just impossible.

(also, add some more visible explosion effect for Ether Dart in addition to displaying the amount of damage it deals)

3. The controls aren't particularly bad, just confusing. Why not have attack and spell next to one another (say, Z and X), C for run, A and S for choosing spells, and D for recharge?

The part that annoyed me was that I kept recharging instead of casting. :P

4. The spell loading times are too long. Not by much, and their power makes up for it, but it makes it very hard to aim them right and spamming Ether Dart turns out to be more effective anyway.

Most importantly, it wasn't possible for me to hit the boss in his Bad Karma form with Stoneraze without him getting to me and damaging me anyway.

Things which were only a mild nuisance

1. Did I already mention that the trees could use some shadows? :P

2. The transition times were slightly too long, particularly when skipping cutscenes (wanna skip a cutscene? a-ha! I shall punish you by forcing you to watch the screen fade in and out! muahaha!), but also when moving between areas.

3. The house looked slightly too colourful compared to the rest of the game. Making the floor less saturated would also help increase the contrast with the characters.

4. Same as with SpectreNectar, the boss's name didn't fully display for me in his "-orm of Misfortune" form and the other end went outside of the bar.

Is that a GM problem? I thought once you load the fonts, it doesn't really vary from one computer to another. If it does, just use a more popular font I guess :P

5. Come on, limit the amount of full stops in an ellipsis to three. You're wasting precious nanoseconds (heh, I just don't like anything other than just one or just three periods, so that counts as a nuisance).

Things I loved

1. The special effects. The game looks like a SNES jRPG, but the darkness-bleeding orbs, transparent rotating rings of light, pillars of light beaming out of eldritch circles, or even characters teleporting out go beyond anything that SNES had, and still fit in pretty good.

2. The cutscenes. They were pretty varied and had some action and effects going on (rather than just talk, talk, talk).

3. The game in general! Apart from the things I listed, all was enjoyable, the combat was pretty creative and the spells were varied and looked great.

I think it'll be harder to come up with useful and powerful melee attacks, though (if you're going to make melee characters or abilities more important, I suggest you go for the old trick of increasing their angle, since just attacking in a line when you can only move in four directions is going to be very ineffective).

Other Comments

Funnier and more action-packed than the last demo. I figured out how to beat the boss myself (took me five attempts, I think).

Also, River acts like a punk, even for a jRPG-style character ;) If that was meant to be the introductory chapter for that character, I think it did a pretty good job.

And how do you access the pause menu, anyway?

P.s. Maybe add some "idle" effect for the save ravens? Some short animation every now and then if you stay around for long enough. They rule.

I may or may not have forgotten to do some checks to make sure it turned off right. Easy fix.

Yeah, the size was something I didn't end up changing, but it's there to have another party member's status. With that and SpectreNectar's comment on its annoyance, I'm considering downsizing the player HUD and giving other indications of health and EP. Casting too.

Overall, the HUD is a piece of shit that needs work. I haven't spent time with it because it'll take me a few days to design it.

I just started messing with hitboxes actually. The boss so far is the only one with a height that matters, though the spirits do basically float. Design error on my part for not showing their shadows.

You're going to have to explain that a bit, because it sounds like a useful idea.

Ether Spear's hitbox has been giving even me some issues, to the point where I really don't use it. It's sad, because it's a powerful attack, but also eats your EP like no other spell if you spam it. It's a tough thing to nail, because spells also basically have a height.

Ether Dart as a whole was thrown in just as an easymode projectile attack. I haven't found a sound effect for it and visually, I was very lazy with it, heh.

As for controls, it's like the HUD, where I'm going to need to spend some time with design. Originally I wanted to keep the melee and run keys near each other because back then I supported Z spamming. With a few more tactical ideas (and the fact that River's spells are far more powerful than her melee), I think I'll end up using your scheme, and even allowing the player to map his own controls sometime in the future.

Sadly, the spells don't have a great use until they're required. This falls under the "situational casting" area. Stoneraze originally was too difficult to cast against the spirits, as they'd interrupt you at the last second every time. I'll work with the casting mechanic when I can.

He probably needs to sit still a little longer, but I normally don't take damage in that phase. Then again, I also know my own controls. The idea is that you wait for him to start moving, move a tiny bit, turn around and start casting, then book it. That's not really a high damage phase unless you're berserking and standing in the pools.

Yeah, I think you did. And I forgot. Designing the forest is pretty tough as it is, but it can't be too much work to do shadows. It'll support the depth-based combat that I'm trying to bring in.

See, this is the consistency problem I was talking about. On some computers I test with (even the slow ones), it's ridiculously fast to the point where you hardly notice it even fade, which is why I've been reluctant to reduce it any further. If anyone has a solution for this, I'd like to hear.

Noted. Still working with sylph architecture as it is.

Did for me in the video too. It did that after I redid the fonts, but I think the spell name needs shortening anyway.

If that's the case in GM, it's something I didn't know. Most of the font inconsistency is when I'm trying to do actual work on the game instead of running the EXE. It's annoying as piss since I have to look for new fonts.

It might help if I allowed dialog skipping. The breaks are mostly in there to support the dialog. Maybe I'll add a feature to the dialog engine that has a shorter pause for things like that.

I hope they fit well. I know they're set apart from the sprites a bit, but I wanted to go all out with spells and such.

The first cutscene is probably the most boring. I thought about doing things like having people walk around or slam fists/heads on the table, but I don't have sprites for anyone but River and Karemi at the moment. And as you can see, the sprites they have already are pretty…heh…odd.

One thing to note is that even for melee attacks, every spell/attack in the game is considered area-of-effect. The range and angle will simply change with each spell. I figured line-casting was fine as long as there was some other benefit. You either have power, speed, or utility.

I thought about eight directions, but that would require directional sprites, and that's something I'm just not capable of right now.

I think the fact that you knew controls helped, right? Not knowing you have more than one spell has to piss the hell out of you. Still, five attempts is a lot. I might have to tone the boss down further.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I overdid it. I could list every detail about her character but that would take some time. She is supposed to be the comic relief for game, among other things, and emotion isn't really in her scope.

Press enter on the map to have access to the menu (you can't do much besides selecting spells in this demo). On the battle screen it simply pauses the game.

I did want to make them a little more a part of the game than just your savers. That's why I added the dialog, and even Ravens have their own personalities. The first you meet, as you see, is a smartass.

Overall, that's a good idea, and I'd like to do more than them. And I'm glad people like them (even Obelisk did, interestingly enough).

FIN

Well, I wrote more than I thought. And if I completely missed some of your suggestions, I was in a bit of a hurry, so let me know if there was something you needed answered. I appreciate the time you took, both of you. Those are very lengthy lists.

Didn't really have trouble hitting the spirits, weird (they stood still for longer, I think)…

What I meant by "scan effect" was something along the lines of a screen-size rectangle decreasing in size and locking on the enemy hitbox, than flashing and disappearing, at the start of combat/boss form change (or something of that sort). Probably wouldn't look too good in this game's world, though :P

Maybe something like an abstract "crosshair" or sparks appearing whenever you're attacking/preparing to attack…

I think I started charging the spell before he actually stopped moving, as far away from him as possible, and he still hit me. :( My general suggestion for both this and the spells' uselessness would be to make them load a LITTLE faster.

HOW are you doing the fade? :| Because the way I see it, or at least the way I'd imagine someone would do it, the speed of the fade should only be limited by steps per second, in which case it would be consistent with the speed of the game itself…

I think changing some things about spellcasting speed and aiming would be better than tweaking his HP and attacks ;)

Apart from the second form covering the level in projectiles, the boss was pretty fair, it just took some time (and deaths) to figure some stuff out.

Well the comments are more or less for my information, obviously. You don't need to read them, so don't let them stop you from playing and giving your OWN comments. >=[

First read screamed "lock-on" to me. Then I reread it. Thanks for the accidental idea.

But I can see where you're going with this. We can refer to the hitbox as a "weak point" or something. As far as how it looks in the game's world, this isn't a medieval game. I'd have to find some way to explain it, since the characters don't wear mech-suits, but I'll look into it.

Feel free to shout at me if I'm still missing the idea.

If you stop before he starts moving, he'll hit you. He targets your position and goes for you. So if you wait a sec and move right after he moves, he won't touch you. You might get some close calls there though; the idle period was long as it was (the difficulty of the phase matches the cast time, I'd say. Hope for a nice crit).

I think I'll end up making those two cast times shorter so they'll be a bit more useful outside of where they're required.

Like you said, steps per second. Cutscene fades are done in the step event (blackAlpha+=0.01; or something like that). Room transitions are usually using the built-in tr_fadeoutin transition.

Now that I think about it, I was never sure if there was an FPS/room speed cap that rises on some computers. If I can figure out how to cap it, I think that problem can be fixed and transitions normalized.

Did you try standing still? You'll notice that 90% of the projectiles fly right past you. Even when he moves, they usually curve just enough that you don't have to move. Just spam Ether Dart, really, since getting close is a berserking tactic.

Even though only two people have played and reviewed the game, I feel like this release was a great success. I got much more information than I initially planned.

You may not be, but "Actually jk" in one of your previous comments (note the word "actually," as if a mind was changed), tells me that you may feel the same way.

HMMMMMM.

Enlighten me one of these days.