itch.io

between the story, and the story-related mechanics, and the fights themselves and the economy there's a ton going on in this one. it's interesting to get a combat-focused one. i'm usually pretty critical of lock-and-key battle design but i'm pretty impressed with this version of it. two reasons why. one, the way you subtly set up the expectation that every fight has a skill that "solves" it, and that that skill won't be of much help in other fights - and then play with that expectation - makes for a pretty involved process of learning and hypothesis-testing. as soon as i feel like i've gotten a grasp on how things work, you start throwing some curveballs (like the fight with cassius where all your "used up" stat-dropping skills work again, which is one of my favorites). when i DO find the right skill, it feels pretty good to abuse it, knowing that it i won't be able to just trivialize every subsequent fight with it. if you're gonna make me rote check all my skills one by one to see what works, it goes down a lot easier if the skill that DOES work works really well and i get to feel strong and clever for figuring it out. i could see this process becoming tedious in a longer game, but i think it fits a gauntlet of this size very nicely.

the other thing  i dug about it is the narrative resonance of like, your relationship with lance continually giving you the power you need to keep going forward. the first time i got a choice, i picked the first option, learned disarmer, and assumed the other options would give me different skills. but nope - you have to choose the answers that honor your relationship with lance to actually draw strength from it. it's simple, but very evocative. and again, well suited to the short length of the game. in a longer story, picking the "obvious" "right answer" and getting the skill that wins you the battle could get old fast. but you need to do it two or three times before the pattern even becomes apparent, meaning the number of times you make the right choice consciously expecting to get the key to the next fight out of it is 1-2. and by the time you get to the last fight, you don't even have to make a choice, you just get the skill and you know it's gonna be the key, and it is. it feels so right, it's confident and unpatronizing storytelling that trusts the player and doesn't drag on any longer than it needs to. i also appreciate you resisting the temptation to like, go *bigger* for the last lance interaction and have a more complicated challenge, and instead removing the challenge aspect altogether... it's very good. nice nice nice stuff

i also like how you can beat the game by just standing still lol

ok wait this is an awesome mechanic. this is giving me all kinds of ideas........

as far as i know 52 is the record rn :O who was your team?

if only i had known, i could have put all the fat boys in and done two homages at once

you're so right for this

very relatable set of experiences. it's hard to tell how much you actually enjoy doing something when there's all these other pressures on you while you do it, so i'm still figuring out exactly how i feel about the process. but i had an experience recently where i bought a new instrument and started playing it for fun and found that my enjoyment of playing scales and doing exercises was, for once, greater than my frustration at not being good yet... too early to say but i suspect having a more balanced life makes it easier to separate my feelings about doing the thing from my fears about what it means if i don't

using a werewolf for a thundercloud in ocean oi broke my brain forever

i really like this observation, the idea that even though you're pinning down an idea with potentially infinite manifestations into a single definite form, because everyone who engages it has their own different experience and interpretation of it, those unmanifested alternatives appear in them. the potential isn't being aborted, more displaced or transmuted......... that's a much less depressing way to look at it

that's incredible, congrats on the perfect score. i'm glad that you ultimately found it rewarding despite the sizeable rng element lol. if i had more time to balance i'd probably look for a way to soften that a bit, ideally just having the right plan should give you a very high chance to succeed. but yeah part of the magic of games like this is that they comes with rough edges (lots of them sometimes) and that raw, organic texture is something i value a lot. thanks for sticking with it to the end, dude

btw activating a "transfer player" event resets the random encounter timer, so there isn't actually a benefit to getting into a fight before you go down the stairs. this does mean however that if you pass by an incidental stairway en route to your intended destination, you can step in and out to take the heat off. i don't remember if i do that in this game but i've definitely exploited it in some others

i'm glad it comes through. the language of possibility space has been in my head for several years so i feel we're speaking the same language. i'll tell you my funny little distinction which is that, since so much of what i'm interested in is based in the most generic rpg design language,  i think of it as exploring the gaps within the established possibility space (or perhaps more pessimistically "mining it out"), rather than like, pushing the boundaries outward. not that it can't have that effect too. and also like studying old games and extracting lessons from them feels like reclaiming parts of the possibility space which have collapsed or been cut off haha. but still i think it's a little useful to think that you can both "broaden" and "deepen" possibility spaces (and maybe even a third thing)

really good, clear-thinking and relevant to lots of stuff going on within and around me right now. useful framework for explaining a good chunk of my tastes w/in my areas of interest and i especially appreciate you ending on an invitation to own your weird shit and take it seriously. if i ever start making sellout games take me behind the shed and shoot me with this

you're starting to notice my obsession with routing ^_^;; i'm glad you dug this one, i think the concept came through really well despite relying on the player to connect the dots themself, and it distills a lot what i think is interesting about rpg play into a digestible package. i encourage you to keep trying and see if you can get a perfect score

i gotta figure out if there's a better way to do saves 'cause i've been getting annoyed by the same problem too lately.. but i agree the most interesting parts are early on, once i got to the ice world it was all smooth sailing, so you're not missing too much. thanks for playing and reporting on your experience

i love the movement in this one.. being a minnow feels great. i'm stuck at a lowly 23 treats until i get more time to sit down and practice

this one had a really cool shape to it. i like how you do the dungeons in this one, they make for better grind spots than walking back and forth on the map because enemies appear instantly and you have a chance of getting free money. between this and game 27 you've got some pretty exciting ideas about simplifying dungeons. nice work!

cool stuff! the team went all out! it was a fun listen

i'm actually in a similar position there too, i'm sick of working alone and being responsible for the whole creative vision, so i've been looking for opportunities to play a supporting role and collaborate on friend's projects! i don't have anything too large in the pipeline right now, but it would be fun to do a weeklong jam or something later this summer.... if you're a discord kind of person you can add me there @ lizard

yeah i feel you for sure, i think we're in the same boat. i've got so many ideas i'm excited about that i couldn't make them all into full length games even if i devoted my whole life to it. making small games has made me realize that i don't need to make a 40-hour epic or even a 6-hour game to explore a concept to my satisfaction, spending a couple hours making a 20-minute game that gets the point across is often enough to content me, or make me go "oh i've actually done everything i wanted to do with this concept". i still want to make longer works too, but i'm growing more selective about which ideas actually get promoted to large projects :P

so it seems like we're on similar journeys here. nice to encounter a fellow traveler, i look forward to whatever you make next

congrats on making it to the end! i'm still getting caught up, but it's a very cool project. i think it's healthy for artists (maybe rpg devs especially) to take a break from the high-stakes megaprojects and get comfortable with putting out quick, unpolished work for its own sake

nice use of a custom encounter system B)

proud of myself for figuring out what "alt" stood for before the ending spelled it out :^)

very smooth and stylish with a full sense of atmosphere. it's inspiring to see how much of a sense of wholeness, and of identity, you can get into a game in the span of a day. lovely work

oooooh, i missed this, thanks

i have no idea what you're referring to and i'm terrified

MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE 🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽

(nah in all seriousness i know how it goes, rest up well and take care of yourself)

still setting the bar for mechanics as storytelling. my only complaint is that i want more! more more more more!!!!

good level design fundamentals, i really liked fighting different enemies in different spaces and seeing different kinds of challenges and situations that could emerge from a pretty minimal vocabulary. great stuff

playing this made me excited to make games with my own crummy mspaint art. the best possible outcome for playing a videogame

i agree with the other commenter, "jam quality" is selling the work way too short. this feels sooo full and developed. really incredible spritework, distinct and very apropos sense of atmosphere, generous and really sexy music direction, thematically mature, fun combat, tight progression and pacing - i thought this was a hit on all fronts, there's not much more i could want than this. fantastic work

they're so pretty it makes me cry.. true of many flowers but lilacs especially. here's a picture of a lilac i like that didn't make it into the game

i did know that and it kills me

i had a wonderful time using plano!

wow, what an honor to hear that. small world, huh? i'll be looking forward to whatever comes next for you.

your mom was so right

incredible

this is awesome, i really love the way all the buildings fit together into a larger whole, terrific sense of composition and perspective. very cool space to be in

i support her i think it's fine to do whatever she wants basically

beautiful

*gulp* *gulp* *gulp* *gulp*