This game is awesome! It has a fascinating story and a variety of game mechanics that gave me a new challenge on how to deal with the monsters. I love to see more of the game when’s it’s fully released! 20 / 10
Haha I haven't worked on a Persona game before, though one of my main inspirations is Shigenori Soejima, the artistic director behind most of the ATLUS games you've heard of (Persona, Catherine, etc).
Thanks for the LP! I got a lot of useful information from watching you play it blind, and I'm glad you thought the battle engine was fun and interesting -- I watched the whole thing ^^
Finished! I think I've seen everything there is so far, I might be wrong. But what I did see is excellent so far!
First, some bugs...
Is the test supposed to flash "garbage" before it shows up? Because when I move on to the next bit of text, green lines or writing or pictures flash in the text box before the text appears. If it's intentional, I have no problems with it. Sometimes the character busts got discolored. I took a few screenshots of what I mean, and I could put them up if you want. But basically there's a few green blocks of shading on the characters' faces. Other than the game lagging momentarily here and there, there's no other bugs.
Now! The puzzles are good. The underwater one was my favorite I like to call this kind of puzzle "the laguna race puzzle". These are my favorite kind! For the locker puzzle, that was good too! I'd not seen something like that before, it was fun to figure out. It would be very cool if there was like a Logic segment where Leroy figures out the truth of Lillith, Isaac and Izzy, liar-truthteller style.
The areas of each person looked good aesthetically. Pity there wasn't flavor text, to examine your surroundings! Though it would be bad to dilly dally in the school. The Rage Cage was fun, I actually liked that part the best. I really took a shine after the bar scene.
First I tried to clear Quentin's part without exploring, and I failed the Depth Knell (if I remember correctly its name) again and again and again. Until finally, at the comments I realized I could explore other areas, and got Primadonna's cards! And I beat the Depth Knell after losing only one more time :p. The fight was difficult but fun, and not rage-inducing like when I so foolishly tried to fight with only Quentin's and Leroy's cards.
I would say all of the characters had traits I recognized but were not irritating. Lillith and Isaac were cold, but it was well-done, and believable. I like them a lot, Lillith especially! Her way of death, though...harsh. What a way to go. Quentin was shy, but not obnoxious. And Primadonna was fiery but not condescending.
At first, I thought the White Marks would be ones who committed suicide, but nope :p. I am eagerly awaiting to see how Leroy will get them and everyone out!
Those errors do sound bizarre, I haven't heard of them happening before. If you kept the screencaps, they would be very helpful if you could send them via PM on twitter, discord or here. Would you by any chance be playing on an older computer?
You're welcome! I always try to leave good comments on game I truly like. And I have screenshots of the green boxes, but not of the flashing text. When I play through the demo again (because I totally will) I'll try to capture that. I can give you the screenshots I have when I come back from work.
I played this game on my 2014-bought desktop. :P It runs windows 8. I had many other things open at the time (Chrome, various programs, etc) so it's possible they conflicted. Or maybe the game works best when other programs are closed.
Didn't get to finish it yet, but I love the VN sections so far^^
Since it's a demo it comes with a few minor bugs:
The mirror image in the first scene with Quentin starts with the wrong sprite for her.
Even if you are already on the same floor, pressing the button will start the elevator again. (necessary, because it's unloading when entering the elevator?) If you exit the elevator and then reenter and press the button of the same floor you're on, you'll end up at the "next" floor. The colors for the white and black button are flipped inside the elevator compared to the elevator button UI
Using the menu while standing in front of the elevator (and maybe in other interactable places) will actually interact with things (like make you step into the elevator.)
Also, you might need to consider tweaking combat a bit. I'll focus on Quentin's world and the combat there for this example:
As far I see, if your time top left hit's rock bottom, you start a 10 second timer to get back up, before you lose. Your time is reduced both with inverted Quentin cards and by "redrawing" your hand. Redrawing might be necessary, because the main skill of the enemies is to permanently lock your hand cards from being used. But you of course can't redraw, if the time is already at 3 and the 10 second countdown is ticking. You're basically done for at that point. When playing normally you might avoid using the inverted cards, because of course it would be bad to loose time, even if you can regain it with the one or other right oriented card. I lost maybe 7 matches (including a reload from autosave) and won 2 or 3 by playing "regularly" with just Leroy's and Quentin's cards.
But then I figured out a way that completely breaks combat, which you might want to consider "fixing": Press all arrow keys at once at the start of the battle and keep them pressed: You'll automatically use all cards, no matter what they are, hold or regular. It is impossible for monsters to "lock" card slots that are empty (because cards come in one at a time), even if you end up at the final countdown, chances are, you still have enough cards coming in to get the time boost you need (I rarely fell that far down though), or if they lock, you have enough time left to unlock them again via redraw and then boost back up. Similarly the battle with Primadonna, the one slot from which you played the inverted bomb stays "unlocked"so you can just play until you get a regular bomb to unlock all slots again.
Both cards have a synergy, since Quentin would need the unlocks and Primadonna would need the extra time, but this "easy" workaround right now makes it obsolete.
It might be a bit harder to find the right balance there, but maybe if you actually locked the slots instead of the cards that would help with some things. Also, maybe I missed it, you could hint at the necessity for Leroy to go "explore on his own" to return to the hub, so people are guided to meeting all characters/getting all types of cards first, before tackling the more intense fights.
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This game is awesome! It has a fascinating story and a variety of game mechanics that gave me a new challenge on how to deal with the monsters. I love to see more of the game when’s it’s fully released! 20 / 10
Hey! Thanks for the let's play! I'll add it to the presskit ^^
Glad you enjoyed it so far!
Hmmmmmm
Did you work on a persona game in the past? I notice how it's taken some of the Persona art style. Beyond that, solid gameplay and story so far.
Haha I haven't worked on a Persona game before, though one of my main inspirations is Shigenori Soejima, the artistic director behind most of the ATLUS games you've heard of (Persona, Catherine, etc).
Thanks for the LP! I got a lot of useful information from watching you play it blind, and I'm glad you thought the battle engine was fun and interesting -- I watched the whole thing ^^
I have to agree that the 'Persona' aesthetic is quite prominent in this game. I don't mind and I like it! :)
Looks cool :) I'll have to check it out later!
Edit:
Finished! I think I've seen everything there is so far, I might be wrong. But what I did see is excellent so far!
First, some bugs...
Is the test supposed to flash "garbage" before it shows up? Because when I move on to the next bit of text, green lines or writing or pictures flash in the text box before the text appears. If it's intentional, I have no problems with it. Sometimes the character busts got discolored. I took a few screenshots of what I mean, and I could put them up if you want. But basically there's a few green blocks of shading on the characters' faces. Other than the game lagging momentarily here and there, there's no other bugs.
Now! The puzzles are good. The underwater one was my favorite I like to call this kind of puzzle "the laguna race puzzle". These are my favorite kind! For the locker puzzle, that was good too! I'd not seen something like that before, it was fun to figure out. It would be very cool if there was like a Logic segment where Leroy figures out the truth of Lillith, Isaac and Izzy, liar-truthteller style.
The areas of each person looked good aesthetically. Pity there wasn't flavor text, to examine your surroundings! Though it would be bad to dilly dally in the school. The Rage Cage was fun, I actually liked that part the best. I really took a shine after the bar scene.
First I tried to clear Quentin's part without exploring, and I failed the Depth Knell (if I remember correctly its name) again and again and again. Until finally, at the comments I realized I could explore other areas, and got Primadonna's cards! And I beat the Depth Knell after losing only one more time :p. The fight was difficult but fun, and not rage-inducing like when I so foolishly tried to fight with only Quentin's and Leroy's cards.
I would say all of the characters had traits I recognized but were not irritating. Lillith and Isaac were cold, but it was well-done, and believable. I like them a lot, Lillith especially! Her way of death, though...harsh. What a way to go. Quentin was shy, but not obnoxious. And Primadonna was fiery but not condescending.
At first, I thought the White Marks would be ones who committed suicide, but nope :p. I am eagerly awaiting to see how Leroy will get them and everyone out!
Wow! Thanks for all of the notes ^^
Those errors do sound bizarre, I haven't heard of them happening before. If you kept the screencaps, they would be very helpful if you could send them via PM on twitter, discord or here. Would you by any chance be playing on an older computer?
And I'm glad you enjoyed the game ^^
You're welcome! I always try to leave good comments on game I truly like. And I have screenshots of the green boxes, but not of the flashing text. When I play through the demo again (because I totally will) I'll try to capture that. I can give you the screenshots I have when I come back from work.
I played this game on my 2014-bought desktop. :P It runs windows 8. I had many other things open at the time (Chrome, various programs, etc) so it's possible they conflicted. Or maybe the game works best when other programs are closed.
Edit: Some screenshots.
Really awesome :D
Didn't get to finish it yet, but I love the VN sections so far^^
Since it's a demo it comes with a few minor bugs:
The mirror image in the first scene with Quentin starts with the wrong sprite for her.
Even if you are already on the same floor, pressing the button will start the elevator again. (necessary, because it's unloading when entering the elevator?)
If you exit the elevator and then reenter and press the button of the same floor you're on, you'll end up at the "next" floor.
The colors for the white and black button are flipped inside the elevator compared to the elevator button UI
Using the menu while standing in front of the elevator (and maybe in other interactable places) will actually interact with things (like make you step into the elevator.)
Also, you might need to consider tweaking combat a bit. I'll focus on Quentin's world and the combat there for this example:
As far I see, if your time top left hit's rock bottom, you start a 10 second timer to get back up, before you lose. Your time is reduced both with inverted Quentin cards and by "redrawing" your hand. Redrawing might be necessary, because the main skill of the enemies is to permanently lock your hand cards from being used. But you of course can't redraw, if the time is already at 3 and the 10 second countdown is ticking. You're basically done for at that point. When playing normally you might avoid using the inverted cards, because of course it would be bad to loose time, even if you can regain it with the one or other right oriented card. I lost maybe 7 matches (including a reload from autosave) and won 2 or 3 by playing "regularly" with just Leroy's and Quentin's cards.
But then I figured out a way that completely breaks combat, which you might want to consider "fixing": Press all arrow keys at once at the start of the battle and keep them pressed: You'll automatically use all cards, no matter what they are, hold or regular. It is impossible for monsters to "lock" card slots that are empty (because cards come in one at a time), even if you end up at the final countdown, chances are, you still have enough cards coming in to get the time boost you need (I rarely fell that far down though), or if they lock, you have enough time left to unlock them again via redraw and then boost back up. Similarly the battle with Primadonna, the one slot from which you played the inverted bomb stays "unlocked"so you can just play until you get a regular bomb to unlock all slots again.
Both cards have a synergy, since Quentin would need the unlocks and Primadonna would need the extra time, but this "easy" workaround right now makes it obsolete.
It might be a bit harder to find the right balance there, but maybe if you actually locked the slots instead of the cards that would help with some things. Also, maybe I missed it, you could hint at the necessity for Leroy to go "explore on his own" to return to the hub, so people are guided to meeting all characters/getting all types of cards first, before tackling the more intense fights.
Good luck with further development :D
Really raising the bar for what indie visual novels can do! Wish I could play it on my Mac :(
Don’t worry! A Mac version is in the works!
Thank you so much! Glad to hear it!