Fantasy on Valentine's Day - Can she see again . . . ?

[Miss Nile]

Snow Rose Games present . . .

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- The Story -

After the adventures they'd had on Mother's Day, the fantasy creatures might have a role to play once more on Valentine's Day.

- The Characters -

"She's been that way as far as I can remember . . . there is nothing that I can think of as clearly as I think of her beautiful smile whenever I remember her. "

  Florence Clyde:
Lord Clyde, son of Lord Frank Clyde, Earl of Hasterly. Living in one of his father's minor estates in Devonalls, he's a master of the sword arts. Mostly withdrawn and shy, his only company is his closest friend, Oliver, and his childhood sweetheart, Isabella.

  Oliver Maxfield:
Florence's closest friend since childhood, he lived with his mother and grandfather when a child, before both passed away and he was left to survive on his own. He's a skillful hunter and nothing can beat his bow in action. Personality-wise, he's quiet and wise, never afraid to speak his mind on any topic, especially if it had to do with his friend, Florence.

  Isabella Songbook:
Florence's sweetheart since childhood, she's lost her eyesight in an accident when she was young. Nevertheless, despite being a kind and a gentle soul, she was strong enough to face her disability and overcome it, remaining as cheerful as she had ever been. Her father is Mr. Jason Songbook, a rich farmer with a large estate.


- Screenshots -

Spoiler

 - Features -

• Quite the interactive game-every item is placed on the map for a reason.
     
• 3 different endings depending on how you play.
     
• Make your way through intriguing battles and mind-blowing puzzles to reach your goal.
     
• Detailed graphics with beautiful music to take you right into the heart of the atmosphere.
     
• Changeable title screen-each time you launch the game you could see a different title screen.
     
• Around 2 hours of enjoyable and exciting gameplay.
     
• A mouse system for easy navigation.

 

[The Prince of Sarcasm]

Isn't Florence a lady's name? I think I have a great great aunt named Florence, I think.

 

[Kes]

I've only got as far as collecting Florence's sword and shield, so it's too soon to have any opinion about the game, but there are a few issues you might want to have a look at.

Animated doors - I think perhaps they're not lined up correctly on the sprite sheets because they are directly in front of the sprites when you approach them, but when you interact with them, they move half a tile to the left (very disconcerting, that), so that the party enters the house half through a doorway and half through the wall.

The fern in a pot that is used extensively for decoration e.g. in Mr. Songbird's entrance hall.  If you approach from above you can walk through the leaves; I think they might be set to O instead of a star.

Mr. Songbird can walk on water, as can the party on the way down to Oliver's tent.  I think it's just the edge tiles.

The party can walk on the blue bed in the house to the left of Florence's house.  It's the house with the little girl.

I think there are several instances where you have put the dialogue event for things hanging on the wall actually on the floor, because I don't always have to be facing the object to get it; for example the picture of cheese, I get the dialogue even when I'm clicking on items to the left or the right.  I'm using keyboard, not mouse, so that may be the issue?

All those paths leading to the edge of the map, but going nowhere (e.g. in the fields, in the gardens), I would have expected them to be blocked off with e.g. a fence or something, because it constantly looks like I can go somewhere, but then I'm thwarted.

 

[Miss Nile]

@The Prince of Sarcasm: It's mostly used for girls, but also used for boys, although I admit it's a minority. ^^

@ksjp17: Thanks for the insight! I had the game beta tested before release but I suppose having some bugs is inevitable. ^^; Thank goodness they're only minor ones though. XD

I am looking forward to more thoughts from you!

 

[Kes]

I thought I'd do a little more of the game, but 3 times when it was loading the screen asking the player whether they want full screen or not (does this really have to be asked every time the game opens?) I got the error message:

Script 'Window-Message' line 277: TypeError occurred

no implicit conversion from nil to integer

 

[cabfe]

I've (finally) tried your game but I'm stuck at this part:

Spoiler

I need to kill the lava phenix.
Problem is, I can't hold on long enough. I have 2 elixirs to give my life back, but it looks like it's not enough and there aren't more elsewhere. I already took the one on the left passage with the 1st key.
Unless I'm missing something, this phenix is too tough unless I'm supposed to grind in the forest at the beginning of the game?

 

[Miss Nile]

@cabfe: You need to level up once by fighting the monsters in the beginning which will unlock a very useful skill. Leveling up should be easy and it doesn't require many battles. ^^

 

[cabfe]

@cabfe: You need to level up once by fighting the monsters in the beginning which will unlock a very useful skill. Leveling up should be easy and it doesn't require many battles. ^^

That's what I feared and I think that's a problem.

Those fights were easily avoidable and unnecessary (more on that below) so I only did a few of them. By the time I met

Spoiler

the witch, I had 1150 pounds so that was enough gold and I didn't need to fight anymore.

(By the way, the game didn't see that I had the money on my first meeting. I had to go outside and return to see the witch and give her the money. Just a minor issue.)

So, basically, you're telling me that you gave the player the possibility to avoid most encounters, didn't require him (with money) to kill more monsters and yet you punish him for not having done so.

For me, this is flawed design. You can't allow something and punish the player for following that route.

That reminds me of another "punishement":

Spoiler

In one of the caves, there is a pool of magic water that heals. Good.

But there are 2 problems here:

1-You make the healing mandatory on actionning the pool, even if I'm not seriously wounded. But that would be of no consequence if there weren't point 2:

2-The heroes say that it's a magic water that heals, blah blah. And then they say that they only have to come back here for further healing.

Except that the next time you use the water, it doesn't work! It's a 1-use healing point!

So, again, you punish the player. You make him use a healing point even if he doesn't need it, tell him "you can come back if needed!" but that was a lie.

That's not fun.

And it adds to the fact that I really didn't want to do combats since:

-They are easy to avoid.

-I can no longer heal and prefer to keep my potions for mandatory fights that may come later. (Even though it wasn't enough for the Phoenix...)

-I don't need more money to continue the main plot.

Sorry, but I don't believe in this sort of game design.

Your players are kind enough to have chosen to play your game among the hundreds available. You can't punish them for playing by your rules and expect them to enjoy it. You'll only make them wary about your other games. I know I am.

Sorry Isabella, you're not going to see again.

I quit.

 

[Miss Nile]

Hi cabfe,

First off, let me sincerely apologize for any frustration you felt during the game. I meant it to be an enjoyable experience as any other game of course but it happens, I guess.

Now please let me clarify:

Spoiler

I quite understand your frustration at the gold thing and it's totally your right. I quite understand what it must be like to play so far as for reaching the phoenix (which is the last part of the game, btw,) only to find out that you have to restart if you want to continue. Totally my fault for not making the fights more obligatory or at least decreasing the amount of gold you gain at the end of each fight. However, let me clarify what I thought about when I was making this.

You see, you said that you could no longer heal at one point-but you should have been because there's a shop at the village at the north of the mountain that has some helpful resources. That's why I thought that the player would need to fight more anyhow because he would have to use his money to buy resources to stay alive, and in the same time collect money for the witch. I am not defending my design-I am just clarifying that I certainly didn't mean to 'punish' my players.

That said, I've had about four beta testers try the game before releasing it and I changed many things upon their advice (most prominently, the title screen XD). They also mentioned the phoenix battle as an obstacle in the end but it was only because the elixir you find now wasn't there in the beginning and there was a more minor potion. When I fixed it, they said that it was fine. This is, I presume, because most of them played as I expected, spending money in the shop and fighting the monsters so eventually leveling up.

This is not to say I am not wrong though. I should have expected that other players would prefer to avoid the fights and took care not to trap them in the end.

As for the healing water-I suppose my fault was that I didn't make it heal by choice and made it mandatory. ^^; It used to be an all time healing point, but then it would have been easy to enter the cave, heal, fight a monster, heal again until you obtain all required gold.

So, I apologize again. ^^ The game design is flawed, I don't deny that. I am working on making it better. I suppose mapping is my forte at the moment and perhaps the story is fine, but I am still learning on how to make the game balanced and such. So please pardon any mistakes.

 

[cabfe]

I understand your point and I apologize if I sounded harsh.

I'm frustrated because it was a good game and I really enjoyed it, but finding myself stuck because of something I was supposed to do yet left able not to do broke the flow.

Your playtesters are probably the kind of player that kill everything/everyone in their RPGs, but I'm not. That's not to say one way is better than the other, just to take into account for your next game that there are people who are not in the "killing" mood all the time

About the gold and the potions seller:

Spoiler

Yes, it's possible to buy potions. But why would I when

-I don't need to fight (the money amount is either too low or the loot is too high)

-The logic is reversed. I have to *spend* money in order to gain more by killing monsters?

-I don't know how the rest of the game will be. I'm not the type to spend money on consumables when I might need the money for something else later (like weapons).

There were many ways that frustration could have been averted:

-Raise the amount of money needed for the witch

-Lower the loot

-Lower the requirement for leveling up

-Nerfing the Phoenix

-Give more potions

...

And nothing of that has been done. That's a shame because they are easy fixes.

Maybe for a re-release?

 

[Miss Nile]

You're right, and I apologize again. I will keep all of this in mind and hopefully this issue can be fixed in a re-release sometime.

Thank you for trying out the game. ^^