RMMV Mystery in Snowbound Riverdale (No Travel Game Jam Entry)

[EmmaB]

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Synopsis:

During one of the harshest winters Riverdale had ever seen, all travel and communication with other towns and cities was cut off. As food became more scarce, crime rates rose dramatically. The Knights worked day and night to keep the citizens safe from the criminals. But, late one night, the man who was helping inform the Knights of the criminals activity disappeared. Desperate to keep the criminals in line before things become devastating and wanting to to get the Informer back, the Knights call upon you, the Player, who has already been shunned after helping them two other times, to help them find the Informer and the criminal's base.

Gameplay:
- Search the town for clues as to what happened to the Informer.
- Avoid staying out too long and catching Hypothermia.
- Choose different options when talking to NPC's to change how the game progresses. Choose which options you want wisely, as sometimes you may not select all of them.
- Encounter the Criminal Leader - Will you defeat him and rescue the Informer?

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Credits:

Spoiler

Thanks to:
Team Member @thedeanreynolds (now @deficiencyproductionz) for making the logo, making some maps, playtesting & giving ideas.

Plugins:
Yanfly Engine
Fallen Angel Olivia
DEGICA Co., LTD
RM CoreScript Team
Kadokawa

Graphics:
@Avery
@Sythian Bard
@hiddenone
@whtdragon
@fizzly
@Palxan & Verdibona
@Candacis
@Starbird_Resources
@Archeia
@Palladinthug
@marimo
@Lunarea
@PandaMaru
@StormGoblin
Kadokawa
DEGICA Co., LTD

MADO Window Builder Authors

Heroine Character Generator DLC
(C) 2018 Gee-kun-soft
Publisher - DEGICA Co., LTD

Beast Man Generator DLC
[Copyright](C) Gee-kun-soft
Publisher - DEGICA Co., LTD

Music:
Kadokawa
DEGICA Co., LTD

Download:

Spoiler

Updated Version:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/952hy9as91evder/MysteryInSnowboundRiverdale.zip/file

Old Version:

MysteryInSnowboundRiverdale

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[deficiencyproductionz]

A simple game which will go down in history as the best creation to grace planet earth. Thanks for letting me help you out!

 

[EmmaB]

Updated the game. I fixed some major bugs that prevented the player from finishing the game.

 

[EmmaB]

Updated the game in the first post.
I've removed a few more bugs and decreased the difficulty of the battles as I think they were a bit too hard.

 

[deficiencyproductionz]

Updated the game in the first post.
I've removed a few more bugs and decreased the difficulty of the battles as I think they were a bit too hard.

Good improvements!

 

[EuphemiaArtoria]

Hi! I played this for half an hour, got as far as the dungeon leading to the criminal hideout but my party member died in the second combat and I game overed. I wanted to give feedback on what I played!

I like the use of gab windows to indicate quest objectives, I like the use of speech bubbles to indicate where to go next. The mini timed event to save Ella is cute. I saved the game to see what would happen if I failed this event, and I have to admit, I felt really bad making her wait over and over again after getting all the extra chances! Sorry Ella!

There were a lot of elements that gave me pause. I realise that this was done for the Jam under tight time constraints, so I understand that not everything can be done but hopefully these comments are still useful. The town is extremely large, but very samey, so it's difficult to navigate. I found I had to open the map over and over again to figure out which way to go, even when I had a good idea of which part of the village I wanted to go to- I had just gotten lost in amongst all the snow covered buildings. Something to break up the map would be good, maybe some cliffs to give it multiple vertical levels, or other geographical features. Heck, it's called Riverdale, but I never saw a river. Beyond that, I'd strongly suggest not using the same graphic for doors the player can open and doors that are purely cosmetic. I know that from an in-Universe point of view all the doors should look similar, but for someone playing the game, it's alright if most of the buildings don't have a visible front door, or if the ones that open have a different door graphic from the ones that don't. Lastly, it's very odd to me that there are many NPCs you can encounter in the game who you can't talk to at all. Especially since some of them have cutscenes where they speak in quests. If nothing else, being able to repeat what they've said ("I don't know anything about Sam", etc.) would be good. In general, the game felt extremely linear, and although I took time to explore the village and deviate from the path, I never found anything except closed doors and silent NPCs.

A couple of points on the writing. One; I said I'd accept the Knights' help, but midway through the story the player character said something to the effect of "It's more dangerous than ever! I better go tell them I don't need help". This made no sense to me, and I don't understand why I was given this choice if I'd just be forced to renege on it. Secondly, the game talks very generically about "rising crime rates". In the first place, this is modern terminology that doesn't fit with the setting, and in the second, it sounds dry and statistical. What are the crimes? It's not a city with a population of a hundred thousand, it's a small town, you can imagine quite specifically what the crimes are. Are they breaking into peoples houses, stealing their food? Killing people on the roads? When you're more specific it feels more immediate and more engaging, while "crime rates" are very abstract.

Lastly, I was very confused by the amount of gear, equipment and items in the game. I went to one shop that sold all manner of vegetables that I had no idea how to use. There were many different types of gear and armour to choose from, but this game is supposed to be very short, there's no need to upgrade from iron to gold to diamond. For a short game it's fine to just use the initial equipment, and a handful of items. I don't know if I misplayed terribly, but the combat also seemed very difficult without much room for variety. I really heavily urge you to playtest this kind of combat in its entirety, and assume that your players will be kind of bad on it on their first time. Not to say it shouldn't be challenging, but it just seemed like unless I got lucky I would take a lot of damage in every fight and have no way to fix it.

Overall it has charm and it's clear you put a lot of good work into it, and I'm glad to have played it

 

[EmmaB]

Hi @EuphemiaArtoria
Thanks for taking time to play and write a review!
My original plan for the game was to have more side quests, dialogue etc. but I was unable to get any of that in because of the time limit. I am planning on adding those things in a later update. I am also planning on adding things to the town that will help the player to navigate better.
(Spoiler alert)

Spoiler

The player is never able to actually work with the Knights. The story differs depending on what option you pick. When the player works with the Knights, the general notifies all of the other Knights about the meeting and it leaked out to the criminals. That's why Ella's mother gets captured. Ella's mother doesn't get captured with the other story line. When you work on your own, the criminals don't know that the player is searching.

Yeah, I wasn't too specific about what crimes were actually happening. I might add that in a later update.
Again, the reason I've got so many things in the shop is because I planned to have more things happen in the game which include some of those things. I was also trying to make it have more of a realistic atmosphere. I might need to reconsider that because having things in the game that don't end up getting used isn't really needed. Anyway, I might take some of those things out.

Spoiler: Battle Tip

My battles are based alot around medicines. The player needs to have a lot to get through to the end.

Thanks again for writing a review. I actually started making my game about half way through April as I couldn't think of any ideas at first. That will probably account for so many unfinished things.

 

[hiddenone]

I gave your game a go, but I didn't get far because I was both playing the first version and also apparently super unlucky when it came to the map tutorial. Since I didn't get too far I'm not sure how helpful my comments will be to you, but maybe you can enjoy my minor descent into madness?

Spoiler: Feedback

⦁ Playing the original version, sorry but I can't redownload every game as they're updated ^^;

⦁ Oh man, please don't have dialogue automatically move forward in cutscenes like what happens in the intro. Not everyone can read fast enough, and if something distracts the player (I had someone come in and talk to me) then they have to restart the game to be able to fully see the intro

⦁ Wait, what's this about low wood? I guess I should go find some, but I'm not sure why because it wasn't explained... Can I freeze to death without firewood?

⦁ Having markers for doors that open is a great touch

⦁ The map is large, which is impressive but since I don't know where I'm going I'm just going to be running around until I stumble into what I'm supposed to be doing

⦁ Oops, I can walk behind one of the bookcases in the library

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⦁ Firewood doesn't cost anything at the shop? Well that's nice

⦁ It's nice that you give the player gold since you didn't finish some quests, but why didn't you just leave out the info about there being future quests totally? I've talked to multiple people that don't have quests and now I'm wondering if there are any quests at all

⦁ Most items don't have a description, are they also like the quests and aren't implemented fully yet?

⦁ Why doesn't Arnold say anything until after I've gotten a fire started? Is this a silent treatment for the main character because he was taking too long to get a fire going?

⦁ The game says to go to the knight's headquarters, but I don't know the town layout so I have to just run around some more. While it is silly for the character to talk to himself, just a quick "Let's see, the headquarters is in the south-west part of town" would point the player in the right direction

⦁ Again, I don't know where Leila lives! So I can't easily visit her, I need to check everywhere for the icon

⦁ Wait a minute, I was reading EuphemiaArtoria's feedback and saw they mentioned a map... THERE'S A MAP?!?! I don't remember seeing info about how to open a map anywhere while playing...

⦁ I restarted the game and this time saw the note about 'm' to open the map. My first playthrough I had gone right back inside after seeing the 'get wood' message and the map info message didn't pop up for me to see... It would still be nice if there was a map in the Items menu that reminded the player

⦁ Being nitpicky about the map (because I'm salty about not realizing it existed until now ), it would be nice to have a little 'you are here' marker

⦁ ...I just got a warning about having hypothermia, while that's a cool mechanic it's a bit annoying that it can happen while I'm studying the map. Oh, I can keep moving when the map's onscreen, in that case I wish it was smaller so I could have it open while wandering around

⦁ Whoops, ran into a loading error when trying to enter Ella's home. I'm guessing that's a bug you've already fixed. Sorry, but at the moment I'm not invested enough in this large, quiet town to download the newer version

Overall, I really didn't get far enough into the game to form a good opinion, and since you've updated it it's possible you've already improved it tons. I did like most of the mapping, though clearly navigation was not my strong suit. It seems like you're planning on working more on this project, that's great to hear so good luck!

 

[EmmaB]

Thanks for reviewing my game, @hiddenone!
* Yeah, the reason I made the dialogue continue automatically is so that the player doesn't study the intro. It was meant to tell the player what was going on, but not give any clues as to how to solve the mystery.

* Collecting wood was meant to show the relationship the player has with the father. The father is old and is being taken care of by his son, especially during winter. It also seemed to be a quick, simple way to introduce the player to the type of lifestyle that the father and son have.

* Yes, the Library bug is fixed in the update.

* Firewood doesn't cost anything in the shop because the townspeople are able to get it easily. It makes it more convenient for the rich people to go to the store instead of the wood shack.

* I'm not quite sure what you mean with the quests.

Spoiler

The player can get money from three different people and one spot in their home. I didn't have time to create the actual quests from the people, but the player needs money to be able to finish the game so I just added the note and made the player get free money instead.

* Yes, the items are like the quests; not implemented fully yet.

* I didn't think of making Arnold say anything before the player gets the wood. I was mostly focusing on the main points of the game before adding extra dialogue (I'm going to add more in a future update).

* The problem of the player changing map before the help text (about the map) finished showing, is a little difficult to fix. I was using Yanfly's Gab window for it, and I deliberately wanted the player to be able to do things while the text was showing. I'll have to try to think of a way to stop the player from missing the text.

* That is a good idea. I'll see if I can add the map to the Item menu for the later update.

* I agree that it would be nice to have a 'you are here' marker on the map. It is just a bit difficult to implement. (The map is just a picture, so I'd have to find a way to work out the player's location, then place a new picture on top of the map picture)

* Hmm... wouldn't people struggle to see the map properly if it was smaller? Then again I could make it small and stay in the top right corner of the screen, then if the player clicks it, it enlarges.

*The loading error is probably... fixed. What exactly did the error say? I fixed a lot of errors in the game so I'm not sure which one it is and if I actually got that one repaired.

Thanks again for playing and giving helpful feedback!

 

[hiddenone]

The player can get money from three different people and one spot in their home. I didn't have time to create the actual quests from the people, but the player needs money to be able to finish the game so I just added the note and made the player get free money instead.

That technically works, but as a player I was starting to wonder if anything was finished in the game. I would have preferred if I just started with the gold I needed, with that being adjusted once you implemented the quests.

The problem of the player changing map before the help text (about the map) finished showing, is a little difficult to fix. I was using Yanfly's Gab window for it, and I deliberately wanted the player to be able to do things while the text was showing. I'll have to try to think of a way to stop the player from missing the text.

For super important info like controls, it's fine to trap the player in place. You could use a normal message box in the middle of the screen, or even just run the map info before the 'go get wood' one (though then you need to hope that the player doesn't miss that one instead...)

The loading error is probably... fixed. What exactly did the error say? I fixed a lot of errors in the game so I'm not sure which one it is and if I actually got that one repaired.

It was a missing spritesheet, !Other1 I believe. I tried to drop my own copy in, but because it was all encrypted in the game the game wouldn't accept mine.

 

[EmmaB]

Ok, thanks. I have fixed that missing file in the updated version.