RMMV The Perfectionist (Now on Steam!)

[JAD94]

Synopsis:

Spoiler

The Perfectionist is a game that allows for a lot of trial and error and offers plenty of freedom in deciding your fate. The slightest action or decision could ultimately change the story and ending. For example, the player can beat the game without freeing and recruiting any of the other party members but you'll most likely get a bad ending. However, if the player recruits more party members; new rooms, puzzles, side missions and bonuses may be unlocked but the difficulty of the game will overwhelmingly increase.


As for the story you play as Dillan, a former thug who lived a life of crime on the streets. Him, along with numerous other criminals have been detained in a top secret research facility run by the twisted, Professor Phillips. He wants to better society and is on the verge of creating a chemical solution with many medicinal benefits. For his research, however, he needs human experiments and prefers using criminals as a form of justice. After years of torment and inhumane experimentation, Dillan manages to escape from his cell. The overly paranoid professor keeps everything locked in his facility, especially the front doors. To escape from Phillips' research facility, Dillan must collect 8 Code Pages in order to gain the access codes for the entrance doors. This however, will be no easy task. Danger lurks in every corner and room as security guards patrol the halls, security robots are on the hunt for you, and dangerous traps and puzzles await to hinder your mission. Venture through the cold and deadly halls alone, save other research experiments and have them aid in your escape, or even customize your own battle robot to help eliminate any threats that stand in your way!


Can you escape from the facility?

Features:

Spoiler

• Stealth elements) You have the choice of sneaking passed guards, outrunning them or triggering random encounters!
  
  
• 10 different and unique endings!
  
  
• Every decision you make may unlock more features and bonuses, while also changing the difficulty of the game!
  
  
• Tons of mini games and side quests!
  
  
• Customize your very own robot with stat and/or weapon upgrades!
  
  
• Mind bending puzzles that are sure to keep you on edge!

• In-game achievements
  
  
• An objective manager to help you keep track of your main objectives and side quests!
  

Cast:

Spoiler

1)Dillan:
Bio- A former street brawler who had his nerves engineered, giving him high resilience to pain. He is able to increase his defenses in battle to lower any received damage.
Weapon- Fists

Age- 23
Type-Defensive/Offensive
2) Miranda:
A brilliant scientist able to create chemical solutions at a moment's notice. She is able to heal, cure, and revive teammates.

Weapon- Test Tube
Age- 22
Type-Support/Healer
3) Scotty:
A hacker who once hacked the C.I.A.'s database out of pure boredom. He loves electronic music. Scotty is able to hack into open panels and manipulate the surrounding technology.
Weapon- Slingshot
Age- 18
Type-Support
4) Catherine:
A former thief who was biologically combined with a cat, giving her amazing agility. She is able to steal money, items, and weapons from foes.
Weapon- Claws
Age- 20
Type-Speed
5) B.R.U.C.E.:
A robot who was sent to hunt down Dillan but now protects him after being spared. His stats and skills can be upgraded to your liking.
Weapon- Gamma Blaster
Age- Unknown
Type-Balanced
6) Paulina:
A girl who got her psychic powers from a mysterious meteor. Its power is stored in her mother's ring. Her elemental and healing magic can provide the party with great offensive and defensive capabilities.
Weapon- Magic Ring
Age- 24
Type-Support/Healer/Magic
7) Trent:
A former mercenary who has never trusted anything except for his sword and gun. His incredible strength is unmatched by any of the other party members and can easily overwhelm any opponent.
Weapon- Sword and Magnum
Age- 27
Type-Offensive

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Sneak past guards to avoid quarrel or fight them for loads of experience and fortune!

You have the choice to save the other prisoners and add them to your party!

Utilize each party member's unique abilities to triumph over enemies!

Work together to stay alive!

Upgrade your robot's stats and weapons to your liking!

Explore hazardous environments!

Gameplay Videos:

Spoiler

Here's the teaser trailer for The Perfectionist

Demos (Windows & Mac):

Spoiler

Windows [110MB] & Mac [246MB]:
https://greenmoongames.itch.io/theperfectionist

Full Release (Windows & Mac):

Spoiler

Steam (Windows)
Price: $2.99 (Presale special: Free)

Itch (Windows & Mac)
https://greenmoongames.itch.io/theperfectionist
Coming 2/22/2019
Price: Optional donation of $2.99

Credits:

Spoiler

• Developer: Green Moon Games
  
  
• Publishers: DEGICA Co., LTD, ENTERBRAIN, INC, Kadokawa
  
  
• Artists: ConkerMich, Personigo de la Cefo, Celianna, Lunarea, Archeia, EvilEagles, Tobby Ong, Caz, Palladinthug, Batch, Candacis, Pineda, Kazzador, Pandamaru, Deebs, Hiddenone

• Composer/Musician: Joel Steudler
  
  
• Quality Assurance: Corey Adams, Mike Mesa, Marc Remache, Simon Mckay, Andrew Sriprasad, Kanax, ksjp17, LostFonDrive, literarygoth
  
  
• Programmers: Shaz, Sasuke, KANNAZUKI, Woratana, Yogi, Ojima JahwsUF, Tor Damian Design/Galenmereth, Yanfly, Rexal, Gameus, Daimonious Tails, Mr. Trivel

Contact:

Spoiler

For any questions or concerns feel free to message me on this forum post, direct message me or email me at greenmoongamesofficial@gmail.com]

Websites:

Spoiler

Main:
https://www.greenmoongames.net/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/greenmoongames/
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkKHrlP3tgbZ3miI7CuTlrg
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/GreenMoonGames1

Release Date (Windows & Mac): 2/22/2019
Release Date (Steam): Released 1/11/2019

 

[JAD94]

The Perfectionist now has two demos up and running, one download with the RTP and one without the RTP. Feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

Watched the demo,

The game seems interesting! I like the idea and concept and it seems to be well organized. My only gripe is how bare the place look.

While watching the demo I found I got absorbed into the world and wondered about what else was going on in those labs.

Perhaps you could add some other scientists doing experiments who attack you or run away/alert guards?

 

[JAD94]

Watched the demo,

The game seems interesting! I like the idea and concept and it seems to be well organized. My only gripe is how bare the place look.

While watching the demo I found I got absorbed into the world and wondered about what else was going on in those labs.

Perhaps you could add some other scientists doing experiments who attack you or run away/alert guards?

Thank you I really appreciate it! 

And as for the bareness of the place that's true, I could possibly add some more scientists to make it feel a bit more whole good idea. Have you gotten a chance to play the demo?

 

[JAD94]

@nanaki_fan

Hey so I'm uploading my last gameplay trailer, in it you'll see I took your idea into consideration. I now have several rooms where there are other scientists working. If seen you have the option to either fight them or bribe them to keep them quiet.

 

[Kes]

I think I've completed the demo.  I got to the end of the 3rd floor.  I played this without looking at the videos or reading any comments, so that I would come to it fresh.  Notes written as I went along, with an overall assessment at the end.

I like the music for the opening location.  Fits well.

I am dubious about the design choice to have all dialogue in capitals. 

Even with them being in caps, the font is still a bit difficult to read against the colour of window skin you’ve chosen.  (Later – after playing it a while, it made my eyes tired.  I think that there’s a good reason why gentler colours are so widespread in games.)  Speaking of fonts, you have a symbol or something after the numbers in your equip menu stats for the characters and in your level up screen.  It also has a rectangle instead of % in item description so that at first I thought a healing potion healed 25HP, not 25% of HP.  Confusing.  There is a fix for this sort of problem somewhere on the forum, but I don’t know where.

I chose the “It’s OK” option when Dillan is released – like many (most?) players, I want to be the nice guy, so I have no idea about what happens in the other option.

How credible is it that only the Prof knows the code to get out?  How does the Janitor get in and out?  Does the Prof have to personally let every employee in and out?  I simply cannot believe your story at this point and I don’t think other players will either.  Maybe something like security is very high and without the code you can’t get out so…

Why doesn’t Dillan want to know why they have to avoid the blue chequered floor tiles?  I know I would in those cir***stances, as it seems an unnecessary hindrance otherwise.  In fact everyone is surprisingly lacking in curiosity about their surroundings.  Dillan has had only limited experience of the building and should be asking questions about it.  These don’t have to be game-critical info, but world-building questions.  At the moment the player has only the tiniest bit of info about the world they are interacting with, and there’s not nearly enough of it to make it immersive.  You’re also losing out on character development/inter-relationship opportunities by having it all silent.

By the time I get to Scotty I’m convinced that you could reduce the size of all your room maps by a considerable amount and they would look a lot better.  There is so much empty space, and if you work out the proportions of e.g. the rooms where the prisoners are (one bed equals 6ft x 3 ft) that room is approximately 35 ft x 45 ft – that’s huge.  Check out the size of your own room and see how it compares.  For example, I can see no reason at all for the substantial space south of the barrier.  All you need is enough room for someone to operate the machine to open/close the barrier.

I think you may have an issue arising from the fact that the player cannot know the game as well as you do.  I have been examining everything in sight, and all I have managed to collect is 4 tokens (yes, I got the one from the bathroom near Dillan’s room – I really am checking everything) plus a couple from a fight.  Most players will spend a couple of tokens on HP recovery or similar.  I then hit the toxic lab, where it is all party poison.  Many (most?) players, seeing slimes, will think that these are the level 1 enemies they have to fight.  They therefore will not avoid them, and then they are all poisoned.  That requires 3 items to heal – the chances of a player having 3 items or enough tokens left (including the one in the lab itself) at this point are tiny.  What many players will do is reload from the last save.  You are teaching them to save s***. 

They’ve already been hit by what I think is something of a cheap trick – they go into Dillan’s room, he says “Hey over here”. Virtually every player will go up to the barrier to interact with Dillan and will then get damaged by it.  And there’s not even a scrap of dialogue to make it worthwhile.  It’s just a waste of HP for no discernible benefit.  You are also undermining the credibility of your characters.  They should know that touching the barrier harms you, and therefore they wouldn’t do it.  Maybe something like this when Dillan is released – he asks Miranda if all barriers are harmful like the one in his cell, and she replies yes.  Again an instance of the mechanism of Dillan checking what things are like in other parts of the building as a way of giving info to the player and also just having some dialogue to break up the silence.  It all needs a bit more interaction.  Even the odd remark when checking some of the furniture (not all, that can be too much) would help to increase interest.  At the moment that side of things is pretty bland.

The whole question of healing items/tokens seems a bit unbalanced to me – as does the amount of HP a single soldier has in relation to the pathetic attack stats the party has.  Seems way over the top.   It takes one token to get a potion to heal 25% when the smallest amount of damage I receive tends to be around 30% per hit and if the soldier throws a flash grenade successfully, that’s around 50%.  (I’m only dishing out 25-30HP damage per person, so I’m only very slightly ahead of the soldier.)  So a potion is basically useless as relying on them I’d need more than I can get for the tokens the enemy drops.  For the healing skill, see below.  I decided to try out a soldier to see what the fights were like – you need to think of a way of incorporating a battle tutorial.  Maybe in your troops tab, have something set to run on turn 0 e.g. Scotty says “What do I do?  I’m a hacker, not a fighter.” And you then give minimal instruction via Dillan who’s got street experience.  Add one to a variable switch.  Next fight on that tab (you’re using conditionals checking how many the variable has) run another tiny bit of info.  And so on.  There are other mechanics, but you cannot assume your player will know what to do.  On the other hand, you don’t want to overload a player who does know.

For your info – any remarks I make about battles will be coloured by the fact that I hate having TP start from scratch each battle.  If I have a skill, I should have it, I don’t suddenly develop the ability part way in or maybe I’m supposed to be suffering from fighter’s dementia so that until I warm up I don’t remember what I’m doing.  Whatever, it seems to me ridiculous (and I know it’s the default, that is not a redeeming factor) that I’m given skills I can’t use.  What’s the point of having them?  I notice I’ve got the Stamina Solution – I’m glad to see it, but I think it makes the silliness of not being able to keep SP even more apparent. 

I’ve had to give this to Miranda because otherwise her healing skill is pretty useless.  You have not given it any additional speed and the risk is high that the battle will finish before she has time to apply it, and therefore unless I use a potion (but tokens are not plentiful and potions heal so little) I shall start the next battle with at least one character low on HP and discover that she hasn’t got enough SP to heal that person.  I have also never been able to understand the logic of having a healing skill that only works in battle.  Never, and I’ve tried.  I also think that maybe 10SP is a bit high in cost as unless she gets hit, that’s 2 turns to generate enough to heal one person.  It could easily be too late by then.  It also means that I can’t really use her other skills because then she will be too low to heal anyone. 

On the ice room I decided to try it out a second time to see what it would be like for someone who didn’t notice they could increase the temperature.  It can be done with a few tries, and if you memorize where the tokens are, you can even collect most of them.  So that’s okay.  But the transfer event out of the ice room puts me in the wrong place.  It put me back down next to Scotty’s cell.  I wasn’t pleased.  Oh well.

Btw, you might want to check out your random encounter rate because a couple of times I got 2 fights crossing a blue chequered floor that was only 4 tiles wide.

The Jameson fight might need a bit better balancing.  His all party stun works every time, resulting in the party taking a big hit because on at least one occasion it was followed up with an all party attack, and because Stun doesn’t give an SP gain, Miranda was unable to heal next time round.  Jameson is also dealing vastly higher damage than the party, which only has between 26 – 42 HP damage.  Miranda’s poison skill never worked, bulldoze missed, virus didn’t take either.  In fact, the battle skills just did nothing on this enemy, leaving me only their weak attack.  Maybe I was unlucky, maybe you’ve given the enemy too many resistances.  But if it was down to luck, the question then is: how much should success depend on luck and how much on strategy?  In part this will be a reflection of the sort of game you want to make.

Typos:  I only noticed a couple.  As there's very little dialogue, that's not surprising.

Miranda goes to release Dillan

“I’m sorry so about that”  should be “I’m so sorry about that”

When Scotty is introducing himself

“I just do it for hobby” should be “for a hobby”

“Why don’t you walk over there and see for yourself?”  As Scotty is about to join the party, this really needs to be “Why don’t we walk over there” and then maybe “and I’ll show you.”

Overall assessment

Story and character - very difficult to give an assessment as there was so little presented in this section of the game.  What little story there was has the potential to be interesting, if you can work out better motivations and reactions.  At the moment I'm not sure that you have thought through the logic of your plot.  For example, I was really surprised that the Professor was surprised that Miranda had betrayed him.  I was thinking - well after that bit of conversation at the beginning she was obviously having doubts and/or difficulties, so the Prof should have seen it coming, or if not that, at least be able to see that there is a connection between the 2.  That would be much more believable.  The lack of interaction between the characters is also a bit unbelievable.  People who had never met before (Dillan and Scotty) or who had only met under limited conditions (either of them with Miranda) would surely have more to say to one another.

Mapping.

Too much space in the cells.  I would have expected things like e.g. a visible sign saying the number of the floor that I'm on, probably on the wall by the stairs/lift.  Things to make this place somewhere that has people in it who do ordinary things e.g. outside the refrigerated stores, a notice reminding people to keep the door shut, as supplies were lost last week when the door was left open and things thawed out.  Other than that, tiles are well chosen.

Battles

I've already said everything in the notes, I think.  I chose to fight every soldier because I'm anticipating a nasty mini-boss and final boss to the section.  I wonder how a player who successfully avoids the soldiers will manage.  There's sort of conflicting game play elements here.  On the one hand the player is being invited to evade the soldiers, and that is relatively straightforward to do.  I evaded all of them, and once I was past each one I went back and fought it.  On the other hand, what happens to the player who accepts that invitation?  Presumably s/he will come totally unstuck.  When stealth enemies are the only way to prepare for evented fights e.g. Jameson, I'm not sure that they are entirely compatible.  But maybe that is a conscious design choice on your part - the player has to be game savvy or they die.

I think the game has potential, but at the moment it is very bare bones, so that is more hunch than derived from concrete evidence.

 

[JAD94]

Hey Ksjp17, thank you so much for the Indepth review. The demos are quite outdated and I've actually fixed a lot of the issues you have noted. Over the course of last week I had some peers play test the game and a lot of what you just told me are things they've mentioned. I'm in class noe but once I get home I plan on providing links to the updated demo so I do invite you to play the updated demo, I will message you once I've posted it. One thing I did notice are the tokens and that if a player chooses to avoid all encounters then it makes boss battles harder. What I wanted to do is give the player a lot of leg room and avoid the linear progression. There's also some minigames and such that provide grand rewards. Ill also see if i increase the token gain from enemies. Espexially the spoldiers since they are in fact challenging when the party isnt leveled up. And im glad you mention the slimes. They have been an issue with almost all my play testers and make the game extremely difficult. So i will make them normal enemies that just have poisoning moves. I've also added a lot more environmental interaction so that point you made was definitely in my mind. Great minds think a like. The room sizes could be shrunken down a bit so I'll work on that. As for the SP I'll fix it So that it doesn't deplete per battle. All in all thank you so much for your input it really does help. As I said I will be posting an updated demo tonight and I will message you when its up and running. I'd love for you to see the updates and critique it from there.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

@nanaki_fan

Hey so I'm uploading my last gameplay trailer, in it you'll see I took your idea into consideration. I now have several rooms where there are other scientists working. If seen you have the option to either fight them or bribe them to keep them quiet.

awesome, I am gonna download and play your demo latter

 

[JAD94]

Demos have now been updated

 

[KanaX]

I played the Demo first hand and I took some notes along the way.

1. Maybe I miss the central point of the game, but the title screen seems a bit irrelevant. I think it is one of the defaults given with the RTP, right?
   Obviously, the game is still in development, but it seems a bit weird, because no matter how insignificant, it's the first thing the player will see -thus the first impression of your project-.
2. The font is difficult to read. Personally, I'm an advocate of having a themed font that is related to the game, but that one doesn't seem to fit that much.
3. On the other hand the BGM is spot-on. It creates good and appropriate atmosphere... until the point where Miranda frees you. Then the BGM become INCREDIBLY off-putting. I guess that it's the exciting start of the game and the protagonist is free, but it really breaks immersion. If it's supposed to be related to Miranda it's still inappropriate. I'd think that Miranda would need a subtler, sciency yet calm tone. On the other hand, Scotty's was perfect.
4. I liked the Animation you used for the electric pulse device (whose name I didn't care enough to remember)
5. You need to make your main characters a little bit more subtle. It's painfully obvious that the doctor is the evil kind, however you can show it in a better way. Remember, no one thinks they are bad. No one acts purely on blatantly ill-mannered impulses. Try to tone him down a bit, make him a bit more menacing and replace the "stupid evil talk" with "rare but gruesome actions". Same thing goes for Miranda. Is it right for her to object and question the doctor so openly? Isn't she afraid? The part where Dillan reveals that she used to tell him that she wanted to get out, pretty much says it all. I cannot tell anything about the other two because they don't get really any character development. Maybe they are a bit overly jolly?
6. Additionally you need to enhance the minor characters. I don't want to believe that a guard will leave me be just because he is hungry. You could have him get agitated but Miranda would show up to say that Dillan is "under her custody" to calm him down. The various researchers also need a little exposition. The bribing system might be good for gameplay but it doesn't really make much sense story-wise now, does it?
7. There is a mention of Dillan's nervous system potentially being "stronger than steel". It really bugged me off, because the nervous system really doesn't work that way. Also it's not nuclear science and people WILL find that erroneous statement and it will probably leave a bad taste in their mouths.
8. I like the personel notes. It makes the facility seem like a place that wasn't built for YOU. It houses other entities as well.
9. Structurally though, the facility is weak. Some rooms are ridiculously huge, empty and bleak. The greatest example being the doctor's room. Make them a bit smaller. You will see how much more flavorful they will become.
   -Sidenote- *insert friendly, mocking voice* Really? A pipe organ? REALLY???? Why won't you just give him a red trident and black horns already? It's very stereotypical. You should tone it down to a piano.
10. In Scotty's and Catherine's room you have a bug. If the player falls onto the fence it will take him a step back and freeze. Wild guess, you tried that event ONLY on the tile that is in front of the door (where there are 2 free tiles to walk on) and then copied in on every other part of the fence. You should either remove one step from the move route, or activate the "skip if cannot move* box.
11. Other than the large prison rooms and the bleak hallways you have a good variety of rooms.
12. I love the dangerous robots and chemical P foreshadowing. The pedestals of the robots appear to be huge and we can only guess that the robots are just as threatening. It's plot development done right.
13. I have no issues with the combat. The only thing is that I find the criticals a liiiittle overpowered.
14. I wouldn't place so many ventors everywhere. Make them rare and valuable. Make the player search for them. It's not like the battles are especially hard, anyway.

Overall impression: You have what you need to make a good game but you don't know where exactly to apply it. You appreciate detail and you have a grasp on how to create a story. Flesh out your characters and try to make a realistic and full environment. If you do, it's gonna be a truly good experience for you and the player.

 

[JAD94]

Thank you for the feedback. When it came to the themes I found Miranda's definitely different from the theme and breaks the atmosphere but I figured I'd give it a whirl but I will fix it.

-That's the second complaint about the font so I will fix it 

-The personal notes has served its purpose then! Its supposed to foreshadow chemical P and make the player think, what is it? Where is it? It must be important.

-The hallways I purposely left dull and bleak because this facility is dark, gloomy, no windows or anything. In the synopsis above it states this facility is on a secluded island. I want this game to feel the same way. As for the big rooms I'll shrink them down a bit.

-The central plot is this man, the professor, who is a bit of a perfectionist. He likes tideness, order, and views criminals as imperfect. The title and theme revolve around the professor.

Thank you again for all the feedback and I will definitely start working on improving them!

 

[Kes]

I've had a chance to play through the updated demo.  It's a definite improvement on the first.  Here are my notes.

I still don’t find it credible that the Professor can (presumably) buck the whole Justice system of his society.  Has no one really ever noticed that those who go into the Rehab institute don’t emerge?  Can he really proclaim so boldly that the inmates will never leave?  That they belong to him?  Even a sub-optimal baddie will know not to divulge information to the non-committed, and this guy is supposed to be super-intelligent.

Maybe you could handle this via spoken dialogue and “thoughts” where the Prof thinks to himself things like “Do you really think I’m going to allow riff-raff like this back on the streets?” but then says out loud something different to Miranda.

Again I chose the “It’s okay” option.  I don’t think that after going through what he did Dillan will chuckle.  Nope, wrong.  If that last bit of the experiment was as tough as you want to have the player believe, he’s much more likely to gasp or croak as he would still be recovering.  You need to think through the consistency of the impression you want to leave in the player’s mind.

Miranda goes to Dillan’s room with his supper.  You need a serving hatch or some way that she can give him that supper before she goes to leave the room.  Again small inconsistencies like that can take the player out of immersion.  I noticed the comment about Miranda’s theme in the earlier post.  It’s a tune I hate anyway, so I didn’t comment on it first time round because I cannot assume that my musical taste is universal, but if someone else finds it jarring, maybe it is something that needs attention.

Just out of curiosity, why am I being offered the choice of closing the barrier again?  I couldn’t detect any difference if I closed it.  It isn’t something that I would imagine Dillan ever doing, so why is it there?  If there is no particular reason, then I suggest you think of cutting it, rather than have Dillan do something out of character.

In the battle tutorial, speak of “items we have collected” not “items you have collected”.  It helps reinforce the idea that Dillan is talking to Miranda, not breaking the fourth wall and talking to the player.

Much better way of handling the blue chequered floors.

Would the 2 employees in the cafeteria really say nothing?  When I opened the chest with the Bionic Fists, it was almost as if the game froze and then I was automatically put into the fight or bribe choice, without having the chance to equip the gloves.  At least, I think it was automatic.  Was that intended?  This is the room where Dillan has suffered.  Is he really going to say nothing about the place?

Better on things like notices in the corridors etc.  Makes the place seem more realistic.  The flavour text in Scotty’s room is also a nice touch.  I think 3 tokens for one soldier is now a bit high.  I’m running over with tokens.  Maybe 2 is enough.  Wouldn’t Scotty respond to reading something about himself in the Robot lab book?

When Catherine joins, Dillan introduces himself, but says nothing about Scotty and Miranda.  Not likely.

In the refrigerator store, not “I can higher the temperature” but “I can raise the temperature”.

I still can’t work out what those 2 things are in the corridor just south of the refrigerator store.

The Jameson fight illustrates 2 things. 

First wasted turns.  I used Scotty’s Firecracker skill twice and on both occasions it failed.  That’s 2 wasted turns.  Like most players, I probably won’t ever use that skill again.  I cannot afford to lose an entire turn like that, especially against a foe who can stun the whole party, and where, therefore, absolutely every turn needs to achieve something.  I think a good way to handle debuffs like that is to link them with a weaker attack, so that there is still the element of risk, but it is not a total waste.

Second, Jameson again did the stun move followed – in the same turn – by an all-party physical attack.  This time, however, I noticed that it was all in the same turn as only one party member was affected by stun.  Hmm.  Given that stun can last 2 turns, this gives Jameson an all party attack on that turn, then 2 more turns before the party can do anything, including healing.  I don’t think that having an all-party stun and an all-party attack in the same turn is balanced.  An all-party stun with one attack, fine, but if I’d been unlucky and got the worst case scenario, it would have been game over easily.  I think in the first dungeon game overs should be difficult to come by and should only happen as a consequence of stupid player choices, so that the player thinks, “yeah, that was my fault”.  With the present skill the player is likely to blame the developer and may possibly feel that they’ve been set up to fail.  No player likes feeling that the developer has deliberately made them fail.  You have to allow for new players who won’t necessarily be battle savvy, and for the fact that the player might have brought Catherine into the party and she will be way below the level of the others.

Which reminds me – why has she come in at level 1?  She’s a thief, she could easily have had some fighting experience.  Miranda is an innocent, and Scotty just a kid, so I can understand them coming in at level one, but not Catherine.  Also, I’m curious about why you have decided to have only 3 in the active party.  This greatly reduces strategic options, so I think you need to have a compelling reason.  So far I’ve seen nothing in the game which tells me why this is.

Overall Assessment

I still think you need to shrink your room maps.  There's a lot of empty space which only means that the player has more walking to do.  Work places are not noted for palatial dimensions.  for example, Dillan's experiment room.  Why is there all that empty space in the area where he's experimented on?  Visually it would be much more menacing if there was more a claustrophobic feeling to it.  The same with the inmates' rooms - far too big.

Having complained about too few tokens, I now think I'm getting too many.  Somewhere in between, I think.

Lots of little things have improved, so that it plays more smoothly.  I still think that you could do more to develop your characters.  You only had one memorable exchange between members, and that was Scotty asking Dillan why he was checking all his (Scotty's) stuff.  Even if it's just some remark from Dillan or Miranda when Scotty turns up the temperature in the refrigerator store (not even a "thanks, you're great" at the moment) or when they find something, or perhaps when they exit a room so that you can put some dialogue in the transfer event for the first time they use it, opportunities like that.  

I also think that you need one of the inmates to ask occasional questions about the Prof.  If I hadn't read here that the Perfectionist of the title is the Prof, I would have no idea that he's the central plot.  They should at least have been asking Miranda why the Prof does what he does.  Maybe she doesn't know, maybe it's all a bit of a mystery to her, but at least it shows normal human reactions in the character and alerts the player to the fact that the Prof is more than just a plot device to get the game going.

Also I think the player would want to know why Miranda needs to 'escape' herself.  As an employee, why can't she just walk away, why can't she just not come in one morning?  Why does she need the inmates to enable her to leave?  I think that in the early stages of game development, asking "why" is one of the most important things a dev can do.  Why is this happening?  Why does my character do that?  Why have I chosen X?  Why would this be a fun feature for the player (and saying, "because I find it fun" is not enough of a reason)?  Why does this character have this skill?  Why does my character know this/not know this?  And so on.

As I said, there is a definite improvement over the first demo, so well done on that.  Now you need to start really thinking through how to make this immersive for the player.

 

[JAD94]

@KSJP17

Im loving your feedback you're really thorough and mention things that I've easily overlooked. I will definitely work on the room sizes as this seems to be a recurring issue as well as the character developments and interactions between eachother.

I added the function of turning the barriers on and off just as a means to allow the player to further interact with the environment. Like a little easter egg I guess.

But yes you bring up a lot of good questions that I as the developer wouldn't ask but the player might. So I will have these questions answered throughout the game! So great point!

Thanks again for your feedback and I'll be sure to continue updating the project!

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

Ok so I played up till the point that I got Cathrine, from there I stopped.

The opening is good, I really enjoyed it.

The only things I will say about the opening are these two:

- The proffessor says Dillan was once a thug always getting into fights. This seemed a bit odd. A little bit more of a back story here could help. Perhaps something like: Dillan was always getting into fights. He spent most of his days a thug on the streets. What we are doing here will take him off the streets and give him purpose. Something along those lines...

- The chuckle. If I was being experimented on I wouldn't chuckle.

SO I am out of the lab, got Miranda by my side. Due the mini tutorials and get told about the blue floor. I gave it a try. For me it seemed the monsters/creatures had too much health. Maybe as its the starting area tone it down a little bit? I didn't struggle but it wasn't an easy ride, I used Miranda to heal a lot, and thats expensive SP to use. Though I did enjoy the challenge.

The battle system is great. Love the throwing chemicals.

My next problem is the NPC's. They march on the spot, that will need fixing. It looks odd seeing someone marching in front of a computer screen or when sitting down to eat.

Next thing I will say is that the areas to me seem fine. Maybe the cells are a bit big but the clean, neatness is spot on. 

The characters you meet and rescue could use a little more back story, a quick meet and great. I got Scotty and used him in battle and was wondering what his skills meant. He says he was a hacker - elaborate a bit more on his computer skills. Perhaps something like: I could have figured a way out. With my hacking skills this base wouldn't have held me long.

Over all the game is coming along and you've taken a lot of the suggestions on board which is a major plus in my books. Your storyline is starting to come through and take shape though a bit more back story to characters would be an added bonus.

Oh one more thing! Music: It works well. I chuckled at the Organ playing as its such cliche but works well. The only problem with the music I found was after being rescued by Miranda it changed the dynamics of the scene and became disjointed from the rest of the game. That needs sorting.

That pretty much covers it.

In summary: Great job! I want to play more. Little things need fixing and back story developed.

 

[JAD94]

@nanaki_fan

Hey thanks for the great feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the demo and as stated in the direct message I sent earlier this demo is rather updated and I have been working on improving it. I do want. To thank you for the either of adding scientist NPCs around they've been a great addition. The music for Miranda has actually been changed that was a complaint I've seen as well. The organ is cliche but I think it fits the professor's personality. The marching NPCs are more so to show they are doing an action such as eating or typing in the computer. The battles are meant to be a bit challenging at first but as you obtain more party members and level up they become quite easy. I've also been working on the character development aspect of it and will definitely put some more back stories for the main cast. Thank you for your feedback and I'll let you know when the updated demos are up and running.

 

[Nanaki_Fan]

The organ does fit him well haha!

can't wait to try the new demo

 

[JAD94]

@nanaki_fan

I'm glad you agree

And I'll keep you posted

 

[Matchitza]

Ugh... The laugther in the trailer, i don't think i'll be sleeping tonight.. Brrr....

 

[JAD94]

Haha good, then his laugh has served his purpose! ^_^

 

[JAD94]

Hey everyone, updated demos and screenshots have been added to the thread! Check them out and feel free to provide some feedback