RMMV Till Death Do Us... (No Travel Jam Submission)

[Conflictx3]

UPDATE! v1.5 Release.

After getting some great feedback I learned a lot about what it feels like to release a project but there were a few bugs i couldn't overlooked so I did a major clean up.

- Lowered the requirements for bonus ending from 37 to a minimum of at least 30 souls saved
- Blocked off all loose ends so no more glitching through or climbing walls
- Reworked Auto save and put in manual, logical Autosave points
- Changed Lever in security room to a low-risk QTE combination sequence
- Reorganized flames so player doesn't get caught and frozen
- Tinted mist a Green Hue
- Made intro and Bonus Ending a bit more visual
- Changed "Affect" to "Effect"
- Altered Instructions to explain that mist itself will not kill Mya
- changed sprites beside demon prince in intro


I left the zoom and some other things as is because this was my first project and some scars are memorable, i definitely see the graphical errors now but i chose that zoom as apart of my original design so I'll live with it and definitely improve in the future!
-

Very excited today to release my very first game ever as well as my No Travel Game Jam Submission. Its a 20-35 minute game i started putting together nearly 3 weeks ago based on an idea I had for a short story game over a year ago!

Important Note: NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART. What I mean by that is this game has a very morbid setting and, quite frankly, plot line. It is not a cry for help on my part, it was more so an idea I had last year and completely freestyled during this jam until it became this and I am honestly proud as this is MY FIRST GAME EVER RELEASED.

There are heavy death-related themes, pixelated gore and suggestive topics lightly touched on. Please be advised before playing the game or even looking at the screenshots (however the screenshots are a perfect example of the extent of what this game offers, the theme doesn't get "darker" than whats seen below). THIS IS NOT A HORROR GAME, and is not meant to offend or depress anyone.

SYNOPSIS

Spoiler

In every great RPG, nobody ever REALLY thinks about the well being of the NPC's, what happens to their lives if evil were to triumph?
In TDDU, The all too familiar Legendary Heroes have Fallen and the Demon Prince wastes no time leading what's left of humanity to its extinction by unleashing fiendish plagues on the Holy Kingdom, home to the last living human settlement in the world.
You play the role of Mya, a normal girl who works at the kingdom's church; simply called "Sanctum". Accepting her fate she only wishes to be by Alex's side, her fiance's who waits for her in the Castle's Courtyard.

IMAGES/SCREENSHOTS

Spoiler

DOWNLOAD LINK

Spoiler

itchi.io:

Till Death Do Us... by ConflictX3

Mya's in a race with Death to find her Fiance'. Solve Puzzles and Pray for the Dead in this short swan song RPG.

conflictx3.itch.io

MIRROR:
windows -
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ddy5wcue9z116t5/Till_Death_Do_Us_(Windows).zip/file

Mac OS -
https://www.mediafire.com/file/lsl2n2nrd87t9kp/Till_Death_Do_Us_(Mac_OS).zip/file



GAMEPLAY

Spoiler

Obstacles All Around!​

TDDU offers no battle, instead you are faced with a poisonous mist that will chip away at your health for the entire duration of your campaign.
In addition, various puzzles and vile demons that threaten to kill you will hinder your journey at every turn.
Your object is to reach the Courtyard before the one of these obstacles get the best of you.

Prayer System - Delay the inevitable & Survive till the end!​

During Mya's Swan Song Crusade she'll come across several bodies of former friends and acquaintances.
When Interacting with those bodies, Mya will pray for them, allowing the fallen to pass on to the "Lord of the Light" (GOT much? lol).

Prayers also cleanse Mya's own soul little by little, restoring small amounts of HP. The more you pray for the dead the longer you'll last against the mist!

Prism Stones​

Large magic crystals that restore a large amount of HP. However, these resources are scarce and their healing capabilities can only be used once per stone with different results, so use them wisely!

FEATURES (+Bonus Ending!)

Spoiler

1. Auto Save
2. Prayer System
3. Bonus Ending​

The game on its own is a complete short story, however for those who are curious and want to know a *little* more, I've constructed an unlock-able Bonus Ending that may tie up some loose ends! to unlock it you must pray for all 37 of the people that Mya comes across!

Trouble keeping count? no worries, when you save/load the game there is a counter keeping track:

GAME SETTING

Spoiler

The Holy Kingdom - In Compliance with the No Game Jam Rules, TDDU takes place in the confines of the "Holy Kingdom" the last human settlement left on the planet as the demon forces beat back and corner the legendary hero. The Courtyard mya is trying to reach is simply the outside portion of the kingdom, not a separate location.

CREDITS

Spoiler

 

[GoodSelf]

I'm not a big fan of the horror genre, but it looks like you did a fantastic job on this during April! Nice work!

 

[Conflictx3]

Thank you so much! Very appreciated!

 

[Wazzzyki]

Hi there!

Was planning on playing your game and giving a review on it.

Sadly, seems like I keep getting errors during the download.
It keeps on having error 403, seems the download is forbidden even when I try downloading directly...

edit:
The download starts, but when it reaches a certain percentage/mb the error happens...

 

[Conflictx3]

@Wazzzyki Im so sorry that happened! I tried to download both the mac & windows version for myself and had no problems but just in case i uploaded 2 fresh files here (i'll also add this to my original post):

windows - https://www.mediafire.com/file/c2grvb61htseuzq/Till_Death_Do_Us_(Windows).zip/file

Mac OS -

Till Death Do Us (Mac OS)

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

 

[Wazzzyki]

Daaaaamn~

Dem feels~

Finally got to play the game and it hooked me in!

Here are my thoughts:

* Nice intro where the demon prince changed form
* Appreciate making it clear that you should always be aware of your health gauge
* Points for inserting tips in a way that the player can understand it immediately
* Getting damage from interacting with the fire was a nice feature for additional cautiousness
* The animated face of Gavin amazed me
* The mapping is done beautifully
* Anne and Gav best couple bro-sis tandem lels...
* The password sequence feature to unlock the door was very cool! Really would like to know what plugin you used for it.

Things to point out:

* Mya's dialogue - I can feel the mist taking affect- should be effect
* Maybe you can rework the autosave feature? because I think it is giving the game constant delays during loading or going in or out of a door.
* Maybe you could change the sprite of the character to the right of the Demon Prince since it is the same with Caleb's sprite, it might bring out questions whether there was a traitor? lels.
* There is a place in the second area where you can pass through the walls. (see spoiler)

Spoiler: Wall

* Health went down to 1 hp and stopped receiving damage after, was this intentional?
* Health also went down 0 hp and could still play through the end, used the third crystal to heal 20 hp but it does not increase the health gauge anymore.
* You could still game over when the phantoms passes through or walking on fire and deals killing damage. Though when I first encountered the stuck-at-1hp, walking towards fires also cannot kill.
* Harold's head seems fine? He does not seem dead-ish to me haha.
* How do you unlock the bonus ending?
- After praying to all the people on the courtyard that makes it 35 right? unless there is a way to pray for Anne and Gav? if the player really can't, then Mya and Alex makes it 37?
-After they exchanged vows, the cutscene plays that they get hit, then it just sends you back to the menu where you'll load the latest save file, which should be the crystal on the courtyard- And the most I can get is 35 when reloading the save file...
* Also, after triggering the fire in the courtyard and if you move towards it from the right the game locks you in place. (see spoiler)

Spoiler: Fire

All in all, the story really got me invested! Would really like to know what the bonus ending is?
Playing this really had me thinking that this whole game might be an intro to your full game. You could maybe have this a scenario that was foreseen by Mya through a dream?
See? I am making scenarios already... Congrats for making a good story!


Edit:
Played a second time, still counted to have prayed for 35 characters- still did not find a way to pray for Anne and Gav, though this time after praying for all the characters before interacting with the third crystal for the first time and saving- I think I triggered the supposed bonus ending? After the cutscene, the intro played again and saw for a brief moment Mya in a cloudy black and white scene- then the scene went all white and is now flashing red for I think it the feature of you taking damage from the mist... Really got me confused, ended the play through there. Tried to reload once more, the count was now on 36... But loading the save just sends you to white screen

 

[daheji]

This was really a good experience.

It was short but so intense. Really good writing on Mya's dialog and you get some kind of melancholy whenever Mya recounts her memories while praying for the dead.

I got really attached to Gavin and Anne. They appeared only briefly but they have such great presence and personality, I instantly loved them!

Ending was really touching, and I got a bit of a scare jump too, but it was fitting the scene.

Just a few things that bothered me a bit:
The labyrinth and those phantom that you can't dodge. I gave up on praying for the dead because my HP was low when I entered the labyrinth. The crystal didn't heal me enough. It's really frustrating to not be able to move even if you hear the phantom coming.

The password sequence was okay, but there was a bug with the autosave. I failed doing the password too many times until the dragon arrives. Thing is, the autosave saved the game right at the moment the dragon arrives. Lucky I tend to save the game on a different slot every time I encounter a crystal, but it surely would have made me really mad to have to redo the whole game just for a bug like that.

Not dying from the poison at 1hp actually helped me finish the game. I don't know if it's intentional but it was a good thing for me, haha.

Anyway, it was a really good game.

I don't believe a longer game would be a good idea. This game is complete for me. The story was short but it is full with no dull moment.

I'm just sad to not be able to see the Bonus ending because of my lack of skill.

Good job! Hope to see more of your games!

 

[Conflictx3]

@Wazzzyki @daheji

Thank you guys so much for the reviews!! I'm at work but I plan to take all this in consideration and make necessary fixes to make sure future players have the best experience with this game.

For both of you (and anyone else who were unable to) I will upload and pm the bonus ending as a way of thanks for giving my project a try!!

The mist not killing you at 1hp was intentional, I planned to have it kill you but after a few play throughs the 1hp helped ME lol and with the flames and phantoms I figured it was ok.

And lol this project has no intention of expansion nor is it connected to my main project directly but I was thinking of making it have a loose mention in my main project. Maybe as a popular book in my main project's world or treat it like "LOVELESS" I'm FF7.

The autosave is a yanfly plugin and the password input is by mjshi (https://mjshi.weebly.com/mv-chain-commands.html) I can admit I put the auto save feature in last so I wasn't aware of that specific bug I'm seeing the auto save it a big problematic so I will definitely try and dig deeper into that!

Finally, very glad you loved the characters I had a blast writing them, I knew who I wanted them to be but freestyled the dialogue but it was fun bringing them to life for you all.

 

[hiddenone]

I gave this a go, and while saying I had 'fun' is probably not the quite right, I enjoyed playing it. I didn't get the bonus ending and don't plan on replaying it to keep trying to get it because I thought the normal ending worked fine.

Spoiler: Feedback

People have already commented on the quality of the story and you mentioned that you're not planning on expanding this game (beyond bug fixes), so I'll try to focus on smaller details that you can take into consideration for future projects.

Parts of the intro fell into the 'words on a black screen' trap, which is unfortunates since you had good parts like showing the fallen heroes. I can understand not wanting to spoil the ending by showing Mya and Alex together, but even few simple static maps with the mist rolling across it would work. And showing off the courtyard while talking about the promise would have been a great touch, because then the player will know exactly where they're trying to get and can imagine what'll happen when they get there.

The mist itself was a good effect, though I think it would have been scarier if it wasn't white. A purple or green tinted mist would have really upped the creepiness of it. I'm assuming it's added with a plugin, perhaps there's an easy way to change the color?

There's an issue with the key to the switch room only appearing after the player's checked out the spikes. Try to keep in mind how a player will think when they know there's a limit (be it time, HP, whatever), some will check everywhere first and not think to backtrack to cleared rooms right away. You could let the player pick the key up, but they'd only realize what it's for after finding the spikes.

Be careful when using scrolling text, especially if it includes important info! Not all players can read quickly enough to comprehend what's being told when the text is moving, so for anything explaining gameplay it's important that the player can choose how much time they need to read and understand it.

The QTEs to unlock the door is a neat idea, but if you're gonna use QTEs make sure to teach the player how to do them. You can work in tutorials in earlier parts of the game (like when you need to hit the switch to turn off the spikes, maybe that's a QTE instead) so that when the player needs to race against the clock to do the QTEs they won't feel like it's such a new thing.

I loved Gavin's sprite behaviors, they were well used and really brought his personality to the scene. After seeing those, I really think the final scene could've used some behaviors to make the emotions hit home. It wouldn't need to be anything major, just having Mya and Alex hold hands would've add a ton to the scene. For cutscenes, don't be afraid to set up some behaviors that let characters get closer to each other than the normal tile size allows.

Now for some minor nitpicks.

I can understand why you'd want to zoom in the screen but I didn't like the size you decided on. It's not a fully percentage increase, so you ended up with some wonky sizes that were quite obvious to my eyes. If you're going to zoom in the screen for the entire game, make sure you pick a size that doesn't mess up pixel art.

​

Wazzzyki pointed out one spot, but there are quite a few things on those walls that let you climb into the rafters:

​

And lastly is some mapping issues with the flooring. It's not a big problem, but the carpet causes the other floorings to have an edge that is normally only seen next to walls. Shift-click mapping should fix that up no problem.

​

Overall, it's clear you put a lot of time and effort into this game, and it shows the love! Congrats to putting out your first game, and I hope you can take all the advice you get to improve your future projects. Good luck!

 

[Conflictx3]

I gave this a go, and while saying I had 'fun' is probably not the quite right, I enjoyed playing it. I didn't get the bonus ending and don't plan on replaying it to keep trying to get it because I thought the normal ending worked fine.

Spoiler: Feedback

People have already commented on the quality of the story and you mentioned that you're not planning on expanding this game (beyond bug fixes), so I'll try to focus on smaller details that you can take into consideration for future projects.

Parts of the intro fell into the 'words on a black screen' trap, which is unfortunates since you had good parts like showing the fallen heroes. I can understand not wanting to spoil the ending by showing Mya and Alex together, but even few simple static maps with the mist rolling across it would work. And showing off the courtyard while talking about the promise would have been a great touch, because then the player will know exactly where they're trying to get and can imagine what'll happen when they get there.

The mist itself was a good effect, though I think it would have been scarier if it wasn't white. A purple or green tinted mist would have really upped the creepiness of it. I'm assuming it's added with a plugin, perhaps there's an easy way to change the color?

There's an issue with the key to the switch room only appearing after the player's checked out the spikes. Try to keep in mind how a player will think when they know there's a limit (be it time, HP, whatever), some will check everywhere first and not think to backtrack to cleared rooms right away. You could let the player pick the key up, but they'd only realize what it's for after finding the spikes.

Be careful when using scrolling text, especially if it includes important info! Not all players can read quickly enough to comprehend what's being told when the text is moving, so for anything explaining gameplay it's important that the player can choose how much time they need to read and understand it.

The QTEs to unlock the door is a neat idea, but if you're gonna use QTEs make sure to teach the player how to do them. You can work in tutorials in earlier parts of the game (like when you need to hit the switch to turn off the spikes, maybe that's a QTE instead) so that when the player needs to race against the clock to do the QTEs they won't feel like it's such a new thing.

I loved Gavin's sprite behaviors, they were well used and really brought his personality to the scene. After seeing those, I really think the final scene could've used some behaviors to make the emotions hit home. It wouldn't need to be anything major, just having Mya and Alex hold hands would've add a ton to the scene. For cutscenes, don't be afraid to set up some behaviors that let characters get closer to each other than the normal tile size allows.

Now for some minor nitpicks.

I can understand why you'd want to zoom in the screen but I didn't like the size you decided on. It's not a fully percentage increase, so you ended up with some wonky sizes that were quite obvious to my eyes. If you're going to zoom in the screen for the entire game, make sure you pick a size that doesn't mess up pixel art.

View attachment 142668​

Wazzzyki pointed out one spot, but there are quite a few things on those walls that let you climb into the rafters:

View attachment 142669​

And lastly is some mapping issues with the flooring. It's not a big problem, but the carpet causes the other floorings to have an edge that is normally only seen next to walls. Shift-click mapping should fix that up no problem.

View attachment 142670​

Overall, it's clear you put a lot of time and effort into this game, and it shows the love! Congrats to putting out your first game, and I hope you can take all the advice you get to improve your future projects. Good luck!

This is awesome I REALLY appreciate all the info provided here! I'm going to take all of this into consideration for this and future projects!

 

[RCXDan]

@Conflictx3 Made a review for your game. Upon going through the thread and reading this I think I have most of what everyone else already said, but here's my piece:

Spoiler

Pros:

+ Nice title screen art
+ Fascinating plot set up, with the heroes losing and all. I really liked how you hammered it in, with the cutscene showing off the Demon Prince turning into his superform and the fire everywhere.
+ Similarly I like that the demons don't actually talk. It makes them more unsettling.
+ Oh sweet jesus look at all the blood.
+ I am really jiving with this dark mood. It feels about right, since it's a natural progression of what'd happen if the Heroes of their prospective story would ever fail.
+ I like this "sending off" mechanic. The bits of exposition for each fallen body are nice details.
+ I like the different portraits the characters have
+ Limited healing save points help keep up the tension
+ I like that poison can't kill you, since 90% of the game is based around exploration
+ I enjoy the other two characters that join you, they have a nice dynamic with the main character. Kinda makes it harsher when they inevitably get overwhemled by the demons.
+ Good lord that ending was bitter sweet and heavy.

Cons:

- Typos and errant capitalization:
* Unless you're using it at the start of a sentence or if it's a particular thing (Like the Chosen One), stuff like "We" and "One" should stay lowercase.
* "eachother".
* You used "affect" instead of "effect".
* "Reduced to firewood" isn't capitalized.
* "Coloseum" = Coliseum or Colosseum
* "Your" should be "you're"
* The use of "Its" over "It's"
- The sprites look stretched up close and it looks off
- I do feel the darkness is a little excessive at times, but if you're bringing in the apocalypse with demons it's kinda necessary. Poor Harold and that one girl who got hanged though.
- The different things that light on fire was a bit of a cheap shot, given your limited healing
- Maybe have crystals be full heals since they're a valuable one-time resource?
- I don't really feel the maze all that much. I liked that the ghosts have audible tells, but not being able to at least avoid them feels cheap, and so does having them appear without showing a body nearby.
- Found a pretty major bug - if Mya is left with zero HP after the other two leave her, she'll be walking around dead but the game doesn't trigger a game over. She can't heal either, so... maybe have it so when she's left alone she "revives" with 1 HP to make it fair.

Observations:

= Quick time event based password

Analysis:

(Keep in mind I might have played an earlier version so if some of this is changed I'll edit this accordingly.)

This one was pretty heartwrenching, even if it all just kinda happens at once. I love, love, love the whole prospect of "what if the heroes failed?" and you get to see the aftermath. It's a morbid trope I like if it's done well, and here I felt it was done decently enough.

In terms of gameplay it was pretty simple, but that bug I found pretty much made me a permanent one-hit wonder. I'm glad it didn't softlock me into dying over and over, but oh well. I like how Mya knows who everyone is, like jeez, was she everyone's friend or something? I really did appreciate how everyone had their own little backstory when she went to pray for their bodies, though.

The ending was... god damn. The build up throughout the game made it obvious everyone is super screwed. There's no way you're gonna change anything, so might as well find your lover and say your vows before you die.
I can see how this can bother some people, but the game is just short enough that this kinda dark plot can work. If this were, say, the length of an average game where we got to know the characters more, it'd feel frustrating and be an actual downer.

The mood was excellent throughout even with the copious amounts of typos, and I'm kinda tempted to write up my own similar plot for my own stuff. You did great!

 

[Conflictx3]

@RCXDan Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time out, i told myself i wouldn't do a 3rd revision of the game so that i can look back and see where i came from vs where i'll be in the future but if i do clean up a few more things i definitely keep this in mind.

it seems consensus is everyone hates those pesky phantoms lol if i think of a way to QTE yourself out of the way to safety i will definitely fix that along with other issues!

 

[Guardinthena]

Finally had time to sit and play the demo for your game. For such a short piece, you did an exceptional job! First time doing a review so I'm going to try and organize my thoughts here:

Pros:
* Good job on the emotion. It really started to get to me when I finally reached Alex in the courtyard.

* That ending! I love dark humor and that--that left me gaping and silently applauding.

* Love the behavior animations for Galvin! Really reminded me of Chrono Trigger. Seeing more of that would be great.

* The labyrinth was nicely done. I got lost multiple times before I realized the key to escaping was literally written in blood.

* Also loved the bad ending, where if you did poorly in the labyrinth than you get the game over in the next room trying to escape the demons. Yeah, that happened to me. Lost too long and got hit by too many shadow demons.

* Very much enjoyed seeing Avery's puzzle resources being used-the carpet, mirror, door, the keypad...

* Ahrg! The cruel irony with the chest and sparkle in the courtyard! Your dark humor is on point.

* Nice bit with having to enter the codes.

Cons:

* There was a multitude of grammatical issues. Easily fixable. I noticed quite a bit (such as in the introduction) there was capital letters where there did not need to be. Space between words was missing in some instances. Sometimes an ' was needed where there was none. This was mostly in the opening crawl and the first room when praying to the deceased, but only noticed it crop up periodically there after.

* Also with the introduction, the left aligned text kept bothering me, especially when a sentence would end mid way through the screen and start a new row. I think this would look more aesthetically pleasing to the eye if it was center aligned.

* I'm a little confused about the miasma. We are told that it will slowly kill us. I felt pressed for time in the start, which was great, until I realized that it wasn't reducing me pass 1 HP in which case the suspense was lost and I took my time. I'm not sure if this is a mistake or generosity. I was expecting a game over.

* On that note, it seemed that for the amount of damage the miasma gave me (5 I think?) praying for the bodies recovered another 5hp for an equal balance. Part of that was frustrating when I would take damage from the miasma and prayer the next step, or vice versa. A little thing, but I guess I just assumed praying would have more impact I guess.

* I encountered a strange problem when I reached the hallway before the courtyard. It went to the cutscene to introduce the dragon, but the game hung up. It jumped to the doors, the doors opened, and nothing happened. No dragon emerged. The miasma froze up. Maybe this was just an issue on my half? Not sure if it was a bug in the game itself. Just thought I should note it. I had to exit the game and reload my continue. Luckily it had autosaved there, but I missed the cutscene.

*Before I forget, the advanced electronics in the security room through me off when we were in a medieval palace. Now given, this is a short game. I don't know the time period, maybe it's steampunk but I never got to see that. So, again, the electronics were jarring. I just expected levers or something.

Conclusion:

Overall this was a nice tidy short game for the limited time we had. Short, bittersweet with a simple straightforward plot and, for such a short game, I wasn't expecting to like the three characters as much as I did, but their personalities popped. Great job overall!