Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

hythrain

394
Posts
3
Topics
16
Followers
A member registered Mar 11, 2023

Recent community posts

It's not, okay. I'll make a point of trying to stream it this week, even if it's not during the event itself, to ensure it gets covered as well. :)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

Admittedly, I didn't get the chance to play this game live. However, I remember playing this before and the rating I gave it back then, so for the sake of giving it a rating I've done so. I've been meaning to ask, is this game done?

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

I'd like for you to contact me outside of Itch. Can you join the Indie Questing Discord and message me? Alternatively, if you have Twitter you can send me a DM on there.

So first, it's cool man. Like, the VOD for your part won't be up for, like, 3 more days even. I'm not worried.

Second, I was not expecting you to give so much. I was never worried about context, but I do understand how time constraints can lead to shortcuts. My goal in mentioning the oddities is to ensure they are issues of time constraint, because so long as you acknowledge them then it's all good.

That said, in the end the one thing I wanted to know wasn't truly answered. XD What do you plan to do to stand out? This is the most important part, since as you go forward you need to have this already in your head so you're working to that goal.

Lastly, I want to cover something with you to explain my reasoning on one thing...

I both agree and disagree with you. I believe there should be at least 3-tiers available for purchase (all being an upgrade of some sort), so players who did want to hoard gold before the first shop, would have a little more options

So as someone who knows me quite well, this is the bane of my existence with RPGs for two reasons:

1. If a game has random battles, I will grind currency until I get the top equipment.
2. If a game has fixed battles, I will hoard until I deck my team the top option then hoard again until I can afford the next top option set.

And I can't fix this problem. I try not to and my brain doesn't let me. I don't feel okay doing it. Reason why is because I'm neurodivergent (depression, anxiety, ADHD, likely autism) and I'm very rigid with things like this.

So for me, it makes RPGs more of a grind for me than they should be. The more that I feel the grind, the more I dislike the game. Right now, there is no grind. The shop-related issues I had were a result of missing descriptions primarily, but I had the money to get what I wanted from it.

Lastly, what's the difference? Like, all you're going to do each new "tier" is shift things up one or two levels, making the old top item now the mid or low tier. It's the same idea, only allowing someone to hoard for some unknown reason instead of just being "Okay, here's the new minimum level. Everything ahead will be stronger."

(1 edit)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So I've noted that the starting area has improved a lot from the last time I played this, but I've also noted that it still starts at the same spot, putting all of the story up to this point in paragraphs. My comments from the last time still stand, then. I'm also still unsure what mechanics you're testing, because everything still seems to be basic RPGMaker stuff.

However, I did want to bring up some bugs I witnessed. When I got a random battle on the map, it failed to load the image. Also, there was a pot in the tower that I could continually open and get tons of potions.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

I like the visuals of this, even if it does add some confusion to what's going on. As a first person shooter, it also runs very smoothly. I also liked the choices fore upgrades, though I was confused why there were upgrades to make it harder. Overall, the game has a good start on it.

As for what concerned me, a lack of feedback from taking damage is the first thing I was against. The first two times I died, I didn't even realize why because I didn't think I was getting hit.

Another thing that I didn't like was how enemies with crystals required you to hit the crystals itself instead of the translucent part. I feel like the whole being should be susceptible, with shooting the gem doing more damage.

I also couldn't figure out what the goal was. Am I supposed to kill the spawners? If so, then the gem vs. translucent thing comes in again. Even if it's a demo, the player needs an idea of what they're supposed to do.

I see promise in this one. I can't wait to see more.

Yes, I know that from having played it. XD

However, even then I would suggest you learn to make this in something other than JavaScript. Not only would this alleviate these sorts of concerns, but a standalone program would be able to run better than in a browser.

Ok. So I'm going to say upfront: this post is going to come off as very harsh. It's not my intent to dissuade you from the story you want to make, but to help you improve as a writer. I say this as someone who used to do the same thing you're doing in your comment, which I'll explain in a moment. Just please keep this in mind as you read this comment.

All of your explanations about the characters and the story mean absolutely nothing for two completely different but important reasons that I need to dive deep into.

The first is because this isn't real life, this is a story. You control the events. You control what happens. When you try to use in-story reasons to defend something, you're ultimately missing the forest for the trees because you can change that. Let me create an example to explain what I mean.

I want you to imagine a generic fantasy world where orcs and humans fight. Now let's say that orcs in this world rape defenseless humans before killing them. Now real quick, this aspect is NOT needed by the story. Why? Because it serves no purpose but to just further vilify the orcs, something they don't need. People who read this story are uncomfortable with the fact that the writer put this into the story. The writer defends it by saying "Well, see, it's because the orcs were created by this evil god who blah blah blah blah." It doesn't matter. It's about rape and it's not needed for the story to function. The writer can remove it and it won't change anything.

When you're a writer, you get to choose what stays and what doesn't. If someone is telling you why certain things are just not good in your writing, trying to defend your choices with in-story reasoning isn't defending it. It's saying you don't want to change it and think it's okay despite the massive problems you're creating.

So let's put this into context: Mallory being killed. My feedback was how it was such a stereotypical thing to do, to kill the little sister over the big brother. Rather than stop and go "Hmm, do I even need to kill Mallory to proceed with the story?" you instead went into your in-story reasoning to defend the choice. Think about this honestly: if you rewrote the story to have Mallory present, other than needing to include her would it be so different?

Now this isn't to say you can't just kill a character off. However, it's about how you do it. My issue isn't just that you kill her, but that you do it so early in your story and then have the gall to push a "Please forgive him, he used to be nice" sentiment on the player.

This gets into the second reason: because your characters aren't acting like real people. They're acting like characters in a story.

I want you to imagine the closest person to you in your life. You don't need to name them, you don't need to identify anything about them. Just think about them. Now let's say someone did something nice for you, then a few hours later that someone killed the person you're thinking about right now in cold blood. Right off the bat, think about how you'd feel about that. Now let's say someone ELSE then came to you and said "Please forgive the person who murdered the person closest to you. They used to be a nice person."

Would you actually ever forgive them? No. You wouldn't. They took someone important to you. You'll never get that person back. There's no reason to forgive them but EVERY reason to seek revenge on them, and you would feel it was insulting for that third person to even DARE suggesting that you should forgive the murderer.

Similarly, this gets to Lyam's behavior. Your explanation is "he doesn't want to rock the boat" but let's change this scenario and put YOU in his shoes. You got lost in some woods when a crow drops a letter in front of you with your name on it, written by someone you've never met, that leads you to a mysterious place deep in the woods where the person who wrote the letter is seemingly super nice. Would you REALLY not try to get some answers for how they knew your name? You would trust this absolute stranger that much? If yes, then you're absurdly naive, especially when there are ways to frame questions where you make it clear you're not trying to rock the boat but you're pointing out that you DO need to be cautious, which a genuine nice person would keep in mind and realize. If I were Lyam, I would ask this:

"Listen, sir. You're being very nice to us so I don't have any desire to upset you, but we've never met you before and I must be cautious for my little sister's sake. How do you know our names?"

Furthermore comes that later that night, when it's bed time. Lyam CLEARLY feels something is off. He should be super wary about things. He should be doing things to ensure Mallory's safety when he's not. So again, put yourself in his spot. In his situation, what things would you do? If I were Lyam, I'd have the plan to keep the machete near me all night and tell Mallory this:

"Listen, Mallory. If you wake up in the night and someone else is in here or trying to take you away for any reason, you wake me up. No matter what, okay?"

Even if she questioned it, wanting to know what was wrong, I wouldn't tell her the reason and would insist she promises to wake me. Even a child would understand it's something very serious and to just do it. Now whether she remembers when awake is another thing, since she is a child and it would also be simple for Syryus to trick her to not wake Lyam ("I want to play with you for a bit") but at least Lyam behaved like a real person and thought ahead. Hell, a real person in that situation would probably not be able to sleep at all, driven by adrenaline to NOT trust these strangers as they stay awake all night with that machete in hand. Of course, that has the issue of them succumbing to sleep eventually, leaving an opening.

In short, at minimum you need to write your characters like they're actually people, and at best you should try to come up with ways to make your story less stereotypical.

Speaking of stereotypical, allow me to make a variety of predictions for individual details you'll have about the characters. I don't want you to confirm or deny any of these, I simply want you to read this list and think about how many I'm getting right.

1. Lysander had a sister who he either utterly adored or absolutely hated, no in between.

2. Lysander was abused. Most likely the reason why was for being gay.

3. Lysander was a genuinely nice person who tried to help everyone.

4. Syryus was one of the only people who cared about Lysander, thus why they were partners.

5. Syryus is going to be the one responsible for Lysander becoming a vampire, likely becoming his "servant" in the process to ensure it works.

6. Lysander was twisted by the cruelty of people over centuries, which turned him into who he is now. Alternatively, he became this way after he was the one with power who could push others around.

7. Lyam's quest will be about discovering this person who Lysander was and making him "better."

If none of these are what you're planning to do, then good. You're not as predictable as I'm thinking you are. The more I got right or mostly right, the more you should rethink parts of the story. If I actually got all 7 right, you should stop where you are now and rewrite the entire story because otherwise it's going to be predictable and dull.

Finally, let me throw some more stuff in here to show how you can combat the issues I've brought up both in the first post and in this one.

1. Have Mallory call Lyam as Lyam, not Big Brother. Not only is the "big" part not needed, but this isn't something people do in English speaking. It's more likely for Mallory to call him Lyam, a nickname of Lyam or, if this is actually set in the modern day, something like "bro."

2. If you insist on Mallory being killed, you need incentive for Lyam to want to get to know Lysander and possibly even forgive him. Easy solution? If Lysander can be changed, he'd be able to revive Mallory not as a vampire but as a human herself. This incentivizes Lyam to do these things, because it's only going to be in doing these things that he'd be able to change Lysander.

3. Also in regards to the last one, keep Mallory alive longer. If you need reason to keep the two there, there was a freak snowfall/storm that prevents them from leaving yet. That way, you have her there longer to actually establish a real relationship between her and Lyam, as well as have more time with both of them interacting with Lysander and Syryrus to make it far LESS likely that Lyam would attack either of them upon seeing his dead sister. In fact, you can use this time to begin the process of the player learning about Lysander and making it harder for Lyam to hate Lysander entirely.

4. Legit, try and drop the vampire part and make your own thing for why Lysander and Syryrus are immortal. Otherwise, you got some HEAVY Lestat vibes going on. If you don't know who Lestat is, look up Interview with the Vampire and the Vampire Chronicles.

The VOD will be up in a couple of says on my YouTube page.

One thing I can suggest for controlling the AI is to try and make a number system. The higher the number is, the faster they typically go.  That way, you can set the three computers to different numbers to represent how good they should be.

An idea of how this would work is this: the higher the number, the higher the top speed of that car if it's ahead of the player. This can then be randomly assigned to each car. They can get faster when you're ahead, but they slow down when you're behind. You could even make cap speeds for when they're ahead.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

Docile Cry? More like Docile WHY?! XD

But in all seriousness, this game is as fun as it was before. Though is it a new game? It seemed to start where Docile Cry left off.

(1 edit)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So I don't know if it broke for me or something. I couldn't upgrade file transfer speed nor number of files saved at a time, and I was able to spam the crap out of the other two upgrades.

So I did a ton of that to see how much I could break the game. By the time I stopped, I had nearly 400 click strength, almost 19 minutes adding per time added, and over 5000 minutes saved up. That should be enough time to save all my important data.

So unfortunately I couldn't play the game as intended, but I had fun seeing how ridiculous it got.

That said, how to access certain things, like the upgrades didn't exactly feel good. Having to know you need to click the Edit button likely wouldn't have happened for me if I didn't start clicking randomly to see if there was anything else I could do.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

Time for me to leave my feedback. Yup. Now is the time.

Tenouddaten, no comments.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

TENOUDDATEN NO COMMENTS.

I joke, but legit I had to stop when it just became super CCS despite enjoying myself. For using only RPG Maker elements, you've made an entertaining and funny game. The main things I wish is that status rates were worked on to reduce the difficulty of certain fights, and making all stats work. Right now, DEF and MDEF buffs and debuffs mean nothing at all.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So this is a fun concept for a game. I'm legit surprised I've never heard of a game like this until now. The vibe of the music, which made me think of 50s-60s early rock, was just fantastic for it. I liked how benches could be use to get over fences and how you could have false greenery walls. What I wasn't a fan of was being able to walk through trees and hay bales. Those should be solid.

I legit love this so far. After the event, I need to remember to make a maze. I legit am tickled by this concept. :D

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So conceptually, this is an amazing idea. Dude has some paralysis demons and needs an inmate, who so happens to shuffle around in a frightening way, to save him. I also like the use of CCTVs. It's like if FNAF used its cameras well, but rather than avoid letting someone get to your location, you're navigating someone there.

However, it's ultimately marred with clunky and awful controls and no automatic listing of what cameras are what codes. As interesting an idea this is, requiring me to write down every single camera code and what room it belongs to outside of the game is more a relic of old school gaming to me. What this game needs is more intuitive controls and a code log that lists all the rooms but not necessarily all the codes. Then when you discover a code, it fills it in. You could even make it that you have to write it yourself, but in that situation you want to ensure the log is front and centre.

My suggestion for controls would be this: use arrow keys/WASD to select each monitor as well as the code log and the map. This only requires left and right keys, leaving up and down for selecting either of the two remaining options on the monitor. If you require filing in the code log yourself, you can also use up and down to move through the list of rooms and then just type in the code. From here, you just type in codes. Finally, when you want to choose a selection, you can use Z for confirm and X for cancel (if using arrow keys. Otherwise, I suggest Enter and Right Shift for WASD). This would feel similar to a lot of other games, making the controls feel more natural.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

This game is an absolute gem to play. It's a proper gameboy game in every way. I absolutely love it. It was a lot of fun to manage. I love the set up for the bedroom, too. I only wish it was possible to have more than 3 items.

That said, there was one thing that I wasn't a fan of. That was the music itself. So much of it felt sleepy or sad. I found myself wishing it was more upbeat more often. Some tracks were okay, but they were very short and repetitive I felt. I would've like a bit more fun in the music overall, but that's just me. It was still an amazing experience.

My only personal fears are spiders and heights. Heights isn't something I can be subjected to in a game. I pray there are no spiders. D:

There was one secret in the second stage involving platforms right after a checkpoint that exploded. You needed to jump off the top most one to grab onto a wall, I believe. You can't make the jump to the wall once the floor explodes, though.

The VOD should be on my channel in a day or two. Just look for a thumbnail with your game on it.

Hmm... Honestly, I can't recall offhand. I'll have to check back into the game. However, I won't get the chance to do so until after the entire event. If it helps, the VOD will be up in a couple of days if it isn't already (I don't have perfect memory for what days were what games). However, I play in submission order so you could check the VODS I have posted and just use the order of games to determine if yours is up or not. That is, if you want to see the video yourself. I might've said it out loud. XD

Level ups? You mean the power-ups between waves or something else?

Oh! That explains a lot then! Glad to have let you know!

So the VOD isn't live yet, but will be by Friday. In the meantime, you can just keep a watch on my Youtube page.

Not a problem. Luckily, the VOD with your game is public. Here's a link for you.

Honestly, you don't even need to gate things long. Legitimately, I would suggest doing something like this:

1. You start in the game. If it's a new game, it gives a piece of dialogue with something like "Hey there, you look new to flying an interstellar vessel. You need some help navigating?" The player has to choose either "Yes (Highly Recommended For New Players)" or "No (Will Skip Tutorial, For Advanced Players Only)" and can't do anything else until they do. If they choose No, it's the same as skipping the tutorial and giving them everything. If they choose Yes, it initiates a gated tutorial. The rest of this is for the tutorial.

2. The person on the radio tells you to head towards the the place to get a job. It actively will tell you how to do it. So first, you gotta do it manually. So the player learns how velocity works, and they're also told to autobrake. The dialogue about how to move and turn goes away once you're moving towards the target. The dialogue about how to autobrake goes away once you're at the destination and trigger getting the dialogue (which, if memory serves, takes a moment to see if you're slow enough so it's the perfect time to change things).

3. Radio dude explains how to get jobs. For the tutorial, it only has one job available, cargo.

4. Player does first job. Again by manual, but no dialogue this time.

5. Return trip back to place to get jobs. This time, you teach them about Autopilot and how to use it and any inherent risks to relying fully on it.

6. New job is available, this time a combat one. Player is told how they can use autopilot to get there, but it can't do the fighting for them.

7. Player does entire mission.

8. Continue this process for anything else the player needs to know. Once all done, you end your tutorial.

In short, integrate a tutorial into the gameplay and in a way that allows advanced players to go wild.

Would making it that new cards don't spawn unless the ball is actively moving work? Maybe where it needs to interact with bouncers and those gusts a certain number of times before a spawn can happen, and even then it matters by minimum time?

Hello! Yes, it was! It should be on this VOD. :)

So they're not your own assets, save for the sound effects. Regardless, you thought to choose good visual assets and music knowing how it would influence the impact of your game. You still put together a strong game.

I was thinking at first that it might be a bit of a pain switching back and forth from one side of the screen to the other with the mouse cursor

I think you're misinterpreting the use I'm suggesting. So you can left click and hold to "grab" one side. You then slide up or down to tilt. The side that tilts is based on the side your mouse is on (so if you don't have an even number resolution, you'll need one). Since it can go up OR down, you'd be able to change everything from one side if you so desire. Just if you move to the other, it would behave like one would expect. You could even make it based on how far to one side (so closer to centre makes it turn way faster than if you're on the edge of the playing field).

So legitimately, I can't recall which VOD this was in. It might not even be public yet. The best thing I can suggest at the moment is check the current VODs on my Youtube page. Just know I play games in submission order, so if you sort by that order you can see what was before and what was after to help pinpoint the right VOD.

(1 edit)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

Initially, I was confused what was going on here. However, once I got into a second round and lost, it all started to click. The art style is interesting and the combat is certainly different and engaging. I don't have much feedback I can. That said, I hope there isn't a spider enemy later. I'm interested in giving this a long play. :)

If I had any feedback, it'd be a bit more tutorial. Maybe something to direct the player to do the battle tutorial with explanations on what's going on, then if you do it it assumes you need to be directed for where to enter the fighting.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

This is my dilemma. I love this game. I was just having stupid fun with this. However, there is a serious flaw with this game.

It is provided in the only method that is even MORE suspicious than random executable files: it's an html file! It'll go through the web browser! It could load all sorts of insanity on a streamer like me!

So I ran it sandboxed, which may have compromised the processing power my computer could give to it. So I don't know if it kept freezing because my browser can't handle it or the sandboxed environment can't handle it.

No matter what, you're better off making this as an executable file. You have enough knowledge to do this in JavaScript. You should be able to do this in Unity or Unreal. That way, it doesn't feel so dang threatening.

I'm giving you full marks except on Art/Graphics, which is what I'm using to represent my one issue which I think is a big one.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So I knew I was in for a horror experience when I saw this. I was shocked to realized it was an RPG Maker horror experience, which I tend to love because I like seeing how people do the creep factor. And what I played was... interesting, to say the least. However, I worry it's potential can get smeared on some writing faults. With that in mind, I'd like to address this with feedback regards to just the story.

So to start, the name of the game. While your game is vastly different, I would point out that there's already a game called The Forest and is also a horror-esque game. Better to avoid the name "The Forest" lest someone accuse you of trying to get your title promoted via loose association.

Second, there's a distinct lack of questioning going on. The way the main character just go along with everything, only ever questioning things in his mind but never expressing these questions. For example, the main character asks in their mind why this dude knows their names but never expressly asks Lysander when he absolutely should. There should be reason to mistrust things, and the player absolutely should be able to. No joke, I thought the main character was going to stay up in the night with the machete in his hand, waiting for something to happen. I was absolutely upset at the lack of logic.

Third is the ending of the story. First, of course it's Mallory who dies and not Lyam. Second, I actually called that this was going to be a sort of Hansel and Gretel story. Sure enough, dude is a vampire and feeds on Mallory. I was disappointed in myself for not calling Lysander being a vampire either, because sorry but that also feels typical. I also wasn't at all surprised with the ending where Syryus was all "He used to be different" because of course the evil vampire who killed his sister used to be a nice guy. This isn't to say you can't use that angle, but it's everything else you have going on here. And from the sound of it, it's not going to be the horror game I had hoped it was.

Unless you consider this game done, I would absolutely be happy to suggest ways to make things more interesting more directly with you. :)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

I'm a lover of turn based RPGs, even when they feel so generically RPG Maker. So I had fun playing this. However, I also felt like because it's RPG Maker, I should let myself get more specific with things. You also plan on "remaking" this, so I'm more invested in helping you make it better it all regards. Some of this may seem as nitpicking, but I promise it helps to fix things up.

First, I want to know what you're doing to differentiate yourself from other RPG Maker games in terms of gameplay. A prime example of what I mean is in this event: Moonfell. It uses its own distinct art style and makes a UI that doesn't feel like RPG Maker, though you can tell it has RPG Maker roots when you look very closely. It does its own thing to stand out as unique. Its developer also has another RPG Maker game that ALSO feels unique and not at all like RPG Maker. So what are you doing to be unique? If nothing, you need to think in terms of gameplay as well as story for your remake.

Here are a few things I noticed during my playthrough that should also be avoided or addressed in a remake that (I hope) aren't repeats of Moogle's.

1. Eliza gets her next turn much faster when using attack at level one, to the point where she's better off not using magic at all for the first few levels. If someone is intended as a mage, they should benefit by acting as a mage.

2. There are a lot of sounds going on in the first area, with fire burning and sword clashing on top of the music. I would absolutely say you should remove at least one, if not both of those additional sounds as they're just not necessary. If you do add it, make sure it's not too loud either. ideally, you should be able to hear music first and then the sound effects for those consistent ones. If it's one time and short, then it can be louder.

3. One of the first chest items you can get is a Small Sword. It's weaker than the starting weapon for all characters. Just... why? Chests should always be upgrades, unless you've been able to buy better. Speaking of, limit what the first stores can sell instead of giving them everything. This will make more sense later.

4. I was confused when I got my first random battle, since it seemed to be a set battle game. Outside of the world map, it didn't make sense to me to do both outside of boss fights. I'd say you should remove the random battles from in-area places, keeping instead only set battles. You could do random battles on the world map if you really want to, but if you don't then you can more easily control experience gain and thus always have an idea what level the player should be at. This lets you plan boss encounters around whatever skills the characters will have at minimum by then.

5. So while I love when something is more clearly told in the environment, the massive swing between finding the secret staircase and being told the exact ways to go in the maze to save you time just felt widely different. You need to find a balance in this. On one hand, you want something to stand out enough for the player to know it's what they're looking for, which nothing really did for the stairs. For a prime example, you can check LTTP just before the Agahnim. On the other hand, you don't need such an obvious tell as arrows that point the efficient way right when you need them. Instead, what you could do is something more subtle like showing a certain number of tiles in a way that indicates if it's first or second. If this doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll happily make an example image.

6. So when I was trying to buy items from the shops after getting out of the cave (which was also the first time I had bought anything), there were a LOT of different items. There were two swords that had no description to them, but based on power and money scaling they looked to only be upgrades of the previous swords. However, it turned out they were 2H swords. This leads me to a bigger issue of every character being able to equip a lot of similar gear with no uniqueness to them. Not only does this make decisions less meaningful, but it means when you offer a TON of gear options it gets very confusing. Think of it like this: you don't need to have weaker versions of weapons if the player is likely just going to go for the strongest thing. Similarly, when you limit gear you only need to put up what should be the minimum gear baseline for the next area. That way, items moving forward also remain upgrades that may or may not be beaten by items the next time you get the chance to upgrade. This is why I suggested limiting what the first stores can sell.

So those were the things that felt important to address. These will make your area design and your gameplay just a bit more unique. Now this is only just for the gameplay. I also wanted to speak about story, as a hopeful writer myself and absolutely want to help.

At no point did any of the dialogue give any sense of character personality. Like, if you had told me the personalities and behaviours of each character, I would not be able to identify any of that in the dialogue. Every statement and question was very much next on the "let's keep pushing the story" side, which never allows for personality. I think the only thing that ever gave me that sense was when the Queen of Termerkia said their daughter should stay, since it'd be a learning experience. This one line gives a LOT of personality, but whether it's intended or not is another question. It makes her seem as a strict and pissed off type, who has a bit of cruelty to her. If that's your intent, cool. If not, welp, ya done goofed. Overall, because of this matter-of-fact style of talking, it also means the story gets rushed. There's no room for discussion or questioning of things that ultimately don't matter for the sake of the story but should be to be realistic like who the heck is Terence and why was he listening in and trusted so immediately?

As such, if you want me to I would be happy to help you flesh the story more into something far stronger. It'll still be you writing it, but I'll help you work in the personality more. This will make your story stick out more, as well.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So this didn't really didn't give me anything to give feedback on. It's just two screens that you walk through, nothing to interact with beyond doors, then a title screen and that's it. The screenshots show way more, but that means nothing if we can't test it out. Meanwhile, we can't download the game where we can get more of it.

Without being able to play more, I simply can't rate this well at all. I would recommend looking into fixing the download ASAP.

(1 edit)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

As the title promised, it's a retro racing game. It was fun to play, but there were a few issues I felt needed to be addressed...

1. I did all my testing with AI, and the AI is just way too good. I found, especially during the final lap, that one or two small mistakes would lead to me being sent to last since all of the AI racers were together.

2. I've made this suggestion with another racing game that was in a past FQ event and I'm going to make it for yours as well: you should have a map in the top right corner. Knowing who is in what place doesn't matter as much as being able to get an idea of the map course, especially since you could easily just put the racers on said map and that could show who is in what place.

3. This is a personal suggestion as someone who tries to learn all they can about copyright and trademark law: don't call your game "Double Dash." Besides the fact that this name has no bearing on what's in the game, this would be a good way to get Nintendo to give you issues. They've trademarked the "Double Dash!!" part of the Mario Kart Double Dash logo, and while yours doesn't match it perfectly (different font, no use of dash lines and exclamation points, but the flag thing was used for Super Circuit), they could still come after you if they so chose to. Given that the font is absolutely the same as what Nintendo has used on past games and even matches the style of "Super Mario World," they could make a strong argument about the idea of you using the two aspects combined to lure people in using the Mario brand.

These are the big things I came across. I look forward to seeing more! :)

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

So at first I couldn't get anything to work. On the game page, the instructions were to click on the unit/tile and then right click on an adjacent tile. I eventually figured out I needed to click on the name in the menu. When I finally got that fixed, I began moving around and trying to figure out what to do. The first red tile I landed on did nothing save for letting me get supplies. The second one then locked me onto that tile as gunfire began. From there, I tried to figure out what I could do at all but nothing happened. I couldn't move off the spot, the shooting just kept going and got more intense as time went on. Eventually I restarted and once again began to attempt it. This time I began to seemingly make some headway. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out what the objective was at all.

The UI, meanwhile, is just not good. Some menus are too small, some are too big, some give a lot of unnecessary information, and overall it doesn't help to alleviate the confusion.

Overall, this game created a lot of confusion for me. Every time I figured out one thing, I was left with two more things that I had no idea what to do. This is absolutely the sort of game that needs an easing in tutorial to get the player accustomed to how it works. It also needs an overhaul of the UI to be easier to understand, with proper titles to give the player an idea of what's what.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

This was a ton of fun! I got over 30 levels in before I went "okay, I gotta stop! I got more games to play!" This game was a total brain workout for me. When I got my answers right, I was so proud of myself!

The one thing I found missing was in the sound area. While I know there was sound, it was incredibly quiet to the point where I couldn't hear it with where I normally keep my speakers. I could only really hear certain sounds.

Honestly, I have nothing to suggest otherwise. This is an incredibly challenging and fun puzzle game, and I love it for it.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

Fun game, simple premise, does its job right. Only thing I wish was better speed control. It goes at a speed that is just a little too fast, which can result in a lot of overshooting. Otherwise, I approve.

Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 6! My name's Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts and streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live on my stream.

For a prototype, this isn't very fun. I'm just trying to avoid the green squares while waiting for my energy to recharge. However, there are no invincibility frames or anything to give me the ability to escape when I get hit. Regen doesn't seem to work at all, and since Health doesn't restore your health either it basically means three hits and you're dead.