LaMasquerade

Hey there, OP. I bought the game and played it through. First of all, I would like to say, congratulations on getting this finished, it's a big accomplishment. :) Now, as it said "To be continued" at the end, I would assume you're going to add onto this. So I thought I'd give ya a brief review of what I thought of the game, and the areas I think need improvement. However, first, I will tell you everything I liked about the game, and all the positive feedback I have. WARNING: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. First, I love the characters! Razh and Millie are both reasonably well developed, and they are both easy enough to like and get into. I also like the development you had going on with some of the antagonists, and other characters as well. So good job, overall, with this! The character development is probably one of the high points of the game. Also, I have to say, good job with the mini-games! Hexabattles are quite fun, even if the AI is a bit too easy on some occassions (although, I think it mentioned that I'd get to choose a difficulty level, and I don't remember seeing this option). Also the mini-tasks and Errands that you can run for people are enjoyable and help make the game more fun. The mini-games definitely earned you some points, in the overall game review. In addition, the plot seems to be moving along fairly well. I'm not sure where exactly you're going with it, which is a good thing at this point, in my opinion, because you don't give too much away early on. It is just interesting enough to keep me caring about what the characters are going through. However, there were also some noticable things that lost you points, in my eyes. First of all, one problem is that the game is still quite buggy. How long did you beta test this for, and with how many people? In my game, I wasn't trying to find bugs, but rather play it through as I would play through any commercial game, and I encountered many problems. I will list those now, so you can fix them. I'll start with the big ones, and work my way down. - In the first boss battle against the giant Mossroom, Millie died from poison, and instead of switching to Razh, it gave me an error "Script 'XAS - Movement(!)' line 229: TypeError occurred. nil can't be coerced into Fixnum." and closed the game. I take it this is a scripting editor error, not sure what caused it. - In the one cave area, with the trapped miners, I went into a random encounter with a wolf, and when it was loading the battle, it gave me an error "unable to find Graphics/Characters/E_magiwulf." and closed the game. I ended up just avoiding random encounters in the cave, and was able to get past it. - In the second major town (the one with the corrupt elders, that gets hit by the meteor), after I watched the cutscene where the ZNF soldiers come, but before I went to battle their Elite guy, I went into the house with the person who gave me the quest to rescue the miners, and my game froze. Nothing would move, and I couldn't do anything but close the game. - There were lots of little pathing errors, including a big one in the second town. I went East, in the bottom of the two ways to get to the center of town, and I ended up in the middle of the cliff. I couldn't move anywhere, and had to close the game. - The day/evening/night system seems to not work perfectly. For instance, I went to the second town, and along the way it turned to evening (we'll call the point where it turned to evening "point A"). Then, the next morning, I backtracked to get to the blacksmith in the first town, and to see if there was anything I missed, and when I came across Point A again, it turned to evening again. I was then able to activate cutscenes only available during the evening, even though it was morning when I left the town, and it probably should have stayed morning. Another major problem was the level of difficulty. It seemed somewhat... random. After the tutorial battles in the pub, I went to fight the Mossrooms, and they were very difficult for me to battle. I even almost died once. From that point on, the random encounters were a little too easy, until I got to the first boss, who was again VERY hard. Then the random encounters came again, and they were very easy by this point. The random encounters in the cave, and the boss in the cave both seemed about right. Then I got to the last boss. Oh man. That guy was next to impossible. I had to level grind for 30 mins, get my weapons upgraded again at the Blacksmith, and even THEN I only beat him by having 60 medicines in my first slot for usage. His one attack was nearly impossible to dodge, etc. I would look at rebalancing the game, possibly. Another problem was more annoying than anything. And that was that the English in it was far from perfect. I mean, it's not a professionally made game, so I wasn't expecting perfect usage of grammar and everything, but sometimes the characters were very difficult to understand. Sometimes their dialog would be cut off. Sometimes they wouldn't even say anything, where I could tell something was meant to be said. This was quite annoying. If you want, I can go through again, and find all the errors, but I'll warn you, there are a LOT of them. The game's fatal flaw, thus far, however, was how long it is. This game is short. And I mean VERY short, for a released game. The elapsed time on my game is 3:35:08 (3 hours:35 mins:8 secs). And I should mention that I played this game VERY in depth. I got nearly all the hexacards, did a LOT of grinding, tried to do all the side quests, etc. When I saw the credits screen, my first thought was "Wait, it's over?" I was just getting into the game when it ended. :( My rating: Characters/Plot - 8.5/10 Side quests/Mini-games - 9/10 Playability/Bugs - 5/10 Balance/Gameplay - 7/10 Polish - 4/10 Game Length - 3/10 Overall score - 6.5/10

I like this system. Are you going to have combo moves between characters, a la Chrono Trigger? I think that would be pretty neat, and then the Affection System could speed up the process of learning new combo moves/different combo moves, etc.

Hey there. Overall, the game looks great! I especially loved the Hexabattle system! There are a few things that could use work, though. - Grammar/spelling could use some work. - Weird pathing in some areas (See attachment). - I can move to the side after I open a house door to go inside. Looks weird. I'd give it a 4/5 at the moment. Very good work! Edit: I can't seem to Activate my game. Do you know why this is?

Hey, this looks quite promising! When will there be a download link for betas, etc.?

Well, sorry if I sounded critical. It's a nice project, I did enjoy it... the thing is, when you put something out for people to test, they will take that as an invitation to find problems with the game, so you can fix them, and make the game better. It's nothing personal, it's just how beta testing is done. Also, if you want my opinion on the gameplay, I think it's a bit too reliant on the "gems" to increase stats. It seems to me that you tried to do a compromise between the traditional "Level up" stat system, and an item-based one. I would say either go with one or the other, or try something different, because it doesn't work very well at the moment, imo. If you want levels to do anything, I would suggest allowing the player to choose which stats to increase, rather than just giving HP/Mana, and nothing else. If you want to keep the gems system, that's fine, but levels should not simply increase HP. But maybe you think it's fine, and that's alright too.

Hey, so I played v1.2. A few things you might want to fix are: - In the forest, in the area with the pillars of light that you push from the top, and make them go to the bottom, I was able to stand below them, and push them, but it wouldn't push them anywhere. Instead, my game would freeze. - In the cliff area, below the forest, there are ladders that lead to places you can't get to, because the cliff edge blocks you from actually climbing off the ladder and onto the cliff. I would fix these "stuck points" by extending the ladder one space, or changing path-ability, etc.

Hello, I was just playing your game. It looks promising, but I have a list of recommendations for improving the game. I have subdivided these into "Bugs," "Grammar/Spelling/Typos," and "Misc." Bugs - After doing the first Job for Karisa, the inn lady, I can still click "Jobs," when talking to her, but she doesn't say anything at all. It simply shows no more text after the first time doing the job. - Not sure if this is intended or not, but you can't talk to the top villager in the inn's bar, while the other people all say "..." - When I enter the Town Hall, and go to the lefthand side, it gives me an error and closes the game. "Unable to find Audio/BGM/31 - Galka." - When I enter Wildflower Pines, I get an error, and it closes the game. "Unable to find file Graphics/Characters/$ninjakad." Grammar/Spelling/Typos - Most of the dialog at the beginning of sentences is not capitalized, but random other words in the sentences are. ie: "hello, Citizen." If you are using "citizen" as a proper noun, then at least capitalize the first letter of the sentence as well. - If you ask Jariff for information, he says the same line twice in a row. - When talking to Luccid (the adventurer), he says "..There is even one said to be dedicated tho overthrowing Lady Victoria. - The board claims I need to have a "Reknown of 3 to access this board." Not sure what a "Reknown" is... unless you meant "Renown." Misc - The noise made when entering/leaving a house is... annoying. - It's a little strange how the different doors in Selvina's house lead to entirely different places, when the doors are right next to each other on the exterior. This confused me. - I'm supposed to find the Guardian Captain Lavant, but there is no indication of where he would be. He might be in the West wing of the Town Hall, but if this is the case, I can't enter it, because of the aforementioned audio bug. - I noticed that the scarecrow thing below the fields has a rather large unpathable area, that doesn't correspond to how big it is. I think since you can walk behind trees, you should be able to walk behind this scarecrow as well.

I completely agree with this. I think it's a good idea.

Hey there, it's Brandon. I played through the most recent alpha release (recent as of May 15th) several times, and found a bunch of improvements you could make. I divided these into "Bugs," "Typos/Spelling Errors," "Balance," and "Misc Comments." I hope you find it helpful! :) Bugs - Minor graphics glitch in the fourth cutscene (when Ruiku and Cheyo go down to the Sewers). When Cheyo is following Ruiku, she falls one step behind halfway down the path. Not sure what caused this, but you might wanna look into it (it's not a huge deal though). (Note: this could have just been my computer too, I was lagging at the time.) - After the opening cutscenes, when you're near the witches, you can leave the screen to the bottom and go to the sewer area, before handing her the items you needed to buy. - The top witch cannot be talked to, because of pathing blockers or some similar issue. Not sure if this was intended. - The item "Guide Book" crashes my game. "Unable to find the file data/books/Enemies/." - I was able to go over the exit to the sewer, into a black tile, and I got a "Game Over." I think you must have set the exit event to Action Button instead of Player Touch, or whatever. - The last lines of dialog kept running over and over, in an infinite loop. Typos/Spelling Errors - First cutscene, second frame: "Rain wildly lashed against the window (singular), shaking them (plural) violently. Maybe just change "window" to "windows." - First cutscene, midway through (mother talking): "Live long and be well in the knowledge that no matter where I might be, that I am thinking eternally of you." You have a double "that" in this sentence. It should read, "Live long and be well in the knowledge that no matter where I might be, I am thinking eternally of you." Take out the second "that" and it reads correctly. - First cutscene, very next sentence has no period after the end. - First cutscene, when the soldiers come inside the word "Forbidden" is spelled "Forbiden." - First cutscene, when the soldiers are talking: "Witchcraft is a crime that incurs no trial, and the immediate deployment of the execution method." This sentence would better read: "Witchcraft is a crime that incurs no trial, but rather brings about immediate execution." - First cutscene, when the mother is talking: "That is correct sir." This sentence needs a comma after "correct," because it is addressing somebody directly. It should read "That is correct, sir." - First cutscene, when Cheyo is reading the letter "You sister was named..." should be "Your sister was named..." - First cutscene, when Cheyo is reading the letter "At first, they were unsure weather..." should be "At first, they were unsure whether..." - First cutscene, when Cheyo is reading the letter "Take a hold of your families legacy..." should be "Take hold of your family's legacy..." because "family" in this case is singular, with a modifier, and I'm almost positive that "take a hold of" is English slang, and only used in informal speaking. The informal tone doesn't sound right coming from her mother, who had previously been writing in the formal tone. - Second cutscene, Ruiku's father says, "By the looks of that gown you've got quite a deep pocket." should have a comma after "gown," I believe. - Second cutscene, Cheyo says to Ruiku's father, "I'm a Madoshi" without a period at the end of her sentence. - third cutscene, Cheyo says to Jennie "I'm Cheyo" with no period. - third cutscene, Renizia says "From the looks of that gown you're from the West Coast," which is fine, except you need a comma after "gown" again, I believe. - third cutscene, Ruiku's father says "Everyone else can go and sit around the table." This is ok, and can be kept, but I would erase the "and," as it doesn't serve any purpose in the sentence. You can keep if it you want his speech to be informal, however. - third cutscene, Ruiku's father says "And follow any instructions contained precisely" This sentence needs a period at the end, and you should change "contained" to "contained within" or just "within." (There is no modifying word to show where the instructions are contained.) - third cutscene, Ruiku's father says "If they see you here then they'll know something's up." It would sound better to say "If they see you here, they'll know something's up." in my opinion. Otherwise, the sentence needs a comma before "then." - third cutscene, Ruiku's father says "Ruiku, take her down the back entrance." This is, again, informal to the point of being grammatically incorrect. You need the word "through" in there. It should read: "Ruiku, take her down through the back entrance." Optionally, if this wasn't what you were trying to say, you can put "Ruiku, take her down to the back entrance." It needs a preposition, though, either way. - third cutscene, Ruiku says "Yeah... It goes right the way down to the Sewers!" This didn't make sense to me, it should probably read "Yeah... It goes all the way down to the Sewers!" - fourth cutscene, when Ruiku's father is talking to the soldiers, he says "Can I help you gentleman?" It should read "Can I help you, gentlemen?" It needs a comma because of directly addressing the soldiers, and it should be gentlemen, plural, since there are two soldiers. - fourth cutscene, the one soldier says "We got a warrent to search the premises." Warrant is spelled incorrectly, and it should be "We have a warrant..." or else "We've got..." but the first one is probably better sounding. - fourth cutscene, Ruiku's father's last line does not have a period. - In the Quest Book, under completed quests, it says that you bought Ruiku 5 Potions. I don't believe this is what you bought her. Balance - Both enemies and your characters seem to deal a lot of damage per hit. I'd change this around a bit. Atm, you have to use up lots of potions just to make it through the random encounters. - Random encounter rate seems a tad bit high in the sewers. Misc Comments - Am I gaining stats when I get attacked? If so, could this get a bit unbalanced later, if you grind on random encounters? Edit: Nvm, it doesn't seem related to being attacked. Why do I sometimes gain stats? Is this the role of "TP?" - Would be nice to know what "TP" does, that you gain from battles. Maybe this is explained in the Guide Book, but I couldn't view it, due to it crashing my game. :P - I can't figure out how to apply gems to my armor, weapons, etc. Maybe this is in the Guide Book as well. - Overall very good start! I love the opening cutscene that you added, it explains a lot. P.S. My apologies for being an English minor. :P