Really good music and love the art style. I think the game could do with a bit more users interaction. or at least more choices. the start section is also very long.
Thanks for playing and leaving your thoughts! This is the very first part of the full game (about 5%), which will release with an option to skip the opening sequence, as well as lots more content and interaction with the game's world, characters, and mechanics.
You get more dialogue from the music guys and the girl upon a second playthrough, as well as two endings to the battle depending on what move you choose. There are also a few Easter Eggs here and there... Stay tuned :)
I had a great time playing Grass Elemental. This game is one-of-a-kind and really enjoyable. I got fooled several times, which was both surprising and amusing! I'm curious to see what the next part of the adventure has in store for me. you get hooked quickly!
I loved the music and the funny story, keep it up! I didn't play through the whole thing, but I will on stream for my audience next stream... and I'll come back and share the link too.... hopefully I'll remember all that. Anyways, you ever do any original music for a space game? hint, hint, nudge, nudge.
Oh my god you're going to stream it? Thank you so much, I'm really excited! :D
Do you stream on twitch? I'd love to check your channel out. And, I have not composed for a space game before... But there's a first time for everything, right? ;)
DM me on Discord if you want to chat, username is Wasabi...
Yeah probably so, but the video shows just fine :)
I am very grateful that you ended up playing my game! Though all of it is necessary for the story (which is barely present in this release T-T) I definitely need to find a way to cut back on the dialogue at the beginning lol. You were soooooo close to the actual gameplay too!
You pretty much covered every single complaint I've gotten from other people so far: Too much dialogue, confusing keyboard/mouse controls, a little too bright, unclear story. Some will be a bit harder to fix than others, but I know where to start!
Very happy you enjoyed the music and the jokes, and that you find the game unique. Hopefully that piano stays stuck in your head...
The game ran very smoothly! I really liked how the music and the characters' movements were perfectly in sync. I thought the part where you enter the girl's name was a clever trick!
Love it :) funny, cool story, graphics top if done right it will Undertale 2 . The only thing i would change is the intro where the characters are singing its a bit to long for me. Keep up the good work :)
Overall pretty smooth. This has small bits of Undertale which I recently played again. If done right this game could be enjoyable like Undertale. The demo does kind of feel confusing since you don't get to be in the actual world/story that much. I feel like a little part of the starting section would be nice to experience.
I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to connect with you after you reached out to me in the comment section of an unrelated game. While I appreciate your enthusiasm for making connections and gaining visibility for your game, I believe it's important to address this in a more appropriate way.
Firstly, I want to mention that I did take a look at your game, and it certainly caught my interest. As a musician myself, I'm particularly intrigued by the soundtrack. It's a topic I could see myself discussing quite a bit.
That being said, I'd like to kindly point out that reaching out through unrelated comment sections may not be the best approach. To ensure effective communication with creators, my contact information is readily available and visible on both the Youtube watch page and my channel's "About" section.
I hope you understand that my decision not to feature your game isn't a reflection of its quality. Rather, it's more about maintaining professionalism and proper communication practices.
I wish you the best of luck with your game development adventures, and who knows, perhaps in the future, I'll have the opportunity to feature an even more outstanding game created by you.
I want to thank you for mentioning my approach, I agree with your views on it. I am very new to this field and am bound to make mistakes, and it is comments like these that will help me shape how I present my work to others in the future. I have definitely learned from this experience, and I appreciate your professionalism.
I'm glad to meet a fellow musician, and one that is interested in the OST. Despite this mishap, I hope it will find its way into future discussions on your channel.
I like the style; it reminds me of Game Boy adventure games. The automatic save feature is good to have, and I love the retro-style music. I've not completed the challenge with the fighting, but it's fun.
It’s an interesting parody of Undertale with a lot of references of old school Pokémon games. As a short game it works very well.
It lacks a bit in subtlety but that’s intentional, though I’m not sure how that’d fare on a longer game that’d last more than a few minutes as constant 4th wall breaking might become old quite fast.
I’ve got a bit of an issue with the controls as there are parts of the game where you interact solely with the keyboard (dialogues & pokemon style menus) while others were played with the mouse (the undertale style fights & main menu). I feel like this should be standardized so you either only play with the keyboard or with the mouse, but not both so the player isn’t lost as to what he should be using at a given moment.
You make some very interesting points. I'm VERY glad you see it as an Undertale parody, instead of a knockoff or a clone or something lol. Means I'm doing something right :)
This is going to get a little spoilery, but hopefully it peaks your interest:
I'm planning for the rest of the game (after the next release) to shift away from teasing Undertale, and focusing on new concepts GE has to offer. I'm using the lack of subtlety, parodies, and references early on to set up a point I'm trying to make... One that will hopefully be clear in the next release.
The only fourth wall breaking that will definitely need to persist is the game's acknowledgement of the human player. This isn't just to be "creepy" or "meta" for the sake of it; It's to develop a very special mechanic later on that the player has hopefully never experienced in a video game before. This mechanic will establish context for many ideas that you see now, and ideas that you'll see later.
Just got around to playing this and it is AMAZING :D
I love how the text and audio sync up in the song opening. The name selection was hilarious. It does really well imitating older games but it also clearly has a strong original personality.
Overall, really nice job on this! I'd love to see the full game.
I really enjoyed this! There's a lot of personality with your characters here, especially with the singing quartet at the beginning. I also like how you're given different choices with different outcomes for the dialogue, even when restarting the demo. Speaking of which, I do have one gripe. Your funny musical characters wouldn't let me listen to their song again and called me a weirdo. In fact, a lot of your characters were calling me names like "human", when I am in fact, a fig.
In all seriousness though, it's a great start and the music sounds wonderful! Looking forward to seeing more, especially with the interesting gameplay mechanics!
The game is very interesting. I see influence of Pokemon and Undertale. Great sounds! But I think that game has a little long intro. But it is amazing demo. Hope you'll finish the project someday.
This looks quite promising! The Undertale influences are apparent, but I think the Gameboy Pokemon aesthetic and the differences in the combat system help it stand out. The combat on its own was quite fun to figure out, I can’t wait to see in what ways the bullets can be interacted with in future fights, and what exactly it means to "show mercy". The avatar selection fakeout with one of the options being a full character with their own agenda is a pretty novel idea, and story-wise I’m very interested by the implication that Despra has already killed at least one other pacifist. The musicians' voices being the instruments they play is a neat touch, the easter eggs are fun to find, and the music is pretty good!
If there’s one major criticism I have, maybe the whole “violence vs mercy” theme is too on the nose at the moment? The way Despra just goes on and on about how pathetic pacifists are and how cool murder is actually broke my immersion a bit, almost feels like the game’s trying too hard to mimic Undertale. But then again, maybe that’s intentional, and I don’t know how exactly you could make it subtler.
I also found the easter egg where Despra crashes the game if you skip too much of her dialogue a little frustrating; mostly for the purposes of testing the demo, but I imagine it might also be an issue in repeat playthroughs and speedruns of the full game. I do like the idea of her being mad that you’re doing that, though, so maybe she could instead skip ahead to her violent phase with unique dialogue?
Finally, around halfway through the unique restart cutscene, Ally’s sprite suddenly moved downwards at startling speed and went offscreen. She wasn’t visible for any of her remaining lines, including one where her jumping SFX played, and she snapped back in place at the very end, so I imagine it’s not intentional.
Overall though, I’m excited to see how this game develops from here! Hope this feedback helps.
I'm glad you enjoyed, and that you picked up on some of the story implications! There's a lot that the demo-demo sets up for the full game, like first impressions that will be used later. For instance, I did want the "violence vs mercy" thing to be on the nose, so that 1) the player can underestimate Despra and the game in general at least a little bit, so they can be surprised for what it has to offer later and 2) I'm using the whole "violence vs mercy" thing as kind of an outdated and old concept, and this game will touch on themes of older concepts like those being obsolete (like how the whole aesthetic is based off of an outdated yet classic Pokemon gen). A little spoilery, but yeah... I'm experimenting with using those Undertale-like qualities to make a point later on.
I'll look back at Despra's easter egg, I partially wrote it in to troll speedrunners lol. And as for Ally, I knew about that bug and I thought I had fixed it... I was praying it wouldn't show up in this release but here we are!
Anyway, I hope this clears some stuff up. The next release is the actual Demo, which isn't coming soon, but it's coming nonetheless!
Very interesting, thanks for clarifying the unsubtletly was intentional! I guess that's that gripe dealt with, can't wait to see how you handle those themes!
I found the game quite interesting; it reminded me a lot of Undertale. However, I didn't really like the fact that there was a lot of text at the beginning.
I enjoyed the intro and the music, but it felt a bit lengthy; I wanted to start playing right away. In my first run, I chose the girl and was taken by surprise (I won't go into details to avoid spoilers), but I really enjoyed replaying your game.
I liked the combat a lot; it took me a while to understand how it worked, but it was really cool once I did. I also really enjoyed the music and the animations!
just checked this game out! i love the music so much, it adds to the overall retro feel of the game so well while still having modern sophistication. the intro was so interesting and the combat system supports the humour and tone of the game very well! i'm not usually a fan of combat (i tend to find it boring and repetitive) but i really enjoyed the system in this game. keep up the good work!
WELL somehow i didnt suck but it was close not gonna lie
it turned out a lot better than i thought after just listening to music or maybe... am i just dumb? i probably am but i really loved the fighting like its so different and cool definetely want to try more, cant even give any feedback im not capable of this i just wanna play more when its there!!
The combat system is really cool! I really want to fight more enemies and see how they can attack differently!
I did die like two times but I got it and it was very satisfying. And I really liked the musical number in the beginning it was beautiful!!! (and the writing is great too)
Wow so amazing work!! Impressed with the intro, soo cool pretty fun and original project, also the music is so good, sounds and harmony nailing the references. Congrats and keep going!
Awesome, I played through the whole thing, lost once for skipping dialog to much, it was quite fun.
Since the game is in such early stages if development I can't really critique it. Though it has some interesting mechanics and a great visual style so i'm looking forward to what this game has in store.
The changes in when you replay the game and the fourth wall breaking reminds me of Undertale, I love the attention to detail you've put in.
Wonderful, I think I played it through to the end but I am not sure so give me a tip if I missed something. Got to the "end of demoscreen" with the boy, then tried choosing the girl first which forced you on the boy path so I guess thats it for now? If not, tell me!
Anyhow: no criticism here, wonderful music, characters and the presentation was truly top notch. I like what was shown of the combat system too, but I am guessing that it was just a small taste.
The only thing I found that you might want to alter was actually in the funny download instructions. Found a typo:
Wait... Did that old hag make download instruction too?
should be either:
Wait... Did that old hag make a download instruction too?
or:
Wait... Did that old hag make download instructions too?
So, the singing characters are the other elements? Thinking that due to the color-scheme of each character. Cant wait for Despra fanart.
You are forced to pick the boy, but the battle will have different outcomes depending on what move you use (it will be significantly easier or harder). You will get new dialogue from Despra if you make it to the end a second time, and you get new dialogue from the singers if you try to restart the game from the home screen. And yes, they are the other elements, good eye!
I could make art for Despra, but then it would be official art, it's better if fans do it pleeeeeaaassse T-T
(click the knife on the home screen for a little easter egg...)
Hello, I played your demo and it was a unique and fun experience. I liked the name-joke and first I was searching for how to remove the L 😀. It felt like a story but once I got to use the mouse, I felt like I was really immersed in the game. It would be awesome if you could change the mouse cursor to some cross-hair. Overall, great job on creating such an original and entertaining game. I can’t wait to see more of your work.
That was quite the ride you took me on! The musical opening was lovely and what followed didn't demerit either. I love how you made the character selection an integral part of the gameplay and how you made the villain out of the discarded choice. The quirky writing suited the visual comedy really well and kept me engaged all throughout the demo. Very solid and promising overall I'm quite impressed and hoping for more soon ! Keep at it fam
Loved it! Gave me some nice nostalgic vibes mixed in with some nice music and interesting gameplay! Twists left and right kept me on my toes and had witty humor in it. Keep up the amazing work and I look forward to so so so much more!
And yes, it is supposed to loop... she's quite persistent :)
I tried to put the player into a position where they would have to think on their feet to avoid defeat, without the liberty of having a "first turn"; A turn you would have to earn instead of it just being given to you, if that makes sense.
Alright! My feedback... the intro and all the music was super amusing. Plus the comedic story was interesting. The style and sounds remind me of retro games :D Also, my name was always Loser! Haha.
I had a couple issues though.
1. After picking my character and a couple lines into the girl talking, the game crashed for some reason. Second time around it was fine.
2. I died before I could figure out what to do for the fighting part?
1. That's an easter egg! If you skip her dialogue she warns you not to do it again, and if you continue to skip she crashes the game, so slow down when talking to her at first :)
2. Did she kill you before the "FIGHT" and "CHECK" option appeared, when she throws knives at you? You have to figure out how to use the knives to your advantage to proceed...
Hopefully this didn't hinder you from finishing the game! Please let me know if it did!
I think I just panic clicked keyboard buttons and died before figuring it out. I wouldn't say this hindered me from finishing, but I do have limited time right now and decided to move on :) sorry.
The intro was very good, i really enjoyed it. When i ran the executable a windows warning popped up: "Windows protected your PC", beacuse you are not verified as a microsoft developer. The Run Anyway button is hidden, you have to first click to the more info, and the run button just appear after this. This is not frendly for users, I suggest you to write this to the download instructions.
1. Download Country Quiz 2.zip
2. Right click the zip file and "extract all"
3. Run Country Quiz 2.exe
4. If you see this window: "Windows Protected Your PC" ignore it, click to more info and run anyway
Ah okay, I didn't realize that would happen. I do this process all the time (Windows protected your PC, Run Anyway, etc.) with every game I download, so I guess I didn't see it
Loved the musical intro. it did a great job of setting the tone of the game and was really well made
Trying not to spoil the *character selection screen* but I was blown away. seriously well made and felt very Undertale. I was really enjoying it and enjoyed how none of the game play was repeated.
I think your current intro is a great setup for the game. I lost the first fight at the very end because I did not blind her. The fight had lots of twists and turns that made it very exciting
Some feedback, I cant give much sorry as I simply enjoyed it and dont play these kinds of games often:
An option to skip Rebel girl's fight intro when you retry would be great. You have to go through a dozen text boxes to challenge her again. I am sure it is useful for players who are confused and trying again but I wanted to get right back in there and try again personally.
Your attack option changed to 'FAIL' on the second turn which makes sense after seeing how lame your hero is ;) but I assumed fail meant to surrender rather than you sucking. This made me try status instead which was a nice touch but ate up my second turn, Having it read something like 'FIGHT?' with the question mark could be a fun way to show how uncertain the player is of their hero's attacks while not being misleading.
The itch page, it was hard for me to understand what kind of game this was based on the page. Feels like you put passion and storytelling before selling the product since all the details I can get are story extracts and recommendations. Its great to see a more passionate presentation of the game and how you want to present your game is up to you. I think a quick summary of the game before the story extract would help me press the download button and know what I am getting into. Clearly though you are having no trouble finding players to try the game so this isn't a huge problem.
Overall no bad criticism. I really enjoyed it and am actually interested to see where it goes next. Glad I came across you and this game, Great job!
I can definitely feel the Undertale influence here as well as Pokemon Gen 1 for the visuals.
The battle plays out like a little puzzle and it made me laugh a couple of times. Humor can be very subjective but this is just the right amount of silly to make LOTS of people laugh I feel.
Story based games face the challenge of integrating gameplay early enough and it's good you have the player do something pretty much right out of the gate since the interactivity is what makes you invested in the story.
Here's a couple of things that could be improved on:
When choosing the boy or the girl let a default cursor show up on the screen, with one of them already selected. It only appears once you press left or right and I honestly thought my game game froze for a couple of seconds.
I think I know what you're going for with the .txt files included in the game, but honestly? Your storytelling is strong enough that you can do without them. Additionally, account for hostile users. Some players simply won't open those files or read instructions.
Is the window size a design choice? I usually get grumpy when I can't resize the window, but I can see stuff popping up outside of it during the gameplay so I'm looking forward to seeing what else you got cooking here.
In conclusion: please keep working on this! I'll definitely play more when you release a new version.
I was trying to make the game kind of silly, so it makes me happy that you actually laughed. I really hope people can make gameplay videos of this someday, so I can see them react to the experience.
So you actually saw the .txt files! While not very urgent to read, they were a last-minute decision, to add some extra character to the game. I actually forgot about them myself for a minute, so thanks for checking them out :)
I hope the window size wasn't an issue! I initially was trying to do some kind of gameboy-like size, but I sort of ditched that idea and never really thought about resizing it. Also, what do you mean by stuff popping up outside it?
Thanks again, and good luck to Cruelty is the Point!
This demo of a demo seems quite well executed. I would not be surprised if it actually get recognized by people and gained a cult following some time from now. Most character designs and music/sfx are good. There are a lot of easter eggs, and paths that you can go down, some of which are fun to stumble into (using the lower damage attach after the higher damage one was very cool), but some of which are a bit random (Why can't they just perform the song again? Most performers can perform the same song multiple times so this is a plot hole imo. Why does fullscreening/unfullscreening during the performance ruin their performance? Sure there was a notice at the start, but I did not understand why the change in fullscreen/windowed would effect the performance any way. Probably because I changed the window state, but then they waited till the end of the entire passage to complain about it, so the 'feedback' wasn't localised in time to the behaviour. Maybe fullscreening/unfullscreening should have some visible effect on their universe. Otherwise the gag feels a bit random. Maybe I am overthinking it? I am definitely overthinking it. just forget about everything in these brackets okay?)
I imagine this will be constantly compared to Undertale. The terms "Mercy" and "Pacifist" and endless fourth wall breaks come directly from or feel like references or responses to that game.
Main complaints:
In some screens you use this one calibri looking font. It looks pretty bad imo, because it is inconsistent with every other font. It is possibly the only graphic 'mistake'
I would have liked to be able to navigate the menus with the mouse. I am already clicking on the knives, so I was expecting to be able to click on the "fight"/"check" options with the mouse as well.
The game is too short and well executed for me to find a lot to complain about, so apologies. It looks very promising
- There are lore implications for why they can't perform the song again, which will be explained later in the full game (read my response to Maidelen)
- If you toggle between fullscreen and emptyscreen during the beginning of the song, you will actually delay the music note at the top more and more, until it doesn't match with the song at all (why I came up with the easter egg)
- I am fully prepared for Undertale comparisons, just like every other indie dev who wants to make a new and unique RPG lol
- I still need to flesh out that font... Gamemaker makes it look pretty bad when you scale the words up
- One of the biggest things I'm seeing in feedback is the button control; I'll look into it
- About the cult following thing, you really think so? I've pretty much dreamed of that happening to my game for a while now lol
Good point that you asked the players to use headphone.... I'M ADDICTED TO THE MUSIC and the SFX.
The concept is unique. not for every one who like "normal" RPG that everything must be finished by fight, like me. However, I'm still confused about the connection of between cutscene story and gameplay story.
The Storytelling style is communicative, supple and fluent. it's like chat with your best friend instead formal conversation with boss. and I like how you "plant" the twist. it's trick me until I almost input it as major problem
The battle system is unique and need player to actively press click button so they don't fall asleep :D . However execution of battle command and cutscene in battle system need to be clearer. it's like suddenly move from scene A to scene B to scene C before I can understand what is happening here
my major concern is about the control consistency. I mean that the most of game control use CLICK BUTTON, but in game cutscene, we use a SPACE Button to move from one scene to another one. it's not big problem for some players but maybe confusing for other. my suggestions for this issue are :
Use clearer BUTTON ICON for non-Clickable control, or
Make it Click, or
Make control explanation menu.
The Graphic... no problem for retro gamer like me.
The story seems to be a point of confusion for players, and I had a feeling this would be the case going in. Don't worry about fully understanding it for now! In this early stage of development, the story is meant to not make as much sense at the start, so that it is cleared up later in the full game.
I figured the button control would be an issue... I'll probably clear it up with a menu at the start or something. To clarify:
- Whenever someone is speaking, it's the SPACE button to progress
- You won't have to click unless you're attacking, you're under attack, or you're at the startup menu (or just when there's a mouse icon)
I'm glad you liked everything else, especially the music (the fun part)! Thanks again, and I hope your project(s) are coming along as well!
So many things to say, I don't know where to start. I really liked this.
I didn't like that the concert couldn't be replayed, it was nice the "you restarted" thing but I wanted to see it again so I deleted the save file in appdata. That opening song is so good, so beautiful, it was a joy to watch. What followed after that was spectacle and surprises, though not much that explained or advanced the overall story, but I guess that's the idea of this demo of the demo.
I think I understand the things that the story is going for, they look promising and well grounded. Although I wasn't sold on that thing where it was assumed that the player wants to be a pacifist all at once, I don't think it fits much for other players. By the way, is the beginning some sort of reference to how in anime games sometimes the male avatar looks more boring than the female avatar?
There are a lot of ideas and a lot of creativity, it's short but intense. How long did it take you to make the whole demo? Planning and preparing everything, it's amazing that you did this as your first game, it must have been quite a challenge to program everything you see in the game and make it look good.
I hope you progress well with your project, I want to see it complete, I liked it a lot. Cheers.
Sorry for the inconvenience with the song! I intentionally made the performance play out once (despite it actually being easier to program it playing multiple times) mostly because I was going for the idea that these characters are like real people; They work hard and are passionate (like you!), and would take some time to replicate something they worked very hard on (I imagine it like, if you finally reached a huge fitness goal, and you're out of breath and about to die but you did it, and someone's just like "okay cool now do it again" lol)
There are also lore implications for why it only plays once... stay tuned!
The story will be expanded upon in the next release, the demo! Everything in the Demo (demo) is kind of supposed to go over the player's head; There are definitely players that don't fit a "pacifist" description, but it is (wrongly) assumed that you are one due to your forced inability to retaliate (which will also be expanded upon in the demo)
About the avatars, I didn't think of it that way! I was going for a jab at the trope of how in older JRPG games (like gen 1 Pokémon) there aren't usually female options, but your interpretation also works!
This release took about a year in total to complete; I started conception last summer and now this summer, here it is! Actual development in Gamemaker started in September 2022, I think. It was quite challenging doing this on my own without any experience (I remember the sleepless summer nights lol), but I like to be challenged!
Again, I'm SO glad you and other users are enjoying my game! I'll keep working hard, and I hope Harmful Heaven progresses well too!
Wow, everything is really well thought out and formulated, you just need things to progress well for the game to flourish as it should.
God, a year, a year to make a software whose content lasts about half an hour. A lot of work for something that although it can be great it's going to be very short. I admire you for having gone through all that alone. You should get a programmer, now that you have this as a demonstration of your skills, maybe you can get one.
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Really good music and love the art style. I think the game could do with a bit more users interaction. or at least more choices. the start section is also very long.
Hey GDO,
Thanks for playing and leaving your thoughts! This is the very first part of the full game (about 5%), which will release with an option to skip the opening sequence, as well as lots more content and interaction with the game's world, characters, and mechanics.
You get more dialogue from the music guys and the girl upon a second playthrough, as well as two endings to the battle depending on what move you choose. There are also a few Easter Eggs here and there... Stay tuned :)
I had a great time playing Grass Elemental.
This game is one-of-a-kind and really enjoyable. I got fooled several times, which was both surprising and amusing!
I'm curious to see what the next part of the adventure has in store for me. you get hooked quickly!
I loved the music and the funny story, keep it up! I didn't play through the whole thing, but I will on stream for my audience next stream... and I'll come back and share the link too.... hopefully I'll remember all that. Anyways, you ever do any original music for a space game? hint, hint, nudge, nudge.
Oh my god you're going to stream it? Thank you so much, I'm really excited! :D
Do you stream on twitch? I'd love to check your channel out. And, I have not composed for a space game before... But there's a first time for everything, right? ;)
DM me on Discord if you want to chat, username is Wasabi...
Ok, it's giving me a warning about 'body must be provided', does that mean I have to type something to submit a youtube link?
Yeah probably so, but the video shows just fine :)
I am very grateful that you ended up playing my game! Though all of it is necessary for the story (which is barely present in this release T-T) I definitely need to find a way to cut back on the dialogue at the beginning lol. You were soooooo close to the actual gameplay too!
You pretty much covered every single complaint I've gotten from other people so far: Too much dialogue, confusing keyboard/mouse controls, a little too bright, unclear story. Some will be a bit harder to fix than others, but I know where to start!
Very happy you enjoyed the music and the jokes, and that you find the game unique. Hopefully that piano stays stuck in your head...
And I'm still up for that space music offer!
The game ran very smoothly! I really liked how the music and the characters' movements were perfectly in sync.
I thought the part where you enter the girl's name was a clever trick!
Love it :) funny, cool story, graphics top if done right it will Undertale 2 . The only thing i would change is the intro where the characters are singing its a bit to long for me. Keep up the good work :)
Overall pretty smooth. This has small bits of Undertale which I recently played again. If done right this game could be enjoyable like Undertale. The demo does kind of feel confusing since you don't get to be in the actual world/story that much. I feel like a little part of the starting section would be nice to experience.
Hey there,
I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to connect with you after you reached out to me in the comment section of an unrelated game. While I appreciate your enthusiasm for making connections and gaining visibility for your game, I believe it's important to address this in a more appropriate way.
Firstly, I want to mention that I did take a look at your game, and it certainly caught my interest. As a musician myself, I'm particularly intrigued by the soundtrack. It's a topic I could see myself discussing quite a bit.
That being said, I'd like to kindly point out that reaching out through unrelated comment sections may not be the best approach. To ensure effective communication with creators, my contact information is readily available and visible on both the Youtube watch page and my channel's "About" section.
I hope you understand that my decision not to feature your game isn't a reflection of its quality. Rather, it's more about maintaining professionalism and proper communication practices.
I wish you the best of luck with your game development adventures, and who knows, perhaps in the future, I'll have the opportunity to feature an even more outstanding game created by you.
Take care,
Nolan
Hello Nolan,
I want to thank you for mentioning my approach, I agree with your views on it. I am very new to this field and am bound to make mistakes, and it is comments like these that will help me shape how I present my work to others in the future. I have definitely learned from this experience, and I appreciate your professionalism.
I'm glad to meet a fellow musician, and one that is interested in the OST. Despite this mishap, I hope it will find its way into future discussions on your channel.
Thanks again,
Wasabi
I like the style; it reminds me of Game Boy adventure games. The automatic save feature is good to have, and I love the retro-style music. I've not completed the challenge with the fighting, but it's fun.
I think this game is really interesting, but whenever possible, I'd really recommend setting up a WebGL version to increase play throughs.
It’s an interesting parody of Undertale with a lot of references of old school Pokémon games. As a short game it works very well.
It lacks a bit in subtlety but that’s intentional, though I’m not sure how that’d fare on a longer game that’d last more than a few minutes as constant 4th wall breaking might become old quite fast.
I’ve got a bit of an issue with the controls as there are parts of the game where you interact solely with the keyboard (dialogues & pokemon style menus) while others were played with the mouse (the undertale style fights & main menu). I feel like this should be standardized so you either only play with the keyboard or with the mouse, but not both so the player isn’t lost as to what he should be using at a given moment.
You make some very interesting points. I'm VERY glad you see it as an Undertale parody, instead of a knockoff or a clone or something lol. Means I'm doing something right :)
This is going to get a little spoilery, but hopefully it peaks your interest:
I'm planning for the rest of the game (after the next release) to shift away from teasing Undertale, and focusing on new concepts GE has to offer. I'm using the lack of subtlety, parodies, and references early on to set up a point I'm trying to make... One that will hopefully be clear in the next release.
The only fourth wall breaking that will definitely need to persist is the game's acknowledgement of the human player. This isn't just to be "creepy" or "meta" for the sake of it; It's to develop a very special mechanic later on that the player has hopefully never experienced in a video game before. This mechanic will establish context for many ideas that you see now, and ideas that you'll see later.
Just got around to playing this and it is AMAZING :D
I love how the text and audio sync up in the song opening. The name selection was hilarious. It does really well imitating older games but it also clearly has a strong original personality.
Overall, really nice job on this! I'd love to see the full game.
I really enjoyed this! There's a lot of personality with your characters here, especially with the singing quartet at the beginning. I also like how you're given different choices with different outcomes for the dialogue, even when restarting the demo. Speaking of which, I do have one gripe. Your funny musical characters wouldn't let me listen to their song again and called me a weirdo. In fact, a lot of your characters were calling me names like "human", when I am in fact, a fig.
In all seriousness though, it's a great start and the music sounds wonderful! Looking forward to seeing more, especially with the interesting gameplay mechanics!
The game is very interesting. I see influence of Pokemon and Undertale. Great sounds! But I think that game has a little long intro. But it is amazing demo. Hope you'll finish the project someday.
This looks quite promising! The Undertale influences are apparent, but I think the Gameboy Pokemon aesthetic and the differences in the combat system help it stand out. The combat on its own was quite fun to figure out, I can’t wait to see in what ways the bullets can be interacted with in future fights, and what exactly it means to "show mercy". The avatar selection fakeout with one of the options being a full character with their own agenda is a pretty novel idea, and story-wise I’m very interested by the implication that Despra has already killed at least one other pacifist. The musicians' voices being the instruments they play is a neat touch, the easter eggs are fun to find, and the music is pretty good!
If there’s one major criticism I have, maybe the whole “violence vs mercy” theme is too on the nose at the moment? The way Despra just goes on and on about how pathetic pacifists are and how cool murder is actually broke my immersion a bit, almost feels like the game’s trying too hard to mimic Undertale. But then again, maybe that’s intentional, and I don’t know how exactly you could make it subtler.
I also found the easter egg where Despra crashes the game if you skip too much of her dialogue a little frustrating; mostly for the purposes of testing the demo, but I imagine it might also be an issue in repeat playthroughs and speedruns of the full game. I do like the idea of her being mad that you’re doing that, though, so maybe she could instead skip ahead to her violent phase with unique dialogue?
Finally, around halfway through the unique restart cutscene, Ally’s sprite suddenly moved downwards at startling speed and went offscreen. She wasn’t visible for any of her remaining lines, including one where her jumping SFX played, and she snapped back in place at the very end, so I imagine it’s not intentional.
Overall though, I’m excited to see how this game develops from here! Hope this feedback helps.
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback!
I'm glad you enjoyed, and that you picked up on some of the story implications! There's a lot that the demo-demo sets up for the full game, like first impressions that will be used later. For instance, I did want the "violence vs mercy" thing to be on the nose, so that 1) the player can underestimate Despra and the game in general at least a little bit, so they can be surprised for what it has to offer later and 2) I'm using the whole "violence vs mercy" thing as kind of an outdated and old concept, and this game will touch on themes of older concepts like those being obsolete (like how the whole aesthetic is based off of an outdated yet classic Pokemon gen). A little spoilery, but yeah... I'm experimenting with using those Undertale-like qualities to make a point later on.
I'll look back at Despra's easter egg, I partially wrote it in to troll speedrunners lol. And as for Ally, I knew about that bug and I thought I had fixed it... I was praying it wouldn't show up in this release but here we are!
Anyway, I hope this clears some stuff up. The next release is the actual Demo, which isn't coming soon, but it's coming nonetheless!
Very interesting, thanks for clarifying the unsubtletly was intentional! I guess that's that gripe dealt with, can't wait to see how you handle those themes!
I found the game quite interesting; it reminded me a lot of Undertale. However, I didn't really like the fact that there was a lot of text at the beginning.
I enjoyed the intro and the music, but it felt a bit lengthy; I wanted to start playing right away. In my first run, I chose the girl and was taken by surprise (I won't go into details to avoid spoilers), but I really enjoyed replaying your game.
I liked the combat a lot; it took me a while to understand how it worked, but it was really cool once I did. I also really enjoyed the music and the animations!
Congratulations on your work.!
just checked this game out! i love the music so much, it adds to the overall retro feel of the game so well while still having modern sophistication. the intro was so interesting and the combat system supports the humour and tone of the game very well! i'm not usually a fan of combat (i tend to find it boring and repetitive) but i really enjoyed the system in this game. keep up the good work!
WELL somehow i didnt suck but it was close not gonna lie
it turned out a lot better than i thought after just listening to music or maybe... am i just dumb? i probably am but i really loved the fighting like its so different and cool definetely want to try more, cant even give any feedback im not capable of this i just wanna play more when its there!!
Oh wow that was great!
The combat system is really cool! I really want to fight more enemies and see how they can attack differently!
I did die like two times but I got it and it was very satisfying. And I really liked the musical number in the beginning it was beautiful!!! (and the writing is great too)
Keep going this is seriously amazing!
Wow so amazing work!! Impressed with the intro, soo cool pretty fun and original project, also the music is so good, sounds and harmony nailing the references. Congrats and keep going!
Awesome, I played through the whole thing, lost once for skipping dialog to much, it was quite fun.
Since the game is in such early stages if development I can't really critique it. Though it has some interesting mechanics and a great visual style so i'm looking forward to what this game has in store.
The changes in when you replay the game and the fourth wall breaking reminds me of Undertale, I love the attention to detail you've put in.
Wonderful, I think I played it through to the end but I am not sure so give me a tip if I missed something. Got to the "end of demoscreen" with the boy, then tried choosing the girl first which forced you on the boy path so I guess thats it for now? If not, tell me!
Anyhow: no criticism here, wonderful music, characters and the presentation was truly top notch. I like what was shown of the combat system too, but I am guessing that it was just a small taste.
The only thing I found that you might want to alter was actually in the funny download instructions. Found a typo:
Wait... Did that old hag make download instruction too?
should be either:
Wait... Did that old hag make a download instruction too?
or:
Wait... Did that old hag make download instructions too?
So, the singing characters are the other elements? Thinking that due to the color-scheme of each character. Cant wait for Despra fanart.
Awesome, glad you liked it!
You are forced to pick the boy, but the battle will have different outcomes depending on what move you use (it will be significantly easier or harder). You will get new dialogue from Despra if you make it to the end a second time, and you get new dialogue from the singers if you try to restart the game from the home screen. And yes, they are the other elements, good eye!
I could make art for Despra, but then it would be official art, it's better if fans do it pleeeeeaaassse T-T
(click the knife on the home screen for a little easter egg...)
Hello, I played your demo and it was a unique and fun experience. I liked the name-joke and first I was searching for how to remove the L 😀. It felt like a story but once I got to use the mouse, I felt like I was really immersed in the game. It would be awesome if you could change the mouse cursor to some cross-hair. Overall, great job on creating such an original and entertaining game. I can’t wait to see more of your work.
That was quite the ride you took me on! The musical opening was lovely and what followed didn't demerit either. I love how you made the character selection an integral part of the gameplay and how you made the villain out of the discarded choice. The quirky writing suited the visual comedy really well and kept me engaged all throughout the demo. Very solid and promising overall I'm quite impressed and hoping for more soon ! Keep at it fam
Loved it! Gave me some nice nostalgic vibes mixed in with some nice music and interesting gameplay! Twists left and right kept me on my toes and had witty humor in it. Keep up the amazing work and I look forward to so so so much more!
Ahh the nostalgia it is strong with this one!
This game is absolutely flooded with charm, beautiful art and music.
I just have one tiny-small question... is it supposed to loop indefinitely when the knives are being thrown?
Yay! I'm glad you found it nostalgic and fun!
And yes, it is supposed to loop... she's quite persistent :)
I tried to put the player into a position where they would have to think on their feet to avoid defeat, without the liberty of having a "first turn"; A turn you would have to earn instead of it just being given to you, if that makes sense.
Alright! My feedback... the intro and all the music was super amusing. Plus the comedic story was interesting. The style and sounds remind me of retro games :D Also, my name was always Loser! Haha.
I had a couple issues though.
1. After picking my character and a couple lines into the girl talking, the game crashed for some reason. Second time around it was fine.
2. I died before I could figure out what to do for the fighting part?
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
1. That's an easter egg! If you skip her dialogue she warns you not to do it again, and if you continue to skip she crashes the game, so slow down when talking to her at first :)
2. Did she kill you before the "FIGHT" and "CHECK" option appeared, when she throws knives at you? You have to figure out how to use the knives to your advantage to proceed...
Hopefully this didn't hinder you from finishing the game! Please let me know if it did!
Ah, I see, she got mad at me!
I think I just panic clicked keyboard buttons and died before figuring it out. I wouldn't say this hindered me from finishing, but I do have limited time right now and decided to move on :) sorry.
The intro was very good, i really enjoyed it. When i ran the executable a windows warning popped up: "Windows protected your PC", beacuse you are not verified as a microsoft developer. The Run Anyway button is hidden, you have to first click to the more info, and the run button just appear after this. This is not frendly for users, I suggest you to write this to the download instructions.
For example this is my download instructions:
Ah okay, I didn't realize that would happen. I do this process all the time (Windows protected your PC, Run Anyway, etc.) with every game I download, so I guess I didn't see it
Glad you liked it!
Yes, its very annoying, can you move your review for my game to my game page please, I just want them in one place.
hello . it's Tarique can you tell the person who want there games to get review to contact me at the group https://tariquegamecompany.wixsite.com/mysite/group/ideas-feedback/discussion
Hey, finally got round to playing your game :)
Loved the musical intro. it did a great job of setting the tone of the game and was really well made
Trying not to spoil the *character selection screen* but I was blown away. seriously well made and felt very Undertale. I was really enjoying it and enjoyed how none of the game play was repeated.
I think your current intro is a great setup for the game. I lost the first fight at the very end because I did not blind her. The fight had lots of twists and turns that made it very exciting
Some feedback, I cant give much sorry as I simply enjoyed it and dont play these kinds of games often:
An option to skip Rebel girl's fight intro when you retry would be great. You have to go through a dozen text boxes to challenge her again. I am sure it is useful for players who are confused and trying again but I wanted to get right back in there and try again personally.
Your attack option changed to 'FAIL' on the second turn which makes sense after seeing how lame your hero is ;) but I assumed fail meant to surrender rather than you sucking. This made me try status instead which was a nice touch but ate up my second turn, Having it read something like 'FIGHT?' with the question mark could be a fun way to show how uncertain the player is of their hero's attacks while not being misleading.
The itch page, it was hard for me to understand what kind of game this was based on the page. Feels like you put passion and storytelling before selling the product since all the details I can get are story extracts and recommendations. Its great to see a more passionate presentation of the game and how you want to present your game is up to you. I think a quick summary of the game before the story extract would help me press the download button and know what I am getting into. Clearly though you are having no trouble finding players to try the game so this isn't a huge problem.
Overall no bad criticism. I really enjoyed it and am actually interested to see where it goes next. Glad I came across you and this game, Great job!
Thank you for playing and for the feedback, super glad you liked it!
I really enjoyed this.
I can definitely feel the Undertale influence here as well as Pokemon Gen 1 for the visuals.
The battle plays out like a little puzzle and it made me laugh a couple of times. Humor can be very subjective but this is just the right amount of silly to make LOTS of people laugh I feel.
Story based games face the challenge of integrating gameplay early enough and it's good you have the player do something pretty much right out of the gate since the interactivity is what makes you invested in the story.
Here's a couple of things that could be improved on:
When choosing the boy or the girl let a default cursor show up on the screen, with one of them already selected. It only appears once you press left or right and I honestly thought my game game froze for a couple of seconds.
I think I know what you're going for with the .txt files included in the game, but honestly? Your storytelling is strong enough that you can do without them. Additionally, account for hostile users. Some players simply won't open those files or read instructions.
Is the window size a design choice? I usually get grumpy when I can't resize the window, but I can see stuff popping up outside of it during the gameplay so I'm looking forward to seeing what else you got cooking here.
In conclusion: please keep working on this! I'll definitely play more when you release a new version.
Thanks! Super glad you enjoyed!
I was trying to make the game kind of silly, so it makes me happy that you actually laughed. I really hope people can make gameplay videos of this someday, so I can see them react to the experience.
So you actually saw the .txt files! While not very urgent to read, they were a last-minute decision, to add some extra character to the game. I actually forgot about them myself for a minute, so thanks for checking them out :)
I hope the window size wasn't an issue! I initially was trying to do some kind of gameboy-like size, but I sort of ditched that idea and never really thought about resizing it. Also, what do you mean by stuff popping up outside it?
Thanks again, and good luck to Cruelty is the Point!
This demo of a demo seems quite well executed. I would not be surprised if it actually get recognized by people and gained a cult following some time from now. Most character designs and music/sfx are good. There are a lot of easter eggs, and paths that you can go down, some of which are fun to stumble into (using the lower damage attach after the higher damage one was very cool), but some of which are a bit random (Why can't they just perform the song again? Most performers can perform the same song multiple times so this is a plot hole imo. Why does fullscreening/unfullscreening during the performance ruin their performance? Sure there was a notice at the start, but I did not understand why the change in fullscreen/windowed would effect the performance any way. Probably because I changed the window state, but then they waited till the end of the entire passage to complain about it, so the 'feedback' wasn't localised in time to the behaviour. Maybe fullscreening/unfullscreening should have some visible effect on their universe. Otherwise the gag feels a bit random. Maybe I am overthinking it? I am definitely overthinking it. just forget about everything in these brackets okay?)
I imagine this will be constantly compared to Undertale. The terms "Mercy" and "Pacifist" and endless fourth wall breaks come directly from or feel like references or responses to that game.
Main complaints:
The game is too short and well executed for me to find a lot to complain about, so apologies. It looks very promising
Thanks for the feedback!
- There are lore implications for why they can't perform the song again, which will be explained later in the full game (read my response to Maidelen)
- If you toggle between fullscreen and emptyscreen during the beginning of the song, you will actually delay the music note at the top more and more, until it doesn't match with the song at all (why I came up with the easter egg)
- I am fully prepared for Undertale comparisons, just like every other indie dev who wants to make a new and unique RPG lol
- I still need to flesh out that font... Gamemaker makes it look pretty bad when you scale the words up
- One of the biggest things I'm seeing in feedback is the button control; I'll look into it
- About the cult following thing, you really think so? I've pretty much dreamed of that happening to my game for a while now lol
Thanks again, super glad you enjoyed!
Hello! I like the game! the unique way of approaching the player with storyline and a core mechanics. felt like a personal approach to a game!
the Sound Effects with Musics were best fit into the gameplay in my opinion, when it’s all mixed with rpg like actions, fighting.
but the only thing that is inconvenient that i was on linux and i had to use other softwares to run this game, but that’s a minor problem.
overall game is good and i loved it, looking for the further updates:)
Hello,
first of all please forgive me for bad English
I just played it and here my feedback:
That's all my feedbacks
I hope your project is going well.
Best Regards,
Mar
Thanks for the honest feedback, Mar!
The story seems to be a point of confusion for players, and I had a feeling this would be the case going in. Don't worry about fully understanding it for now! In this early stage of development, the story is meant to not make as much sense at the start, so that it is cleared up later in the full game.
I figured the button control would be an issue... I'll probably clear it up with a menu at the start or something. To clarify:
- Whenever someone is speaking, it's the SPACE button to progress
- You won't have to click unless you're attacking, you're under attack, or you're at the startup menu (or just when there's a mouse icon)
I'm glad you liked everything else, especially the music (the fun part)! Thanks again, and I hope your project(s) are coming along as well!
So many things to say, I don't know where to start. I really liked this.
I didn't like that the concert couldn't be replayed, it was nice the "you restarted" thing but I wanted to see it again so I deleted the save file in appdata. That opening song is so good, so beautiful, it was a joy to watch. What followed after that was spectacle and surprises, though not much that explained or advanced the overall story, but I guess that's the idea of this demo of the demo.
I think I understand the things that the story is going for, they look promising and well grounded. Although I wasn't sold on that thing where it was assumed that the player wants to be a pacifist all at once, I don't think it fits much for other players. By the way, is the beginning some sort of reference to how in anime games sometimes the male avatar looks more boring than the female avatar?
There are a lot of ideas and a lot of creativity, it's short but intense. How long did it take you to make the whole demo? Planning and preparing everything, it's amazing that you did this as your first game, it must have been quite a challenge to program everything you see in the game and make it look good.
I hope you progress well with your project, I want to see it complete, I liked it a lot. Cheers.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you liked it :D
Sorry for the inconvenience with the song! I intentionally made the performance play out once (despite it actually being easier to program it playing multiple times) mostly because I was going for the idea that these characters are like real people; They work hard and are passionate (like you!), and would take some time to replicate something they worked very hard on (I imagine it like, if you finally reached a huge fitness goal, and you're out of breath and about to die but you did it, and someone's just like "okay cool now do it again" lol)
There are also lore implications for why it only plays once... stay tuned!
The story will be expanded upon in the next release, the demo! Everything in the Demo (demo) is kind of supposed to go over the player's head; There are definitely players that don't fit a "pacifist" description, but it is (wrongly) assumed that you are one due to your forced inability to retaliate (which will also be expanded upon in the demo)
About the avatars, I didn't think of it that way! I was going for a jab at the trope of how in older JRPG games (like gen 1 Pokémon) there aren't usually female options, but your interpretation also works!
This release took about a year in total to complete; I started conception last summer and now this summer, here it is! Actual development in Gamemaker started in September 2022, I think. It was quite challenging doing this on my own without any experience (I remember the sleepless summer nights lol), but I like to be challenged!
Again, I'm SO glad you and other users are enjoying my game! I'll keep working hard, and I hope Harmful Heaven progresses well too!
Wow, everything is really well thought out and formulated, you just need things to progress well for the game to flourish as it should.
God, a year, a year to make a software whose content lasts about half an hour. A lot of work for something that although it can be great it's going to be very short. I admire you for having gone through all that alone. You should get a programmer, now that you have this as a demonstration of your skills, maybe you can get one.
Please don't stop and thanks for the compliments!
Neat experience, I shall keep an eye on this.
I was on the edge of my seat. Genuinely didn't know what was going to happen next. Love the unique battle system idea and really can't wait for more.
this was genuinely a pleasant experience, keep up the good work!
Please feel free to comment, the feedback is really helping!
Epic -flith
This game is beautiful with the humor and helpful dev I hope this game will be more than a demo some day.