You've made a fine game so far, Regi, and I'd like to applaud you on that. Although I nearly killed a few people trying to get past certain points, I'd think that difficulty is this game's strongest suit. Though the puzzles themselves aren't very difficult to figure out, the execution is the tough part. I much prefer this when it comes to these sorts of challenges than standing still for hours wracking my mind trying to figure out what it is I'm supposed to do.
Your mapping is fantastic. My favorite map by far was the mining village. It looked beautiful and still made sense, which is the end-all-be-all to mapping. A couple of minor bugs I noticed:
-In the shortcut, it is possible to get stuck inside one of the rocks. I had no idea where I was or how I got there, but by the time I found myself I was in the bottom corner wall piece. I wasn't able to replicate that situation, though.
-In the forest while you're collecting wood, there's a little cliff/dip towards the northwest section. One of the tiles there has a strange passability, and so you can walk under it and into that little dip. There's nothing major there it seems, but just as a note.
-There's only one chapter transition picture, so I was a little surprised when I suddenly got to the end.
As I stated before the difficulty of the puzzles and the fights is the strong point here, but there were a couple little nuances that I had/found with some of them:
-The fight against Liefka is a little difficult to figure out, but the problem here isn't that, it's that you'll have to do the surfing part over again each time you die (and I died a lot on Liefka because I'm horrible at these kinds of games). Also, this isn't that big of an issue, but it seems odd that no matter how well you do on the surfing portion you can't outrun this tree thing.
-If you get stuck on something during the surfing part and there's an object to either side of you, it's impossible to get unstuck. Here's a shitty ascii diagram to demonstrate what I meant:
|
|
|
x |
- - -
|
I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, though, so take that comment as you will. It mostly means that I am bad, but if there was supposed to be a way to get unstuck, I couldn't figure it out.
-If you don't talk to Aluxes with Elea as the displayed member, you won't get her Gust ability. I found this out the hard way when I got to the point which required Gust and I switched to her and found that I had a Lantern skill instead.
-Though I don't think you can help it, the bridge-boat escape sequence is a little laggy, so I found it a little tough to dodge the arrows. I barely made it out alive
-For whatever reason the southwest path in the forest is blocked off until you get the wood from the northwest. I feel like there shouldn't be a "logical" reason for this restriction. Similarly, I feel like the log could've been chopped down with the pickaxe with similar success, but I understand that this ordering is necessary in order to trigger the Liefka fight.
Other than these little things, though, the gameplay is spot on and I'm sure will only get better once the CMS starts working.
I do feel that the characters need a little more shaping up, though. It's difficult to tell what plans you have in store for them at the moment or how they're already developed in your head given the small sample space, but I haven't gotten a real "distinct" or "unique" feel from any of the characters yet. From the demo we can really only see the cursory descriptions given in the main topic, and so if the storytelling is to be one of your main emphases, then the complexity level of the characters needs to be heightened. Doing so will lead to a more vivid cast that both looks and feels less "stock." A few individual comments about the characters introduced so far...
-Marcus is a little frustratingly naive. This frustration mostly comes from the scene where Tara heals Wayne's leg. It's true that his ego is downtrodden after losing his parents and being sold off into slavery, etc., but you would think he would at least have something of a mind of his own, a "spinel core"-d (I am so so sorry I really had to do that). He doesn't even know this Tara person, and though he has to be thankful that she healed Wayne's leg, why would he just let himself take the fall so easily?
-Elea has no reason to invite Marcus to come join her, even if she accidentally stumbled into his room that night. It seems odd that she would just randomly pull him out and then have a sit down lunch with him. Although Marcus is sucker enough to accept her invitation, this isn't a strong enough reason in my opinion for him to want to help her to this extent. I'm not sure if I'm really making sense here, as it's a little difficult to put into words, but say for example it was Marcus's fault that Aunt Thelma got taken away. This creates a stronger motive for Marcus to even want to go help in the first place. To contrast, how it appears to me right now is "I don't know you, but I'll go with you to rescue your Aunt who I don't know any better and probably got taken by fault of her own actions, and despite the fact that these are soldiers, probably well-trained, I will put my life at stake in order to help you. Say, what was your name again?"
-I'm not sure how Marcus isn't more angry at Wayne for coming along. He made him promise that he would stay at the mining village, and his excuse for leaving was just that he was tired of mining, despite his having the similar "slave trade" circumstances. This isn't a big deal, though. I just would've liked to see Marcus not be so passive in this situation.
-This isn't a problem, but I'm still frustrated that I don't know a thing about the general from the beginning. Grrr
Fantastic work so far, though. I'm expecting nothing but good from the future chapters.
