DP3's GIAW 9 Review

Now that GIAW 9 is over, I'll submit my feedback for the games and the scores that I gave it.
Please don't be offended if your game didn't score amazingly high, I judged all the games based on what I liked and didn't, and my thoughts on the creators themselves had no affect on the scores that I gave.

Chibi Quest 2 – Acolyte & Strike Reyhi

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :D:

Haha, I love the music and the scene for your title screen

Intro scene is awesome

Cool, I can walk diagonally.

 ;o Oh I can walk on the stove in the kitchen.

I love battling the ‘Mighty TeddyBear’

I think it’s cute how none of my friends seem to care what we’re doing and come along anyway.

First battle on world map … I lost ;_;

I love how the Inn in Toneth has maids which bow to you.

Something to bring to your attention.

Spoiler for:

Map Monster Encounters

Tofuman: “Eat of me and be healed”       I’m ok with this

Evil tyrant is plaguing the forest and causing plants to die… It’s never simple and straightforward in RPG games, is it?

 Erm, I stayed at the Inn in the mermaid village and I ended up here…

Spoiler for:

And now I can’t move either… Luckily I saved it before resting.

If I didn’t have so many potions, this battle against the water goddess wouldn’t have turned in my favour.

It may be a good idea to go over your prices for your weapons and armours, some of these don’t seem right to me.

I got an error during one of my battles.

Spoiler for:

Just when I found out that I can learn skills, I get another error ;_;

Spoiler for:

I love this battle theme you’ve got going against the Ice Goddess

Yay, Onwards to Roneth

Oh, demo over… Oh nevermind, I can still go to the Oasis

‘Omnomnomicon acquired’ … The Fudge?

Whoa!!! Just used the ‘Thunderstorm’ magic, cool animation

Sand Spirit defeated… He was pretty easy actually.

Ok, now I’ve really finished the demo

Polish: 9/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The Audio in this was simply fantastic, I loved how the battle theme would change depending on where you were and what you were fighting. The town music and dungeon music seemed to be well thought out and fit the area perfectly.
I’m very happy with this music.

The visuals were also very good, it definitely lives up to the name of the game. Everyone I talked to had a chibi looking face rather than the normal style you often see.

The towns were very well put, it looked like an actual town I would see in a pokemon game (having few places to enter but still looking like a city thanks to the sheer amount of buildings).

The dungeons were good too, the visuals were done splendidly in these areas and it definitely showed off the environment pretty well.

Playability:  7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The battle system and skill learning system that was used gave me some freedom in what I wanted to learn and when.
The battle system was very graphical and fun to use which allowed me to get carried away and battle as often as I could.

However I received a script error for both of these, so I’ve had to deduct one point.

I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that Map Monster Encounters was being used in this game; it allowed me to know when and where I would be fighting a monster, so I was never impatient when it came to any random battles.
The random battles on the world map itself were also set to a low encounter rate, so that was all fine with me.

I also loved how I could move my characters diagonally.

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

As mentioned a fair few times in the game, it is a bit cliché.
The story revolves around going on an adventure to a nearby town in order to get medicine for your grandfather, which results in failure so you go to a forest in order to get so medicinal herbs yourself, it is here that you learn that an evil tyrant has poisoned the forest and you must now collect orbs from the gods and defeat the tyrant.

Like I said, totally cliché. The story itself is fine, but in the originality factor it isn’t scoring too high for me.

Entertainment: 8/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I definitely had much fun whilst playing this game. The battles and the puzzles were very fun to sort out.

Quite a few things in this game caught me off guard (the thunderstorm animation was one of them) and overall it improved my experience greatly.

I already know by the way you ended your demo that you plan on releasing this game to the public.

It would be a good idea to give the player knowledge of how to learn skills (as it took me awhile to find out about it) and to check some of the eventing bugs that have been noted.

Overall I can’t wait until the game is finished, and I will definitely be playing the full version.

Experiment 5.2.9 - Dartdaman

Spoiler for Commenting as I play:

Playing at night to get the full horror effect

Watching and listening to this title screen, I gotta say that it looks pretty good. The BGM sounds really good as well, but the piano and strings that are used seem to clash with the beats. So watch out for those.

Well I can definitely say that that is a new one when it comes to any horror game that I’ve played. Nice intro.

Nice choice of BGM, really mixes well with the theme.

Got a rope Now I can go down that hole I found earlier.

Got the handgun and just lost 1 of my bullets thanks to an autorun event -_- Splendid…

Cool a werewolf friend

You know, it actually isn’t all that challenging to dodge these enemies.

Your grammar for this game needs some work, it’s alright, but some sentences are continued when they should have a full stop or a comma.

Demo over… That was incredibly short.

Polish: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The audio was put in well with the theme of the game, but it seemed to constantly loop without ever changing. I can think of some areas which could have done well with some different BGM. Or at least some higher or lower pitched tune of the normal BGM you were using, as that could’ve made an impact depending on how you use it.

The visuals were good for what appeared to be an abandoned science lab, but overall, I didn’t get much of a horror theme coming from it, blood splatters were virtually non-existent and the enemies didn’t look all that terrifying.

Playability: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The puzzles themselves were not very challenging (although I expect this from an early gameplay), however from the puzzles that were in the game, they seemed to be what I would expect from a horror themed game.

I do enjoy how I am able to fight back in this game, it gives a nice feeling from the usual horror created games on RPG Maker which doesn’t allow me to fight back.
It was also a great idea to limit the amount I could fight back by the amount of ammo I have on me.

However, it is not difficult to outmanoeuvre these enemies.

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Story begins with a somewhat cliché opening which involves your character going through an experiment and waking up in a cell with no memory of why he is there. Been there and done that, the story itself is not original, but the implementation has me intrigued by it.

I like that there is a werewolf character who sides with you and is your friend; it certainly puts a twist on things.

I don’t like how the plot revolves around a failed experiment which got loose and caused all these problems. It really isn’t anything new.

Entertainment: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I actually had a lot of fun shooting these monsters in the face, it was quite entertaining. This game was also not very terrifying, which I like in a game.

Horror games isn’t a genre that I particularly enjoy playing, so the less terrifying it is, the more fun I have while I’m playing it.

The werewolf friend also sparked my interest greatly.

This game was incredibly short, so I couldn’t give much feedback on it, however it has sparked my interest and I would very much like to be able to continue playing it if and when you decide to release a longer version of it.

It is not a terrifying game like ‘Cry of Fear’ or ‘Amnesia’ (subjective to my personal thoughts) so I think that I could play this game for a long period of time without needing to take a break.

The Hallowed Tower - Skaraflame

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :D:

Whoa… This BGM to your title screen is a huge turn-off

Lol, what a smartass putting Japanese text under your chapter headers.

The Fuck is a Guru-Kappa?

Whoa, holy shit dude. The inside of Marley’s house is like 4 times the size of the building. Just Whoa man.

Lol, what the hell kind of battle music is this… Haha the hell man, your game is cracking me up

I must be at least level 5 to pass?

Spoiler for:

Funny enough, now that I’m at the hallowed tower. I know what music this is. Pokemon

Lex can go on his own, me and Marley want some sexy times, yes?

Map Monster Encounters

  You got rid of the Map Monster Encounters

Aww… What the hell is this? MORE LEVELING UP

Spoiler for:

So I went to the shop after the Icy floor. Funny how I was able to buy a shit load of Life Up and Guard Up

First Boss Battle… Bring it on
Oh DUDE… The FUCK is with this BGM. I can’t fight a boss with this shit playing

Whoa… That was fucking easy

Fucking mazes man. Your mazes better not be fucking insane like the last game I played ARGHHHH!!!

NOOOO!!!! Goddammit, one of those feet shadows thing touched me. ;_;
Fuck me.

Skeletons on the map… The hell?

WTF Dude… One of your skeleton shadow monster thingy is fucking spasm-ing  all over the place. LOL

Fighting a vampire Oh cool, he even has death quotations

Now a puzzle revolving around killing mimics… I’m ok with this

“I AM GUARD TROLL”    Yes, Yes you are.
I’ve just been trolled… well Fuck you

Chapter 2

These bosses are freaking easy

Fuck, I touched the crystal. Now I gotta go ALL the way back up.

… That’s the end of the demo?  “Fair Enough” I suppose.

Polish: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Pure and simple, the town looked nice but the two houses I could enter need to be severely reduced in size.

A lot of the maps were fine otherwise, as they contributed to a dungeon feeling of the area.

The music, is just … Well, WTF?
I’ll admit that it helped make your game comical, but fucked if I’m letting you get away with doing that to Pokemon Music

Playability: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The puzzles were bloody fantastic. The only ones that I didn’t like were the one that REQUIRED me to level up. That was just time-consumingly annoying

The slippery ice part and the killing ghost looking skeleton part was awesome

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Well the story wasn’t all that great, I’m actually not too sure on what the hell it was, actually…

But wow, it was a pretty funny game to play. I found myself saying things to my computer screen which I’ve never said all that often before

Entertainment: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Yes, I had much fun with this game. Even though it was just the normal battle style scripts from Enterbrain, the battles were kinda fun too.

Overall, the puzzles, the humour, and the low encounter rate for monsters left me feeling pretty good about this game.

One thing to add would be. Why the FUCK does an assassin type female miss 75% of her fucking attacks?
Goodness, that woman needs to take some fucking accuracy training or some shit.

But yeah, release your game to the public dude. It was pretty fun

Nightmare - Zylos

Spoiler for Commenting as I play >:):

Playing at night time to get the full horror effect

Wow your logo screen is incredible; it really gave off that horror effect as well

Your title screen does the same. I’m getting that chilling effect D:

Locked in a cell, a standard way to start a horror game
These long stairs are contributing to that feeling as well.

Ah, that scared the shit outta me :'(

Locked… Of course it is… I want OUT of this damn hotel ;_;

‘Life could be a dream… Shaboom Shaboom’ haha

Went to the first floor, went to the bathroom, picked up a key, and all bathroom doors slammed shut. Please, spare my heart ;_;

God damn fridge ;_;

Damn it Zylos, I saw that scream coming, but noooo, it scared me anyway.

Running around from that ghost thing is starting to remind me of ‘Ao Oni’

As a complete and utter fluke, at the stone tablet, I merely inserted the word ‘Death’ (since that was written on one of your bottles labels), it worked

… After many minutes wasted from wandering around and puzzle solving…
I finally managed to get the god forsaken key for the elevator, and surprisingly enough, the moment I get down there, I get banging noises on the jail cell…
Lovely, like I wasn’t scared enough ;_;

End of Game

I suppose that it probably makes me sound like a dick if I said that I was glad that the game was over, but in all honesty, I’m glad it’s over because that scream screen thing you were doing whenever I touched that ghost thingy was causing my heart to race. ;_;

Anyway –

Polish:  8/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The BGM throughout the entire game was unsettling (just the way that it should be) and playing ‘Life could be a Dream’ on an old radio and having the effect of it getting louder and quieter as I moved closer and further away is something that I must give props to.

The graphics and tilesets were well put together, if I didn’t know any better, I could have thought that this game was made by a commercial team. The blood splatters and the newspaper articles were also very well put.

Playability: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I found that the gameplay seemed to revolve around keeping away from a shadow that would chase you when you’re out in the open, this is fine I actually quite enjoyed this, because it gave me the feeling of helplessness in the game.

However some of your puzzles borderline on ridiculous The idea behind them is really simple but you don’t really give much of a clue as to how to solve the puzzle.
So I spent quite a lot of time trying to solve the puzzle in regards to the legs on the animals.

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

To put it bluntly, it was exactly what I would expect from a horror game, someone dying and your character having something to do with that seems to be a main plot in a lot of horror games so it’s not exactly original.

Spoiler for Actual spoiler, don't read!:

With that being said, your character murdering someone to put them out of their misery is something I haven’t heard of before, so I’ll give some props for that plus the idea that it is only his conscience/phantom which is haunting him, not the ghost of the actual person.

Entertainment: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I’m being incredibly biased here, this game genuinely scared me a fair few times and there were other times when I felt like quitting just so that I wouldn’t have to hear anymore of that BGM.

If I was a horror junkie, I’d probably have enjoyed this game a lot more. But I’m not, so I didn’t really have all that much fun.

You wouldn’t believe how many times I took off my headphones and looked away from the screen expecting something to pop up and destroy my ears whilst giving me a heart attack.

This game gave me the same feeling I had when I played ‘Ao Oni’, so for most of this game I was expecting the shadow to randomly appear out of nowhere and cause problems.

Surprisingly she did not, and I feel really stupid for my panicking for apparently no reason.

I did like how it was never a game over if you touched her (something that really pissed me off about Ao Oni), but that scream and face always made my heart jump.

I quite liked the ending which had some pretty cool music, but overall I died a fair few times because I thought that the game was doing an autorun event, and didn’t realise that I was in control at this point.
Lighting up torches to scare away the phantom was a good idea and I thank you for implementing it

Please release this game publicly, as I know that a lot of people who play it will say that I’m a coward for being scared by this game.

Epic Quest - Manaxaus

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :):

Whoa. First thing I’m noticing is the huge size of this game.

Alright your title screen doesn’t show the name of the game. ‘Project3’ isn’t very compelling.

That intro scene was weird D: And hold on, I’ve gotta enter my name… What is this!
I don’t speak Japanese as a primary language, I can’t read this text ;_;
FUCK!!!

Looking at some of the walls in this project, you really don’t go full 3D on them.
A lot of walls don’t look right compared to the things inside the house.
It’s almost like a birds eye view, but NOT at the same time.

I got “(put logic here)”… The hell? That’s your job, not mine.

Moving left from the church leads me back to the shops rather than my home. It shouldn’t do that, correct?

Got a shovel … Got a Better Shovel

I actually like that if I walk into a cactus that it hurts my character. Pretty good.

Wow, darkness effects in the game… Not bad
The hell is this? I can’t see jack-shit

Spoiler for:

You might want to look into editing this.

Ok so I lost a battle and needed to restart -_-
Now that I’ve done that, I’ve dropped down a hole that I didn’t before and I’ve found another playable character.

Ok these monsters are starting to piss me off

OHMYGOD FINALLY a town

You wouldn’t believe the amount of crap I’ve gone through during the last 20 minutes of gameplay.

Polish: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The audio was fine.

The visuals were not. A lot of maps looked bland, and the houses gave off a weird birds-eye feeling with having the top of the walls visible, but not the pillar of the walls themselves. But having the pillar of the wall at the back of the building.

Spoiler for:

Not only that, but a lot of trees near the starting area seemed to stand out because they didn’t look right.

Spoiler for:

Also, this game seemed to be made with the Japanese version of VXA. It was a pain to see a lot of Japanese text that I couldn’t understand, so next time, please work with the English version.

Playability: 3/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Whilst I thought it was pretty cool how I could break rocks and boulders, the battles were really bad.

The encounter rate for the random battles is set way too high, not only that but the monsters are strong and usually cause a fair amount of damage to my characters.
This damage is not resolved by the piss amount of HP that is restored by cookies.

It got so bad that I needed to run from every encounter that I got, and if it didn’t succeed, I was extremely lucky if my characters didn’t die.

It was also easy to avoid Lucy, I could have easily played the entire game without recruiting her (because she was that easy to miss).

I also had to take a few points off, due to the fact that your original submission had bugs in them.

I DID however, like that walking into a cactus on the world map caused my character to hurt themselves.

Ingenuity: 3/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Aside from that fact that I can break rocks and boulders. There was nothing original about this game at all.

I have absolutely no idea what the plot of this game was supposed to be. All I know is that an earthquake of some sort happened, and my character acknowledges that he has ended up in some RPG world.

Really… That’s it. That’s all I know.

Entertainment: 4/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I really did not have fun constantly running away from the high amount of random battles that were presented to me.
The monsters were really strong compared to my own characters, which left a void of entertainment when I was unable to enter a battle without fearing what enemy I would be facing.

I also got lost half the time in this game. There doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern as to where we are going.

I don’t have much more to say about this game. I think that it requires a lot of work for it to be more enjoyable.

Magical Red Riding Hood – Mobychan & Rief

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :D:

I absolutely LOVE this title screen… That background image that’s being used looks very realistic

I actually really enjoyed this opening scene, it looked very nice

Nice way to half-hide the chests, by placing them among the trees

Oh my goodness. Haha, I can see the reference to Jomarcenter. Very nice of you to put that in

Overall, I like the scenery of the village, the woodland creatures make the place look peaceful

There is a sword in a tree? Hanta will use it now?    I’m ok with this.

D: I’m getting lost in this forest ;_;

Yes Grandmother’s house
Aww… turns out that the door is locked ;_;
Not grandmother’s house

Mantree? The hell
Also it had no death animation.

I think that this scene with Hila lacked a lot of emotion. But whatever, onwards with the journey

Ugh, again. This scene with Lobo lacked a lot of emotion.

Oh spare me a labyrinth… Anything but a labyrinth ;_;

Alright, ENOUGH WITH THESE FUCKING RANDOM BATTLES 

This labyrinth puzzle is bloody obnoxious These random battles are also REALLY pissing me off.

Yay, I switched on all the orb thingys.
Hey, what the hell that crystal still blocks my path.

AHHHH !!!!!!!
NO, I can’t take withholding my anger anymore
Fuck this labyrinth and fuck these random battles
I’m switching this off and playing again later, when I’m not so pissed off.


Alright, I have returned to continue playing. So I had a lot of pointless random battles during my last run of this game.
It seems that the game had a mapping issue, and I was unable to get to where I needed to go due to the map providing impassable areas to that location when it shouldn’t have.

I can now get past that crystal. The journey continues.

Awesome, this next puzzle was a synch to complete

VS a ‘Big Bad Witch’ … I don’t remember any witch in Little Red Riding Hood.

Holy wow, big bad witch was incredibly easy to defeat.

I really don’t want to say it again. But this scene with the witch lady lacked a lot of emotion.

Ok, inside the wolf hideout again. I gotta say, that I didn’t mind the types of monsters I was fighting before. But what the actual fuck is this?

Spoiler for:

Just… What!?

Ok, now when I need to use it. I find out that the revive skill that Hila has, doesn’t work.
It’s been set as a healing spell, not a reviving spell. This battle will not end well

Polish: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The audio for this game is beautiful. Granted most of it is the regular old RTP, but it worked well with the game. Although the transition from a peaceful forest theme to an intense sounding battle theme, is something that you may want to look into.

The visuals have me amazed actually. I hated the labyrinths, I really did. But that forest scores really high for me. The fact that I could see woodland creatures up and about IN the forest itself contributed to the fairy tale feel of the place.
Which genuinely was welcome since this IS little red riding hood.

I also appreciate the custom battlers that were used in this game.

Playability: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The puzzles in this game were pretty damn good. Pressing switches in a certain order and stepping on a panel in order to deactivate a crystal seemed to work well.
Another puzzle that required me to press switches to remove walls, and then work my back around after being teleported was also pretty cool.

BUT, the fact that these were done in a labyrinth was not cool. It was a real pain in the neck to do these puzzles, not just because of the constant lack of direction, but because of the bloody random monster encounters.
After awhile of playing the game in one of these labyrinths, I seriously had to turn off the game at the risk of pulling my own hair out.

Not just that, but some of these monsters have made me actually say out loud ‘what the actual fuck?’.
I say this in regards to the ridiculous amount of treemans and bettybats and rats that I encountered. It genuinely doesn’t look or play very well when I have eight of the exact same enemy in one battle.

I also had to deduct points because of the puzzle bug that was found in this game which required an updated version in order to continue.

Ingenuity: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Although it sounded like a good idea to make a game out of a fairy tale, the implementation was not up to standard.
Most of the scenes in this game lacked emotion, finding Hila and Lobo resulted in a very quick “let me follow you” chat.
Even when they gave reasons as to why they wanted to follow, I felt absolutely nothing from what I could see, there was quite frankly, no emotion to these characters, and that scores terribly for me.

Entertainment: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The main reason that I didn’t have much fun with this game was because of the constant waste of time in the labyrinths by way of getting lost, and then always being attacked by a never-ending and highly encountered random monster battles.

Up to the point where I needed to quit the game for the sake of not losing my temper.

There is an easy fix to the main stressing problem in this project, and that is to reduce the encounter-rate for monsters in the labyrinths by a bloody crapload. Or look into creating map monster encounters, and remove the random battle system entirely.

Overall, I liked the game, just not the gameplay, and I’d be very happy to see something else from you two.

Pulsus - Bluntsword

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :):

I like the title screen and the music that you have playing for it.
I have the option to straight away continue from one of your previous saves... nah, I wanna start a new game

This intro scene is actually very good, this music that you're using for it is really good and explaining how your character is a normal person with a normal life has been done very well.
I like how the scene begins with a few cars going down the road and then focuses on the workplace, then the apartment building, and into your actual home which shows you and your wife who is having morning sickness, then heading off towards what I think is a cafe. Very well done on this intro scene.

Oh cool I get to choose my own name

"We’ve got a report due [in a week]" ... Is this a reference to the GIAW contest?

I do enjoy how you've made nearly all text set as an autorun feature, but do try to keep these only with what my character is thinking.

Hmm... I can see a few grammar errors in this project, they're not bad so no worries, but it may be a nice idea to go over your project again if you plan to release this to the public.

D: Oh we got a problem here, I spoke with the 'Cat Lady' and the screen faded out while she was talking, and now it's not fading back in ;_;
I've had to restart because of that I wanted to complete this sidequest, so I opened your project and changed the event to fade back in (Lucky you didn't encrypt the game, otherwise I couldn't have done that).

D: Now when I enter this place, my character gets stuck in the door and I can't move anywhere... ;_; restarting again.

Spoiler for:

I don't know where this was supposed to transfer me, so I can't fix it.

In this same area, I can walk on the plants... I don't think I should be able to do that.
;_; Now when I try to return to the stairs area, I get stuck in the doorway just like before. Another restart.

Due to multiple restarts being made, I've decided to stay away from the apartment buildings.
You've also got many bugs besides those that I have noted, I can walk on a few cars and I don't even know what to say for this.

Spoiler for:

Now when I've left another apartment building, I've come out onto what appears to be a test map.

You've done some pretty good eventing to get the space shuttle effects and movements that you have done, the space station definitely looks interesting to say the least.

D: These monsters are epic difficult, some healing items would do wonders here.

I seriously can't get past this place, these monsters are crazy difficult, and they dodge my attacks quite often

Ahh, finally after restarting the whole game and playing again, I managed to keep all three alive past this place.


Nice Ending, and it even came with a cliff-hanger

Polish: 8/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The audio that was used in this game was superb, it fitted in with the scenes and context perfectly, Not much else to say for that really.

The graphics that were used also seemed to fit the game very well, there was quite a lot of dead space in this game, but it wasn't terrible.

Playability: 4/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

This game has a seriously high amount of bugs, I've had to restart many times just because my player ended up in a location where he couldn't move and others where he couldn't return outside (due to no doors on the elevators or stairs), and I even ended up in a test map.

It seems to me that only the main story eventing has been focused on, and even then I had to restart a fair amount of times because the monsters kept dodging my attacks and killing my characters.

Ingenuity: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I felt that it was nice to play as a normal person who has a pregnant wife and was merely doing research which ended up becoming involved in this operation. Of course that doesn't mean that this story is original, it has been done before, this was just friendlier towards what I personally like seeing in a game - Emotion.

Entertainment: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

This game seemed to be more like an interactive novel during a lot of the main story, it was nice and it tells a great story, but entertainment wise – I was prepared to play a game not watch a 2D film and have some control over what happens in it.

When it came to the battles, the monsters seemed to over-power me and throughout multiple restarts I eventually managed to get past them.

I think that this game could’ve been far more successful if the bugs were filtered out. I liked what I managed to play, but grew tired of the over-powered enemies.

The story seemed somewhat compelling even though it is not the most original story I’ve seen. The cliff-hanger that you left at the end of your game has me intrigued.

If you do plan on releasing this game to the public, I strongly recommend that you go over your project again and fix up the bugs and grammar errors that I reported.

There are probably more things that could be said, but I think that is enough

Major Arcana – Yuyubabe, Dr. MC & Pacman

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :D:

I like the background to the title screen, it’s looking pretty awesome

Oh no, please don’t make me play as Irock ;_; … Oh godammit, looks like I am ;_; ;_; ;_;

I’m not sure how much of that intro scene I actually understood.

A lot of people in this town seem to be pretty unfriendly :'(

D: A cow named Natasha… I had a completely different idea of what ‘Natasha’ would be…

That rogue character seems to literally disappear into thin air when he is escaping.

Hmm… The game seems to have frozen here. Nothing is happening and I can’t move my character.

Spoiler for:

I changed the event move route to ‘skip if cannot move’, and that seemed to fix this.

It’s the simple things that make me love this game.

Spoiler for:

Nice one on the timer for the tea, I was worried about whether or not I’d make it .-.

Pacman is a smartass even in the game

Learned the skill ‘Hoe Toss’ ………… Ugh, Harvest moon fanfiction here we come :L

Haha, Dr. Sword never fails to amuse

Warp panels!    Nice

An Epic loss to the three headed dog … Goddammit

Why does this Inn keeper not respond to me when I interact with them… I need to heal my characters

It seems that you had the Inn event set up but it just wasn’t working for some reason.
I moved the Inn keeper out of the area she was being confined in and around the normal people; it seems that I can talk to her here

Acquired ‘Insanity’ … It just gets better and better for Irock doesn’t it

Scrolling map … Hey I see you red robed lady … Oh scrolling map again

Now I’m stuck trying to figure out who Ashley is supposed to reference… Is it Acolyte?
That’s the only person coming to mind.
Edit: Well since Acolyte has changed her username to Ashley, looks like I was correct.

Surprisingly, I had no monster encounters whilst travelling with Ashley

Aww… Game over

Polish: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I enjoyed the visuals being displayed. The mapping was excellent and overall things looked good

The audio on the other hand needed some extra thought put into it. For the most part the audio being used was fine, but that battle theme that was being used was much louder than the rest of the audio being used and it constantly hurt my ears when it popped on.

Aside from the general loudness of it, it didn’t feel much like battle music to me, it feels more like BGM that you would use for a powerful scene (E.G just about to save the world after beating the final boss).

After a fair few fights, I grew so disdained with this BGM that I went and changed it for my own custom battle theme.

Playability:  5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I’ve had to drop a few points due to the fact that your original submission had bugs in them.

And even though the submission that I played had supposedly fixed some bugs, I managed to find some with the Inn keeper and some of the shop keepers.

I kept on getting poisoned inside the library which forced me to keep on going to the Inn to heal myself. I couldn’t buy any antidotes because the shop keepers weren’t replying when I attempted to interact with them.

However some of the warp pads and the fact that Modern Algebra enjoyed randomly teleporting me made my experience a little more enjoyable as it meant less walking

Ingenuity: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Had I not learned a thing or two about astrology from Yuyubabe prior to playing this game, the story and plot of this game probably would’ve went right past me.

However since I have some knowledge of the meaning of this game, it made some sense to me.

Starting off as someone who is portrayed as a fool living under the influence of a card he has yet to acquire has sparked my interest. But even better is how the characters life is affected by the next card he must acquire.

I’ve never seen an RPG game on astrology before, so this seemed rather original to me if not simply out there in regards to storyline.

The fact that some of these characters appear to represent members on RMRK has contributed to the originality feeling.

Entertainment: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I was very pleased with the amount of humour in this game (It even had a “Smashing” reference ), Pacman being a smartass was pretty cool too.

Aside from the humour however, there wasn’t much in this game to keep me entertained, it was mostly about being a broke-ass who needed to collect cards for money.

Humorous as that may sound, travelling through dungeons with enemies who would constantly poison me, forcing me to run all the way back to town because I couldn’t use any antidotes was NOT fun.

The Battle BGM contributed to that no fun factor, I was basically holding my ears for a fair amount of time until I decided to just use my own music to balance it out (which did increase the fun I was having somewhat, but I can’t really increase points for something that I did myself).

Overall I think that this game has a great story going for it, but some of the bugs need to be sorted out.

I’m looking particularly forward to seeing if any updates are made to this game, as I would like to continue this story. However I also strongly suggest that you revise the battle theme that you’re currently using. I know that Pacman is good with music and I’m sure that he probably has a more appropriate Normal Battle Theme.
In case you’re interested in what I replace the Battle Theme music with…

I replaced it with this:


On that note, Major Arcana made me think that this was a game similar to Majora’s mask on first thought, simply because of the title.

The Wanderer - Lethrface

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :D:

The title screen is not bad I think it could’ve looked much better if you had the time to put in a more custom looking title screen (don’t worry, I understand with only a week to do things).

Nice first battle, I like how the character talked after the victory scene.

D: Please for goodness sake don’t force me to read this horrible text (Bandits Speech) for any normal people in this game ;_;

Cool, met Shadow

Huh, well the old man and those people seemed to walk straight towards the main bandit leader… Yeah I’m not seeing any old man and friends here; did they somehow manage to slip by these three, cause I’ve got my doubts on that.

Nooo ;_; Don’t leave Shadow :'( I need a friend.

‘It would be stealing if you opened this chest’ … I don’t care, gimme that item

I actually quite like talking to the NPCs in this town

Amulet of John – Description: “Prevents the wearer from gaining experience” … now why the hell would I want my characters NOT to gain experience

One of the guards on the bridge is sleeping whilst standing, you can get that effect if you set a ‘directional fix’ on the event so that it doesn’t face me if I talk to it from the sides.

Yaaayy Shadow has returned

Oh man this cave is dark ;_;

Ok these random battles are starting to annoy me now

 This ‘Demon Familiar’ is over-powered; actually probably not, but the stun effect that it has needs to be removed, it’s causing a giant issue in regards to beating the bloody thing.
It’s preventing me from moving at least one of my characters at a time, which results in constant healing and no offensive.

That’s the seventh time I’ve lost to this thing thanks to that freaking paralysis effect.
Am I seriously that unlucky?

Ahhh!!! Finally that little prick dies

Aww… Game over

Polish: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

As only the RTP was used for the audio, I cannot give more constructive feedback besides – it mixed in well with the areas that my player was currently in.

The visuals were good though, of course I expected the desert to be pretty bare and unattractive, the bandit camp looked pretty nice. The town did too

But overall, I loved the effect of darkness that I got whilst I was in that cave.

Playability: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The raw challenge of the game is something that I loved about it, the monsters were strong , which meant that I needed to grind levels in order to continue.

However, the ‘Demon Familiar’ was a huge pain in the ass, and I was constantly unlucky and getting paralysis effects from it.

The options on how to get the guard captain drunk is certainly welcome though

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I liked the idea that your character was a lone wolf, a ‘stranger’ to be precise. I really enjoy games and stories like that, it provides much character development; which is something that I did not see much of in this demo; all we really know about the main character is that his name is Mikhael and his daughter has been kidnapped.

Expanding on that, I liked the idea of an assassin/rogue type character joining the lone wolf, however her personality gave off the impression of someone who is very needy, especially since an assassin/rogue type is generally a lone wolf themselves.

However those are just my first impressions, and if the story continues; I may just be surprised.

Entertainment: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

It was pretty fun to play as a character who was very direct with everyone; the chatting done in this game kept my interest maintained on a higher level.

The battles weren’t bad either; the shooting animation looked pretty nice, and the monsters seemed powerful enough to be a challenge if they weren’t defeated quickly.

I think that this game has been a job well done, I like a lot of things about it.

I hope that this game gets an update to it, and I’d be glad to give that update another playthrough.

Chakra - Eternimus

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :):

That is a damn nice background for your title screen

Cool, given the choice of being a male or female, good.

Ok, this house looks a little bare on the inside, and whoa! That cake is only half on the table    D:

Wow, the house didn’t look very appealing, but the buildings in this town look very nice… Well the insides of them do anyhow.

The fact that no one is around and this suspenseful music is playing pleases me

Oh please don’t tell me I need to touch all of these crystals ;_;

I touched all the crystals… Now what?

Alright, I’ve been stuck on this crystal puzzle for 10 minutes
I want what’s in that damn chest; it better be worth my trouble for this…

Ok screw it, I’m gonna have to cheat for this one.

Now that I’ve completed the damn puzzle, I look at it and I wonder … How the hell was I supposed to figure that out in the first place, there was absolutely no clue as to how to solve this, and looking at the lit up crystals, it doesn’t spell anything either.
Was this a completely random puzzle thrown together?

Huh, why did I face a dragon and have some random person say “I don’t think I can run from this one” … Who the hell just spoke?

Why does this dragon never die?

About freaking time it died

… So I talked with a statue in the desert castle place, Demo Over?

Your project shows a lot more maps than I actually visited; did I miss half the story somehow?

Polish:  6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

The audio didn’t seem to fit the locations very well (there were a few times it did however). The battle theme also seemed way too powerful for the weak enemies I was encountering.

The visuals were not bad; the town could use some extra decorations to make it look somewhat more vibrant, however the insides of the buildings in that very same town looked very nice.

Playability: 5/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Aside from your crystal network puzzle, there really wasn’t much challenge to anything in this game.

When it came to the crystal network puzzle, there was no clue on how to solve it and after 10 minutes of trying, I was eventually forced to open the project files and cheat in order to get past this puzzle.

This can easily be fixed by adding a simple clue to help solve it, or you can skip the clue entirely and add a clicking sound if I turned a correct crystal on. Simple things like that can help build a game.

The monsters themselves were a huge pain in the ass, the slimes and bats weren’t a problem, but the spiders/arachnoids were a huge problem, they outnumbered me greatly and if I couldn’t escape on my first try, I was generally screwed.

After beating the dragon, my health and mana stayed the same without recovery.
This left me with less than 50HP and spiders in every single direction I could possibly head off into.

Ingenuity: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I didn’t understand much of what was going on, in particular was the reason why there doesn’t seem to be anybody on the planet.

I did like the fact that your character himself appears to be from another world, referencing things that don’t seemed to be all that common on this world (E.G a Handgun).

Entertainment: 6/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

This game was kinda so-so for me. It wasn’t all that entertaining to play on its own. The random monster encounters were frequent (a suggestion to lower the encounter rate a little bit) and when I was attacked by a spider of any form, it usually resulted in me either being poisoned or getting a game over, which was extremely un-fun.

I eventually got lucky and was able to escape enough battles to make it to the end of the demo.

The dragon was also a pain to fight, it’s far more powerful than what my character was equipped to fight against, and I ended up using most of my healing items just to beat it.

   

I don’t really have much more to say about this game other than: I think that the creator needs to playtest some more and really pay attention to what is being created/used.

Some of the enemies are ridiculously tough, and the crystal network puzzle would’ve been next to impossible to figure out had I not been able to open the project and find the connection myself.

A less powerful sounding battle theme for your normal monster encounters would also be a good idea too.

Archaeology / Dig Moar! – NAMKCOR, Queen Gracie & Malson

Spoiler for Commenting as I play :):

Cool, I love this title screen. Very catchy music

This is the best intro scene out of all the entries, I am very very pleased with this

Option for boy or girl, awesome Oh I can even pick my own name too

Hiring mercenaries. I think I’m in love with this game

  Map Monster Encounters, I am deeply in awe at this game. Having fun breaking things? Yes, yes I am

At first I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do in this dungeon, but finding that warp point has made me realise what I’m supposed to do.

So I’m starting to get the feeling that since I’m on a timer here, avoiding battles is something I should be doing. Ok but if I get caught in a battle and choose to escape, the monster still moves at the exact same time that I do and I get getting involved in that same battle.
Alright, so next time set a wait timer on the monster so I have some time to get away from it if I choose to escape from it.

Ah Exactly what I was just talking about happened to me. I got caught with low health and the escape forced me to eventually get hurt which made me lose the battle.
Not to worry though, I’m back at camp

Damn you for disabling save I don’t want to go through that entire dungeon again if I lose to this guardian   D:

Why doesn’t this guardian Fucking DIE I’m almost out of time

Alrighty, after dying and buying some items then returning to fight this bloody thing, I finally won Got the Sands of Time (Prince of Persia?)

Ok went to the next tower on the map, I didn’t know that walking in puddles would hurt me. What the hell?

Whoa dude, the guardian of the ‘Moderately Insane Health Block’ was much much easier than the guardian of the desert place.

Hehe, got to the raining temple place, I spent the last 3 minutes splashing in the water… no kidding

:'( I lost against the guardian of this temple…
Redo

Oh my goodness YES 4th time I fought him, and I won   Got the Brownbeard’s stout.

I love the weather effects that you’ve set up for these temple locations.

Whoa, platform changing orbs in the Ice Temple?

FUCK I pressed a switch in one the levels, and now I’m stuck. Goddamit, teleporting back. I spent a lot of money on these mercenaries… Fuck

Now when I got to that same floor, there was no bridge at all… The Fudge?

Oh I get it, it’s a puzzle connecting every floor, ok

So, you solve the puzzle by not switching the orbs unless you absolutely have to? Interesting

Finally!!! I got the last relic


Huh!? But hey, I got no ‘End of Game’ scene. And I don’t see anything different about the game.
Am I finished? Or am I missing something?

Polish: 8/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I absolutely LOVED the music in this game, I also liked how it never changed for the battle scenes either, but still sounded really nice.

The visuals were also fantastic, the custom battlers look very very nice and the mapping skills were simply superb.

Everything was just so nice about this game

I especially liked the weather changes when I entered a certain region.

Playability: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I really had fun constantly knocking rocks and breaking them.
It was really cool to break rocks and have a chance of getting some money out of it, or creating spikes for you to step on that will hurt you.

The battles were fairly challenging as well, I didn’t even count the amount of times that I lost a battle; but not once did it agitate me to lose a battle, in fact my reaction to losing a battle was just me going ‘aww… ’

Also, Map monster encounters

I also really enjoyed the option to take mercenaries with me, having the choice between faster digging, more money, or better protection really made this a tough choice since I needed money, needed protection and needed faster workmanship so that the protection does a better job of protecting.

Having a timer set in the dungeon themselves which also counts down when I’m in battle as well, made me try to get things done quickly.

I did have to take some points off because of the bug which was fixed after the contest deadline was hit.

Ingenuity: 7/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

Story-wise, this game didn’t really hit it for me.

Originality is what I must applause though. How many games are there that are so simple in design, yet offers so much fun?

Entertainment: 8/10

Spoiler for Reasons:

I really really enjoyed playing this game. This game would do wonders for me if I was ever under stress (A nice thing to keep in mind next time I have a lot of work to do ).

Mostly it was probably the simplicity of the game and the music that was used to back it up.

Also, no matter how many times I lost a battle in this game, I never became pissed off with it.

Besides that, I really can’t figure out what I loved so much about this game, I just loved it

As a little tidbit that I think you should look into. Escaping from monster battles forces me to rebattle them and escape from them several more times before I can actually escape. The moment that a battle has ended, the monster starts moving at the same time that I do, and this forces a rebattle until eventually I’ve moved into another square (which takes awhile at this point).
I’m pretty sure that you know how to fix this already, so I won’t tell you how to do it.

Also something else to add. In your dungeons, it’d fit well with your story if we found some bones laying around on the maps.
You know, due to many people seeking the fortunes in there and never returning. Some bones would work for that.

Overall, I’m really happy with this project. The graphics are lovely, the music is substantially awesome and the gameplay is such a stress reliever

Epic Quest - Manaxaus
blahblahblah

You missed the entire point of the game.

Whoops, you may have gotten a few things mixed up on mine. It's about Tarot, not Astrology. But close enough xD I think I've told you a bit about it, too!

I was pretty pleased with your review. It made me feel pretty good about the game, because I was being awfully bummed over it earlier lol D:

I'm glad you had fun with our game.

I hate to critique your critique, but its seems like your ingenuity scores are a bit harsh. I was expecting as much from our game, as it was meant to be cliche, but it seemed like you downgraded others simply for making use of common story elements. Just remember if you do any more judging: Tropes aren't bad.

Thanks for the feedback on the game.  It's pretty detailed to help me see what I should do but I do have a couple comments.

The Amulet of John is actually given to allow people to play a level 1 play-through if they choose (my friend John wanted the option, hence the name of the amulet).

The difficulty of the boss was tweaked only so slightly...I actually have only died twice to him in playtesting lol.  The main strategy for him was to use Shadow's Vanish and have Mikael soak up most of the damage while shadow heals with healing potions (I personally bought about 20-ish from the town)

Yeah, it's pretty short and would have loved to do more to it but I had to stop where I was at or else I would have had something that felt even more incomplete even if it was slightly longer thanks to the little actual freetime I had to work on the game (the girlfriend and I rarely spend time together due to her job schedule so I take it when I can get it lol)

Now that I've got a bit more experience with scripting in vx ace, there will be a bit more that I plan on adding to it.  One of the major things I'll be doing is making it side-view since I have more time to work on graphics to use with it.

Shadow also does have a very "odd" personality.  Her backstory is the best way to explain why she is how she is but it will contain spoilers for the next scene that I planned out for the game.

Spoiler for:

Shadow has a very curious personality and her ability to sneak about helped her as a child when it came to things like finding hidden christmas gifts or any number of things that a kid could get in trouble with.  Unfortunately, her curiosity ended up getting her kidnapped by a man she was following.  She spent a few years locked up, confused and scared and eventually, as much as her curiosity got her in trouble, her curiosity and ability to hide got her out of trouble.  She managed to find a way to pick the locks on the chains she was locked up to and hid in the shadows until the man who kidnapped her came into the room to give her her food.  The man was confused and wondering where she had gone and she snuck out of the room behind him. 

Shadow returned home but had found that her family had already moved out. In order to feed and care for herself, she would steal food and pickpocket people and one day a man that she had pickpocketted caught her.  He was actually a professional theif and took her in and taught her the "trade."  For years she wanted nothing more than to have a family and the man slowly became more of a father figure to her.  One day, her new father and her were in the home of a wealthy politician. Her "father" was spotted and shot, leaving Shadow to narrowly escape without being spotted.

Losing what family she had, she continued the "family trade" and eventually found herself doing assassin work, high risk thefts and body-guard duty.  She can come off cold sometimes and her curiosity is still a major personality trait but she also grows attached to people quite easily, probably from a desire, deep down, to find the family that she never had.

Epic Quest - Manaxaus
blahblahblah

You missed the entire point of the game.

I think the point of the game was to do some epic adventuring with no real purpose behind it.

Whoops, you may have gotten a few things mixed up on mine. It's about Tarot, not Astrology. But close enough xD I think I've told you a bit about it, too!

I was pretty pleased with your review. It made me feel pretty good about the game, because I was being awfully bummed over it earlier lol D:

My mistake...
In any case, I had a vague idea of what what happening, so thank you for that.

Also I'm glad that you feel better about your game now

I hate to critique your critique, but its seems like your ingenuity scores are a bit harsh. I was expecting as much from our game, as it was meant to be cliche, but it seemed like you downgraded others simply for making use of common story elements. Just remember if you do any more judging: Tropes aren't bad.

I tried not to but I guess that in the end I couldn't help commenting on it.
It's ok though, everyone got that factor in their scores, so no one was really disadvantaged by any aspect that had been done before.

I will keep this in mind if I'm ever judging again though

Shadow also does have a very "odd" personality.  Her backstory is the best way to explain why she is how she is but it will contain spoilers for the next scene that I planned out for the game.

Spoiler for:

Shadow has a very curious personality and her ability to sneak about helped her as a child when it came to things like finding hidden christmas gifts or any number of things that a kid could get in trouble with.  Unfortunately, her curiosity ended up getting her kidnapped by a man she was following.  She spent a few years locked up, confused and scared and eventually, as much as her curiosity got her in trouble, her curiosity and ability to hide got her out of trouble.  She managed to find a way to pick the locks on the chains she was locked up to and hid in the shadows until the man who kidnapped her came into the room to give her her food.  The man was confused and wondering where she had gone and she snuck out of the room behind him. 

Shadow returned home but had found that her family had already moved out. In order to feed and care for herself, she would steal food and pickpocket people and one day a man that she had pickpocketted caught her.  He was actually a professional theif and took her in and taught her the "trade."  For years she wanted nothing more than to have a family and the man slowly became more of a father figure to her.  One day, her new father and her were in the home of a wealthy politician. Her "father" was spotted and shot, leaving Shadow to narrowly escape without being spotted.

Losing what family she had, she continued the "family trade" and eventually found herself doing assassin work, high risk thefts and body-guard duty.  She can come off cold sometimes and her curiosity is still a major personality trait but she also grows attached to people quite easily, probably from a desire, deep down, to find the family that she never had.

Well now I can see why she has that type of personality. I hope that you managed to slip that backstory in your updated game somewhere

Epic Quest - Manaxaus
blahblahblah

You missed the entire point of the game.

I think the point of the game was to do some epic adventuring with no real purpose behind it.

Parody.

Nice reviews, DP3.
Their all perfectly equal in terms of how you voted on each of the elements of games.
Dang, I should've joined GIAQ 9. 

Nice reviews, DP3.
They're all perfectly equal in terms of how you voted on each of the elements of games.
Dang, I should've joined GIAW 9. 

I'm definitely entering the next one. I'd be happy to have you team up with me if you feel like entering that one at that time.

Thanks for the review man! Yeah, pacing and bugs seem to be my weakest area.

Seem of the difficulty comes from lack of items.  The vending machines are where you get all health items from the game. I know that was never explained well.  Also if you can complete the side quests (which were so buggy I understand that was difficult) there we several items to be gained there.

Thanks for your critique of my game and for being a judge! I really appreciate the feedback.

Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed our game.  It was a bit of a niche design, but I was hoping some of the judges would like it.

That being said, there really is no "game end" screen, because even after you find all 20 relics, you could keep dungeoning if you just want to for the fun of it.  I'll refine the game a bit to let you know when you've found them all, and I may have to revise the tent map to make it more clear that there are 20 relics in total.

Thank you for your feedback. I will address your concerns.

Spoiler for:

The Crystal Room:
When you enter the ground floor of the library, the characters mention "The room arranged oddly" or "That's a lot of tables." done that way to draw attention to the layout of the room you just stepped in.
If you go downstairs and touch the crystals that are where the seats are, you unlock the chest.

Also the encounter rate has was untouched, but healing items are more abundant, and poison no longer persists. Thank you for your time.

Spoiler for Quote:

Thanks for the review man! Yeah, pacing and bugs seem to be my weakest area.

Seem of the difficulty comes from lack of items.  The vending machines are where you get all health items from the game. I know that was never explained well.  Also if you can complete the side quests (which were so buggy I understand that was difficult) there we several items to be gained there.

Thanks for your critique of my game and for being a judge! I really appreciate the feedback.

After I fixed the fade-in screen for the cat lady, the relative didn't respond positively about my success when I went back to her, she just said the same "she is here...", I didn't pay it much attention after that.

I was not aware of the vending machines giving items.

Do not worry too much about the bugs in your game, I know that some of them are hard to spot.
At my Uni, I volunteer to playtest other peoples games and report bugs. That has become a habit of mine, in that I actually go out of my way in some games just to find bugs in them.

If you would like some help with fixing your project, I'm fairly good with eventing and wouldn't mind helping

Spoiler for Quote:

Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed our game.  It was a bit of a niche design, but I was hoping some of the judges would like it.

That being said, there really is no "game end" screen, because even after you find all 20 relics, you could keep dungeoning if you just want to for the fun of it.  I'll refine the game a bit to let you know when you've found them all, and I may have to revise the tent map to make it more clear that there are 20 relics in total.

Yeah it was different from the other games I played, I quite enjoyed it.

I didn't continue playing after I got the 4 relics, I don't really think that my opinion would've changed if I did, so I hope that's fine.

If you make those changes and fix the little escape error, I think that you've got a completed game ready for people to play.

I did a recording of the escape bug in action so that you can see what I mean, it takes a few battles before I can truly escape.

Spoiler for Youtube Video:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJAsFtD3VY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJAsFtD3VY</a>

Thank you for your feedback. I will address your concerns.

Spoiler for:

The Crystal Room:
When you enter the ground floor of the library, the characters mention "The room arranged oddly" or "That's a lot of tables." done that way to draw attention to the layout of the room you just stepped in.
If you go downstairs and touch the crystals that are where the seats are, you unlock the chest.

Also the encounter rate has was untouched, but healing items are more abundant, and poison no longer persists. Thank you for your time.

Alright then
I still think that it would be good to add a clicking sound to the crystals if I touched the correct one.

Yeah, I knew what the bug was as soon as I was made aware of it, it's been fixed.  I have also rebalanced the enemies to make them less of a pain in the ass, and increased the gold you get, and the time you get per dungeon.

Overall I think I made the dungeon-grind a bit too much, so I scaled it back.

Alright then
I still think that it would be good to add a clicking sound to the crystals if I touched the correct one.

I considered that to begin with, but then that lets the player trial-and-error it to brute force their way through the puzzle. I don't know that it would make the game better.

And your comment about the maps from before: You didn't miss anything. There are so many maps and such because the game actually has 16 characters (8 classes, male or female), with 8 variable story lines. But I knew there would be no way I could finish that much in a week. So I changed a few flags and made it a small prologue, which was more manageable. Now that the judging is over, my new build has the intro event reset and you can select your character. Just wanted to clarify that you didn't miss it.