Looking for someone to review my game~

(I apologize if this is in the wrong section...I don't know where else to put it! ^^;; )

Hello! I am looking for anyone who would be interested in doing a review for my game, Touhou Fantasy, written or LP. The game has been ongoing for nearly 4 years now (it was recently patched up to version 1.095 for beta4), and soon will be ready to be worked on again after a 4 month break (which I honestly needed, but I digress). If anyone is interested, do drop me a line, either here or in PM! All links will be at the bottom of the page.


If I need to add more details or descriptions about the game or the review (I don't think I NEED to for any review?), then feel free to ask away. I hope to have at least someone to review it! I currently have someone doing a LP of it (been ongoing for the past 1 1/4 years now).


Please note that the game IS still a beta, and is only 50% done. And yes, I'm well aware that the starting areas aren't exactly the best (beta1 dungeons in this case), but I promise that after that, it does get much better.




Game Page (Warning: Game is roughly 1 GB total! Get all parts for Beta4 Full Version, then apply the RECENT update patch only to the main folder. Music is separate as well IIRC?
If you cannot get to the game page, then let me know and I'll put the Mediafire link instead): http://rpgmaker.net/games/3758/

For those interested in seeing a currently ongoing LP of the game: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL74BB3C5712CB1984

For those interested in seeing the entire game, done by myself: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2A340BD36DA6C2FB

It might be worth telling people how big the file is, and roughly how long they will need to invest if they are to play through it to review it. It's not a particularly short game, if I remember correctly.
It might also be worth making a complete single file to download with everything that they need for this purpose. Nothing more irritating to some than having to figure out which files are needed just to get started with the game.

In fact, I can do the time requirement and give a kind of "pre-game" review.

Looking through the LPs and making a rough calculation: The first one is over 11 hours long. That's quite long. In comparison to most games today, that's really long. Your own LP, however, is incredibly long at over 30 hours. I'm not going to watch them to see whether you are just taking your time or are getting through at a reasonable pace.

No matter which of those two it is, it's way too long, even for a hard core gamer. You'd have to have some amazing game design and writing in there to keep someone hooked for even a few hours. And at 50% done? I'm not surprised you feel like taking breaks, and why it's taken 4 years to get this far. That's well over 60 hours, if you just double up the current play time. I'd expect to play a game for that long if I'm done with the story, and am max-statting for sake of it, or perhaps there's a really badass super boss in there to beat.

And if those early maps and designs aren't that great by your own judgement, I don't know whether you will get someone to give you the type of review you want. If you know those areas aren't greatly designed, you need to go back and redesign them now rather than at the end.

I can understand that you can be passionate enough about a hobby to spend a lot of time on it, even if it's just for personal satisfaction. If you are wanting other people to play it, though, I think outside of a few TF fans who wear rosier-than-rose-tinted glasses, you aren't going to see the results you want.

Maybe it would be an idea to split the game up into volumes. It's possible even in RM2k3 to transfer save files from one project to another to continue with the next volume. Each volume would begin with a recap of the story so far so that people can enjoy the game even if they jump in at a later volume. Expecting someone to play through a potential 60 hours of game, just to finish it, is just not realistic. You, the aforementioned fans, and maybe close friends who care about you enough not to be too critical, might do it because you/they are playing with bias.

That's my review and thoughts, before I'd even consider playing.

If you are enjoying the process of making the game, though, then more power to you. Nothing more important than a love for your own creations.

Well, at the very least said how big the entire thing is. The problem with putting it all as one big file is that I'd still have to split it up regardless (because hur dur Mediafire and its 200 MB limits). I could probably delete anything else that's NOT needed (though I think I forgot to mention a couple other things that people who don't use RPG Maker or never played it before need...).


And how is 30 hours too long for a RPG?? Most RPGs I've ever played were generally about as long, if not 40-60 hours, and that's just normal playing. I don't get it. x_x

Aye, I probably should but haven't yet (no idea on how to do so). That, and I was going to leave those to my mapper to decide on (or I could, ya know, remove the instant game over traps that're littered around in a couple dungeons. THOSE tend to be what makes people hate the starting areas...everything else seems to be how big maps are but...).


Well really, that's fine. It's more of a way to get constructive criticism and whatnot from other people, which is the point of a review, right? ^^;


I actually did think of doing that, but figured naaaaah. And again, 60 hours is realistic since just playing through regularly and on first tries generally does take around 40-60 hours (depending on game of course. Final Fantasy I obviously shouldn't take that long on the first try I would think, but something like Final Fantasy III or Valkyrie Profile MAY take as long on the first try). I can't speak on modern RPGs since I haven't played any so maybe they did reduce how much playtime is in them...


For the MOST part I've enjoyed making it (well, MOST part aside from mapping, which I will always hate, and figuring out how to set up puzzles/balancing enemies). Though I often get yelled at for how long my breaks are (hey, you'd want a good 2-3 month break if you worked 7 months straight too on one thing!).


(On a sidenote, funny that you bring up close friends, because none of my IRL friends even remotely care about the game, because hur dur it's Touhou >___> ).

I don't think the length is the problem. I don't have a problem playing long games as long as they're well executed. The problem here is that it's not well executed.

No offense, but after four years, why haven't you tried picking up some mapping skills yourself? Every time I see you update your touhou thread, it's to say that you added a new skill or a character. I think you should focus on improving the quality of what you already have, instead of trying to throw more skills and characters in.

Most of that is post-beta4 stuff (Just never was bothered to go back to the beta1 maps to fix them up), since I figured that'd be a good time to update characters and whatnot between mapping sessions. That's not to say that I CAN'T map now (Cave to Makai is probably one of my better maps in terms of design, while overall Youkai Mountain is probably my overall best/favorite map).


I don't know what's not well executed. Is the story not good at all? Is the mapping bad? What am I missing here? ?___?

From what I watched of that first let's play video, the maps are pretty terrible, and the dialogue is lacking. :X
I'd definitely go back and fix the first parts of the game. First impressions are very important.

Aye. I already left a To-Do list on my game thread, so if you want to check that, it's there. I've already thought of redoing the intro sequence anyways (and it probably doesn't help that Kourindou and Hakurei Shrine BOTH are beta1 maps...though Kourindou has NEVER been updated once, and only the outside of the shrine was fixed up later and never the inside).


Though what's wrong with the dialogue D:

Rinnosuke uses a lot of ellipses. It's not good form.

I may or may not have taken care of that. That first video is from August of 2011 too so a lot of things were changed/fixed between then and there.

On a sidenote for maps, I was going to leave that up to my mapper to do while I was working on beta5 maps. That was the original plan, so that two birds with one stone would get taken care of (and beta1 maps aren't meant to be NEARLY as huge as beta4/5 maps are). So there's that on that. Though in the event that he cannot work on beta1 maps, I'll deal with it myself. In the meantime, I'll probably disable the instant game over traps in both Bamboo Forest and Eientei.


I did do a little tweaking on the intro. But only a little, since I need to have it tested a bit more (there's a couple fights in it now), and one scene has been completely removed. So yes, I'm trying to fix things up to be better, but I digress.