This game is quite disappointing with the transformations. Sure, you can transform into a puppet or a mummy but you don't make good use out of them outside of delaying being transformed into something else. Not to mention that charms all give the same boost once you atune it. So it's feels more like a pallet swap instead of mixing strengths and weaknesses. Like, take a few pages from Odyssey of Gianna. A game that has a very similar permeance but has not only tons of transformations but also adding abilities. Having a different load out for each class. I get that this game is different compared to that game but wouldn't it be fun to just be a werewolf rather than just be a pallet swap?
The only system I have available to compile on is a Mac-Mini. If you're feeling adventurous the engine is available on Bitbucket so you may be able to compile a version on the current chipset: https://bitbucket.org/starlightstudios/engine/src/master/
However, I simply cannot support OSX due to expense beyond what I already have.
Heya! I'm on the newest version, Steam release, and Sage seems to have disappeared after making it through the villa. She's nowhere to be found in town, or anywhere on the map so far as i can tell. Reloading hasn't made her show up, and she isn't in her cave.
Remember the pirate base in the caves? Go there, go south, and look for a path along the frozen water near the edge of the map. Follow that path to the end.
(Final Thoughts on the game! Mostly spoiler-free!)
Phew...! I'm surprised I played this game blind the whole way through! I have 100% achievements now, so I'll go ahead and say my thoughts on the game! Note that I haven't played Runes of Pandemonium or whatnot before this, I only found out about this game because someone posted about it on FA and, well, being very much for TF-ey things myself...
Gameplay Thoughts:
-Overall I had a pretty good time gameplay-wise, though some things feel just a little basic at times. Pre-emptive strikes are pretty simple enough to understand and quite helpful, even later in the game, for taking out enemies pretty quickly. Character movesets are quickly understandable so I had no trouble figuring out what everyone's best at doing! I think HP not being the be-all-end-all stat for whether you're still kicking or not (usually) is pretty cool as well.
-I think my big complaint gameplay-wise is sometimes I wasn't sure if I have a new feature I had unlocked. I got past the third major boss before I figured out how to, like, get some extra protection against being TF'd. Part of me didn't think to check back near the shore at the start of the game, whoops! Maybe I forgot a bit of dialogue telling me to go back there earlier in the game. Also, I wasn't sure when I had actually picked up the particular items needed to get new crafting stuff. A bit of dialogue or other signposting to note that "Hey, this thing looks real important!" might've helped here.
-I'm disappointed that none of the TFs actually confer you like, different abilities or effects from what I saw (besides one specific one). At least, to what I understood, I don't think the characters' elemental affinities (offensive or defensive) changed with what form they had for example. Or maybe you could have a new move based on what TF you currently had (i.e. a move that monster type uses). That'd be neat!
-Balance-wise, Psyche-Up is a little TOO good. By mid/late-game, I was spamming that a lot in tandem with elementally-advantaged AoE moves to sweep most enemies. I found it better to use it for offense most of the time than to use elemental attacks, using the Snowstorm ring for when I need Arcane/Ice damage. Stacking Psyche-Up is probably intentional, though, that's fun to do! But I would've liked if I had more incentive to use it as a self-buff too, that way I'd use the attacking spells more.
-Speaking of skills, I would've liked to have more skills to learn by the end of the game. I learned them all shortly after the third boss and by then I realized I wasn't going to get any new tools to play around with from then on. This or the TF-gives-you-ability idea would've been nice to help keep evolving the gameplay loop further!
Story/Presentation Thoughts:
-I'm kinda amazed that every single TF actually has a few facial expressions to go with each of them...but more importantly some of the TF designs look pretty nice. From an art perspective, pretty neat. I was especially surprised by a couple ideas starting from the chapel onwards. I'd list my favorite TFs but that might be a minor spoiler and I don't think I can spoiler tag in itch.io comments!
-Some of the endings are pretty fun ideas and were worth searching out for one reason or another. I can say I laughed at or was surprised by a few of the ideas, for sure. Again, I'd list my favorites, but I'm keeping it spoiler-free.
-The character cast was pretty fleshed-out and enjoyable, so from a VN-writing standpoint, I'd say it was pretty successful. I'm not sure how to word all my thoughts on the characters, as sometimes I read things a little bit fast, but I feel like there's a pretty good amount of depth to the characters and I didn't notice any plotholes or contradictions. I'd say it's worth reading the game at least, for sure! That's probably what kept me going all the way to the end to 100% the game, even.
I'm not sure how long I played the game, but for the amount of time I put into the game, I'd say the $15 was pretty worth it, so I'm glad I tried it out in the end. It's an okay game with pretty good characters and writing moments that flesh it out enough to make it worth the trip.
Now that I've finished writing all that, it's royalty-free undead boogie time.
Glad you liked it! Yes, new abilities from attuning charms is on the planned list. It's going to be introduced alongside Hard Mode, wherein you will then NEED the new abilities to survive. Normal difficulty will still have them so you'll have lots to unlock.
I also added some "reminders" in 1.04 about talking to Tiro to get advice. Hopefully that makes the game better going forward. Thanks for the review!
Played the Demo, not sure if $15 is worth yet another game where being transformed is a fail state. Also, it would be a really nice QoL thing if there was a surrender option rather than having to wait for your party to slowly be transformed.
You can get charms to transform yourself without it being a fail state, in fact it's useful in combat! And, the next patch will have a surrender potion you can use. It's currently being tested.
Amazing game! This is hands down the most fun I've ever had playing a turn based RPG!
Health not being the most important stat for surviving the battle is a creative twist and all resources getting restored after each battle made this game stand out compared to other turn based games. No need to go back to town for healing after every 3 fights, unlike many similar games. Bonus points to Bottled Starlight for the enemy balancing! Every new area was challenging, but it didn't feel grindy at all to eventually reach the power level to beat it.
I'm also happy with the censoring options in the game. (It didn't perfectly censor everything, but on Steam I read that the developer is planning to add a streamer safe mode, yay!)
Beat the game, had a very fun experience, but I missed a handful of bad ends and 1 piece of omega gear. Is there a way to go back, or do I have to restart from the beginning.
You can check the sign near the dev island south end to return to Heronstadt if you want to get anything you missed. There are multiple endings, but if you found the developer island you are "locked out" of the other one. The next patch will allow you to view them from the Hall of Memories (hopefully due out today or tomorrow).
Thank you, didn't find dev island but missed the npc that lets you leave the endgame zone.
Only other two things I wanted to ask about is if the Luminance gloves are in their own omega area or I somehow missed them in one of the ones I have cleared.
Also wondering how to trigger the last quest. I know who its for from the achievements, but can't figure out how it starts.
You need to find the secret area in the Villa, examine the portrait of the young girl in the building near the pond and it opens a room near the fireplace in the main hall. You'll find a spooky mask there. Follow that quest. Hopefully you can do the rest without needing spoilers. The Gloves you need will be found during that subquest as well.
You can toggle fullscreen with F11 or F12 by default.
You can push the shoulder buttons (Q/E by default) to switch characters. The controls should be listed on the UI in the corners in case you rebound them.
I've discovered a bug where after beating the game and returning to the world, Izana will be invisible to the game, her overworld sprites and her "speaking" image are both invisible, her battle image remains visible. Her overworld sprite is actually viable when you first return, but is "ignored" by the warp effect, and upon a save reload, becomes fully invisible. Sorry if this isn't the best place to talk about bugs, couldn't find anywhere else other than steam.
As a side note, I thought the game was fantastic, one of my favorite tf games and just a very neat game in general, especially the essence and charm system . I would love to try and mod new forms and stuff for it, if the files are set up in any way to even allow for that and if that wouldn't go against your wishes. Art would be done by myself so there would be no worries there.
I am currently pushing a bugfix patch which will deal with that bug (and Rush not restoring MP) so good timing.
At present the art assets are proprietary but if you'd like I could put together a special set of tools for you (promise not to share them!). The game is reasonably modular in how it handles the TFs but you'd need to be pretty good at Lua.
Good to hear, and yeah, you can definitely trust me not to share those, it would be super appreciated. I've been making commissions for years and can understand the security need of it all, plus it's just respecting your wishes anyway. I also may not know much Lua at all, but i can try to learn, worst case scenario it would be fun to try.
All right, I'll make a special compressor. If you want, you can contact me on Discord saltyjustice9737 and I can try to walk you through the various processes.
One really interesting feature that the Description omits is that the Game is almost a roguelike. You have a village as a base, where you do all your shopping and crafting, and you leave it for discrete "runs". Enemies you beat stay beaten until you return to the village, and rewards from chests get greater the more chests you open on a single run, with chests resetting on return to the village. There is no Combat XP, leveling up and learning new combat skills is done by simply buying them at any time, with each level incresing in cost. There are no equipment drops, Enemies only drop crafting materials, all your equipment is then crafted in town. You heal to full HP after every battle, so a run lasts until you run out of beatable enemies. Makes for a very different experience than these games normally offer, and it is very well implemented in my opinion. Can definitely recommend.
I also did all the extra areas, including grind up to where i could take them, do you recommend i restart on launch, as i might be over leveled for the next couple areas.
I also did all the extra areas, including grind up to where i could take them, do you recommend i restart on launch, as i might be over leveled for the next couple areas.
Levels are useful (the testers tend to beat the game around level 30) but aren't a guarantee. Equipment is also really important, so playing the game with an extra high level is only going to make the next few areas easier, but not super duper easy. Still, if you're looking for a challenge then you can restart. It only takes about 20 minutes (if you know what you're doing) to clear the demo's content without grinding. You can actually beat Quinn at level 1 with some luck!
Am enjoying the demo a ton so far, love the new stuff I'm seeing. (sneaky secret areas) Curiously will the save file from this demo be transferable to the full version when it launches?
Yep! Instructions on how to do it are even in the demo, but here they are in case anyone else is curious: Copy your save and Plantchievements.slf from the demo's Saves/ folder to the full version and you're good to go.
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This game is quite disappointing with the transformations. Sure, you can transform into a puppet or a mummy but you don't make good use out of them outside of delaying being transformed into something else. Not to mention that charms all give the same boost once you atune it. So it's feels more like a pallet swap instead of mixing strengths and weaknesses. Like, take a few pages from Odyssey of Gianna. A game that has a very similar permeance but has not only tons of transformations but also adding abilities. Having a different load out for each class. I get that this game is different compared to that game but wouldn't it be fun to just be a werewolf rather than just be a pallet swap?
Mac release doesn't seem to run on M1 macs. Will this be fixed in a future update?
The only system I have available to compile on is a Mac-Mini. If you're feeling adventurous the engine is available on Bitbucket so you may be able to compile a version on the current chipset:
https://bitbucket.org/starlightstudios/engine/src/master/
However, I simply cannot support OSX due to expense beyond what I already have.
Heya! I'm on the newest version, Steam release, and Sage seems to have disappeared after making it through the villa. She's nowhere to be found in town, or anywhere on the map so far as i can tell. Reloading hasn't made her show up, and she isn't in her cave.
Did you perhaps give her something you found? Try asking around town if anyone has seen her.
I thought i had talked to everyone but i was clearly mistaken. Thank you, I am unstuck!
I can't disable the censorship options.
Never mind, the option changed once I started the game.
I have figured everything on my own except where the DH key goes. can I get a hint? I am fine with just being told as well.
Remember the pirate base in the caves? Go there, go south, and look for a path along the frozen water near the edge of the map. Follow that path to the end.
I do not remember a pirate base (unless that is the monsters that found rosemary)
In the frozen caverns you can find an old campsite. It's where you got the Peridotite Crucible for Sage. There's boxes and beds in the area.
(Final Thoughts on the game! Mostly spoiler-free!)
Phew...! I'm surprised I played this game blind the whole way through! I have 100% achievements now, so I'll go ahead and say my thoughts on the game! Note that I haven't played Runes of Pandemonium or whatnot before this, I only found out about this game because someone posted about it on FA and, well, being very much for TF-ey things myself...
Gameplay Thoughts:
-Overall I had a pretty good time gameplay-wise, though some things feel just a little basic at times. Pre-emptive strikes are pretty simple enough to understand and quite helpful, even later in the game, for taking out enemies pretty quickly. Character movesets are quickly understandable so I had no trouble figuring out what everyone's best at doing! I think HP not being the be-all-end-all stat for whether you're still kicking or not (usually) is pretty cool as well.
-I think my big complaint gameplay-wise is sometimes I wasn't sure if I have a new feature I had unlocked. I got past the third major boss before I figured out how to, like, get some extra protection against being TF'd. Part of me didn't think to check back near the shore at the start of the game, whoops! Maybe I forgot a bit of dialogue telling me to go back there earlier in the game. Also, I wasn't sure when I had actually picked up the particular items needed to get new crafting stuff. A bit of dialogue or other signposting to note that "Hey, this thing looks real important!" might've helped here.
-I'm disappointed that none of the TFs actually confer you like, different abilities or effects from what I saw (besides one specific one). At least, to what I understood, I don't think the characters' elemental affinities (offensive or defensive) changed with what form they had for example. Or maybe you could have a new move based on what TF you currently had (i.e. a move that monster type uses). That'd be neat!
-Balance-wise, Psyche-Up is a little TOO good. By mid/late-game, I was spamming that a lot in tandem with elementally-advantaged AoE moves to sweep most enemies. I found it better to use it for offense most of the time than to use elemental attacks, using the Snowstorm ring for when I need Arcane/Ice damage. Stacking Psyche-Up is probably intentional, though, that's fun to do! But I would've liked if I had more incentive to use it as a self-buff too, that way I'd use the attacking spells more.
-Speaking of skills, I would've liked to have more skills to learn by the end of the game. I learned them all shortly after the third boss and by then I realized I wasn't going to get any new tools to play around with from then on. This or the TF-gives-you-ability idea would've been nice to help keep evolving the gameplay loop further!
Story/Presentation Thoughts:
-I'm kinda amazed that every single TF actually has a few facial expressions to go with each of them...but more importantly some of the TF designs look pretty nice. From an art perspective, pretty neat. I was especially surprised by a couple ideas starting from the chapel onwards. I'd list my favorite TFs but that might be a minor spoiler and I don't think I can spoiler tag in itch.io comments!
-Some of the endings are pretty fun ideas and were worth searching out for one reason or another. I can say I laughed at or was surprised by a few of the ideas, for sure. Again, I'd list my favorites, but I'm keeping it spoiler-free.
-The character cast was pretty fleshed-out and enjoyable, so from a VN-writing standpoint, I'd say it was pretty successful. I'm not sure how to word all my thoughts on the characters, as sometimes I read things a little bit fast, but I feel like there's a pretty good amount of depth to the characters and I didn't notice any plotholes or contradictions. I'd say it's worth reading the game at least, for sure! That's probably what kept me going all the way to the end to 100% the game, even.
I'm not sure how long I played the game, but for the amount of time I put into the game, I'd say the $15 was pretty worth it, so I'm glad I tried it out in the end. It's an okay game with pretty good characters and writing moments that flesh it out enough to make it worth the trip.
Now that I've finished writing all that, it's royalty-free undead boogie time.
Glad you liked it! Yes, new abilities from attuning charms is on the planned list. It's going to be introduced alongside Hard Mode, wherein you will then NEED the new abilities to survive. Normal difficulty will still have them so you'll have lots to unlock.
I also added some "reminders" in 1.04 about talking to Tiro to get advice. Hopefully that makes the game better going forward. Thanks for the review!
Played the Demo, not sure if $15 is worth yet another game where being transformed is a fail state. Also, it would be a really nice QoL thing if there was a surrender option rather than having to wait for your party to slowly be transformed.
You can get charms to transform yourself without it being a fail state, in fact it's useful in combat!
And, the next patch will have a surrender potion you can use. It's currently being tested.
I deleted this post, because it encouraged spoiling. Whoops!
Amazing game! This is hands down the most fun I've ever had playing a turn based RPG!
Health not being the most important stat for surviving the battle is a creative twist and all resources getting restored after each battle made this game stand out compared to other turn based games. No need to go back to town for healing after every 3 fights, unlike many similar games. Bonus points to Bottled Starlight for the enemy balancing! Every new area was challenging, but it didn't feel grindy at all to eventually reach the power level to beat it.
I'm also happy with the censoring options in the game. (It didn't perfectly censor everything, but on Steam I read that the developer is planning to add a streamer safe mode, yay!)
Beat the game, had a very fun experience, but I missed a handful of bad ends and 1 piece of omega gear. Is there a way to go back, or do I have to restart from the beginning.
Also is there multiple endings?
You can check the sign near the dev island south end to return to Heronstadt if you want to get anything you missed.
There are multiple endings, but if you found the developer island you are "locked out" of the other one. The next patch will allow you to view them from the Hall of Memories (hopefully due out today or tomorrow).
Thank you, didn't find dev island but missed the npc that lets you leave the endgame zone.
Only other two things I wanted to ask about is if the Luminance gloves are in their own omega area or I somehow missed them in one of the ones I have cleared.
Also wondering how to trigger the last quest. I know who its for from the achievements, but can't figure out how it starts.
You need to find the secret area in the Villa, examine the portrait of the young girl in the building near the pond and it opens a room near the fireplace in the main hall. You'll find a spooky mask there. Follow that quest.
Hopefully you can do the rest without needing spoilers. The Gloves you need will be found during that subquest as well.
Sorry I meant the rosemary quest (I think), must have missed the gloves though.
Yes. That quest is also reliant on the mask. Did you notice at any point that she left town?
im stuck on this quest as i cant find the path to take. where do i go to open the path up? have the D H key
How do you change equipment for other characters? It only lets me change for Izana. Also is there a way to make the game full screen? thanks!
You can toggle fullscreen with F11 or F12 by default.
You can push the shoulder buttons (Q/E by default) to switch characters. The controls should be listed on the UI in the corners in case you rebound them.
Thank you,
i accidentally removed the "return to town" ability and there isn't a way to add it back
edit: nevermind, save/load fixed it
-From Steam
The difficulty is so high, it took me 20 hours to pass the chapel section
No matter how I upgrade, the enemy will instantly kill izana with just two clicks
Gems and other equipment are difficult to understand，sadness
I've discovered a bug where after beating the game and returning to the world, Izana will be invisible to the game, her overworld sprites and her "speaking" image are both invisible, her battle image remains visible. Her overworld sprite is actually viable when you first return, but is "ignored" by the warp effect, and upon a save reload, becomes fully invisible. Sorry if this isn't the best place to talk about bugs, couldn't find anywhere else other than steam.
As a side note, I thought the game was fantastic, one of my favorite tf games and just a very neat game in general, especially the essence and charm system . I would love to try and mod new forms and stuff for it, if the files are set up in any way to even allow for that and if that wouldn't go against your wishes. Art would be done by myself so there would be no worries there.
I am currently pushing a bugfix patch which will deal with that bug (and Rush not restoring MP) so good timing.
At present the art assets are proprietary but if you'd like I could put together a special set of tools for you (promise not to share them!). The game is reasonably modular in how it handles the TFs but you'd need to be pretty good at Lua.
Good to hear, and yeah, you can definitely trust me not to share those, it would be super appreciated. I've been making commissions for years and can understand the security need of it all, plus it's just respecting your wishes anyway. I also may not know much Lua at all, but i can try to learn, worst case scenario it would be fun to try.
All right, I'll make a special compressor. If you want, you can contact me on Discord saltyjustice9737 and I can try to walk you through the various processes.
what tags will there be? like corruption and stuff?
Corruption, mind control, possession, petrification, monsterification.
One really interesting feature that the Description omits is that the Game is almost a roguelike. You have a village as a base, where you do all your shopping and crafting, and you leave it for discrete "runs". Enemies you beat stay beaten until you return to the village, and rewards from chests get greater the more chests you open on a single run, with chests resetting on return to the village. There is no Combat XP, leveling up and learning new combat skills is done by simply buying them at any time, with each level incresing in cost. There are no equipment drops, Enemies only drop crafting materials, all your equipment is then crafted in town. You heal to full HP after every battle, so a run lasts until you run out of beatable enemies. Makes for a very different experience than these games normally offer, and it is very well implemented in my opinion. Can definitely recommend.
Very fun demo, will definitely be buying the game on release.
I also did all the extra areas, including grind up to where i could take them, do you recommend i restart on launch, as i might be over leveled for the next couple areas.
Completed the demo, tank you very much looking forward to release.
I also did all the extra areas, including grind up to where i could take them, do you recommend i restart on launch, as i might be over leveled for the next couple areas.
Levels are useful (the testers tend to beat the game around level 30) but aren't a guarantee. Equipment is also really important, so playing the game with an extra high level is only going to make the next few areas easier, but not super duper easy. Still, if you're looking for a challenge then you can restart. It only takes about 20 minutes (if you know what you're doing) to clear the demo's content without grinding. You can actually beat Quinn at level 1 with some luck!
I am excited for full release, thank you for your work
Am enjoying the demo a ton so far, love the new stuff I'm seeing. (sneaky secret areas) Curiously will the save file from this demo be transferable to the full version when it launches?
Yep! Instructions on how to do it are even in the demo, but here they are in case anyone else is curious:
Copy your save and Plantchievements.slf from the demo's Saves/ folder to the full version and you're good to go.
Awesome, also take a vacation. You work to hard to not deserve one.