Dreams of Joy Departed

Finally back! Took me a while to progress in the game xD. I admit my airhead had a lot of trouble getting pass the combat bits. But I rather enjoyed myself a lot with it! I think smol Sarah to be cute, unlike big Sarah who's kind of edgy, but she's still fun. I've warmed up to the old man, and think he's fun too. Was all the music made by yourself? Because it's very good. The track in the forest reminds me of Nirvana. And the main theme used in battles and in the trailer is a banger.
Tried to always maximise my Love points, hopefully it will land on a happy ending! Good game, and the literary references makes it extra-cultured.
P.D: The scene when Sarah takes the bus, and the crazy busman with his dog appears will stay with me. 

I love the art style of your game! It's very weird and the music is cool too.
I'm gonna play it.

Doesn't work, after starting the game and loading in main menu it freezes my entire PC and I can only restart it.

you can add more than 5 screenshots???:O

Truth be told, I'm not typically a fan of games that require a deep emotional investment in the story to fully grasp the gameplay. However, this one was an exception. As I played through it, I found myself genuinely caring about the characters and the intriguing mysteries that unfolded.  It just got more and more captivating.

It's fascinating how the levels evolve based on your interactions with the characters. The 3D characters are exceptionally well-crafted, and the dedication to writing is clearly evident. Great work.

The visuals are amazing, a lot of time have been spent here to make both the enviroment and the characters feel alive. And some really creep me out, so bonus points for that.

I adore the RPG elements of the game. Your consistent style, both in terms of the story and gameplay, comes together really well. When it comes to gameplay, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of the combat system. The moods mechanic was really interesting.

The tutorial seamlessly integrates with the gameplay, making you forget that there are tutorials at all. They only appear when necessary to explain something relevant in that moment, which I find to be just great.

Other than some bugs with the UI I had a great time playing this game!

So far, I've encountered one issue: you put this in a jam and the theme is NOT whatever this is, instead it's "cwuuute puuuppies"

So far I've encountered 2 issues:

* In that computer watch tower zone, when you check the browser history section you get stuck, so I had to close the game but at least I saved

* The UI when shopping seems to crop the buttons

But other than that, there's a lot of cool stuff in the game and I reached the end of the demo (Which involved a boss after some childhood memories of a character and then another leaving them... sorry if these details are too spoiler-y).

Its combat is easy to get attached to because of how Swagger scales during fights, so you learn something about how some values work.

Not sure when ACT3 will come because I believe there's probably going to be even more after that.

Playing this was an excellent way to spend an evening. There’s quite a lot to say about this game even in its incomplete state but I’ll try to outline the important bits. Hopefully this will fairly represent the game and do it justice.

Gameplay

Admittedly, I’m not the best person to give proper analysis of this kind of RPG gameplay as I don’t often play games with it and usually I am not a fan. Despite this, I enjoyed the combat in this game. It may feel basic at first but, once you gain levels and party members, the range of strategies opens up and you get to experience each member's list of moves/abilities which are all derived from their characteristics and story. The combat system itself has its own twist on the usual turn-based RPG format and is fun to engage with. Most of it revolves around managing 3 resource pools (evaporation, phantasm, and swagger) which are all impacted by player and enemy actions but can also be exchanged during combat, allowing for strategising and calculated risk-taking. A basic example would be, if you don't have enough phantasm (a hybrid of sanity and mana as you would see in other games), you can gamble by sacrificing some evaporation (health) to increase it and therefore set yourself up to use a strong ability on your next turn.

Weapon and armour equipment options are currently limited but the equippable card system creates a little more build potential and the ability to slot moods and intentions like equipment is reminiscent of Omori or Disco Elysium in the sense that it makes the player character's psyche part of the core gameplay, emphasising its importance to the overall narrative more-so than if it were solely explored in dialogue.

The depth of the system plus tying stats and abilities to the game narrative and themes means that combat doesn't feel tacked on like it's an after-thought or simply there to pad out a narrative-driven game.

The combat animations are simple but serviceable while the sound effects were satisfying enough to trigger dopamine in my ape brain.

Enemies are diverse both in terms of their appearance and their abilities, the latter ensuring you can't rely on the same tactics every encounter. Aesthetically, they are suitably visceral and ominous with some unique designs in the mix that, again, are tied to the narrative and themes.

The lack of random encounters prevented the sense of tedium I usually get from RPGs and stopped me from excessively grinding (either intentionally or accidentally), becoming overpowered, and undermining the gravitas of the boss fights by turning them in to easy stomps.

Difficulty-wise, the game is challenging but fair, forcing you to do more than just brute-force every encounter with normal attacks. How to tackle a given enemy is intuitive enough that you don't have to attempt trial and error or go searching for information outside the game itself. Furthermore, difficulty is tuned so that, if you do hit a roadblock, an effective solution is to go gain some more XP to level up (which doesn't take too long) and try a different approach, likely with a new ability in your arsenal as they are, gratifyingly, awarded frequently. The RNG can be a bit harsh but the mechanics and the consumable items you can find or buy are enough to compensate for bad luck and often salvage a fight.

I chose to play with the tutorial NPC who was concise and clear while also providing a bit of entertainment and extra hints about the story.

The ability to move quickly around an area with just a mouse click is a nice little bonus especially when it comes to making back-tracking less tedious; it is often sorely missing from similar games. However, sometimes I did find myself using manual movement as the pathfinding can get stuck on obstacles.

Collision with enemies on the over-world map can be iffy. At times their sprites clearly touch yours but still don't initiate combat and even trying to force them to attack you can be fiddly.

Story/Setting/The Main Attraction

Despite there only being two acts, the game has a lot to say and there are a lot of things to say about it. It’s the kind of game that provokes thought and, dare I say it, *introspection*. It reminds us of the darker aspects of life such as the necessity of killing to survive, the loss of innocence, the inevitability of death, and the inexplicable naming convention that caused the sequel to "Deerhunter II" to be called "Deerhunter 3".

The starting story hook is strong and I am eager to find out more about the world as well as what the culmination of my dialogue  choices and actions will be. The idea that I am shaping the main character’s disposition and opinions on people and things that existed or happened prior to the start of the game is very intriguing.

Characters have well defined personalities and motivations and, most importantly for the kind of story this game wants to tell, your fellow travellers are engaging and sympathetic. Though the characters are archetypes most players likely will have seen before, they are instances of them being done well.

Dialogue is short and sweet, it never meanders and is always geared towards revealing something about the world and characters or driving the plot forward while avoiding excessive lore dumps or long, boring character monologues. Something I found refreshing is that the writing is confident in its bleakness and seriousness as hardly any of it is hedged with humour. There are quite a few grammatical and typing errors which I did find a bit distracting but these are of course easily fixed and to be expected in early development.

The world-building is simply great and might be a close tie with the music for what I enjoyed the most. While you can sense the DNA of other IPs in this game, there isn't a point where you are thinking "the creator just ripped this off" or where it feels overly derivative; the world is very much its own thing with its mixture of alternate history, spiritualism/occultism, and technology.

It is a visually interesting world that sits somewhere between a dreamscape and a hellscape and it has a distinct flavour of Americana that I personally love and found to be evocative of Silent Hill and Twin Peaks. You are able to build an even better picture of this world’s nature and history through environmental storytelling, audio/music, and interactable objects. I won’t spoil anything but the dev has done a few clever things that suddenly click if you stop to take a look at your environment.

Music/The Other Main Attraction

The music is fantastic. If you are fan of the likes of Silent Hill 2/3 or Disco Elysium then I can almost guarantee you that the ambient tracks will scratch your itch. The combat tracks too are absolute bangers that don't become irritating even though you’ll hear them frequently. In fact, a lot of the tracks in this game are, frankly, earworms that are now stuck looping in my head and I might have to sue if they persist.

Good choices have been made on when and where to play tracks. For example, the choice to keep a certain track running after exiting a cell allows the (disturbing) things you have just seen in that cell to linger in your mind. It's hard to describe exactly what I mean here without spoilers but you'll likely know when you get there.

Additionally, tracks undergo variation as you travel, changing with escalating threat or tragic moments. This results in the music being another way in which the unfolding narrative is skilfully conveyed to the player; it was very satisfying to hear a familiar tune that I already liked return with altered lyrics and instrumentation now suited to new events.

Graphics/Visuals

The character and environment art is simple but more than adequate and respectable for a solo dev, with the visual experience often elevated by some out of left field artistic direction. Character appearances/expressions are limited to one portrait each but still effectively communicate their personalities overall and I never found their static nature distracting.

Summary

A comfy but also melancholy journey with its own identity that will manage to tease out feels through a brilliant world and soundscape. You get the impression a lot of care was taken constructing the overall experience with virtually all aspects from music to gameplay working in accordance to produce a consistent tone and narrative with emotional pay-offs. I'm looking forward to the next parts and ultimately how it all ends!

I've played about a half hour so far with definite plans to continue my file. The world building is done very well and I love the creepy Tim Burtonesque art style, though somewhat obviously not "professionally" done, I find they more than suffice and add some character if anything. The "dark psychological" atmosphere is something I'm very much a fan of, seeing the mind's of our characters expressed through disturbing and very real imagery and concepts I've found has always given characters a very intriguing depth. Combat seems well balanced, enemy designs are interesting, the mysterious nature of the story hooks you for sure. It's a well put together project so far!

Wonderful aesthetic. Getting a good atmosphere is hard, and you did great on that department. While I have yet to finish the second act, I still want to come and leave a review.

Probably the only real complains I have are:

-sometimes it's not clear what tiles are you can walk through. I often get stuck in the enviroment

-during the dialogues, you could add more obvious clues to show who is currently talking, since both portraits are shown at once. (maybe something like someone's portrait darker when they are not talking).

on a sidenote, I love your enemy designs, good stuff.

I really like this demo. Really interesting world. Combat was almost always challenging. Usually I just walk past as much encounters as humanly possible in rpgmaker games, but I actually found myself getting bodied 20 mins in and had to go back to level up more. Nice to actually be challenged.

^Actually realized I just wasn't equipping my insane jack card. Still all the combat encounters feel fresh and not grindy so I enjoy them.

Music is also really good, I like the music in the fish folk area.

I do think you should consider getting an artist to redo the character art, or redoing some yourself. The current mspaint stuff isn't completely terrible, but it's not good. And since this art is getting reused constantly throughout the entire game I think there would be a lot of value in upgrading it. But there is a certain style to it currently.

I got to the bottom of the well, probably going to finish it later

I got to the watchtower, and after interacting with the computer, the background for it got stuck on the screen, which ended up overlaying everything. I've tried reloading my save file a few times, but maybe it is something to do with my save file since it's still stuck on the screen when I load it.

I've played through everything I found in version 1.5 (not sure how to update to 1.6 while keeping my savefiles, also I don't think I ever found that fourth party member), including past the end-of-demo message, and I think this has a lot of potential! I like the artstyle, the music and the general surreal atmosphere, and the story is positively harrowing so far. I also find it interesting how you’re seemingly able to retroactively decide what Winter’s relationship with Velouria was like, or at least his views on it, through your ingame choices.

Here's some issues I did have with the game, though admittedly I have no idea whether some of these are intentional or not, or if any of them have been fixed on 1.6:

• It seems that the game will always autosave right after you die, locking you out of playing on that slot. I’ve actually lost a significant amount of progress once because of that, so if it’s intentional I’d at least try to communicate that you have to frequently save manually in order to avoid it.
• The Simpleton and Finish stat screens appear to be identical, and both of them cut off near the bottom, preventing you from seeing the character’s Swagger bar and Biography.
• There’s generally a lot of issues with sprites transforming when you interact with them from certain angles. Lacey Door turns into Billy when she’s talked to from the side or from behind, and I remember a similar thing happening to one of the carcass enemies as well. The mirror that gives you the Gaslight skill disappears if you interact with it from the side or behind, and the rope sign in front of the well turns into a blue potion if you interact with it while standing right on top.
• On a similar topic, it seems like interacting with the mirror for the first time in the unfinished part of the map shows the text for gaining the Gaslight skill, even if you already got the skill from the previous mirror.
• The default attack being “blasting with bullets” ends up being weird when paired with the Confusion status, since it makes enemies without any visible guns start shooting themselves or the party out of nowhere.
• Enemies appear to skip their turns very often. Not by guarding or “waiting to see what happens”, they just don’t do anything and there’s no combat message indicating it’s intentional. It was especially noticeable with the Crowcrone, who permanently stopped attacking me after she used the Butchering self-buff.
• The PCs’ sideways walking cycles are very odd: there are visible black lines in the air above their sprites, and they appear to be missing a second contact pose which is very distracting imo.
• The game seems to stop responding to keyboard inputs when you run away from the Euthanasia, but only if you started the fight by interacting with her instead of colliding with her. I don’t know if any other enemies have this issue.
• The Crackerleader gun skill is kind of busted, in my opinion. The high total damage is one thing, but because it hits multiple times it can also easily make back like double its Swagger cost when used, so it’s effectively free to use and very easy to spam. The closest thing to a drawback it has is that sometimes you won’t start combat with enough Swagger to use it on the first turn, but it only takes one or two attacks for it to become spammable again.
• On the other hand, does Sarah’s Curse work on anything? It never affected any of the foes I used it against (Hallowed Mother, the flesh guy before her and the fishmen), and I haven’t felt the need to test with later enemies because she had the seemingly superior and actually working Deathcurse by then. I can’t tell if they were all immune to it or if it just had a very low chance of activating, but either way it felt quite underwhelming.
• When you recruit Sarah again post-demo, her talking instance seems to remain in the pond for some reason, only becoming invisible.
• For some reason, the text box for the Rusted Key (East)’s pickup text permanently stays on the screen after picking it up, and not even closing and reopening the game seems to fix it. It also seems like the Crowcrone’s overworld sprite doesn’t disappear when she’s defeated until you leave and reenter the area.

Overall, a pretty good demo and I’m very interested to see where it goes from here. I hope this feedback helps.

I hadn't played the game, but this image gives off HUGE Rusty Lake vibes.

Hey horbror, this is a really solid demo!

I really love the element of choice and how those choices effect gameplay, it embodies my ideal modern RPG! That also makes several different ways to beat it, like with the cards changing stats and the different choices for your "mood" stat. It's all so detailed and mechanically fleshed out!

One thing that was unclear was your inability to fight or run until you get the rifle. I actually struggled with this for a while (I initially missed the table where the rifle was, it's a little hidden in the shadows), I was stuck in many of the deer fights and had to keep restarting the game to get out of them (it's also confusing how you already have a gun before you get the rifle?). Maybe make a way to run away from them before you get it?

Also, is there like a Pokémon Center-esque place anywhere? I found myself depleting all my phantasm and on 1 HP for a while without levelling up again, so that would really help.

This is the kind of demo I'll have for my game one day! 

I think its definitely got potential. The art style is unique and interesting there is a music video I like by Aesop Rock  called Dorks with a similar neon high contrast style you may like to check out. 

If I was to mention a few elements I found a little frustrating they would be the interact hit boxes on the NPC's seem small. I would of liked the interactions to be a bit easier to start. I sometimes found myself walking around them and clicking for bit before the dialogue triggered.

 Also when fighting the ghost deer the reuse of the gun particle was a little out there and broke the flow a little bit. Would of really liked some of the art style to be used against me.

Other than that I enjoyed and will keep my eyes open for more to try out.

This looks phenomenal! Although, I'm so bad at RPG's that I can't really seem to progress much of anywhere. This 100% feels underrated though, more people should see this.

I have no words it's fantastic!

(but the "attack" button dosnt do anything, why?TvT)