As a retired RPGMaker myself, i have 3 good and 2 bad things to say about this demo.
Pros:
Interesting story, interesting characters, good dialogue.
Cons:
Horrible mapping (not every room has to be a giant box),
The demo doesn't explain what to do very well, I know that the dialogues are supposed to explain everything, but I would add a Quest System ( that would be very easy to do since you're using RPGMaker MV, and plugins are very easy to add). Sorry for the mistakes in my grammar btw.
Reviews for "Y.A.A.G. 0: The Demo"
Marcgal responds:
Thank you for your review.
Tbh I'm not sure why are rectangular rooms bad? As far as I'm aware most rooms are rectangular, and definitely all in my flat are.
I know I can relatively easily add a Quest System, but it was a conscious decision not to do so. I was thinking to make this game kind of exploration based, exploration of dialogue branches and possibilies of actions, and a quest system would kind of screw this. That's the purpose of the hidden medals: to encourage such exploration, since admittedly, just leaving home is pretty dull. Though, from what other reviews say, I suppose I've failed at this.
That was very odd. I thought it would be a really easy medal at first. Instead, that actually was the whole game! Well, it was certainly unique. I actually really enjoyed this. It's probably because of how good the graphics are.
I mean, it really is a beautiful looking game. The music is very graceful too. To think, you don't even have to leave your house to do this stuff! Yeah, I knew I couldn't get out with no new clothes. It's just a great looking game.
Marcgal responds:
Hmm, it's kind of surprising for me to read that you think that the greatest asset of this game lies in its cute graphics. Guess the choice of RPG Maker for its bundled graphic assets was right.
Anyway, if you think the game is weird, then I did my job right :)
The game has quite a bit of potential. I like how the demo leaves quite a bit to the imagination. The action and event sequencing is pretty well thought out and leaves little room for gamebreaking or error. The characters' personalities are well crafted, the build-up does its job, and the town map is pretty well detailed.
As for some constructive criticism, I would try to add a bit more direction when first waking up. I also had a hard time trying to figure out the main plot behind the game. I get that you were trying to provide subtle hints, but confining it to a single character's conversation kind of killed some impact. For a while, I was thinking to myself "okay, so what is really going on here?" My last bit to mention is the text and grammar. The dialogue is clever, but a little bit of it is hard to read, and it took me a bit of back reading. I'm honestly not going to rag it too much over grammar. I'm a bit notorious for being too much of a grammar nazi.
Overall, the game itself is looking to be pretty good, especially in the character and sequencing departments. With some more story work and a bit of troubleshooting, the end result could be something I'd look forward to playing on release!
Good luck, and keep up the good work!
Marcgal responds:
Glad you like it :)
As for the main plot... Well actually my idea was to not include some typical defining story arch like "The peaceful kingdom of XYZ is being overrun by hordes of ABC! We need a hero to repell these hordes or the kingdom will crumble!" Rather, my idea was to try to break the cliche and try something new: to feature a regular guy next door who will not jump right into big-world affairs. There will be a background story, but it should gradually and gracefully move from the background to the foreground. This is also to give the main character(s) time to evolve and mature before they become public figures. And no, I don't want to make it a soap opera. I admit the idea is kind of inspired by My Little Pony (please don't execute me! ;P) Now I know this idea is difficult to pull off correctly and frankly I expect to fail to do it rightly in my first attempt. So, the main purpose of this game is for me to gain experience.
As for the dialogue... Yeah, I'll definitely need to have someone proofread it. I'm not native to English, sorry. For most part I can understand others (though I'm not sure what you mean by "build-up") and I think I also can mostly be understood by others, but there's obviously much room for improvement here, I know.
It's fine, I suppose. It was fun, however short it may be. The characters were quite interesting to observe. The music is fine, but gets repetitive after a while. There's nothing much to do in the game, but I guess that's fine since it's a demo. I got all the medals the first time I played it... Yay... But the first time I played it, I quite literally haven't finished the first cutscene yet... Yay... Secondly, I have no idea what to do sometimes. 8/10 times I had to go around the whole room clicking everything.
Marcgal responds:
Yes I know, the medals were bugged sadly. I hope this is fixed by now. Please tell me when exactly did you play this for the first time? Because, if this was after I had "fixed" the medals, then this would mean I didn't fix anything and the issue still persists :( Thanks!
Good demo. It looks like the dialogue and writing aren't bad, which is a big factor with how good these kinds of games are. I'm looking forward to seeing what the full game will look like. This might have been short, but it does exactly what a demo needs to do, which is introduce the important elements of the game. The conversation with family at breakfast hints at the story, and we get a look at the setting. It would be nice if it were a little more clear what is required for the medals... I got all of them on my first run through, and I'm not sure exactly what I did for them (no notifications or anything).
If the full game lives up to the standard set by this demo, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to it.
Marcgal responds:
"I got all of them on my first run through, and I'm not sure exactly what I did for them (no notifications or anything). " You don't say! F#@%, I really thought checked this carefully and that I didn't make any mistakes in the medals code…
Seriously though – now that I set up a new account and tried the game on a new account with a clear medal record it is obvious that the medals are seriously bugged. Thank you for bringing my attention to this. Very sorry for introducing such a bug to this game. I'll try to fix this.
The intention is that you cannot get all medals in one run; you have to restart the game a few times to get all of them. Also the first medal is merely for getting out to town, and I think you do get a medal notification as soon as you leave home, even in spite of the glitches with the medals. So either you didn't manage to leave home yet, which is sorta "the goal" of this game, or there is one more glitch I failed to find yet ☹
Very sorry again and again many thanks for bringing my attention to these serious glitches.