Whiona

Great to see that you're getting back to work!! Best of luck, and I'll look forward to seeing more updates from you! (I personally would prefer to read a nice blog post than a hastily-written, unedited one, but lianderson has a point. Do whatever feels right to you.)

Thanks for popping back into the thread, KaisoAri! <3 I'm really glad you're liking the new sprites and maps. Ah, the full version of Four Eyes is actually out now, so you may want to download that instead! It's free and the link to it is in my topic. Thanks very much - it did take a lot of work but I'm happy to have it out there now. I understand that life can get in the way...I wanted to have the full version of Four Eyes out far sooner than I actually did, but thanks to school and some other factors, it took a while longer than I thought it would.

Looks very nice! What did you use to create the fog effect?

Hi, crystalknight! I gave the beginning of your demo a shot. I think your music, main character sprites, and windowskin are all lovely! The outdoor maps are well-done, and the indoor ones are competent, though they could use a little extra detail or 'pizazz' in places, such as the inn. I liked the events you scattered around the town - it was worth spending the time to explore. The combat animations looked very nice, though I agree with others that they moved too slowly. From a writing standpoint, there were a handful of things that I felt you could improve. The dialogue contains some punctuation errors, such as improperly-placed (or missing) apostrophes and comma splices. You may want to discuss this with the person proofreading the game to ensure that these issues are caught. As for the introductory cutscene, while it's fine to make a plot-heavy game, you also hit the player with a lot of details right away, in what some call an "info dump." This is a problem because it may confuse the player - or worse, lose their interest - at the start of the game. I had trouble keeping track of all the information because there was so much in that scene. Instead of narrating the game's entire backstory in Duran's dream, maybe you could let it be a little more cryptic. Mystery is a great way to intrigue the audience! Remember, you don't have to explain everything to the player right in the opening scene - you can reveal things gradually as the game progresses, or at least wait a bit longer until the player is hooked on the characters and gameplay. Another technique you could try is letting the player ask another character questions about their universe, which adds a layer of interactivity. In the same vein, I thought that having the narrator explain each major character's backstory right when they appear was telling a bit too much. You can convey this information to the audience more naturally through dialogue or flashbacks at an appropriate point later in the game. I really hope none of that sounded too harsh! I'm a writing major, so I tend to get more nitpicky when critiquing the story of a game than with any other aspect of it. Good luck continuing with your project - I think this demo has some nice things going for it, and it's clear that you're working hard, which is great to see!

Welcome! I'll look forward to checking out what your team is making.

Thank you, lonequeso! It's great to have somebody else's perspective on this. I've definitely learned a ton from Four Eyes, and I think Jubilee Royale will be a much better game now than if I hadn't released a smaller work first. Funny that you had an experience where you lost your work, too. I made a very early, very bad version of Jubilee Royale back when I was...14, I think? Yeesh. The computer that housed those files ended up crapping out and I lost all of them. Devastating at the time, but it's probably for the best that my first JR attempt never saw the light of day. When I started over, at least I sort of knew what I was doing. I'm not starting over again, per se, but there are definitely a bunch of improvements I can make now, thanks to the experience I've gained.

Aww, thank you so much, Rezanta! <3 I really do appreciate it. I'm already pumped to do more work on this knowing that folks are still interested in the project!

Going to start off this reply attempting to sound professional/coherent which is going to be REALLY HARD considering I'm sitting here with a stunned happy look on my face and practically bouncing around but I'LL TRY MY BEST So first off, thank you so much for all of the in-depth feedback you've provided! I'm really happy to hear about the bits you did like, and also to receive well thought-out criticism from someone whose opinion I really respect! You're right that the ID puzzle was my...attempt at recreating something like the first puzzle, since people seemed to like that one, but it didn't turn out nearly as well. Making a puzzle game turned out to be so much harder than I ever thought it would be. Kind of a humbling experience! I agree with you about the worldbuilding thing, too. I established the war somewhat sloppily because of the time restrictions Yaoi Game Jam placed on me, and then...didn't really expand much when the full version came along. The good news is that I've been worldbuilding Jubilee Royale for years, so I hope to make up for my laziness in Four Eyes with that game! (And if I ever make another game in this universe, which is entirely possible, I'd really like to explore talyran society more. A few people have actually requested this, which is extremely flattering!) It's alright if you weren't so into Toa! Different characters will resonate more or less with different folks. I'm really glad you liked the other two, though! At the end of the day, yes - it's very much a story-driven game. I'm happy you were able to enjoy it even the gameplay admittedly wasn't GOTY-worthy! (ALSO, DANGIT, DID THE TALL GRASS NOT OVERLAP THEIR FEET STILL? I thought I fixed that. Will put that on my list of fixes for the next version - which, honestly, I ought to send out soon. I've only found a couple more minor issues, but it's been a few weeks now, so...) A 7.5 is better than I ever would have expected for my first release, so thank you very much!! Once again, I really appreciate how in-depth your feedback is, and I'll pay attention to your pointers as I work on Jubilee Royale. OKAY SO NOW TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF MY SYSTEM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA wow I was really holding that in I sat in stunned, joyful silence for probably a minute straight when I opened that link. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this surprise! It was absolutely wonderful! I can't believe I've received my first fanfic. This is just really humbling and OH MY GOD IT WAS SO ADORABLE AND FUNNY? I freaking love how you wrote Irene, you nailed Jett's voice, and Toa's thoughts at the end were so sweet. And the 3 BFFs just hanging out and having a game night together? Man. I love this so much. I'm going to read it every day okay maybe that's a bit excessive I just love it a lot

Hey guys! It's been a VERY long time, but I'm finally done developing Four Eyes and back to work on Jubilee Royale as my main project! Thank you so much for your patience. I've learned a lot from 4E's development and I'm putting those lessons to use by revamping a bunch of maps and sprites. I've made a new, fully-original sprite for Cybil using the base I created for Four Eyes, and I'm really happy with how it turned out! My favourite thing about it is that her cowlick bounces when you walk. I was too lazy to make a GIF to show this, though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. To ease my way back into JR development, I’ve made a few new expressions for Cybil’s portrait and little events around the castle. I'm using a bunch of objects to insert optional lore and explore different sides of Cybil’s personality! Here's an example of one: My general plan from now on is to slowly move through the game from the beginning, revamping things here and there based on lessons I’ve learned through working on Four Eyes. I’m not going to do all the sprites, art, maps, events, etc. at once in chunks, because when I did that for 4E, I got really bored and frustrated. I hope that by completing a variety of tasks to make the game playable bit by bit, I won’t get as burned out with JR! Hopefully Vera and Shaelon will have some sprite makeovers I can show you guys next time! I'm excited to be back to work on JR, and I hope you guys are still willing to follow along with me as I develop it. My personal goal is to have a demo out by the end of 2017, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to hopefully make that happen.

It's interesting that you don't like credits at the end of the game, Rezanta, because I'm the opposite way. Seeing the credits roll gives me a sense of closure, and I use the time to digest what happened and reflect on the game as a whole. It may not be super-interesting, but to me, the game would feel weirdly incomplete without them. It'd be like a movie without credits or a book without acknowledgments - the ending would just be so abrupt. I realize that other people aren't the same way, though, so it's good to see innovative ways to incorporate the credits. I love what they did in Animal Crossing by showing the credits during the K.K. Slider performances. His songs are cute and fun to watch, so most players actively seek him out and remain entertained while the text scrolls. At the same time, though, his songs aren't too distracting, so you can actually read the names if you want. I think that's a win-win situation.

I'm genuinely surprised this hasn't gotten any responses yet. Your trailer and screenshots look really nice. I'll have to give your demo a try, because this looks promising!