I was worried about the puzzles honestly. I knew the solutions, and could never really test them as an outsider. I tried to make it so that they LOOK really confusing, but actually have few choices so that you can guess and check your way through if needed! Maybe the fire spirits could have been explained better. Did the whole "they float around an object" come across well, or was that hard to understand?





I will admit, Level 3 is my personal least favorite. Click to expand...

As for challenge... this game WAS meant to be hard... But not THAT hard on Easy Mode. It's suppose to not really put up much of a fight until the Ice Palace boss on easy mode. Where was the early game trouble coming from, exactly, in your opinion? Just losing too much gold, or other things? I can understand the Level 4 and 5 bosses being hard if you're low on gold, but I want to know from you, specifically, what scenes were challenging? Click to expand...

You were on Level 8 when fighting The Arbiter, Level 5 Boss. I'm assuming you beat the Merman Chief, Warlock, and bought the level up from the shopkeeper. Did you ever get the hidden Stage 4 level up? Click to expand...

I feel like I could have possibly done 2 things to improve this game, in retrospect: Made the defense stat do more, and make more things change on easy mode. A lot changes for easy mode already, AI's are redone (especially boss AI's), you get tons more items, you lose gold slower, ect. I could make you lose a lot less gold from running on easy mode! I also never touched puzzles. How does easier puzzles on easy mode sound? Click to expand...

Repels... I thought about having a message come up, like "Repels effect wore off." Problem was the Death chase. If a message pops up, you'll stop moving, Death'll get you, that's not fair. Or, I could have a visual effect play. Most likely, you're running along, that effect plays, and you don't even know what it means! Thought it'd just confuse the player. In hindsight, maybe a counter in the lower right corner could have worked though... How does that sound? Seeing exactly how many steps left in the corner, like your gold? Click to expand...

And, yeah, you are right about the whole 80's hard game stuff. This game was meant to be an RPG version of the old arcade game Gauntlet. That game, you steadily lost HP over time. That was the main inspiration for the gold time limit. It's really suppose to FEEL more tense that it really is. 1 gold lost every 7 seconds, +1 gold lost every... 10 minutes? The counter's all in microseconds, but that's the general timing. It's meant to feel tense, but it really is actually pretty minor, especially on easy mode where it's about twice as slow. Click to expand...

Last thing, saving shouldn't cost gold. Healing at a save point costs a cabin/tent, but saving itself should be free, unless there's some mechanic I forgot about. Click to expand...

Well, to be fair, some of the levels were easy enough if you're attentive. But some sections was a little bit confusing in terms of how it was laid out, it took me a bit of time to figure out. And for the puzzle itself added with random encounters to be a problem on that level with the time limit just makes it all the more frustrating.If I were to estimate, level 4's chase scene is really frustrating. You would only have a fraction of a second before you get the chest and run away from death. And revives aren't cheap either, so that also factors to it. Though playing it the second time, I was able to skip the chests and minimize my chances getting caught by death.I'm going to assume that there is a level 9 and that hidden stage exists, I was too distracted running away or not being able to find that hidden stage at that point. So no. Although that does add to the challenge of that level already, being tasked with several things at once made me not crossed my mind. I thought there is no hidden stage because I'm not sure if it's during the chase scene or after, and when you fell down to the volcano, I just couldn't find it. At all.My suggestion is to have the tank, Edward, have taunting or draw physical/magic abilities. Level Five's battles would have a more strategic element to it (and it would be more easier). This is because his skill set, other than healing and null attack, seems really useless and doesn't really help me beat the Lv. 5 boss. If the gold reduction is 450-600 every time you run away, I'd say reduce that to 150-200 by easy mode and 350-500 by normal mode. As that would reduce the consequences and allows player in easy mode to run away with less money loss. Easier puzzles seems too strenuous to work on. Personally speaking, the more technical options players have that can benefit them in some way or form (such as tank has defensive abilities and take the hits of other characters), the more depth a character does and it helps a lot in choosing your options. Some things to consider if you're going to make this type of game again.Seems more viable. One option you can take would be to have visual aids to tell when the repel starts and when it wears off. Using pictures or an indicator without it stopping the player would be the more optimal choice you can go with in this conundrum.Seems like you have the general idea of the time count and the gold loss in the game, which is something that I would commend on. It's the thing I find little issue on and it does bring an element of challenge to the game. It still needs some work on the balancing side, but overall the feeling you want seems to come across relatively well.I did say I rushed out (and the notes are erratic, so they are not consistent) when I was typing out all the notes. I'd probably assume that during the first level. When I learned that it doesn't save gold, it probably was because I was looking at the gold dropping overtime and just assumed (reading the early text kind of lost me on that until I realized that I really lose gold when on the field). A mistake on my part though, but I suppose saving gold when opening the menu still stands though. (Since gold is not lost when you open the menu and check your stats, items and the like)--------Regardless, I'm glad I played this game. This game doesn't have a lot of story in it (in fact the story is.. almost non-existent other than come in, boss fight, come in again, have more puzzles, have a chase scene, and fight over and over again, like an Arcade game), but it's interesting enough, personally speaking. It has balancing and tweaking issues, but I had an ok time. Still need to find some way to beat the Lv. 5 boss, but I'll come around to it when I figure out how to properly beat him and play this game again. I'm still glad you can take my notes into consideration and justify it and hopefully you'll try your best either improving or brushing up on anything else you make in the future.