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RPG Maker Game Development Games Voting ; Play & Vote on these user-created games

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.

I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
My Miserable Island Vacation by sld

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Download links (size: 200 MB)

Dropbox

Mediafire

MY MISERABLE ISLAND VACATION

Made by Sebastian Lind / SLD (credited in-game as Super Seabass)

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?!

My Miserable Island Vacation is a story about James. He's just your average guy (although kinda geeky) that one day gets shipwrecked and washes ashore on a mysterious island. James quickly discovers that the island is threatened by a vulcano that could erupt at any minute, showering the entire place with lava. For some reason, everyone he meets thinks he should do something about it even though he basically just wants to go home. During the journey, James will meet two other characters that will assist him on his adventure.

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OKAY... SO WHAT GENRE?

This is a very traditional game in classic J-RPG fashion. It's old school and unforgiving so you should probably save often. Although you're likely to see the Game Over screen a couple of times, progress and leveling is fairly rapid and as long as you stay alive you'll gain better stats and new skills at a fast pace. The battles are fast-paced, just like the early Dragon Quest games. Either you win quick or you lose quick.

SOMETHING ELSE I SHOULD KNOW?

Well, if you've ever played any JRPG before then I think you'll be well acquainted with the basics. If not, then it could be a bit tricky. Just remember to closely examine all things and you will be rewarded. This game does not tell you everything flat out and it's not going to hold your hand.
The game contains up to 4 chapters and 2 endings, one normal ending and a true ending. It's up to you to decide if you want to continue exploring the island to find all its secrets.

PLAYTIME (rough estimate): Normal Ending ~120 minutes / True Ending ~180 minutes

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KEEP IN MIND

–This is my first ever attempt at making a game. It's not a masterpiece, but if you find it at least a little bit entertaining then that's enough to make me super happy. :)
–The game is hard as balls if you don't spend some time leveling up. Make sure you explore the first village for gold, and always try to have your characters equipped with the best possible gear. There are several stores, but you have to look around to find them.
–Even though it's playable from start to finish, it's still rough around the edges. There are a lot of things I would like to add, tweak and improve if I continute to work on the game after the competition is over.

HOW TO PLAY

–Buttons used: Z/X + arrow keys
–Press ALT+ENTER for fullscreen
–Hold down SHIFT to run

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CREDITS (in-game credits also contains special thanks, etc)

Game made by me. Engine: RPG Maker VX Ace. Some map layouts are the same as those found in the official RPGMVXA tutorial since I learned the basic stuff by following that excellent guide.

Additional Resource Packs: Zombie Survival, Futuristic Tiles, Arabian Nights

Pictures used (and modified with the help of superpixeltime.com): The Wreck (SS Vina) from Scolt Head Island, The wreckage of the American Star (SS America), Rough seas, Moelfre, Anglesey, Volcanoes of Colima

Additional Audio: Joel Steudler -- Town - Creepy Place (SH), D. C. Kairi Sawler – Night on the Sand, Cyrano – Never Surrender

Scripts used: Yanfly Ace Core Engine, Yanfly Ace Battle Engine, Yanfly Enemy HP bars, Yanfly Victory Aftermath, Yanfly Command Window Icons, Yanfly System Options, Playtime Window

The Very Best by PsionBolt

Welp, here goes nothing. I regrettably had to set aside my original project; it was just so far out of scope, I couldn't possibly finish in time. As it turns out, my second attempt, started about a week ago, was also too great in scale to completely finish - but, well, here's what I got. It is a complete game - just not nearly as good, or as content-ful, as it was in my head. But them's the breaks when your schedule is a week!

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The Very Best

Type of game: Plays itself. Think Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge, but with even less control.
Resources used: Enterbrain art + music; scripts and snippets from DiamondandPlatinum3, Galv, Woratana, PK8, Gambit, Yanfly, Brandon, modern algebra, Claimh, TheoAllen, PsionBolt

Synopsis:
The TVB Project. In short, it was a plan by the House of Commons to establish a new rulership for Talvenbu.
But the TVB system was not one of democracy. The TVB would play out as a contest.
All citizens who thought themselves worthy were free to enter, and the winner would become the new supreme ruler of Talvenbu.
TVB Participants were to do battle with one another. No conditions were set, with one exception: The loser of each battle must swear their loyalty to the winner.

Everyone in town is your enemy, but also your potential ally. Gather an army of 40 characters, and aim to be the very best.

Download:
With RTP (~200 MB)
Without RTP (~7 MB)

GAFQuest by tensuke

Ok so it FINALLY finished uploading. It kept stopping and restarting so many times. T_T
Thanks so much to Dusk Golem for the competition and the slightly extra time! Anyway, yesterday morning I decided to do something different, quick, and painless. Here it is!

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Download Link: Zipped Project Folder, 47MB (requires RTP)
Compressed Gamedisk (RTP Included) 229MB
Compressed Gamedisk (RTP Required) 51MB

You play as EviLore, you have to rescue PlanetAGE from the Darkness that is enveloping it. It's...pretty light on content, so it shouldn't take very long to beat.
I really wanted to include a lot more (more members, more jokes, etc.) but I just wanted to have something done, so I can save that for GAF Quest 2.0. :p It does have three endings if you feel like getting them all.

Default RMVXA controls, Arrow Keys to move/choose options, Space/Enter to confirm/talk, Shift to run, and Escape for the menu, plus whatever is configured in the F1 menu. You can also use F5 to switch between full screen and windowed, and F6 changes the scale (It's 480x270, which scales up to 1080p with no black bars).

I've never used the random dungeon generator in VX Ace before, and I didn't feel I had the time to make good ones so I fired it up. They're pretty lacking as a result, I didn't know how bad it was. Make sure you make good use of the Shift key!

Also, because I did this in about a day or so it's probably going to seem rough in places, and I can't exactly speak for the balance! The low resolution will also throw you off because things will be smushed or cut out, but rest assured you don't really need to ever use the menu unless you want to save, so you'll be fine.

Credits:
Music:
Enterbrain
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Graphics:
Enterbrain
NeoGAF
CocoDoco

Scripts:
Acezon, Fomar0153, Zeus81, Yanfly, TDS, FenixFyreX, Fênix

I'm going to bed now, if I forgot anything I'll check it out later today. I do plan to upload stand-alone gamedisk versions but this took like 6 hours to upload so I'll do those later. /snooze

*added two compressed gamedisks (thanks to 4G lol)

Thank you for everyone who created a game, and for all those who play them, and those who leave impressions for the voting sequence for the people who submitted games to win prizes.
 
I wanted to thank Dusk Golem for having this competition. The hard deadline actually helped us get the game done and we had a good time doing it. It was a good learning experience as this was our first attempt at RPGMaker.

Also, lots of good games were made. Congrats to everyone who entered.
 

Etzer

Member
Congrats to everyone who entered!

Admittedly, I my poor time management skills got the better of me and I didn't get much done. Hopefully, I can enter if you do this competition again in the future. :)
 

kn1ves24

Member
Wanted to chime in as well and thank Dusk Golem for putting both threads together. Like Black said the deadline helped us out a lot. Made us stay realistic in what we could actually get implemented in the game.

I want to congratulate all those that worked on games even if you didn't get one finished in time for this. If you didn't get yours finished, I hope that you will and then let us all know about it.

I'm looking forward to playing the games submitted. And if you play ours I really look forward to what you have to say about it. Positive and negative feedback is all good feedback in my opinion.
 

Swamped

Banned
Wow, the descriptions of all these games sounds super interesting! And I'm not just saying that to be polite. I would legitimately buy some of those based on the descriptions. Can't wait to play them.
 

BGBW

Maturity, bitches.
Well Done everyone on completing your games. That is in itself an achievement. I look forward to playing them.
 
Looking forward to this. But a quick question: is Kepz...um...K.G. That game. Does that require a working knowledge of a foreign language to play the game?
 

PsionBolt

Member
Nice stuff. I figure I'll play through all of the entries here over the next week or two. I went ahead and grabbed most of them right away, but as far as I can tell, a few have only RTP-included downloads: Rival Quest, The Age of Dusk, The Edge of Darkness, and My Miserable Island Vacation. It'd be nice if the authors could upload RTP-less versions for us bandwidth-starved folks.
 
Nice stuff. I figure I'll play through all of the entries here over the next week or two. I went ahead and grabbed most of them right away, but as far as I can tell, a few have only RTP-included downloads: Rival Quest, The Age of Dusk, The Edge of Darkness, and My Miserable Island Vacation. It'd be nice if the authors could upload RTP-less versions for us bandwidth-starved folks.

What does RTP even stand for, anyway?
 

Jachaos

Member
Congrats to all who finished! I have a Mac so I'll give Wine a spin but looking forward to hearing impressions from other GAFfers
 
What does RTP even stand for, anyway?

RunTime Package. It's a whole bunch of standard resources that come with RPG Maker. You can either include all of them with your download even if you only use a few, include none of them and require the user to install a separate copy of the RTP (which is great if you intend to install multiple RPG Maker games that all use RTP resources) or manually make sure you only include the files you actually use.

You can download the RTP from here.
 
Let's get the ball officially rolling, shall we?

I am reviewing Recurrence by Tommy Gun. It should be noted this is not an RPG so much as a point-and-click adventure, but since I'm always up for a point-and-click, I'll say this is a great bite-sized one. It's an interesting concept and one very few games have explored (Majora's Mask, Broken Age,) and it does it well. The characters don't have much depth, accentuated by the fact only the protagonist has a full-size picture, but the rest of the gameplay and the puzzles make up for it. The tone is mostly light-hearted but isn't afraid to show a dark side. Graphically, it presents good sprites with buildings that show off the difference between the two classes nicely. The one drawback might be the audio, which was either not very noticeable or outright inappropriate (in one area, they had an eerie musical sting when its entire purpose was to pick up one item, and no enemies were around.) Overall, an admirable effort for a self-proclaimed 30 day job, and I'd definitely be interested to see if he returns to this setting, either with an extended version featuring sidequests, or a sequel.

Fun Factor: 4.5/5
Story: 5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
 
I am reviewing RivalQuest by zashga. It starts off as a fun-filled romp that plays on popular gaming tropes, and asks the question, "Can you still be the hero if you're not chosen to be the hero?" Part Gary Oak from Pokemon, part Issachar from SMT IV, part insert-rival-from-your-favourite-game-here, you get to go through unhelpful towns and boring caves to save the kingdom...or not? The dialogue is cute, but adds in too many direct video game references. (Note to zashga: your stuff is already funny. You don't NEED quotes from SFII. You don't NEED Woolseyisms. Just keep twisting the tropes and let your natural style shine through.) The graphics and audio are entirely stock, as the creator pointed out, but they're used effectively - obviously I can't give full marks, though. Also, it ends abruptly at the end of the prologue - HNNNNGH! I need more! (Also, I won't judge for "too short" or "unfinished"...but seriously man, finish it.)

Fun Factor: 5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
 

Puru

Member
I tried a few i noticed basically had no turn based combat so i'll review those for now.

Recurrence by Tommy Gun:

There is no combat system in this game, none, it is basically an exploration puzzle game.
The story is quite simplistic overall but i personally found it enjoyable for what it was, the character don't really have much depth nor did i feel particulary attached to any of them, but i'm kinda difficult. I don't think those were major issue when i played the game.
I felt the game and dialogues were a bit light hearted for what the story was about.
I was honestly surprised by the concept of the game and i think it was pretty well done, i had trouble at one point in the game resulting in me having to rewind multiple times but in the end it was clearly mostly my fault.
Audio wasn't that good imo, not really memorable or anything, it does it's job i guess.
Overall i enjoyed my time.
Art was good enough, i kinda enjoyed the face of our hero.

Fun Factor: 4/5
Story: 3.5/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 3.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5

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Murder Mystery Mansion by Tempy:

This entry is supposed to be based on an old game (that i sadly do not know of), you could say it's some kind of adventure/detective/reflexion game.
The game is quite short as a round can end pretty quickly by either a loss or a win, it's actually a decent way to pass some time in that regard which imo make it an interesting entry. The round are randomized which make it replayable, the game might need more alibi and the like to make it replayable for an extended period of time though.
There's no music (i actually had to check it back to be sure), just a few short tracks here and there, but honestly i think it might have been a good idea, i dunno if it was intentional or not though.
Art was good enough, the mansion looked pretty good imo, also enjoyed the room lightning up when entering.
Story is... well it's basic but it couldn't be helped with how the game works.
Honestly i liked it, it's original and show RPG can have more use that what somebody could think at first, good job.

Fun Factor: 3.5/5
Story: 2.5/5 (no story, but assumed, i'll not really count it in the notation as it would be unfair)
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 2.5/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5

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Brodzilla by Copons:

Action RPG (think Zelda) light, it looked the main purpose of the game was comedy on top of a cat paw simulator.
Let's start with the art, it was good enough for me, again i'm not expecting the ridiculous thing i saw in some games or short test maps in this competition, plus Brodzilla paw was a thing of nightmare.
Audio, nothing extraordinary, good enough and generally fitted well enough for me. The best was the sound of the paws smashing the ground, let's be honest.
Story is... well it's nonsensical as can be and it's clearly assumed, personally amused me enough to keep playing, the name of the hero was the best thing ever, and those paws were just the best. Good thing is that the game not being serious probably helped the later stage of the game that, from what i understood from the devs were more rushed by lack of time and being distracted by other stuff (i liked those dev talk btw).
Tone is extremly light hearted, unlike those paws that looked quite heavy. It was a nice contrast (what am i even saying?!!!)
Overall, I enjoyed this game enough, didn't took long to finish, liked the dev comments, it was fun enough and look at those paws.

Fun Factor: 4/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 3/5
Overall: 3/5

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I didn't notice bugs in any of those after finishing them, i have another game i tried where i detected one that basically result in being stuck but can't really review it since i didn't play much.
PS: I'll now change overall score to personal feelings rather than the sum of the other sections.
 
I am reviewing The Last Willie by Blacksunshine and Knives24 (with added leet numbers in there somewhere.)

Here we have a turn-based RPG with creatures shown on the map, so technically no random encounters. You play Wille, a soldier and, according to the status screen a drunken moron, who has to stop a flesh-eating witch from devouring humanity one person at a time, starting with the men. The witch takes a particular dislike to Willie and forces him to undergo three trials, resurrecting him if he dies, because apparently death at the hands of her minions is too good for her, and allows him to get stronger so he can defeat her, proving that hubris is the downfall of this particular villain. ...Okay, that's actually giving the writers too much credit. The story is basic, but the dialogue is awful. Saying "f&$k you" (yes, written with symbols) is apparently the height of humour in this game. Say it or don't, writers. Any six year old can identify that word. If you're trying to protect kids, use all symbols or just have a clean-mouthed person. Anyway. The world is high-fantasy primitive complete with magic, no mechanical contraptions beyond blacksmithing bellows, and amulets for "those who serve God," but when Willie is shown to be the hero, "Science help us all." Wait, what? I will concede that the graphics are suitable, and every character has a drawn face, most of which are good. Combat encounters are inconsistent: some monsters respawn very quickly, some never do. The magic and specials are similarly inconsistent: it's not explained why you can't use certain spells or skills even when you seem to have the requisite MP and TP. The only guess I have is "you can only use certain spells and skills once per level," but why? The rest of the battle mechanics were alright, and had a healthy difficulty. You may find yourself needing to grind. The battle music was good, but I'm hard-pressed to remember if there was any other music at all. Not sure even better writing would have made this a good one.

Fun Factor: 2/5
Story: 2/5
Graphics: 4/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 1/5
Overall: 2.5/5
 
I am reviewing Delinquent's Journey by originalself.

RANDOM ENCOUNTER: THE GAME! Holy hell, there were so many random encounters it was ri-goddamn-diculous. And they weren't even tough! Imagine going through Mt. Moon when you'd already beaten the Elite Four. Three times. That's this game. Some areas had the enemies visible on screen. I beat every single one in an area - and there were about 50 - before going to the boss. On the way back, I'm thinking "Well at least I won't have any random encounters to deal with!" NOPE. More randoms. The game was made incredibly unbalanced by the addition of the second character, who could heal you about 40 times before running out of MP. Add to that a "full restore" crystal in every dungeon, and you have a very easy, but tedious, time.

I suppose I should point out the story, though. It's basically high-fantasy Bully. You play (default) Red, a mohawked young man with a bad attitude (admittedly not as bad as Wille in The Last Willie) who has to put up with increasingly powerful evil kings ruining his first day in an academy. And let's throw in an evil principal with a Princess Bride reference for some reason. The story itself wasn't BAD. Some parts were even kinda cute. Your second character, an innocent farmer's daughter and cleric, has the choicest lines and isn't too overused. Dialogue is riddled with homonym errors. Originalself, if you ever plan to polish this or add another chapter or something, please learn the difference between their/there, forth/fourth, your/you're, and so on. These things don't get caught by spellcheckers, so if you're not confident, ask someone to look it over. That sort of thing immediately pulls a player out of the game. Graphics were good, I liked that there were two different victory themes, one for bosses and one for minions (but I had to hear the minion victory theme entirely too much.)

I actually hit an UNCONVENTIONAL BAD END entirely by accident. I tried to cancel out of a decision that I thought would lead to a fight in order to get equipped, but the game decided that I chose the worse of the two choices, and ended the game on me. Stupid me also forgot to save, so I got to go through the first dungeon allll over again. It did give me a chance to check the trapped chest though. There was some bad conveyance in it - I thought it was yet another random encounter that happened right when I opened the chest, but it turned out that was a planned encounter. With that frequency of encounters, definitely needed a "X jumps out of the chest!" bubble. Oh, and it turned out that decision I made actually didn't lead to a fight. Sigh. Overall, the game was completely overshadowed by the encounters. And it's really a shame, because the rest of the game had potential.

Fun Factor: 1.5/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 4/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Tone: 3/5
Overall: 3/5
 

N4Us

Member
Recurrence by Tommy Gun

This one is a very interesting take; Instead of a traditional RPG, it's an adventure game with time-traveling mechanics. Done in a bit of a sci-fi style but not too exaggerated. The Memories mechanic is a well-done addition. If I had some problems with it, it would be that some of the choices are a bit confusingly worded, and also that the outworld tile layout was a bit weird on the eyes and it took a bit to get used to where you could walk. Apparently some of the audio issues got fixed in the update but I didn't find out about this till now, so my apologies. Otherwise, pretty entertaining quick game.

Fun Factor: 4/5
Story: 3.5/5
Graphics: 3/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 3.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5
 
I am reviewing K.G. by ChainsawKitten.

It should be noted that this isn't an RPG, nor is it even a point-and-click adventure. It's a walking simulator (aka a non-game.) The only interactivity is in talking to people and even then, if your dialogue choices matter the game gives no indication of it. There are no items to acquire. You're tasked with solving a murder mystery, but you won't find any evidence, even though twice you're pointed to an area where evidence supposedly exists. (I passed over that area ten times, thinking "Surely they're not going to give me this indication and make me walk away empty-handed." Yes...yes they were.) All you have are vague witness statements. After finding nothing and getting almost no help from the witnesses, you're asked to declare someone guilty, but again, I have a sneaking suspicion that it doesn't even matter who you pick, or if there's a right answer. Is it supposed to be some kind of statement? I don't know. If it is a political statement of some kind, the least they could have done is given me a frame of reference with a title card. Give me a city and year or something. The graphics are suitably bleak and well done in a silhouette style, but the takeaway from that is that the characters and their sparse dialogue become almost peripheral to the virtually non-existent story and make it impossible to get invested in them. The audio suits the dark tone, but it gets repetitive. K.G. sacrificed everything, including gameplay and an ending, for atmosphere. As such, I can't reward that atmosphere.

Fun factor: 1/5
Story: 1/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Tone: 1/5
Overall: 2/5
 
I am reviewing The Age of Dusk by Noble Neckbeard.

Classic RPGmaker style action. The battles are not too easy, and come frequently enough that you have to make resource decisions: do I spend MP on curing and come closer to needing a rare MP-restoring item? Or do I use these HP-restoring items that might be useful later in a pinch? Map design is very good with harvestables and exploration rewards with out-of-the-way chests. The story hits you hard and fast, and can be hard to keep up with given all the different characters coming at you at once. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but this game would have benefitted from a library book that explains the social structure of the setting. The game presents a world that advances science to the point that the best and brightest leave the planet to explore the stars. Apparently that means you're stuck fighting snakes with swords and bows while the nobles have starships with intelligent computers. There's a good ominous tone of encroaching danger, and a great scene near the end where you approach your dying father and ten characters in the antechamber have nothing to say to you. But then it commits the RPG sin of "boss battle after long cutscene." If you're gonna do that, please throw in an HP/MP restore, especially if you're in a place called Sanctuary. Yes, it would sort of make you wonder why they couldn't use it on the father, but "video games!" Graphics and audio were par for the course. Overall, I liked it. So finish it already, N.N.!

Fun factor: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5
 
Thanks for your feedback, someguyinahat, and thank you also for taking the time to review all of the games! It's very kind of you to give each one a play and review. I think you might be spot-on with the recommendation for something explaining the lore a bit. One of the great difficulties I've experienced is taking the "finished plot" in my head and finding a way to exposition that story naturally.

The people living on the surface of the planet and those who went off into space have the same heritage, but hundreds of years separated have also made them very different... often in ways you don't expect. There was a big cataclysmic event that messed the planet up bad, which is why they hadn't returned. Looking forward to expanding on this stuff with the rest of the game. I'm really glad you enjoyed the prologue!
 
I am reviewing Murder Mystery Mansion by Tempy.

Not an RPG, not quite a point-and-click adventure, but rather one of those old-school games that doesn't really fit into any genre because developers were still playing with the concepts of games. The game has no more story than "There's been a murder and you have to solve it," but in a replayable game such as this, with randomized victims, suspects, weapons, etc., I'm actually willing to give the Story component an N/A and refrain from factoring it into the score. Graphics had some cool effects (rooms are dim until you walk into them,) but sound was sorely lacking apart from a few bits. I'd definitely have liked to heard music that increases in tension as the murderer gets more wary of you. Item descriptions change depending on the circumstances, which is neat, but questioning the suspects about the victim appears to serve no purpose. What might improve the game is the ability to ask about other suspects, and add a "Motive" element. "I heard that Jack had an argument with the victim last night." "I heard that Henrietta had money troubles." or what have you, and then you can choose why the murderer did it (Rage, Jealousy, Robbery, etc.) This game makes for a fun diversion you can return to whenever, or just something you can load up during a coffee break. The tone is surprisingly light-hearted for a murder mystery, but games are no stranger to that - Clue, anyone?

Fun Factor: 4/5
Story: N/A
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 2/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5
 
Thanks for your feedback, someguyinahat, and thank you also for taking the time to review all of the games! It's very kind of you to give each one a play and review. I think you might be spot-on with the recommendation for something explaining the lore a bit. One of the great difficulties I've experienced is taking the "finished plot" in my head and finding a way to exposition that story naturally.

The people living on the surface of the planet and those who went off into space have the same heritage, but hundreds of years separated have also made them very different... often in ways you don't expect. There was a big cataclysmic event that messed the planet up bad, which is why they hadn't returned. Looking forward to expanding on this stuff with the rest of the game. I'm really glad you enjoyed the prologue!

I completely did not pick up on the fact that it's been hundreds of years. I may have glossed over it in the intro. But yeah, make an interactable bookshelf for that or something. IIRC, one of the characters even had a "loremaster" class, so you could have them remark that they know all this, that they helped write the book, or whatnot. At any rate, be proud of yourself for this work.
 

Puru

Member
The Age of Dusk - Prologue by Noble Neckbeard:

I actually just noticed it was a prologue so yeah i was chocked by the ending, learn to read me.
Ok so it's a turn based RPG with random encounters, skills being tied to weapon was nice, your expected elemental weakness/resistance, the game felt kinda easy but whatever, overall i enjoyed the fights and the good thing was that escaping was easy so if i was lazy i could just run away. I'm french btw.
Story wise, well it was a prologue but it got me interested enough, it's clearly more serious than the other games i played before in that competition and i think the writing was pretty good.
Audio wise outside of when one character joins you at the start of the game i felt it was good.
I noticed one bug when going back to one map prior, you'll end up stuck on a cliff.
Art is ok, but there's alot of issue with tiles, by that i mean you would expet to not be able to go on some stuff but you actually can, kinda strange.
I agree with Someguyinahat, the last boss really deserved a HP/MP regen, i went in with one manaless character, 2 half dead/mp characters... yeah. Well i won but still that felt bad.
Also i sometime felt the encounter rate was too high, seriously once i walked three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter and i was finally free.
Overall i was pleased by this game, good job.

Fun factor: 3.5/5
Story: 4/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Tone: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5
 

sld

Member
Just wanted to pop in and say I'll definitely be playing (and reviewing!) all the other contestants entries in the coming weeks. Looking forward to seeing all the different approaches we've had and perhaps learn a few tricks about what's possible to do with the RPG Maker software.

... And a big THANK YOU to Dusk Golem for creating this competition! It's been fun, and very rewarding. Without it, I never would've tried my hand at making my own game. It was a great experience working towards a deadline, even though it's hard having to cut ideas/scope because there's simply not enough time. But without it, I would never have released a somewhat finished game ever. :)
 
I am reviewing Brodzilla by Copons.

This is a real-time RPG. Gives things a sort of Secret of Mana feel, especially when you do a jumping spin attack...said attack happened at certain times and not others, which can really screw up your rhythm and placement. I found it hard to control, but that could be a limitation of RPGmaker. Battles were relatively easy when you weren't facing 90 degrees away from your enemy. No, damn it, face RIGHT, not down, ffuuuuu...! The one major complaint about the battles, besides control, is that enemies can die and drop loot on top of unreachable objects. Bandit dies on a rock and leaves a potion there but you can't get it, not even with your hookshot. The story is all too familiar: monster threatens the world, go find the macguffin to beat it. Brodzilla is horrifyingly fluffy and adorable. The audio is great. Right from the get-go you're drawn in by the opening graphic and musical intro. Dialogue was funny in parts, trying too hard in others. And for some reason there were advertisements: one I'm not sure was even serious (it seemed to be an image from a Cornballer infomercial featuring Richard Simmons) and the other
appeared to be contact information for a restaurant in Maine? There was an interesting mechanic where you pick up floppy disks to use as saves. I thought I saved a lot, but I ended the game with 20 extra disks for an hour-long game so I'm not sure what the deal was there. I'd have loved a higher potion drop rate and a lower disk drop rate. Tone went straight past "light-hearted" and solidly into "zany." Up to you whether you like that.

Overall, not the best entry out there, but still an amusing journey. If it wasn't rushed at the end, who knows how good it could have been?

Fun factor: 3.5/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 4/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Tone: 2.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Also i sometime felt the encounter rate was too high, seriously once i walked three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter, three tiles, encounter and i was finally free.

Oh, you're gonna love Delinquent's Journey.
 
I was actually wondering if the encounter rate might be affected by the number of troops that you put in as possible encounters. It seemed like areas where I had a wider variety of enemies had a higher encounter rate. I had a beta tester who had similar issues. I never changed the default rate, but looking at the "weight" values makes me wonder if the encounter rate could get out of hand with lots of troops having the same "weight." If the chance of having an encounter is, say, 20% to encounter any given troop. then maybe you're rolling that 20% chance for each individual troop - which will be a much higher chance for an encounter than a flat 20%

Thank you for the feedback!
 

Copons

Member
Action RPG (think Zelda) light, it looked the main purpose of the game was comedy on top of a cat paw simulator. [...]

Ahaha damn! I read your review (at least) two edits ago, and I'm feeling sort of like Maxis opening Polygon's review of Sim City and seeing the vote sinking at every browser refresh. :D
No but seriously, it's pretty interesting to read opinions, even (especially) the negative parts. I mean, positive parts feel good and all, but negative are what I really need to know!

I'm happy you liked the paw thing!
I'm kinda sad to say that those parts are probably what (gameplay speaking) took the biggest dent due to lack of time.
they should have been increasingly harder, like the second time the paw should have been much faster, or even destroying the floor instakilling Guy, but then there would have been too many polishing implications, like a respawn system and whatnot
Also "paws looked quite heavy"? How dare you say my cat is fat!! :D



This is a real-time RPG. Gives things a sort of Secret of Mana feel, especially when you do a jumping spin attack... [...]

As for Puru's review - even though his vote is lower yours seems harsher! - thanks for taking your time to play and post about my game!
Some of your complains seems to originate from my inability to convey some jokes.
It may be my English handling fault (I planned a complete review of the entire script from some translator friends, but then I didn't have enough time for that): in this case I would like to apologize for every grammatical errors I made in the game.

Anyway, even if explaining jokes is probably the worst thing ever...

- There is actually only one ingame ad: the Cornballer one, which is an Arrested Development reference (best comedy ever please watch!!!). The other one you mentioned, the address, hell I didn't realize it could have been received as an ads, but after you pointed it out, well it could easily be read as an ad. It isn't though, I'm not even American so it's not like I know that place or something. :D
It's just a place I've been during a trip in the States, from which I stole the name of the ingame restaurant. Nothing more. :)

- The Floppy Disk thing is a nod to
Resident Evil typewriter ink save system, aka my most hated thing in a videogame ever
! The fact you're dropping huge amount of disks it's just my revenge against that. :D
(also, you should spend any money you drop in potions!)

Last but not least: the combat system is actually pretty bad, I know.
It's just I can't stand (anymore) turn based JRPGs.
On paper (and in its official demo), the script I used is WAY better than how I implemented it, and it offered a lot of great possibilities and whatnot.
I decided to dumb it down to avoid in any way possible any grinding or annoying feeling it could give, and of course I failed anyway. But then again I didn't have the time...

Shit now I really know why AAA games with tight schedule all sucks hard. :D
 
Ahaha damn! I read your review (at least) two edits ago, and I'm feeling sort of like Maxis opening Polygon's review of Sim City and seeing the vote sinking at every browser refresh. :D
No but seriously, it's pretty interesting to read opinions, even (especially) the negative parts. I mean, positive parts feel good and all, but negative are what I really need to know!


As for Puru's review - even though his vote is lower yours seems harsher! - thanks for taking your time to play and post about my game!
Some of your complains seems to originate from my inability to convey some jokes.
It may be my English handling fault (I planned a complete review of the entire script from some translator friends, but then I didn't have enough time for that): in this case I would like to apologize for every grammatical errors I made in the game.

Anyway, even if explaining jokes is probably the worst thing ever...

- There is actually only one ingame ad: the Cornballer one, which is an Arrested Development reference (best comedy ever please watch!!!). The other one you mentioned, the address, hell I didn't realize it could have been received as an ads, but after you pointed it out, well it could easily be read as an ad. It isn't though, I'm not even American so it's not like I know that place or something. :D
It's just a place I've been during a trip in the States, from which I stole the name of the ingame restaurant. Nothing more. :)

- The Floppy Disk thing is a nod to
Resident Evil typewriter ink save system, aka my most hated thing in a videogame ever
! The fact you're dropping huge amount of disks it's just my revenge against that. :D
(also, you should spend any money you drop in potions!)

Last but not least: the combat system is actually pretty bad, I know.
It's just I can't stand (anymore) turn based JRPGs.
On paper (and in its official demo), the script I used is WAY better than how I implemented it, and it offered a lot of great possibilities and whatnot.
I decided to dumb it down to avoid in any way possible any grinding or annoying feeling it could give, and of course I failed anyway. But then again I didn't have the time...

Shit now I really know why AAA games with tight schedule all sucks hard. :D

This kind of happened with ours. Science help us all is
a South Park reference
. There is also a reference to
a great MegaDeth song, boxing a bear, fighting a cat and having the world turn on you for it, and the hole thing makes a lot more sense when you realize willie is an nickname for a penis in America. There are other jokes in it as well but, they are targeted towards a laid back audience that we knew would be love it or hate it.

Plus we are tech dudes who started out with absolutely no idea what to make other than something that gave us a reason to put a battle system in RPGMaker.

Lastly, the leet characters are because I couldn't get BlackSunshine as a GAF username since it's been taken since about the first 1,000 users probably. Putting numbers in almost always gets me a version of it and people understand what it is nonetheless. I'll be honest, I felt that there was no reason to take a shot at our names when reviewing a game.

We do appreciate the review though, scathing as it was. :) Like I said before, we had fun with it so anything else beyond that is gravy.
 

N4Us

Member
RivalQuest by Zashga

I'm usually not the biggest fan of 'meta humor' games but this ended up being funnier than I thought it'd be. Covered just about every RPG cliche trope I could imagine. Some of the early enemy battles are a bit more difficult than I'd expect but it does give a retry option at least. It ended pretty quickly too but given the nature of the contest I can't really strike down too much for that. I'm interested in seeing more of this in the future.

Fun Factor: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Graphics: 3/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
 
This kind of happened with ours. ...
We do appreciate the review though, scathing as it was. :) Like I said before, we had fun with it so anything else beyond that is gravy.

Yeah, don't take my reviews personally. It's just business, as they say. Everyone has their own tastes, and yes, I may have missed some references but when you use a reference, at least make sure it has a measure of internal consistency and can stand on its own so if someone hasn't seen the source material it can still be funny to them. Don't shoehorn them in. (Had you changed it to "God help us all," it would have been consistent, still pretty funny, and you could have said it's a Watchmen reference.) I did catch the "willie" double entendre, but it was blatantly obvious and I didn't think it worth mentioning.

But hey, I didn't make an RPGmaker game! I'm certain had I tried I'd be getting 1s across the board, lol! So you did better than I ever could; let's put it that way.
 

Puru

Member
Delinquent's Journey by originalself

Turn based RPG with random AND direct encounters (will depend of the map)

I'll start with the music, ithe town music was imo badly chosen, it felt dark/cold, like i was in some kind of prison. Otherwise not much complaints.
Art wise it was ok, maybe outside of me being able to go on top of the roof of several houses in the town but whatever.
The story was okish, nothing really extraordinary though (take that evil lord), my main issue is that i didn't really felt much like a delinquent at all, th hero felt far too nice imo. I liked the farmer daughter and the comment about the slimes when she joins, i have no shame.

Now the bad part, the encounter rate and the combat. I'll start with the combat, it's turn based, you get more skill by leveling up (i didn't tried another game but you can choose from 4 classes at the start, i picked up monk, i dunno if it changes much but it was nice to add such an option). All i did in the game is auto attacks and heal when needed, that's it. Outside of the last boss minions (the last boss itself being as powerful as a noodle) there was never any real threat making the encounter basically boring...
But now comes the most problematic part of the game, the encounter rate is RIDICULOUS, the slime cave... every inch of it was covered in slimes of every shape with a few bats here and there, i'm actually surprised slimes wouldn't pop during my fights with other slimes at one point.
Then after that you have that dimensional thing with some kind of golems, same issue but at least it's shorter.
Then you have the rat lair and damn, once again the thing is filled with rats, but this time it's not random encounters, you just swim helplessly across an ocean of rats that can't do a thing, trying to study their moves to make it to the end with the less possible amount of encounters. I figured it was for people who like to farm but it's far too much, the part with the wraith was ok in comparison, you have lots of room to walk and you avoid everything effortlessly, it made me happy.

Overall it was decent but the encounter rate + boring combat (the two are additive) really hurts the game. Reduce it and remove some rat if you can for more potential chapters, it honestly doesn't need to be high.

Fun Factor: 1.5/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 3.5/5
Audio: 2.5/5
Tone: 3/5
Overall: 2.75/5
 
Yeah, don't take my reviews personally. It's just business, as they say. Everyone has their own tastes, and yes, I may have missed some references but when you use a reference, at least make sure it has a measure of internal consistency and can stand on its own so if someone hasn't seen the source material it can still be funny to them. Don't shoehorn them in. (Had you changed it to "God help us all," it would have been consistent, still pretty funny, and you could have said it's a Watchmen reference.) I did catch the "willie" double entendre, but it was blatantly obvious and I didn't think it worth mentioning.

But hey, I didn't make an RPGmaker game! I'm certain had I tried I'd be getting 1s across the board, lol! So you did better than I ever could; let's put it that way.

We could have benefited from having a writer but, we knew that going in. Both of us are more algorithmic techie dudes that would rather work on programming cool combat in an engine versus actually having to socially interact with anyone. No big deal though. At least someone played it...haha.

It's a big commitment to review these and I don't think that's lost on anyone who made one (at least I hope not).
 

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
Also for those who made their first game, positive and critique of course are important, just know even if your game gets negative impressions, it doesn't mean you're bad at games, making something in itself is a success and from there improvement can be made easily and surely. Keeping at it is the best way to improve, and take critique and praise for what it is.

What aboutTales of Game’s Studios Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa

Barkley-Shut-Up-and-Jam-Gaiden-Title-Screen.jpg


http://www.talesofgames.com/related_game/barkley-shut-up-jam-gaiden/

Shhhh, that wasn't made by a NeoGAF member for the game development contest.
 
I'm reviewing The Edge of Darkness by ZenaxPure.

Let me preface this from the developer:

This doesn't mean that they are all super challenging (in fact the game is fairly easy overall as I want people to get through it).

I couldn't get through it.

There was one boss who summoned four other monsters. They go down easily enough but if you kill them one of your own characters is boned and the main boss absorbs its power. I tried killing all four at once and my party died pretty much in the next round. I tried killing one, and I couldn't recover fast enough. I tried not touching any of them and in a few rounds I was fucked from the onslaught of hits. I tried increasing my defense and it didn't help. I tried grinding but the game is set up so that when you reach a certain level mobs in the area disappear entirely so you can't even grind your way out of it. I simply could not see any way to do it. And it's really a shame because the rest of the game was good. It was very good.

You start off playing a husband and wife brawler and warrior who notice an encroaching darkness that threatens to engulf the world in a little over a week (So basically, a high-fantasy SMT: Devil Survivor 2.) You meet new people along the way, and you are determined to help the townspeople and the family you meet in the interests of sticking together for joint survival. It's a great story for what it is, and the music really lends it that gravitas. Map design really makes use of negative space and borders for this feeling of "there's nothing else out there." Combat mechanics are unique and interesting. The tone is fairly serious, with small pockets of comedy relief, and one of the characters can't even set aside her hatred of magic when the world's fate is on the line. I could kinda see where the story was going, but whether or not there was a twist ending I'll probably never know. Too bad. This coulda been the one to beat.

Fun Factor: 2/5 (hitting a roadblock isn't fun)
Story: 4.5/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
 

Puru

Member
GAFQuest by tensuke

It's a turn based RPG with random encounters, leveling only seems to increase your stats and you have one spell on your character, combat definitly wasn't the focus in this game as it is basically heal and spank (and some mp, loot those chest for delicious mp).

Story, nonsensical as can be, you have to go to work but end up following an elf that went into the sewers because you feel like it while the street are covered in gold and katanas you can never reach (mgrgrgrgr), thus the story begins. Honestly it was pretty fun.
Art in term of tiles was good enough, nothing fancy, nothing amazing, it was ok. Then you had a picture and the intro star wars style which were a nice touch. Also the final boss face.
Musics it was really good, the sewers music felt like i entered hell itself made me laugh especially when the sewer rats where ladies riding some kind of demolition ball.
Ton was light hearted, dialogues were nothing extraodinaire but since the game doesn't take itself seriously at all it fits.
I think people know my love for turn based combat and frequent random encounters now (especially random encounters actually, turn based is ok but i am picky, i won't be for those games), and again those were too frequent, combat was extremly basic, just need to use items as heals since you don't have any healer, which when you think about it would be the same. Nothing extraordinaire but after the sewer i just escaped from everything (seems to be 100% success thank you) and never had any issues anyway.

I really liked this entry, it will be the last for today but really, pleasant to go through overall. Good job.

Fun Factor: 3/5
Story: 3.5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Tone: 3.5/5
Overall: 3.75/5

I don't have much time tomorrow, might test once max but no promise.
 

N4Us

Member
The Last Willie by Bl4ckSunsh1n3 & kn1ves24

This was kind of a weird one. A short humor-RPG about a slob stopping a man-eater. There were a couple issues I had with the game. For one, while I appreciate a game differing from the usual Final Fantasy-esque character visuals, sometimes the worldly layout was kinda weird and it took me a while to figure certain things out because I couldn't visually tell what to do. The battle balance was a bit all over the place; I'd get my butt kicked by an enemy, but then I just level up once and suddenly I'm OHKOing them all no problem. I couldn't figure out why the spells were one-use sometimes either like Someguyinahat mentioned, but thankfully I only had to use them sparingly.
Gripes aside, it did have some amusing bits (Like how the antagonist would insult you depending on which enemy you lost to) and even if the enemies were difficult the game was lenient in letting you retry. The game has some showing flaws and I don't think I would replay it again, but the concept does show promise.

Fun Factor: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 3/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Tone: 3/5
Overall: 3/5
 
I am reviewing My Miserable Island Vacation by Sebastian Lind/SLD (Super Seabass)

The game is hard as balls if you don't spend some time leveling up.

True.

The battles are fast-paced, just like the early Dragon Quest games. Either you win quick or you lose quick.

Not so much. Here's why.

STATUS EFFECTS: THE GAME! The first chapter, you get blinded so much the battle music might as well have been "I Just Called to Say I Love You." The proc rate of blindness by the bats is over half. A lot of times, those first encounters will include two or three bats. If they don't kick your ass, expect battles of a dozen rounds or more as you constantly miss because you're constantly blind. "Use cure," you say? That works for one round. You get instantly blinded the next, and you're back to square one with less MP available for healing. This game REQUIRES an all-party cure, but it doesn't have it. And then you get to the rats. They're like bats, only they stun you instead of blind you. Do you like the difficulty curve of Etrian Odyssey, only without all that silly mapping? Then this is the game for you!

Almost every battle contains the constant worry of being stunned, paralyzed, put to sleep, confused, and hoping you can pull off a miracle before that happens. Battles are a frustrating slog. The developers in this forum suggest you get the best weapons and armour as soon as possible. And yes, those help. Later on in the game though you'll encounter monsters that can cause no damage if they attack you physically, but kill your entire party with magic in one hit, so it's reduced to an RNG battle.

But enough about the battles. The story is rather typical, complete with amnesiac protagonist. Your party, which maxes out at three, goes through several environments in the hopes of saving an island. Lots of world items are interactable, which makes for a humourous playing experience that rewards poking around. And of course, gay sex is played for laughs. The opening of the game is eerie and slightly disturbing, which contrasts the tone of the rest of the game, and is only revealed at the true ending. The true ending also manages to explain a few of the character's quirks, which I won't go into here - you'll just have to see it for yourself. The opening and ending also seemed to use an entirely different tileset. which makes for a refreshing change. Audio is used effectively. Overall,
You don't get to see the overall! You've been blinded!

Fun factor: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Audio: 4/5
Tone: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5
 
Here's my review for GAFQuest(I apologize if it comes off as harsh :p):

What starts out as any ordinary day for Evilore turns into something much more. The game, though lacking in having any gameplay that would define it, is filled to the brim with various details of humor that'll gain the players interest in the beginning. However, as the game moves on those little humorous details in the environment will leave and you'll be wondering why outside of the actual story that you're still interested in it. The dungeons lack any flavor or interesting design and outside of color change can be seen as just palette swaps of each other. The enemies aren't very inspired outside of a cleverly though Miley Cyrus joke that fails to live up to itself after the first few encounters. The bosses would've been nice if they had been any different from the normal enemies outside of their appearance. The music surprised me and although there were no general consistencies in theme with it, the soundtrack was lively enough in the dungeons to keep me going. The story however, is interesting and humorous enough that you'll still most likely invest your time in getting through this short little game despite the design issues it faces. All in all, if you're looking for a short game GAFQuest may be the one for you though expect only the story to carry through while the gameplay falls flat.

Fun factor: 2/5
Story: 3.5/5
Graphics: 3/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 2.5/5
Overall: 3/5
 
I am reviewing The Very Best by PsionBolt.

Before we begin, a point to note:

This game is bugged and cannot be finished.

There are at least four characters in the game's current state who cannot be recruited. Two say they'll join and don't (one of whom gives you 100 gold without even fighting him, and can lead to an infinite gold exploit, not that gold matters in the game) and in one pair, the woman sends a fighter after you, and if you beat him, she'll tell him to get up, the fight screen appears, she says "Escort them out," and your player sprites disappear. I assume that if I collected these last four I'd have access to the castle. I beat the soldier guarding the castle but there appeared to be no actual way to get there for the last characters. Another bug is that after defeating one of the characters who says they'll join and don't, you receive a separate character who you never met.

The concept is interesting: it has elements of Pokemon, Suikoden, and as the developer said, Mega Man Battle Network. There's a little bit of skill and a little bit of luck. (Most times it's just knowing your elements and choosing a character of the element strong to it, but if you don't have one, then you rely on luck.) You can choose one of 40 different characters to start, each with a description and motivation for fighting: I chose a pacifist priest whose intent is to stop the contest, and was paired with a nun. I did like the depth at the beginning. Once you get started, it's much different. Battling with the two I chose is literally impossible: You will almost always do less than ten damage to your opponent, debuff them, and THEN HEAL THEM for 10. Meanwhile, they will peck you to death with hits. Maybe those characters work against dark element types, I don't know, but I didn't have the patience to find out. I had to start finding characters who join you without battling before I could truly get started. Luckily, a few of those exist.

Graphics and audio appear to be stock, but the graphics are used pretty well, with big character portraits for everyone. Overall, it was an interesting and clever use of RPGmaker, and a good potential of a game. Too bad it was unfinishable. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go restart my computer because after exiting the game, my cursors got screwed up.

Fun factor: 2/5 (Would have been more fun if I could finish it)
Story: 3/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Tone: 3/5
Overall: 3/5
 
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