Quirky Indie RPGs - Depression is optional

[X Prime]

It's the Bridget case where a boy was raised as a girl because some bullshit political situation and of course he looks like a pretty girl (well, at least as much as the art style allows). At least because the setting is grimdark he isn't some beacon of virtue. There is some bullshit of some good god of communism and evil god of fascism but that might be YouTubers forcing their political takes into the game.

To explain the situation, the troon was born into a family where all males must become a Dark Priest. That means necromancy, murder, et cetera. Their mother didn't want this for them, so they trooned out the kid so they could go study at the Vatican instead.

Except apparently the Vatican is a den of blood ritual debauchery anyway in this setting despite Alll-Mer, the Christ equivalent, being undeniably real and having a lot of the associated powers. There's a Satan/Sulfur God now too because Alll-Mer cast away something.

There's a fascist group, but they make a god that combines all human consciousness as an alternative for humanity compared to the God of Fear and Hunger.

 

[LucasSomething]

I saw that sub was apparently created all the way back in 2014, what was it like pre-release there? I'm sure it was probably filled with posts complaining about the game taking forever to come out, but I'd be surprised if there are any OG oldfags there still using the sub after it's been pretty much infested with brain damaged, emotionally stunted children.

I wasnt one of the OG subreddit users but i did get the game right on release cause i heard it came out. Even then i think it was mostly memes and theories about the kickstarter and the game never coming out, then once the game released i check the next days and it was rare fanarts and discussions about the ending or kel (it's also weird how i remember kel being the least popular for no having an arc when the game released but zoomer memes morphed him into someone else).

Lack of attention actually makes me more interested since a lot of the games with really crunchy mechanics tend to get ignored by the subset of gamers that fawn over quirkiness. I'm in the mood for pain and have 6 hours to kill tomorrow; I'll check it out if it does get cracked by then.

Another one getting zero attention that's actually worth a look is Wyvia:

It's just absolutely unapologetic about being action-rpg Dragon Warrior with earthbound humor and costs 8 bucks. I've been flipping over to it for 10 minute stretches when I'm on call and there's no work to be done. It's simple, braindead and has fun skills, and there's really not much more to say about it.

To be fair, i think knuckle sandwich will get more attenttion eventually with word of mouth, altho i dont know if it will be positive one. It has 3 metacritic reviews from very minor sites giving 75, 70 and 60. They all complain about gameplay being too frustrating (with 1 review admitting they just cheated with acessibility the final boss) but maybe its journos being bad, either way if people are not praising the gameplay you worked so hard you fucked up already. I'll have to play to realisitcally see if it lands or not.

I havent touched wyvya but it doesnt set a great first impression from the trailers. The constant material pop ups and levels skill trees makes it look more like a "treadmill" miner game where you just grind over and over to see numbers go up than a top down action rpg. It should still be a fun timewaster tho.

 

[Coolio55]

It stealth released at an awful timing between black friday, steam autumn sale, game awards, school finals etc. The only game with worse timing is probably Omori that released on christmas and i actually played that on release (it's really funny how small the subreddit was back then and people whined about no big youtuber playing it, back then i said that was a good thing, and it was).

KS is still weirdly dead on arrival tho, like it has nowhere for normies to talk about it other than twitter with a link to discord and the kickstarter page, which isnt linked anywhere on it's own website. Like, there is more people talking about it here on kiwifarms than it's own subreddit. Not like reddit is great platform either but Andrew could've done an AMA on r/jrpg (the rat rpg devs did it) or crosspost his shit into the wario ware or earthbound subreddits, but the most he ever did was do an AMA about the kickstarter on r/games 5 years ago.

In fact, it's so dead that apparently nobody bothered cracking it yet so i cant pirate it! I guess i'll pirate In stars and time for now and see how it goes.

As far as I'm aware (from hacking the steam demo) it's DRM free and there's an itch version that someone could easily dump ...but nobody's bothered.

Anyway. Talking about the game itself: I'm extremely disappointed that I managed to clock it the moment I set eyes on it.
It was 2016 and I could immediately tell that it was going to be mildly entertaining fluff with little staying power. Then the DEMO comes out with a WTF ending and Andrew mentions Fargo, The Big Sleep, and American Psycho in interviews. Then it comes full circle and all of the interesting bits are immediately nullified.
What the fuck happened?! The entire inciting incident is apparently meaningless. I thought it was pulling it's mask off!

I'm disappointed in the worst way. I expected something memorably WTF - good or bad.
The story allegedly has no stakes, arcs or anything. It just kinda meanders.

I'm interested in that pack full of beta content that Andrew's going to be sending the backers. I want to know if it was always this way...

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

Looking at the Knuckle Sandwich reviews:

One of the single worst mechanics of this game is the inventory system. You only get 8 slots per party member, and half of these are usually taken up by equips. Key items also take up inventory space, forcing you to drop or use items you may have needed.

Of all the things to blindly steal from Earthbound, why this? That pretty much killed my interest. Oof. I think I'll try that Deltarune knockoff instead.

Spoiler: quote bug, re: wyvia

> I havent touched wyvya but it doesnt set a great first impression from the trailers. The constant material pop ups and levels skill trees makes it look more like a "treadmill" miner game where you just grind over and over to see numbers go up than a top down action rpg. It should still be a fun timewaster tho.

The material thing is kind of annoying, but the real feel I get from it is that it was supposed to be eight-bit Skyrim before the dev went on a weird mid-development twist and decided to go full stupid/goofy with it and ham up the DQ influence. There's dumb plot, quests, dungeons aren't randomized and a lot of them are just caves with loot, monsters and the occasional weird metroidvania skill gate in them ala the keys in DQ1. Skills are oddly balanced because i've got the choice of +2% attack speed or a skill that lets me chuck rocks that do 2 second stuns for minimal MP cost, which I immediately dumped points into and have been using to nickel and dime stuff to death way above my level. It's a weird game.

 

[LucasSomething]

I have played In Stars and Time for 2h 20 minutes, some thoughts

Spoiler

-This is definitely a """"quirky"""" game, in the sense that the main characters are all notably quirky and there are a lot of joke attemps. The difference from a normal jrpg is that characters dont have a quirky mini side, but their quirky trait is their whole personality and it somehow gets more extreme as it goes. You have the "teasing troll femboy", "disaster puremaiden", "sassy nerd mom", "HIMBO" and "that one annoying kid who wont shut the fuck the fuck up". It's like a group of tumbler OCs.

-The writing is amataurish cause dialogue is unnecessarily long and i see a lot of (...) all the time. It's fine with Sifrin (MC) since he's kinda quiet but when everyone "starts talking like... this..." it gets weird. Sifrin also thinks to himself out loud which is either useless or makes him sound retarded. At one point he goes "You feel happy to have friends who can understand what you mean without you saying anything. It is nice to have friends who make you happy", as if a quick of him smiling wouldnt suffice.

-You know its one of THOSE games when you have gender nouns on your rpg stat profile. MC is him/they and the kid is NB. There is a lesbian npc and another civilian girl crushing over the girl on your team. The star named loop suddendly brings him his alien pronouns then decides you dont know so'll set for they/them then it points out sifrin uses him/them and it's very important to adress people with proper pronouns because FUCK YOU ITS CURRENT YEAR YOU WILL NEVER ESCAAAAAAPE!

-The game starts sloooooow. It took me 34 minutes to save after a loop and 1h14m to get real control of my character. The twist that you die and restart as a loop is cool but the trailer made it too obvious for how slow it starts, and anyone blind wont like this cause the combat isnt that deep. Attacks are literally rock paper scissors, skills only have cooldowns do 5 of the same attack in a row and shitty persona all out attack + free heal. The main problem IMO is that this could be a decent roguelite if it was actually a roguelite, but there is seemingly zero variation between runs and progression is so slow and gatekept that i'm now simply escaping from fights because there is no point.

-The coolest thing of the game is also it's worst thing, the fact that since it's a time loop, you can go back and see everything again but sometimes thing changes but unlike a normal game you can actually skip through new dialogue by accident and miss it. This makes sense in-universe with sifrin literally dozing off and sleeping while people talk which is genious, but it's also awful since it's an AUSTISM CHECK that i cant pass with how long this dialogue is. I couldnt even redo the tutorial to see potential new dialogue cause i felt burned out.

-THE NON BINARY KID IS SO ANNOYING JEZUS CHRIST WHY IS IT SO BAD. ALL IT DOES IS SCREAM UNTIL THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT AND EVERYONE BENDS THEMSELVES BACKWARDS TO JUSTIFY THEM. IT'S NOT CUTE IT'S CRINGE AND ANNOYING.

tl;dr: The worst happened and i feel the dialogue is too long/slow and combat boring so i might legit not finishthis. I also dont like any of these ugly ugly MFers, except mildly stand the MC.

I'm disappointed in the worst way. I expected something memorably WTF - good or bad.
The story allegedly has no stakes, arcs or anything. It just kinda meanders.

Yeah, another thing reviews mentioned was weak narrative but i reaaaally dont want to spoil myself there. Playing undertale and omori on release gave me the hindsight to understand some games have to be taken blind, the least i expect is a memorable story and a few charismatic characters.

Of all the things to blindly steal from Earthbound, why this? That pretty much killed my interest. Oof. I think I'll try that Deltarune knockoff instead.

If thats true then its worse. Mother 1 had 8 inventory slots but key items only used once and even that game had the decency to have equipped gear not take inventory space. Knuckle sandwich somehow made a worse inventory than a 1989 jrpg.

 

[Colon capital V]

it's very important to adress people with proper pronouns because FUCK YOU ITS CURRENT YEAR YOU WILL NEVER ESCAAAAAAPE!

Hey remember how in EarthBound Tony, Jeff's best friend, secretly had a crush on him but it wasn't explicitly stated? Or how Itoi didn't just pair them up from the getgo like an autistic tumblr fujoshit and left it up in the air? Remember when there was subtly, nuance and faggotry that wasn't so insane we have to play pretend with other mentally ill freaks lest we get mobbed?
Man I sure am glad we live in a "progressed" and heckkin "validated" time period where we're on the right side of history and not living in such a fucking "racist, bigoted, homophobic, transphobic" society filled with giga nazis and shit in the past.
I fucking love sucking the girldick in my troon games.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

To explain the situation, the troon was born into a family where all males must become a Dark Priest. That means necromancy, murder, et cetera. Their mother didn't want this for them, so they trooned out the kid so they could go study at the Vatican instead.

Except apparently the Vatican is a den of blood ritual debauchery anyway in this setting despite Alll-Mer, the Christ equivalent, being undeniably real and having a lot of the associated powers. There's a Satan/Sulfur God now too because Alll-Mer cast away something.

There's a fascist group, but they make a god that combines all human consciousness as an alternative for humanity compared to the God of Fear and Hunger.

Oh yes, they do the "Christianity is the real evil" only to double down that "Satanism is just as evil because god caused Satan to go mad".

 

[X Prime]

Oh yes, they do the "Christianity is the real evil" only to double down that "Satanism is just as evil because god caused Satan to go mad".

Yeah, unfortunately you really can just see FnH devolve in realtime as it got more popular.

The Satan is literally what Alll-Mer cast away from himself to become a god, and the ending where this is explained gets you a weapon named Longinus.

 

[The Feline Solution]

What about West of Loathing as far as quirky indie RPGs goes? That one is notable for being part of that rare "Overwhelmingly Positive" club on Steam.

It's really fucking good, so is Shadows over Loathing. I spent considerable time on Jick's, the creators, first game, Kingdom of Loathing, which is a browser RPG that is still going strong today and was thrilled when they announced WoL. Dude is a gifted writer, his humour goes from on the nose slapstick shit to super obscure referential, some autistic shit (like never starting a sentence with a preposition) mixed in for good measure.
All without ever sounding like some pretentious r*ddit twat and genuinely funny. Be ready for WORDS WORDS WORDS if you decide to get the games. Gameplay is standard JRPG fare with his trademark unique classes and the riddles put some 90's point-and-click adventures to shame, sometimes almost obtuse to the point of frustration, you can definitly tell on which games Jick grew up on. I recommend both WoL and SoL wholeheartedly if you are into indie JRPG in the slightest.

Edit: No troon or faggot shit whatsoever in either of the two games, nor any woke, capital b black bullshit. Jick has some sex pest allegations against him from some former staff girl but AFAIK nothing substantial ever came out from that.

 

[LucasSomething]

I have finally played knuckle sandwich up to chapter 5 i think, i dont see this game blowing up like undertale or omori because it's simply not normie friendly at all.

Spoiler

1-The story is all over the place. Chapter 1 is about you accidentally killing a guy and your boss turning him into THE "Knuckle Sandwich". Strong start right? After that the vampire looking tutorial guy explains that reality is glitching out because someone is messing up with "spiritual energy" and fucking up dimensions between our world and the goblin world so he gives you Goblin powers (???) and tells you to go to places where something weird is happening.

My boss hires 3 playable team members and so far disappears from the story. Chapter 3 is me and red hair checking the fridge and finding a ghost from someone who died at the diner. Chapter 4 is me and brunete going to a hotel and finally seeing the real "bad guy gang" that stole something from the mayor to power their gun, and they have teleport devices and magic powers (??) and the police can also teleport (i dont understand this world at all). Chapter 5 will be on a yacht or something and i'll probably fight the next gang leader there as a boss.

Either way this all feels so detached from the start of the game. Does me killing a guy even matter at this point? I bet it ties back at the diner but narrative is weak and the MC has zero real motivation. Even now it's really funny how his most standout design trait, the black eye, was done by the second boss who literally appears out of nowhere to fight him cause he "sensed our energy", then loses and disappears. There is one NPC who looks is literally playing a game and saying the story is good but he cant spoil you then looks at camera. Later he return to bash spoiler trolls. This story better live to your hype bro.

2-The gameplay is gets progressively less fun. Maybe it's cause i'm at patch 1.2 so there might've been balance or maybe journalists are REALLY bad but i think the game is manageable because timed dodges are easy and being good at minigames makes you immortal. But tryharding at every single fight has burned me out too fast. 2 Basic attacks are potential infinite tap loops and there is way too much fucking mashing games, both offensively and defensively. The worst part is that failing means you do NO DAMAGE and wi the few times i started failing i legit died so i more casual player WILL struggle with this, and i've heard players got "softlocked" on the boat boss cause there is no way to grind or upgrade and had to cheat.

I just dont understand how the dev didnt get the feedback or learned anything from Yiik. No one uses magic in yiik cause the minigames are more cancer than attacking. I dont use magic in knuckle sandwich unless it's 3 enemies since it's the only way to AoE. Dumping acessibility options doesnt solve the issue because now you admit you fucked up and the game isnt fun. WHY ARE INDIE DEVS STILL BAD AT THIS?

And i Wont give it a pass cause it's only 1 dev, undertale balanced itself fine and it's fun and varied while still letting casual normies bruteforce with items (they only need to survive) but you can't even do that in KS cause the inventory is garbage and enemies are tanky as fuck so every fight feels like a marathon. You have to fight perfect, dodge perfect and have 3-4 items you find at best. Instead of feeling like highlights, bosses feel like the worst part of combat. I feel sorry for bad players not getting the counter dodges, those fights would be 2-3x longer.

The main saving grace is that the game isnt CRINGE as it look, it has some good jokes but mixes them between wacky randomlol humor (You boss can seemingly teleport behind you for no reason) with some decent well paced jokes (the "do you like videogames?" joke is hilarious and the second game show is funny) but it's not paced well enough to carry the game. Once the dungeon starts you know it's going to be 30 minutes of boring fights and another 30 of a boss fght THEN some comedic cutscenes.

TL;DR:
1-Only reached chapter 5 but the story is mostly weak and detached, alternating between random bullshit and real drama. This means the tone is also all over the place, with two sudden bloodbaths out of nowhere.

2-The combat gets unfunny reaaaal fast. It's not hard if you tryhard but that means burning out and getting stressed. There is also some kind of level scalign so i never feel strong ever.

3-The game is definitely one of the random humor quirky ones (the goal is to save the goblin dimension apparently) but there are some good jokes, it could be worse humorwise. Surprisingly no political propaganda so far.

 

[Tablet County]

I don't play these kinds of games often but I like OFF quite a bit. I prefer the surreal and off (pun unintended) feeling of everything, and while it has somewhat emotional moments it doesn't try to tug at your heartstrings too much like a lot of others in the genre.

 

[LucasSomething]

I have finished Knuckle Sandwich, contrary to what i thought, the story does tie some stuff at the end but not ALL stuff and it's argueably worse than before.

Spoiler

So after chapter 5 the evil gang surrenders and it's all a plan anyway for them to find the mayor secret island, where they escape at the start of the chapter. It's then revealed a fuckton of stuff at once:

1-The brightfang gang are actually good guys who wanted to save the city all along. This is hard to believe considering they're assholes and got multiple people killed but suuuure.

2-The 1000 future company that owns most stuff on the island is actually the main villain planning to mind control everyone at the city, They also control the police and....

3-You know all those coloured people you cant talk and think must be generic npcs? Those are mutant monsters created by the 1000 future company. Even in universe two people admit "i thought it was just regular people" and someone says they're not even wearing clothes. The cops are also mutant monsters. This whole twist is way too absurd to be taken as clever.

4-The 1000Future actually kidnapped a baby goblin some time ago and they harvest it's power to create the mutants and experiment on people.

5-The GAME SHOW MAN is the mastermind who was using TV to control the masses, except he is just a robot controlled by his assistant who is the big mastermind and reveals.

6-The goblin baby escapes and KILLS ALL YOUR PARTY MEMBERS AND THE GANG in the explosion. The assistant (actual mastermind) named prima then mounts a mech a starts an unironic JRPG villain speech battle where she says this is for the good of humanity and she saved this city and it was much worse before her and yadayada we knock her out.

All of this happens in the span of ONE DUNGEON. It's like the game suddendly realized the whole goblin dimension thing was an actual plotpoint and so much shit made no sense and decided to tie it all together in a shit soup.

After that we get next chapter (yes, the game didnt end yet), after we cry about our dead friends, the tutorial guy / busdriver says we need to find goblin baby. We go across a glitchy dungeon and talk to the gym weirdos again (i'll get there) and busdriver explain it's wasnt your fault and wonders "if they remember". Then we go back at the diner...

At the diner we finally re-meet our boss that disappeared ever since chapter 3. He wants to escape the city and take you with him cause he regrets everything. Then he reveals the only cool twist in the game, the one that the guy you killed actually worked for him. The reason he has no workers is because that guy kills the new hires and the boss cooks them for the mutants who eat human flesh. This is presented as a big twist with the music and scene growing glitchier and it's like the boss is the most evil person in the game. This is the first moment in the game i was genuinely impressed and had shivers.

AND THEN THE GOBLIN BABY APPEARS, FUSES WITH BOSS AND TURNS INTO A RAINBOW DRAGON.

THIS IS THE FINAL BOSS.

You fight the rainbow dragon until you realize you cant kill it and then your fight command changes to TALK. Yes, *talk* because Undertale and Mother 3 did it so of course it would be really funny if we did it right now without making sense. Do it enough and the boss you call you retarded for thinking talking would help since "that never works haha" and we collapse. Then we have a dream where we meet our friends and get courage to fight again, then we fight the boss in a isometric plane and it's a... shitty zelda 1 boss fight with shitty music. You move foward and stab it, then stab fireball for hp, it's very easy.

THEN YOU WIN. THE boss reappears and literally dies, the busdriver is knocked out. You leave the driver.

Credits roll.

...

You know, this really was the shittest ending i've seen in an indie game in a while right. In fact it was shit that i couldnt possibly believe it since i didnt see the kickstarter backers. So what i do? I go back and continue my save, which leads me back at the diner but... It's the start of the game.

Yes motherfucker, we just went back in time! I do everything until i fight the green man again except i dont kill him this time. Instead it's revealed the green man worked with busdriver and it was all a plan for him to pretend to die so you get tangled into this quest to help him. But for some reason you remember everything from "the past run" as he says, so you tell him about the baby and busdriver kills it.

Turns out the goblin baby put a safety measure to rewind time whenever it dies so you try many ways to kill it and nothing works... Until busdriver decides to send the baby to the moon and tell prima (evil mastermind) to just stop doing evil shit and i guess that's it. We see busdriver explain this to his goblin boss and we get to option to forgive him or not for effectively setting us as murderers and if we want to join him into solving dimensional anomalies or return to bright city.

THE REAL CREDITS ROLL. The End.

So this is a much better ending because everyone is alive but it's also retarded in it's own way. Andrew must think it's genius because it ties everything together but it feels forced cause everything was too stupid, the city is boring and characters are shallow.

The brightfang gang saying they love the city is bizarre since the city sucks and they're murderous assholes.

The handsome humanity cult is completely detached from the plot other than Vince giving you a black eye and them trying to stop you cause Vince "remembered wrong" or whatever.

The mayor suddendly reveals he was cursed to look like an apricot and Prima promised she would fix this but lied, which is all pointless. The mayor and brightside similarities are pointed out but nothing comes of it, i thought brightside would be his lost son or something.

Our teammates are ALL POINTLESS. Thea is the only one with an actual arc where she wants to be a hero then admits she was too focused on being the hero she didnt care to listen to brightfang. You could remove them and nothing changes. They have no attachment to you or any of the plot.

The boss is funny but disappears for most of the game and turns into a dragon which makes no sense. My only regret is knowing he doesnt die after we reset everything.

tl;dr: My expectations were low and i'm still dissappointed.



Sorry andrew but IMO you fucked up. If it wasnt for the acessbility option to auto-win random battles i probably wouldnt have finished this. I did not use it on boss fights tho so i'll give you that. The final boss twisting all the games perspective is really fun too.



Oh yeah i missed so much, apparently throwing away the thrash i get from job centre at the start of the game locked me out permanently out of certain stuff! Thanks /sneed

 

[Coolio55]

Oh yeah i missed so much, apparently throwing away the thrash i get from job centre at the start of the game locked me out permanently out of certain stuff! Thanks /sneed

Spoiler

Here's a funny one. One of the scarce reviews that this game actually got managed to give away the "Jelly Baby people are evil" plot with a not-so-subtle hint.
Also, really disappointed that your boss never becomes a party member. He was listed as one in the first demo...

It's a shame. I think that Knuckle Sandwich *could* have been a good game but it's just all over the place.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

It's amazing how those games take classic moments of better games and just mindlessly copy it to be the gayest possible thing.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

A new challenger approaches.

This one caught my eye because it's got, uh, a bit of an odd pedigree. The art in the trailer really doesn't get my hopes up but it caught my interest enough to throw the original on my shitty emulator handheld.

E: GameFAQs' summary killed my interest and is making my lolcow sense tingle in regards to someone who would both translate this and make a fan sequel:

Spoiler: I can see why this got passed over for localization

La Salle Ishii no Child's Quest, or simply Child's Quest, is a rather unique
RPG for the Famicom. The story follows three girls and their manager (you) as
they travel across Japan in an attempt to become a highly popular performance
group. Instead of fighting enemies, you flatter/charm them to become more
popular and earn money to improve the girls' appearances. The gameplay
culminates in performing concerts at six venues throughout the country, then
finishing up with a performance in the legendary Tokyo Hall. The game plays
much like Dragon Quest with regard to the menus and the general pace, but I
found this game to be a lot of fun. It also gets easier once you are strong
enough and know where the most fruitful opponents can be found. Speeding it
up with an emulator also helps a ton. It is worth checking out!

 

[LucasSomething]

Spoiler

Here's a funny one. One of the scarce reviews that this game actually got managed to give away the "Jelly Baby people are evil" plot with a not-so-subtle hint.
Also, really disappointed that your boss never becomes a party member. He was listed as one in the first demo...

It's a shame. I think that Knuckle Sandwich *could* have been a good game but it's just all over the place.

It's a shame too cause the presentation is on point (for a 1 man game), there are some good jokes in there and the game starts extremely strong, but after chapter 2 it's way all over the place. It's very weird how the game feels surprisingly dark (comedy) and depressing but after that your boss disappears, the story shifts into a generic save the world plot with quirky heroes, quirky cops and quirky villains in a quest that feels 90% filler. I dont know if brophy had no idea where to go after the demo or if he didnt want to make another "indie rpg about depression" but there was a shift somewhere. The game even refuses to show blood again past chapter 2, even when people die onscreen.

There are many other complaints i forgot like the inventory sucking and gear being pointless since there are less than 10 weapons the whole game and you only equip 1 acessory which is either a healing spell or level up stat booster... And then the level cap is 30 and enemies dont respawn. You'd get punished for training more than 1 party member since no one would cap, which is unforgivable to me.

 

[Coolio55]

It's a shame too cause the presentation is on point (for a 1 man game), there are some good jokes in there and the game starts extremely strong, but after chapter 2 it's way all over the place. It's very weird how the game feels surprisingly dark (comedy) and depressing but after that your boss disappears, the story shifts into a generic save the world plot with quirky heroes, quirky cops and quirky villains in a quest that feels 90% filler. I dont know if brophy had no idea where to go after the demo or if he didnt want to make another "indie rpg about depression" but there was a shift somewhere. The game even refuses to show blood again past chapter 2, even when people die onscreen.

There are many other complaints i forgot like the inventory sucking and gear being pointless since there are less than 10 weapons the whole game and you only equip 1 acessory which is either a healing spell or level up stat booster... And then the level cap is 30 and enemies dont respawn. You'd get punished for training more than 1 party member since no one would cap, which is unforgivable to me.

I gotta admit, this is a very odd specimen. The music and sound effects are fantastic. The visual design (sans the dodgy character designs) and "juice" is excellent and I think the battles look better than Deltarune (sans the crappy "8-bit" parts). One subtle thing I also really like is the fonts.
I too suspected a rewrite but there's plenty of old trailers from before the first demo that showcase stuff that happens in the final game like the brightfangs and the apricot resort. (Although I vaguely recall the pre-battle dialogue with the electric black guy implying that he worked for Apricot)

What the fuck happened?

I actually bought the GYMS soundtrack album. He seems to have contributed most of the iconic tracks but also because "Go! Go! Power Muscle! (which is basically this game's equivalent of "Death by Glamour") wasn't on youtube.

 

[I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis]

Decided to try making a bingo card for "modern" indie games. Fill free to test it on just about anything.

 

[HexFag]

View attachment 5539778
Decided to try making a bingo card for "modern" indie games. Fill free to test it on just about anything.

should move "/v/ hates it to the center space" and replace it with RPG-Maker
Here's Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass

 

[Coolio55]

View attachment 5539778
Decided to try making a bingo card for "modern" indie games. Fill free to test it on just about anything.

should move "/v/ hates it to the center space" and replace it with RPG-Maker
Here's Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass
View attachment 5539805

"Dogshit meandering (non-)story" should 100% be on there.
Let's see. That's:
YiiK, Knuckle Sandwich, The Snoot Game Knockoff, Revolution 60 (Did the Balan Wonderworld thing of putting it all in the fucking novel!), Continue?9876543210, Anodyne, Small Saga, Slaarp (Confirmed by the guy playing it in the troon media thread. There wasn't anything funny to report after he stopped posting), OK/NORMAL, Omori (Over half of it is completely irrelevant).