Skirjasaga - Tale of a Heifer (Chapter 1 PUBLIC Release)

the most common is red/green colour blind, so reds and greens are either grey to them or are too similar in colour to tell it apart, my friend couldn’t see that there was a orange dot in the centre of the grey ring but could tell that something was there. he was able to figure that out by staring at a still image

I believe most games have for colourblind mode is that they change the colour of things like reds to blue or use just green

v0.1.3 HUD hitpoints bar and various fixes
Hopefully the final patch I do for this version of the game. :sweat_smile:
The HP bar should also clue the player in to the until now fairly hidden mechanic of regenerating HP, which should make the Chapter 1 combat area feel more forgiving for those that thought it was difficult.

  • Implemented player HP bar
  • “Optimize” items option removed
  • Bug fix: Tome books now carry over to Chapter 1
  • Bug fix: Bear outside of the cave moved further away to avoid unavoidable combat
  • Bug fix: The bear cave’s light should now update before the level 1 warning triggers
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Sounds utterly not the worth the time, exceptionally annoying.

Kinda sick of the trope of "lul you beat me but the story can’t work if that happens so whoops I am cutting your arm off anyway nonsense of the last decade.

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An amazing game! I love the combat system and to be honest the story is frighteningly good. Keep up the good work! You are amazing!

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So got the dialogue to pop up first try with 1.3, so awesome. Also liking the combat now, since it’s not frustrating to deal with. Can’t wait to see more content, and if The seer fight is meant to be the pinnacle of fights in the game, I do hope the mechanics she uses are thrown through, maybe as unique boss moves or something. Just a thought, but if you have other plans I totally get it.
One minor complaint is the inability to skip the intro section, maybe a hidden object to allow people who’ve played through it a chance to skip it once a new update comes out.
But outside of that, big thumbs up, can’t wait to see more.

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Players who get all the way to the end of this update are given a password, which they can use to get to the start of the next update once it comes out. :+1:

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Ah I was about to change it, thanks though lol
I didn’t progress past the fight so I didn’t know when posting

this game is very, very BEAUTIFUL I never saw an rpg with these styles the truth I stayed 10 bro if I could classify it would give it a 100 score I really liked the ending you left it haha

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True! Can’t wait! It comes out this weekend or next one? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Christ, I guess I have to check my humor, people don’t seem to get how this is a joke specifically based on people that keep asking for great work to be made and pushed out in mere days.

Just completed the current version and can honestly say this is one of the best stories on the site so far! Having played both 1.0 and 1.3, the changes to combat difficulty are night and day. In 1.0, I couldn’t even finish the prologue, but in 1.3 I could finish the whole thing while still being challeged by wolves and bears. I look forward to future updates, you are incredibly talented!

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Fantastic game, with a compelling story, will definitely show some support when I am able. Excellent work can’t wait for the next update!

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I really like the story.

Because I like it I want to point out two thing I did not like in specific:

  1. I had extreme problems with the seer fight because the 3 simultanious inputs always fails (partially?). My PC made a noice pointing to to many inputs. The fight is not winable but is that because of the tripple inputs?
  2. I found the rapid weight gain to fast. I do not know how the story will progress but I found it to jarring. I would prefer a seperate confrontation between the chubby and fat stage.
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It sounds like you’re using an old keyboard that limits how many keys you can press at once? I know this is a limitation in how older keyboards are wired, but you can test this by trying the same key combinations outside of the game and seeing if it still makes the noise.

Either way it’s probably not something I can do all that much about. You’re not meant to beat the seer, but that’s just because the difficulty is tuned fairly high. The mechanics should be fully working.

This is just a matter of preference, and I can’t appeal to everyone all at the same time. I will say that I’m trying to vary the method and speed of gaining, or how I use kink in different situations - and that I am planning to have some more gradual weight gain as well!

Glad to hear you like the story! :+1:

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Unplayable. I can’t get into chapter 1 past the window cutscene.

“Update your graphics card.”
It’s updated.
I’m using AMD Radeon Vega 3 Graphics.

This isn’t the first RPGMaker game to crash on me randomly. Selenabellyofsteel games also do that.
And Vale City Arcade.

It’s sprites, sprites. My stupid computer with a faulty fan should be able to handle it. (It likes to give me fan function errors.) And yes, it’s Windows 10. It won’t let me upgrade. I hate having refight the soldier. WHY NO SAVE PROMPT BETWEEN CHAPTERS?! And the text, oh the text. Every time it crashes, I have to skip through all of it again.

My computer was bought around the start of 2020.

I’m not sure where you’re seeing this but updating your graphics card. Refers to the drivers and software. Updating the drivers generally will give your computer better performance, help to minimize crashes and software incompatibles, fix bugs, etc.

How much RAM do you have? The minimum requirements are 4GB. I can’t speak for all the games you listed but I know that Selena belly games were/are not optimized, and slowdowns and crashes could happen based on memory issues.

I’ve had some crashing issues in this game. Never seen an RPG maker game crash but this one has crashed multiple times. Doesn’t make much sense as I’m on a RTX 3060 and Ryzen 7 5800h

4GB.

Maybe I need to try ending background stuff.

Finally had time to finish this, really great stuff. The boss battle and following sequence in particular were really impressive. I would say the gameplay and story so far are both well beyond the average, I love how worked in the mythology has been. Personally I feel like the challenge is just right, fun and engaging but not ridiculous, but that might be helped by playing a lot of rhythm games over the years.

The fetish stuff was also very good, typically magic/fast wg is not my thing but I liked how it was presented and the submissive dynamic worked really well. Will definitely be supporting/keeping eyes on the project.

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I’ll echo here what a few people have already written about the story in that it really feels like you’re making two separate games here that, while maybe not wholly incompatible, definitely put me through the wringer emotionally. Like, I’ve played fetish games in the past with dark themes/tones (Corruption of Champions, Alone Amongst Demons, Loki’s Corruption) but none of them struck me as so intentionally and explicitly horrific.

I’ll use spoiler text for my more nuanced thoughts on the game’s themes and story beats below:

Like, you tackle themes of child abuse, neglect, suicide, dismemberment, war, gore, mortality, existential dread, identity erasure, brainwashing and (considering the context of our shared fetish) sexual abuse. And that’s all planted right in front of a scene that we’re supposed to find… erotic? I’m sorry, but I just felt deeply uncomfortable watching the events play out as they did. Maybe someone else finds the setup to be arousing, but for me it totally clashed with the erotic themes.

I think the thing that did it for me was the scene in the inn where Nora rejects Sylvie after learning she’s a Hulder. As a trans woman, watching a character be told that she’s beautiful by a potential love interest, only to then get coldly rejected once she reveals a deeply personal secret about her body hit way too fucking close to home. I felt a deep, personal hurt for this poor poor girl who did nothing wrong and was still made to suffer such cruelty, and the fact that a fetish scene was scripted to follow right after was enough for me to delete the game off my computer.

I dunno, like I said maybe this is a lot of other people’s jams and the darker elements (or the fact that a major portion of the story for this fetish game involves you playing as a child with another child character briefly used to set up the fetish portion of the story… fucking yikes) don’t bother them. But as of now, I can’t see myself returning to this game as-is. That said, I would totally play the fuck out of a non-fetish game of yours, perhaps some kind of continuation of the story where the prologue leaves off without going into the fetish stuff that comes in later. You have a talent for worldbuilding and character writing, and I found myself invested in each character as I got to know them over the course of the story. Ironically, I think it was this aspect of the game that so turned me off in the end - I cared too much for these characters to feel anything but pity when confronted with their suffering. I’ll keep an eye out for your name should you release anything else, but this game was just too much for me.

Tl;dr: This game shows real promise in many regards such as overall design, character writing and drama, but the inclusion of fetish content alongside some very dark and tragic themes wound up being a turn-off for me.

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I have to say I really enjoyed reading your review of the game. I really appreciate that you took the time to reflect upon a nuanced critique of the specific elements that soured your overall impression, and I think you elegantly enunciate this discomfort that I’m sure a lot of people share.

I’m obviously aware that I chose to tackle some fairly dark subject matter, and it’s always been a concern of mine that this will put some people off. I’ve grappled with whether or not I should include an option to skip the prologue, because it’s significantly darker than most of the story I intend to tell and because it’s an obstacle for less story-driven players to get to the kink. Ultimately, I chose not to include the option to skip that for this version of the game, but I may change my mind about that in the future.

This way of viewing the scene completely blindsided me, but I think it’s a very valid and understandably traumatic interpretation. I always expected that Nora’s reaction in that scene would seem confusing and unfair, but if it’s any consolation at all your reading is a lot more hurtful and personal than the one I have intended. This scene will be clarified upon and resolved in a positive way by the end of Chapter 1, but I’d still like to shine light on a snippet that I think most players missed.

There’s a lorepage that talks a little bit about the type of being Sylvi is, that can maybe offer a different reading:

A hulder is basically the norse equivalent of a pop culture succubus. They’re widely used as a cautionary tale, and a fairy tale seductress that will take people away, steal their souls, or any other number of variations. My intention wasn’t to make it seem like Nora is repulsed by Sylvi’s body, but rather that she’s concerned about the rumors that surround that type of being.

This is the source of some personal drama, and an obstacle that they need to overcome to trust each other, but I hope to present this story beat in a more endearing way than some of the darker concepts I’ve brought into the game.

Just to clarify, this is another game you’re talking about? The prologue of my game is played through Nora’s childhood story, but I’ll be very clear that children will never be the focus of kink or sexual content in any story of mine - nor will they contribute to it. Any characters of mine that are involved in kink are 18+ and will act, and look the part.

I don’t expect that I’ll be able to cater to everyone. That being said I will just briefly mention that I am trying to present a range of themes, story beats, and character interactions - and that Chapter 1 will already start to see a lot more of the whimsical, and the heartwarming, and will overall better represent the kind of story that I wish to portray.

In addition I’m considering at least one side project that will be focused just around kink, without all the dire drama. :pray:

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