A Sneeze RPG (Hotfix 3/1/2021)

[sneezygal]

I’ve always liked your writing, and seeing that you’re making a game now is amazing! I really like Clover and I can’t wait to see where the story goes

[JaeChaeGi]

I'm terrible at these kinds of games and am enjoying the hell out of this.

Also, I'm on a Mac and it seems to run fine. The game has crashed a couple of times, I think when I hit the wrong key at the wrong time, but I haven't paid close enough attention to what's going on. Once I figure out what I'm doing to crash it, I'll let you know.

Thank you for making and sharing the game!

[Blah!?]

Not a whole lot I want to talk about this time, but I figured I’d keep everyone in the loop. No new demo yet, since while I’ve been doing a bunch of work on different things, I haven’t made too much more progress with the story for now. As a general heads up, it's probably going to be a good while before I put out another one.

Thanks so much for all the feedback and suggestions! For all the testing I try to do myself, there are always some things I miss, so it’s really a big help.

I suppose I’ll run down the main things I’ve changed and that I’ve been working on:

- I’ve reduced the random encounter rate. It may still require further tweaking, but random encounters will happen almost half as often as before, but not quite. For the most part I haven’t made the battles harder, but I have increased the exp enemies give by a bit to compensate for having fewer fights.

- This is in the game already, but it’s not something I really talked about or advertised before: Each class has a few different weapon types you can choose between with their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Clover can equip either a small shield or a spellcasting focus in her offhand, so you can choose between making her tougher or giving her some more magic power.

- Going off of the above, the only thing I really did change is I removed Anithe’s ability to dual wield melee weapons. RPG Maker has an issue with a character being able to dual wield and also equip two-handed weapons like bows. In the current demo you can give her a bow and a sword at the same time, which is of course ridiculous.

- There are now different damage popups in combat, as well as messages when an elemental attack deals extra damage or reduced damage to an enemy.

- I’m playing around with adding sound effects to Clover’s sneezes. I could also put in some sneeze sounds during dialog, but honestly I feel like that would just feel really awkward when none of the other dialog is voiced.

- I’m also getting a little more creative with cutscenes and such. Sometimes they can take a while to figure out, but I think they add some nice flair to the game. There’s some pretty wild stuff you can get away with.

- Last little tease I guess, I’m almost at the point where we’ll meet another party member…

[poiub]

Exciting!

[Blah!?]

And here we go again.

Just like before, if you only want to play the game, click here.

I'm not entirely sure how this works, but if you're on Mac, it's apparently better to launch the game with the nwjs than the app. I still don't have a Mac to test how to get to it, but if I look at the folder structure on my computer, the nwjs file is located in Game.app > Contents > MacOS.

I'd at least like to think I've made a lot of progress since last time. There have been a couple mechanical evolutions, but mostly the story is moving forward, and I feel like I've gotten a lot better at scripting events and such. Now the scenes from the beginning of the game feel kind of rudimentary to me. I might go back and rework some of them later, but for now I'm going to keep forging ahead.

For a taste of what's to come, you'll meet a new party member, Clover will learn another sneeze attack, and you'll arrive at a new town by the end of this new demo.

Also, Clover's sneeze attacks now have proper sneeze sound effects, kindly provided by Zensations! I really can't thank them enough.

But some things never change, and I can't resist shoving Clover into more sneezing-while-hiding situations.

I really need to do a better job keeping track of what I've actually changed from one version to the next. I'll try to list out everything I still have in my brain:

- The demo island is gone. Sorry, I think it's pretty much just a waste of space at this point. Once you get to the end of this new demo you'll have a much better sandbox to play in, so hopefully that'll be some consolation.

- I've reworked a few items, mostly making Revival Herbs restore slightly more HP. A common problem I had in testing was if I ever needed to use one, the revived character would have so little HP that they'd just be downed again in one hit before they could take a turn.

- I've made other further balance changes as well, but that's definitely still an ongoing process. I am still able to run all the way from the beginning to the end of the demo without upgrading any of the characters' equipment from what they start with, so hopefully the game will be a bit easier if you actually do that.

- I replaced several of the default sound effects with ones that I find a lot less grating.

- I mentioned this in my last dev log, but now it's official: random encounters are less likely now. A random amount of time (aka steps) passes between each one, but I've upped the average number from 30 to 50, so they should happen slightly more than half as often as they used to. Additionally, rather than making enemies weaker, I have them give out more exp so that you should still be at a similar level after fewer fights.

- I found a nice plugin for damage popups in combat, so now damage numbers look better and there are also popups for when enemies take extra or reduced damage based on attack elements.

Thanks again, everyone! I'm really flattered and humbled by the reception this game has gotten so far, and I really hope everyone continues to enjoy it going forward!

[InLivingColor]

Not sure if I got to the end of the demo or not but I couldn't advance once I left town. From what I saw looked really fun. I was able to stand over the blacksmith's building in town so may have a hit detection error in there in case you wanna polish that up, dunno if you're looking for QA people or not lol

[mysterysneeze]

I'll head straight into my thoughts on the release of the new demo:

1. Most important thought: I played for over an hour just walking around and exploring. This is a game, and it is a fun game you have created I enjoyed my time with this. A lot ^^

2. Personally my favorite areas of the game are the towns. I love the variety of NPC characters with the designs you put in the town and I think the dialogue is great to listen to.

3. The running gag of fallen logs made me laugh, I feel so bad for the guard that has to stand by those logs XD

4. The game's story took interesting turns I was not expecting with your new update. I really enjoyed the story overall! Your game feels like I'm playing a fun 90s RPG. I love sneezing-while-hiding situations, and to see a situation where the sneezing character actually managed to hold back and a situation where they failed to hold back were each a joy to see happen. The sneezing-while-hiding ideas you put in this game felt unique from each other. It felt good watching each scene ^^ Do not be afraid to add whatever situation you personally enjoy 😃

5. *Spoiler warning with this thought for those who haven't played the recent demo* The idea of temporary team ups is brilliant. I was NOT expecting to have the captain join the party at all. Temporary party members can lead to different possibilities of non main characters being more that just someone to talk with. Bizarre comparison...but it kind of reminded me of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series when quests would happen and a temporary side character joined the party until the quest was complete, then they gave rewards and went away. The captain helped and gave the reward of not throwing the party in jail XD

Also, I love the way you did the captain's battle sprite and her normal talking picture. Her design looks great!

6. Anithe to me personally is the glue that holds the party together. I love the beginning of the game where there's the option to talk to her multiple times, and if you do...her poor lunch opportunity XD Her dialogue throughout the entire game so far is a blast to read. She is a fun, quick-witted, and smart type of character to me. She also has been the most useful party member while I've played the game. I'm very glad she is an ally! 

7. The enemy sprites surprised me. I was not expecting the different types of enemies! I have no idea just how many enemies you have included in the game, but I was pleasantly surprised at the designs I came across in the game. Great job with what you have done with the enemies so far! ^^

8. Niiz is the newest addition to the party, and the color scheme with her design is great. She is very different in both design and personality. I like that she gets too focused on what makes her excited and gets distracted at what is around her XD Clover and Anithe to me personally are better characters, but Niiz is quirky and her battle style is different (having her attack normally is a terrible choice. Her spells are much better). Her addition to the party is a good choice. I also really, really like how she has a different 'weakness' that gets her sneezy. It could've been easy to make her have pollen allergies too, but it is much more fun to see Niiz sneeze because of different things she herself is vulnerable to.

9. There were no bugs that caused the game itself to not play right, all battles were no issue at all ^^ but there were 2 brief instances that I noticed collision stuff not working right. An NPC walked right through Clover and then it never happened again. I walked to the NPC again and each time it worked properly after the initial collision. The second instance was the inn building of the new town, the right side of the building, has one panel where you could walk into the inn that is not a door, but it is still a non-issue.

10. I love the battle damage numbers you did. They do look better and I could tell when something was good to use and which attacks were resisted.

I could say more, but this is already a long comment ^^; Thank you so much for all you have done. Your game is a joy to play.

Take your time, and don't stress. Enjoy working on whatever you want to do!

[chalkdust]

You, and your game, are very impressive!  Thank you for all your work!

[Zracken3]

I'm upset at myself that I didn't see the new demo the day it came out, but I'm all caught up now. There was a lot added since last time, so I have a lot of thoughts and comments to share. Hopefully I can be somewhat brief by listing things, though not in a particular order. Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn't played this yet (and what's wrong with you -- get playing! XD).

 

First, all of the pros, new and old:

1) I still absolutely love the humor in this game. The recent update is somehow funnier than the last one! I especially liked when the cult leader ran after the cultist fight in Glistering Grotto.

2) The characters are still amazing. I especially like Anithe's character as the unwilling-yet-willing babysitter type. And her side comments to herself about the absurdity of her situation are a delight; I love her comment in Myrefall about the pepper!

3) The new damage popups are definitely a plus. It's nice to have solid feedback about what is and is not particularly effective against different enemies. Also, the whole super-effective vs. resistant damage mechanic is a great feature that makes enemies feel distinct and gives the player a reason to use a wider variety of abilities.

4) The tutorials given throughout the game are great because they're done via story. For example, the fight with the cockatrice introducing Clover's sneeze powers, or the fight with the dust sprite showing off Clover's new sneeze and Niiz's dust sensitivity.

5) The new sneeze sound effects in combat are wonderful. I wasn't aware Zensations was still around, but I don't think you could have found a more talented voice actor in this case.

6) I like the addition of a Credits section to the main menu.

7) The music design is pretty incredible. Not sure where it's all sourced from, but the background tracks always seem to match the environment, and the battle music is awesome. The fights with the cult leader, in particular, are pretty rockin.' 

8 ) The different sneeze mechanics and sensitivities between Clover and Niiz are entertaining, and it makes you think about different ways to use each of them most effectively.

9) The introductions of each party member are wonderfully natural. It doesn't feel like anyone doesn't belong or was forced into the group.

 

Now, the cons/critiques/suggestions or what have you:

1) Goodberry might be a little overpowered. At least, I found it very useful through the course of the game. Though only usable outside of combat, it restores ~1/2 the HP of Cure Wounds for 1/4 the MP, effectively making it twice as good. I never had to use any healing items because of this. At the very least, Goodberry makes Antidotes rather redundant, since poison is always easily cured for 2MP.

2) The random encounter rate might still be a little too high, but this could easily be within the range of personal preference.

3) The secondary victory music that plays after winning a battle (not the initial theme but the song after that ends) might be a smidge too loud.

4) It might be worthwhile to add ways to increase or decrease SP outside of combat rather than only in combat. I'm not sure how this would fit in to the larger mechanical framework, though, but it would help players to purposefully incorporate Clover's and Niiz's sneezes into combat strategy -- something I was attempting.

5) Not sure if this is an oversight or thoughtful exclusion, but I found it weird that Clover's basic Sneeze isn't super effective against the Grass Slimes since they seem to be fiery.

 

And now for a few glitches/errors. Nothing game-breaking; they're almost all wall issues:

1) You can walk over the rock pillar to the left of the waterfall where you meet Anithe.

2) You can walk through the pile of boxes right outside of Pinedale.

3) You can walk into the back end of the blacksmith's shop in Pinedale, some column as the door.

4) When Anithe learns Natural Posion at level 7, the name of the spell covers her name on the level up screen.

5) You can walk onto the top-left corner of the interior of the tiny, uninhabited shack just outside of Myrefall.

6) You can walk all over the roof on the outside of the same shack.

7) You can walk through the chimney and onto the roof of the stone house to the north just as you enter Myrefall -- the one with the cabbages out front

8 ) You can walk on the wall where the window is on the house in the far notheast of Myrefall, to the left of the goods merchant.

9) You can walk on the wall next to the INN sign as well as the wall opposite that on Myrefall Inn.

 

Finally, a couple of questions:

1) Do debuffs from Frost and Ensnare stack on themselves? If so, do the durations or effects stack? How much can they stack?

2) What does the "stuffed up with pollen" and similar statuses do? I know they at least increase SP each turn, but are there differences between causes for Clover and Niiz? What does the pollen condition do on Anithe, if anything?

 

Okay, that's all I have for now. Hopefully these lists are useful, informative, uplifting, or something. As a final note, I want to compliment you on this project again. This really is an absolute masterwork.

PS I also think I deserve an "achievement" of sorts for dealing the killing blow on an enemy using Niiz's regular Attack. XD

 

[Zracken3]

Sorry for the double post, but for #8 on my glitches list, I meant to say the house to the right (east) of the merchant's. That would've been a bit confusing.

[Blah!?]

Thanks so much, everyone! No new updates just yet, but I wanted to respond to this awesome outpouring of feedback.

On 2/7/2021 at 11:20 PM, InLivingColor said:

Not sure if I got to the end of the demo or not but I couldn't advance once I left town.

This is honestly exactly the kind of feedback I want. If there's stuff that's not working or doesn't make sense, it definitely helps to hear about it from all of you. Do you mean that something in the game breaks or doesn't load, or can you not find the way out of the next map? There's a log at the top of the next playable area that you can jump over, but I've had several people point out to me that it wasn't intuitive to find or know to do this, so I'm changing it to make it clearer.

@mysterysneeze I'm so glad you're enjoying the game so far! I think the towns are some of my favorite parts too, although honestly it's a little difficult to keep coming up with random NPCs to populate them, and they also feel so empty without them so I know I need to keep doing it.

Maybe I'm opening a huge can of worms here, but honestly if anyone has any ideas or suggestions for random incidental town NPCs, I think that's probably the one big area where I'm kind of taking requests. Particularly if you have an idea for their appearance and/or something you'd like them to say, I'm all ears. It's probably going to be a while before I make the next town, but having some random little ideas for citizens would definitely help.

@chalkdust Thank you so much! I hope I can maintain this level of quality going forward.

@Zracken3 Thanks for the feedback, and especially for bringing up all those issues. I'm making some balance tweaks, as well as fixing the mapping problems and lowering the music volume across the board.

I know it's only been like a day, and again it's probably going to be a while before I release another demo, but I already have some new stuff that I hope everyone really likes. It's been a blast working on this so far, and thanks again for playing!

[Zracken3]

@Blah!? Thank you for being so dedicated to this project and for being so responsive to people's feedback. It's great to hear you've been enjoying the process, and I'm stunned that you already have new things being added.

As for the random town NPCs, would you like us to post our ideas here? And do you have any guidelines you've been following when designed townsfolk?

[Blah!?]

Feel free to post your ideas here, and I guess if this is going to be a thing, I do have a few guidelines I should probably lay down.

I guess the only actual rule I'd have for suggestions is the NPCs you suggest should be characters that you came up with, whether you'd like your OCs to make cameos or if you just came up with them on the spot. Essentially don't ask for characters that belong to other people.

Otherwise, the most important thing would probably be a description of their appearance, and anything in particular you'd like them to say, or a little bit of personality. Also I can't make any promises, but if you'd like them to be a shopkeeper or have a particular job in town, that will most likely be fine as well.

The rest of this is really just full disclosure on my part:

- Certain common fantasy races are unexpectedly hard to create given the character generator. There's only one body type, so I can't really make gnomes and halflings or larger characters and such. There are also a bunch of other annoying limitations, but it's hard to know when they'll come up or not until they do. I'm not in a position to pay for custom art of every character, so I'm bound by what the generator can do.

- I know this is a sneeze fetish game, but having an entire town populated solely by people who sneeze constantly would kinda go against the tone I'm trying to set, so if I get a ton of suggestions for sneezing characters, I'll probably spread them across multiple locations.

- And finally just a heads up that I can't promise I'll do everything that's suggested. I'll try everything I can, but please don't be upset if I don't end up including something.

Maybe I'm vastly overestimating the amount of suggestions I'll get, but I just wanted to air all that out. Thanks again for playing, and I hope everyone continues to enjoy!

[poiub]

Finally got the chance to play through the new demo... SO good! The characters, the storyline, the humour, the added sneeze sounds, the combat mechanics. I didn't want it to end!

 

"That was a lucky guess!" 🤣🤣

[Shadow Dragon]

Just finished the demo and loved all of it! The characters and story so far have been a real joy to play through.

Overall there was plenty of fights but nothing felt unfairly difficult. And the random encounters were not so frequent to where I found myself low on MP and out of healing/mana potions.

Did like the free healing waterfall and healing grove. I enjoy being able to grind if I want with a free heals nearby.

[Blah!?]

I figured it was about time I put out another one. As usual, if you want to dive right in, click here.

 

I suppose I'll get everything out in the open and say this release feels a little bittersweet. Don't worry, I'm not giving up on the game. This project is the most personally fulfilling thing I've done in years, and the last thing I want to do is quit. But the unfortunate reality is I live in Texas, and a couple weeks ago I got to feel the invisible hand of the free market elbow-deep. Having no power for three days and no running water for eight really threw off my rhythm and killed any momentum I had, and even though things are otherwise mostly back to normal for me, I just feel completely creatively dead.

 

Again just to be perfectly clear, I have no desire to give up working on this game. I just really don't know when I'll be able to make more meaningful progress. But since I did make some headway since the last demo, I thought I'd release what I have for you all to enjoy.

 

I haven't gotten too much done, the story's only advanced a little bit, but there are a lot of little changes here and there. The most noticeable thing is likely that there are now sounds for text boxes, like what you'll see in a lot of similar games. Also, one of the things I'm most proud of is the inclusion of a little hub area, where you can walk around and talk to your party members about various things:

 

Just as a heads up, this is built into the ending of the previous demo, so in order to experience this and progress further, you'll need to load an earlier save from before you go to the Myrefall town hall.

 

I also have a guide for how to launch the game on Mac that will hopefully help people avoid the issue of not being able to save. An image with instructions is included in the folder with the Mac release.

 

As always I hope you all enjoy, and I'm open to any and all feedback you have. Thanks for playing!

[Zracken3]

@Blah!? I so very glad to know that you're not giving up on this project. And I'm even more glad to know you still find it fulfilling. That said, I am sorry to hear about current events in your life right now. Don't hesitate to ask for any help you might need, for anything.

Now, I have not given this new demo a spin yet, but I had one quick question beforehand. Is the demo supposed to start in Stoneisle Slough when you select "New Game?" If so, I'll just continue. If not, well, that's why I wanted to post this before I spent the time to play through it. XD

[Blah!?]

@Zracken3

Oh crap, I totally forgot about that. I often move the starting location around to quickly test events, and I must have forgotten to set it back to the beginning of the game. I would recommend loading old saves for now, but I'll try to get out a fixed version soon. Make sure you use a save from before the first time you go to the Myrefall town hall or earlier, or else the content after that may not work, and you won't be able to play through the segment at the inn.

[Zracken3]

@Blah!?
I thought it was a bit weird. Good to know.
 

For anyone interested in jumping into it before a fixed version is posted, I was able to transfer my saved game by copying two files ("global.rpgsave" and "fileXX.rpgsave"; where XX is the number of your last saved game) from the last demo's "www" and then "save" folder into the same folder of the latest demo.

Maybe there's an easier way to transfer saves. If so, someone who's smarter than me, please post your own tutorial. XD

[Blah!?]

Alright, updated demos for both Windows and Mac should be up, and I removed the 2/28 version from the folder entirely. You can use the same link to download them, just make sure you have the right one.

[mysterysneeze]

Blah, Thank you 😃 Thank you so much for the energy and effort you put in what you do. Whether it is dialogue, the characters themselves, or what is going on overall, this is a fun game! ^^

Your stories in general are really enjoyable. You've had a talent for creating loveable characters for as long as I can remember, but seeing your story come alive in a game is honestly surreal to me. I think it is incredible how you were able to create this! My game design skills are next to nothing, but I've helped a person with a short text game before. It took a lot of time and effort working with him. How your game here looks and plays is impressive to me!

Just in the amount you have made so far, it feels like I'm playing an RPG on my classic SNES system. Your game is fun, enjoyable, and I love both the enemy designs and the main party members' designs. Enemies can be literally any species, cute or dangerous. The spirits/ghost boss fight was challenging but fun to beat. It felt satisfying to figure out a way to handle a resistance to a certain kind of attack. I couldn't just use the same strategy that other fights had.

This new update just continues to make me appreciate your game. Winter was brutal =( Power outages happened to several family members of mine...it wasn't pretty X_X

Whatever your own personal goals are, do not stress 😃 Take rest, recharge, and do whatever your mind inspires to do, whether it is a sketch, short story, OC dialogue drabbles, or this game. Don't worry about trying to finish a game all at once. You can do different stuff during a week if that is what your mind is inspired to do.

 

[Zracken3]

2 hours ago, mysterysneeze said:

Whatever your own personal goals are, do not stress 😃 Take rest, recharge, and do whatever your mind inspires to do, whether it is a sketch, short story, OC dialogue drabbles, or this game. Don't worry about trying to finish a game all at once. You can do different stuff during a week if that is what your mind is inspired to do.

This right here. ^
Can't stress enough how much I don't want you to feel rushed or forced to work on this. For your own sake, though I also don't think the game would have turned out nearly as good without that personal drive.

I agree with everything else mysterysneeze said too. I'd also like to add that I really love the humor in this game. Whether it's dialogue, events, or item descriptions, it's great. It keeps the tone more light-hearted without diminishing some of the more serious themes/motives. And I've said it before, but it also definitely makes it feel like a game made by Blah!?, which makes it all the more special since no one else could have made it.

Oh, and the Skyrim references are great too! XD

[Dusty15]

I'm on a newer MacBook Pro and I can't quite figure out how to install/run it. When I open the NWJS file, it just shows me a bunch of code. Do I need another program to run it? 

[Mauro]

I am astonished at the effort put at this game. I enjoyed it to the very last.

[mysterysneeze]

9 hours ago, Dusty15 said:

I'm on a newer MacBook Pro and I can't quite figure out how to install/run it. When I open the NWJS file, it just shows me a bunch of code. Do I need another program to run it? 

I'm on a newer computer too. I may be able to help XD

My computer knowledge is next to zero ^^; but with my new computer, I had to get another program. The program that worked for me was something called WinRAR.

There are other options, but whatever program works best for you, take time finding a program you like 😃