Reviews for Y.A.A.G. 0: The Demo

[MeGa-wise]

Only things good here are the dialogues, which have potential to be witty.
Graphics look colorful and beutiful, but the game engine is seriously flawed. You cannot enter kitchen because your mother stands near oven and is blocking entrance. This is absurd, you should be able to squeeze past her. You cannot move over a hammer dropped on floor at attic - also absurd. -1 star for this.

Why this insult at Polish from nowhere? How can someone conclude that Poles are barbarians when they in fact have been the actual guardians of civilization for centuries? Poles have been guarding Europe and western civilization from barbarian invasions for centuries and are still doing it now when the most of continent is commuting suicide. Copernicus and Marie Curie were poles. -1 star for this. I am not Polish btw.

And finally this is just a demo - 1 star.

Actually i would reduce one more star for this totally sucking on overall, but you doo a goo d job on responding to questions of past reviews and make sure your, medals work and are explained. So I will leave the second star.

Marcgal responds:

I accept your review with modesty. I kind of wonder if (a) the idea is controversial or (b) the idea is outright bad or (c) I just failed to pull it off well. And I'm shooting in between of (a) and (c).

You are right that these things you described as absurd are indeed absurd. However, if we were to bisect all games in this way... I think hardly any games would prove to be not absurd. In particular, people and stuff blocking passages are pretty much standard for games of this kind. Think Pokemon, for example. Still, I'd think I am pardoned since this is not fake difficulty actually since I made sure not to block anything important. The entrance to the kitchen is open whenever there is something to do in the kitchen and the hammer isn't blocking anything really.

I think you misunderstood my "insult" at Polish. This is not directed against the Poles. This is just Mark's attitude. Trust me on that, I do *not* disrespect the Polish and I thought sister's follow-up statement would rule out such an interpretation. However, it seems true that disrespect towards Poles persists among some of the Westerners, who consider Poles as less developed "wannabe Westerners" and personally I think that the Poles themselves should care less about what anyone else is thinking and just do their job. I tried to reflect this in this dialogue. From the POV of Mark, who is a bit of a curmudgeon, Poland is a distant land, not more sophisticated nor powerful than his own, thus not really worthy of his attention; plus, Mark was annoyed by Jade's bantering already, so he reacted in this way. Jade on the other hand, while arrogant, actually childish, sometimes mean, still has broader horizons than Mark, so she objected. So, Mark's comment wasn't intended to tell my views on the matter.

[BADGIRLQC]

nice hidden medals not find :(

Marcgal responds:

Well till 23 July the medals were glitched and as a result some ppl got them all for free. Given this and the fact it's a demo I think I'll do best if I post a walktrough. Gimme some time to write it... EDIT: Done.

[SuperSapito]

From reading those revies, some of them nasty, I have this to tell:

You made a mistake by not titling it properly in a way people could understand it's a demo.

"omg u hate deoms!1"

No, it's not that. I don't dislike demos any more than you do (I assume you don't either). It's the title thing.

Imagine ordering a dish in a restaurant. When it arrives, is only an Entry dish. It's not stated on the menu - you would be disappointed, but not enough to put you off your appetite.

That's the issue with unmarked demos - Expectations, they interfere directly with player experience. Pitfall - The mayan adventure did it bad (ending ruined the game for me), undertale did it good (a pretty mediocre game that got overrated only by messing directly with the player by breaking the 4th wall contantly).

That being said, the title don't even say anything other than an acronymn from something that also didn't mean anything in general (Maybe that's the meaning, but whatever).

Not, for the bad part: The game is TOO SHORT, even for a demo! This, and not the title thing, is reason enough to pull a star.

Also, the lack of general direction is another minus. There's simply too many stuff on the house, and most of it simply don't matter. Rooms could be at least half the size, and the attic was like, wtf? Maybe sis could have a room if you properly design interiors. lol

ENOUGH BASHING. NOW FOR THE GOOD THINGS.

About the non-combat, different gameplay: Keep at it. You got inspiration on Medieval Cop, right? That's good. I'd say it's the best use of RPG Maker. Interactive fiction is great, the platform don't really matter - If it's good, I'd play it even in MS Excel.

And, from this mini-demo, I'll say it's good.

Marcgal responds:

I think you are right that the game title should clearly state it's a demo, my fault admittedly.

The acronym is explained in the title screen - Yet Another Adventure Game ;P

Rooms could be at least half the size, but... Well I guess the characters would rather like a large and comfy house rather than a small and claustrophobic one :)

I'm thinking, maybe making the mouse cursor change to a pointer when hovering relevant items would be helpful? I know it's a minus that relevant stuff can hardly be distinguished from pure decoration... But I'm not convinced that removing pure decoration is a good fix.

[Dhall]

Several problems here:

- unbeable, loud and mononous music (subjective)
- meaningless achievements
- no content / quests / plot to draw in the player

This may be a demo but it does not meet the standards of a good demo. A good demo is where a game has unfinished parts but those parts that are available have some content or something to hint at what the player might expect in the full version. I see nothing here.

RPGMaker games rely on interactivity, tasks and puzzles. Look at how big that house is, you could have easily included a little quest in the demo but you decided to release it like this which is quite lazy in my opinion.

Since I have no way to judge what the final "product" will be like it is extremely hard to create a review, let alone rate this entry.

Marcgal responds:

Well I'm afraid the final "product" is supposed to be like this demo, only larger... If you dislike the general idea, then I accept this with modesty.

[wowza48]

I like this demo, although it's a tad laggy and the character keeps going farther than I want them to. Also the opening song of the game started up right while I was watching a Full Metal Brotherhood clip- the one about Nina's transformation. The part where Ed figures out the new chimera IS Nina, specifically. The happy music doesn't match the clip at all, but that's my fault for opening the game then watching the clip XP I wonder how the game will be when it's fully released.

Marcgal responds:

I'm not sure what you mean by "characters keep going farther than I want them to"?