To every upcoming RPGMaker dev:
Not having skippable/fast text doesn't make your writing engaging to read, it makes it tedious. Unless you have voiced dialogue, cut it out.
The arbitrary camera zoom levels aren't interactive, they're egregious. The super-zoomed in one doesn't make navigation interesting, it makes it a chore.
And finally, the pitch-black vision radius doesn't make it "atmospheric and oppressive", it makes it annoying.
RPGMaker has a lot of toggles and options precisely for these situations. There is of course a developer vision to be presented, but you need to be aware of when it starts actually intruding upon the player. Hence, toggles and options. Necropanzer's Domination Desire: Banished does a very good job of this in the vision radius department, for example.
As someone already mentioned - if you have Arabella in your party, as femaleMC, when you fight in the arena, Arabella disappears from your party, alongside whatever gear she had on her. Though later, I slept at the inn - and I got a dialogue scene with Arabella. I'm guessing this is unintended behaviour?
The mazes are "fine" in a design way, but together with the obnoxious zoom and light radius become aggravating. Personally I'd say this is a "choose one" scenario - either the super close zoom, or the pitch-darkness. Both together become a chore. Alternatively, items - torches that extend your sight radius, or that you can put in pre-determined places to both provide wide light in that area and serve as tracking.
Lastly, the yakarek. I appreciate the premise, and even the *teleports behind u*nothing personnel kid *crashes ur game*, but it's such a tonal shift. You have a game/aesthetic that is dark and gritty and stylized and out of nowhere comes a near-jumpscare from Witch's Mansion. Pick your battles, I would say - lean fully into your stylized aesthetic and keep it consistent, or go fully into the eldritch, analog-type-World-of-Horror-RPG aesthetic. It's as if you're playing Call of Duty and you get a 5-second flash of pornography whenever you shoot someone - it clashes because it comes out of nowhere.
On my own personal bias as well, I'm not a fan of jumpscares, despite horror being my favorite genre; though they have their place. And this game, seemingly so rooted in Funger, going for the oppressive, dreadful atmosphere, can do so much better horror-wise/scare-wise than the current iteration of the yakarek and its associated gameover.
I'm sorry if my post came off as "harsh" or "antagonizing" or as "trying to impose a vision onto the dev" - it was not my intention. It's a case of seeing a lot of potential obscured by a lot of (perceived, subjective) flaws, so it's natural to me that I would talk about those flaws in order to let the rest flourish.
With this said, I'm a fan of the hyper-stylized art; and while the premise doesn't try to do anything new besides "Funger" or even SinSpire, it's a welcome one. I'm looking forward to your future releases!
and you don't know where to go in order to reach your destination because the screen is 80% dark..
