A familiar style of game almost definately based on one of my favourite games. Well done, i was glad to see this game. All done within 48 hours aswell? You could definately expand it to make a nostalgic fan game of FFVII

Thanks a lot @thegamearchitect! I wanted to make it much prettier but the time went by so quickly :D Had lots of troubles with bugs with the whole menu system as well. I did not know it was going to be so tricky!
I do think I might like to work on this a bit more in the future though so thanks for the encouragement :) I'm also a huge fan of the older Final Fantasy games. High-five!

Nice job! Having to kill in a certain order is definitely a twist, with different attack types to worry about too it made it a fun reaction game. I did not understand why my attacks kept being reordered though, that was quite frustrating to play with

Overall, charming :)

It's simple, but fun. Those shuffles really get me. The music is nice too.

A unique take on the theme! I like the combination between fast paced reaction game and the slow jrpg combat.

I usually don't like that type of jrpg like combat because you can just spam attack and everythign dies. Here having a kill order and use the proper attack in time was really a good twist on it :D

I recently started watching GDQ and they talk so much about menuing. I am blown away that you made a game just about menuing and it was still fun. The intro levels were good, the feedback was helpful.

Long live menuing, @matt-green :D Also GDQ is love <3

Nice Game!

I get an error when trying to use the Web version:
```
RuntimeError: null function or function signature mismatch
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[7756]:0x204155
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[2740]:0xadf58
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[23097]:0x6bbde0
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[7725]:0x20236c
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[7756]:0x204007
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[2740]:0xadf58
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[11816]:0x35fb1b
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[23095]:0x6bbd15
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[1341]:0x57d0a
at wasm://wasm/0349a45e:wasm-function[976]:0x3cae9
```
Using Chrome 103. Seems to work in Firefox though ^_^. Game controller mostly worked, except was B to confirm and A to cancel, unlike stated in the description. I'm glad the "help" was tagged as "spoilers", I had fun figuring out how to play, and it was easy to do so.

My score on my first run: 145, stage 12, 159.6s
Second run I did better: 405, stage 15, 150s

It's a little frustrating how one little mistake seems to sometimes quickly snowball into a complete party wipe, but it did keep the suspense up nicely =)

Awesome entry! I really appreciated the attention to gamefeel here, added a lot. Good sfx and clear visuals, and the art was very clear at conveying meaning instantly.
Really loved the take on jrpg battles, really unique and innovative, something ive never seen before! When skip got introduced that really blew me over haha! Could see this being used as an amazing battle system in a full game some day, gj!

Who've thought you can make a game out of JRPG menu selection! I really like how you keep introducing new gimmick every round, which gets you to keep trying and find out what's coming next!

@jimbly Thank you so much for the report about chrome! I'll look into it. I've run into controller button mapping issues on certain controller+browser combinations; might be a good idea to include button mapping settings in the future. Anyway, those are some pretty good scores :D I agree about difficulty, could have been balanced a bit better at the higher levels. Thanks for the feedback!

I'm really impressed of well communicated everything was for the characters being little blobs, also running out of time being a big deal but not a hard fail state made it a lot more intense when you mess up.

Fun game. Great learning curve.

Cool game, really tripped me up when the controls changed on me all of a sudden :sweat_smile:

Like the concept , nice learning curves.

That was really fun to learn the gimmick to! Simple, but effective.
Really neat take on the jam theme.
Thank you. :D

The timer just zoomed to 0 in 2 seconds. Rigged. The score screen disappeared too fast but I survived 4+ minutes

Fun game; I especially like the idea of shuffling the menu buttons

This was fun, it's satisfying when you get through a level really efficiently. Liked the music and the menuing sound effects

Liked the concept, simple but fun!

I actually like this more the most jrpgs. I think the time limit to act is very compelling and forces you to make a decision. On the plainer side, but you where able to get music in as well so that is a plus! Congratulations!

Very fun idea and cool execution. Had a blast.

Nice little JRPG combat game! The menu switching was a neat little gimmick that kept me on my toes each fight! I think I would have liked a clearer explaination on the attack types and colors of the enemies, I dont think i figured it out well with my first run (Red was regular attack and blue was magic - what was purple?) but otherwise good job!

This game is pretty unique, and it has a good difficulty curve. If I had any actionable complaints, I find it a little unfair that the kill order can change when I've already selected an attack (or very close to it). I also wasn't crazy about the music and the graphics are obviously very minimal.

I really liked figuring out rules as you go, fun and very intuitive. It could really use some music, but I like that you have to adapt to game cause everything changes. Only change I would make is to not allow kill order change during atack animation, cause that felt a bit unfair at times.

Really enjoyed this game. The theme was well implemented in the gameplay. The music was great. I am always amazed at how people can get music included in such a short time. A couple of areas of improvement would be
1) attack order shuffling mid attack was frustrating. As a player it feels un-fair when that occurs and breaks the flow of fun.
2) Adding some visual feedback (juice) would have gone a long way to add a greater satisfaction when killing the enemy.

Overall I really enjoyed this and am impressed with what you were able to accomplish in the 48 hours.

Got it's hooks into me ended up playing for a while. Felt smooth to play / easy to control and the actions felt like they had weight. Liked the simple graphics they served the game really well and the sound was great I think it's a large part of why I was stuck playing for so long.

The only thing that bugged me (which Kuboxxxxx already mentioned) is it felt kind of unfair when the game changed enemy order mid attack.

Hope there are icons representing which twists there are on each level so player know what to expect.
very innovative game and carefully designed level sequence.

Love the progression and rampup. The only part that threw me for a loop was when the command menu order changed.

Graphics are simple but effective. Music is good. Everything felt cohesive and bug free.

Nice work!

You did a great job of invoking the JRPG vibe! I immediately was transported into that headspace based on the music, menu, and sound effects. I read in an earlier comment that you wanted to do more visually and of course I think we all know that feeling of wanting to add more polish to a game jam game, but I thought you did a good job of setting up all the basic elements necessary to convey your theme & idea.

One of my favorite genres is typing games and somehow I felt like this game really captured what I love about that genre which is frantically trying to speed up your keyboard input while simultaneously reading & processing something ahead of what you're inputting. Especially when I made a mistake/something changed in the middle of doing an attack and I had that familiar panicked (but somehow enjoyable) decision making of "should I go back and try to correct or just push through this to save on time and get to the next character?"

JRPG nested menus can definitely feel a bit tedious so the idea of building a game around it paired with the 10 second theme to give that exhilarating rushed puzzle solving experience was genius!

@thedude3600 @quinn-patrick @kuboxxxxx @aplite @thaprofesional

Thank you all for the insightful feedback! Much appreciated. I guess I should have prioritized fixing the kill-order-shuffle-while-attacking thing, as it seems to be bothering everyone!

@puhan The icon idea is brilliant and I hadn't thought of that! Many thanks for the suggestion.

I spent 3 round and starting to know what's happening. All of the sudden I found it quite playful! Then more mechanics are being introduced in the game, Interesting design:D
Loved the JRPG FF style BGM!

Very innovative game, the idea you get 10 seconds to execute all the attacks is great. I actually never cycled through, but I hope if you attack with everyone and still have time, then you can begin attacking again, that would really fit the premise. The idea of adding "twists" is also cool, and you come up with more and more of them. If you end up with a large pool of twists, I suggest activitaing only a certain number of them every round, and communicating that to the player (Or... maybe not communicating that? I wonder what would be best...). Slap a story, some GRAMPHICS, polish the gameplay a bit more and you end up with a highly enjoyable and very unique steam game, well done! :)

Initially I thought this was quite simplistic, but as the mechanics get added (Enemy Types, Interface switches etc.) it really does a nice job of steadily ramping up the difficulty. Really liked the classic JRPG feel as well.
It did feel like more of the game was spent waiting for your character animations to end so you could take another action, rather than using the core mechanic of the menu navigation. Did you ever consider not having to wait for animations, while having more enemies to account for the extra time? It seems like that may have been more engaging.
Although, I understand that's a staple of the genre you were staying true to, rather than anything specific to your game. Overall really nice, especially for a compo submission.

@evedoll @elros @skyward4d

Thank you all SO MUCH for the lovely feedback, critique, suggestions, and inspiration. Much love for you all <3

Great twist on the JRPG style fights, the purple enemies could possibly be more distinct from the blues - I often confused the two.

@matt-ravenhall Thanks for pointing that out! I had some concern about that too, so thanks for confirming :D Choosing appropriate colors is a much more difficult task than one thinks!

This is an interesting game. I managed to get to stage 10, but got stomped after that. At first I thought the kill order and attack types were random and you had to work them out through trial and error; I didn't consider that there were clues to them until I read the help page. The controls felt good, though I didn't understand why the order of attacks in the menu kept changing. The music is great and the visuals are clean. Nice work!

Great idea!

Pretty nice balance

Keeping order in the fight was interesting. A great reaction game. Graphic is simple, bud idea is perfect.

Like the idea and the music was good. Found a bug that if i keep on clicking on the enemy when attacking my character on that line moves off the screen.

Menu/kill-order shuffles accompanied by the enemies with different weaknesses all blend together into a rush of going through menus and enemies all within a strict time limit. Truly one of the most action packed, nerve-wracking and chaotic turn based games ever

personal best score 175 btw :]

A nice game I can play while listening to a banger. The difficulty gets increased at a nice pace, and the random things are not that bad, except for the randomized attack order. Nice sound effects as well, they did not get old, same as the music. Nice job!

That is an interesting twist on a familiar genre. I really like how you have managed to bring this theme into the game - and it actually works quite well. The end result is quite chaotic but it is so massively different than the original JRPG combat that it is actually a fresh experience.

I think this game could have potential if you kept working on the art style and other aspects of the game after the jam. Good work!

This was a neat idea :smile: :thumbsup_tone1: It seemed rather polished despite the very simple graphics. And actually pretty selfexplanatory.

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

Having never played a JRPG and only watched others do it I wasn't really sure what I was getting into here :smile: Luckily you made it easy enough for beginners to understand. Well done! Not an easy task in itself.

wow really like these old school style

Loved this! Really fun take on the ATB battle system.

That was such a challenging one! The randomising of the kill order AND attack menu... it took me a few rounds to notice ahah. Dies on stage 10, it was going too fast for my tired brain x) Sold entree, and smart choice focusing on gameplay - the simple graphics just work.

Very interesting game! There was a lot to my discovery journey and how it evolved:
1. After the 1st few battles and realizing speed was important, I crossed my arms to play. Nothing bad about this, I do this quite often when I need fast movement since my left hand is better at movement.
2. Took me a few rounds to realize which ones were susceptible to attack vs magic. I thought the shape might've mattered too, and the animations threw me off.
3. A few rounds later I finally realized the kill order mechanic. Now everything was clicking into place.
4. Died for 1st time at some point here
5. I had been using magic to kill the purple ones because I didn't know how many colors there'd be. I finally went duh, and realized it could be killed by either.
6. I pushed through until level 18 and finally stopped there since I wasn't sure when I'd finally die.

None of those are complaints. I thought it was a very fun journey of figuring out the rules under pressure and then coming up with a strategy. I felt very awesome starting with no real clue what was going on, to making decisions well ahead of time and dropping fast attacks.

This was super fun, and I think even if a player knows what to do, there's still plenty of challenge to be had. Great concept, and ESPECIALLY a good one in a stale genre that normally just relies on narrative to carry it.

The UI and feedback here was seriously on point... And a good thing too, considering it was a twist on the classic JRPG formula that twisted an already terrible thing into something awful (and fun!). Very clever idea, and very well executed. Seemed very balanced, too, which is a rarity for jam games. Nicely done! :tada:

What a clever way to turn a classic game mode into something new and interesting. Really refreshing to see!

Good use of theme.

A fresh take on the turn-based battles. I like the twist, although I would appreciate some kind of indication when the switches happen. The tunes are pleasing to the ear and give a classic RPG-vibe.

Good job!

It's such an interesting idea! Nice take on the JRPG genre with a really strange and wonky twist to it that makes the gameplay so completely different. It gets abit confusing at first but thankfully the prompts explain enough of the mechanics that I can understand how the game works, and it becomes a "don't get confused and think fast" kind of gam, which is honestly pretty fun albeit repetitive.

Also the music is amazing!

Nice work! The feel of the game is really nice! Don't often hear music made with general midi but you made it work well!

Nice work! Very simple, but engaging. Vibing to the music too!

Very cool, got fooled a couple of times with skip becoming the first option :smile: Sometimes I felt like there was a bit too much luck involved if the kill order shuffled, but anyways a really nice game!

Super simple but well polished game. Good use of music and sound effects. Art is very clean and gives understandable feedback. Good job!

This is such a clever twist on turn based ^^ my score \o/


it's so easy to make 1 mistake and lose the whole thing by panicking haha ^^

This really kept me on my toes! There was a lot to remember but I really felt good when I got it all right. Plus very clean implementation and clear interface. That said, some of the sources of difficulty felt rather artificial, like shuffling the order of menu items and having a blank item on the menu.

simple, fast, fun. I like the fact that the player has to figure out what works for whom and what doesn't

Very nice music! Graphics are nothing to write home about ;), but they do their job - everything is clear and readable.

I like the twists you introduced to the standard jrpg fight. Especially the shuffle of actions. I'm so used to standard order that it took me a while to realize that the actions shuffled :laughing: (I thought I misclicked). With more variety of actions (types of attack, types of magic spells) and enemy resistances to figure out, this could really hold interest for a long time.

The game itself works well, and I didn't notice any bugs. Impressive job in compo time!

I really liked this a lot! Classic RPG with a good innovation on the theme. Pretty good polish for compo.

A very interesting premise executed in an interesting way - it does seem like the challenge ramps up at an odd pace imo (i.e. it felt pretty easy for the first like, twelve or thirteen waves and then suddenly it felt fiendishly difficult) but for a jam game i dig it. All in all yes very good

Cool concept, however, it would be much better if you created your own characters instead of coloured blobs.

Hey, thanks for making the game! I played through it and recorded my thoughts.

https://youtu.be/MuBdkwJ7Txw

As for me, an understandable and interesting game. In its minimalist style, I really liked it.

@vykri my friend, thank you SO MUCH for your review! That was incredibly insightful. Everything you brought up was very well thought out and it's easy to agree with you on pretty much every point. I loved hearing your thought process. It's always very humbling to see someone play your game and encountering difficulties on aspects that you as the developer were taking for granted. I think game balance is still something I struggle with a lot. Color choices were definitely poor in hindsight and made the game more difficult than it should have. It was very interesting to see how relatively small details like color and the shuffle-while-attacking issue can drastically alter the difficulty curve. I definitely learned a lot from your commentary and I'm very very grateful for your contribution! Much love <3