I'm not done playing yet, but I did have some thoughts to share. Currently, I've beat the first two levels' combat paths.
While I haven't played everything in the jam, this is tied for my favorite gameplay! I was pretty leery of the timer premise conceptually, but after playing it, I think it really works! In order to properly execute this concept, there needed to be a kind of quadrilateral balance between "time to find an encounter", "time to clear an encounter", "rewards given per encounter", and "cost of extending the timer". And I think that while the first of those does need tweaking for pacing purposes, you did manage to strike a really good balance between all four of them as is that creates a really good push-and-pull dynamic. Here's hoping that any post-jam patch that tones down the encounter rate manages to also sustain the balance between the other three elements.
That said, I have run into a number of times where the screen locked up. When it happened didn't really seem to be consistent as far as I could tell, (most annoyingly, during the post-combat victory cutscene at the end of level 2) but based on the sound effects, I believe it was still registering inputs/updating the game state - I just couldn't see it. Also, maybe a little bit more of a hint system for the peaceful resolutions would be nice? Other than those few issues, I've really enjoyed this entry.
Viewing post in Born in 60 seconds jam comments
Thanks for letting me know about the screen freezing. It's difficult to be fix those sorts of bugs that are seemingly random and difficult for me to reproduce. I've investigated and believe it is due to a bug in the RPG Maker MV engine itself but I have a patched version of the game that I'll upload once the game jam results are announced next week. If you're still able and interested, I'd appreciate you trying that version when it's available and letting me know if it fixes the problems you were having so I can avoid the same issue in any future games.
Well, I've sunk two hours into the new version - with no freezing in sight! My other feedback from before largely still stands, although I have now beat the puzzle routes for all six levels. I will say the Mansion level took me significantly longer to clock the solution than the others. I'm honestly still not sure what it was I did this time that triggered Sarah's appearance in the Mansion level, since I never encountered her before - though I did appreciate the new(?) dialogue from the guards to indicate how you're supposed to bribe them, so that helped a lot. I do think that having the lumberjack [in the Forest level] ask you to give him three things when you can only collect two of them - while it results in a funny gag, could easily result in making players feel punished for trying to be efficient (ie, not going to talk to the lumberjack until you have all the items he wants) in a game that encourages efficiency. Particularly since looking for wood to give to the lumberjack could easily run you out of time right at the end of the puzzle. I do like the joke, mind you - it feels kinda Paper-Mario-coded. Personally, I'd change it to have the lumberjack ask you to get him wood after you already gave him the other items, and then have Bryony point out the nearby wood in the same cutscene. That being said, I could see that potentially making the joke not hit as hard, plus humor is absolutely subjective, so do what you want - it's your art, not mine. :)