The Traitor’s Tale

The Traitor's Tale
CreatorSaintRubenio
EngineSRPG Studio
DownloadHere
Score28/80
RankDisqualified

Reviews – ENTRY DISQUALIFIED

Judge 1: Darrman

Gameplay: 0/10

Disqualified due to several unavoidable run-ending crashes. The one crash that gave me an error message warned me about there not being enough memory for the audio.

Presentation: 1/5

Aside from the portraits, who appear to have been drawn out on paper, all other assets are SRPG defaults.

Story: 2/5

As the chapter is unwinnable, I can’t properly grade the story. However, this is the tentative grade.

Total Score: 3/20

Judge 2: MCProductions

Gameplay: 0/10

I personally cannot complete the chapter, as the game will crash on Turn 9 for me consistently, so no points can in good faith be given on this front.

Presentation: 2/5

A very… Unique artstyle for the portraits, default SRPG studio assets (the worst part about the amazing Vestaria Sagas), and a grating map theme made me want to give this a 1, but Castlevania and TRS music for villages and mid map dialogue BGM sweettalked me into an extra point.

Story: 3/5

It’s an excuse plot, one man wants to stop another from continuing what he’s trying to do, but I appreciate something straight and to the point.

Total Score: 5/20

Judge 3: 2WB

Gameplay: 3/10

Some “houses” are walkable and other “houses” are not and the graphic of each is distinguished by its roof color. This makes it difficult to glance at the lower part of the map and know which tiles are walkable for me; and it gets significantly worse as visiting a house blocks it off and this is communicated by an INCREDIBLY tiny door closing.

The opening turns are a bit tight, though I’m pretty sure most of my issue was just getting used to SRPG studio’s handlings.

The lack of a suspend method means that the game’s multiple crashes send you back to the start. This is, honestly speaking, not really a problem with the actual intentions of the chapter, but it makes playing to the end impossible: I can’t visit the houses?

The unreliability of the big tank is very annoying and makes it hard to judge if something is alright. I’ve had him die due to missing an 80 and the abundance of the Daggers makes him… really squishy, which is actually really nice – he’s otherwise a bit impervious so having such a weakness really helps.

I am not capable of clearing out of the first section of the map before the game crashes. It is not feasible to kill the boss and it is not possible for me to complete the errands and I don’t… have a clue why. Or have any ability to debug.

And I have TRIED, I actually came back and spent multiple different days on this.

First, sending Ursula into the Fort caused a crash. Then it being turn 15 caused a crash. Then it being turn 9 caused a crash. Then Pierre exiting the red house caused a crash except not a “insufficent memory” error popup, just a crash. Then visiting the arena after dropping off the Iron Sword caused a crash.

When it wasn’t crashing, the game was quite good. But I can’t justify a high gameplay score when I the submission kept crashing despite other same-engine entries not having this issue.

Presentation: 4/5

The game audio is well balanced.

The portraits have a charming cuteness to them. And they’re super unique. Among the most unique portraits in the contest.

The map looks okay – but it’s hard to tell WHY which houses are pathable due to the door’s smallness.

The game sends an error of not being able to allocate enough memory to play audio when Pierre exits the red house. This causes the player phase theme to not restart as well?

Story: 4/5

It’s basic, but this should not be mistaken for low in quality.

There are a lot of conversations in the lower half of the town to see, which all offer useful things, and the conditionals on them offer nice world detail that simply isn’t common.

I can’t comment enough on this due to not being able to clear to the end to see if the charm and love present in the “town” section holds true, but it definitely earned a “I would like to see more of this”.

Total Score: 11/20

Judge 4: theghostcreator

Gameplay: 5/10

It’s fine, pretty slow and boring but it’s perfectly serviceable, everyone has their use and no one completely broke the chapter in half.

Presentation: 2/5

While charming, it’s hard to call the hand drawn portraits anything “good”, combined with the big artstyle clash and my distaste for the SRPG style I find this entry a little hard on the eyes.

Story: 2/5

Pretty generic and not well explained at all, it feels like things just happen.

Total Score: 9/20

Results

CategoryDarrMC2WBGhostTotal
Gameplay00358
Presentation134210
Story224210
Total3511928

Grand Total: 28/80

Entry Disqualified