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I want it too :')

I hope they do decide to share a bit more of the game before the finale is finished :P

- I think this has potential to be pretty good, feels like playing a flash game a bit, but there's some jank here and there that prevents it from being the best it can be.
I definitely skimmed over the tutorial text quickly as it was rather wordy :P

- Managed to get to the 25 wave (with all zombie mutations unlocked)
Would be nice to be able to check out the text descriptions for all the currently active mutations while paused (perhaps also give their designs greater contrast ) perhaps by a simple mouse hover. 

- I think the middle of the game, once you are able to buy the shotgun, is probably the most enjoyable portion of the game, every mutation does bring a slight bit of excitement, but by the time it takes to get all the mutations (wave 25) the game is basically played out; what the game really needs is something more to change How you play throughout the experience I think (either new tools, new problems, or a change of scenery of some sort).
- also I feel like the keycard system doesn't encourage experimentation with different guns (this is especially true if you want to switch between a red keycard gun and a green keycard gun tho, as you essentially seem to lose the old gun when you switch I think?), unless you gather alot of them, as they're used for both the gun and ammo.

- the best cheese strat I found is to click both mouse keys at the same time :P Keeps the zombies off of you while shooting pretty much without a pause :P
shotguns might be the best gun; tho if you could simply have more ammo for it, the red keycard gun (forgot the name, sorry) would be able to compete better.

Issues:
- Trying to get more ammo at the Cache console is difficult while in a round with zombies coming at you, since it doesn't pause the game, and buying a different gun when in danger is even more frustrating for some reason (exiting the console under duress is the worst part)
- I think separating weapons and ammo into two different places might help? also having a better keybind then the escape key for exiting would be a good idea  (since it also pauses the game when you press it), as trying to use your mouse to exit the cache console is slow (bad enough that you've already spent time trying to get ammo/guns during a wave)
- encountered a collision glitch for zombies when they jump (have already reported this on the discord, just putting this here for the record)
- at first I had a hard time differentiating between green and blue keycards, someone with color-blindness would have an even worst time of it, might be good to change the design between each keycard as well as pick color hues and values that have a greater difference from eachother.

I've probably forgotten something, but I hope this helps!

Friendly reminder that i'd love to hear about your game using these or some iteration of em.

Just a friendly reminder that id love to hear about your game you've used these in.

Thank you.

Thanks :D

Hopefully!

XD thanks.

Thank you! (for playing, reviewing, and the 'nitpick'!)
I'm honestly so poor at making jam entries in time XD
only once (whiskerjam2022) was I half satisfied with by making a 'finished' game (and even then it was massively cut/shortened).
Ya'll are my inspiration to improve tho.

Always love to see your reviews, thanks for playing (and sorry 'bout the state it was in :P).

Sorry 'bout that!
Though now I'm wondering about that infinite loop :P (I know at least about one of the crashes)

Hope whatever I share here is helpful, I am a bit tired. Took me around 40 min?
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Encountered some bugs

• first encountered when entering the stone table place: anytime after fixing it, if a battle happens the table will broken *though it'll correct this when the battle is over. (similar things happen to other locations that experience Change while also having battles)
•  Also clicking on going somewhere again, because of no reaction whenever there's lag, means it'll try doing it multiple times, which can sometimes start a fight :P 

__________

I like the fact that it's not the default battle system at least (not to say that cannot be done well tho)

A point of criticism for me is that, at least, I didn't always get if the 'perfect' spot is supposed to be related to the battler image but maybe that's not even intended to be part of it...

__________

Now in regards to the thesis...

Specifically addressing: Can someone be an artist while also using "AI" tools in the production of their art?

As long as they actually make something that uses the outputted stuff (and not just claim the outputted stuff as itself 'their art', as the prompter is little different from an Art-Commissioner in that case). 

Art is a form of communication, and the less an Artist 'controls' the process/production, the more difficult it is to actually have any communication with others (Similar issue with using stock assets/rtp). That's one of the main issues with considering 'AI-Gen' doing any form of 'democratization' of art, putting your own effort will always be a part of Art, and all that 'pretty picture' quality that 'AI-gen' can bring to the table isn't from you.

Somewhat related:
Personally I'd still recommend to credit the makers of the Stock images. Even tho, I assume, they're Public domain/no-credit-necessary-royalty-free or whatever hence not being credited?

Nice game so far, guess now I have to wait patiently for chapter 2 :)

So would it still work to make assets for Ace or 2k3?
Or are the MV/Z (or Unite) specifications a soft-requirement?

I've always wanted to try this game, in the past as a kid I even looked for pirated stuff...
Recently looking for it again, I saw a link to this remake on the abandonware site.
So cool to see it rebuilt!

Very much understandable. 

Ooh, this looks real neat!

I remember playing the original version years ago. Gotta try this full(er) version out :3 !

At least it counts for something (I too may have not done much the past week either ':D)
What's important is to get back into it when free time does come (or rather to make time for it).

I feel you on this whole thing!
I've done pretty poorly in the past with motivation and working on stuff, but I definitely want to be different this time. To keep working at least a little every week (if some days are too busy).

For me the text crawled so much I'm not sure I can stand it.

So I'm debating whether to rate it based on what others have played (who I've watched) or to refrain (probably what I'm going with)

Seem the real lazy was all the devs we met along the way :P (I know I had a problem being lazy this jam when I should've been deving XD)

Anyways, I suppose I'll just say a few thoughts even if it echoes others. Definitely would have liked to have more of the story told through the game. Making the default attack hit all enemies was an interesting choice, but it seemed to be more effective then the TP skill that does the same, so I simply stuck to the default attack when going against multiple enemies. At some point the battle started to feel tedious, esp with the lack of narrative to underpin the reason anything is happening.

That happened to me as well XD (was this intended by the developer :P ? )

such a MISS

A rather weird technically impressive title. Feels like a commentary on 'just believe' type thinking that's somewhat popular seemingly, which obviously doesn't work as much as those people seem to pretend it does, reality doesn't mold itself to the beliefs of random people or even whole cultures, otherwise the world might work something like this game here. 

I think I found my 5 star comedy entry.

Sigma development grindset achievement. :P

I'll be honest and say that I had to use the cheese skill of holding down all the arrow keys, and I still got hit once in a while XD

Nice custom graphics, a decent experience. Honestly the best part of this is the idea of moves that can only be used when a resource is 0 and that full refill it. I might steal that idea for something someday :P

Thanks for the totally fair review! (it's SO rough, but I decided that I was going to submit no matter how well put together the end result was going to be, too many jams beforehand where I didn't submit. So while there many bugs that would even have been easily solved, It was better for me to post this as it was I think then to drop out)

While technically there actually is an indication of how many info cards you have BUT that's only mentioned (if I remember correctly) when going to the portal too soon... You're right that it wasn't clear. The player should be told that getting those is the goal and that they actually received them. And the rest of the game suffered from a similar lack of communication.

The future 'definitive edition' will certainly address all issues in some fashion.

Definitely enjoyed this nostalgic experience. (reminded me of playing the platypus games, thoguh perhaps it's not quite the same level of polish here :P) At first I wondered if there was also a tower defense mechanic, but once I realized it was ok to let them through, I relaxed.

Having me 'insert a coin' on loss was cute, and having the finale of combining forces was funny (ya got an audible snort from me at least :P) 

Quite short so I was able to try both battle systems.

Definitely echoing other s though in that the timed-battle system felt better to play (and it was easier and faster XD) Kinda wish there was an ability to dodge attacks like your other game :P (even if I didn't really need it)

on the magic system, I found the spark attacks to be a wasteful usage of MP since there was no difference in damage seemingly, and yeah it felt like it was just dragging too long with both fights since they're nothing but make enemy number go down, increase own number when needed.

Having never seen or read DBZ... All references flew over my head :P

The problem I had with the skill equip system made me a bit afraid to try adding actual moves to characters at first, but I tried parsing out a possible logic (such as magical to magical, arcane to arcane, whatever :P) that clearly wasn't there for everything I was worried about XD.  - but yeah, the only issue I actually had was with head and body.

I didn't want to waste alot of time save-scumming :P

A note: my PC is a potato, and because of this my experience here was filled with plenty of lag. However, not so much to render it unplayable for me (and therefore unrateable)

Great graphics and interesting combat system. Though I struggled to figure out at first what was actually going on with the turns and actions (now I understand that the spheres are essentially action points, each skill spends a differing amount, and each turn provides allows you to spend more then before)

I found the skill/equipment system to be rather strange, some things didn't make sense to me (some characters couldn't use some sorts of skills, but I was able to 'buy' it for them anyway therefore wasting resources, no indication of this provided) and it felt tedious to find the stuff that was actually available. Not saying it's bad, just that I think there's probably a way to better implement it.

I didn't go very far, got one crystal, entered another world. But the story was simply there, good enough I suppose as an excuse to play, but not compelling (I haven't tried any of the previous titles in the series... so perhaps that may have changed my expectations?)

Loving the graphics and overall music style. Really gives me an indie adventure game vibe. However, some of the music just gets a little jarring when switching between them, and I didn't care for the car-portion music much at all.

Thank you for such an indepth review!
Sprites, both ship and harold, were made by others (though the plan was to make my own, at least through plenty of modification using these sprites as a base) I'd have to double-check for specific names :P (can't remember atm).

All the bugs will definitely be squashed if I can manage it >:)

Thanks!
And you can now place comments :P (I don't know why it was disabled)

Same issue for me unfortunately (though I can generally play older, Unreal 3, stuff)

I had a similar problem it seems, integrated graphics wasn't able to handle it or something. (Not even working after using the OpenGL 3 by commandprompt method)

Do you know how to fullsceen Vx Ace games? (I really should have provided instructions I guess) Alt-Enter I believe does that If I remember correctly (I do it automatically so I forget at this point XD)

Thank you for all the kind words tho!