general feedback thread

[jack1974]

Thanks for the feedback, regarding your negative points:

The story takes place on a military base, during a war against multiple foes. And what do people do in their daily routine? Play video games, have picnics, go camping...

I know, but what was the alternative? make characters always talking about the war, aliens, grim/dark stories (which to be fair ARE present in the main plot). We wanted to make a story which could also appeal a bigger market. Not just a war story Besides I think it's normal for people to try to think about something else when they're in such situations.

Face and haircut are slightly changed, and the body looks totally different

Haha that's a weak point of this artist. I noticed it too of course (Diana seems less changed in the CGs, if you played them too). I can't do much about this, but the artist is improving and it's a hard worker

Anyway glad you liked the gameplay, characters, etc.!

[pahldus]

Was a happy recipient of this as one of the lucky gifts given out by Miakoda.

After playing through it in VN mode for 10 hours just today to really get the story, I can say I loved it. I understand some people's apprehension about the things taking place in a war time, but I had the definite feel of the passage of time, making this feel like less of a wartime story, and more a battle of running skirmishes. Thus I didn't find the interactions between the characters at all out of place. Gotta say I absolutely loved Mizuki.

I was a bit surprised to find a few typos still there after all the beta testing, but they weren't earth shattering. And no, I didn't write them down, maybe on one of my next playthroughs I will.

The card game is not really my thing, but I plan to give it a go on my next playthrough.

Again a big thank you to Miakoda, not only for the gift, but also for the wonderful story.

[Reath_]

I ended up finishing the demo. Here are my impressions of it.

The story starts off too slowly, but gets better later on. It only caught my interest once the holographic alien appeared. It made the aliens seem more ambiguous and gave them more personality. Everything before that felt too much like a generic sci-fi plot. Loren did a much better job of capturing my attention. I was interested in what would happen next right from the start in it.

I really like the card game. That credit system for killing enemies is interesting and works well. The battles were too easy for me, even on hard. Only one of the first side missions was actually challenging and most of the other fights were a breeze.

The card upgrade system makes the cards a bit overpowered. It would've been a better idea to give new cards as rewards instead. If you make a deck with several golden units, you can overwhelm the opponent and fill your board regularly. The AI often targets the player when it would've been smarter to attack units instead. I managed to buff a card's attack from 3 to 14 because the opponent kept ignoring it.

I noticed a bug. The assault card can't be used on the matrick mercenary unit, even though it's not a wall or a building card.

I more or less got used to the art. That creepy vibe goes away after you've looked at them for a few hours. The facial expressions with an open mouth or teeth showing still bother me. They look off somehow.

The background art quality varies. Some of them look great, like the white room with red chairs. Others look much worse, like the ruined city, which resembles a sketch and looks really undetailed by comparison.

Since there are so many characters in the game, it takes a really long time to talk to all of them in the free time section. It might've been a good idea to limit the amount of people you can talk to, to maybe around four. Since the game has branching paths, it would've saved more new content for following playthroughs.

One of the songs begins and ends with an overly repetitive beat. It stands out because it doesn't loop seamlessly. It's distracting and a bit annoying after a while. The rest of the music is pretty good.

It's a good game overall. It just takes too long before it becomes interesting. You need to play the demo for several hours before the quality becomes apparent, which is far too long for the Steam audience's attention span.

It's a shame the game has gotten so little attention. I like the card game and visual novel combination a lot. It would deserve to be more popular than it has been, for sure.

[jack1974]

Thanks for the long review About the card game difficulty, it largely depends if you're an expert or not. It was easy for me too, but I got many messages from people who thought it was difficult enough (many first time card players probably).

About the rest, I agree on many points, if I had to redo it now I would:
- make a cast of MAX 8 people. Of which, something like 4 max romanceable. I've listened too much to people demands in the past (which of course, just want more and more content for same price, but that's normal, is what I would do too!).
- use manga art
- probably not do it sci-fi, since I think fantasy works better (most card games are fantasy indeed)
- but also, probably I wouldn't have it done VN+card. Maybe a mainly card game, with a small story part, even including romances and endings. But the main focus should have been the card game. This way I could also have sold it a bit cheaper, and please more card games players (who probably aren't interested in reading a 200k word story, no matter how good it is!).

Live and learn they say! But to be honest, in past days things have been slightly better. I don't consider it a failure at all, it's doing OK, especially considering it's an experiment.

[Jaeger]

Some of the characters look weird with certain facial expressions, but that has more to do with the execution rather than style. That being said, I like art overall.

If fantasy is the predominant theme in card games, it would mean you have to work even harder to make the game stand out with the competition, whether it be gameplay and/or artwork.

[jack1974]

Depends, sometimes a genre is popular because there's more market for it, not necessarily more competition

[Katicflis]

Live and learn they say! But to be honest, in past days things have been slightly better. I don't consider it a failure at all, it's doing OK, especially considering it's an experiment.

I still think it'll do fine with time. Yes, SotW sold well quickly but it was a spiritual successor to Loren and thrived off it. Yes, your recently released dating games sell decently, because youve released more dating games than any other type and your fanbase supports your dating game releases. PSCD doesn't have that predecessor/fanbase bonus, it's an entirely different kind of game, and it needs time to get noticed/purchased.

You mentally threw in the towel way too quickly on this experimental game. Give it six months on steam, see how it fares after a small sale, THEN talk about it.

[jack1974]

Yeah probably in the long run will be OK. I still plan to do more card games in future

[Aronco]

Yeah probably in the long run will be OK. I still plan to do more card games in future

I guess there won't be a sequel to PSCD, since it was a prequel and stuff.
Still, I'll miss Diana Nelson, I liked her and the whole game way more than the original PS, and I really enjoyed the more realistic art style, I hope you will work with this artist again in the future. And I really appreciated the inclusion of a visual novel mode, because I never liked the combat stystem in PS that much.
All in all I'd say PSCD is one of your greatest games yet and I can't wait for more of this kind of game.
Keep up the great work and thank you for all these great hours I spent with your games!!! :

[jack1974]

I'm sorry to say this, but I won't work with this artist again sadly since the art style was one of the main (if not the main) reason why the game under performed. Sorry but in future will stick with more manga art