Our Town Hero

I backed this game through Kickstarter (awhile ago) and have been excitedly waiting for it to drop for a bit. The vibe is great, I love the music, and the world is cool. I like the changing seasons with the story. I understand this is a small dev team/solo dev, they did a great job. I wouldn't consider what I have to say after this as complaints, more like criticisms. I do wish the fights were a tad bit more challenging. I got stuck early in the game and leveled up A BIT more than I think I maybe was supposed to. Most enemies die pretty quickly and the vampire is easier than I expected. If there's a replay plus mode or something along those lines, I'll be there. Reviving the town has also been sick. Can't forget that. Cheers to the work done in this game. It's still very enjoyable and the vibes are immaculate. Please keep making games like this one if you plan to make more. THANK YOU for including us through kickstarter. I hope it continues to work well for you. Any future updates after I've beaten the game and I'll come back too.

It works on steamdeck, and I enjoyed the premise. Honestly, I was really looking forward to it. An RPG with a town builder element and a side romance? I was sold! However, what I really don’t like and turned this into a DNF was that the game forces you into a romance with one of two gender choices at the beginning of the game. You can’t opt out, you can’t choose any of the more interesting townies, and you don’t get a say aside in anything from choosing their name and gender appearance. The romanced character insta-loves you in their introductory dialogue (and they looked very young compared to the rest of the villagers, and that was another turnoff), and this just wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s extremely unfortunate you can’t choose anyone else (as there’s some very interesting villagers, at least on the surface), or opt out of the forced romance entirely. Everyone else seemed a lot more interesting to me, especially as an older player, and I was quite excited to have some older town characters (late 20s to 30s it looked like, and some older) until I realized none of them are options. At the time of my play, the dev has confirmed on his Kickstarter post-release that the system in place is a forced romance. You have no choice but to pursue the romance in order to continue to progress in the story, and your only option at the end is to break up at the end of the main story. Otherwise, you’re locked into it. That’s a dealbreaker for me. No player should ever be forced into a romance they don’t want, and I’m astonished a new game in this day and age would have this as a mandatory feature. (Especially since this is an RPG style game.) Just as another note, the two main character portraits for the player character feature a standard male hero and an angry looking female hero, which was a little bizarre. I don’t know why she looks so angry but he doesn’t, which was a little off-putting as well. There’s no character customization beyond choosing one of these two sprites and your character name (limited to 8 characters, sadly for us longer named people). This wasn’t a dealbreaker, but combined with the above, it just feels like this game wasn’t really designed to curate a more free player experience. If you’re looking for a similar game (though without the RPG battle element), I highly recommend Littlewood, which has some of the same features here while also giving you character customization and full freedom to romance (or not). But as the dev’s system stands now, I cannot recommend a game that forces you into a romance with a specific character in order to experience the rest of game. ETA: I appreciate the reply from the developer, but the why doesn’t really change anything. It’s still a mechanic that isn’t desirable. I personally don’t like creating a player character who is forced into a romance with a specific character that I can’t opt out of, especially when that wasn’t noted anywhere that this was a core game feature since you can’t finish the game without completing it. And to be fair, this isn’t a Pokemon style game, either, so that part doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s just very very odd there is no way to turn this feature off so you can just enjoy the game without the forced romance when it doesn’t seem like the developer ever wanted to do the romance goal he set to begin with.

A short RPG that can be finished in about 3 hours with all of the main and side quests done. The main story is ok. The side quests are more or less either grabbing some collectibles on a map outside the town or progressing to the end of another. The town rebuilding is just little more than an area update that unlocks a minor feature. The town and season only update after beating the boss for that chunk of the game. There's not much to do in a season besides the couple side quests and the mandatory maze to the boss. Combat is more or less holding down the confirm button after reaching level 2 and switching the option to remember last move. The move learned at level 2 does more damage than the other moves gained at higher levels and without cost. Combat encounters can be a bit frequent a times since some time the random battles can happen within 2 steps of each other. But that is more on the rng of the encounters. Encounters themselves are pretty similar to each other. In that usually they are just 1 vs 1 and can be finished in 1-4 turns depending if the monster does some status ailment that stun or make your moves miss. Graphics were nice for the retro RPG feel. Maps were ok and the gimmicks for some added a little variety. Although wasn't a fan of the insta kill parts with little warning. I wish the chests on the maps provided more than just gold. Otherwise you are either finding the trigger for puzzle on the map or just lost. The chest reward outside of the post game can probably gained in the myriad of fights you have to do getting to them. Some of the town maps after season change had some charm that I really like. I felt something more could of been done with the concepts for this price point. If you got $10 bucks to spare I guess this game is ok if you want a short RPG but I feel like you could grab something better.

Hmm. Did I have fun? Definitely. Was the game good? I do think so. Like I do not like turn based rpgs. I find them boring. Was this boring? Ok, a bit, if I'm honest. But it still felt nice. Didn't do most side quests, and probably won't, but I am happy I played this. That being said... It is worth noting that the combat part was baby-easy. Like an actual baby could do it. No. Like an actual baby has probably somehow booted this game and completed it without their parents noticing. That easy. Who knows, I might even be that baby. Though that would require time travel of some kind. But worth thinking about, still. Where was I? Right, this is a review for a game. I like short games. Even if I had paid for the game, I wouldn't have minded it being this short. And like, I didn't do everything. There is more game to be had, if I choose so. One last thing. I'm a little hazy on Steam tags, but this definitely isn't an Action RPG or Action-Adventure, I think, even if it has the tags. Fully turn-based combat with one hero and one enemy at a time. There is overworld movement with minor puzzles and chest and items, but that hardly makes it action in my mind.

This is a great old school RPG. I haven't felt nostalgia like this in a long time Everything from the music to the graphics and the characters. having to explore and chat to everyone each season felt worth doing as there was always a reward or something more to see. Its got great humour good atmosphere and satisfying game play loop and the BBEG was someone i wanted to nail a stake through their heart.

Fun game, The basic loop is comfortable and each season brings something different in the forest to mix it up. The two things that might frustrate people 1) Spawn rate of encounters - can get frustrating if you're just trying to get back to town 2) Abilities/Weapons - There is limited variation and impact/incentive to mix it up, so you find yourself just defaulting to the same move over and over. The characters have personality and it's conveyed via very short interactions. This is really well done, you get a sense of investment and makes you want to play your part in the story. I was worried I'd not care about them, but I did. Gender/Romance: I enjoyed there is no focus on gender, you have two different looks for yourself and your romance option. I appreciate being allowed to put my own interpretation into the RPG instead of being locked into expected roles. It's a really small thing but helped me get more involved. I know some people have had issues with the Romance in this , I really liked it. Very classic hero story. The game is short, took me about 3ish hours. Will take longer if you do all the side quests, I ended up just getting a little annoyed with the mobs so didn't pursue them all. The length matches the story being told, I think it's worth the price-tag and I'm glad to see it wasn't drawn out like many games are these days. The Audio: This one is an issue, at least on my system. I had to block it via my sound controls on the PC because no matter what I did in the game it wouldn't lower the volume. It's somehow stuck at the exact tone level to pierce my eardrums into total distraction. This is unfortunate because its obvious the creator put work into this, the music boxes are clear sign of this. Music also can really change a game's feel. I'd have liked to experienced it with this game but a technical issue either in game or with my PC just meant I couldn't. Final Take: I enjoyed my time in the game, it's made me interested in checking out the creators other works. I did have a deep sense that the game could be so much more. An incredibly good foundation and a cool story with the fun concept of the seasons bringing real game loop changes. I think the story telling is one of it's strongest points. If you come into this expecting the Moon and Stars and that you can romance/customize everything to great personal detail, you are coming in with the wrong mindset. Its a simple retro-feel RPG, that isn't here to waste your time but instead aims to give you some nice cozy fun. In this goal it 100% achieves it. Should the creator ever decided to expand this game further, I'd be very keen to revisit it.

Backed this on Kickstarter and named the NPC Starla. I’m having a lot of fun with the game. It’s simple but the gameplay reminds me of games I cherished. I also enjoy the aspect of rebuilding the town. I hope this dev keeps going!

Backed this game on Kickstarter but it feels like a scam. Game looks nice (mostly) but the gameplay is just about as bad as it gets with no attempt to improve it. You get a no cost move at lv2 that is better than anything else in the game and will win any fight so why even have combat? Encounters are every 3-5 steps (no exageration). There is a story but it is not interesting. There is a love interest, but they are not interesting. There is combat, but it is not interesting. The developer (Solohacker) spends more time advertsing their other (presumably half baked) games in an attemt to take more money from backers than they do actually finishing their game. Do not buy their games

A fun little romp through a snack sized adventure. Couple minor issues, typos here and there, and Plot Anomalies, but overall fun to chill and relax to. The only big annoyance I found was near the end where there's a Map Area ya fight through on the way to the Final Battle and there's two spots on it that ya can step on and get TKO'd into a Game Over with no warning, logical reason why it's happening, ability to see it coming, or defense against it, and this feels cheap, unfair, and unfun. (Especially if ya get caught out at not having manual saved lately and lose significant progress. Don't skimp on your Manual Save Frequency in this game.) Hopefully this is a Game Design oops that's learned from and not repeated in the future. I regret nothing about Kickstarter Pledging to this game. I will fondly remember Callie's adventure through the Kingdom of Stoogery to save the Town of Vampsbane. ;)

I've only played through it once so far, but I enjoyed my time spent on it. I am one of the Kickstarter backers that has backed every game since I found Neopunk, and enjoyed every game so far. This game is worth a look, and you'll get enjoyment out of it for a while, as these games are short.