A downloadable game

This is version 1.2 of Dollmaker and the 100 Alices, released on April 18th, 2023. Check the README for more information.

STORY
In this silent world, your only salvation is your beloved, Alice.

Solomon has just created the perfect body for his Alice--and now all he needs to do is to gather her up again, piece by piece.

Bring to completion your masterpiece, Alice.

GAMEPLAY
Exploit enemy weaknesses to gain an advantage in battles, but be careful what moves you choose: the wrong one can end your entire turn.

Alice can be equipped with various skills, all dropped by the many monsters that roam the land.

After every battle, your HP and MP refill slightly, but you've brought along two potion bottles in case of emergencies.

You have to collect all the 100 pieces of Alice.

CREDITS
GRAPHICS
瀬尾辰也 - 白螺子屋 - First Seed Material

MUSIC
M-ART - soleil-musique - FREEDOM HOUSE - Yume Nikki Fangame Music Pak #1

More information

Status	In development
Rating	Rated 4.3 out of 5 stars (3 total ratings)
Author	ojosama
Tags	Short

Download

dollmaker.zip 17 MB

Comments

SighingSlider1 year ago(+1)

Hi, ojosama! I tried out this game for a little bit and I like how the battle system sort of reminded me of the Shin Megami Tensei games. Unfortunately, there are a few bugs that I feel should be ironed out for it to be an enjoyable experience.

The biggest (almost game-breaking) bug was how the spells you equip seem to be inaccurate to how they appear in battle. The 2nd spell's slot takes the 1st spell's slot, the 3rd spell's slot takes the 2nd spell's slot, and so on:

In this screenshot, for example, the 3rd spell seems to activate the 2nd spell on the list instead. It's not just a visual glitch either, the actual effect is completely changed. The exception is the 1st spell slot which usually takes the fire spell by default, but I haven't tested it thoroughly.

I think it's important to fix this glitch because the main mechanic of the game is exploiting enemy weaknesses and it's hard to do that when your options become more limited than they already are.

Other possible bugs include:

Refilling your Life and Mana serums can be done indefinitely as long as you use up two empty bottles at a time, so you can just have infinite potions if you wanted to.
Pressing X during the opening scene will open the pause menu.
Moving through the menus just seems inconsistent in general, i.e. sometimes it's too sensitive and moves too fast, and other times it drops inputs and I have to mash the button for it to work. I have this same problem with a couple of your other games (Lotus Eater Princess and 3 AM Cathrath). Not sure if it's just my computer.

Additionally, this is just from my first impressions, but it feels a little frustrating that the only way to get new spells is from enemy drops. Especially since experimenting with new spells is key to winning battles, I personally don't like the idea that your progress is essentially gated behind random chance. Maybe there can be a currency system and a merchant to buy spells from, or picking up spells when you find Alice parts.

Well, those are my thoughts anyway. I don't know if you're still working on this project, but in case you are, I hope this information helps in some way!

ojosama1 year ago

Thanks for playing, and apologies for the late response!

I took a look at all the bugs you mentioned and hopefully they should all be fixed now; thank you very much for the feedback! If you happen to try the game again, please let me know if you come across any other bugs.

For skill acquisition, it's actually based off the number of times you've defeated an enemy, but looking back at it again, the number is a high so I've adjusted the numbers a little.

I don't think I'll add in any content updates to this game unfortunately, but I'll definitely try to update the game to fix bugs.

SighingSlider1 year ago (2 edits)

Ah, so that's how you get skills, it makes more sense to me now.

Well, I hope you're ready, because I did finally beat the game just now and I did write more notes. It took me literally a month because I couldn't find the last 5 parts of Alice. I looked everywhere, including trying out every combination of the teleportation maze. So, I ended up digging into the RPGmaker files themselves and figured out it was hidden behind a fake wall in the cave area! That's way too devious!

Anyways, they're not quite as game-breaking, but here's a list of possible bugs:

You can continue to scroll up during the level up screen even though you're not supposed to:

The MP costs for spells can be listed incorrectly sometimes, it seems to be a visual glitch for the most part, but it can affect gameplay because it doesn't allow you to cast the spell if the "fake" number is higher than your current MP:

For example, I can't cast Terra in the screenshot below even though normally it costs 3 MP:

Names in the bestiary continue to show up as ??? even if you unlocked their entry:

The spell Perforare is listed as Equip10:

The hearts of Coppelia and Mercury seems to have the same resistances and weaknesses which seems redundant?:

Some inconsistencies in the object collision for the final room in the maze, for example you can stand on pillars:

When hit by an attack that is effective on you, the enemy looks like it's being damaged instead (e.g. equipping the Mercury heart and being hit by Incendia). It can be a little visually confusing.
Swapping spells in the menu will also activate the save point menu if you're standing in front of it.

There you go. Not sure if I helped or I'm just annoyingly nitpicking your project, but I hope it's useful in some way!

Ony_br286 days ago(+2)

You missed the fact you can, at the first house, walk into the big clock

Kudos to you for finishing it in spite of all that! I gib up

It's still a pretty cool game overall

ojosama283 days ago(+2)

Thank you for playing. I think I was a little bit too ambitious for this game, so it ended up having more than a few bugs. I'm not sure when I'll touch it again, but I'm both glad and surprised that people are still having fun with it.