Cottage in the Moonlit Weald
A downloadable game for Windows
You've evaded your pursuers, and made your way into the Manes Weald--a forest full of strange monsters. No one will follow you here...you're on your own, now.
Originally conceived of for the Secret Santa Jam 2022, but had to be put on hold and finished later. To my giftee: Thank you for your incredible patience and support!! I learned a lot of new things while working on this small project, and I hope you find enjoyment playing it! ^^
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To move the character or cursor, use the Arrow keys. To interact with something or confirm a choice, press the Enter button. To cancel or back out of something, use the Escape key (except when planting a seed or placing furniture). Use the Escape key to access the menu in order to view your inventory, save, and/or quit the game. To change furniture, interact with the signboard in your cottage (near the bottom). To sleep before you have a bed, use the hay pallet in the upper right-hand corner.
Explore the confines of the Manes Weald and fend off four types of monsters with simple, no-frills, turn-based combat, relying on items dropped from monsters to employ some basic strategy. Each kind of monster can drop a corresponding type of seed, which can be planted in the furniture garden outside your home. Each seed takes a different amount of time to grow, but they grow on their own and don't need any watering or weeding. Each seed can grow two kinds of furniture in five different colors. Collect them all (or just the ones you like!), and use them to liven up your cottage. The color is picked at random when you harvest the plant, and if you've already collected both of the available furniture items in that color, you'll gain experience instead.
There no hit point restorative items--you can only heal yourself by sleeping at home. If you need a quick trip back to your cottage, look for sparkling areas scattered around the forest. If you fall in combat, you'll continue on at 1 hit point.
Seeds and Furniture are Key Items--reference your Key Items in your inventory in order to check what you have on hand before planting seeds and switching furniture in your cottage.
Please let me know in the comments if you encounter any bugs or issues! Thank you!
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Featuring custom-made tilesets and sprites. Created using the RPG Maker VX Ace Engine and its resources.
Special thanks to Kevin Noverian GameDeveloper and TheUnproPro for their YouTube tutorials!
Additional Music:
"Crowd Hammer" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Lasting Hope" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Ossuary 5 - Rest" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Snowdrop" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"The Way Out" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Download
Install instructions
Once the .exe file is downloaded, run it in order to extract the game files. Once you're done, run the Game.exe file in the folder to play.
Comments
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This was SO incredible and I absolutely loved the artstyle and clever combination of exploration & turn-based combat, with cozy house building and farming mechanics. The music and sound FX + the writing gave the game a spooky, eerie feeling that was reminiscent of classic JRPG horror games, which overall fit the aesthetic so well.
I also loved the color palette - the pink forest with green water definitely contributed to both the spooky feeling AND the cute feeling without clashing at all, and it also helped to tie together the two different gameplay genres in a way that felt very seamless.
Overall I had a blast collecting all the different furniture and decorating my house. Thank you so much for creating this awesome game!! <3
Thank you so much for the wonderful words of praise!! I'm really pleased that you found that so many things came together well, and that the aesthetic hit home for you! I'm very glad that everything meshed just so. It's good to hear that the main mechanic of furniture collecting was so much fun, and I'm elated that you had a great time! Thank you for playing!
For what it is, it's somewhat enjoyable.
I do really like the cute artstyle and the sorta nostalgic late 2000s rpg maker aesthetic, though i think alot of the gameplay gets a bit stale after a while with the cycle of going out to fight and coming back with there not being much change in the world ( daytime, environments, music, situation, etc. ) Though for what it is, it's not too bad of a time to spend a Saturday evening. Also got me excited in seeing what the dev(s) are gonna do in the future, tho !
Thank you so much for taking the time to play and share your thoughts! If I revisit this little project in the future, there's a lot I'd like to do to improve it, and your suggestions were good to hear! Seeing changes in the game based on time and environment especially caught my interest. Thank you again!