Game:

Dream Festival! (2016)

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Duration: 11:36

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This fangame just dropped yesterday and it's an absolute blast! It's so very finely polished and the gameplay strikes a perfect balance between challenging but also fair. There's only a small number of scenes that actually kinda feel a bit too overwhelming/frustrating for me, but I did manage to complete the majority of the game, including the secret final "UNKNOWN" stage.

So enjoy this little clip show of some of my favorite parts of the game!

And download the game here: https://insys.itch.io/sdf

0:01 This is actually my first blind run of this spellcard, so I pulled off some insane clutch dodges ahahah. I very very much appreciate Misumaru's inclusion in this game :) Most of her spells involve yin-yang orbs homing in on you and requiring you to misdirect them, but I quite enjoyed this one in particular for shaking things up. Amusingly, all of the "author's comments" for Misumaru's spells are simply "balls"

0:44 This is a static survival card, but HOO is it nail-biting. Took me quite a few tries to get this one down, but it's not as bad as it looks.

1:19 This is where the music starts to get really good. The gimmick for this card is that a few seconds after Sakuya starts firing each wave, she freezes you in place. So you have to position yourself in a safe spot before that happens. Fun fact, according to the author comment, the clock hands you can see in the background actually depict your computer's current system time.

1:51 Predictably, Seija's packing some spells that really break your mind. For this one, bullets will start moving in from off-screen when you move (if you move up then bullets come up from the bottom, if you move left then bullets come in from the right, and so on). The key is to move as little as possible, because the more you move the more bullets come in.

2:28 HELL HELL HELL HELL HELL. This spellcard is completely static but it's really challenging. But all said and done, it's really freaking satisfying to figure out how to weave gracefully through all the waves. Once upon a time I actually had a spell card idea similar to this, but with Nue and her UFO's -- I just never managed to figure out how to make it work. So hats off to you, SDF devs, for turning the mechanic into a cool and fun spell :)

3:02 Believe in Reimu's tiny hitbox, and the tiny hitboxes of the cherry blossom bullets, and you can pull off insane dodges here. The author comment says this is based off a spell from Sapphire Panlogism, but I haven't played that game yet... oops :')

3:41 Another static spell that's surprisingly really complex and fun. I didn't show them off much here, but one of the main gimmicks of this game is that there are some lasers that can't hurt you, but they can push you back. The more lasers making contact with your aura, the harder you're pushed -- and if you're pushed into a screen edge, you die.

4:21 Koishi's Spiriting Away! The gimmick here is that any bullet Koishi fires will gradually turn invisible over time. So you're encouraged to always stay near her so you can see what you're dodging. Very fun and satisfying.

4:57 I had to include this clip cuz Minecraft. (But you know, bed mining in the Nether isn't as efficient as one might think)

5:28 Many spells in this game, particularly Yukari's require you to change your aura color to absorb bullets a la Ikaruga. In this spell, Yukari get's superarmor for each active familiar on the field, so you're encouraged to keep swapping colors to kill them all. But i've found that after the initial wave, just sticking to green and beating Yukari down by attrition is much easier.

6:15 After you clear 57 scenes total, you unlock a final "UNKNOWN" stage. You start with 0 power and 2 lives, but can collect more of both throughout the level. This stage is... well, it's very hard. But DANG does it feel good when you put it all together.

11:02 I couldn't end this without throwing in an Icicle Fall moment I found in one of the early stages. :] (though to be fair, it took me MANY tries to get this to work... And yes, this spellcard is a Deltarune reference)

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