"Stray Kitten and the Magical Lantern" is a really nice vibe. Very nice music. I liked it a lot. Dare say, I might have enjoyed it even more than your last year's entry. I liked that the gameplay was interspersed with the story. This had a really nice balance of doing something, and having a reward of the relationship between the lantern and the cat improving. This idea of a magical lantern with wings and a stray kitten having this unlikely friendship and forming this bond is a pretty interesting idea, and this concept felt like it was able to hold it all together.

It was interesting to have a lot of people speak Wingdings. I may have not been paying attention, but perhaps that represented how cats can't speak English - not sure. There were some antagonistic forces towards the end which were quite forgiving, but the whole game in general is quite forgiving, and that lends to its comfortable vibe. I enjoyed this, it was pleasing. There was nothing really too frustrating about it. I think it was a perfectly nice little story.

There was a really lovely storybook vibe that made everything feel well-paced. I feel as if the puzzles and dodging sneaking minigames were quite simplistic, but they served okay for what the game was.

The window boxes were really well polished. Sometimes it was difficult to understand the levels, and the jumping mechanic was a minigame that was nice for this small adventure but I think wouldn't be able to last for a longer game.

The music was soothing and set a vibe. The puzzle with all the jumps was a little bit chaotic, and I wasn't able to discern a strategy that would decide between a win and a loss, and because you had 9 lives, I wasn't sure what would happen if they all went away, but I didn't have to experience that anyway, because I didn't lose enough to die 9 times.

All in all, the game was a cute and comfortable vibe, and I had an overall pleasant experience.

Thank you, slim, for letting us play your game, and for making it for us. It's a real treasure.

I thought this was very cute! I liked it! I screwed up the QTE a lot because I click a lot and it would pop up and I'd be like OH NO and splat my cat got hurt ;_;. I learned quick! Stop clicking the button! I enjoyed the windings when the cat couldn't understand human speech or the sign. I thought that was well done!

I read a few comments down and I think the nightvision skill while works in the fog, it's still incredibly hard to see since everything is foggy and the nightvision indicator is white, haha. I managed! But might help to see if there's a way to make the path way more clear since I could still barely see stuff on the path (is there a way to make a cut out in the fog over the path? That'd be an interesting idea but I have no idea if that's feasible!)

Very charming and such a short play time! I am also curious how to get the other endings as well.

Loved the mysterious story and playing as a cat! Also appreciated the fact that you have nine lives (I know, it's a minor thing but I wanted to point it out). The only part I found a bit more cryptic was the fog maze but I managed to get through it. Curious to know how to get the other endings! :D Good job!

Nice variety of gameplay, and decent length. Loved the brief little story. (I took a peak at your wingdings dialog and now it makes even more sense). It did take me a bit to understand how the QTEs worked. I thought I had to get the bar first pass, which made the fast ones impossible. Luckily the game was forgiving enough with lives that it worked. It seems like you were aiming for players to be able to figure things out on their own, but I could see little things like that making players a little frustrated, even if they didn't die. The damage from the secret doors felt a little unfair too.

Maps were nice looking, sound was appropriate, and a really nice HUD helped your game stand out. Cool submission!

My thoughts while playing the game.

+ = I liked it

- = I didn't like it

* = Neutral/suggestion

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+ Lovely title screen, dramatic music

+ Cute intro, I love the sprite work

* Symbol text. Is that deliberate?
 + If it is deliberate, it makes sense - why would a cat understand human language?
 * Animals talk to each other without issue, so I guess it is deliberate?
 * I've gotten further into the game and I'm pretty sure it's deliberate

- I'm not sure how much control you have over this, but the lighting is flickering a bit on my screen and it's a little annoying.

+ Beautiful HUD art

- Hey, I can get hit by the cactus just by walking next to it? That doesn't seem fair.

- I have no idea what to do now. I see these "SP" charges but I haven't been told how to use them.

 - So I have to go under the cactus where my character is obscured by the trees to progress? That's kinda mean.

- I'm suddenly presented with a QTE bar with no instruction on how it works. I intuited how to use it, but consider telling the player what to expect just in case they don't.

- I stepped on some red flowers and died from that? Is it the red flowers and not the yellow-flowered cacti that do damage?

* There's an area that has 4 jump spots right next to each other. The rightmost side has nothing in it.
 - First off, it's pretty annoying to have to wait for one QTE bar to progress, jump, then have to do another QTE immediately after in order to progress. What's the point of that?
 - Furthermore, why an empty space? I just wasted (a tiny bit of) my time!

* Some QTEs are slow, others are fast. Interesting that the variety is there, but it would have been cooler if there was some tie-in to skill or difficulty of the task.
 * Upon further experience, it seems the QTEs slow down if you miss one. I guess that's good.

+ I have choices for progressing over the water. Cool.
 - Oooooor maybe not! I hate false choices!

* Oh, now that I can see more clearly, it is indeed the red flowers that do damage, and the SP icons are lives.

+ The choice of tiles for the forest are beautiful
 - I just wish they didn't obscure my vision so much

- Menu heath display doesn't align with the on-map health display. Makes it hard to judge whether or not to use purr.
 - Now that I think about it, isn't purr just basically committing suicide? You lose a life to fully restore health - basically the same effect as dying.

+ I do appreciate that the cat emits a soft glow so you can kinda tell where you are even when obscured by the trees.

- Did I just get hurt by a flame that I couldn't see coming?

+ Interesting house. Seems going in one way can end up looping back into the same room.

- I seem to be stuck in a repeating room with no clues as to how to get out.
 * I managed to get out of it

- I'm not really liking this repeating room thing. It seems like the only way to get through it is to check every interactable object in the room, take damage from something, then press a button (or unpress it) and proceed.

 - What do these buttons even do? I guess I need to press them to proceed but then I open a door and get hurt!

- The first witch avoiding part seems to suffer from "read the dev's mind" syndrome too. I'm first presented with a left or right directional choice, but don't know why I should press one or the other. I can't even tell if I chose the right direction, but I was able to proceed to the next room...
 + Which I found to make more sense. I avoided the witch and was able to proceed.

- Tile passability errors exist in the capture room. I can walk on shelves (not that it is exactly unrealistic for a cat).

- The fog maze doesn't seem to do a good job of indicating where I can and cannot move, so I just randomly move until I find my way out.

+ I'm glad you have the lantern confirm that I am making progress. I'm a little leery after the crazy room puzzles.

* I guess I get an ending based on how I did in the game, but it's not clear what the criteria are.

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Summary

I'm glad to see you branch out from your household chores-styled game for a different game type, but there are a number of things here that make the experience confusing and frustrating. Most of it comes down to not telling the player ahead of time how the game works and what to expect.

It is nice to see a game that isn't a turn-based JRPG, so I hope you keep taking risks and learn how to further refine your skills and expand your game making repertoire!

I liked the game especially after playing another game with a stray cat before. But for me the constant jump contest turned out to be a too big annoyance. All I did after the 2nd map was constantly saving after every successful jump and then try and reload several times before I succeeded on the next jump. I really would have liked to see the witch but I gave up on the 4th map when I noticed how large it was and how many more jumps even faster and with an even smaller fields to hit would come.

Hi, Hi.

I loved the idea of your game.

I found some passabilities problems and I believe a font problem, because the dialogues of the children and some of the witch do not appear as words, but symbols.

Anyway, Dovinhah was a good cat afterall!

ok so far i ran into a few issues while playing the game where i got stuck and i could not move at all because the game froze and i just had to completely restart the game.

OMG!!! I love this! It was absolutely the cutest!! This was so fun and challenging! =^.^= I named mine Luna lol, The music was nice and the mapping well thought out it looks. The fact I got to play as a kitty.... EVEN better.

I like cats 6/5

Playing as a cute kitten trying to find the two kids in the woods was entertaining! The music in particular was atmospheric and matched the game. I liked the jumping mini-game, unlocking skills, and without giving away too much, having different paths to avoid being caught (I liked the witch path better, and did find her a bit scary!). I think the Magical Lantern was my favorite character and the dialogue was pretty good too - not being able to understand the humans was a nice touch. 

Good job on your submission! :)

After I playing this games, overall this games is fun, with unique concept, play as cute kitty and interested with puzzle mechanic from this game. Simple and short but interesting gameplay. Well done!!

Overall, this game is fine. Not too amazing but not bad either. The presentation of the cat and the twists surrounding the characters is intriguing. The lantern's got some sass and I had quite the time with all the puzzles, they do get gradually punishing and one of the areas has you go through guess work mode at times.

Short and sweet, I enjoyed it overall but it didn't wow wow me. Keep up the good work.

This is a simple but charming game. First off, you play as a cute kitty, that’s instantly a main selling point! The human are taking a back seat this time, but it is quite easy to imagine the Hansel and Gretel themed shenanigans going on with them.

It’s a cute choice that our feline MC doesn’t even understand human languages because it speaks in cat. With nice maps, a mystery to solve and some puzzle mechanics thrown in. This game comes from the same vein as the classic oldie rpgmaker games!

Depending how you play, you might get some skills to help along the way and the jump mechanic increases in difficulty each time you get it right, but don’t worry it resets whenever you fail.

I unlocked all three endings and I had to play the game drastically different between two of them to get them, which is nice. I like that some of the endings are already hinted at just from the main gameplay alone, it’s not something you’d notice until you finish the game, which gives me that 'OH! light bulb moment' that I find pretty amusing!

A cute game if you are looking to play a short but classic feeling rpgmaker jam title.

Has pretty maps and and a intriging / mysterious plot. Some of the jumping sequences can be challenging as it speeds up, but luckily my cat has plenty of lives to spare. Loved the flying lantern character! Nice work!

Awesome Game and Great Job!!