I was pretty excited by the key art and description, and there's a lot of promise in this one although it's pretty rough in its current state.

I think the style will be somewhat divisive, but I liked the art a lot. I especially liked the little idle animations each character has. I liked the detail in the environment art and the bright colour palette as well. I do wish Chloe had an attack animation. I think there were a few other animations that were missing or underdeveloped, too, but that was the most jarring one.

The music is good, but the lack of sound effects is pretty disappointing.

The platforming is really clunky. It definitely has that prototype-y, game jam feel. It feels loose overall, jumps are somewhat glitchy, and the camera doesn't move in a way that shows you where you need to go. The zoom feature feels unnecessary; I never zoomed in.

The boss was a big bullet sponge that doesn't really react to your attacks at all. Just very basic and not very fun.

Maximizing the game puts all the HUD elements in the upper left corner and I played most of the game like this. I'm assuming this is a glitch, though, since none of the screenshots show this.

I'm not sure if there's more in the current version than the first forest level and the house; I wasn't able to go anywhere else. The narrative is the part I was most excited for, and it certainly has promise, but there's not a lot I was able to actually experience.

Any chance this could be made playable in the browser?

The graphics are very cute, and those little animations are done superbly. The hub design is really nice, and each room is also color coded to the character that will house that particular room, which is a subtle but smart design choice in my opinion. I also really liked the Mia level and the cupcake shop level, the colors and setting is very well done and deserves praise. The characters are all varied and unique in their own way, and Ari was a pleasant surprise. Music is also relaxing and suitable for the theme, good job!

I managed to get Level 4 on Izzy and Mia but couldn’t progress after that (game jam version), it just says they are not ready to deepen the relationship. At first I thought the missing text on Izzy was a bug, but it turns out that it is part of the story. Nothing wrong with that, but perhaps some kind of black bar or indication that it is censored would be better, because it was just empty spaces when I was playing it.

In terms of gameplay, it is quite grindy which I’m not a fan of. I didn’t manage to find a way to go to other locations other than the Lush Forest, and I had to play the same level many times to get enough hearts. I understand that this is probably the way it is because there’s not enough time for the game jam, but in that case it needs to be tweaked for the game jam, and not allow it to be as is. The level design of the Lush Forest is not particularly great when tied with the platforming controls and here’s why:

1. Bumping my head on the ceiling while jumping is common and doesn’t feel good. Either have more headspace, or allow the player to control the strength of the jump like in Mario (holding jump = higher) so they can do short jumps.
2. There is a section that needs to go straight up but platforms are in the way, so you have to weave side-to-side. There is no coyote time and it’s hard to time the jump properly sometimes. Perhaps staggering the platforms a little bit so there’s space, or have coyote time (able to still jump for a short moment after stepping off the platform) would remedy this problem.

There is also a UI bug when the window is maximized. The volume controls and black bar transitioning stays on the upper-left corner of the screen.

Overall, despite some problems I have with the gameplay, I quite enjoyed my experience with it. While playing, there’s so much to imagine. It managed to keep my sense of wonder and fascination on wanting to see and know what’s next. I think this game should be worked on further and it has so much potential which I look forward to seeing. Keep it up!