itch.io

I've only played through once so far and I may come back and add more after I've messed around with it a bit more, but I wanted to give you my initial impressions.

First off, this game is SUPER cute! The art style, the concept/gameplay, the writing, everything. It's adorable and I love it.

The puzzles were actually a little hard for me and I ended up kind of frustrated. I only succeeded for 2 out of the 4 customers. The most frustrating thing for me was that when I made a sprite for the merserker, in the description of that sprite it said that they're good helpers for gardening and such. So when the plant tamer asked for sprites to help around the garden, I immediately thought to try to recreate the sprite I'd done before. I used the exact same recipe as before but I ended up getting a boo-boo sprite.

I don't know if that was a glitch or if the recipes only work if you're making them for the right customer? It was just frustrating to do something that had made a real sprite before and have it turn out the failure sprite instead. Even if it's not the right sprite for the job if the player uses a correct recipe, I think it should still make a sprite.

But honestly that was the only problem I had with the game. I think it worked having the convos space out the ingredients (the things they all said were so cute and funny!) and the final confirmation menu was helpful. And frankly I loved all the characters so much.

Have you ever watched the Batman: The Brave and the Bold series? The merserker reminded me of the Aquaman from that series a bit. Which is a good thing.

Anyway, fantastic job! I'm glad I got to play it.

Hi! I hope it's not too late for me to post this. I was following your devlog thread throughout the jam, and I apologize for never having commented on it – your ideas and mockups looked so good that I think I was intimidated. I like the game itself even more than I expected! You've created something really impressive and charming.

SPOILERS BELOW if anyone hasn't played it yet!

The ingredient puzzles mostly weren't hard for me, but I did have trouble with choosing the liquid for the Cat Thief's fog sprite. Magic rainwater creates clouds, which become fog when they're close to the ground, and the dark smoke in the illustration for Dragonflame ale also seemed to fit the Familiar's suggested keywords of "hiding" and "dark." Jeweled honey was actually the choice that seemed least likely to me! If the player was supposed to pick up on the association of jewels with thievery, the Familiar's suggestions don't point to that; if the idea was that the amber crystals "hide" in the honey, then the Familiar puts the player on the right track, but it was a little confusing for me because I thought the answer would relate to fog imagery.

I guess that's related to another note I have about the sprite recipes: they're ostensibly weather spells, but sometimes the right ingredient has less to do with weather than with something about the client. The pussywillow in the Cat Thief's recipe is the example that the Cloud Mage comments on (and that made me smile), but what puzzled me is that the Gryphon Gunner's recipe ends up being about courage and flight more than it is about sunny weather, which is what she had requested.

I didn't find the puzzles very difficult other than my trouble with connecting the associations. There were relatively few ingredients to combine (this isn't a criticism; it felt just right for the length of the game) and I realized after a while that the first three clients' recipe ingredients were mutually exclusive. Having the Plant Tamer's recipe break away from that pattern felt like a neat way of elevating the challenge a little, since it meant I couldn't just eliminate ingredients I'd used for previous clients, but it was still straightforward. I don't feel like the puzzles were too easy, because it didn't seem like challenge was really the point of this game. You said in your devlog that you wanted to depict how failure isn't the end of everything, and I think you accomplished that. (As a side note, I really appreciate that message, since I strongly identify with the Boo Boo Sprite.)

Just as a side note, I love that the spell formula consists of a plant for life energy, a liquid catalyst, and a sweet to feed the sprite. It makes sense in magical terms (if that's not a contradiction), while being distinct enough from other depictions of witchcraft that it's a great worldbuilding element, too.

I liked the characters a lot! I think my favorite was the Familiar – their* visual design is not only cute but also a neat way of depicting that they were made from the Cloud Mage's own energy, and I found them really endearing right from the introductory flyer-distribution conversation. The clients were all charming in unique ways, too. On the other hand, I feel like I didn't get a very good read on the Cloud Mage herself. She seems very business-minded, but she says "oh, fine, ruin my fun" when the Gryphon Gunner tries to bring her attention back to the spell; she jokes around with the Merserker after getting over her initial intimidation, but her attitude toward the Plant Tamer is completely serious and very accommodating, and I didn't know if I was meant to interpret that as her having a little crush on him or what. I get that she tends toward sarcasm and is more guarded about expressing sincerity, but I think what threw me off was that she seemed flippant about her business just as often as she seemed like a hard-working entrepreneur. This might all just be my own difficulties with character analysis showing, though, and her relationship with her Familiar felt sweet and authentic.

*I apologize if you used pronouns for the Familiar and I just missed them or forgot what they were!

A couple miscellaneous things:

• On the first night, there's a line in the "Talk about being yourself" sequence where the Familiar says that the Cloud Mage failed a spell, even if the player succeeded at their spell that day. (Conversely, I did notice and appreciate that their night 4 conversation about underwater society changes a little if you first talk about the client.)
• I love the music stopping when the Cat Thief makes his pun, but I think it'd be even more effective if it stopped right on that line, rather than on the next one.
• Near the end of day 4, the Merserker's sprite is supposed to flip, but doesn't, and an error message appears on the bottom of the Ren'Py window (sorry if you already noticed this one).

i finally got to finish this game!! ugh wow i love the art so much and your writing is very charming, i really enjoyed the familiar's lines. i do like the conversation in between the ingredient selection as well as the ability to change the ingredients at the end after i've chosen all of them. i think as a vn it works really well to weave the conversation + spell choices in this way. i liked almost all the characters and i thought they were pretty interesting in writing and design. i liked the peek into the world and the different species and professions.

i messed up one or two spells and went back to redo them... after the update i missed no spells and it kind of felt like the perfect difficulty. i could see maybe restricting this "check ingredient" to add a little more difficulty as i never really worried about messing up a spell.

overall really great work and an impressive game for the two week timeframe! i hope to see more games from you in the future O: !!