Hey, love the game. Just have a question and some feedback.
So a big issue is lack of explanation and general information. I've been trying to 100% the gallery, and the "Bardic magic" one stumped me for so long, and it was what led me to find out you can change the spell types. I had really difficult quests and it took forever for me to get the summon type, and all the while I didn't even know if that was the mystical "Sweeping Reach" I was looking for. I think the gallery hint should be clarified. Beyond that I also suggest not making spell types consumable, because it eliminates experimentation. I can't risk changing something once I've got something working, because I don't know when I can get another consumable. Or let us re-roll quests as we want.
The second one is the various patch animations. Having Gwynn/Zuzu as leader is not explained. I did figure it out eventually (in relation to getting the normal animations with the other characters), but that was just the beginning. I have been grinding for a couple hours, and 2 of the patches are more difficult than others to get in stage 3 where you can have Gwynn or Zuzu as the leader. The Blooming Geyser was difficult to find on stage 3, and it has been 2 hours now where I've only been looking for a stage 3 carrot patch. My only guess is I need to use a compas to upgrade a stage or something, or my luck is just that terrible... Or you can somehow change the leader without them getting taken. So my suggestion is to give information on what can be found in any stage you hover over. Main character, enemies, patches. Maybe even for each stage, but if it's all the same info, then add a hint in the gallery for which stage has the opportunity to find the event.
How to pick up fruits was also a mystery. Was very late game I figured out using branches on trees somehow dropped fruit. "I can gather fruits from fruit trees with these".
As for my question, the animations are great, but there's just never a climax. Obviously it'd be great if each animation had a climax, but if that's too much logistics-wise, I was wondering if it's at least possible for the final completion of each character. It adds a lot to have the final "finish" (especially when we see pregnancy like in this game), and likewise I think it takes away from it to never see the climax. Monster Monsoon does pretty good with that in the TV broadcasts, even if not animated, and also has the "issue" of missing said climax scenes in all the other animations. I was just wondering if it'd ever be something more common in your games because it's probably the biggest missing piece for me that makes it difficult to enjoy to its fullest, and all my peers I've talked with directly seem to agree to varying degrees.
Hello, thank you for playing, and for all of the feedback!
I don't know if there's a good way to promote more experimentation with spells, but I have been thinking of making the familiars start you with two types of magic instead of one to help set up some synergistic combinations. I can probably find a way to add a bit more clarity regarding spells to the gallery.
The best way to guarantee stage 3 carrot patches is to take Fluf as your goddess, but you're right, the appearance of obstacles in stage 3 areas have not been fully balanced as of yet. Due to the way things have been coded, it's difficult for me to provide full info about the stages from the map menu. Back in Summer Sweepers I manually counted everything in each map to give the hints that way, but it's a lot of work and requires constant upkeep as things get changed.
Fruit picking is something I want to explain in the upcoming tutorial. I've managed to get the basics of custom map support working last week, so I should be able to make a playable tutorial map that teaches all of the more obscure mechanics.
Climax animations would be an amazing addition, but unfortunately they are also difficult to make. Over the past two years I've been easing into animating everything, and there's barely enough time each month just to get a basic set of new events done. I am getting better at this, and I have a talented animator helping me, unfortunately I think that climax animations are unlikely to be added to Familiar Finders. I want to finish the game before the end of Spring in 2025, and I will need most of my available time for getting all of the scouting and spell animations done alongside the final batch of gameplay additions and other specialized events.
I hope that my responses are not disappointing, I hope to address the issues as well as I can in the time that I have.
Thank you for the response!
I had honestly forgotten using gods at some point during the grinding, because late-stage gallery grinding it's quicker to skip everything and jump straight to killing the stage 2 boss and getting whatever you need in stage 3. So I'll be making use of Fluf immediately to get those elusive animations!
I look forward to the tutorial stuff and related tweaks.
I would not say it's disappointing, as I am a developer myself and understand all your reasoning haha. Of course it would be great to add all the best stuff, but if you're not at that point yet with animation then you're just not there yet. In that case I'll simply look forward to it hopefully being part of your future games!