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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).
Again, I'm sorry for how late this post is, and I also want to apologize to everyone in this forum topic for long this post is. Thank you again for making this game!
(+1)

Nooooo don't worry about it, I really appreciate the detailed feedback!!

The puzzle elements were definitely a challenge for me. Originally, the "hints" were gonna just be the preceding convos before the selection of each ingredient. I was gonna try and have ppl figure out recipes through the convos, but then I found it made the convos way too forced. You can see my attempt at it with the gryphon gunner though, with talking about sunny days before you choose sunflower, and then talking about courage/daring before you choose the made-up ale. Then I gave up and thought up a hint system instead lol. That particular example you brought up with the catalyst for the cat thief was something I really, really wracked my brain over. I didn't want too many characters to use the same ingredient (the rainwater) even though..... well, clouds are basically water. Maybe I didn't need to be worried about it, but I did want more variety in the spells at the time so I went with what I had. I do agree that the puzzle element could definitely be refined some more.

In the build I'm currently working on, I'm writing in a hint system where at the end of the spell the familiar will check one ingredient for you and tell you whether it's correct/incorrect. I'm making it so it can be only be done once per spell. Tbh, it feels I'm using the hint system as a bit of a crutch for the less satisfying puzzles.... buuut going in this direction with the game is giving me more ideas for the 5th day. Hopefully I can use what I've learned to make some satisfying endings, what I have planned for the 5th day so far breaks the mold a little...

re: the cloud mage, I had personalities in mind for each of the clients when I started writing the game, but I didn't really have any personalities in mind for the cloud mage and her familiar at all. Their personalities just emerged as I wrote the game. At some point I got the idea for night convos where the mage writes new info in her journal while the familiar initiates a few convos, and somehow the game grew into being more and more about the relationship between the mage and her familiar and how they bond over day-to-day events, so I'm glad to hear you liked their relationship! I think the cloud mage ended up business-minded because of the nature of the game. As for her reaction to the plant tamer, I tried to hint at how she was schmoozing him because ppl who garden/farm would have a lot of use for weather spells. She's trying to convert him into a regular customer, basically. And it's funny you should mention the gryphon gunner convo bc I left that specific convo blank for a while. I came back to it after I finished writing a couple of the other days and I still had no ideas for what to put in it so I just wrote in the first bit of filler I came up with. I guess it shows, pfffft.

I caught the two instances of bugs you mentioned, actually! I fixed them, but I haven't updated the game files yet... still in the middle of the hint system rehaul :X

Oh, and I think I've been using 'it' for the familiar, because it's a bird. I didn't really think of the familiar as having strong tendencies towards any gender.

ANYWAY!!! Thanks again for the detailed feedback, I really do appreciate it. It gives me a better idea of problem spots I can target in the puzzles and writing (و•̀•́)و