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Wow, a lot to reply to! One of the most fun parts of releasing this demo is all these comments. As an artist before this, I grew used to people being so quiet and shy, but this is great! Truly, thank you.

The apple-stealing is in part a matter of balance (a Noble Festa Apple is a full recovery of your Willpower) and in part simply because Gentiana as a character would only take one. I've tried to confine the player's actions to "what would Gentiana do" - in the hopes I can keep the scope of development reasonable but still varied and prepared for many types of player. Sometimes the boundaries are because I as a developer did not think of something, but sometimes the answer is simply that "Gentiana wouldn't do that". And that is just the result of needing to draw the line somewhere.

The tutorial is both some of my worst and best work. I broke a game design guideline by making it very early in development. It's often wisest to work at first on the middle of a game and then branch out, but I only partially did this. The tutorial is in some ways most purely reflective of my design philosophy and in other ways showcasing just how new to this I really am.

When I design areas, I rarely if ever place things without a purpose. I have a lot of fun hiding away dialog and characterization and even items in strange places. I think one of the best examples of my approach is the bunk beds throughout the Monster Cave. Most if not all of them provide different pieces of dialog from Gentiana, sometimes producing different dialog when interacting with different parts of the same bed.

I hadn't given much consideration to how the music loops, so I will have to look into how most games solve the problem of abrupt looping. Nice catch!

There is, as of now, no placeholder art in the game. At least, not that I can recollect. My art is rough and unusual as I'm still quite new to drawing, but I intend to stick with most if not all of what I have drawn. A day might come where I take another pass through the game, but I only want to do that if my skill has significantly increased and quite a bit later at that. I have seen too many beloved projects fall to perfectionism and I know I am not immune to that myself.

The spell circle is abrupt - I think I want to make the hint for it more clear. Feedback suggests I hid it away in an obnoxious way. I want people to be thinking about what they're doing and treading very carefully, and my priority is a dungeon that feels dangerous more so than fair. But I think the entry of the Monster Cave in general is poorly communicated and I intend to clean it up.