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So, I tried this game 2 times.

First time I didn't quite understand the mechanics from the tutorial, partly because their peculiar names. I managed to defeat one boss, but then was bored by counteless defeats by overall seeming randomness.

But somehow I wanted to give this game a second chance, I guess because I felt a bit bad, that I didn't try to enjoy it fully. And here is my feedback:

1. So, on second time I got how basic mechanics work, though some abbreveations weren't introduced, like DP, SP, 3DI (3DI thing meaning I've only got while was writting this review), so some mechanics were still a mystery; where bug with incorrect text for using GRR makes it even worse, like it should increase your flow by 10 and 3DI by 5, but instead game says that it increases your flow by 5 and 3DI by 0 after you've used it.

2. You can outheal your max hp https://ibb.co/PnB136S with resting for example, dunno if it is intended.

3. My first encounter was with "a friend" https://ibb.co/d4pCxcp6, but game counts it as a battle, which is kinda strange. Another moment, I would say it is a bit inconsistent, how we don't know the enemy encounter and mark it with "????", but we know for sure we will meet "a friend" on another path though we are going there for the first time. Shouldn't it be the same like with the enemies? So if after rewind I see the house there, now I know who lives there and know it is not an enemy and etc, but for the first time I can't know that. Then instead of "a friend" perhaps could use another words, like "a house", "a stranger" so player can make better decisions.

4. In some places Rectangle is mispelled https://ibb.co/dJjtW22D

5. So after house my next encounter was vampire driller, I've lost and strange things started to happen. On back home I got this message POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT  (dunno if it is actually counts as a spoiler, and if it is that heavy spoiler, I can remove link if you want), so like game decided, that I've actually completed the game, instead of losing a battle :D.

6. After the rewind everything was as usual, until I met him - the bald old guy. So I peacefully defeated him and after that my game was cursed. On next encounter I met him again, but after I charged my drill, encounter instantly abrupted and I got usual rest screen after battle. Then on next encounter I met him again and again and again, and each time I had the same battle skip; until I think I got to the last Inferno layer where, I'm assuming i've met one of the winged semi-final bosses, but again, instead of actual fighting after drill charging I got message, that I reached the center of the planet with tree. (I can send you screenshot if you want, I've though perhaps it is a bit too spoiler-ish to post it here). So after that, i'm assuming, instead of final boss battle I was able to just continue go deeper in Inferno as usual and all battles were like "I use drill charge" - "Battle instantly abrupts in the next screen and rest screen with rock is shown". So game was in general heavily broken, like also sometimes when I encountered some enemies, on their turn they turned in other bosses. And etc, so text and images were desynced, except candy-meetings and resting.

7. Vampire-driller iirc doesn't have any fight introduction, and some other fights don't have proper introduction as well. This felt a bit strange, like we just fight with everything we see without any purpose for it, except "friends". So would be nice to know what was the cause, since we don't fight with some brainless slimes, but with other humans (?). But dunno if it is somehow was explained in boss lore books (?), because I didn't manage to read them.

8. I would remove annoying spiral thing completely. Iirc it doesn't have any explanation lore-wise (like we don't ask the Keydrill about it after the first fight, so it could explain what this thing is and how it works; but just accept things as they are). And what is more importantly it adds many frustration with "lemme set your 2000 RPM to 500", which is happens quite often. And that's kind of random is kinda frustrating, because you can't really heal and you need to waste your turns to accumulate RPM again, so it is kinda a run killer, which you never wanna use.

9. Poison boss. Dunno if it is intended, but they can't kill you, because no matter the poison rate, poison damage depends on your current hp, so when I gave up and wanted to just die to him to reset the run, he dealt to me 0 damage, when I had 1 hp. And I couldn't kill him either, because my charging was super debuffed and was like 37 RPM for charge iirc. So it was kinda super troll fight, were we both couldn't kill each other. (well, in theory I guess I could win but it would take very long time because of low charging rate)

10. In general fights felt a bit too random-ish, like again, with poison boss I missed like 5 times in a row iirc and like I can't do anything with that, cuz I don't have some kind of accuracy buff. Or when you can block enemy attack, but suddenly another enemy attack becomes unblockable and you should've used dodge or parry, but you couldn't know that. Like yeah, for some bosses I think you can use some consistent strategy, but not for all, unless you learn all their attack patterns, which can be a bit time-consuming.

11. Resting and candy-meetings scenes felt kinda repetative after some time. But dunno what really can be done here, like it was particularly annoying to skip candy-boy lines, because you always want to take candy, from what've understood, so you like have to manually skip them everytime.

12. Art looks cute, but style seemed to me a bit inconsistent, like if you compare candy boy and man with a big drill from your screenshots. But maybe I have that feeling cuz of a bit different dithering. Also perhaps fights could look more engaging with OMORI-like battle animations.

Overall, good job on your game; in addition to default art, music and game logic you, I assume, had to spend a lot of time on writing, which may be quite hard to polish, and you still managed to finish it to playable state. But there is still room to improvement. 🙂

(+1)

Let me start by thanking you for being so thorough and writing all issues you found, I'm very glad to have so much to check to make the experience better.

1) Will look into this bug (I honestly can't even presume what is causing it, maybe I'm pulling the wrong variable on the text)

2) You weren't supposed to be, I put an event to stop the overheal. If it's possible to skip it, I'll have to look into it

3) I wont lie to you, I knew there was a chance someone would see a friend and get the first battle dialogue, but I noticed it too late and didn't have the time to fix it. It's namely a simple fix, but I had so much stuff to do at the last few hours that I sacrificed it. Sorry for causing you that experience when I knew itd come to pass. And also being honest, I went for "a friend" to communicate to the player its a friendly event on early development and didnt think about it again at all, but you make a very good point. I'll try to work on that too.

4) That's lore not a typo❤️

5) The worst bug imaginable, I'll  put it on the top to solve. I don't think it's related to the enemy, as the loss event is supposed to be equal to everyone, but I may just have accidentally put a switch somewhere in his attacks that activates the post boss event.

6) I'd say I'd even want a video of this to see how it goes, but now it might be too late. I'll playtest a lot to see if I can trigger it and solve the issue. I had a similar one which I solved before submitting it, so perhaps I know what this one is already.  The bosses desyncing is new to me, but my playtests had bosses not despawning on losses, so maybe it is similar to that and something on the battle code is off depending on circumstances.

7) I was unsure if the normal bosses needed introductions,  but I should have made them themoment I decided the semifinals and final ones had. But now that you put the idea in my mind, I'll probably give them specially illustrated intros on the full release, just so their first appearance is special. I probably would sleep on intros altogether without this input, thank you very much

8) She was supposed to be helpful and troublesome, and in my runs she often helped, but so many people who talk about her say she gets in the way... but she's plot relevant and I can't remove her. AND THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ASKING THE KEYDRILL WHAT THE SPIRAL IS BUT I DIDNT MANAGE TO PUT IT IN im sorry, i prioritized the books too much and didn't give the basic gameplay features the attention they deserved (because I couldn't understand others wouldnt understand it like i did). I'll add the spiral event in future updates, but I cant remove her even when out of the constraints of Spin theme.

9) It is intentional that she can't kill you, but I didn't foresee that possible stalemate result to the fight. Thank you for the report, I'll make it so she puts you out of your misery if you get to 1 HP. I'll repeat myself, but thank you for engaging so much with the game, without this feedback I'd really have such a flawed encounter forever and be none the wiser. Bugs are a thing, but this kind of design issue really shouldn't be there.

10) I set learning what the boss does to 5 encounters (3 if you eat their souls) thinking itd be good enough, but that was clearly too many encounters, considering not everyone will be eating souls when they don't know what it does. I'll reduce it so youre only really surprised at your first encounter, I guess. It was naive of me to think itd be fun to be shooting in the dark for so many fights. I apologize for the frustration.

11) I'll make the repeated encounters be shorter, probably.  I felt that a bit too, when testing, but too late to start editing them. I'm glad you said that, it's an important reminder.

12) I'm a bad artist, so there isn't really an excuse or fix for the art I can give other than I'll keep practicing to be better. Not to get into my life too much, but it's just that I preferred to choose to put it out despite being bad, than forever be trapped in trying to improve until I think I'm good enough for the world. I know some people won't touch it because its ugly, but if one person can get through it and see me within the work, I'll be happy enough.

There's indeed infinite room for improvement and you've given me countless tracks to go after to continue this project, and for the third time, I'm infinitely grateful. You didn't need to go so far for me or my game,  and still did on the goodness of your heart. I'm blessed to have someone like you pass by me in this journey.

6. I forgot to mention, after peaceful fight with the old man I was just basically spamming Enter, so his encounter was always first in the list, maybe it will help to debug it.

12. No worries, same goes for my game :D, but we need to start somewhere.

Otherwise, no problem, was glad to help. Maybe, someday, you will show me your game again, when it is finished.🙂

(+1)

I was thinking it had to do with the peaceful encounter, good to hear it actually may have been so.  As the jam's almost over I'll probably soon start going over all the bugs reported and clear them all out. At the same time it's really sad to hear so much went wrong, I'm determined to make it the best I can.

(I did rate your game a few days ago, but to me it was such a seamless experience I couldnt even find something to comment.  Concept, execution and gameplay all perfectly smooth. Don't put yourself on the bad artist boat, you did great.)

Inshallah you'll see it again before 2026, I promise I'll put my life into completing this beautifully. Bugs aside, there's the true end to write, many more songs and art to make, but if I could do this much in a (albeit crunchy) month, I can realistically complete, polish and test it all in a year. 

Thank you very much for everything.