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MILD SPOILERS, MAYBE?

That was a lot of fun. Although it's a visual novel, it feels like it draws heavily on the classic point-and-click adventure genre and it both looks and feels (at least to some degree) like those old Flash escape-the-room games. I mean the better ones, so that's a compliment! I didn't play the most recent version so my review may be slightly dated, but:

I enjoyed the visual style, which between the intentional sketchiness and the black-and-white environment is likely what reminded me of those Flash games. The character's sprites are distinctive and evoke their personalities before you even speak to them, and there's just enough oddness to establish Purrgatory as a slightly surreal world unto itself while keeping it firmly grounded in the mostly benign, mildly irritating banality that seems to be its hallmark. The audio was amazing and the ambient music was fitting without getting grating, which is important considering how much backtracking I wound up doing; the lack of shortcuts/fast travel makes total sense within the game, as the characters literally have forever to get from place to place and the mild irritation is probably a feature, not a bug. I found the mechanics easy to understand and enjoyed the puzzles, which required a bit of thinking without being hard or unfair; they were also well-integrated into the narrative, since they felt like things I'd enjoy doing (interacting with the characters, exploring) rather than things I was doing simply to advance the game.

The writing was witty without being overbearing and much of the dialogue was convincingly natural; it went a long way towards establishing the characters and their personalities without making outright statements, and things that were revealed in later conversations felt like the natural results of earlier conversations. I genuinely wanted to help them characters and felt good about it when I succeeded in doing so. The text could be heartwarming or poignant but was also funny, keeping things relatively light despite the frankly terrifying existential implications of a potentially-perpetual Purrgatory. I appreciate the fact that there was text for just about anything you could click on, though I'm still sad on behalf of my MC: Did they not deserve a snack from that vending machine? I'm the type of person who tries to guess the twist so I had an idea of how things would play out, but it's to your credit that I thoroughly enjoyed the journey nonetheless and was actually slightly wrong about how things would end: My compliments on the red herring that was the snowglobes as I was legitimately flabbergasted when I got to the end of that hallway, which is probably just what Lucifurr wanted. You raised my hopes and dashed them most expertly, sir. The ability to determine pieces of the MC's background was also a nice touch, retaining the faceless protagonist and allowing players to self-insert while giving a bit of personalization.

Not sure how many endings there are since I've only done one playthrough, but I got the Heaven ending and it was very satisfying, which extended through the credits and the little glimpses of the cast enjoying themselves. I chuckled at the shout-outs, like the gnome and crowbar; when I saw the train station I thought about the Number Nine from Grim Fandango, or possibly the trains from The Good Place, but I'm not sure if that's a reference or... you know, just a train station. I had a couple of crashes while playing the downloaded version; not sure if this was because I was using a slightly older version or because my laptop is ancient (probably the latter), but it didn't impact me much and might be moot at this point, given the most recent version.

I thought about quoting some of my favorite lines, but that would double the size of this already-way-too-long comment, so I'll just say that I enjoyed playing this game very much, and thank you for putting it out there to be played!

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thank you so much for this thoughtful review!! there are too many kind words for me to respond to all of them, but i'll mention that you're spot on about it being inspired by flash games. i don't suppose you've played daymare town?

i'd like to hear what crashes you encountered - i haven't had any reported so far, so it's probably not fixed in the new version. i wouldn't mind hearing those favorite lines, either :3

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Yes, I've played Daymare Town! That's probably what I was thinking of, to be honest; I got into it through the Submachine series, which sparked my love for puzzle/escape-type games, but I'm also a big chicken (not literally) so it's hard for me to find similar games that aren't horror. Which is part of why I enjoyed this one so much!

Crash-wise, two happened when the game was loading; I clicked on it before it was done (once accidentally) and it froze. The first time I had to shut it down from the Task Bar and the second time it closed itself. The other crash I remember happened during the keyboard jam sesh, when I may have been panic-hitting the keys too quickly, causing the game to lag badly, freeze and crash. I assume it was my extremely old laptop, not the game itself. Incidentally, I was relieved to find out that you don't have to actually succeed at the duet, as it was giving me second-grade-piano-lesson flashbacks.

Quote-wise, there's really too many, but:
- Sean's "I'm a snake with arms" comment.

- Numa's panic-garbled text as she literally runs screaming from the room after trying to confess (relatable but still funny).
- Elijah's "today is a floor day" conversation (also very relatable).
- Tori, of all people, geeking out when we learn that Nat is the artist behind Nocturnal, plus Nat's "it me" responses when she's trying to be coherent.
- Oliver declaring that Lucifur Himself is "a JERK" as if it's the worst thing he could think of to say.
- Almost anything Kyungsoon says, particularly her matter-of-fact speech about Lucifur's cat form and 'petting him like a bongo.'
- Lucifur's defensive response when you ask him about the cat toy, and the MC's earlier response when the cat toy breaks and they just drape the string-and-mouse part on the cat.
- I really liked Numa's refusal to leave if the MC couldn't go. Considering how withdrawn and anxious she is when you meet her, it was heartwarming that she could stand up to Lucifur like that, as well as a testament to the strength of her new relationships. Kyungsoon's flat "what" when Numa says that neither of them will be leaving was funny, though!
- I also really liked the whole "I'm Spartacus!" scene; it was a real feel-good vibe to see more introverted characters like Numa and Oliver speak up, or Tori defer her laser-like focus on escaping for the sake of MC and the others.
- I just liked a lot of the friendship moments, like helping Elijah and Sean make up or Tori storming into Oliver's study to talk about chess. Relatedly, Elijah being so happy that the Everything Slam is coming together/went off so well, and seeing everyone interacting after that.
- Not actually a quote, but the different exhibits and cards in the Meowseum, including Hover Cat, Scaly Cat and "just regular Starry Night." I also have to admit that the giant rotating cat model took me by surprise because it's just so different from everything else in the game!

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ah, you might be right about the crashes, it sounds like your laptop just couldn't handle the load. still my fault for making the game so poorly optimized, though ;_;

i love hearing what people enjoyed about the game so i'm glad you took the time to type all that out :3 i'm especially happy to see some lucifur- and elijah-related moments in there since they're definitely two of the less popular characters. thanks again for your super kind comments!!

You're welcome, and I'm glad I didn't scare you into a tl;dr with my walls of words! I'm a little surprised to hear that Elijah and Lucifer aren't as popular, but I'm guessing it's because you only interact with Lucifur briefly (and he is responsible for trapping you in Purrgatory) and Elijah's personality is more... muted?... than the others. Honestly, though, I wouldn't have minded an ending where the MC stays in Purrgatory and keeps Lucifur company/helps him fix the place up, maybe serving as a greeter/mentor for future inhabitants, and I really liked Elijah and found him very relatable. Plus, he's an ARMY-dillo! (Unless he was actually in the Navy or something.)

dang, that's a really good idea for an ending! wish i'd have thought of that. unfortunately your pun is faulty for a different reason -- elijah is a pangolin, not an armadillo :3

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*sad trumpet sounds*

ORZ

yes i know it's supposed to be a trombone, nobody @ me

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(comments like yours really give life to devs, doing gods work out here, Emberbright! <3)

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Haha, thanks, but it's literally the least I can do! Devs are putting out cool games for free, and I'm unfortunately not in a place where I can shower creators with money and delicious food, so putting a little effort into these comments is (maybe?) the next best thing!