Alpha Demo 3.0 Feedback
*Edited after beating the demo
Issues/Personal gripes:
-*A few more save points could be present in the demo
-Lives system. If the ice turret section with the lack of checkpoints was annoying, the lives system is the annoying cherry on top. Dear Developer, whilst I do not see a need for a lives system in a hentai game of all genres, at least make it so that whenever you collect an extra life, that it's a "full" extra life. As of now, when you collect red orbs, they only fill the meter by half. with a maximum of 3. If you do stick with the system, at least make it so that 1 red orb fully fills 1 bar of your extra lives. If you want it to be more balanced, make red orbs rarer on the main payh and include some extra ones in "secret" areas.
*I had 2 and a half lives but when I died, instead of being left with either 2 or 1.5 lives, I was left with exactly 1. Meaning that when it comes to the lives meter, a single death can cost 1.5 lives. Not sure if this is a bug or not, but it doesn't feel right.
-Making noise as of seems to be more of a detriment than boon. In the cat girl section I thought if I made some noise and hopped away I could collected the orbs while the cat girl is investigating the area I made the noise at. But no, she just b-lines towards your position until you are caught.
-The long jump is too inconsistent. A visual indicator or meter showing the long jump charging up/being active would go a long way.
-Overall, I am not sure what the game is trying to be anymore. If it's trying to be a puzzle game, then there are a lot of unnecessary systems working in its detriment. The main issues being the stamina and life meters. If the game is trying to be more of a stealth game now, then the mechanics just aren't there. Such as movement and your level of interaction with the environment/enemies.
*The scarab section was more annoying than fun. Sure, it introduces tension. But in moments where there are no enemies, it just feels like an annoyance. Mostly due to the need to either wait for it to go back to 0 again or sit through the squirming animation. Didn't help that I got a bit lost going back to the turret part so I had spend more time slowly backtracking to the scarab door.
*The Scarab puzzle, it is doable in a minute, but as a person for whom numbers aren't their strong suit; I think it could use some trimming. Maybe reduce the the amount from 10 buttons to press to 5 buttons.
Personal opinions:
Other than hoping you consider the points above, I do have some things in mind that I think would be interesting.
-For example, let's say that each girl has their own "boss" stage. Like a hard puzzle culminating in all the mechanics the player learned up until then in which each of the bosses, if defeated, would get a punishment ending. For example, Selma. When she catches you she uses you as her own gym equipment. Maybe if you defeat her, her punishment could be she either gets stuck in one of her gym machines or a general fuck machine. (Point being that it would be satisfying for each of the main villains to get a dose of their own medicine) I think this would lead to a feeling of building up to confronting Tiahna.
-When it comes to unlockable bondage costumes, I think more variation would go a long way. Maybe a different customization tab where we can choose which gags to put on or even nipple clamps. (A bit off topic, but having played Resident Evil 4 Remake, I wanted to ask about potential "cheats" in the game. For example, in RE4 in order to have infinite ammo your character wears cat ears. So I thought, wouldn't it be neat to have, for example, a infnite stamina cheat which manifests as a sex to on the character. Like a vibrator or dildo sticking out of Yui's bandages/whatever's the name of what she's wrapped in. No need to be animated, just there vissually.)
-As for the wax doll enemies, I think instead of having a literal red light on their head; depening if they've seen you or not, I think a question mark and then exclamation mark showing over their head sort of like in Metal Gear games would be a bit more immersive.
-I think a zoom-out/zoom/in feature would be useful. Either to get a more general look of the room or to zoom in on a interesting/important part of the level.
*A clearer indicator that you can rotate the camera. It took me until this 4th playthrough to notice the small icon near the minimap.
Conclusion: I may have sounded too negative, which was not my intention. Other than feeling like the game is being a bit pulled in 2 different directions, the rest of the issues I believe can be fixed in future builds and with a deeper consideration of how mechanics interact with each other.
The only reason I didn't talk about more the things I liked is because, other than the negatives mentioned above, I still liked the rest of the game. As I mentioned in my previous comment, Alpha 2.1 felt really solid and that feeling is still here.
I'm still looking forward to the full release as this still seems to be a more unique spin on the hentai games genre.
I am confident that by the time of the release, this game will turn into something interesting/special.
*Okay, after finishing the demo, I walked off mostly with the same opinions as before. (But thank you for telling me how to do the turret section, which does make sense once you know what to do.)
*All in all after beating the alpha 3.0, whilst still conflicted, I feel a bit more confident in the direction of the game than last time.