This story made me depressed…
Which is a good thing, in this context! Amazing work on following the theme. The art was good, and the pacing was good.
The gameplay was a bit lacking, though. Perhaps it was intentional, but it starts to become a problem when it’s just so easy to softlock everything. I softlocked myself before I even managed to leave my room once, in my first playthrough. That’s BAD.
[Spoliers!]
[Ahead!]
[Warning!]
I wasn’t even trying to sell the mirror my first playthrough. It just happened. Then, the exit button was in the wrong place, wrong time… Yeah… If I wasn’t such a persistent player, I wouldn’t have continued. I didn’t even know how I soft-locked myself…
Suggestion 1: Limit what you can sell until you reach a certain part of the story. It would work more in line with the story too. Like, the more obsessed she gets, the more she is willing to sell and the less she’ll fuss over your choices so long as she gets her fix.
Suggestion 2: Limit the number of items you can buy each round (or make new items available each round, but this would be a lot more art, so I’m not suggesting it), and have it so that you MUST buy at least one or two items each day. This would force the player to actually sell stuff instead of being me… And be “me”, I mean just spamming the “leave room” button when I could and putting on the same hairstyle when forced to [and only the hairstyle because 1.) I’m lazing and 2.) The hairstyle looks cute (don’t judge)].
To be frank, the changing clothes-changing mechanic did not help the game AT ALL besides theming and/or betraying expectations. For course, the generic is needed for the selling mechanic, but there are other ways to do that. You might have been better off making a regular visual novel if the clothes-changing mechanic slows down the flow of the game. The reason why I liked your game is not because of the mechanics, but because of the story. Sometimes, you just need to listen to your game, and lean more into what makes it fun, and ignore the rest.
For example, make an [Auto Clothes] button that automatically places all the clothes (that you previously put on your character) somewhere. Or maybe a [Randomize Clothes] button? This could also be the first GUI element the MC is fine with you selling too. This would effectively make the clothing part skippable, but also give more impact to the player when they start selling things they shouldn’t be able to.
You want to make players feel their own choices? Give them real consequences… Such as making them actually work or do something tedious! Muahaha! Evil!
Suggestion 3: you should provide a bit more feedback to the player. Things should change when moving over objects and stuff. Maybe dialog descriptions of items you sell to make the player more attached? Though, that might be a bit much for a jam.
Anyway, without any feedback, the game is overall static and lacks any juice to it, you know? The reason this is a good experience is because of the story and art, but even visual novels have that little motion to them for a reason. It helps keep the player engaged. Meanwhile, me? Again, I just skipped all the clothing segments when I could and immediately pressed the “exit room” button every chance I got.
Ehehe~ Sorry for that.
Suggestion 4: The fact that our MC only sells for 1 Gold was good to really drive in the point of how horrifying this is too, by the way. It might also be a metaphor too. Still, I would have definitely liked an alternated dialog ending when the player does do this, though.
I’m not asking for a happy ending, nor an elaborate one. I just wish there was some ending at all, you know? All good stories have an end, and a single line of dialog would have been more than enough. But, currently, it’s hard to determine what is an ending and what is a soft lock. …which is a problem too. Honestly, with how everything is made, I can’t even say, with 100% certainty, that there isn’t an ending! Maybe I just softlocked again and I’m complaining for no reason. The fact that I don’t know that is kind of bad. Sorry, again.
Even just an “END GAME” would have been sufficient.
Finally, this isn’t really a suggestion, but more a funny thing. When I first sold everything (I soft-locked myself a second time [and this time, I actually figured out that selling the GUI was a thing], I thought to just sell everything). I clicked every inch multiple times over, trying to find anything that I didn’t yet sell. But…no hidden ending. Sad. When I realized this, I refreshed the page to start again. And, you know what?
There was an error.
I couldn’t access the page no matter how much I refreshed. I thought that was a feature you programmed and I sold the entire game! In the end, it was just me being computer illiterate, but it was funny.
Anyway, again, I really enjoyed your game. The story was good, the art was really good, and the clothing-changing genre was a nice twist on the theme. Very unique. There are just a few things that could be changed to make it better.
Finally, do note that my suggestions are NOT law. I’m just giving a bit of feedback from my limited play. I need to emphasize that your game was an experience. A GOOD experience. Every element in this game was made to sell a story, and they were all used correctly for their role. Thank you for sharing.