Alright. I believe I've played all of the content for the current build, so I feel like I can share my thoughts now.
It's very good so far. Lots of potential. There's some definite rough spots from it being an early build, but those issues should be polished out as development progresses.
I definitely wanna see where this goes.
To share a little bit of advice: As a general rule for game development, you should focus on bugfixing and stability first, and then work on adding new content. That makes for a much nicer game feel on the user's end.
Also, something I got from ExtraCredits back before they went coo-coo: "If you're trying to put a difficult section into your game, and you as the developer think the difficulty is just right, it's probably way too hard."
Now, I have some notes that I want to share. This may come off as being overly critical, but I'm not trying to make fun or cause offense. I just want to point out some spots where I think improvements can be made.
General Improvements:
- It can sometimes be difficult to know what you're supposed to do. The quest descriptions do help with that, but I think it can be a bit better. Just generally make what the player is supposed to do a bit more clear.
- It would be helpful if there was something on the HUD that let you know what time it was. Light levels aren't always easy to go on, especially if you're coming back to the game and don't remember what time it was when you left.
- Some sort of fast-travel system would be very nice. Having to go through the forest every time you want to go to the library is especially annoying. Maybe you could have a map item that lets you pick where you want to go.
- It would be nice to have a way to rebind controls. I really quite dislike having to play with arrow keys, and using the mouse for movement can be buggy.
- We really need a way to load saves without quitting to the title screen.
- You should sort the quests into their proper categories. No need to put [SIDEQUEST] in front of a quest's title when you could just put it in the Sidequest category.
- I would appreciate having a way to check the girls' stats without having to go all the way home. Having access to that from the menu would be much more useful.
- On the subject of the girls' stats, it would also be greatly useful if there was some kind of notification whenever a stat changed. That would make it much easier to track. Something like (Friendship +1) would be great.
- This one might be a bit complex, but it would be neat if the different gadgets had more to them than just some minor differences in the artwork and dialogue.
- The friendship system seems a bit... Lackluster. It doesn't really seem to do anything. It would be cool if having high friendship changed the text during sex scenes so that the girl is more into it. Something like: Low Friendship - Noticeably hesitant when obeying commands or giving responses. Moderate Friendship - Doesn't complain when obeying commands or giving responses. High Friendship - Noticeably enthusiastic when obeying commands or giving responses.
- Those puzzles where you need to get around patrolling enemies are too difficult. The enemies move way too fast. If you cut their movement speed in half, I think it would be much more balanced. Maybe you could reduce the speed by a quarter, if you really want the enemies to be fast.
- The quest where you're trying to get the blueprints for the
neural device is especially bad. Not only do the guards move way too fast, but they can
also spot you through the walls. Also, if two guards spot you at the
same time, the first guard will catch you and send you back to the
beginning of the level; and then the moment you spawn back in, the second
guard will also catch you and send you back to the beginning of the
level. So you get two failures for the price of one.
- As is, the puzzle with the cave bats is difficult, but doable.
However, the puzzle with the guards is virtually impossible to actually
complete legitimately.
Bug Reports:
- There are quite a few errors in the writing. Typos, spelling errors, and even sometimes the wrong word is used. It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it can be distracting. You should try to find an editor for your writing.
- There are some points where a character named Vanessa is mentioned. I'm not great at remembering names, but I don't think there was a point where anyone named Vanessa was introduced. Did I happen to miss a quest where she was introduced, or is it one of the other characters? Did Cyrilla perhaps used to be called Vanessa, in an earlier build of the game? Is Cyrilla going by Vanessa in the city to avoid suspicion? Is Vanessa someone else? Was Vanessa actually introduced, and I just wasn't paying close enough attention?
- Cutscenes can be a bit buggy. With sprite-based scenes, characters are sometimes duplicated. With artwork-based scenes, clothes can appear or disappear when they're not supposed to.
- If you play games with Alice in the afternoon, and don't use your magic on her, instead of moving on to nighttime afterward, it just skips to the next day and puts you in your house.
- If you talk to Bea in the afternoon, after the dialogue finishes, the screen will fade to black, but not fade back in. You can still move around, interact with things, and open the menu, but the entire screen will be permanently black until you exit to the title screen and reload.
- After finishing the Meal for Liz quest, talking to her in the afternoon will repeat the dialogue that gave you the Meal for Liz quest. It doesn't give you the quest again, just the dialogue.