itch.io

My thoughts on all playable Monsters (Based on fighting against Hard CPU):

• Dragonfish [Mid A Tier]: My third favorite character, plays like a balanced character akin to Mario. I always love to use Air Attack, Down Attack and Grounded Up Attack, and their projectiles are decent as well. It’s like a better version of Shella Snail, without the lightning special attack. Similar to the other monsters, you can probably string Grounded Up attacks and even keeping the same 3 hit combo on a corner. This is probably Mid A tier due to how strong they are when it comes to their strong anti-air attack (Up Attack). A bit of a side note, but I don’t know how to constantly access the EX projectiles like Shella Snail and Dragonfish.
• Shella Snail [B Tier]: A decent character, probably harder to master similar to Totem Monster. This CPU, no kidding, LOVES to zone so much, to the point that most monster, even Lily and Orbit, had a harder time approaching because of it. The only flaw I can see is that some attacks come out way too slow to string up attacks, except like Dash Attack leading up to a string of Grounded Up Attack on a corner (Like the hard AI LOVES to spam the dash attack on the corner). The only good factor about this character is their lightning special attack, which is a saving grace, but I find it hard to make good use of the combos. … Unless if it’s a skill issue on my part. 😆
• Totem Monster [B Tier]: Quite hard to master similar to Shella Snail. Used to be C Tier, but after playtesting, they’re actually pretty decent. Their attacks can cancel out long ranged projectile, except Happy’s charged attack. Using the Down Attack is a VERY useful tool, which you can cancel with a standard attack as a combo string. You can also poke through the opponent with a jump attack, or Down Attack in the air to ground pound them. Their special attack is a black hole that doesn’t deal damage, but it’s quite useful to nullify projectiles and temporarily stops the opponent’s attacks.
• Happy and Mad [S Tier]: Probably the most powerful playable monster, and it plays like Pyra/Mythra. This is honestly my main, haha. The Grounded Up attack for Mad is by far the most powerful tool you can use, can almost guarantee to break one’s guard at an instant. Not to mention, if you’re on the corner, it’s practically game over for you. Meanwhile, Happy plays like a zoner similar to Shella Snail, but can be a good support against characters like Lily and Orbit and Totem Monster. Honestly, I ALWAYS get sweeped by this CPU if it switches to Mad.
• Lily and Orbit [High A Tier]: My second favorite playable monster, the neutral grounded attack is one of the strongest two-hit attack, which can easily link up to down attack (Which down attack is the fastest move so far). Plus, using Orbit as a defense mechanism is very ideal if you wanted to gain neutral, and their special is by far one of my favorites, but annoying to up against. However, the biggest weakness is that they’re terrible at zoners like Totem Monster and Shella Snail.

Because Ligeska can use the students to know your location from time to time. Removing all students by tricking the Apex Predator into eating them (Or if you’re a student predator to eat them, but waiting for the time to eat is very time wasting) will make sure Ligeska won’t use her ability,

• Bella = Escape with the book in hand against Bella.
• Satie = Complete Satie’s Nightmare Mode.
• Tulpy = Escape with the book in hand against Tulpy and Complete Ligeska’s Normal Mode (Also means that you must clear all main predators, excluding Two Randoms).

As a person myself who already beat her before, here are some handy tips:

• It’s the same as beating Bella, except you can’t use apples as your advantage. Keep in close mind that Ligeska is VERY slow, but also hard to lose track when being chased.
• If you hear hissing noise nearby, it’s better to either hide or move away from the source of the sound. Or if you already have a key, lure her away from your direction by intentionally causing noise.
• If you’re having trouble, Predator Sense is VERY helpful.
• Keep a close eye on where Ligeska is heading towards, so that you can head towards the opposite direction of where she’s moving. This is the same tip as the noise I mentioned before.
• Following the above tip, make sure you’re not heading towards of where she’s heading into. (Ex: If she’s heading to the cafeteria, do not go to the Room 101 and 104/105 area.)
• Similar to what Manchura mentioned, if you’re skillful enough, you can lure the Apex Predator to eat all of the students. Then the rest should be a breeze.
• Do NOT play as Satie, I recommend Tulpy (For Nightmare Mode) or Person/Guy.

In the demo, student predators won’t do anything unfortunately. Even if you already beaten Bella, there won’t be another Bella as a student predator, since Bella is the only predator you’ll be facing against in the demo.

This is the same case in the full game as well: In a fresh save, if you already beat Bella, select Student Predator as an option, and then go against Bella again, there won’t be another duplicate of her as a student predator if the Apex Predator of her already existed.

Congratulations on winning Gain Jam! I couldn’t even contain my happiness when I saw it being first place! 🥰

It’s really addicting, charming artworks, and the mechanics are simple enough to understand! Hell, when I first heard of this game, I was like “Uhh, I’m not too sure. I’m kind of bad at card games”, until this proves me wrong!

No, the easter egg has a random chance of occurring, and it overrides the student predator option regardless.

Edit: Forget what I just said, I wrote this when I was just really tired. 😅

Wait, I thought I heard a door click whenever I was hiding in a couple of rooms in either Normal or Nightmare Modes respectively. Although, as you said, the chances of that happening are very rare.

If it’s possible that the AI could grab the key, go to a set path to the direction of where the door is, and unlock it to find more keys, then this shouldn’t be that hard to implement.

Alternatively, you can flash the ghosts so you can move past them, but this depends on the room generation (Like the small corridors) and the ghost’s speed.

Only Selective Weight Gain is implemented to all predators except… Ligeska? (Or I could be wrong, and she does have it, but the difference is very tiny).

The only thing you can see in first person perspective (While playing as a student predator) is that you can only see the chest expands a bit. That’s pretty much it.

Oh yeah, the lack of replay value is something I agree, especially after 100% all Modes (Normal and Nightmare, including Double Preds and the secret easter egg challenge). It’s just that after that… Well, there’s nothing else you can do except doing the stages that you already did.

“Best example I can give would be a ‘Golden/special’ apple from escaping normal/nightmare Belle, making pred students a viable option again, rather than heavily relying on ‘regular’ student.” I also agree with this too, back when you start off with 100% hunger in the previous builds.

It is possible to beat it with low hunger, but due to speed penalty (And trying not to alert the predator by running), it feels like a slog. Only exception is playing as Tulpy, which makes this easier and is literally the best playable predator imo.

I initially thought about playing as an apex would be finding your “target” for a set amount of time (And it would be crowded, like 20 or 30 students).

If the developer wouldn’t want to code the entire AI that searches keys and unlock rooms, some of the students will be locked inside of rooms where you’ll have to find the keys to unlock it (And one of them contains the target that’ll blend in the students that makes them less suspicious, but they’ll still attempt to crouch and hide in obscure places).

The lore stated that one of the students knows too much, so the apex predator is tasked to eat them before they’ll escape and spread the news.

I 100% agree. There’s nothing you can do after beating all main 4 predators (And Double Predators are optional unless if you’re going for the hidden Easter Egg).

They said that if you’re playing as Bella, you can eat Apex Tulpy, given the context of his comment.

I remember performing that, and I was like “Wow, that’s cool” until the developer made sure that you won’t complete the game by doing that.

Complete Tulpy’s Nightmare Mode and Double Predator’s Normal Mode.

In Double Predator’s Nightmare Mode, If you don’t see anything unusual with the students around you, keep restarting the game until you get it.

Damn, I’m not gonna grind more hours into beating it. 💀 And I honestly wish the event would’ve been an accessibility rather than random chances.

I think beating Ligeska’s normal mode was my limit, and even hers was annoying to beat.

Edit: Nevermind, I beat Nightmare Mode Ligeska with only Tulpy! Never doing that again…

It’s in the settings. (Predator Sense) If you have it activated, try running straight at the predator, and you can see that the eyeball will turn red when she spots you.

Nah, that was way before the fact that you can eat Tulpy with Bella (Back in July 18th), so I didn’t know that during my first playthrough.

Though, I was oddly against eating Tulpy as Bella.

Note: This is an Easter Egg; it’s completely optional.

There’s a rare chance of it spawned if you happened to beat Tulpy’s Nightmare Mode and then head to Double Predator’s Nightmare Mode.

And I thought 10+ hours of trying to beat Normal mode Tulpy was hard enough (And that was my first playthrough). 💀

If you compare a Student Predator with a prey, the prey appears to be slightly shorter than the Student Predator, or just around the Student Predator’s chest. Good example to test it is Bella or Satie. (Honestly, this is harder to compare the heights from side by side.)

Yeah, I thought so too. Whichever the case, what’s done is done.

Or probably because of the school setting. I’m not too sure either. 🤔

Unfortunately, it’s not coming on Steam; They rejected the game (via the announcement).

Realistically, keys are metallic, which are immune to stomach acids. Books are made out of mostly paper, ink, thread and glue. Thus, can be dissolved once it touches any acid, particularly stomach acid.

So unless if there’s a balance change that the books can only be spat out once (And the next time won’t be another chance), you’ll have to be very careful of not getting eaten if you have a book in hand.

Satie can be unlocked (Nightmare Mode) and Ligeska aren’t available. Also, books can be digested if you happen to get eaten, so that’s not a bug(?).

Yep, you’re correct. It only applies if you’re the target and not if the apex predator spotted another student that’s not you (Ex: If they’re hungry).

This is especially useful for Nightmare Mode.

Edit: I tried Predator Sense on Nightmare Mode, manage to beat it with only 2 tries on Bella and Tulpy respectively. I’ve underestimated how powerful this is.

Thanks to the testing, it’s to gauge the awareness of the predator.

• Black/transparent means that the predator is in patrol mode.
• Half opened Yellow means that the predator is currently on alert (Ex: Dropping keys/unlocking doors).
• and Red means that she’s on your sight and is currently chasing you.
• [New] Open eye yellow means that the predator lost sight of you but is still in chase mode and predicting where they’ll find you based on where they last saw you.

This status only applies if you’re the target. It doesn’t change if it’s chasing someone else. (Edited)

That would be a fun reward after beating all predators and Two Pred modes: A sandbox mode with no timer, having commands to modify the values in game (This includes spawning more students), player becoming spectator (Ex: Player being invisible just to watch all 4 preds going nuts eating everyone, or hell, a free for all. 😈), and most importantly, being in the shoes of an Apex Predator.

And speaking of that, wonder if all of the weight would slow her down the more she digests? That would probably be a good balance as well.

Just in general, nothing special haha.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that lmao-

Similar to what Rise (Best girl) mentioned, you only described Student Predators, where you play as a miniature version of the Apex Predators you unlocked. The OP specifically mentioned Apex Predators, where it’s the giant predator that chases you down (Or Tulpy who flies higher than normal).

Student Predators IS NOT Apex Predators, since Student Predators can still be eaten, and Apex can’t be eaten (Under specific conditions).

I bet playing as a giant apex predator eating other students would’ve been a REALLY fun experience to play. 🥴❤

Should the guide be in the actual game for transparency? Like a mini-tutorial or some sort?

With the exception of the in-game tooltip via the pause menu.

after swallowing the player, the player immediately dies

This bug still persists? I’ve heard someone pointed that out a month ago.

… Is it intentional that the (hungry) predator just basically RUNS up to your location even if you’re sneaking around or just walking normally? Like in the entire run, I never run at all, except from the start of the 30 second cooldown.

Because I noticed that it happened when I was directly above or below a floor from the predator, which ruin a couple of my nightmare runs. (Or just when the predator was like nearby lmao)

Thankfully it’s an uncommon occurrence, but just to point it out.

Satie was always an unlockable character ever since the initial release of the full game, hence why it wasn’t in any of the patch notes.

No, you’ll only pay once, and you still have access to the game.

Start Double Predators Nightmare Mode after beating Tulpy’s Nightmare Mode, and it has a random chance of encountering an easter egg during the start of the game. Be sure to look around if you noticed something unusual, and if not, restart and try again.