itch.io

A short and sweet ( ;) ) visual novel that reminds me a bit of 'Mix Ore' by Charon in regards to its execution. Props on drawing your own characters and each route was summed up well. Not much to say in regards to improve beyond maybe a variation in sprite poses than just the change in face. The song at the credits was cute too and a nice touch.

With that being said, I'm assuming there's more content than the 3 main routes? That seems to be the implication (and there's an extra sprite in the files that wasn't used). Any hints to access this?

I managed it at least so eh. Let's say it was a challenge. The building was staring me in the face the whole time. I feel so stupid for not recognising it.... Quite a quick ending though seems fitting based on some of the imagery. It was a nice little Yume Nikki - esque exploration.

You had to make it an ice sliding level :(. Cool egg design for the ice egg though. Hmm, secret entrance building. I thought it may have been the tall orange one (the one with the body bag(?)  inside) but maybe not. I feel it's either that, the blue box at the market or one of the 3D buildings.

I was able to find these 7 items but need help finding the last 3. I feel like I've looked everywhere but clearly not, hehe

Does the replenishing of stats/increase of one of the stats after touching the idol serve any functional purpose or is it merely a secret that changes nothing? Also, there may be a bug as I was unable to read the moon scroll while the star scroll was also in my inventory. I had to replay and only get the moon scroll to be able to read it.

You need to combine the numbers you get from the cactus, billiard ball and dart board in the order you get from the symbols under the painting in the same room (the moon and sun correspond to whether the lights of the room should be on or off when you look at the objects).

I quite liked this short experience. The game was cohesive and I feel like it was the right length too. Credit to having custom assets. That's always an incredible thing for an indie game to have and I do like the use of colour to distinguish the atmosphere between hostile areas and safer zones.

The story is simple enough and not a huge focus. It seems a little secondary to the gameplay. I do wish one could get little tidbits of information about the demons or the company from interacting with some of the books or something. Despite the nice designs for each map, they felt a bit lifeless due to this lack of interactivity. I thought the open books might have a meaning, especially given their whiteness contrasted the red background but nay. To be fair, I think you implemented some random events to keep things interesting (like sinking into the floor or the looping hallways) but I didn't encounter much variety of them.

The gameplay is the main unique draw to the game and I enjoyed the idea of trying to interact with the demons and navigating them through their temperament. It was also great to see the different replies to each option. Really fun mechanic there. I didn't at all use the 'Banish' option and so it felt a bit unnecessary, even if it could have been used for more difficult foes. I think the standard mode of talking to the demons were forgiving enough that it wasn't ever needed, except for maybe the boss.

With that said, I think there was a bug in the area where a "strong presence" was felt with the 00 on the walls in that I wasn't able to walk on the curved tile sets so I couldn't explore it. Same thing happened in the other area with the similar layout to it (the one with the NPC called Kale). Idk if these areas change the ending or are important but it's a shame I couldn't explore them. There was also an item (or arrow at least) in the car park but the yellow markings weren't traversable either so I couldn't get to it.

I did play 'In The Hole' too and you seem to be making a nice variety of interesting and unique games for I look forward to more to come :).

I think the English translation has a bug where you can't get the last death. Once you've finished talking to the Candy Candy boy and need to get another candle outside the home, the door to the outside where you should be killed by the mutant? from the door doesn't trigger. 

Also, there's some dialogue in the bonus room that wasn't translated and the English translation itself needs a bit of work. I believe I understood everything and therefore I don't think this is a huge issue but it does sometimes feel odd to read. If you translated this yourself then props to you for competently managing the translation since I assume Thai is your first language but having someone to check it and add amendments may help.

Other than that, I believe this is an amazing game. Since there's not much gameplay, the dialogue had to do the heavy lifting and you accomplished that. The bond between Grace and the Candy Candy boy was given enough time to develop properly so the ending is satisfying and I like how the multiple dialogue options don't just function to give deaths but also reveal different information about the characters, making the game more replayable if you want to know everything. Each choice therefore feels meaningful and intentional.

The art itself is nicely done. Candy Candy boy's design is unique and instantly drew me to the game when I saw it and the use of moving assets for the jump scares, wiping Grace's tears and blindfolding her add an extra layer to the experience.

Finally, I did like the sort of side story you had that gave background information on the world through the news articles. It seems inspired by a lot of current events that have happened in recent years and it was the cherry on top to the exploration of the house that kept things even more interesting.

All in all, it's a really cool game and succeeds in what it set out to do.

From what little I played, I really enjoyed this game and I want to stress this since I will be giving some critiques since I think that's the best way to improve but I don't want this to be interpreted in any way that this is a bad game, I didn't like it or anything of the sort. I guess I'm just good at being negative, hehe.... I literally created an itch.io account because I encountered a bug and wanted to note it in case it could be fixed and I could continue playing :).

The custom assets and art helps the game stand out and a lot of effort did go into them and is probably the biggest standout of the game. The maps are nicely drawn and laid out well. With that being said I do have two nitpicks:

1. The first being that the portraits of some of the characters do feel a little disjointed as the perspective is different. Sula is noticeably more squashed than the other characters, the father's portrait is a zoom in on his head unlike the bust portrait of the others and maybe it's me but Clanis seems to be in a different, more anime inspired, artsyle. This is more of an issue of consistency than anything else. 
2. The second nitpick is that the map of Tenthis specifically feels bigger than it needs to be. There's quite a bit of empty space that could either be removed by shrinking the town or filled up with decorations and other assets.

The battle mechanics are nothing new and standard for RPGs. From what I played, the battles aren't tough but not super easy either. I don't have much to say here though I appreciate the generosity of item drops from enemies (especially during the intro siege).

The story itself was intriguing enough in premise for me to want to continue playing. There's the bones and structure for a narrative though the execution/writing does leaves a bit to be desired. The characters (so far) don't feel unique as individuals and only say what is needed to move the plot. There's no sense of bond between them in actual interaction; this is only shown through them verbally stating they're close and I think the idea of the characters only talking to advance the plot in the most direct way is probably the biggest issue I have here. There's no downtime to see the characters as humans, process their feelings and have moments between each other that show their comradery.

Extremely minor point but I saw a few spelling mistakes but nothing so abhorrent it messes the flow of reading or is unintelligible. For example, I think Clanis says "lire" instead of "liar" when you battle them.

It's a shame I wasn't able to progress beyond the Myugo Ice Planes (so I only had about an hour of gameplay) due to what I believe to be a bug where Miiya-Za gets stuck in place and so the cutscene/event with them doesn't trigger and you're left frozen.

I hope that was helpful in any way. I'm not an expert on game development nor am I a master in story writing and so I don't want to act like this is at all easy. I know it's hard and you solo devs do your best but I thought my opinion could potentially be helpful...