itch.io

I'm finally trying out some of the games from this year's yuri jam (yes, I know, 2 months late, but better late than never?).

I'll preface this by saying that wilderness survival isn't actually a genre of game I'd normally play, but the concept caught my interest anyway. Never seen someone try this sort of thing with RPG Maker before. I could theoretically see myself playing this game for the story, if it were longer and more developed, with the gameplay being personally viewed as a sort of bonus, and a vehicle for delivering the story. There wasn't really enough to do in the current build for me to get that into it, unless I was missing some events that only showed up on later days, or something similarly obscure.

Now, to feedback...

• Binding Z to Status is... OK in theory, but Z is also bound to accept/interact, like Enter (not just by default, it does that here too), so it causes some problems in practice. I'd personally prefer if it was on S or C or something.
• Would be nice to have a visual display of the current time, if only so we can see what advances it and by roughly how much. Seems like it's walking around?
• Would also be nice if the status showed hunger/thirst but I guess that is on the main screen anyway.
• Is the Mute/Poison status, which causes your health to constantly tick down until you die, caused by dehydration (low but not 0 thirst)? If so, why doesn't it go away when you use coconuts and your thirst goes up? For that matter, coconuts say they restore health, but your health doesn't actually go up, your thirst does. (Sardines do restore health, though, even though they don't mention that at all.)
• Talking to Yuna repeatedly until she gives you a gift is kind of weird, narratively. Why would she give you it the third time and not the first two times?
• Gathering flint stones early on is a little frustratingly random; you get a lot of normal rocks, and there aren't many gathering points. A one-time guaranteed spawn of 1-2 flint stones inside the cave would help. Though I guess that's what Yuna's gift already is.
• Is there anything in the entire game that you can actually put in the bottles?
• The climbable rocks could probably be more obvious or better explained (as well as being faster in real time to navigate once you've done it once. The ingame-time taken is fine, maybe even a bit low, it's just a lot of cutscenes and dialogue to get up and down), though they are already pretty distinctive. I am not the most perceptive, but still, it took me three aborted playthroughs to find them.
• This log glitches out after moving it and entering/returning from the cave.

(In case you're wondering about the edits, I accidentally hit space with the text field deselected and posted this before I was finished typing.)

(Came from Yuri Game Jam page. I know, it's been months now, but I only just got around to playing through the submissions.)

Not gonna lie, I spent close to a minute just staring at the first room (the art and animations are actually very impressive, and after completing the game I spent a good minute or so just slashing with the sword girl and watching her sword reform on her back), and maybe five more minutes jumping around the first room. The core gameplay (how recently did you last play Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, out of curiosity?) and controls actually seem pretty polished and seem to have a fair amount of potential, and the graphics are excellent. I'll get into specific things I liked down at the bottom. The current build isn't really specifically yuri-ish in any way other than the interface, but I'm fine with that in an early build of a game where it seems like gameplay would be the primary focus anyway.

It also kinda drops you in without explaining anything, so I'm going to phrase this as a list of comments on things that aren't obvious and assume that some of them are probably bugs or oversights.

• If the pink-haired girl runs off a ledge, she takes about half a second to start falling.
• The pink girl's air melee is always a staff swing even if she doesn't actually have her staff, though she can't throw it again.
• It's really hard to tell what background objects you can hit to get items.
• At certain points, I wasn't able to be hit by enemies; sword shadows, shadow stalkers, floating hands, and tables were all attacking right through me, no matter which girl I was on, with no effect. No idea what triggers this, though I assume it's an intermittent bug given that it was working before and after in the same playthrough. Maybe I managed to carry invincibility frames from being hit over from a previous room. (This made my first playthrough a lot easier than it should've been. I can't seem to reproduce it. Never mind, reproduced it without a room transition.)
• The icy surface from the ice cube item can extend a ways past the end of a ledge.
• I have no idea what's up with the black dot that floats above your head at all times or the way you flash black when you kill things.
• I also have no idea what it is that sometimes locks one of the girls during the last fight. Not sure if I missed a visual indicator other than the X over her portrait.
• Room transitions can be a little clunky, especially this one where it doesn't actually put you above the ledge when you jump up/down, it puts you off to the left.
• You can run into this wall but it doesn't really go anywhere. Easter egg?
• It seems like the brief animation freeze used for effect when you hit something can actually chain together for hilarious results; I had the staff girl do a swing which lasted over a second and took out more than one shadow soldier, because the animation stayed frozen and kept hitting them again, (also making them flinch so they couldn't get away) since they were still in range.
• You can jump before you hit the ground if you run/dash off a ledge and fall. (This is honestly kind of neat and I'd be OK with it but it feels like a bug still.)
• If you dash, then jump mid-dash, you can't dash again in the air, even though you could have dashed again on the ground when you jumped.
• Sometimes the shadow stalkers just pose and make an noise without actually attacking?
• The shadow stalkers are really easy to kill with the sword girl just by spamming attack, since her second swing hits behind her.

Things I specifically liked about the gameplay:

• The heroines feel pretty different; the sword girl has fast attacks with her sword and stomp, as well as fast horizontal movement with her dash, the staff girl has consistently fast movement and a slightly higher jump.
• When you press a key, stuff happens immediately, often even if you're doing something else (you can, for example, jump while attacking, and it just cancels the attack animation).

Things I personally disliked about the gameplay:

• Spells and items aren't really that useful. They run off a very limited resource and don't have the vast power that they'd need to be worth using given that you can only use two or three of them before you need to go find a mana potion.
• If you manage to get your staff to hit you in the back, that feels like it ought to kill the shadow stalkers.
• Having to go hunt for keys to open doors is kind of eh, after the first time. It's not the detour I object to so much as backtracking through it afterward. It's okay, and I think with either non-linearity and a map, or a bit more disguising of the keys (figuratively speaking. Making them or power-ups that do distinct, interesting things, or something) or adding some challenges along the route, it would be totally fine, it's just the way it is right now that's a bit annoying.

Edit: Typos and minor rephrasing

Edit 2: Oh, in conclusion... I enjoyed my time with it, which was probably around an hour including typing this up? The graphics and animations are actually pretty good, the sound and music fit well, the controls work better than some actual full games I've played, and while it doesn't quite play like a Castlevania game, it does play like it was designed by someone who's played them. I'd be interested in playing this if it came out as a short but finished game. But it does feel like a demo right now, in a lot of ways, with a handful of bugs, no intro, and just a general shortage of... content, I guess the word would be? Or content variety?

Thanks for the response, and for explaining the underlying philosophy. A shorter follow-up / response:

I do think there's value, even for more complex hardcore games, in keeping the basic game simple. Also, for the purposes of teaching new players the game, cards and decks which are mostly comprised of plain and straightforward conditional damaging cards are a good thing; it helps retain the 'easy to learn' part of the ideal 'easy to learn, hard to master'.

I like the idea of cheaper cards and permanent effects; I think that might help create actual decision-making in the earlier turns. Needless to say, with the current health amounts and duel rules, cards probably need to be weaker if they're cheaper or duels will just be even shorter. (triple Tender Kiss on turn 2 for 2+7+7 = 16? The horror...)

It would, on reflection, be unreasonable of me to expect the kind of half-hour gambit-pileups or puzzle-like control battles that Yu-gi-oh sometimes produces from a game like Sapphica, and that's not really the theme of Sapphica anyhow. And actually, thinking about it, 5-minute duels sound perfectly fine; my problem is (as I'm guessing you already figured out) with 1-minute duels (not exaggerating; out of curiosity, I decided to test it, and I can consistently win with Fingers Do The Walking in under 60 seconds, on the 5-mana turn*) where I know what card I'm going to play next before the opponent even takes her turn. Might be important when talking about duel length to bear in mind that there's no turn timer and different people play at different speeds, especially with 18+ games, so it could take someone else 5 or 10 minutes to play the same exact duel I can finish in 1 or 2.

A couple of interface related suggestions I didn't think of before because I was tired. These would also be more important if I ever played more than 2 cards in a turn:

1) Add a display for the current Grower bonus, or make still-active cards stay up on one side of the screen, or something. Similar for Heal Chain. Or maybe somewhere you can click or hover over (maybe the "health bar"?) to display active card effects... basically just make it so you can see every card that's currently affecting the game. This is probably extra important when cards with persistent effects are added. (The way Invest is currently displayed is fine.)
2) Indicate somehow whether a Chainer card has been played this turn: Maybe a visual indicator (a tick, or a chain icon, or a glow around the edge, or something) on other Chainer cards, or just in a corner of the screen. Or maybe some sort of action log would be better? Or a discard pile could perhaps work... or, like with the Grower suggestion, the first Chainer card played could stay up on the screen until the end of the turn. Chainer feels to me like more like an effect that's printed on the second card, though, so it's likely the indicator should be on the second card as well.

* Test game: 3 damage turn 1 (Finger Bang); 4 damage turn 2 (Helping Hand); 3+5 damage turn 3 (double Quick Draw); 5 or more damage turn 4 (there is no 2-card combination in the deck that doesn't do at least 5 damage, but you can do up to 8 with your 5 mana, making up for a weaker turn 3 if you only drew one Quick Draw by then, or had to use lube on turn 1, or something).

Hi again!

So. With V0.2 out and a slightly larger card pool I can give some more in-depth thoughts on the game as a whole... This is almost as much an essay-length review as a suggestion, but there are suggestions at the bottom.

Background: I may not be who you're aiming at with this one. My experience with card games comes from relatively complex card games like Yu-gi-oh and Hearthstone (never played Magic, but I know how to) as well as somewhat simpler ones like Arcomage from Might and Magic, which the flash card game Castle Wars is reasonably similar to. If you haven't heard of that either, both are castle-building wizard-combat games with both health (castle) and shield (wall) bars, 3 resources (stone/magic/weapons, in essence) as well as 3 different, but interlinked ways to win (accrue resources and resource income to play more powerful cards; build up your tower, since you win instantly at a certain height; and destroy the foe's tower). That's more than enough about me; on to Sapphica.

General impression: I like it alright, but I don't love it. Matches are, in the game's current early state, too short and lacking in depth for me: it's a race to win before you lose, where the strategies initially available are "win faster" or "lose slower". (I personally found the self-damaging card draw cards in the first level to be pretty much a guaranteed loss if played, since my main difficulty is usually "can I find the time to play all these cards and win before I lose?").

I liked the addition of heal chain and invest, but duels still feel shorter, and involve less choice, than I'd like. (And I'm going to harp on about length for a while, so if the matches are this way by design then you can probably ignore a lot of this.) Usually, my matches tend to end on 6 or 7 mana regardless of whether I'm using the defensive deck (I've not yet intentionally tried to stall the game out with self-healing, but I suspect it's not possible for long) or the aggressive deck. This makes saving cards to use together often a losing strategy, unless it's something like Tender Kiss which is so much weaker on its own that you're better off playing nothing than wasting a single one on the first turn; similarly, effects that require long chains of cards are often a bit lackluster because you can only get 1 more card in afterwards. (Although heal chain and grower might turn out to be extremely strong if you could consistently get 3-4 activations, and I can imagine that happening if some cards were added that costed 0-1 mana.)

It's quite possible this will turn out not to be a problem; the duels might only be short because the defensive starter deck isn't very good and the AI decks aren't very defensive, or maybe you were already planning to have the max health amounts (both player and opponents) increase later in the game? Or maybe this game length is fine for basic aggressive decks like these, and for the kind of drawn-out stylish control or combo battles I'm looking for, I need to wait for a bondage or domination themed deck... or just build a defensive deck with Arousing Thoughts, Banana Lube, and a cheap Invest card.
It's also possible the reason duels feel short to me is that all these cards are a bit expensive mana-wise, so you don't get to play that many of them.

Finally in "not really bugs but not really suggestions either"... even though when I think about the theme its actual effect makes sense, the text of the banana lube card is unhelpful:
The effect of banana lube is called "Heal Chain", but it's intended to be played *first*, while Chainer cards are (for best effect) played after other Chainer cards; "Heal Grower" or "Heal Boost" or "Add Healing" or something would actually be a more helpful name. But that's minor compared to:
The effect text is "Heals 1 points of damage for every card played this turn." Before playing it, I interpreted this as an immediate effect: "for each card you've already played this turn, (possibly including this one, wasn't sure), heal 1 point of damage." What it actually does is "For the rest of this turn, when you play a card, heal 1 damage."
I will admit that my confusion was partially caused by past experience with Yu-gi-oh's chain cards, which are activated at the end of a complex sequence of "your trap card activated my trap card, muohoho", then happen instantly. But this card's wording strikes me as confusingly ambiguous, just because it doesn't say "before it" or "after it" or anything like that.

In conclusion, I personally would in general be interested in seeing (though I don't know if these necessarily fit the game at all, and they range from very vague to very specific):
1) This is the main one: Basic match lengths slightly-to-moderately increased (either in general, or just later in the game) to reward patiently squeezing the full value out of your card combinations, or building up to really powerful cards, rather than dumping your starting hand as fast, but efficiently, as possible for a quick win. I actually think the current decks can probably already do 30 damage without running out of cards and relying on top-decks, given enough mana to use everything. (Maybe 20 health is fine for now, but later on when more powerful cards are available it seems like it might result in a lot of high cost cards going completely unused, because the duels are just already over before you can play them; perhaps 30-50 health instead of 20 would be a good ballpark for later but I don't know for sure. 40 or 50 does seem like it could  be too much right now. Keeping the pleasure limit at 20 but making it first to 2 orgasms instead of 1 (you'd keep your hand and mana, probably, it wouldn't just be a best of 3) could work similarly and perhaps enable new balancing mechanics, but also might be confusing or conflict with established rules... and it does still double the health, which might make these early duels stall out towards the end.)
2) More effective ways to stabilize and slow down matches until you can get the cards and mana you need, making very skewed matches against opponents with unfair advantages (like an opponent with 100 health, or 4-5 starting mana) potentially winnable and hopefully broadening the range of possible opponents and strategies. I don't think Lips and Tongues has the endurance to make playing a heavily defensive strategy possible, and it also does a fair amount of damage incidentally with cards like banana lube. Although I'm also not sure it has 100 damage in it, with all its cards combined, so maybe that's a bad example.
3) Cheaper cards costing 0-1 mana, but with very weak effects or other costs associated; in fact, given the strength of grower (and to a lesser extent chain heal), a card which costs 0 but does nothing on its own ("whisper sweet nothings"?) might already be worth using in the right deck, even bearing in mind you only have so many cards. Or a 0 or 1-cost Chainer with a weak Chainer effect that you can use to start off your Chainer sequences...
4) Cards which gain advantages which last beyond the current turn (perhaps the toy themed set would fit well here?) -- for example, a card (giant mirror?) that lets you see the opponent's hand, or a card (...vibrator?) which deals damage each turn, or a card (I have no idea) which grants a Grower effect that lasts for the rest of the match, or just a certain number of turns. Anything like that.
5) Alternative win conditions? A deck could win by leaving the opponent completely exhausted and helpless to resist your advances (no cards left in the opponent's deck) or tied up and at your mercy (some sort of specific card combination).
6) Ways to interfere with your opponent's plans - for example, look at their hand and discard a card from it, or even steal it; I can also envision a bondage deck based on gradually shutting down the opponent's ability to play cards, but something tells me it might be horribly un-fun to play against. Maybe ways to interfere with the opponent's mana.
7) Opponents with specific traits or fetishes (making them inherently particularly vulnerable to specific types of attack), encouraging you to focus on a specific strategy if you know who you're up against, while overall forcing you to vary it up a bit if you want to get every advantage you can, rather than just picking the deck you think is the best and playing that all the time.
8) Maybe the Orgasma shop could also offer permanent upgrades to max "health" and/or starting mana / hand size? I'm not sure if that would work at all... Maybe if they were sold as accessories rather than permanent upgrades, so you could only use one at once, but you could freely swap between them? Enemies having access to them as well would probably balance it out...

And I'd specifically like to see:
1) An indicator of how many cards are left in your deck.
2) A text change to banana lube.
3) The deckbuilder, of course, and I guess a shop that sells cards or card packs/sets for Orgasma as well.
4) The ability to walk up to absolutely any Sapphica NPC (barring people who massively outrank you, aren't interested, or are specifically restricted for story reasons, I suppose) and duel them. Maybe via a button that appears while talking to them or something, so it's still possible to talk to them as well as dueling them? I don't know...
5) Named opponents reacting to you winning or losing. I don't know what happens if you lose because I never did, but I don't think the initiate camp quartermaster says anything after you beat her.
6) Perhaps a slight buff (-1 cost or +2~3 damage or something) to Tribadism, but at the cost of minor self damage (2~3 points maybe...?). For the theme, more so than anything else. I like it thematically as a finisher card for the vanilla themed set at 5 cost, so +damage is probably better than -cost, but I haven't actually played a decent deck with it yet though so this is all a little speculative.
7) Would be nice if there was some time to watch the animation of the final attack you used (or the opponent used). Particularly remember this being a problem with Tribadism in V0.1 where it did like 12 damage or something crazy like that. Perhaps the 'end turn' button should be replaced in this situation with an 'end duel' button,.. if that doesn't turn out to cause more new and exciting bugs.

Best of luck with the ongoing project!
-Crowthorne

P.S. I have a horrible feeling I'm going to hit the itch.io comment length limit.

Edit: P.P.S. That might have sounded kind of negative in places, but bear in mind I just typed almost 2000 words about it and I don't do that about things I don't care about.

Hi again! So. With V0.2 out I found a bunch of bugs, though I suspect some of them aren't new.

Bugs:

(above) The name tags of the guards are obscured by the guards themselves.

(above, below) Sapphica gives its members powers of levitation? (This bug and the last one might be connected, if their idle pose was changed; they both also apply to the other guards and Tulia)

Idly and humorously noting that the searingly bright magenta of the above outfit reminds me of the Garry's Mod missing texture placeholder (below), which briefly made me suspect a missing or placeholder texture.

(above, below) Typo; quatermaster should be quartermaster.

(above) Helping Hand's image is plain white.

This is a stylistic criticism, not a bug, but the text on Extra Slippery Lube ("1" above) is really small and somewhat hard to read. So is the card name on banana-flavored lube, in duels. Maybe this is less of a problem in the downloadable version with higher resolutions? And also when you right click on it. Still, it might be worth considering putting the flavor text in the (future) card collection screen somewhere, rather than on the cards themselves. And no, I did not add that "New Text" (indicated at "2" above) myself. I just have very sharp eyesight.

(above; can't actually show this bug with a still image, it would need to be a GIF) There is an area (indicated with a red outline in the above picture) at the bottom edge of your hand, where if you hover the mouse here, your cards jump rapidly (once per frame) up and down, most likely  because when they're down, the cursor is over them so they go up, but when they're up, the cursor isn't over them any more so they go down.
There is a similar spot on the left side of what I'm going to call the mana circle in the top left corner of each card. (I suspect the best way to fix this is to have a fixed set of selection regions rather than using the pixel-accurate current locations of the cards?)

(above) Right click mostly solves this issue but it would be easier to read the cards in my hand if they appeared on top of the other cards when I hovered over them, not just when I click and drag them around. I am however guessing this isn't as easy as it sounds.

(above)The opponent very often appears to have 99 Invest. This is not actually the case.

The game gets all kinds of buggy (camera stuck in a weird position, quest log still says Enter Sapphica, orgasma not reset) if you go back to the menu and restart the demo from level 2 after completing it, and I ended up having to refresh the page to try out the other deck.

(above) If you've already picked up and are holding a card (by clicking and dragging) when you draw a card for the start of your turn, you can end up with two cards occupying the same place in your hand... fixes itself when you play a card. (Could be fixed by preventing you from picking up cards until after this is done)

I've not been able to reproduce this bug myself in more recent attempts, but I seemed to in one instance be able to skip an opponent's turn by ending my turn twice in a row before she could take hers -- observe the "mana" amounts in this picture: (large picture demonstration) and recall that there are no mana boosting cards in the starter decks. This might have happened because the opponent's deck was stacked with expensive cards and she had nothing to do? Or there might be a more complex explanation? I'm really not sure...

Mordor speak remains for some NPCs/objects (proving grounds and some nearby guards; see linked images)

My favorite bug so far: You can play the same card (as in, not multiple copies, the SAME card) multiple times by quickly clicking on it, dragging a short distance, then releasing the mouse on it while it's floating in the middle of the screen after being played normally. (You do need to have enough mana for each time you copy the effect). I don't have a screenshot of this one and honestly it probably wouldn't help much.

Random final typo: "you're deck is ready" when entering the proving grounds should be "your deck is ready". (you're is "you are")

Thank you for the clarification!

I appreciate the swift response, and I completely understand that real life can get in the way of practically anything and that any time you're spending keeping people informed is time you're not spending working on the game. The part I hadn't managed to figure out was that you were planning to release V0.2 to the public at the same time as the patron version of V0.3, which explains everything.

I'll be back when it's out, then. Best of luck with V0.3!

-Crowthorne

Hi again!

So, largely out of interest in what the heck happened (I assume a mix-up, or you've been too busy actually developing updates) but also out of some curiosity as to how the game plays outside of very basic and random introductory gameplay, what is the news on the public release of v0.2? I poked around on the patreon and blogspot, but all I was able to find was a post on the blogspot site indicating that the public release would be two weeks after the $10 patron release. And then a more specific post saying "The public release for V0.2 will be the 1st of Feb and will be hosted on newgrounds and itch."

...Which was a month ago.

I was extra confused to discover that some of the cards and events are slightly different on the Newgrounds version of seemingly-v0.1.x from the itch.io version of apparently-v0.1.1-according-to-the-patch-notes; In the Newgrounds version, a certain card is a considerably more useful 5/7 instead of 8/15 and the Sapphica leaflet is in a different pile. Is Newgrounds actually v0.2 and it's just that the subsequent level, and deck building mechanics, are not in the demo version, updated or not? If so, you forgot to update the itch version... and the Newgrounds version still has the Mordor-speak... and I should point out that this is why people sometimes put visible version numbers on things like main menu screens, or game pages. (Newgrounds doesn't have any version numbers at all, it just has a link to V0.3.) :P

(edit: nooo, typo)

Sounds cool! Can totally understand not wanting (or being able) to work on updates over Christmas. I look forward to giving it another playthrough when the storyline post-teleport is a bit more developed.

(release: 11/05/2017)

I like the idea. The art and music are excellent, and the writing was fairly good.

I couldn't find anything else to do in the currently downloadable build after recruiting Luciana except for fighting random monsters; did I miss something or is that it for now? I see busts of two other girls on the main menu but wasn't able to find or recruit what I think are a kitsune and harpy.

...And, just because this was really bugging me when I first started: Why was Alexis carrying a sword around while writing college applications? Or did it appear in her hand when she teleported? :P

Alexis is missing a menu portrait. So is Luciana.

Sylvia is listed as a Spellcaster, but doesn't know any spells. Is she newly enrolled or something? :P

Luciana's conversation with Alexis if Alexis went to get a student ID before entering the cafe and talking to her is slightly nonsensical -- she acts like they've talked before.

You can sell the student ID card (for 25). It's probably a key item that shouldn't be sellable?

Losing to Sylvia is a game over; why? I mean, you'd never be able to do it by accident... but it's not like she's going to kill you when she's play-fighting... If going to 0 HP means dying, shouldn't the fight end when Alexis drops below 100 HP or something?

I don't seem to take any damage from zombie girls, no matter if they attacked or Dual Attacked. Is their Attack really weak?

The Student ID Card can be used as a combat item. (It doesn't do anything.)

I can run up this wall.

[Edit: Found via yuri game jam 2017, by the way.]

You may have already fixed some of these but:

The word "down" briefly appears during the text scroll for one of the leaflets (pictured below), then vanishes, presumably due to word wrap (I guess it's on the 4th line...

The "Main Menu" button on the "thank you for playing" screen doesn't work.

Clicking on the TV again after playing the duel gives you the "find the remote" quest/dialogue again, overriding the "find the leaflet" one.

Finding the Sapphica leaflet does not update your quest display. (Pictured below)

I managed to interact with the TV twice at once. Results below.

...Actually you can interact with it (and probably other objects) even while the text box is still up... (results below)

...with interesting results. Game seems fun, though, looking forward to playing it when it's been expanded on a little.

(1/8/2017 ver)

'Kay, you fixed the new bug, and Hermina is visible again, but she still gets stuck on her way to the treasure chest.

On the subject of the counter bug... A safe temporary fix might be to make freeze/paralyze not affect the counter stat? Didn't read your explanation properly, I think I get it now. I wish I could help more; I have zero experience with RPG Maker's scripting language, but Ruby is pretty similar to Lua, which is a language I'm pretty good with.

Been poking through the Scripts folder in the WoSS folder. If these are actually the scripts you're using (I can't tell), I'm guessing the "counter?" function in [GTBS] Game_Battler-C.rb is very close (within 1 or 2 steps) to the cause of the problem, but... I'd have to probably spend a few more hours poking around to be certain of anything, and even then it'd be hard to test when all I have is the scripts...

Let me give my observations so far, at least, before I forget all this:

• self.counter?(attacker, preview) returns:
  • 'nil' if counter impossible/fails
  • 'self' if counter possible and succeeds
  • 'cnt' (self's counter stat) if preview is true (more on this later?)
• 'counter?' is called from three places (result #1 is something else)
• 'set_attack' (mentioned in the error) is called from 4 places. I'm almost certain the second one is the one crashing, because it's in step 4 of action processing, right after the third call to 'counter?', and all the rest look like actions rather than reactions.
• So, active_battler.current_action is nil. Why is it nil? Probably because active_battler is paralyzed, since active_battler has been set to the one countering. I don't get how it could even get to there without a successful roll to counter, though, which wouldn't happen with 0 CNT or less...
• It feels like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle here, even though it might not be the broken piece, because if I follow the trail of the missing current_action it goes to clear_tbs actions and from there to clear_actions (then re-adds a blank action using 'GameAction.initialize(Battler)', which I can't find).
• This would be so much easier if I had access to the actual RMVX editor with all your stuff in it, so I could fiddle around with weird stats and find exactly what breaks it. :P

That's all assuming I'm even looking at the right script files here... What I'm not getting is how a negative counter % could result in any kind of crash. Oh. It's (probably) not? That explains it.

Finally, a couple of suggestions, though I can't test either of them myself:

EITHER 1) There's a chance the following (highlighted) addition might be a perfect fix, disabling counters if the one being hit is paralyzed:

OR 2) Comment out the highlighted line in [GTBS] Process Action.rb (the line adds successful counters to an array to be processed) until you find a proper fix, by adding a # to the start of the line. It will probably disable all countering, but as far as I know you're not using it anyway. If it doesn't help, you can always change it back. :V

If you'd rather leave this for now and work on something else, I absolutely understand and I'll try not to fixate on it any more. Good luck!

(If you want to hold an extended conversation on this, 'patch notes and itch.io comments' probably isn't the ideal way, since it's pure luck whether it takes me minutes or days to notice an update - I don't seem to be getting email alerts any more, and I feel like the blind leading the blind right now).

(1/7/2017 ver)

Got a crash for you this time. Looks like a null-pointer. It happens whenever I get hit by anything, but not when I'm the one attacking.

This was definitely not in the last version. I would have noticed.

Here's the way I found it first: On Turn 1 in the treasure room, do this (doesn't matter who you move, or even what you get hit by, but the golems rarely use their ranged attack so going here is more reliable).

More feedback if/when I manage to beat the treasure room without getting hit.

Edit: I forgot to comment on this change last time... I didn't even know the level cap was that high. Neat. Also: Owie.

Edit 2: I beat the treasure room. Still stuck here, but now the golems and Hermina are both invisible.

I'm most of the way through Chapter 4 now. I'll edit this comment when I finish. Never mind, can't finish in this version unless I use the cutscene skip.

I'm reaching the point where I can't even check the earlier chapters for typos any more, because I'm seeing what I expect to see instead of what's actually there (same reason proofreading your own work is hard).

(Aww, Arthur keeps getting mistaken for- wait, Arthur IS male? Apparently my bishounen detector is on the fritz. Did I call him a her already? I probably did... How did I not notice the uniform difference?)

Not really a bug, but Dark Wrath always does 0 damage in the first Impress fight (since she's not damaged), which is annoying because the Impress loves to cast it and the only way to end the fight is to lose everyone. Is it possible to make her only cast it if she's actually hurt?

It's not really clear which side you're supposed to be on in Underground Tunnel. Just having someone say something about protecting Hermina would help; I wasn't sure until I tried to attack her group and realized I couldn't.

This is a harem anime plot and I'm not okay with that. :P

Bugs:

• After blowing everyone off and heading for the chest, Hermina gets stuck on a golem, preventing any further progression unless you skipped the cutscene.
  
  • I'm going to wait for an update rather than skipping ahead.
• Minor tint bug in chapter 3:
  
  • Go upstairs, take the Daughters of Venus magazine. This will remove the red tint for the flash forward, and send you back downstairs without restoring the tint.
• Game-state bug, tested in Chapter 3 (after DQC F1):
  
  • Go upstairs and activate the pile of rocks blocking the stairs up. Bianca and Amara will appear in their dorm room, even if they're in your party. Go back downstairs, and Aika will start giving her weapon shop tour again, but Shizuka will get stuck on a wall and the game will hang when she tries to go to the armor shop. Screenshot.
• Update on that flash slash crash thing from a few posts back: attacking paralyzed enemies (Thunder Roulette causes paralysis sometimes) causes a crash with this message. Only physical attacks trigger it, not magic. Annoyingly, the delinquents in the secret tunnel just triggered it for me...
• Unless you skip the cutscene at the end of Chapter 3, the 'evil hideout' theme will keep playing during the opening cutscene of Chapter 4.
• Losing in DQC F3 returns you to the hub with 1 HP on all characters instead of game overing, even when replaying.
• Arthur has no magic tab.
• Arthur's Aura of Health implies it's a Splash-like AoE, but it's actually a more like Kiss Boo-Boos.
• Girls are still visible after the end of the Chapter 4 start-cutscene, but not interactive.

Chapter 4 typos:

• Chapter 3 was Hellfire Lilies. This here should be 4.
• 'were allow' doesn't make sense. were allowing? allowed? or just lose the 'were'
• Here: 'has', or 'grandmothers'
• Shizuka is invisible during the chapter 4 start cutscene
• 'her my mother': Some draft merging here, I think
• call name: call her name
• he's light warlock: he's a light warlock; associated light magic: associated with light magic
• "is men": "are men", perhaps?
• wandering: wondering
• kind of enough: kind enough (While we're on this scene, how were they all gonna fit around that table?)
• girls dead: girls are dead
• doesn't: doesn't it
• already I'm: already and I'm
• to an inch: to within an inch; yho: you
• It's: It
• hidden in behind: hidden behind
• try force her: try to force her
• Hermina talk things out: Hermina to talk things out
• searching people: searching for people
• don't like it: don't like it when
  • Is Hermina just letting me read this?
• come this island: comb? come to? Either way, there's multiple issues here
• you freaks to deal: you freaks deal
• removed: remove
• business is: business are; apart: a part. Also, the text box just kind of jumps up there, for a single line. Why is that?
• This seems like it's starting in the middle of a sentence.
• vocubulary: vocabulary
• will her in trouble: will get her in trouble
• why are helping: why are we helping
• my mate aid: my mate to aid

Chapter 3 typos:

• Is that Bianca's surname? She's never given it, so I don't know how Shizuka knows it.
• leave in your hands: leave it in your hands
• continuing playing: continue playing

Chapter 2 typos:

• innacurate: inaccurate
• not amicable terms: not on amicable terms
• questioins: questions; sandwhich: sandwich
• evl: evil
• cannabalize: cannibalize
• you girls wait: you girls to wait; shalln't: shan't (google it)
• won't around and wait: won't [stand/hang/stick] around and wait

Humorous side note: Arthur's weapon sucks and the shop doesn't sell swords, so I gave him hellhound claws. And a matching outfit.

Happy New Year! Thanks for the update.

The assignment I tested (schoolghouls) seemed to work OK, and I have no real desire to test all the rest one at a time.

Bugs:

• Chapter 4 is always open
• Nurse still crashes the game (see the bug two comments down)
• The Chapter 2 end cutscene is bugged; it loops back from "they had detention" to this line over and over (though with different people visible), rather than starting Chapter 3.
• And skipping it still goes to 'chapter 2: end' followed by the demo end credits, as mentioned in the comment below.
• On my old Chapter 3 save from just before the Impress, Chapter 3 isn't unlocked, (but Chapter 4 is). Hard to tell if this is just because it's a save file from an old version or if it would still happen if I finished Chapter 2, because I can't get to chapter 3 via chapter 2.
• Xing Mei's formal clothes + no accessory outfit is a missing sprite.

• Miyuki's Cosplay Guide has no listed price.
• Cosplay guide:
• Pirat: "You can pretend to be a thieving little and": missing word after little (rat?)
• Pirat: "did not in any way coarce:" word is spelled coerce
• Swimming Dead: "bloody bondages": Is this a typo?
• Jumping Dead: "How cheering on your team": how about

I just finished chapter 2 in the new (smaller events update) version.

It would be nice if the black background for the first half of the underground pool cutscene were replaced with an actual visible cutscene, even though I can't tell if it's deliberate or not. Perhaps you could fade to black from the conversation at the entrance and fade in again where it currently fades in?

Found these typos along the way, I think most of them were ones I missed the first time.

• "there be so much water": to be
• "Aqauphobia": Aquaphobia
  
• "got out of as quickly": got out of here? got out of the water? Or just 'got out', no 'of'?
• "I will go to": go too
  
• "Going to have stay here": to have to
• "It seems to be a number of risks": there seem to be [a number], or it seems there are [a number]
• "of their lost": loss
• "it fall upon us": falls.

The new events are cute! :3 And I see you found an event to write that doesn't require any costume design... ehehe~

Bugs:

• Medical Mask doesn't let you equip Wooden Bat
• Tall Girl's stats and items (especially items) are weird. She gets hit for 25 by the nearby delinquent despite guarding, if you don't rush out into melee range to take the hit.
• Talking to the nurse is now consistently crashing the game for me. Across multiple saves.
  

Typos:

• "these put", and a double-space: put these
• "appear to written": to be
• "Surely, I prove": once I? if I? when I?
• "I will to you again": will write? shall write?
• "words she said wasn't": weren't
• "the worse attempt at": worst

Freezer is still really hard, Roof is still pretty hard, and I'm on Mausoleum now, which also seems really hard (running dead moving 8 tiles and hitting for 20, with 100% life steal). That probably means I'm just under-leveled. Hmm.

Two missing images fixed, one new missing image (Misty OoO) in Kumako's conversation found.

Bianca and Amara, if they weren't before, are now visible from the start of the game. (I don't know if they're supposed to be. They don't have anything to say, but they do disappear when they leave to investigate the portal.) I'm getting warped back to the teleporter every time I try to go outside, so I'll take the hint there. :P

Don't worry about the book targeting... just make a note of it and move on. I know what phantom bugs can be like. At least it's harmless and easy to reproduce.

Haven't been to every map, but the evening light change seems to work.

I should probably stop chivvying you and let you work on the game in peace for a while; I just noticed an update on the submission feed and had to poke around a bit. Hopefully by the next major update I'll have caught up on a save which doesn't still have a bunch of blank null-items from the costume change...

EDIT: Whoops! I just realized the girl I was trying to talk to outside is probably the cutscene version of Aika. And she's now invisible during the intro.

EDIT 2: And just because this is bugging me now I know about it, not because it's ruining my gameplay:

• Armor shopkeeper intro and ingame
• General shopkeeper intro during a couple of lines (her first line in the intro, she uses ingame portrait...) and ingame
• Grimoire shopkeeper intro and ingame
• Teleporter intro and mere seconds later. Teach me, teleporter-sensei! I want to change my gear in combat!

That was beautiful and heartwarming and wonderful. Thank you. I don't know how I overlooked this on my first pass over the list of games in the jam, but I'm glad I found it.

I really enjoy yuri games with these kinds of... carefree but serious low fantasy? settings, and seeing stories like this from perspectives other than the obvious RPG heroine's is nice. I don't even mind that a quarter of the game is probably Martha sharing her perspective on the daily realities of adventuring, because it was interesting.

I think criticizing it based on its length or linearity would be really a bit unfair. It was as long as it needed to be to tell the story it was trying to tell. It didn't drag on (though I'm sure I would have still enjoyed it a lot if it was twice the length), and it didn't feel like it was rushing too fast.

I'm fine with it being a kinetic novel, too - it means I don't have to feel regret over choices not made, and within the scope of this story, I don't think anything I could have chosen to do would have made the ending any more perfect.

An epilogue about what they did next might have been nice... but honestly, that was such a perfect note to end on, I can't really complain too much...

There was one point when I felt the music choice was slightly strange: the cheerful market music carries on while Ada's talking about not even knowing her age. Admittedly, changing it might break the flow of the scene... The music otherwise fits pretty perfectly.

I'm going to be following you, because I really want to see what else you make, if it's anything like this. I hope to see many more yuri games from you in the future.

I really liked this. The music is quite beautiful and fits the tone of the game well, the art is gorgeous (the backgrounds remind me a little of Odin Sphere, which I haven't really played but was very impressed with the background art of when I saw it), and the writing is evocative and polished.

The starting point was a little confusing the first time. I didn't even know what Cassidy was exasperated by or tired with, when I was making the choice...

The choices in the demo didn't feel that significant (a lot of them being what Cassidy thinks while doing the same thing), the first time playing through, but I did notice one of the earlier choices actually removing an option from a later choice, so I'm guessing the full game may have more significant ones. I wouldn't really mind playing what amounts to a kinetic novel that's yuri and looks this pretty, either, though.

Either way, I'm excited to play the full game. I still have lots of questions, and the demo mostly just raised more.

P.S. The in-game link to this itch.io page during the demo ending doesn't work, sending you to "https//l2.itch.io/wv" (missing a colon). Also, I think "Elowen's" here should be "Cassidy's"? Still a stunning level of polish, though.

(Version: 0.3)

Wow, you seriously buffed the Demon Queen, too, it seems? I don't think I can beat her any more, not when every one of her skills does 60-100+ damage. Dark Wrath normally being kinda weak was the only way I was able to win before.

EDIT: Can I just say how awesome it is to have things fixed this quickly? All the stuff in the grimoire shop works now, which is wonderful.

Bugs:

1. Buy two support grimoires.
2. Use a support grimoire on Shizuka.
3. [It should work - Shizuka will learn Enhance Weapon].
4. Use a support grimoire on Mei.
5. [If the bug is present, Shizuka will say "I've already learned a spell from this grimoire." as if you selected her again.]
6. Use a support grimoire on Mei.
7. [This time, Mei will learn Enhance Armor (which made me think it was my mistake the first few times). Oddly enough, while this bug does happen consistently after saving and reloading, if you use it on, say, Amara instead of Mei, she will learn the skill - so it's not as simple as 'it always uses the item on whoever you picked last time'.]

And now for a round of "Bug or Feature?":

• Is the omnipresent evening light (I assume) / hellfire glow of Chapter 3 supposed to apply to every map you go to, including ones like the underground lake, mausoleum and freezer? You could probably apply it when you arrive back at the hub (check current chapter) or enter a Chapter 3 area and remove it when you teleport somewhere if you wanted to, but if it's deliberate then cool.
• Bianca and Amara are present in their dorm room during parts of Chapter 3 while they're in your party, but have nothing to say when talked to.
• These stairs don't go anywhere. You could have Aika say something and Shizuka move away if there's just no reason to go there.
• This girl doesn't say anything when you talk to her.

(on 12/16/2016 updated version)

A few new bugs/typos with the support grimoire, discovered because of the previous fix:

• Using a Support grimoire on Mei teaches Mei's support skill... to Haun, with this message (yes, she does actually learn it).
• Using a Support grimoire on Amara [default formation] teaches Bianca's support skill to Bianca. Even if she already has it.
  • Here's the weird part: If you move Amara up to where Aika would normally be in the formation, using a grimoire on Amara teaches Mei's skill to Haun instead, like the first bug.
• Using a second Support grimoire on Bianca [default formation] when she already has her skill gives this message, which is almost right.
  • But, as with the second bug -- Bianca in the second formation position teaches Mei's skill to Haun instead, like the first bug.
• The support spells I tried (Enhance Armor, Enhance Swiftness) say they target an ally, but can only target the user's square, making them not really any better than the basic self-buffs (Please Don't Hurt Me! and Skirt Chaser).

The level of weirdness around Mei, Amara and Bianca is making it hard to test if anything else is wrong with the grimoire. It works fine for Shizuka, Aika and Haun, though.

While I'm at it, I just noticed this: Hellhound ears and demon wings don't let you use the associated monster weapons (claws and butter knife/pitchfork, respectively). I didn't even try before; I've never felt the need to equip monster weapons.

No more loot from the queen? That's fine... probably for the best. The little powergamer corner of me is a bit disappointed about losing the crown, but it's only an accessory, anyhow - it's not like stealing the weapons from the fights against Etna and Laharl that are supposed to be unwinnable in Disgaea 2, where you could get through the rest of the normal game just by protecting whoever you give them to.

Err, that was a tangent. Oops.

This post intentionally split due to length limit (2/2). Here's the typos from the chapter 3 completion update.

EDIT: Fixed missing link.

Typos:

• C1, hub before Freezer: "If I'm correct, we going to need some protection from the cold.": we're
• C3, before Locker Room: "Show Cutsccene?"
• C3: same: "The major difference the hexagram's color.": difference is
• C3, same: "That's awefully conveniently.": awfully convenient
• C3, after Locker Room: "Please wait here while I call gather reinforcements."
• C3, same: Wrong portrait.
• C3, same: "so that Mei will make a Vermillion Bird Sandwhich!"
• C3, same (Bianca and Amara): "but at least I'm better than at them". (Wrapping, or missing name?)
• C3, same: "Even if we did, many sports require actual teams are": Maybe 'and' before 'are'?
• C3, DQC F1: "Play cut scene?": space.
• C3, same: "One of use will predict it's result": us, and no apostrophe in the possessive
• C3: same: "That seems awefully too random": awfully, and I think you only need 'awfully' or 'too'.
• C3, same: "Does any one": space (optional).
• C3, same: "should decided things"
• C3, same: "there's a single game in the West": I believe you mean 'similar'?
• C3, same: "people to win a round goes right while the rest goes left.": go (people is plural).
• C3, same: "until they are only three": there, though I think 'they' might not be that wrong
• C3, same: "Jupitarian": I don't know if this is wrong or not. The planet is spelled "Jupiter", but...
• C3, same: "Lunarabbitit attacks"
  • (Well, that got very Touhou-y really fast. :P )
• C3, same: This line needs Shizuka's name in it since Amara was previously talking to Mei. Maybe instead of 'you', or maybe at the start or end.
• C3, same: "covete the mating rituals": covet
• C3, same: "I asume that is considered": assume
  • (You know what? Amara has me convinced. I don't think her being from Jupiter is that strange in a setting like this.)
• C3, same: "At least she makes up her delusions with": makes up for
  • (Wait, fingers? I thought Amara said... oh, right.)
• C3, same: "At least I'm not flirting with every girl she sees": I think, since this is a hypothetical, that should be 'I see'?
• C3, same: Can't tell if this is deliberate or you didn't finish typing. I think it needs a '-', '--', '...' or something?
• C3, same: "a lose like me": Line wraps, so the R is hidden. Or it's an actual typo.
• C3, same: "It sounds more enemies": sounds like
• "Hellbait: A succubus that petends".
  • I see what you did there.
• C3, after the fight: "Play cut scene?": space
• C3, DQC F2: "Play Cutscene": No ?, capital C.
• C3, same: "intruders get pass us, her majesty will quite upset": past, will be
• C3, same: "Shizuke:"
• C3, after DQC F2: "Play cut scene?": space
• C3, same: "deal the big bad": deal with
• C3, same: "It's only bee one week": been
  • Oh dear. I guess that should have been an obvious setup.
• Unless it's her name, Impress should be Empress. I'm dumb. That's a pun. Unannounced, but a pun.
• C3, after DQC F3: "Of all the teahcers who come to our rescue, it has to be": teachers, to, had?
• C3, same: "by Devil Queen's the horrid": 'by the Devil Queen's horrid'?
• C3, same: "I felt nothing pity": nothing but pity
• C3, same: "how reckless and stupid what you did?": did was
• C3, same: "what we should do these girls": do to
• C3, same: "If you excuse me": you'll
• C3, same: "Even we aren't trying to": even though (or when)
• C3, same: Some commas in the middle of those 0s might be helpful. Just, you know, to save me having to use my mouse to count them.
• C3, same: "Staring with next month's All Hollow's Evening": Starting. Also, I think the real life festival is "all hallow's eve", but you probably knew that.
• Bestiary:
  • Pirat: "When none are found, it isn't unheard of them to": of for them?
  • Pirat: Even apart from the 'aun' typo, this page is confusing me. They're a host of untold numbers (a massive army)? The phrasing is tripping me up.
  • Pirat: "lead by a single powerful leader": led, not lead.
  • Pirat: "canabalizes": It's spelled cannibalizes.
  • Catfish: That's not a catfish.
  • Catfish: The wording on the last page is a bit strange (especially the 'from').
  • Hellhound: "Infernal Gaurdians"
  • Hellhound: "Many a witch have been severely burned": This is actually a bit obscure, but I think 'many a witch' actually counts as singular, so 'have' should be 'has'. You can also have 'many witches have'.
  • Hellhound: "Though not nearly as severe": severely?
  • Hellhound: "but prefers raw meat": prefer
  • Hellhound: "will not be raw the time": by the time
  • Hellhound: "locations such tundras": such as
  • Hellhound: "Anyone should simply undertake": This is entirely valid and correct, but "undertake lightly" might be better.
  • Schoolghoul: "Dieng untimely and raised": Dying, and probably 'deaths' after 'untimely', which makes the sentence awkward... how about "Raised from the dead with dark magic after dying untimely deaths"? Does that still fit on the page?
  • Schoolghoul: "And the body, becomes": their, and I don't think you need that comma.
  • Schoolghoul: "their becomes": their body becomes
  • Schoolghoul: "Why would a witch": 'why a witch would', maybe?
  • Schoolghoul: "Any living creature that crosses it's path": Remove apostrophe
  • Schoolghoul: "an inate hatred": innate
  • Schoolghoul: "I would wander": wonder
  • Running Dead: "enables them to tireless chase": tirelessly
  • Running Dead: "had made the mistake to run from them": 'has made the mistake of running from them'?
  • Running Dead: "To what reasoning": by?
  • Running Dead: "creature such horrid beings": create
  • Swimming Dead: No, I didn't miss this entry. It just doesn't have any typos that I can see.
  • Jumping Dead: "necramancers seem hellbent of driven all to extinction.": necromancers, on, driving.
  • Jumping Dead: "could out pace its prey": outpace can be one word
  • Jumping Dead: "could adapt the terrain their advantage": to their
  • Jumping Dead: "adapts to their terrain": It feels to me like that should be either 'her' or 'adapt'. but since the singular is 'jumping dead', the plural is 'jumping dead' and the collective is 'jumping dead', I'm a little uncertain.
  • Dark Butler: Title page says Darl Butler.
  • Dark Butler: "rarely high ranking demon society, making their subservant": in demon society, subservient
  • Yuki Musume: "Itt's currently unknown"
  • Yuki Musume: "more mischeavious and than malicious": mischievous, and you missed a word after 'and' (or you can just remove 'and')
  • Yuki Musume: "Unintentionally, they": might sound better with a 'however': 'unintentionally, however, they'?

This post intentionally split due to length limit (1/2). Typos to follow. Chapter 3 completion update:

EDIT: Clarified. Also I just now noticed that you fixed the victory music. Nice!

I managed to beat Chapter 1 without repeating a level. The freezer battle was still tough, but not actually as tough as the Underground Lake, where Aika survived on 1 HP thanks to a lucky miss... There's definitely no impossible level, but I still think the lake and freezer are a bit of a difficulty spike.

I then reloaded my Chapter 3 saves and started playing around. The new bronze star reward is really neat.

Random thought: Bianca's Cryostasis could probably cure Burn. Doesn't, though.

Amara's second tier weapon, Bright Saber, has less attack and magic attack (but more AGI) than her basic Light Blade? Bianca's purchasable Diamond Sceptre is cheaper and weaker than the Queen's Sceptre, too... don't know if that was intentional.

Lots of fun references in this chapter (Etna, Kaguya). And I had my "nooo, bad idea" moment.

Same thing happens if you beat the Demon Queen as if you lose? Aww. She got me with the one shot kill dark spell the first time, but I beat her the second time (killed her before she could use it, but not before some people got impaled). Can't wait to see the stats on those items in Chapter 4...

That said, could you consider changing her drops so the unique ones (spear, crown) are either 100% or 0%? Otherwise I'm going to feel compelled to save and reload until I get them.

Bugs:

• The support grimoire has the wrong script assigned. It consumes a healing grimoire and tries to teach a healing spell.
• Amara can learn Mysterious Medicine from the healing grimoire multiple times.
• Attack spell scrolls can only target allies, instead of only enemies. They do work, though I think some most of them might be casting the wrong spells (since they all use the pillar of flames animation, at least)?
• Chapter 2 does not seem to appear in the teleporter menu after completing Chapter 1.
• You can't escape from most bestiary categories (for example, the fey section). It needs either a back option in the sub-menu or a way to cancel - cancel currently selects the second submenu option, where present, which is not helpful when that's, say, the catfish entry. You can escape from the demon category, but it just leaves you stuck on the bestiary picture the same way the teleporter menu used to leave you stuck on the tower picture, and you can cancel out of the (demons, fey, undead, beasts) menu without problems.
• If it's something you can change (maybe have it target all allies?), Sakura's Guide to Monsters probably doesn't need the player to choose an ally to use it on, since it doesn't matter who's reading it.
• Bianca doesn't have a magic tab in the skills menu, only in combat.
• Bianca, according to the text, learns Amara's Mysterious Medicine grimoire-spell from healing grimoires (even though she already has Cryostasis). She doesn't get anything, though?
  • My mistake, was seeing the second bug on this list and not paying enough attention.
• Are body warmers supposed to be in the item shop? I have one because I imported my chapter 2 save with a crafting book, but I can't buy them.
• I formed up into a block and used Flash Slash on the Demon Queen after paralyzing her with Thunder Roulette and the game crashed. Looks like a null-reference...?

Like the plot and setting, the bestiary is... surprisingly dark, really. Odd when the demons are the nice monsters. And it seems like Sakura particularly dislikes (disliked?) necromancers for some reason.

P.S. Please add a save point at the end of chapter 3, so I have something to load for the next version? Even though I'm planning to use the save from chapter 1 when you fix the teleporter bug in chapter 2, not the save from chapter 3. :P

I was kinda hoping something special would happen when I kept going south, pestering people, and rummaging through the trash, not just Cyrille complaining. Oh well... I suppose the few extra lines for going south that I completely missed the first time were reward enough. :P

Game looks interesting, anyway. I'll keep an eye out.

(After update 3)

Cool! I'm not going to do another whole play-through right now, but I tried out the new outfit system for a bit.

Hooray, I can finally tell what an item is doing for me! No complaints here.

I see the monsters have their own classes now, which is neat.

More important than any of this feedback: Have fun! If you'd rather write another chapter than tweak monster stats, go ahead and write the chapter.

I started having some pretty weird issues when I reloaded my save from the end of Chapter 2 so I ended up starting a new save.

New(?) actual bugs:

• Cancelling out of the teleporter's (St. Sayuri, Vess Cemetary) menu leaves the tower picture up.
• I think the map after the locker room re-locks after being cleared, but I don't have a save in the right place to verify this.
• I traded in the bronze star, but I don't think I got the item. Work in progress?
• Shizuka is invisible in the hub level, if you skip the first cutscene of Chapter 3 (at least when loading an old save).
• Hellhounds aren't immune to the terrain effect of hot rocks, so you could in theory just hang back having everyone kiss each other (...which sounded less weird in my head) and wait for them to run out of health. If nothing else, you could just give them 10% natural BDY regen to balance it out...
• Aika's formal clothing portrait is a yuki musume costume?...
• The following skills can be used out of combat, while other similar ones can't:
  • Bujin's Blessing
  • Flash Slash (no effect)
  • Please Don't Hurt Me!
• Fliers can move through the wall here and outside the map, which doesn't break anything but is silly:
• 

I have lots of items I don't remember ever earning (gems and stuff - probably just things with the same item number as the removed cosplay items).

New outfit system comments:

I like the bonuses outfits and outfit accessories give now. They used to make fights easier; now they make them more complex, but still easier if you're smart. I feel a bit silly cosplaying as a pirat, because it means I have waterwalk twice when I could have regeneration, flight or +1 move. Which brings me to the negative: the way outfits work now is cool from a RPG point of view (you can freely mix and match, and it makes sense that, well, swimsuit+pirat ears=pirat swimsuit), but it feels a little bit strange from a dress-up point of view (perhaps it's the fact that some accessories don't have any effect on some base outfits, and there's no real bonus for picking a combination that makes sense or creates a specific outfit). I'm not saying you should change it back, just... it feels weird, where the old system was immediately intuitive and always had visible results.

(Edit: After playing a bit more with it, it's not that weird, just takes some getting used to. And the lack of outfit stat power creep DOES mean more outfit variety, so I still like that part...)

It confused me for a while that equipping a monster's outfit accessory lets you use weapons as if you were that monster, and I actually thought it was a bug for a bit, but I get it now. Seeing the relative stats on meteor hammers made me wince though. Pompoms are better than the steel one.

Obligatory subjective balance comments:

Enemies, at least the chapter 1 ones, are probably a bit too strong now, maybe as a result of their stats being the same (increased base stats) while the heroes are weaker (no primary stat bonuses from outfits). Aika took 21 damage from a kitchen pirat backstab, and 24 from an underground lake pirat backstab (both being at least her max health at the time). Thunder gems (x2 damage dealt) and pirat ears (50% less damage taken) do a lot to balance this out in the case of catfish (actually, Shizuka can deal 90 damage when backstabbing catfish. At level 2. On a non-critical. Beautiful), but there's no physical gem or accessory to protect me from pirats and no way to quickly kill them (they have good DEF and gems don't seem to apply to magical attacks, so you can't exploit their lightning weakness without hitting their physical strength. Where's Amara when you need her?). And yuki musume are really powerful now, because you can't buy scarves any more and the ice gem (the only way to reduce the damage you're taking) also reduces the damage you deal. Which is already not very much, because their DEF and MDF are awesome. I'm getting hit for 10-15 (20-30 without an ice gem) and hitting for 4 (Aika with ice gem)-10 (Shizuka with talisman) (or 20 on a backstab with Shizuka's talisman equipped, but that's not easy to make happen) Can't really comment on the balance past that, because that's as far as I managed to get on my new save, suffering repeated crushing defeats in the freezer, but I imagine it's similar.

I could deal with it being hard in chapter 3, but this early on it's a problem because there's no extra characters or equipment upgrades to provide room for error.

(Edit: I'm not complaining, because these numbers are okay, just curious: the difference between backstab damage and normal damage seems really huge sometimes. Is it based on speed/agility or something? Does it act as a defense divisor? On my old save file, demon butlers do 0 front damage to Shizuka, and ~15 backstab damage. Shizuka has 59 health and 43 DEF.)

Adding or removing an outfit accessory (upper clothing slot) doesn't reset the displayed outfit. For example:

1. Open the menu, equip a scarf, then equip casual clothes.
   
2. Close the menu, then reopen the menu.
   
3. Whoever you equipped is now wearing a yuki musume cosplay.
   
4. Unequip the scarf.
   
5. Close the menu, reopen the menu.
   
6. Observe that she's still dressed as a yuki musume.
   
7. Equip casual clothes (yes, I know she's already wearing them, but humor me).
   
8. Close the menu, open the menu.
   
9. She's now wearing her casual clothes.

I think this is only on my imported (11/28/2016) save, and it's not happening even there now...

P.S. I actually really like the casual outfits without an accessory - don't think I ever wore them before.

I overdid it and hit the comment length limit of 10240 chars...

I made it to the end of Chapter 2! That was really fun! The game feels less stressful, now that I can freely hop back and forth between levels, and more tactical now that I have four girls to manage in combat. Also: Wow. I just now realized, thanks to the underground pool conversation, that the wing in the top left of Aika's portrait represents flying and not a hair accessory. I feel so dumb now. The heart really is an accessory, right?...

I assumed "President" was the student council president. I guess not. The plot thickens.

Noting this just in case it was accidental, though I'm guessing it wasn't: Status effect curing items can only be used on the user.

I'm going to come back to this in a little while, when chapter 3 is out, but if you want to ask me anything I think you can reply to this comment; it emailed me the first time, though I didn't get an email for the game update.

Bugs (nothing game breaking in chapter 2):

• Tall Girl (NPC) has very different (weaker, despite being 2 levels higher. Not updated since an older version?) stats from Xing Mei. Weaker than the individual enemies even. And her class is Slacker (like all NPCs?) instead of Giant.
• Everyone except Shizuka is invisible during the scene after the Vess Cemetery Underground Pool fight.
• I think this is a sRPG quirk, but: Displayed current-terrain carries over to the start of the next battle. That's not water.
• Minor obstacle/not-obstacle issue in the lab. Shizuka can climb on tables too, but only if there are bottles on them.
• The undead cosplay outfits don't have menu backgrounds, aside from a grey gradient.
• The Jumping Dead Cosplay book makes Swimming Dead cosplay outfits. It even says so on the crafting confirmation screen.
• All the costume recipe books, even the one for Chapter 3, are available at the start of Chapter 2.
• Did you leave access to chapter 3 enabled in this version on purpose?
• I ran into this while leaving the book shop in Chapter 3, after the locker room. I believe that's the formal clothes (drop, not cosplay) portrait for Mei. I assume you're just still working on this area, so I think I'll wait until you've playtested a bit further ahead to play any more. :P
• Some of the chapter 3 weapons are cheaper than the chapter 2 ones, but I assume you just didn't get to that yet.

Suggestions (some of these are probably kinda vague and hard, though I haven't played with RPG Maker enough to know for sure):

• Rename 'My First Spell' to 'My First Earth Spell', if it doesn't lose the comedic impact?
• If you don't feel strongly about it, consider sorting teleport destinations by chapter rather than location. The locker room is a lot harder than the tower, not that replaying previous levels is a major focus of this game. If you do prefer by-location - and I'm not really sure either way myself - perhaps the list could indicate map level and/or whether it's newly unlocked?
• I was kinda hoping that the bronze star was an accessory or a crafting material or something... I had a lot of HRT by the time I got it. 50 HRT would be a pretty good amount in Chapter 1, but...
• I'd really like some way to know how an item affects my resistances without having to craft and equip it. I didn't even realize the undead cosplay outfits gave you light weakness and... stuff, because it only shows how they affect the main 6 stats. Maybe this is a job for a walkthrough written when the game is complete, though, rather than spending weeks tinkering with the interface.
• I can puzzle it out, but it would be good if you could change the displayed names of all the stats (on bars and the status screen) to the same ones you're using in skill and item descriptions. Or vice versa. Or create a short manual. Or... something. It's not urgent. It'd just be nice.
  • BDY: HP
  • MND: MP
  • WPN: ATK
  • ARM: DEF
  • SWF: AGI?
  • HTR: MAT, apparently (I assumed it was LUK)
• Someone could warn the party that undead monsters are sometimes poisonous, though I demonstrated an extreme lack of genre-savvy-iness by not considering that myself the first time, considering the number of RPGs I've played.
• HRT economy stuff: Healing is really expensive, but I have a ton of money. It would be nice if the cost of healing large amounts of HP was a bit cheaper? I just decided to go replay the kitchens so I could use healing magic, reducing the cost of a nurse's office visit from 90 HRT to 45 thanks to Aika and Mei. On the other hand, about midway through Vess Cemetery you seem to suddenly have more money than you can possibly spend because of all the Bloody Bandages (100% drop from every enemy and 35 sell value is a pretty potent combination)... I have 799 HRT (Edit: 1474 now, after upgrading to equipment from Chapter 3 and selling ~20 bandages) and nothing to spend it on.
• I'd like to have an option to return to title / give up from the battle screen, if possible... I keep losing people and when it happens on turn 1-2 it's often easier to just close the game and reload than very slowly win/lose with whoever's left.
• While I love the outfit system and think it's really cool, and the outfit design is pretty good, I'm starting to slightly wish there was a way to get the stat benefits from an outfit (the running dead outfit gives huuuge offensive bonuses) without displaying it during conversations (Shizuka looks a little creepy in it). Maybe a menu option to always show default outfits...?
• Actually, what about a way to upgrade the store-bought outfits to roughly keep up in stats with the cosplay ones? Even if it's just expensive improved versions bought from the armor shop or something... Alternatively, making better armor and weapons available earlier (heck, make them craftable) could make it easier to advance without grinding or equipping an outfit you don't particularly like, though it wouldn't help min-maxing addicts like me that much.
• Aika's Flash Slash seems quite weak for the cost. It's not much stronger than a normal attack, it doesn't get support from nearby allies, and it doesn't do magic damage. It's not even ranged or an AoE. Am I missing some very useful feature?
• There's no automatic healing between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2... which is not what I expected, but is probably okay.
• It'd be nice if the book shop actually sold grimoires. I'm not just saying that because I want to teach everyone Blow Kiss (which I do... can't have too many healers); it'd be nice to have a few more customization options for each character beyond what to cosplay as, even if each book is only useful for one specific girl (since everyone has a different weapon and magical element). I guess this is time-consuming since skill books are not easy to just throw together like healing items, and require you to mess with scripts?

Obligatory typo list (All from Chapter 2):

• 'But you sleep class': Uhh... through? Slept through?
• 'Well, I can't help it I': needs punctuation (semicolon?) after it
• 'The tower's been flat on top': Lose the 'been'
• 'before I turn cut you down like a beanstock': remove 'turn'; beanstalk?
• 'Why I have to have the': why do I
• 'She's we;come to try.'
• 'I rather her not.' I'd; rather she didn't?
• 'calling upon in the middle of class': upon you'
• 'this is a truly urgent matter at hand': replace this with there; or remove 'at hand'
• 'overran by undead': overrun
• 'to wander if': wonder
• 'Somebody these zombies in this': put
• 'breeze passing through this masoleum': mausoleum
• 'might some more clues': be some
• 'Let me give a try': give it
• 'I stay outside and': I'll
• Masoleum (teleporter option): mausoleum
• 'This masoleum is swarming': You get the idea
• 'more inside the masoleum': Is this actually an alternate spelling? I apologize if it is
• 'to the resque': rescue
• 'underneath a masoleum'
• 'Haun, no is going to': nobody
• 'I volunteer myself, but I....can't swim': I'd?; and that's one dot too many
• 'the fact both of their parents being woman': women; parents are (or 'fact of both (of) their')
• 'a nuber of risks with this method': number
• 'Theoritically, yes': theoretically
• 'an ice witch on us': with us?
• 'defense proceedure put in place': procedure
• 'Is their invitation?' is this their?
• 'I'm destroyed her when she tried' I destroyed
• 'you've been buisy': busy
• 'While we at class, you': we were
• 'Don't jealous, Fredriika': don't be (the second part of that line, 'to which you failed', isn't quite right either, but not sure how to fix it)
• 'not the worse part': worst?
• 'So it is. I perish': so they are? (from the context)
• 'how to survive in wild': in the wild?
• 'what may caused them': may have caused
• 'won't come to our aid': her aid (I think??)
• 'quite disasterous': disastrous
• 'you girls had done what I asked while you gone': you were gone; have done?
• 'without permission of a teacher': from a teacher?
• 'responsibilities and privelages': privileges
• 'my fault your getting': you're
• 'that have went missing': gone missing?
• 'notify them of their lost': loss
• 'their daughters t(o) this island': I don't think there's a typo here but the line wraps one character too late.

Thanks for your reply (which answered my question) and for fixing so many of the problems I was having. I like the new level of difficulty better; it's still pretty hard (especially without Aika's nuclear option, the yuki musume can be devastating with their hit and run attacks), but not crazy hard, and it's a lot more manageable with the ability to replay previous levels working. I'm looking forward to playing this even more, though I think after this run I may start copying over save files.

Yuki Musume are even cuter than I remembered. Aww.

I like Aika's team attack ability (is that what it's called?), though it confused me the first time it happened. Is that new, or did I just never manage to do it before?

I have played through Chapter 1 again and have assembled another short list of issues...

• School nurse might benefit from a different dialog line if the cost of healing is 0?
• The options to skip some of the cutscenes are gone? I did not pay close attention to which ones were missing, but it seemed to be most of the pre- and post-battle ones... Was it on purpose? That's fair enough if it was.
• Aika walks through a wall during post-baths cutscene
• The clothes you're wearing for the baths scene seem to get unequipped, but not actually removed from your inventory. Perhaps after unequipping the current clothes, remove 2 school uniforms so there's at least something to force you to try on different clothes and get back after the next level? Could get weird if they were already sold though.
• The post-victory screen after replaying levels seems to be slightly glitchy? It sends you to the tower picture; the only way to get out of it seems to be to press Z, which opens the teleporter's menu, but if you cancel out of it, you go back where you were normally. This might be some kind of user error, but if it's not, a fix would be appreciated.
• Worst bug: The game gets totally stuck in the evil interlude after the freezer, preventing me from actually seeing chapter 2 by any means I can think of. Looked like one silhouette (middle of bottom group) tried to walk through another one (top of bottom group) and got stuck? It's right as the president walks in. I'm going to try to import my save from the previous demo or something if possible, but I don't remember finding a point to save after the freezer. (I don't really blame you for this one; I've worked with RPG Maker before and these can be easy to do. I can provide my save file and/or game install if it's not happening for you. :/ )
• Edit: And another one. If you skip the opening narration using the provided option, the game goes to a black screen and never fades back. You have Aika and Shizuka with all their starting gear and items, but I have no idea what room you get placed in and I can't find anything to interact with.
• Lots of typos, none of which are bad enough to make the intended meaning indecipherable but I figure it might help you to have a list.
  • 'Many call it the ilsand of witches': island
  • 'Within the islander's daily lives': islanders'
  • 'Why mother enrolled here': probably should be 'enrolled me here' unless she's just following in her footsteps
  • 'weaponor a suit of armor': weapon or
  • 'You can books and grimoires': buy
  • 'Grimoire?' (on the very next line): grimoires?
  • 'Reading will ingrave': engrave, or inscribe
  • 'I refuse to loose our bet': lose
  • 'It apparently costly to keep patching up after battles': it is; 'us up' or 'up students' or 'students up'
  • Pirats of the Caribean: If you're going for Caribbean, it has two Bs in it. If not (I thought pirats was a typo until I saw them), never mind.
  • 'anymore catfish showup': any more?, show up
  • 'We have pursue them!': have to
  • 'can always by some clothes': buy some
  • 'stole a student's clothes in bath': in the?
  • 'wear something warn': warm
  • 'According my deduction': to my
  • 'spell contrat is here': contract
  • 'for a hide out. Afterall': hideout?. after all
  • 'I'm that punched you': the one that

Is this a useful way to notify you? I can't see any other way but I'm new to itch.io.

Edit: Fixed typo in my own comment

Edit 2: Crossed out all the things I could easily confirm as fixed. I'm on Chapter 2 now.

I hope it's okay to comment here instead of on the submission.

I absolutely love this game and would definitely play the complete game (or help out with it if you're looking for co-conspirators, but it seems like you've got it covered and I don't have much of an artistic or musical talent anyhow). I liked the little touches, like Aika being able to climb over tables and changing someone's equipped outfit actually changing their outfit. Also, this is one of the most different-and-interesting RPG maker games I've played in a long while. It reminds me of Disgaea and Strawberry Panic, which are... two things I did not expect to see combined, but like both of; and I like the setting and characters here too. It actually does feel like a yuri anime.

With that said, oh wow, that difficulty. Pirats and catfish can defeat Aika and Shizuka (respectively) in one hit during their first appearances, and it's not like I'm under-leveled because this is the only level I can be at this point. There is no room for error.

While playing through once, I noticed a lot of minor (mostly non-game-breaking) issues that should mostly be easily fixed. Actually, you may have found some of them already, but here goes:

• During the scripted nurse office visit, Aika is invisible.
• During the pre-baths scene, Shizuka is invisible.
• During the pre-battle scene at the underground lake, Shizuka is invisible.
• The freezer one too actually.
• You can cancel out of the underground lake visit (or I think just not talk to the teleporter?), leaving you at the hub area but unable to see anything except menus (black screen).
• Catfish at the baths wield pirat claws.
• Replaying a level locks all later levels, meaning you can never advance the story, only replay the earlier levels over and over. This can be really bad if you save over your last save before you notice what happened.
• The pirat cosplay crafting recipe requires a swimsuit, not a pirat bikini as specified.
• Aika fails to get a bento and ends up with toast, instead - but the item you get is a bento, and both are available in the shop after the kitchen visit.
• Is Aika supposed to have Blood Harvester? I wouldn't have cleared the kitchens without it and I can't even imagine trying to clear the baths with the rusty kama, but it makes her basically invincible after she hits level 3-4 since every hit will steal more health than her maximum.
• The cheerful slice of life music keeps playing during the freezer battle. Actually, maybe that was deliberate?

Chapter 2 Edit: All of these bugs are fixed now.

Suggestions:

• I think the difficulty might be a little too hard for right at the start of the game. Though it does help to make the early battles interesting, I was expecting a tutorial, not a pirat walking past and one-shotting Aika. It took me three or four tries to win each level (even after I equipped Blood Harvester, I kept losing Shizuka), though I think I could do it reliably now. Making Aika and Shizuka's physical and magic defenses a bit closer together, or raising max health values a bit, might help? Chapter 2 edit: Health values are higher now and I think the new ones are fine.
• There are lots of minor elements to the game that could probably be hinted at in Aika's dialogue, rather than leaving players to figure them out (but maybe shouldn't be?): scarves, Aika ignoring some obstacles, arming up before the baths, that sort of thing.
• The victory music is a slowed down version of the game over music. Changing it would help me feel like I'm actually winning. Chapter 2 Edit: It's actually not the victory music, actually, and it wasn't before either. I just checked. The victory music is fine. It's the music that plays after the victory message, during the post-battle scene, which is less of a problem.
• Letting healing items be used on adjacent allies would fit in with both the strategy RPG and yuri genres.
• The red text on the map information panel goes off the right side of the screen; maybe move it down to the bottom? I'm guessing this is not your fault though.
• Change the attack animation for catfish? I'm pretty sure their attack hits magic defense but it looks like a claw slash. Or maybe I'm severely misunderstanding the attack damage formula. Edit: New one is better.

And a parting question to close out this wall of text: English titles instead of Japanese honorifics. Was this a conscious decision? There's nothing wrong with it, and I can tell what honorifics they would be using, but if everyone has Japanese names anyway, it just... feels a little strange (coming from subtitled anime and translated manga, anyhow).

Thanks for making this, anyway, and good luck with the complete version! I enjoyed the demo, and if I seem overly critical it's just because I want it to be even better.

Edit: Accuracy