Thank you so much for the feedback! <3 I completely agree and would have loved to spend additional time fleshing out Marcus with his own route. If I were to redo the story of Alloys Over Flowers outside of the 30-day time constraint of NaNoRenO, that would be one of my top priorities.
I'm super glad to hear you enjoyed our game, thank you for sharing your thoughts! :)
This was wonderful to hear! <3 I'm so glad you ended up enjoying Owen and the Leave ending. I agree about his gorgeous eyes -- Sxilin did a phenomenal job with the art in this game, and I'm a huge fan myself. Thank you for taking the time to share your lovely thoughts about our game!
Hi Lina, thank you so much -- yes, absolutely, please feel free to translate Alloys Over Flowers into Russian! If you'd like the Russian translation to be incorporated into the game files for users to select, let us know at elowangames@gmail.com and we can work together to get it into the game. :)
Thank you so much for the feedback! I absolutely agree and would have loved to spend additional time on Marcus's role in the story, as well as fleshing out Junia's relationships to others in the town. If I were to redo the story of Alloys Over Flowers outside of NaNoRenO's 30-day time constraint, those would be some of the top priority improvements on my list.
I'm super happy to hear that you enjoyed Alloys Over Flowers -- thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts on the game! <3
Thank you so much, this is so wonderful! <3 I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed the game, and it's really amazing to hear your thoughts on the relationship between Junia and Owen. Thank you for your feedback!
T__T Thank you so much! This is so sweet! <3 I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed the game, thank you for taking the time to share your lovely thoughts on it :)
Thank you so much, it's incredibly flattering to hear that you're interested in a Spanish translation of Alloys Over Flowers.
I am not currently looking to commission any translations, as the cost and scope of localization tends to be high for our free visual novels. However, if you'd like to reach out for any reason, please feel free to email me at elowangames@gmail.com!
Wow, thank you so much — I'm incredibly happy that you enjoyed our game and took the time to leave such a thorough review! It truly made my day to hear that the story and choices made you think and made you feel. There is no greater compliment than that.
Thank you again for your thoughts and feedback. We'll strive to make any future games even better! <3
Hey, thank you so much! It's really awesome to hear you liked it and wanted to replay it four times. :-)
Regarding the endings, here's a quick guide to unlocking all three!
Leave ending: Have high affection with Owen and choose to leave with him when presented the choice. This ending unlocks a CG as well.
Stay ending (high affection): Have high affection with Owen and choose to stay when presented the choice.
Stay ending (low affection): Have low affection with Owen. Junia will automatically choose to stay, so there is no choice involved.
Not all of the dialog choices affect affection between Junia and Owen — many of them are just regular conversation. These are the choices that raise affection with Owen: - "Yes." (+1) - "I don't think Emeline would've run." (+1) - "Don't worry, I definitely want to go to the festival with everyone." (+1) - "I asked to know, and I'd do it again." (+2)
Good luck, and thank you again for your support! <3
Thank you so much! It's really amazing to hear that. <3
With regards to the character sprites, there are 5 unique sprites and 42 total expressions (the last unique sprite is Marcus's father, who appears briefly near the end of the story). We would've loved to have more character sprites, but we wanted to limit our scope for NaNoRenO's 30-day time constraint!
That's super lovely to hear, thank you so much! We don't have a librarian on our team and did a lot of research to represent the profession — I'm glad we were able to get many aspects of it right.
It's always super awesome to hear the perspectives of players and the choices they make — one of the most beautiful things about visual novels is that your beliefs and choices can change the path of the story. I'm glad that you enjoyed the game, and the ability to choose to return with Owen.
Thank you so much for your feedback — I'm glad to hear that you ended up enjoying the game, and especially that you found the final choice so meaningful! ♡(‘∀’ /)
Unfortunately, Anderson is not a romanceable character. We would've loved to have two routes, but had to narrow our scope for NaNoRenO's time constraints!
Thank you so much! I'm incredibly happy you enjoyed the game and took the time to leave this heartwarming review ♡(‘∀’ /) It's amazing to hear that you enjoyed relating with Junia and see her as a strong character.
personally if I were in her shoes I would probably also say something rude to Owen
It's also awesome to hear you enjoyed playing through the Linux version. While Linux editions tend to receive fewer downloads than Windows or Mac equivalents, we think it's important to make games accessible where possible.
Thank you for your feedback! If by run away with Owen, you mean leave the village with him, this ending is in the game! To unlock it, Junia must have high affection with Owen.
More scenes after the final choice is something we'll make sure to do in our future games! Emotional payoff in the endings is super important.
This game felt so cozy, like the kind of story I'd reread after a stressful day to relax. I really enjoyed Daire's route in particular, though I get the feeling I'm missing some of the significance in the business relationships between the characters in his route.
I also loved the references to Halloween Otome and seeing what developed afterwards, especially when Emma began dating the Count. I'm going to replay Halloween Otome now :')
Thank you so much! It makes me really happy to hear that you enjoyed the game from the developer's perspective and took the time to leave this review. <3
Thank you so much! I'm incredibly happy you enjoyed the game so much and took the time to leave this heartwarming review ♡(‘∀’/) There's no greater compliment than that you were so absorbed in the story!
Thank you for the support, we'll strive to make our future games even better!
Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm glad to hear someone enjoyed the stay ending more than the leave ending. >:)
We would've loved to have two routes, but had to narrow our scope for NaNoRenO's time constraints! (I definitely get how it could've been a misunderstanding given that Sxilin gave Marcus a bachelor-quality sprite, haha.) However, I absolutely agree that additional development for Marcus as a side character would've been wonderful in making Junia's decision more complex. Were I to redo this project outside of NaNoRenO's constraints, I would spend more time on Marcus's development and role in the narrative.
Is this your review? Thank you so much for the incredibly detailed feedback, particularly the constructive criticism, which was on point! I gave my full response on Lemmasoft as well.
Again, I'm super honored that you took the time to write such a thoughtful review of Alloys Over Flowers. Thank you! <3
I'm really happy to hear that you enjoyed it! The update with choices is now released, if you'd like to check it out. Thank you so much for your support :-)
Thank you very much for your feedback! I'm happy you enjoyed the story and the characters. :D
The enemy AI was slower in taking its turn than we had initially intended, due to lack of optimization and not enough time to figure out how to reduce enemy "thinking" time further. Enemy AI has been mentioned multiple times as a point of improvement, and I'll make sure to allocate more time to developing it in any future games I make. :-)
Thank you very much for your feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed the characters.
I agree that in retrospect, the level design didn't meet my goals in that the levels are slowly paced and not well balanced. The enemy AI was not as aggressive as we had intended, due to spending too much time implementing the tactical engine instead. As a result, enemies often took longer to reach and extended the battles.
Faster battle pacing in general has been a common critique of this game, and I'll definitely test having shorter, more interactive battles in any future games I make. :-)
Thank you for your feedback! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the characters. :-D
The enemy "thinking" time specifically I have no idea how to get rid of -- I set padded thinking time to 0, but I think the remaining thinking time is just how long the engine takes to process enemy options. Faster battle pacing in general has been a common critique of this game, and I'll definitely test having more of shorter battles in any future games I make. :-)
Thank you for your feedback! We thought about replacing all of the default background art to match the new character art, but realized that would be infeasible with one artist and 3 days. Faster battle pacing seems to be a common critique of this game, and I'll definitely change that in any future games I make. :-)
Thank you for your feedback! You are right, we spent about 50 hours implementing the engine and had less time than intended for level design, including figuring out how to encourage enemies to "see" outside of their attack range. Though the level design didn't meet my own goals for the jam, I'll definitely put more time into enemy movement into consideration in the future. :-)
Thank you for your feedback! I'll pass along the compliments to our artist. We initially considered replacing the RTP map art to match the sprites, but realized that was infeasible in a 3 day jam with one artist.
The mapping and level design didn't meet my own goals for the jam, and I'm glad hear specific feedback on its flaws. I'll definitely take into account faster pacing and triple-checking map design in the future. :-)
