itch.io

Ahhhhhh yeah that makes sense. Thanks for the response! I'll just turn my pc volume down for now then. Very intriguing demo though! Definitely have to dig into it and see some of the other available routes. Looking forward to more.

Mild problem: adjusting the volume doesn't seem to affect menu sounds? Even turning the master volume and all volume sliders down, the sounds when clicking buttons and navigating menus is unaffected.

I recommend making the links a different color than the text. It reads better when the links actually stand out, even if they are just a "next" button at the bottom. When there are more choices it will make it a lot more legible, and it will generally improve the reading experience even now.

Very good start! Really enjoyed it, the characters are very well written and the setup is intriguing.

buuuuut theres a lot of broken links and typos. I may do a second run and catalogue all the ones I find but that will be a lot. Here's a few that are kind of universal:

• However you have "staying with cam"  and "staying at the motel" setup seems to be a bit broken. During the later parts of chapter 1 I got a lot of bleed between the two. I'd chosen to stay with cam but I got a weird mix of like (paraphrasing not quoting) "There's a knock on the hotel room door. Cam comes out into the living room." during the scene where Ollie shows up.
• The link to call Ro is broken. It just does nothing. I know Ro hangs up immediately but it doesnt acknowledge that.
• A lot of Ro's variables are broken. Notably $roname_posessive. At one point the game just calls them "Ro" rather than their full name. I figured it might be a weird nickname but since it never came up again probably a bug. Several of their pronouns are broken throughout the game, mostly as a result of typos I think.
• A lot of broken if statements. Again, I may do a second playthrough and actually catalogue everything I find but it may be worth just going back and double checking all of them. I remember specifically there is one that is misspelled <<is>> instead of <<if>>, theres also a few that are missing the opening <<if>> or closing <</if>> tag, and one that broke because the closing tag has too many brackets <<</if>>.

Excellent start! Just needs some polish and maybe in the future might benefit from a proofreading pass just to clean up the more obvious errors before release.

Lovely introduction, but one issue: The text in the dropdown menus is illegible for me. Its the same color as the background on dark mode so I simply cannot read it unless I hover over each option individually. 

Also for some reason on the save screen the save icons are missing? In the little box on the left that you click in order to save/load its just grey/green with no icon inside like there usually is. This doesnt impact gameplay, I can click the box just fine, its just weird to look at.

Also I had to add 

<<set $route to "nofleshpit">>

at the end of the solo stabbed route or I hit another passage with no continue button just before gabriel arrives in chapter 2.

Looking at the actual code I see the problem. There's just no elseif for the "solostabbed" variable. I fixed it. Also side note but you can use the "or" logical operator in if statements. Such as "<<if [condition] or [condition]>>" that way you dont have to duplicate so much text. In this case to fix the issue I just changed the code to:

• <<elseif $beginningroute == "solo" or $beginningroute == "solostab">>

After waking up from sleeping for 2 days at the beginning of the story, selecting any of the options when presented with food breaks the game. The next passage shows up fine, but there is no option to continue at the bottom of the page.

For completeness here is the route I took:

• Gave gabriel a name after being pushed about it.
• Tried to run when taken to the bail cages
• Tried to pick the lock
• Shoved milo in the cage when he came
• Got picked up by bella after getting stabbed

Also there is a second bug I found when backtracking to try and see if I can find a way around this issue. When talking with milo after waking up the first time, selecting stay silent and then "i'm sorry" leads to a loop. The options at the bottom of the page seem to be copied from the previous page. This also happens if I select "how did you get out". The only way forward is to select "lie and see how far he will let you take it".

LMAO keep telling yourself that buddy

You're the one malding in the comments of an itch.io game because you saw some funny words. And now you're complaining about picking pronouns for the ROs before meeting them? Its very common in IF games to pick the gender (and thus pronouns) of the romance options ahead of time so all the ROs fit your tastes. Literally just complaining about one of the genre conventions now.

If you dont care about gender politics, why are you still here LOL? You're the one who came back to argue.

(I apologize for the wall of text ;-;)

Pronouns are an essential function of just about any language. A pronoun is basically just a noun referring to a person (bit more complicated but yeah thats the gist). He, she, they, we, it, etc are all pronouns. There may be languages out there with limited pronouns, or who express things in a different way, but most languages I am aware of has them in some form. They are not always gendered however.

In english, several pronouns imply gender. For example "she" implies a female gender to the person being referred to. This creates a problem, as transgender and gender nonconforming individuals are uncomfortable when they aren't seen as the gender they identify as. Thus the concept of changing one's pronouns, and introducing oneself with their pronouns. This is merely a tool by which to ensure that the language we use to identify each other does not accidentally hurt anyone. Its basically the same level of respect as not calling someone a nasty nickname.

This works great, for some people. He/she/they are all very useful pronouns and can be applied to a wide variety of identities and genders, but some people don't really feel like their identity fits within any of those boxes, and they want a new box. Or heck, want to be outside any box. Thus we come to the concept of neo-pronouns. Essentially newly invented pronouns used to describe people who don't feel represented by the "standard set". A lot of people who don't fit in the binary of he/she use "they" instead but that doesn't feel right for everyone. Some people feel more comfortable with a unique singular pronoun instead.

And, finally (apologies for the rather long wall of text, I just wanted to be thorough), we come to eh/ehq. Eh/ehq are examples of neo-pronouns. They're not ones I am familiar with personally, but in essence they express something outside the gender binary. Choosing these pronouns can express character in a lot of ways, especially for an immortal born-from-the-fabric-of-the-universe god like the MC is in Uroboros. It can express an alienation from conventional gender norms, a desire to distance oneself from those norms, a simple sentiment of not caring all that much about gender and preferring to be unique in one's expression, or all of the above, or none of the above. 

Eh/ehq, in essence, expresses that the person using them is not male or female, does not wish to present as such, and does not wish to be perceived as such. The reasons for this can be numerous but that is the essence of it.

And bringing back around to the topic of languages. There are languages out there that don't have gendered pronouns, or have less of an emphasis on gendered pronouns. It sounds like you likely speak one of these languages. I imagine it might sound rather silly for english speakers to get all worked up about them lol, but it is just a matter of expressing one's identity. Its also worth noting that not all pronouns refer to people. "This, That, and Those" are all pronouns as well. Again, most languages have pronouns, but only some languages have gendered pronouns and as such using the proper gendered pronouns may be more/less important depending on your language.

So... lemme understand. Having more options, more ways to express your character, is bad because... you personally don't understand some of the options? Cool, pick smth else then? Leave the other stuff for people who do understand and want to use it?

This is the easiest problem in the world to fix my guy, how fragile is your ego that you can't handle even just seeing some funky pronouns and quit so hard you left a salty comment about it.

Oh no! Thats so weird, glad its fixable then.

As Neko-Gore said, all the buttons are invisible and as such the game has been rendered unplayable for me. I need to access the settings menu to adjust things, like dark mode, but am entirely unable to and as such I simply must abandon this game. Please fix this.

It is a nonspecific sin type, that takes the form of an animal unless you use a power. Its capabilities without using your powers to enhance it are CAT 0. It does not have any stats, instead using your skills. It cannot have sin abilities. If you are bad at fighting there are one or two BIND abilities that will still give your sin an edge in combat, but it costs a psyche burst and isnt permanent. Your passive does actually specify that you have a single bound sin at the start of the game, and has no actual rules text discussing binding additional sins (likely because it would seriously fuck up game flow to allow exorcists to bind sins instead of executing them at the end of a hunt).

There is a homebrew project in the works to revamp binding, I am not sure the progress on it. I have played with a binder in my party and its really not that bad as is, and the rules are pretty clear in my opinion. It lacks the Fushiguro flavor that I think it deserves, but as is it is functional enough for me to use and flexible enough for me to make on the spot rulings and homebrew new ideas.

sorry, thought I made the last one permanent. This one should be: https://discord.gg/b5bmx4ZhgS

My assumption is that MC is disguised as a commoner, although its not set up very well.

https://discord.gg/YGmp47cj

Writer is still active on tumblr and has dropped crumbs that there may be an update within the next few months. Its in progress!

This link will take you there: https://discord.gg/BpyAUzup

Glad to help!!! I like picking apart game mechanics and understanding what they want, what they do, and when those things misalign. I'm very happy my ramblings gave you some insight!

In the unofficial CAIN discord server there is a link to a google sheets document that has fully editable hunt, sin, and exorcist sheets if you want something useable online.

I didn't get too far into the demo, but far enough that I'm somewhat worried about this being a Mary Sue situation. Idk if we have enough material to make a judgement yet and I'd love to be proven wrong but...

There is a saying in media, show don't tell. We can all see the dress is ripped, we don't need it described in excruciating detail.

This is one symptom of the overall whole I think. Many people have mentioned the animations, dialogue writing, and tutorial but I think fundamentally the writing itself just needs to be overhauled. It is paced as glacial as the animations, and where the story could take advantage of the gorgeous artwork to simplify its prose it instead insists on expositing at length exactly what we are looking at. This is almost enough to make me put the game down immediately.

This is a visual novel. Let it be visual. Take advantage of your, again quite beautiful, art to expedite the story. I feel like there is a lot of potential with the initial investigation to let the player come to their own assumptions based only on the artwork, and that would be more engaging. Reducing the amount of unnecessary description but encouraging the player to deduce things based on the environment has the potential to force the player to study the art in a very good way. But it doesn't. Because the prose insists on expositing.

Ahhh ok, that just sounds clumsy in my head due to my expectations then. Just at a glance with no prior knowledge of the game, its hard to intuit that context.

I totally understand the second language struggles and wish you the best! Its mostly very small issues, enough for me to notice but not enough to turn me off the game entirely. Looking forward to more ^^

I absolutely can blame you for wanting to torture an innocent person. Its like you don't see merlin's daughter as her own person, and only see her in the context of her relationship with merlin. Like she's just a tool you can use to hurt merlin. Kinda gross in my opinion.

People aren't tools, merlins daughter is not complicit in merlins crimes. We dont even know her opinions of mordred or what merlin did, she acted at least kindly towards mordred as a kid.

Even if this is true, I'm not sure this is a torture worthy offense? Like bold and controversial opinion here, but torture bad.

I dont know if this is intentional but [spoilers]

The "ending the game" section for the ascension scene is identical to the "ending the game" section for the bedside scene.

No problem! I know how hard it can be to track every little detail down, there's always something that slips notice lol.

Small editing details:

When selecting your hair and skin color there are a lot of little errors. The cycling choices work fine, but the sentences they are in don't make sense (they omit the words "skin" and "hair" so its kind of just a guess about what I am selecting). Also a lot of the darker skin tones have a rogue quotation mark in front of them (eg "olive).

There is also a pretty serious syntax error on one of the choices. I believe it is the second flirt choice you get, the flirt option is functional but the formatting box around it is broken and the HTML code is showing through.

The new update seems to have a lot of choices that don't link properly. Its hard to categorize all of them, but the most notable one I found is that if I select "I dont drink" I still accept the drink. It also made me select my height twice, probably one of the links doubled back onto a previous passage from a different route or smth? There's also a lot of broken if statements, like if I ask Yezda to help me with bandages there's like 2 broken on the same page. A few others that I forgot where they are, but basically the code needs to be looked back over pretty carefully.

But, the chapter was quite enjoyable and I'm excited to see it cleaned up and read the rest of the story as it continues.

AHH yeah ok that makes a lot of sense, glad I wasnt just hallucinating the bars not moving then :P

are the Shy/Bold and Emotional/Stoic meters supposed to change at all? They don't seem to move no matter what choices I make during the game. Also there's a few choices that I feel move the wrong meter (usually a choice that I interpret as shy moving the antagonistic meter, eg being shy and touch averse when introducing myself makes me more antagonistic).

[ SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT ]

When you teleport after the confrontation at the hotel, there is a broken variable that just says "$place" that I assume was supposed to have the name of the place you teleported to. In case its needed, I picked the basement bc I figured my mc has trauma from that and wouldn't be able to avoid it in the moment.

Scripts are nightmarish but you should just be able to copy+paste out of that forum post and get it working fine. Your template also should have some scripts already so you can just tack it on to the end of that probably.

Also quick tip: if you dont want to use the uppercase macro every time you put a pronoun at the start of a sentence, you can actually work it so that the backend still has the pronouns. You'd just have to add a few lines that are like <<set $her_uppercase to ucfirst($her_lowercase)>> after each pronoun set.

Honestly though its kinda a crime that Twine doesn't just have a way to do this normally. Like, in a text-based game software you'd expect to have basic text manipulation functions baked in lol. Oh well :P

Wow, this is great. Huge improvement from last time I read, I presume you found a good proofreader. The writing could still be improved in a few places, but its minor enough that it doesn't really impact my enjoyment. I love to see it and loved the new chapter, good work!

Small note: to avoid needing separate capital/lowercase pronouns you could do smth like this

This is on so many levels more pedantic than I need to be but pet peeve about the title. Hungers is singular (he hungers, they hunger), but woods is plural. The title should be The Woods Hunger. Every time I see the title it just sounds very slightly off and its gotten under my skin lol.

Edit: In fact this seems to be a persistent issue in the story. Small instances of the wrong plurality. Not enough to break the experience but it could do with an editing pass.

ah shit thanks for correcting me then, idk how I got that in my brain

Small issues I have encountered (I am using a brand new save file so there shouldn't be compatibility issues from previous). Minor spoilers abound so readers beware.

• Less of a bug, more of a continuity issue but I met Zoe outside the library when Rhea got my books for me. However when I run into them talking to Lars later the passage describes it as if I don't remember them.
• When confronting lars I get the following error "Error: <<if>>: assignment operator found within <<if>> clause (perhaps you meant to use an equality operator: ==, ===, eq, is), invalid: $major="music""
• When telling Zoe it was sweet of them to stay with me, there's a rogue close bracket. I think you probably input an extra one when creating the link like: [[It was sweet of you to stay with me.]]]
  • link still works tho
• When discussing with the Voice, their second question has two bugs.
  • First, their pronouns are broken and it says "You wait, not sure what to expect. $Htheir first question had been harmless, but you don't know if it'll stay that way."
  • Second, when pressing the platonic friendship option the itch browser throws the following error: "Error: Unexpected identifier 'state'" and will not advance. All other options work fine
• When talking with the wraiths there is an unclosed elseif visible in the text: <elseif 13>>Despite your hesitate greeting, the others move forward, almost encouraged by your response. The smallest one is practically bouncing on their feet. The one who originally approached you, the leader maybe, sounds warm, 'Yes, nice to meet you.'

Thats everything I found on my way through. There was one more bit earlier, I think maybe chapter 1, where one of the options was unselectable for some reason. Not crossed out just broken looking. I wasn't able to find it while writing this though so idk, I might just be going mad. Love the story and am looking forward to more!

Please add an extra line break in between paragraphs. As it is I often can't tell where one paragraph ends and the next begins here, which leads to a rather awkward reading experience.

Also when selecting hair length, 'length' is misspelled on multiple of the options (specifically chin and shoulder length). 

Also also see if you can find a native english speaker to proofread or something. There's just a lot of small mistakes that add up. The story is good, I dont mean to discourage you or anything, but it needs a lot of clean up to be as good as it clearly could be.

Got something good here I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Love this. Cant wait for more!

twine, I think