I really appreciated hearing your thoughts, I'm glad that you found the time to share them! I like to offer suggestions in my own comments when I review games too, and I can certainly understand wanting to see a game that you liked get polished to perfection. I hope that the sequel can offer a bit of something that the first game missed out on!
Thank you for your kind words and suggestions! When making my games I aim to get them done in a reasonable time frame and make sure that each update has meaningful additions in as many areas of the game as possible. Because of this, I usually can't devote much more than a single update towards just the endings. Closing projects before I become dispassionate about my work is very important to me, so I try to wrap things up before I run out of stuff that I'm enthusiastic to add. While I agree with a lot of your ideas, I can only add a bit of the stuff that's "cool to have" before development time runs out. Generally I try to add some sort of reward for avoiding the NTR scenarios, but I don't think I can make a bunch of full big routes out of the concept with the time that I have.
A sequel is planned for next year, and I think it may expand some of the areas you're proposing. I'm making no early promises about the new game before I actually start making it, but keeping and improving upon most of the gameplay is a major goal.
I'm glad I could help, and thank you for understanding my reasoning regarding climax animations. It's just something that's quite a bit easier to make in still illustrations than animations, so I feel that I would end up sacrificing too much time from other events to add them.
Hello, thank you for playing, and for all of the feedback!
I don't know if there's a good way to promote more experimentation with spells, but I have been thinking of making the familiars start you with two types of magic instead of one to help set up some synergistic combinations. I can probably find a way to add a bit more clarity regarding spells to the gallery.
The best way to guarantee stage 3 carrot patches is to take Fluf as your goddess, but you're right, the appearance of obstacles in stage 3 areas have not been fully balanced as of yet. Due to the way things have been coded, it's difficult for me to provide full info about the stages from the map menu. Back in Summer Sweepers I manually counted everything in each map to give the hints that way, but it's a lot of work and requires constant upkeep as things get changed.
Fruit picking is something I want to explain in the upcoming tutorial. I've managed to get the basics of custom map support working last week, so I should be able to make a playable tutorial map that teaches all of the more obscure mechanics.
Climax animations would be an amazing addition, but unfortunately they are also difficult to make. Over the past two years I've been easing into animating everything, and there's barely enough time each month just to get a basic set of new events done. I am getting better at this, and I have a talented animator helping me, unfortunately I think that climax animations are unlikely to be added to Familiar Finders. I want to finish the game before the end of Spring in 2025, and I will need most of my available time for getting all of the scouting and spell animations done alongside the final batch of gameplay additions and other specialized events.
I hope that my responses are not disappointing, I hope to address the issues as well as I can in the time that I have.
Sorry for the confusion, this game will be completed in the next update. I honestly forgot that Itch had a project status option, I should probably make better use of it, especially since I like to set the version numbers as sequential releases rather than zero-point-something.
Thank you, I'm happy to hear that you liked it! I think this game's got around 3 updates left to go. Before it's done I would like to add a few challenging final map areas, a puzzle solving mode, and lots of additional animations!
I have seen bug for issues that seem to be computer hardware related, but I don't think full crashes at the start have been reported. If you are running the game on Windows, try the win32 version, but this is most likely some sort of issue related to the Godot engine rather than something I can fix on my end.
The story mode is really great and I've had a very fun time unlocking everything, but it's nice to play with the multiple transformations for more than a single round and to see how far a character can be taken. Endless mode gives something new and aspirational to do after the main story is complete.
I'm surprised and glad to hear that you played Summer Sweepers! Do you think that TF Card Battle may still get updated in the future? I would be very happy to see a small expansion that make endless mode more repeatable!
One suggestion that I forgot to mention is that the "take an extra turn" cards should get discarded on use. They're the main thing that allows infinite combos in endless.
I thought I'd try this game out for 10 minutes, and after tens of hours and many fun evenings I am still discovering new strategies. The gameplay is dangerously addictive! The "pictures from around the net" style feels a bit nostalgic to me, I like it. Even if some of the central sexual themes are not fully my thing, there are lots of choices and variety.
I know that I'm a bit late to the party, but I really hope that you still have plans to release updates! I would love to see an anime variant for the last few cards that don't have it (mostly for Magical Boi, my favorite dual transformation). The endless mode could use a +1 TF damage per level scaling for the bosses and maybe an extra power for the regular opponents every four levels or so (I went infinite with a few combinations). A list of highscores for endless mode would also be a welcome addition. The only major thing I recommend for card balance is to give a 2xTF effect to an expensive late-game card in the default collection to open up more options for players to take different sets (2xTF is absolutely necessary for any strategy in endless mode and is great in story mode too). A final bit of polish and some small bug fixes, and I think this can become one of the games I'll keep coming back to for many years!
Thank you for all of the fun, this is a truly excellent game!
Items from your inventory are used only if they are selected (blue gem above), and if they have any power on the target encounter (amount of red gems above). Selection defaults back to hand if you attempt scouting with an unusable item. Some encounters will give you a different reward if you finish scouting with a specific item (animals give you coins for food and trees give you fruit when using sticks or rocks).
I'd like to add a tutorial that explains everything in a playable level, I just need to figure out some code stuff for getting custom maps working right.
I always appreciate constructive criticism, especially when it's clear that the player was actively engaged. I'm happy to see your response! My games are quite niche in terms of how they are played, and the stories they tell, so they can't (and weren't meant to) reach absolutely everyone, but I do try to get a few more players on board when I see an opportunity. Difficulty is something that I can offer more options for on my end to allow more players to have fun, so it's certainly a very reasonable concern!
Try some of my other games if you have the time, perhaps one of them can offer a more fulfilling experience!
Thanks for playing! It's unfortunate that the difficulty was off-putting and led to a bad experience, the various mechanics of my games can be obtuse for players at times. This was my first major project and I think I've gotten a bit better at making things more accessible since. The hidden text was probably not the best decision, I haven't brought it back in any of my other works.
If you want to try the game with a bit of a power boost, you can modify your save file to get more stars, it's located in C:\Users\*USERNAME*\AppData\LocalLow\Impy\Sweeper. Set all map awards to "true" in the awards.sav file to get more starting options. It's always disheartening to hear from players who are enjoying the premise of one of my projects but find some aspects of the gameplay troublesome, I'm sorry about that.
It's probably nearing the end of development, but I think that the game has a fair bit to offer now. The amount of events has doubled after this update, Kate gets to peep, and there are a few scenes with 3 characters in them too now. I want to focus heavily on events in v4 again and hopefully give at least one to each possible pairing.
Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! Hopefully the new save system will stay compatible with future updates to help returning players get back into the action quicker.
Really cute characters, I love them! Since you make your own game music, a rhythm game is a really good choice. It reminds me of Tropical Space, but focusing on a single type of mini-game rather than multiple ones feels like a better choice for a short game jam.
Yes, it's the total number of captured pieces needed for reaching the ending. The ending event does not have to be clicked right away after it appears, you can play as much as you like!
Nice game idea with a lovingly pixelated art style! The toggle for the window view of the mansion is a fun touch, maybe it could show character silhouettes for the searchers and a hint for what Sara's doing after she's been found? Since the game is all about who finds her first, it may benefit from some way to control your opponent's actions. Maybe there could be some bonus items to find or room interactions that change the map in some way to alter what the others are doing?
Thank you for making this game, it's a fun little adventure!
I generally agree. The combat system was hastily reworked during the game jam after the original physics-based concept didn't work as well as I had hoped. I think I've done enough to rescue the game, but it's still somewhat flawed in the way everything fits together. You can find sketches and prototype screenshots of the original idea in the "Past Work and Future Plans" devlog.
Quite soon! I'm using a new engine, so things weren't well configured for gallery setups, but I'll add them over the next couple of updates. Every game will get a gallery before it's done.
Unfortunately none that I know of. Custom screen sizes were not working right in the browser version, and I had to disable them. I hope that someday the menu breaking bug either gets fixed by the Godot team, or that I can find a workaround. It's a tricky issue to fix because I can't see if the solution I'm trying does anything because the bug isn't there on any computer that I have access to.
Thank you! I can guarantee at least one more update this year. I have a lot of ideas for stuff that I want to add, but not all of them have enough time make their way into my smaller games.
Darn. That's really disappointing news. Godot just got updated too, but I guess that the cause of this issue remains. I still don't have a good clue as to why this can even happen, the interface elements that get moved are not set up in any special way. If this doesn't happen in Familiar Finders, it could have something to do with the fact that menus get hidden rather than deleted in Plight of the Priestess and Checkmate Charmers. Maybe it gets initially loaded in some wrong way on some computers, so only the elements that are immediately visible are effected?
Probably not, it's proven to be too difficult in my experiments with the concept. The map is too small and unreliable and there are issues related to resolutions and scaling that are not easy to resolve. This is probably an easier game to fit into mobile devices than my newer pixelated games, but it's still a lot of work and I'm not sure if I'll ever find the time.
I'm glad that you have enjoyed it! A sequel is actually planned, I'm hoping to start developing it in late Autumn of this year. It will probably be less of a direct sequel and more of an alternative story. I'm not too good with localizing games, but most of them can be hooked to a translation tool of some sort.
Steam releases for some of my games are planned, but they will still be completely free. If you want to support my work financially, the best way to do so is through SubscribeStar, but it's completely optional, my games become available to everyone after a month of early access. Secrets of the Bastion and the planned sequel sadly won't appear on Steam because the sexual content goes against their policy in some parts.
The writing style and gameplay are wonderfully matched to the Ace Attorney series, they've definitely got me feeling a bit nostalgic! The tracking camera is a very fun mechanic and adds quite a surprising variety of little bonus events for players to discover. I really enjoyed the first two chapters, and I'm looking to completing my card collection as the game is expanded. Thank you for making this game, you've done a great job!
Scouting the rival splits the party in the next map. Companions get taken if adjacent to the rival, otherwise Piper gets taken and you play as the companion. Scouting with 1 open tile around the target will guarantee that Piper is chosen, while scouting with 2-4 guarantees that his companion is chosen. Only your final scouting action counts and as of v2 spells can also trigger this interaction.
No, I think I had 3 scales. Getting 2 or 3 is probably the average point that players will reach without further motivation since that's about how long it takes to scout the map, interact with all the traders a few times, and explore the game mechanics. I can definitely understand the limitations for games made on a time budget, this is a lot of 9 days of work!
The idea is very neat and you've built good controls to support it! The overall game is probably a bit long for what you do in it, but there's definitely enough going on to get players to collect at least a couple of scales. Something extra like mobile obstacles, random events and different poses for the traders could extend player engagement for a longer play session.
Fun cutscenes and a nice reward at the end! The puzzles make clever use of the mechanics and do a good job of introducing them. I'd definitely play an extended version of this.
I tried to make it a bit more accessible in terms of difficulty over the various updates. The lock challenges were the final major addition, and are sort of meant to be a bonus for experienced players.
Thank you for checking out the update, and playing all the way through to when the second companion shows up! I had plans for everything I added in this update since the start, but there was just no way to get it all ready for the jam. As of v2, I think I have the basics of almost every major feature I planned to add, so now there's plenty of time to expand upon it all in v3 and beyond! Music is one of the things I can't make myself, so I always try to tailor a bit of the style and pace of my games to any audio tracks I add.
Fullscreen is a borderless window rather than exclusive. This allows switching to other windows without waiting for screen resolutions to change, but I think that it's possible that it may not work as intended on older machines. Many old games only supported exclusive fullscreen modes.
