itch.io

Thanks for letting me know! I reuploaded the files so it should be the right label now. For some reason the old file names were kept when downloading.

Thanks for checking out the game! The next planned update for this game actually happens to have some of these ideas and is almost ready! You'll be able to influence how the others move in a way if you find certain interactions.

I like the silhouettes idea, so I'll see if I can add something like it too.

Thanks for the feedback! I've been thinking about how being sent back is still making the search too long. I haven't yet tried limiting which rooms the missing members can appear in either, so I think that combined with staying in the same area is a good idea.

I'm also already planning on having the player be sent back to the inn if it gets too late. The health idea is good too! Since there's no battle mechanic right now, a game over likely won't make sense at this point.

Thanks! There's still some things missing for the core mechanics and gameplay loop, but I am happy with how it's turning out so far.

I'll fix the X marks too, thanks for pointing that out.

Thanks for the feedback! I've been thinking about how to balance Edmond's AI, and one thing I'm now considering is having him act like a normal seeker at first, but then start cheating later on. Changes to the crystal can also help too - I'm thinking of making it not use up your turn anymore.

Thanks for the comment! Sorry to hear that the game was confusing! I can see how it's a bit unconventional on how you're able to play.

You have a good point about the information the player gets from the crystal. Having the "shines brightly" message only for the target room probably makes more sense if it didn't take up your turn, which I'm considering doing.

Other characters are definitely crucial to the story, but maybe I could also add a way for the player to interact with them on a gameplay level, like misleading them for example.

Pretty fun stealth elements in this game, and I like the art for the witch! The jump dash movement is very fun to use. After getting the fire magic, there was an area where you go upwards, and I happened to fall into a spot that seemed like you couldn't get out of. I ended up restarting and realized later that I could have wall jumped out instead.

I like the idea you have for this game. It was confusing at first to know if I did something wrong or not because of the lack of feedback like sounds or animations, and of course, you can't restart after winning or losing, but you have the core gameplay loop down, and the game has potential!

Thanks for playing! I found this jam and saw the theme, and then immediately knew that it was a perfect fit for the themes I want to explore, and although I did not finish everything I wanted, the jam did help in coming up with a smaller scoped game for me to work on.

He does have better tracking than the guards, so you're right, it's harder to get the guards scene. I'm planning on balancing their AI better in the next update.

The powerups mechanic is an interesting idea. I wish they spawned more frequently or were easier to find because it takes a long time before you get fast enough to dodge projectiles and reach the villains.

Nice stealth game, and a bit difficult too. I managed to find the princess and had found only 9/15 of the harem, so I wondered if there was an extra reward if I did find everyone.

There is a bug where if you completely miss in a blowjob scene, the game gets stuck in the scene and you can't do anything.

Very nice art, and classic controls for this type of game. Something I thought you could do, but it wasn't the case, was controlling the closet door. I thought at first that you could open and close the door to get a better view, and would have to avoid getting caught if you open it too far. That could be an interesting addition to the game if you decide to expand it.

Thanks for the feedback! The game does get stale eventually since there are no endings right now and no reward for winning yet, and yes, Edmond does cheat and knows what path to take. I wanted that difficulty at some point at least to make it hard to avoid the NTR events, but it happens too early in the game and too strongly. In a future update, I'm thinking of having him start off with easier AI, and later on start cheating as the game's story progresses.

Thanks for the comment! I was aiming for a classic retro style for this game, something like the NES with its small resolution and colors.

And yes, as you might've noticed, Edmond's AI cheats in the game. He is the host after all, so it's part of the story's NTR themes I was aiming for, but it could be better balanced.

That's a lot of turns, more than I was expecting! I was also debating whether the locate action should take up a turn or not. If it doesn't, the player never has a reason not to use it every turn, so searching gets easier. If it does, you have to think more carefully about when to use it, making it harder to win but easier to trigger events.

I can speed up the turns and messages, or even have a skip function and a log of everyone's actions too, to make the game more friendly in keeping track of everything. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for playing! Edmond's AI does actually cheat and knows where Sara is, so I tried to at least force him to search rooms after moving, but maybe that still isn't balanced enough.

The guards scene wasn't completely finished for the jam, so it's just dialogue right now. They do move randomly, so their scene is harder to get.

Thanks for playing! I'm working on improvements to the minimap and exploring to make it less repetitive and punishing, which should make the core loop of "explore > wrong way > find the others" take less time.

Thanks for the feedback! The environment does feel like a forest doesn't it, especially because there aren't other room types in the demo. It wasn't completely intentional, but a forest doesn't sound too bad for the setting, so I could keep that theme when designing new rooms.

Thank you! I can't take full credit for the minimap since it's based off of a dungeon generation tutorial I followed, but then edited so that it reveals rooms and passages one at a time.

Thanks for playing! That's interesting to hear feedback about the music stopping. The intention behind that was to really highlight to the player that you went the wrong way, but maybe because it happens so often right now, it gives that frustrating feeling instead. I hope with the changes I'm planning for exploring, it becomes less of a hassle.

Very cute art! I think the break room minigame can be confusing at first when looking at the bar colors and the text. Seeing "not looking" next to a green bar or "looking" next to a red bar feels like it gives mixed signals, until I figured out that both bars should be green to win the minigame.

The greyed-out rooms looked like you could unlock them if you progressed the story, but I saw how they were planned but unfinished, which is understandable for the jam. If you ever continue the game, I'd love to see what the other minigames are like!

I love the art style! It's very pretty, and the minimalistic models are great. I was a bit too curious about the map and found a way to fall off the open windows with no way to restart, but it's a small issue for a demo. I was not expecting to get guns in the story given how fantasy-like the game felt, but it's an interesting surprise.

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I wanted to have the cutscenes in the demo to at least show off the characters and the separation mechanic, and also to have some kind of cutscene setup in place so that they're easy to add later in development. The exploring is lacking a lot right now, and I definitely want to add more room variety with objectives, and also the suggestion of marking exits.

The intro sequence up through the title was really cool to see. I like the whole collaboration idea for the art going on here, and the music tracks in the menu sound great.

The puzzle part itself felt simple at first, but the right click drag mechanic does change up the typical strategy for these kinds of puzzle games. You can look for specific parts of the art that are easy to tell apart, and then slowly slide the art to pick out which tiles the art moved to, and do that for all of the tiles to solve it easily.

I think I found a bug that stops you from progressing to the next expedition. In the first expedition, in the level with Boa, I went through the door without fully completing Boa's encounter since I ran out of energy, and after finishing the rest of the level, getting the 1st familiar, and seeing the 2nd expedition unlock, I instead replayed the first expedition wanting to fully scout Boa's encounter and hoping to see a new event. No new event, but then after completing the expedition again, the 3rd expedition unlocked, but at this point, the menu was playing multiple songs, and while I could select any of the three expeditions, I couldn't start any of them. I had to restart the game.

I really like the game though! I ended up spending much longer than I thought figuring out how to manage my energy and what to scout for. I'll definitely be replaying this to get to the expeditions I missed.

Nice model for the girl, and I like how the dialogue progresses, revealing more of her character, especially at the end with the possible hints of what could come next. I can imagine this game having a fleshed out backstory if it's expanded on, like having the girl spread rumors of her experiences with the tentacle monster, setting up encounters with different characters.

The controls for the tentacles were a bit confusing at first. I was expecting a sort of toggle on and off after you select a tentacle, but because misclicking also deselects the tentacle, it took some time to get used to.

Thanks for the feedback! I had a feeling the walk animations were rough, since art isn't my strongest skill, so I do want to improve them and get better with more practice.

With the new suggestions for the "wrong exit" mechanic, I'm thinking carefully about what would best fit the game's progression while still fitting the narrative of separating the player from their companions. I think part of the reason it feels time wasteful is the lack of events in-between while searching, which I planned on having more of.

There are some nuances in what makes NTR feel taboo for some people. The game as it is doesn't do a very good job of establishing the relationship between the player and the characters, so the events lean more towards voyeurism than NTR. But if there was a prologue cutscene that did do that, for example, showing the player character and Fiona in a relationship - which I'm not sure yet if I'll add - then now there's an expectation that in the future, this relationship can fall apart or drastically change, and that's one way some people get that taboo feeling.

Thanks for the feedback! For the rooms looking the same, I planned on making a proper procedurally generated "dungeon" with different rooms, and adding puzzles that need specific characters to progress, like for example, using Thea's fire magic to melt away a snow pile blocking an exit. The igloos were also meant to be something the player had to build, but I couldn't code that in time for the jam. I also agree that there's too much backtracking in the game as it is.

I see now the issue with the Tobias + player pairing when going the wrong way. It's random right now, which characters go missing, but maybe I should change the probabilities for that, or even add conditions for who stays with the player based on some story flags.

There's definitely some feelings of caution there when dealing with NTR themes. It's not for everyone, but I felt the desire to take part in the jam and make a game to explore it and share, so I'm happy to see others who have similar interests.

Thanks so much for the feedback! Having NTR themes is something I've been wanting to do myself after seeing how rare they are in the jams.

I was worried about the backtracking being an issue in the demo. I wanted to limit the location of your missing party members to explored rooms, like you suggested, but I found some bugs with the save data that I couldn't fix in time, so I scrapped that feature for the submission. Marking wrong exits is a good idea too! I'll add that for the next update.

I was planning to have the weather changes affect the game too, like forcing the player to rest if the snowstorm is too strong, but coding a day-night cycle was too much for the time left for the jam.

I should have come up with a default name, good point there. I'm still debating how much of a self-insert the player should be and how much dialogue the player gets.

Hello to everyone who's joined, the progress you're all posting looks great. I'm new to the Strawberry Jam, been meaning to join for a while now and finally am. So far I've followed a bunch of tutorials on setting up a standard RPG game with dialogue.