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Thanks so much for playing and recording a video! I had a lot of fun watching your reactions to the story.

I really loved this entry. Your artwork is so cute and Lottie felt so expressive. I really liked the small animations like her blinking as well. The details in the environment were also cool (like the Phoenix Wright keychain).

I really liked the message behind your game. As creators we don't always know how personally our works can touch people, even if it's a "self-centered" project like the main character's was. I'd like to imagine that after this, the main character thought more about an ending for the webcomic and made a blog post for Lottie to enjoy the next time she reread it. You told a really great story that brought a smile to my face. It made me think about the first works I had created.

This was great! I really liked how you integrated the gameplay elements into the UI. It made the experience so engaging. Samgrace did a perfect job as well.

I loved your entry last year too. You're really good at creating these settings that are both intriguing and have a sense of danger.

This was so creepy. Great job! I really liked the use of sound and visual effects. Small details like using code to stretch the character made the game feel more alive. 

This was great! I really liked how you utilized the ability to zoom in and out of the background. I was so concerned about the talking piece of lint that I didn't realize who I should have been most concerned about (Larry, of course!).

This was a very powerful story that really shows how games can resonate with players even when they're made with such strict asset limitations. I lost my dog of 18 years four years ago. He was happy and healthy, and then all of a sudden, gone within a week after discovering he had a cancer we didn't know about before then. I still think about him daily... How I would do anything to see him again. I was moved to tears playing this.

Thank you so much! It makes me very happy to hear that.

Hey, I think it may have mistakenly said there was an update because the currently-available build is still around a year old. I didn't realize that disabling/re-enabling the visibility of build would tell people there was an update... Can you let me know what the first boss you're referring to is? The game only saves in the Hub areas, so depending on the story, there are sometimes multiple battles before the next time the game saves.

If you are interested in a new/updated build feel free to reach out to me in DevTalk. I appreciate the feedback though! I think some of it, like the use of Unity default UI assets, has been mostly taken care of. The battles are still KB-only though. I think that's the only part of the game that is not fully playable with either mouse or kb now. Since there are so many potential actions between boosting/swapping/polarity/etc, I was never quite sure how to handle the use of the mouse there.

Thank you for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

This was wonderful. Love the dialogue and twist.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Thank you for playing! I greatly appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the UI/UX.

Thank you! I think a lot of people wish they brought more too! 

Thank you! I'm glad the dialogue made you smile!

Awesome job! I really love the creepy and mysterious atmosphere. I felt uneasy and nervous whenever I had to make a decision, which made this game really memorable.

Thank you! I'd love to revisit the setting and characters someday.

This was very cute. I love the art so much. Great job!

This was terrific! The way you used the mirror as the text box or changed the color of the screen to make it seem like we were experiencing the story from the perspective of the mirror was so creative.

Thanks for playing it! The ending was definitely a result of that - hahaha.

Adding full KB/Gamepad support is something I'd like to do eventually.

Thank you!

Thanks so much for playing it! I loved hearing your reactions while reading it!

Your team did a great job overcoming the limitations. The writing was really excellent and it was so easy to feel sympathetic for the main character. The way the UI matches the paintings used makes the experience feel very cohesive.

Thanks so much!

Thank you!

The space could probably be optimized better, but I'm not really sure how - the technical details of optimization are definitely my strong suit. Most sprites are '#' x 1500 though all the character sprites are individual files than some kind of conglomeration. There's about 1GB of sprites, then around 650MB of sound (which will increase once the rest of the game's audio is in). The sprites for the particle systems/attack effects in battle are pretty sizable, past the 2GB point. I could probably reduce the file size if I changed them from PSDs to PNGs. Probably worth experimenting with once I'm done with the game's content. Since the battle effects are something I purchased from the Unity Asset Store and not something I made myself, I was hesitant to change anything and mess things up.

Very cool! The character art is really nice. Conveying fighting in these types of games is difficult, but I like how you conveyed it with the sprites shaking and sliding. Looking forward to seeing more / the end of their encounter.

For Bio Seeker, a message pops up in the top left after "Jean used Bio Seeker" for a few seconds. But I'll consider having it do that every time the skill is used, and then have some kind of health bar physically appear (either permanently or for a period of time) if the OT gate is met. Like I said before, I think it can be easy to miss the messages if you aren't expecting them.

Inflicting Dizzy is how you deal the most damage to enemies (kind of like Stagger in  modern Final Fantasy or Break in Octopath Traveler if you've played those). Each enemy has 'Vulnerabilities' to certain elements (the attack element icons in boxes under their timer meter) and an amount of 'Guard Points' (the number in the shield). Hitting an enemy with an element they're vulnerable to decreases it by one (though it can be decreased by more if other conditions are met). When that number is reduced to zero, the enemy becomes 'Dizzy' for a period of time, where they receive significantly more damage, skips their next turn, and pauses Rage buildup.

Making the tutorials/mechanics visible in-game is definitely something I'd like to do at some point. It can easy to forget things or accidentally miss them.

Thanks for the detailed response! OT charge remains the same, though skills increase in power every 10 levels. The majority of skills cost under 10 OT, with those exceeding it being really powerful skills that you are encouraged to be using the distribution/manipulation skills for in order to use.

I'll have to experiment with giving Isaac a Revive skill - maybe changing the 'Survival Skills' skill to have an alternate effect if the ally is KO'd since Jean doesn't get her Revive skill until 10 - though that doesn't solve situations where he's KO'd. Maybe Jean's Restore can revive an ally if they're KO'd as an additional effect. Perhaps I can change Jean's Bio Seeker effect to make an enemy's HP permanently visible if the OT gate is met (with it not affecting damage otherwise), rather than have it only display in a message after using the skill.

There's definitely a lot of things I haven't considered as I'm sure I play the game "optimally" and so don't really know how others play or struggle with it aside from 1-2 playthroughs with the modern system I've seen. I'll have to look into setting up some kind of non-spoiler battle playtest build. Right now my priority is just putting everything together and then balancing it.

Regarding battle length, I'm concern that if battles are too short, I defeat the purpose of having them, since each encounter is fixed rather than something that occurs randomly multiple times in the field. The game's biggest inspirations are Yggdra Union and Etrian Odyssey, which are both pretty challenging, though because they're turned-based it's easier to take a breather and assess the situation, rather than using the 'Pause' overlay, which may feel like an inorganic method of accomplishing that.

The "phases" are mostly weakness shuffling/Guard Point changes. There are some "phases" like bosses gaining additional actions or changing their timer after being Dizzy'd a certain number of times. Maybe I can modify part of the UI to make these changes more visible. Since the game is so fast, sometimes those messages aren't retained because the player is busy choosing actions.

Thanks again! I really like the I Am Setsuna way of handling side effects for healing moves you mentioned. I'll have to experiment with that. 

Since OT takes the place of MP/SP, and there is no item system to "replenish" resources, a cap is a little tricky. Right now, the strongest offensive skill requires 40 OT and the strongest defensive skill requires 35 OT. However, a cap to "natural" OT gain, but still allowing characters to use their OT-passing skills to bypass that cap could work. I'm not sure how far you've gotten, but Isaac and Jean have a way to share or distribute OT with others while Sparta transforms it into bonus damage. Other characters will be able to utilize it in a similar manner as well.

Also, do you mind letting me know which fight(s) you felt the game spiked in difficulty? I'm interested in knowing which encounters players found most difficult for balance purposes.

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to play the game! 

I'm glad you found the Defend aspect useful. A feature I could possibly add in the completed game is a way to have all party members capable of performing an action Defend with a single button, since there's not enough time to cycle through everyone as-is. Boosting with recovery skills may be more useful as you get further in the game, but right now it's primarily an offensive mechanic. To be honest, it's been a while since I played my own game since I've been occupied with writing and art for so long, but I think as HP and enemy damage increases, healing doesn't scale proportionally and so using Boost with Recover becomes a bit more viable.

I think Overtime caps at 50 or 99 (I don't remember which, exactly). I'll have to see if I give it a lower cap or instead give enemies skills that change your OT cap to a lower number.

The game saves automatically every time you enter the Hub area (where you can speak with characters or access menu options). There should be a icon displaying so, but maybe a bug is stopping it from appearing. I'll need to examine it. Regardless, a "This game autosaves..." when you first start kind of message may be useful.

Thanks for reporting the Boost bug and sharing your difficulties with the UI!I don't have a list of known issues since the game. Really just adding things that I encounter on my own to a Trello since not that many people have played this, haha!

I wasn't planning on submitting it or a variant to BAF VN jam, since it's my primary project and been worked on well in advance of the jam announcement - though I did add the tag when Arimia created it and posted about it in DevTalk earlier this year. Again, thank you so much for not only playing the game, but giving me such great feedback and things to look into. If you return to the game, I hope you enjoy it. I'm hoping to finish this project this summer - or at least have all of the content done so that I can focus on bug-fixing, adding additional ingredients, improving UI/UX, etc..!

Good luck with your project for the BAF jam! I remember seeing your posting for Spirit Link and hope it all goes well!

Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you've found the story interesting and appreciate the artwork!

Once the final version of the game comes around, I'll be adding more ingredients to both the cooking and tea minigames, so I hope that makes them even more fun!

Thank you! Each of the party members has their own sidestory in the final chapter. Sparta's involves playing in a band. :)

I played through both endings tonight. Great job! The story was very nice. The characters were very likeable. I laughed when Rem got drunk and started talking about extraterrestrials.

I really loved the story. What a cool game! Thank you for your hard work!

Not yet.

I want to be able to disable NSFW content from showing up when I browse the website. However, when I go to my profile settings, it doesn't allow me to opt-out. The checkbox regarding that content simply does not appear. I have attached a screenshot of that portion of my screen.

However, I do not have NSFW content uploaded. Out of the 3 games/demos/prototypes I have uploaded, none of them contain adult content. In the past, there was NSFW content on this account, but that has been deleted for a long time as I have now divided that content into 2 different accounts with the help of itch.io staff. However, it seems like there is a bug where although the content the removed or adjusted, the account remains unable to change that setting. It is almost like a flag attached to the account  that has not been updated.

Thank you for your time.