itch.io

Try to avoid cowgirls by standing next to the fence - they won't notice you then!

As for the issue itself: thanks for the details, I will definitely revisit mobile performance (can't promise anything regarding the timelines though).

Thanks a ton for the support, truly means a lot to me! ❤️

Hi! Sorry for this experience, I am aware of a somewhat poor performance on the phones. I put a significant effort into phones support about a year ago, but never revisited it since then, while keeping adding new content.

Tell me please, do I get it correctly that the problem only appears after playing for some time? If so, how long would you say it takes, approximately, for the freezes to start? Also, if you don't mind sharing your phone specs, that info would be helpful too.

Thank you!

I will add a handler for this error, to at least show a proper message instead of black screen + green boxes. I will also look for possible workarounds. 

I'm afraid this is not something I can completely resolve though, cause it happens inside the engine, which is a bummer... Here Phaser (the engine I'm using) devs say they won't fix this in v3. Which is, unfortunately, exactly the version this game is built upon, and switching to v4 would mean rewriting it pretty much from scratch. But anyways, I'll try my best to find a solution.

Hi! Thanks for reporting this! First of all - devtools are open initially on purpose, exactly to catch errors like this (might be somewhat inconvenient, but that's temporary measures during development). 

Now, as for the error itself - this is something new, I haven't seen such an error before. Quick research shows that it may happen when WebGL context is lost: 

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebGLRenderingContext/isContext...

This is a technical article, you don't have to read it, I'm just putting it here as a reference for the future. What it says, importantly, is that such an error can occur when:

• Two or more pages are using the GPU, but together place too high a demand on the GPU, so the browser tells the two contexts that they've lost the connection, then selects one of the two to restore access for.
• The user's computer has multiple graphics processors (such as a laptop with both mobile and desktop class GPUs, the former used primarily when on battery power), and the user or system decides to switch GPUs. In this case, all contexts are lost, then restored after switching GPUs.
• Another page running in the user's browser performs an operation using the GPU that takes too long, causing the browser to decide to reset the GPU in order to break the stall. This would cause every WebGL context to be lost throughout the entire browser.
• The user updates their graphics driver on an operating system that allows graphics drivers to be updated without restarting the system.

Does any of these statements sound like something that could've happened in your situation? 

Sorry to hear that. Would you mind elaborating, so that I could perhaps improve on something?

Oh I see. Thanks for letting me know, I'm glad this got resolved!

I see, thanks.

Can you please post the screenshot of your whole screen, including the game area and all of the console? The screenshot you provided is unfortunately not enough for me to understand the root cause of the problem, as the errors I see there should've not crashed the game.

Hi! Thanks for reporting this!

Does this happen when you press the Itch's red "Run game" button? So, the game doesn't even start? Or you mean the "Have a dream" button in-game? Can you please post a picture of the whole screen?

Also, what's your OS / browser?

Hi! Thanks for reporting this.

If you're on desktop, it would be really helpful if you sent me the logs from your console. You can do it like this:

• before pressing "Run game", open the dev tools (Ctrl + Shift + I in Chrome / Opera / Edge / FF, Option + Command + I in Safari);
• find the "Console" tab;
• try running the game;
• note if there is anything red logged in the console; if there is, send me the text of it (right-click and choose "Save as...", or copy-paste to some *.txt, or just make a screenshot).

I think the player can get stuck if you do this

I really wish you could walk through it instead

Well, actually, now that I think of it properly, it shouldn't be too hard to do this. Maybe not with the prompt for now, I can start by allowing two entities in the same cell (player and item). I'll see what I can do

btw, if you want me to test the game any time let me know.

Oh, thank you for the kind offer, I can certainly use it one day!

I think it would be more obvious if it said "uh oh, you misread something" because it's no longer a probability

My reasoning for not telling this directly was that the character can't tell whether they read the scroll properly or not. The game kinda says "well, shit happened - maybe cause you misread something, maybe cause it was just an ass scroll, who knows". Its the player who should conclude, based on the end result, if the action was a success. But I'll think more about this wording

so the hoarder will eventually be allowed to exist. I think this could change gameplay drastically, so it would be interesting to see the result

That's not 100% decided yet, only a possibility

Here are my outdated abandoned music playlists

Thanks for this, I only listened to a couple of tracks so far, but I like what I hear xD. My goal is to use the music composed specifically for the game in the final version, but to achieve that I have to make a lot of planning to give the composer clear requirements, which I struggle with as I'm not particularly versed in this field. So your playlists are a great sourse of inspiration!

First of all, I am deeply, immensely thankful for your feedback! I started this project with no particular goal in mind, mostly as an excersize for myself, but seeing how it evolved, and knowing there's someone (even if its one person) who likes it - this means a world to me. Thank you!

Now, I'll try to give you some responses.

Introducing concepts that you never really hear in other sexual fantasy media, like the crystals that gets absorbed by your skin that rejuvenate you and allow you to last longer

I can't help but tease a little bit, I have so much more of these things planned xD. It takes a lot of time to add them though, cause while I have the ideas, I'm bad at words (especially in English), so I have a wonderful writer who brings these ideas to life, and it takes a lot of iterations to achieve what I want.

The music choice is great too, it's very happy music sometimes ^^ (maybe hololive bgm?) it can feel awkward when it gets quiet sometimes though.

I can assure you that the final version of the game will have music on all levels. Currently special encounters don't have it, cause I want them to have not just some generic music, but something that matches the atmosphere properly, which again, takes time.

Speedrun strat: Strafing = more speed. Press both right and up and you'll move faster for example.

Technically, the game registers each keystroke separately, so under the hood the character actually moves right first, and then up - so its two turns actually, but usually it will happen quick enough to create an illusion of going diagonally. To really move diagonally in one turn, you can use 1-3-7-9 buttons on NumPad, if you got one, or clicks. Just thought it might be important to note, cause it clutch situations spending extra turn to move might matter.

Using an autoclicker or key macro may be recommended if you find yourself having to move so much your hand hurts.

Autoclickers might suffice as a workaround, but make sure the click rate is not too high, cause if you set it to click like 10 times a second, the game might struggle to process it and freeze (I'll talk more about this later)

Items dissapear when you try to pick them up with your inventory full. If this is intentional, I don't like it. I could had made space for the item instead of having it dissapear

This was intentional, cause in the early stages the game wouldn't let you step on a tile with an item if your inventory is full, and if the item happened to be spawned in a corridor, you could be trapped (unable to go through the corridor). I can see now it was not the greatest solution, so as an alternative, I think about implementing a mechanic that if you're about to step on a tile with an item, and your inventory is full, you would push the item (Sokoban style). So you would see you can't pick it up immediately, and won't lose the chance to do it later.

The quit button doesn't work. This is likely an error on my end

I saw this issue before, and I thought it was fixed... Are you using the latest version of the game? I'll investigate this more.

There's a delay when I press the x in the gallery. It takes a few seconds too long to close.

Hmmm, haven't seen this one before, might be system specific. Will investigate too.

It needs more mechanics and incentives to add replayability and make the runs feel more different.

Definitely. I hope to solve this by adding more items (will be my next focus once I'm done with random encounters).

Better item descriptions

Yeah, probably, will reiterate on those. One note though: the description given to you is based on character's Intelligence stat (e.g. with low Int the character will look at liquid soap bottle and be like "yeah its a bottle", and with higher Int the game will give more details, but still not tell you exactly what it does)

A way to move without having to spam the same key repeteadly may be important health wise, maybe shift+walk?

Yes, you are 100% correct. Sorry for your hand xD. The more I test the game, the clearer I see walking is tiresome. I keep shelving this due to the complexity of the proper implementation for this (I'm not the best programmer in the world, and I might've made some poor decisions when laying down the architecture for the game, which now holds me back). I will still return to this problem, as it definitely requires some solution.

I want more girls for each species. Girls that are recognizable, likable, and have unique behaviors and dialogue. Just like the Yuki Onna or the Succubus

Absolutely, I have more in the works.

Game over scenes, more incentive to lose but also more incentive to win small encounters. This game has gameplay that is engaging, but the sex isn't engaging because you end up seeing a lot of the same encounters and scenes and they all start to look similar

I'm not a fan of game over scenes, cause it gives me two contradicting goals:
(1) I want to progress the story / beat the game, so I should do my best.
(2) I don't want to miss out on content, so I should lose to see the scenes.

I remember playing MGQ and constantly saving before each battle, losing intentionally for the first time to see the scene, then reloading and actually put up a fight. And I didn't like that loop, it broke the tempo of the gameplay.

At the same time, I surely understand that once you opened all the illustrations (which will happen rather quick as there isn't a lot of them at the moment), it will become quite repetitive. I hoped to solve this with extra illustrations that you open with shards in the gallery, and then see in game. There's only one right now, so it doesn't really work, but I've added 9 new illustrations recently (not published yet), and in the final version of the game each girl will have at least 3 illustrations to unlock (not only with shards, but also by meeting certain requerements, like achievements).

Some secrets and easter eggs, a rare combination of things that you can do with the girls that could lead to a different outcome

Sure! There are some already (have you tried reading any spell scroll while being drunk?), and I have more planned.

Would be nice if some of the monster girls were helpful instead of being a threat

Actually, one of the main characters (Kitsune) is gonna be pretty much that, although not exactly. I'll think about this more.

Better visuals for your equipment. Instead of having it in text on the side have it on a window

Yeah, this was brought up by other people too. Long story short, this is a result of my original intent to create "true Rogue-like" experience. I consider changing the UI for this completely, but this has to be thought out carefully and will require a lot of work, so I gave it a lower priority for now.

Being able to have a pet or companion would be a great way to build a story based on a relationship.

One of the ideas I had is when one of the main characters joins hero's harem, or  when their attitude grows to a certain level, they would travel with the hero, acting like a helpful NPC, or maybe you would meet them during your runs more often and they would give you some aid or power you up a bit. Not sure how its gonna work in the end, cause all of these ideas are quite complex, but I'll cook something.

Corruption kink? Getting a character that isn't open to sex to become open to sex. Hypnosis kink? having your body controlled by something else. Illusion kink? Nothing you see is what's actually happening. Space and sci-fi elements, space is weird so it fits in a dream scenario.

I have something in the works for one of these kinks already (won't tell you which one yet xD), and I can see others fitting well into the game too. Thank you for the suggestions! I will explore more territories in the future.

Physical combat. This is a mechanic that is discouraged in the game, but combat can be used to lead to a sexual situation if for example the girl likes it.

Are you reading my mind or what? xD

Allright, I'll give it away: besides goblins and harpies, there will also be orc girls in the desert one day, and they might like it when you're rough with them... But its gonna be more like an exception to the rule, cause I want the main focus of the game to be different.

An android version would be convenient for me.

Currently, browser version should be playable on mobile (although I'm sure there might be issues, please let me know if you find something specific). I can't promise more unfortunately, cause making a proper Android version is a huge commitment.

I don't see a way to use my items against the monster girls.

This is underdeveloped at the moment, but the girls will use the items you give them. So you will be able to give the blindness potion to a cowgirl, for example, she'll drink it and become disoriented for some time. It won't work on everyone though: for example, phoenixes will be smart enough not to drink it. None of this is currently implemented, but I have a huge document where I put all such ideas, and there's a lot of interactions planned. 

By the way, about the restoration scroll. All the spells you cast by reading scrolls can fail. This depends on Int stat too. If that happens, the either the effect will be the opposite of intended (restoration scroll actually damaging you), or just nothing will happen. The game will highlight this with "You probably misread something" message.

An item to increase your inventory.

While this is basically a rudiment from the times when the game was controlled with keyboard only (I was too lazy to implement pagination, so I limited contextual options to 10), during the testing I found out that I enjoy this limitation. It gives you some challenge by making you constantly think "do I really need this?", and as your experience with the game grows, you'll know better which items are actually worth keeping. I also like this as a compromise between realism (giving each item some weight and limiting the max weight you can carry) and game convention (if Doomguy can carry a BFG in his pocket, I can carry these 50 leather shirts no problem).

Anyways, as I said, its not certain, but I might revamp the UI for inventory completely one day, so this limitation will go away.

***

Phew, this turned out to be a hell of a wall of text xD. Just felt like I need to share some thought process and plans. Sorry if I missed something crucial. And thanks again for all your impressions and ideas. This makes me a bit nervous, as it reminds me how much work still lies ahead. But it also makes me excited, cause when I visualize the game in is final form, its damn beautiful xD. So thank you, I will surely not give up, and I'll do my best!

Yes, each form of the phoenix has her own art, so you'll have to unlock them separately.

Your skill is, of course, not a problem, but neither is the spawning mechanism, I believe. This situation could've been avoided if you stood next to the fence. The real problem, in my opinion, is that the game tells you this only when you lost to a cowgirl a couple of times, and only once, which is easy to miss. That's why I will be working on adding more ways to discover this (like the in-game encyclopedia I mentioned before).

Edit: by the way, I really appreciate time and effort you put into giving the feedback, thank you!

For cowgirls, you should have high Appeal (13+). Then, after knocking you down, she will not stomp on you, and will instead do something else.

For phoenixes, you just go ahead and use (S)ex action on her.

Thank you for the kind words! Compliment about writing from someone who is a writer themselves means a lot xD

I'm really happy that the game managed to not only attract, but also keep your attention. I'm sorry for the slow progress - but this pace allows me to keep my daily job and avoid burning out, so it will probably remain the same. But I have a schedule, and according to it, I'm not falling behind xD. I hope to have more contentful updates soon.

Thanks again, your comment made my day xD

I'm kinda against the meta progression, as my intent was that every run should be handled with only the items that you found within this run. I know this can be problematic  right now, so I will dedicate more time to balancing in the future (making current items more powerful (the ring giving only +1 is kinda low), adding more items that either just make you stronger in general, or allow you to deal with certain species of monsters easier)

Hi! Just wanted to let you know, this issue should be fixed now! Although, you'll have to abandon previous run and start a new one, sorry. 

One of the ideas I had in mind is to have an in-game encyclopedia with full details on monsters, items, effects etc., where entries would open naturally as you play, but if you are interested in something particular, you'd be able to open them immediately with some purely symbolic amount of gems.

The gallery, however, will be the main target for spending the dream shards. I know I haven't updated it in a while, but there will be much more content to unlock, and not only images.

I'm also open to suggestions! 

I can understand that - from my limited playtesting, the ghosts might be quite annoying if you haven't found the binding sign. I definitely want to do something with this in the future; the options I'm considering are:

• reducing the total amount of monsters on this level;
• reducing the amount of lymph drained / leaving at least 1 lymph for the hero to not die from it;
• adding more options of dealing with ghosts (in addition to "irritating" them with saying dumb stuff). 

If there is anything else you could suggest, I'll be happy to hear from you. 

Hi! Thank you for this! I managed to reproduce the bug, and am working on a fix. It should be included in the next update.

Hi! Sorry for the delay, holiday season and stuff, only checked the messages now. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the real Mac atm, so I cannot reproduce it myself, and thus will need your help. Have you tried to check the console in a way I described earlier? Also, can you please try running the game in Chrome (or any other browser, if you have one) - does the issue persist there too?

Thanks! Can you please also tell me what browser you're running the game on? And please check if there are any errors logged in the console (Option + Command + I to open dev tools, find the "Console" tab, try reproducing the bug, note if there is anything printed in red).

Hi! Lets start with the Succubus. First, please tell me what is the beginning of the scene (what are the first couple of paragraphs you see after activating the mirror, before you get the freeze). Also, please check the logs - in the same manner as before - and let me know if there are any errors there.

Hi! Just wanted to let you know, that if you were using Opera, then I found an issue with it and deployed the fix, so it might work for you now!

If you were using something else, you can let me know, and I'll try to investigate.

So, seemingly, the issue was in a way how Opera handles the audio files downloading - it refuses to load them if you aren't going to use them immediately. I did a hotfix for Opera specifically, and it should be okay now, but you might experience little delays when certain audio is played for the first time (cause I can't preload it).

Please let me know if it worked, or there are still issues.

Thank you very much for this info! I reproduced this, there is indeed some problem with Opera specifically (for some reason, audio files won't load, which blocks further progress). I'll investigate this and try to come up with a fix soon.

Hi! Can you be more specific please? What exactly is your experience? 

Additionally, as I usually ask, can you please tell me what browser and OS you're trying to run the game on? And if you're on desktop, it would be really helpful if you sent me the logs from your console. You can do it like this:

• before pressing "Run game", open the dev tools (Ctrl + Shift + I in Chrome / Opera / Edge / FF, Option + Command + I in Safari);
• find the "Console" tab;
• try running the game;
• note if there is anything red logged in the console; if there is, send me the text of it (right-click and choose "Save as...", or copy-paste to some *.txt, or just make a screenshot).

Hey! Just wanted to let you know, text animation is now skippable! While its in progress, you can click anywhere on the screen, and the text will be shown instantly.

Just FYI: this bug is now fixed, so the next time you're stuck in the web, defeating Spider by any means, including the scrolls, should correctly remove the web.

Hi! Thanks for reporting this! Lets try to figure out what is happening here.

1. Dumb question, but are you standing directly on the portal?
2. Does the rest of the navigation (1-4, 6-9) work for you?
3. When game fails to go through the portal, does it freeze, or can you continue playing?

I understand the frustration, I'll see what I can do before the next update. By the way, on the "slowest" of the texts (the intro) click already works - although it skips the animation, and I agree that showing the text in full instead would be better.

This is indeed an option, and I'm ashamed I forgot about it xD. Thanks for pointing that out!

Hi! Thanks for reporting this!

This was actually just overlooked from my side. Web removal was implemented as a "reaction" to player's direct action, so when a Spider faints due to spell effect, it is not triggered. This is a bug, and will be fixed in the next update!

In the meanwhile, if you're unable to continue the game, please use the "Erase saved game" button in game's options. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Hey! I've got two news for you!

The worse one: I wasn't able to find exactly what caused the freeze for you, cause the snapshot of a game state that you provided looks good to me.

The better one: I added a way to abandon the current run! You can go to "Options" menu and select "Erase saved game" - and you'll be able to start new run from scratch.

Please let me know if that worked for you! Also, thank you very much for helping me to debug this, as well as suggesting ways to improve the gameplay - I'll do my best to hunt that bug down and implement the changes to keys next month.

Okay, I managed to decode (most of) it this time, but by the looks of it, it seems like you should be able to act.

Can you please tell me which actions have you tried to perform? Just moving, or other actions like talking or fondling too? Could it be that you tried to move, but then got immediately knocked back (animation is not repeated second time), so it would appear as if nothing changed?

Hey! No, the menu should show up automatically, this must be a bug. Please let me know what browser and OS you're trying to run the game on.

Additionally, as I usually ask, if you're on desktop, can you please send me the logs from your console? You can do it like this:

• before pressing "Run game", open the dev tools (Ctrl + Shift + I in Chrome / Opera / Edge / FF, Option + Command + I in Safari);
• find the "Console" tab;
• run the game and proceed to the place where the error occurs;
• note if there is anything red logged in the console; if there is, send me the text of it (right-click and choose "Save as...", or simply copy-paste to some *.txt).

Okay, we're getting close!

Unfortunately, this Google doc won't do - it seems like it applied formatting to it for some reason (the ordered list), and it should've been just one long string. This formatting corrupts the data, and I cannot properly decode it (and if I just remove the numbers, it only parses small part of it and then fails). 

Maybe you can just post in the comment here? My argument about cluttering was kinda dumb, who cares xD. Although, it might apply formatting too...

Other alternative is to save to some .txt file (not .docx) and then upload it somewhere like Google Drive / Dropbox / Mega? Pretty please with sugar on top! Sorry, I know its getting annoying, but I feel like we're almost there

Thanks, this is incredibly helpful!

So, as for the main issue: since there are no errors thrown when you try to move the character, and as you mentioned that you was clicking fast, my main theory is that something went wrong with the game's scheduler. You see, the way it works is this: there are several "actors": you, the player, and the monsters; you all act in turns, and while the monsters are acting, the controls are locked, preventing you from acting at the same time. Normally, once all the monsters are done with their turns, the controls are unlocked, but it seems like it didn't happen for some reason.

I have one more thing to ask from you: can you please go to dev tools one more time, but this time:

1. Open the "Application" tab instead of "Console".
2. In the sidebar on the left, in the "Storage" section, expand the "Local storage" dropdown. There will be a list of domains, one of which is gonna be https://synthoel.itch.io, and another may vary, but it will be something like https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net; we'll need this second one.
3. When you select the domain, it should show you the list of key-value pairs, most of the keys having "net-shag" prefix. Please look for "net-shag:storage-save-game" key; the value will look like a bunch of hieroglyphs - please copy them (you can double-click on the value to select it whole, and then just Ctrl+C), and send them to me (you can use the tools like https://pastebin.com/ to save the text and send me just the link, to avoid cluttering the comments).

I'll then be able to use this save and check the exact game state that you have. I always wanted to add a button to export this more conveniently, but never actually got to it - sorry xD. I'll definitely add it soon!

As for the other issue (the keys): this is something I totally overlooked! The "drop" action will soften it a bit (as you would be able to remove the first item from the stack, and thus the next time you try to use the key, it would use the unbroken one). But I admit that its not convenient at all. There are multiple solutions for this that I can think of:

• if you have several instances of the same item and try to use it, the game should propose you to select which one to use exactly (additionally, for the keys specifically, it should show which of them are broken);
• items with different properties should go to different stacks;
• when the key is broken, it should be just removed from inventory (as there are no application for the broken keys anyways). 

Personally, I would prefer the third option, as it is the easiest to implement xD. But please let me know what do you think about it (how would you prefer this to function), and I will try to have these updates ready in the next month's build!

Hey! Thanks a lot for your comment!

I have a couple of ideas regarding what could've happened there, but as usual, if you could please check the logs and tell me if there are any errors - that would help me immensely (I had an instruction on how to see the logs in my answer to the comment below).

Regarding "Abandon Run" button - it is in my to-do list, and will definitely be there in the final version of the game.

The inability to inspect items that are on the ground is by design - I  don't want to give up too much info about the item before you pick it up, so I think that seeing item's tile is just enough. But as for dropping the items - you're certainly right, its a much needed ability, and you know what? I have just added it this week! It will be available in the next build, which comes out next Sunday.