itch.io

Thank you so much for this in-depth review! I'm sure you saw my other message by now, but I so adore this review and I want to print it out for a motivational poster or something. And like I mentioned, I'll be talking over the suggestions you made with the team so we can make some changes and also plans moving forward! Thanks again, this was a great and honest review and warmed my heart to read <3

Hey there! Thanks for the kind words, I'm so glad you enjoy our project so far! For right now, breeding potions are only available through purchasing(via Gumroad) or via winning them in a Discord game or contest! Down the road we'll certainly be offering more options since we know it's super limited! Also, we're in the process of getting our Critters working! We'll post an update as soon as they're usable :)

That's so sweet of you, thanks Kailynn!

Hey there! I'm an artist for Figment so I wanted to help give some context and answers.

 So just to be clear, we're in early Alpha development and have had setbacks due to irl issues and of course the current pandemic. And while some 'alpha' games are playable or near-full functionality, right now it's absolutely true that ours is pretty bare bones right now.  But to be clear, the payment is for the exclusive in-game Critter and Human Avatar bundle; the alpha key is an extra we include for free so those without access can join!

The explore, shop, critter cove, and most large features are all currently being written or rewritten after some heavy coding setbacks and absolutely don't reflect the plan or ideas we have in place for the beta/final site.

Otherwise, for now unfortunately things are limited, yes. Every pet breeding and custom are hand drawn by our artists who deserve payment for their hard work, so until we can include advertisement/etc,  so the main way to get these is through real money. However, we frequently give out custom pets, breeding/custom items, and plenty of other goodies through our Discord server and occasionally through our social media pages. We also arrange small in-game events such as our Advent Calendar last December to give out pets, outfits, and other fun stuff.

I'll answer some concerns directly-

>There are dedicated forums, but on them the developers say that they only post updates and answer questions on their Discord. What purpose does the forum solve?

-We don't only answer questions through Discord, but while we work on getting the forums and site itself developed, it's the most active/concentrated area of our community that's also easy to access for anyone. Our website is closed alpha to help limit server strain, so we want to ensure updates are available for everyone interested in Figment, not just those with access to the alpha.

>And to be honest, adding a game to the Racial Justice pack only for it to only be possible to play the game with multiple extra fees seems quite cynical.

-I'm sorry that you feel this way. We're a tiny website in development and simply wanted to show our support for the movement in whatever way we could. There is not and will never be an obligation to pay money to play the final build of our website, that's been emphasized since the beginning. But while we are in early development, unfortunately, our options are quite limited.

>The game is absolutely NOT worth the asking price.

-$5 gets you the exclusive outfit, critter, and game access- plus access to over 1000 other games. It's not for access to the website exclusively; that aspect is simply a bonus given for those without accounts already.

>At least the artwork is good, for what little there is!

-I can assure you that we actually have an absurd amount of artwork, but as we're in Alpha, of course not everything is public or on the site yet.