Hit 96 times. I swear I don't know if I should be happy that I got hit less than 100 times (I was expecting my miss count to be in the hundreds) or be ashamed at myself for calling him a Touhou fan if he can't even command the character to dodge bullets well enough to 1cc even PCB on Easy.

Some nice danmaku patterns you got there. A shame I can't see them.

The mechanic of having to purposely blind yourself was certainly neat and an interesting experiment. I appreciate that you accounted for players just spamming the Z key by having it get progressively more powerful the longer it's held. That said though, I dont see how anyone would ever be able to chip away at the health bars while still competently dodging the bullets. Some tweaking on the acceleration or boss's health might be good.

Also, I really love the creepy factor you added. The abrasive/discordant sound effects, the way the game just crashes on you with that final spellcard. Very nice touchs. 

This game is great! I don't know what I was doing and somehow I managed to clear it! Totally staying truthful to the title XD.

I love not thinking dying when I'm hit! Initially I expected you to lose all your built up energy once you get hit by a bullet while blind, but apparently you can just complete a run by just pressing and holding Z.
The self-blinding mechanic is quite the gimmick. Kudos for finding one more way to bake risk and reward into STG. Though, I kind of wonder how much better it would be if you can still see the enemy Koishi's HP circle deplete in real time when you're blind.

I enjoyed the mechanic alot, there's a risk return element of keeping your eyes closed and trying to remember the positionings on the screen that gets really satisfying as the number continues to rise. There are also cool moments like keeping your eyes closed and streaming towards a part of the screen. 

I would like to see a concept like this fleshed out with more patterns. Something like the photo games where it's all just boss patterns or of the like.

This game is amazing, both as a concept and execution wise. It's so clever, so unique, and so interesting to play. Everyone who likes shmups or Koishi should play this game.

Still, it's not perfect. Some spells are a bit too easy to just cheese by never opening your eyes. I got a two miss clear purely due to luck by just closing my eye. The game could probably be tweaked a bit to prevent this, but maybe the point is that its easy to close your eyes, and painful to see?

Still, jams are more suited for interesting games than perfect ones, so in that sense, this might be the perfect jam game?

I think this is a perfect entry, congratulations. Was absolutely floored by the mechanic once I realized what was going on, and then the way it connects symbolically to the story is amazing. I hope you get the eye tracking working eventually, because that'd make an amazing game even better. Outstanding job.

Probably one of the most interesting and well-balanced applications of the "you can't see around you" gimmick I've ever seen. Two things that I find very nice about this game, gameplay-wise:

• Your attack gets exponentially stronger the longer you "close your eyes". This encourages you to prioritize long and risky bursts of Unseeing-Power over Z-spamming/"rapid blinking", which in turn gets you to learn how attacks work and where you can safely close your eyes for long periods of time to strike. Speaking of which...

• Every attack is balanced around this gimmick - all of them are structured in a way that lets you stay in place for long times and/or gives you clear lanes to weave through even when blinded. For example, Embers of Love has slow-moving heart rockets with predictable reflection behaviours, so you'll always have a small safe zone to stay fixed in at any given time. Claustrophobia is designed in a way that allows you to chain multiple powerful attacks by running to a corner and staying there, and so on.

There are still a few imperfections in the gameplay, though:

• The second nonspell is too tanky (aka has too much health), and is probably the least balanced attack of the game. The first nonspell was fine because the red spiral, in spite of Koishi's random movement, spun in a way that was easy to predict and follow. The spiral here is very unpredictable and doesn't give you much room to safely close your eyes.
• Claustrophobia's vertical walls oscillate a bit weirdly. If you let the spell live long enough, the walls start being pushed further downwards, giving a very clear path to move through at the very top. It's skewed in the player's favour, but still...
• The penultimate spell is my favourite concept-wise, but it's also easily cheeseable. Since the rings of bullets don't spawn around you until you stop attacking, it's possible to just hold Z and instakill the boss before she shoots anything. I highly recommend spawning sparse rings of bullets that get the player to do some dodging before they can attack.

Finally, a comment on the overall presentation: I love the music, I love the TATE/vertical resolution of the game, I love the art. It's a beautiful little game with a fascinating gimmick and a dash of Koishi-flavoured spookiness added to it.

I often find myself unintentionally combining the challenge of playing STGs with the fun of not thinking and the thrill of not looking where I'm going, so it's nice to see a game where that's the canonical way to play!

This is perhaps one of the best quests for a cookie I've half-seen yet! The music was beautiful, and the storyline was as intriguing as ever. I mean, I wouldn't call it an eye-opening experience, per se, bu[collapses on the floor, dead, covered in stab wounds from a half-forgotten source]

The mechanic of dealing damage by being unable to see the bullets was incredibly original, the game ver quite fun even if I couldn't survive the blue cards for the life of me, haha