Oxy you're gonna make me cry hahaha. This is SO wonderful to read. Thank you so much for the time you give. This one was a DOOZY haha.
Thanks for the heads up about the bugs. I think they're fixed in the new update. I think I straight up just... didn't write him giving her the key hahaha. There's were so many different threads and paths and options it was really hard to keep track of what was "done" and if something wasn't done, well good luck finding it it's pages down some conditional branch on some long event page haha.
Yeah I made the music beepbox! I've been practicing and getting better and faster at it. Axel has given me some tips too, like trying out random instruments with Shift+R to just try shit that the engine can make up but would be hard for you to manually adjust the settings to. The spooky sound effects are all sounds I've recorded and then edited. A lot of them are old fog horn type sounds, I used to live near the water.
I really waffled back and forth on balance for this one. There's a balancing aspect that gets really complicated when you allow "healing" of either resource. Like I could write pages and pages about how much I debated to myself about it haha. I agree it's not perfectly balanced, I'll prob keep it as is right now and fiddle with it and add more things to affect her energy / shame. Like napping, or taking pictures (I rly wanted a picture taking mini game but alas haha) some nice self care activities to replenish her energy. The "zone out" skill is there as a kind of "just in case" because it's a jam game and I know it's not perfect. I was worried about accidentally soft locking someone. You could absolutely just use it repeatedly and get all ur energy back but as you said, it's a bit slow and not very fun. Maybe just a little bit on purpose, though.
Really glad you liked the visuals, I love water colors irl and was stoked to find a program/brush that could emulate the pretty well. By the end I was starting to recognize the "pattern" of the brush I was using haha but still very good water color effects for a drawing program.
And yeah you got the story right on! That's exactly it. I really dread the "wall text info dump" and try my best to avoid it. I still think it's a Liiiiittle info dumpy at the end haha. But there's some clues you can find about Dolly and her sister before the final confrontation (you found them in her room) but it's on the list to add more little hints sprinkled in. I'm glad you understood it, I was so worried it's way too outta left field right at the end haha. But I'm glad it resonated.
Thank you again Oxy for the wonderfully kind comment and all the energy you put out there!!