Spoiler Warning ahead; if you haven't finished the game yet, go back and do so! It's absolutely peak. Anyone else, potential rambling warning.
Alright, I've been playing this every night for 4 or 5 days or so since I found it, and finally beat week 3. I LOVE IT. The gameplay loop of making potions is really enjoyable, and I don't really feel like there's ever too much stuff to remember. The characters are super cute and fun to interact with. Based on the gameplay (and the name) I assume there's inspiration from Papers, Please? It gives me a lot of the same vibes as that game, but the fantasy setting makes it more enjoyable in my eyes.
Even in alpha, the game feels pretty polished already, barring a few of what I assume are placeholder sprites for monsters. I really like the extra dialogue sections for niche item interactions that aren't required, but could be potential alternative solutions. I pretty much never felt like I was being overwhelmed or like I was being blindsided by a super niche rule. The two things that kind of stick out are exact tones for black/grey vs brown for the dungeon gear and whether a breast size is flat or just slightly smaller than average, but I don't really have issues with either now that I've played a little more. The use of item puzzles is fun too; I love seeing a potential problem like an annoying thief or vampire early or witnessing a major curse and then finding an item or method to deal with them. The items are a nice reminder that this game IS still a point and click puzzler but without most of the annoying "random item combo goes onto one specific hidden pixel in a specific room with no indication" interactions that can plague the genre. Every item usage feels planned out and well orchestrated in some form or another and it's genuinely refreshing to see after playing a lot of other puzzle games.
While I do enjoy a nice swig of horny juice (as evidenced by me finding this game), I wouldn't normally say I'm a fan of a lot of the fetishes in this game, like hyper expansion or bimboification. That being said, this game kept me captivated over these past few days because of just how dang FUN it is! I failed a few levels (notably level 19) several times, but I just kept trying and doing each level over again to get a better idea of every potion. Every gold tip, potion variant, rule change, or item trade felt really rewarding, and nothing felt too badly paced.
I do have a few final thoughts, but regardless of if any of them are considered, I'm so glad you made this game! You don't need to do anything with these ideas, but they've been on my mind. Also, I know the recent NSFW deindexing stuff has been... not great for game makers of this type, and having seen the ending I really hope that you're doing alright following that. Ok for real here's my last thoughts:
I think the claw stuff is pretty fun, but the item grabbing feature is a little jank with what happens when you grab normal items with the claw: it grabs from the head, but then the item interaction stuff moves to the cursor?
The Hag Stone is really nice to have, but there's a few times it feels like it should go off and just doesn't; notably, the two statues don't seem to be detected by it? I get that it would be weird to have the constant glow, but maybe give it like a little constant shimmer if someone is far away (statue distance) and a larger glimmer when the main adventurer is close?
Please let me step on/off the stool or crouch up/down; maybe after someone reminds you about it? An option to brew your own personal goblin potion to enable that mode on yourself would also be nice, but mainly I just wanna see with my cool new arcane-eye-on-a-stick.
Would it be possible to enable the titles on earlier levels, either through some sort of New Game Plus mode with time shenanigans or like a hidden toggle unlocked after the first unlock or something? I assume there'd probably be a bunch of extra work to add changing titles to the earlier characters and stuff, but it would be pretty cool to see how people are perceived pre-Shortstack potion.
Finally, are there any plans to make a Discord server or something similar? I'd love to discuss this game with other people!
Alright, thank you anyone who read this far. I've been captivated by this game and I felt like I needed to get it all out before it disappeared into the ephemeral void of "Games tagged NSFW." I look forward to the future of this game, and wish you the best of luck in whatever your prospects are!
“not my kink but still had a lot of fun” is pretty darn high praise! Delighted you’re enjoying so much, and thank you for taking the effort to express that to me! Glad you’re having so much fun with the puzzles and the main loop! Means a lot.
Put a lot of energy into setting up what I hope were big “ah-HA!” moments for players.
A lot of the suggestions you’ve given are things I have debated implementing, but have not either for my own technical limitations, or because they’d interfere with later puzzles.
No plans for a discord, I’m afraid. I do not have the time to moderate such.
I can promise you that since you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen thus far, you’re going to enjoy what’s in store next!