I was already sold on the Tail or Maid pun, but the game is hectic, learn-on-the-job fun and the dialogue is delightfully stupid. And just when I thought there wasn't going to be any conclusion, the final screen explains the whole plot. Brilliant.

Where is the Distortion Matter? I ate those materials. Where is the Raiden Steel? I ate those materials.

Fun game with a good amount of depth! I originally tried crafting everything myself, but not knowing which parts were craftable before clicking to it wasted a lot of time. Eventually I ended up having helpers do all the crafting while I managed the bartering and shopping. Having helpers play the game for you is nice, but a part of me feels left out (especially on the last day when helpers do everything!).

The haniwa scroll bars are silly i love them.

WHY ARE DISTORTION MATERIAL AND JIZO POWDERS SO SCARCE THEY ARE THE RAREST ITEMS IN THE GAME

Pretty cool fun. The crafting mechanic was doable in the first few days but then became basically impossible, and you dont get enough customers to need to do crafting yourself after that point. So I left all the crafting to my haniwas while the rest went into searching. Ordering haniwas to barter seems kinda redundant since bartering takes like 2 negotation clicks and accepting. The main problem with crafting is you have to close the menu to double check what the customers want and you have to scroll the options until you get the right one. If it were a list instead, and it showed you all the current orders on the side when opening the crafting menu, it would make it a whole lot more viable to do it manually.

By the third day, it becomes a pretty fun auto sim where you just have to buy the materials you are lacking and get the orders from the spirits. Spirits do come frequently enough that you cant just stay at the shop menu for too long.

Also, I REALLY appreciate the game letting you choose when to start the work day, letting you get familiar at least a little bit with the UI. For some reason, other games of a similar work management genre immediately throw into the work with a time limit which makes it more overwhelming than it should.

My biggest challenge was honestly that for some reason, distortion matter and jizo powders were disproportionally just more rare than any  other material in the game, despite just being one star (which i assume is rarity?). Broken cds are the same rarity and I still usually had an abundance of them so idk why those 2 specifically were so rare.

The art was pretty wonderful.

(review based on 1.0 jam release)

he he… tail or… maide……..

big fan of this one. the difficulty is harsh but fair, there’s a lot of variety in strategies thanks to the helpers and their modifiers, and the art and music are an absolute treat.

my biggest issue with the game was the lack of direction you get at the beginning - the fundamentals are clear enough, but the importance of prioritizing buying supplies and batering over manual crafting is really unintuitive. this also snowballs into a bigger problem, since the first two days are perfectly doable with mostly manual crafting and no bartering, but the third day becomes a total brick wall without the extra money. i only managed to get back on my feet for the last day, and only figured out what to do in the first place by reading medal’s older review in the comments here.

(also as people have mentioned i really wish you could see the list of ingredients better so that you know what’s missing or low)

that being said, once i DID figure out how to properly play the game, it was honestly really fun! the ingredient list was a little frustrating at times, but the last couple days (when i had my strategies set up) struck the perfect balance of smooth and hectic. it always felt like i had something to do, but it rarely felt like i didn't have the time to do it. strategizing the upgrades was particularly fun. the story wasn’t a huge focus, but the dialogue was enjoyable and gave me that slightly dreamlike feeling old touhou dialogue always gives me. i honestly don’t know how else to describe the feeling, but i swear it’s good.

overall a great time and a great submission, especially considering nearly everything (except the art) was made by one person!

the art is really cute and the game really gave "tailor-made!"  i think the difficulty curve after round 2 (30~40 quota range) was hard, but it was fun finding my way around it with the different helpers.
the haniwa was a really good idea though.

Very punny. Also hot damn this game's presentation got personality!

TLDR: "Crafting" seems kinda useless despite of looking like a main gameplay mechanic. It's hard to tell what materials are in stock. But the game still plays and feels really good, and its presentation is fantastical.

- gameplay notes:

  There were a couple times where I couldn't talk with arriving customers if I was already in front of them when they arrived. (and they all happened to be otters). Stepping away then coming back works though.
  I get that the quota is shown in BIG to convey the objective, but I'd rather have an easier way to tell which materials II have at all times, without needing to scroll. Or better yet a full list of the materials with/as distinct icons, AND ordered by rarity instead of the messier "newest scavenged" first AND still see what materials are in shortage.
That's mostly what made it harder to manually craft, AND keep the inventory stocked.

- balance notes:

  So due to how the gameplay works, going to the crafting tables yourself is not very viable. 
I found that out very soon and went almost the entire game "just" bartering and keeping the inventory stocked (via Takane).
  Makes me wonder if intended or unforeseen consequences, but either way, crafting with your own hands feel useless, in the "why have the option" way
  Despite it all, I could still work my way around and fill the quotas with a couple retries. The progression curve of each day is actually pretty okay.

- other notes:

  The mechanics are simple in concept but have that bit of depth. The preparation screens are interesting enough too. So overall I had fun being a shop manager! 
  The bits of dialogue at the start of the days quenched that bit of fanwork worldbuilding I didn't notice I had. They contain a bit of unhingedness from the earlier Windows Touhou games, which I personally like a lot.

  My favorite part of the game is the handdrawn style which fully brings this home-cooked feeling, and the portraits look very good