the story here is quite something. the introduction to the game seems to be leading us towards some sort of pretty classic, finding out your enemies are not so bad, maybe becoming their lover, type story; my expectation from the introduction would have been that i would over the course of the game grow to quite like the witch and her home, and presumably find a new home there and so forth.
and, well, that is definitely not what happened.
at least in the endings i got, the witch came across to me as a pretty bad person (...and ignus probably does as well). i mean, her home is an extremely unsafe place to put a wounded person you supposedly care for with these very lacking instructions. telling someone to "tend to the pit" when simply approaching the pit without knowledge of what it is will result in the 9th ending, is very irresponsible at best.
the 2nd ending (which is the main one i was able to achieve) also shows the witch having a pretty severe disrespect for the player character's agency.
i'm also pretty suspicious of ending 7 and 8 having similar vibes although i have not achieved them myself.
now--of course--i am sure some of this (or all of it) is, you know, kink stuff, this is a horny game of course; perhaps it is, in some fantasies, "better not to think." but for me, for better or worse, all i can do is read the story pretty directly, and for me, the 2nd ending is a horror story (and i imagine most of the other endings are as well).
and to be clear, that's not to say this is bad. only that it makes for a very dark story, which is very legit. perhaps more importantly, it is a story that really does subvert my expectations wholeheartedly, which is kind of cool.
the gameplay is definitely not for me. the fundamental problem with text puzzles / riddles of the sort of "sort the potions" is that there is no real player feedback; you are either right or you are wrong, and there is no way the game can really nudge you towards getting closer to the correct solution short of explicit hints or through brute-force attempts.
the actual complaint i would have is that even the "you are right or you are wrong" feedback is rather difficult to get to in this game. every run requires clicking through screens and screens of dialog even to just leave the initial room. some sort of skip button for each dialog would be extremely appreciated. you could even make the dialogs mandatory the first time you see them and skippable later, given that there is other state tracked across runs (the ending checklist).
for me, the cauldron ingredients are basically impossible to guess even with the botany book picked up. for the last ingredient, the clue, about "amplification," seems to match so closely to Dryad's Kiss, which is "used as an intensifier," while the other two seem to be related to sex and to sleep respectively. i honestly don't see how the clue is supposed to match up to Altharia in any other way than guessing and trying again.
for the potion sorting you mention in the comments that ignus can help with a clue, but i definitely didn't see any dialog options that would help. i'm not gonna lie, i don't think i would ever figure out this puzzle myself (at least without trying the 720 different orderings). for reference, the order that i came up with was: Lover's Kiss, Knocker Gawker, Succubus's Heat, Dance of the Fervored One, Stud X, Angel's Climax. again though: probably a genre issue.
the first time i tried to go to the pit with the bucket i got softlocked--i couldn't exit through the top of the screen or the bottom. i think this is a bug. i did accidentally open some kind of debug menu but it didn't seem to help. (got softlocked again when trying to do a true ending run--i wonder if the softlock has something to do with the order you complete the tasks in?)
anyway, sorry for all the complaining. i do think people who enjoy riddle-type puzzles more will probably get more out of the puzzles. i do think it's maybe worth seeing where the points of confusion are though, which is why i mentioned what i came up with for the puzzles.
i think my favorite part of the game (until the unfortunate softlock) was the walk to the pit. it was very atmospheric, and having an actual long walk in the game definitely sells the depth of the cellar. i would almost prefer it to be even longer, to the point of absurdity.
personally i found the interaction with objects pretty convenient overall. the blue dot system is neat in that it requires your physical presence next to the items you want to interact with while still being pretty flexible. i suppose perhaps a "twin-stick" way to aim the dot could be an improvement, but i think it was pretty good.
despite my complaints about the puzzles, i do actually like the way that it is very easy to get something done for each of the tasks. makes the game feel like it is easier to get started playing, as i don't have to solve every last puzzle to start understanding the story and finding my way around.
one interaction i liked a lot was having the chair be the point of waiting for the witch. it felt like a little mini-puzzle--i see the fireplace, how do i wait for the witch? by relaxing in a chair, of course.
as with some other text entries this jam, i am impressed by the sheer amount of writing here. of course i am no stranger to writing a lot (as evidenced by, uh, the above) but when it comes to storytelling i think it is a lot harder. i know i found myself spending an hour on a couple lines of dialog in my game and so anything with this scale is going to be impressive to me.
despite my emotional distaste for the characters i do like their visual design a lot.
there are a lot of cool visuals in this game. ignus looks cool, and i really like the garden outside.
overall, an impressive amount of writing and a story that i did not see coming. good job!