Thoughts on game play that aren't bug reports go here: frustrations, feature requests, ponderings etc.
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It's currently just an on-off toggle for the hypno effects in combat. So for people who just find them annoying (or if you're trying to get to a certain point quickly for whatever reason), it's an option. Currently it makes the game a bit too easy, as I don't amp up the normal attacks to compensate. But I'll probably look into doing so in the future. Essentially though, it's a tool to let people choose their own playstyle: battlefuck included, or just enjoying the stand-alone scenes.
The tags in the main description cover most of it. It's a hypnosis/mind-fuckery game that's big on playing with loss of power and control, a lot of basic sub/dom stuff. A lot of "humiliation" but not watersports or anything like that, just in the sense of being knocked down a peg, shown your place. I think you could summarize both of these games as "A smug bunny gets taken down a peg, sexually (and struggles not to get addicted to it)."
Just finished the game via the normal combat route, only gameplay gripes i have is the severe RNGness of certain fights, had to save scum several times accross the game in order to preserve items as i perceived it as important to carry items into the next section. most importantly was the stun mechanic paired with submission being 100% rng on whether it completely fucks you over or not.
Oh believe me, RNG is FAR better than it used to be. I say this a lot, but RPGMaker RNG is crazy. You can tell it to pick 1-3, and it'll give you five 1s in a row sometimes. I've had to get used to coding around it. And yeah, stun can be annoying, but it's needed, because without it it's far too easy to steamroll the enemies in the early/mid game. I also have a back-off built in on that so in theory once you've hit 3 battles with stun your third should be guaranteed stun-free.
But I would say in general, if you're managing your items carefully, healing with your skill outside combat etc, you should only have have to save-scum maybe two or three times in a typical playthrough (and sometimes never). And while not wasting items is important, I wouldn't worry TOO much about saving them once you hit the end of mid-game (right around the end of Entertainment District I). There should be plenty for what you need to do.
Reading on some people's posts, I see there's a good notion of difficulty in the game currently. I like how the game's been delightfully challenging to me, I like the fact that whislt It is RNG based, you have a lot of chance of min-maxing your odds(besides losing in a porn game is a good thing lol, so the fact it sometimes happens is good)
I'm just uncomfortable having to save scum, and even cheat in items to do the Hyena fight at the desert, and now contemplating doing so for the final encounters with the many hyenas before the boss-fight.
Now I'm kind of stuck between writing a review on it, or just repeating "Skill Issue" to myself everytime I wimp about it.
I actually tried a item-less fight everyone run on CS:1, and it went well up to clearing the bar fight and fighting the red boars. The game had basic rules, but you could min max a lot(having one enemy alive allows you to spam Focus, a double hit by twirling oak should be followed by an attack to guarantee defeating the enemy, etc...) and those where hella fun.
Now with stamina regen after fight, it feels less exploitable but also like a timed battle, since Lust works differently now(cool concept btw!)
So this isn't any particular suggestion, just me saying I'm having a skill issue, and that if anyone else is having an item drought, maybe you could consider adding chests before hard encounters. I play the game fighting ALL enemies, so take that into consideration(Probably not what you're balancing around)
I just like the combat an unhealthy lot lol
It's definitely and deliberately structured differently. The hyenas are weaker than the boars, but also lighter on their feet. As a consequence, the battles, and the hypno, are designed to hit weaker, but also much faster. Fights in CS1 were this long, dragged out thing. Whereas in GT, they go by pretty fast, and the hypno, while a little longer in some ways, is designed to really only happen once per battle, if it happens at all. Even the attack animations are edited to come in faster.
The consequence of all of this is that it's a little more light and airy: you can go from group to group, sometimes three at a time if you're feeling risky, without recharging in the early game. But because it moves so fast, you also REALLY have to know what you're doing with items and health management, because there isn't as much margin for error. It'd still call it far from punishing (I'm assuming you know about the heal ability outside of battle), and not so much save scumming most of the time as just proper resource management. Once you get the one-two-three punch of Hard Knocks, recharge and basic attack honed a lot of it is actually pretty easy. But again, fast means that everything tends to be resolved quickly, whether in your favor, or not.
I should also clarify that using items in battle is in no way "cheating," the system is very much built with the assumption that you'll be using full heals to buy yourself time in certain situations. Is winning possible without doing so? Sure, but that WILL take a lot of save scumming, as the balance wasn't designed with that in mind.
I imagine, with me desiring to play the game the way I want, I have to git gud
Thanks for being so mindful and writing replies! I'll be sure to comment if I get anything objective and constructive to add on it, I'm not playing Gutter Trash only once!
And to also clarify, the "itemless" comment was a challenge I did in CS:1, so not anything I'm arguing about, but yes, the game was not at all balanced around it - It was fun thought.
Is there some way to help the like, "gone" status effects? Ive been trying to get it down from Slipping because Im nearing a part of the game where it seems to have become almost impossible to avoid going under submission, which Im fine with, but the problem is Im current at Slipping status and I can't get rid of it.
Wait, to clarify, is an effect persisting after battle and into the next? Because that absolutely shouldn't be happening. If you're just talking about avoiding going under the hypno during a fight though:
A little tip first: you can actually get the exact name of a status effect and what it does by hovering over it. They have tool tips now! I think you're talking about the "Open" one, the purple silhouette icon when submission gets to 100. There is indeed a way of dealing with it. Two ways actually. One is just to manage time: deal with the enemies before they can cycle you in. The other involves a special item. To find it, pay attention to the graffiti.
Nope. I left it on the sprite sheets just in case, but if "flash dodge" does show up, report it, because that's a bug. I know it's slightly immersion-breaking, but the idea I'm working with now is that he has a different extra skill each chapter that's limited to that chapter. Just one of those arbitrary gating things for the sake of gameplay, like losing your weapons at a certain point in an FPS. Plus trying to balance around an ever-increasing list of special abilities would be a nightmare. Ordinary combat + sex combat + ONE special is as much as I want to contend with.
Seeing how this game is much less forgiving than the last Mezz really needs either a different or accompanying initial attack ability that lets the player to attack specific targets with at least comparable amount of effectiveness to the random hits. Trying to save the Hard Times had to restart over a dozen times for each trainer fight just to get the RNG to line up and prevent a submission, which are so rare as to practically needed to be saved for specific fights 1-1. It is a good thing that you provide so many moderate heals and max out TP after fights because you need to clear you need at least 180 TP for three Hard Knocks to have a chance to get out without a submission for just the regular fights, but that chance isn't very high and you'll need a Hard Times to get through the ones with stun. All of this combined with Hard times also being RNG makes the game far too luck-based in my opinion.
Also, on the first playthrough ended up getting soft-locked due to reaching the final mob fight on a final submission and lacking a Hard Times. With that in mind I'm curious what fights you designed to have the Hard Times in mind for, and the rate of submission stacks the player is expected to go through.
Lot to parse here, so forgive me if I miss or gloss over something. In general, you should have quite a few opportunities to use Hard Times if you're saving it for ambushes and the big fights at the end. And those are exactly where it's needed, and should be used.
I should say that in the normal, middle-of-the-road fighting style for this chapter, you should expect some battlesex to happen. The goal isn't to avoid it, so much as to prevent it from backing you into a corner and forcing a loss. If you want to try to style and avoid it you can of course, but the balance, especially in the later game, isn't designed with that in mind, so it's going to be challenging. I can re-play the last three fights with hypno stuff on again eventually just to test, but from memory it shouldn't take more than one or two reloads to get past them if you're saving after each, and that's just if you're unlucky.
And that soft lock on the final 3 fights when lacking the special Dazzle for Hard Times is intentional. Right now it's just a bit frustrating, but eventually it will end up forcing players who screwed up their item management to go the host club route instead.
Thank you for responding, I will address each paragraph in turn. To begin, would you be more specific? There are after all more Hard Times than there are ambushes, so do you mean to say than one should be used for any particular encounters? Seeing as one of the big fights is just a trainer fight is that a situation where Hard Times is intended to be used, since if so in my initial playthrough I did use one for each ambush and those fights. Though further elaboration leads into the next paragraph.
You cannot prevent it from backing you into a corner and forcing a loss if you cannot avoid it. This is why I was asking specifically for the "rate" you expect the player to go through. I would absolutely recommend playing the way the player does. To break down the combat from my experience:
1) For standard encounters you have one turn before they start building up submission (sub). If you defeat none that means they can catch you as early as that turn, but that is not usual. If you have 180 TP for three Hard Knocks there will most likely be one or two sub triggers on you, but the enemy will be down to one injured, and you can defeat them before they provoke a serve. If you can only afford two Hard Knocks (or miss multiple times with three) then one or two will survive and they will provoke a serve during your Focus or the following turn.
1.5) Either two or three standard fights are hard-coded to cause a stun on the beginning of your second turn, or its on some sort of invisible encounter timer. Didn't experiment much so don't know. Importantly its on "your" turn, interrupting your attack while all the enemies go as normal, and you take two turns to recover so that's three turns the enemy can do as they please, and since its the second turn that's when they begin building submission. Fortunately they can't hypno you even at 100 as long as you're stunned, but since you use a turn to lose daze they can just hypno you immediately following and provoke a serve. Either you use a Hard Times and take out one or two while you can, or you take the L.
2) Strikers, easiest to deal with since two basic mobs can't usually build submission faster than you can clear the encounter even with the Guard delays. Ideally you take out the basics since the striker never builds up.
3) Trainers. If you do not defeat the trainer on your second turn you will be made to serve. This requires hitting four hits (3/1, 1/3, 2/2) which is at a guess and incredibly low percentage chance. Hard Times reduces the odds considerably, but since that can miss-target or just plain miss as well it's not a guarantee.
4) Ambush. You will need a Hard Times to avoid serving, but from what I've experienced it's mostly safe after that as the subsequent Hard Knocks will take out enemies easily.
5) The final mob fight. If you do not have Hard Times it will be difficult to beat serving or otherwise, if its even possible (untested on my part). I used my Hard Times on the trainers and forgot to collect the one in the fridge so I was one short, though that wouldn't have helped much because...To avoid serving if you have one Hard Times you will need to reset many times since you absolutely need to defeat one of the strikers the first turn, low odds even with the extra attacks due to the extra spread. The strikers cannot do their combo a second time or it will be two late and Hard Knocks is too unlikely to finish them in the one turn you have to attack. With two a second Hard Times can decimate them.
6) Final boss. If you have somehow saved two Hard Times as I did through liberal resets then you can beat the boss without the musk item. It's possible that the final boss functions by HP thresholds so save your Hard Times until you hit 50-75% to maximize their value. With only one the musk item was used, but it came down to the wire.
Theoretically it would be possible to calculate exactly how many defeats the player will on average take based on mobs, but that does sound like a hassle. I wouldn't say it's excessive much since I was only on my second sub defeat in the soft lock.
Do you mean to say that regardless of my submission stacks it would have resulted in an instant defeat? If so I would say that's just going to far. You say its for players who "screwed up their item management", but from my experience it only takes a single mistake, which is a mistake the player has no way of knowing to avoid. I can go through the first game reliably without being defeated once. Conserving Hard Times I cannot see going through this without liberal resets and/or being pushed to the absolute brink, so even with item management the room for error is practically binary.
Hard times is most useful, and is most intended for use, with the ambush in Ent. Dist. I and the three fights in the gauntlet of Ent. Dist. III. If you have any left over, you can obviously use it as you like.
You should always go into a fight with full HP and Energy. Doing otherwise is risky. Having done that, it's all about crowd management and speed. It's a race to see who can get there first: you to eliminating the hyenas, or them to getting you under. If you fire off Hard Knocks until you run out, then use your single attack to pick of stragglers quickly, you should usually be able to eliminate a group of three before they get you under. Not always! But 80-90% of the time. The Dazzle stun (not the item) messes with this, and sometimes you get bad RNG. But it usually works fairly well.
The dazzle stun hard-coding is actually reverse: They're just prevented from using it until the second turn. After that, they use it whenever RNG dictates. They're also forced to use it at least once every five battles, and forced NOT to use it after 3 battles they have used it in, to guarantee some kind of relief from bad RNG.
So let's take one example, going off yours:
First turn, no daze, you get in a Hard Knocks. None down, but several weakened.
Second turn, daze. they get you up to 100 sub while you're stuck.
You come out of it. You do another Hard Knocks. Most of the time, this will take down AT LEAST ONE, often two of the three. Let's say you're unlucky and there are still two standing.
Could those two go 1. Open status 2. Hypno ? Sure, but that's unlucky RNG and it's not guaranteed. There's at least a 50% chance that they WON'T perfectly line up their moves like that.
Let's say they go Open, and the other whiffs with a regular attack. You can now unload with your last Hard Knocks, which has a good chance of taking them both out. If you only get one, can he now take advantage of open and pull you into hypno? Sure, but again, not guaranteed.
The general take-away here is that yes, some of this is dependent on RNG. That's intentional: there's supposed to be a certain amount of unexpected and uncontrollable risk. Sometimes you're just screwed (heh). But if played right, you should be able to mitigate the damage a lot. The overall goal for Ent. Dist I was that a player, trying moderately hard, should be able to get to the end with only one defeat (ie going back to the plaza). Trying a bit harder, that player should be able to get all the way through without any defeats, though this will require a few re-tries from saves. And in my playtest this seemed to be roughly the case.
Bottom line: you shouldn't NEED a Hard Times anywhere but the ambushes and final gauntlet, but since you have extra, you certainly can use it as a get out of jail free card to avoid having to savescum a particularly unlucky battle.
I will admit the Trainer mobs are a bit spooky, and if I was in a hurry that's probably where I'd use my extra Hard Times. Try legit, and if damage isn't happening fast enough, just say fuck it.
Using Hard Times on the boss is unintentional, and I'll probably gate off Dazzle Blast from that fight eventually.
Again, I think we may be defining "loss" differently: I mean actual defeat. You can go through a sub cycle and still win the fight. After...four cycles I believe THEN you lose, but unless you're really slacking it shouldn't get that bad too often. You seem really intent on avoiding hypno in battle altogether, in which case either use the charm, or the keys (italics to make this stand out in the sea of text, not to be snarky).
I don't entirely follow what you're saying in the last paragraph. What I was saying was that when the player comes to the final gauntlet, they'll need at LEAST one dazzle blast for Hard Times, ideally more. With one, it's possible but tricky. Without at least one, I'm doubtful it's possible. But there are MANY Dazzle blasts, and only one fight that you absolutely, 100 MUST use them on. I've won the ambush fight without using them (though it's a pain in the ass). So if the player comes to the final three fights and they have ZERO dazzle blast, they fucked up somewhere.
Overall, I feel like SOMETHING in your overall strategy is missing, though I'm not sure what, and I wish I could be more helpful. I've played through Ent Dist I multiple times from beginning to end with this play mode (regular fights with hypno), and while I did have to reload a few times (Maybe four or five overall?) it certainly wasn't to an infuriating degree. I don't just trust my own experience of course, but I'd expect my beta testers to give me an earful if it was as punishing as you're experiencing, and I didn't really hear anything. My general concern with that section was actually that it was a bit too easy, which is why the dazzle/daze ability exists.
Sorry I can't be more helpful though. I will make a note of all this, as one more data point, and if similar complaints come in I'll certainly consider reworking the balancing.
Galleries are soo good
I personally prefer saves since they put me in the moment
but a gallery allows to :
-Know which scene, which part of the content, you haven't discovered yet
-Being able to relax on the saves since you can see a scene without having to be concerned about saving before it happens ( Even though you don't know when will it happen)
-They can also serve as mini-guides inside the game instead of having to search a guide outside the game
But they can be kind of tricky in some aspect and we don't want to burden the Dev more than he is already with the first week patches/bug fixes.
wa
Save slots are just a hard cap from RPGMaker unfortunately. Keep in mind though that your saves are just files in the save folder: in theory there's nothing keeping you from copying them to a second folder, clearing the main one out and starting a new set. Bit of a hassle, but may help for some.
As for a gallery: a lot of people have expressed interest in it. What I did with the previous game to help a little was to publish a scene guide, so you could have some sense of what you had missed and how to get there if you weren't sure. I just haven't been able to settle on a way to do a gallery I'm happy with. Putting an option on the main menu requires an edit of it, and is universal rather than being save-specific. I could give an item that transports you to a room that lets you select scenes via interactible objects, this is how most RPG Maker games seem to do it. But I've never really liked the feel of that. I'm someone who cares so much about detail that I made sure the special stats in your status menu get crossed out during one of the bad ends for consistency. I don't like having an arbitrary meta item hanging out in the inventory.
At this point enough people have asked for it that I'm gradually coming to terms with the fact It'll have to happen eventually. Probably not until much later though, when all the intended scenes are finally in the game. Maybe I'll have some kind of intricate "secret" interaction code to unlock the item (that I'll share here of course), so you only get it if you deliberately seek it out.
Stealth Mode = Slut Mode, and once you're in you're in on that save. No way out but through! This is assuming of course that you arrived there the intended way (losing to the mobs 3 times). If you ended up there some other way, that's a bug, so let me know. Also "stealth mode", ie trying to sneak around the hyenas, is only a thing in Ent. District I. If you're having trouble interacting after that, again, bug, let me know.
Bought it to support you in your future endeavors as there's a lot of care and detail that's gone into this.
For some reason I decided to play a game like this with sound on and was caught off guard by the attention to the choices in sound and design you've had whilst making it, and there's quite a few royalty-free tunes that's had me searching them up online, especially that one in the pre-boss area as it reminds of an artist I love - and considering the millions of songs you've trawled through you've found a good few gems, and even the sound effects are tame, fitting and unobtrusive - like the quick clicks, which are a nice touch - unlike other games of this ilk which feel it necessary to drown you with mayonnaise fisting sounds.
The writing this time around is also a lot better, and some of the scenes are written gorgeously, showing a marked improvement since Chapter 1, with the intricacies of certain kinks being really well done, keeping the scene close and intimate without delving straight into hentai brain. The depth and character to the world adds much more than you might expect to some too, to even the point where I was making sure I'd closed the door to the hideaway behind me so nothing bad happened to Scratch - and there's enough depth there to keep me looking for scenes in weird locations or odd predicaments because little things seem to hide around every corner, or at least produce opportunities for them..
There's one scene in particular that caught me by surprise, as I imagine it will a lot of other players (and Mezz), and it was fantastic. I hope for more scenes like that in the future as my primary complaint is that a lot of scenes end too quickly. Bad endings end too quickly, and you show a talent for drawing out a scene and a kink with a refreshingly renewed vigor every moment after the last, which makes a shame to have certain moments end prematurely... Slut mode only being slutty with enemies feels like a missed opportunity too. Coming out the VHS store after your third attempt and not wanting to get friendly with someone friendly seems like a missed chance, even if it's a quick flash of a black screen and a quick cut in of freshly "painted" picture - and in certain scenes it's a shame that someone isn't giving Mezz a good reason to shut up too.. The change in Mezz's sprites to be a little darker as his eyes grow greener is a nice little touch too; that inner brainwashing creeping in is such a good feature for slut mode, and the subtle moments of losing control, like when Mezz leaves the store, not the player - those are awesome details, the player losing control of Mezz just as he is of himself.
I don't think my crystal worked, but it's just going to give me a reason to replay the game as I'm curious to see what that scene is; I saw the hidden one with Mahir and wasn't sure that was it, though when someone inevitably compiles a guide to all the scenes I'm sure to be amazed at the things I've missed.
Thanks for the in-depth feedback, I always appreciate people taking the time relate details like this.
Really glad to hear you enjoyed the music. English sites for this stuff are universally terrible (sorry Kevin MacLeod). They all SOUND like royalty free stock music, painfully so, and they lack so much soul. Luckily I've been able to source a bunch of non-english sites, and the difference is dramatic. It's still not perfect; you are working with stock stuff at the end of the day, and occasionally you just have to settle for something that's good enough. But I've been really happy with most of what I've been able to find.
Similar thoughts on the SFX, though freesound is actually pretty good if you're able to do some basic edits and mixing. The choice to not have any "sex" sounds is mostly a deliberate one. VAs were completely unaffordable and not worth the hassle of course, but it's kind of a "Freeman doesn't talk" thing. I enjoy these kinds of games better without any voiced lines. And the actual sex sounds...experiments were done, but I just wasn't happy with any of it. It ends up taking you out of it more than adding anything. Sometimes imagination is better. I AM very happy with those slaps though.
I had to laugh at the comment on the writing, because to my mind it's about the same, maybe even worse in some areas because there was so MUCH of it to do. But that's just it: there is a lot, and maybe that gives the player a better sense of what I'm going for overall, or gives the writing more of a chance to shine. This isn't grand literature for the ages, but a lot like the sound and music I want something that enhances the experience and doesn't get in the way of it. Also writing is the "cheapest" of all the assets, time and effort-wise for me. Just sit down and type for a while.
"to even the point where I was making sure I'd closed the door to the hideaway behind me so nothing bad happened to Scratch"
Ha! Glad I'm not the only one. I considered tying something to that, but I haven't. YET.
"there's enough depth there to keep me looking for scenes in weird locations or odd predicaments because little things seem to hide around every corner, or at least produce opportunities for them."
So good to hear this. That's exactly what I'm going for. The Japanese games that inspired this always amazed me with all the little bits and side bits and side bits of side bits spiraling out of each other. I love the moments were I'd see a thumbnail for a scene, go "wait, where the hell was that?", check the guide and it would be this fucking arcane series of events that led to it. You'd constantly stumble on to little thing in a corner that you could have easily missed. Never essential, but just neat. And it struck me that a lot of those were fairly "cheap" art-asset-wise but added so much to the fun and life of a game.
That said, there is a limit to just how far out that spiral can go, especially when you're actually drawing scenes. So I have to be very deliberate on where I want to invest that art "budget", not of money, but time and effort. There are many, MANY possibilities, but they get pared down, and down, and down. And I think some of that's healthy anyway; restriction leads to better focus and helps weed out the chaff. BUT as I've said, I do definitely plan on filling out the content a bit as we go forward. Estimates are hard, but I'd say I have somewhere between 75% and 50% of the content I ultimately want to have in the game (just talking GT).
Mmm, no scene with Mahir yet, though there's an obvious slot for one, and it's definitely on the list.
Going through the hypno cycle...four times I believe is a full down/defeat. To avoid that, avoid going through the cycle so many times. The keys can help, or just some care and the occasional save scum. The kind of "average" playthrough of Ent Dist I is that you end up full losing once, but it's certainly possible to avoid that.
There is a lot about this game I love, and its hard not to, I get to play as a rabbit protagonist and there's hypnosis? Talk about target audience here. I only have two main gripes; The Tape Recorder, I was given little hint as to how I was meant to use this even when I found the gate and was under the impression I had to find a hyena to record a specific passphrase but there's none of them to talk to in the alleyway (I was expecting an NPC like in the second entertainment district who gives you a small quest to fetch anklet pieces), this might just be an issue for the current version because I rarely talk to NPCs twice thinking I've heard all they had to say. I did eventually figure it out. A lesser complaint is I struggled to find where I was meant to go with the hotel and to scratch, I managed to completely miss the bar sign even though I had read that Mezz wanted a drink. This did lead me to the homeless who explained you can read graffiti, so I can't complain too much about it as I was rewarded for my exploration.
The other is the stealth segment or 'catch and release' as it could be called. It is fantastic, and it was entertaining learning enemy patrol patterns; my only issue is that it is impossible to evade them, and its only available in the 'lust mode' of the game. I'd love to see it be a bit more prevalent, it took me back to the days of playing MGS1. I know Mezz wants to carve a path of wanton destruction through the gangs, I'd just like to pick and choose or sneak by the patrols I want.
There really is so much I like about this game, that I'm struggling to nail down what I'd even want to say first. That if you chose to not fight Mahir, he sends you to the porn shop. That scene and how you handled it, by fading to black and then picking up the horrifying details of what happened? Masterful. It really did sell me on it and convinced me the game was worth the ten dollars just for that alone. Everything else was just extra icing, especially the sheer amount of varied dialogue the hyenas have. They seemed to always have something new to say. There's also the variety in hypnosis themes from petrification and public humiliation in one tight package, to the harder naunces of having that Jerkyl and Hyde personalities complete with Ego Death. I love that you gave it the weight to it as a bad end, with description to the inner turmoil as Mezz's sense of self deteriorates. It's not for everyone, people I've learnt get a bit leary around hypnosis as a kink, especially squickened by the harder themes. But its so cool seeing something like this so brazenly and unapologetically out there. Cruel Serenade is a treasure trove to me.
Currently, my only real wish is for more enemy variety, like hyenas that dress even more obnoxiously or have other basic attacks besides double swipe. For the first half of the game, combat does feel repetitive at the moment where the only difference is the number of hyenas you face and having to adjust tactics accordingly.
Thanks for the feedback!
Puzzles are always tricky, because there's always going to be a range of skill, and ways people think about things. I'm not too worried, because you're the first so far to have trouble with recorder, and you did figure it out eventually. But I'll keep it in mind if others bring it up.
Glad you enjoyed the stealth bits! I could have gone really ham on making those elaborate, but I didn't want to burn TOO much time. I settled on something I felt was a reasonable challenge without being absurdly complicated, but I have worried it may be a bit too simple. Glad it was fun for you.
I am pretty proud of how the porn shop stuff ended up. I generally think of a framing, and a scene, and then have to work out the details afterwards as to how I'm actually going to ramp into and out of the scenes. I was pretty smug when that setup occurred to me.
"my only real wish is for more enemy variety, like hyenas that dress even more obnoxiously..."
What, mustard-yellow shirts aren't obnoxious enough for you?
But yes, it is somewhat limited. I was able to expand variety a bit from 1, but it's always going to be somewhat limited, because each new enemy means a new standee, and each new TYPE means a whole fresh slot on the sprite sheet. Compound this with the fact that because of the way I'm doing things narratively I (mostly) can't reuse enemies from earlier games and have to start fresh each time, and the time budget for them is somewhat limited. "Clients" (the dobermans) were originally intended as a sort of enemy type, and I still have the center path to develop. We'll see. But combat will probably never be super fancy in these games: the aim is just to have enough to grant some challenge and give risk for the scenario to hang on.
Again, thanks for taking the time to lay out your thoughts. And for buying the game!