itch.io

(Also copy/pasted from the jam page cos it would be a bit weird if I responded to this differently here xD) 

Holy moly, thanks so much for taking the time to write up such a detailed review/feedback! I massively appreciate that :3 I thought I was writing a lot in what I was typing, but you've definitely done waaaay better than me, haha. Reading what you've written, I feel like maybe I should've expanded more on my thoughts on each story I've read so far! Cos I feel like I've been too brief with just summarising >.<

Anyways, *high five* for the Saw love :D Hope you get to see the new one if you want to to! I was planning to this week but I've been too busy and exhausted, so hoping to catch it next week instead :3

I guess I better say everything else under spoilers x3

Ahoy there! There be spoilers below!!! 

I know what you mean about content warnings cos I'm generally unphased by most things in the content I consume x3 It's very hard to upset or disturb me because I've consumed so much horror throughout my life that I'm pretty desensitised! That one was one I was worried about when thinking of players though, and as a player myself, if a game gave me a choice to do that, I wouldn't pick it, I would also kill a human character before an animal one if it came down to it xD Tbh, I had the same reaction when I first saw the finished sprite for bloody-mouthed Sorbet x3 LPB made her such a cute kitty, haha.

That's so cool that you figured out the names were anagrams! <3 But yeeeah, hangman as a minigame was one of the victims of the scope knife xD Fem voices almost were too because I wasn't anticipating having to cut all the voice audio and add fx myself this time since we were hoping to have my best friend's sister join us for all things audio-editing and SFX design, but she got ill for the month, so, sadly, that didn't happen. It was definitely a struggle to deal with, but I'm glad I still managed to get it in there in time for the jam deadline cos it would've been extremely unfair to the VAs if I hadn't :(

So glad you had fun with Simon Says at least :3 I'm not really a lover of minigames or puzzles myself x3 so it's always really difficult to know if I've done stuff like that justice as a dev when I dislike it as a player, haha. I really wanted to try and include something like that though just to attempt to add more jeopardy to Linnet's escape!

That sucks so badly that you couldn't get past the eventual relaunch though :( It sounds horrible to say, but I hope it was cos your computer is clunky and old xD Just because I tested it on my PC and my potato laptop, and most of the team have played it by this point too, and none of us had an issue getting it to work, so if it is a problem with the game, I imagine it'll be a nightmare to try and figure out the cause and fix it T_T

More than that though, I wish Unity wasn't so slow on older systems >.< because I'm guessing that's what the issue is :( I don't suppose you remember if it took a while to launch the game the very first time you started it up? And if you experienced kinda long load times at the points where there were loading screens? Aaaand, when you tried to relaunch and got a black screen, how long did you wait until giving up on it?

You don't have to answer that btw cos I imagine you're probably busy! I thought I would ask just to see if it's maybe the same problem I had when I tested it on my potato laptop x3 Basically, on my half-decent PC that I made the game on, startup only takes about 3 seconds whether it's first time or relaunching for story purposes, and load times are around 5-10 seconds on loading screens.

BUT

On my potato laptop, it's a different story >.< Startup takes around 30 seconds, loading times on load screens take between 33-45 seconds :( And relaunches for story purposes take between 30-50 seconds on a black screen like you mentioned T_T

It all loads eventually, but it's so, so SLOW, haha. I get the splash screen come up pretty fast on the potato, but then it stays on a black screen for ages before everything actually kicks in. It would be interesting to know if it would have eventually loaded on yours after a considerable amount of time like it does on my potato, or if your computer just straight up says nope and nothing will ever happen no matter how long you wait >.< Cos I firmly believe my potato is more potato-y than other people's potatos xD The stupid thing takes around 15 minutes to actually boot up from sleep or shut down, haha. So I kinda use that as a way of thinking, well, if it works on this awful thing, surely it'll work on anything x3

It's an issue I've noticed with everything I've ever made using Naninovel/Unity :( And when I've asked about it to try and improve performance on potato systems, I've never gotten further than the answer 'It's just Unity' >.< Which is beyond frustrating, haha. It makes Ren'Py seem vastly superior because games made using that run much more smoothly on my potato (unless they include animation like blinking/lip flaps and stuff, in which case, my potato just freezes up and dies xD)

But yeah, it's especially irritating in the case of this project because only 1 of the 5 endings can be reached without relaunch >.< I suppose while I'm asking questions, I should probably ask which ending branch you were on? Just to make sure it was one of the intentional crashes you reached and not a random unintentional one that we somehow missed in testing x3 Again though, please don't feel as though you have to answer!

Anyways, I'm glad it didn't spoil it for you at least x3 It is still really annoying though that I can't seem to find a way to improve performance in any of my Naninovel games :( Funnily enough, I had the same issue with my older Tyranobuilder ones too! My first game took something like over a minute to launch on my potato laptop o.O And I always try my best to optimise assets, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to overall performance, just total download size >.<

What confuses me even more is that, with Tunnel Vision for example, on my potato, once things have eventually loaded, everything runs really smoothly, like no lag on button presses or with transitions and stuff like I get when I try to play some Ren'Py made games on it, but those launch and load times with my Naninovel made projects are beyond horrific instead T_T

I'm sure Philip will be over the moon to hear your thoughts on his voice acting if he reads this :D And same goes for LPB for the fact that you pointed out the colour palette cos she had a very specific vision for the artistic direction of stuff :3

I'm also a happy bunny to hear you enjoyed the soundtrack ^-^ I actually love making music more than I do writing nowadays xD To the point that I think next year, I'm just gonna try and join a team as a composer if anyone will have me cos I keep kinda running myself into the ground being project lead giving myself waaaay too much work x3 I was working 15-18 hour days for Spooktober, and that's just, well, daft tbh and I don't know why I put myself through that >.< (well, I do, because I have issues with obsession and tunnel vision thanks to my ASD xD) I think if I'm just focusing on making music, I'll have a much more relaxed time jamming for once! And it'll be a totally different experience to join someone else's team :3

Thank you so much again for taking the time to both play through the game and for such amazing feedback ^-^ I appreciate it more than I can even put into words and I'm sure the rest of the team do too! Also, right back at ya with the congratulations cos your team's project is an absolutely thrilling and funky bundle of fun <3