itch.io

Well, overall the main problem with the game as it is right now is that there's not much to it. It's cute and all, but there's little that makes it stick out as a game I want to play. Basic farming with basic mechanics and some helpers you can hire. There's also little that points in which direction it's going to take once fully developed, so it's hard to see what to look forward to.

Fun little game. Great sprite art. Jumping on the guys' heads is a bit unforgiving, especially in the relatively narrow windows you have with all fireballs flying around.

I know you've got a more recent demo on Steam, but that one didn't include the custom character option, so I played this version instead. So if you still read here, and all this isn't horribly outdated, here are some comments and suggestions.

I've been enjoying this game, so I'll write what's wrong with it. Well, and some thoughts. Best for last. Most of my impression is positive, otherwise I wouldn't bother writing about it.

Controls don't feel too smooth. Both swimming and fishing are very twitchy, with fast, sudden movements even if you barely touch the keys. On ground it's still noticeable but not as much. Overall, it makes the controls feel detached from the environment.

I do like the fishing, though, since it's more active than the usual "keep marker on fish" mechanic. The added reeling you can do when on the fish makes it feel like you're not just waiting for a timer to tick up. This also makes the twitchy controls work better, but I think they can still be tuned a little better.

On the other hand, the quick movements work well if you do small movements frequently, like when you're doing a lot of farming work. Do an action, move to the next spot, and do it again.

Likewise, outside farming, it sometimes gets a bit annoying that the character always turn along with the mouse movements, but sometimes it makes things easier. Would be nice to have a free-cam option (camera movement doesn't turn the character), or even a photo mode where you detach the camera from the character.

Speaking of the camera and swimming, if you zoom to third person, it seems like the character is too low on the screen, so pointing straight forward feels off. Pointing in the right vertical direction with the mouse is a little too tricky.

I encountered a bug with the fishing window not always showing while trying to reel in the fish, even if the mechanics technically work. When I first started I also had a problem with getting out of the character customisation screen because no dialogue appeared when I clicked finished.

The loud noise while in the cooking menu is annoying. When you clikc "Hide recipes without ingredients", clicking "Return" while on a manual recipe choosing ingredients, and a few other spots.

The character customisation is great for what can be expected of this budget, but can always be improved. I always prefer playing a custom character over a pre-defined one, and I do like that the main character appears as an NPC if you choose not to play as him.

It might be out of your scope, but a lot of players like playing a female character with male romanceable NPCs. Not a personal issue (I usually, but not always, play with a female character and ignore romance), just something to consider.

Colours of clothes should be standardised. As it is, white and black clothes are hard to get the colours you want. I'd include eyes and brows there, maybe skin, with fully customisable colours, rather than a bunch of fixed choices.

Since dresses take two slots, torso and legs, it might work better to separate them into top and bottom, though I'm not sure how that works for the modelling.

The other person who commented many months ago mentioned that underwear is hard to do, which is a point. There's pretty much only "none", the fairy dress skirted leotard, or some variety of shorts. The "none" option is really just white underwear, which might be better named "default" (and add a colour option). It's also visible under the fairy leotard, which isn't pretty.

Changing hip size causes some clipping with some combinations, and the larger breast sizes just look weird since they mostly change outwards.

Overall, the customisation works well, though. It's possible to create

Fairy companion is cute.

The tool usage feels good. Especially the scythe. Especially especially the special charge swing. And it makes harvesting so much less tedious. I do wish the scythe would actually harvest some stuff. Feels weird that everything just gets destroyed, even stuff like bamboo.

Minor detail I like is that the sprinklers go between tiles, rather than occupy the middle. Makes for much better farm plot layouts.

The cooking system is great. There's so much you can do with it, like just drying some stuff to make them work as spices.

My favourite is probably the skill system. Not necessarily the benefits, since I have no idea what you actually get better at, but the idea of improving a specific skill also improving the more general skill at a lesser degree. It's something I was going to include in a game I developed before abandoning it. Incidentally, also included farming, but more general survival and other professions.

So that's about what I can think of. I'm considering to buy the Steam version, but we'll see.

Can't sell anything, house can often not be interacted with, farmer not doing anything.

Yeah, the head priest was still there. And it was still the line about investigating the cult, I think.

Dark areas I just find annoying. Sure, it makes it more difficult to navigate, but it also makes it a lot more annoying to find details. I find that the case for almost all games with darkness mechanics. And often you're given a crappy flashlight that less bright than a single candle, but only in a small cone forward. While that's not the case here, the view is still rather small. It can work if you want a specific challenge, but for dark areas in general it's just a pain.

Speaking of art, though, I decrypted the MC images for sprites and face so I could change hair and eye colour to match what I wanted. Having an option for customisation like that is nice, but if you can get around it like I did, it's not that important.

I don't think the Pushy Protestant quest ever marked the first objective for me. Could turn it in just fine, which marked the second objective and completed it (which also counted for the three quests for the Guild Ring).

After beating the cult, the head priest said the same line as before, and no one else could be talked to. Not sure if that's intended or not.

Anyway, I had fun with the content that's there. Probably not going to play more until there's more content, though. I like the action point based combat system. Not too fond of the dark areas, and some of the portrait art sticks out with a different style (though I assume that's temporary).

Good luck with the game!

I cleared the requirements (killing the enemies) for the Forest Cleanup quest before picking it up from the quest board, and turned it in. Then I could still pick it up from the quest board, which leaves it in the available quests window, but naturally it's impossible to clear it (again).

The Pushy Protestants quest doesn't clear the first objective in the log, but you can still report it in the guild and complete it.

Also found some other bugs, but I think they've been reported. (Brainless Ring, various collision bugs)

There is an information screen when you start a new game that covers everything, and it's impossible to remove.

+ Cute. The characters, art, and story all fit together.

+ Chill music. Also fits with the rest, but deserves extra mention.

+ Good puzzles. Nothing to complain here. The challenge is good unless you've done a ton of these puzzles.

- UI could use some work. Marking squares sometimes doesn't register if you click or drag a line too fast. If you try to load a save while on a board it registers a click on the confirm window. Clicking a square you've marked with a cross creates a mistake, which means one purpose of marking with crosses, guarding against misclicks, doesn't work.

- I prefer getting rid of mistakes and instead allow erasing and not telling you if you've marked a wrong square and not auto-marking a complete line/row.