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Me during the final boss's first phase:

Me during the final boss's second phase:

That happy smile didn't last long, as you can imagine lol.

It was a tough phase, and my party members died a lot during it.

But seriously, this was a very good game that made me laugh a lot.

Fortunately, that didn't clash with the creepy atmosphere of the carnival, though, which was phenomenal.

I also liked how you could have so many party members to choose from throughout the game.

Amicia, Lucy, and Mushi were my favorites.

The combat system was pretty nice.

Nothing amazing, but I liked how balanced it was. 

There were some moments when the game felt a bit easier than I expected, but towards the end, it managed to give me some nice, tough fights.

The only thing that I found a bit odd was how you could spam skills without worrying about the MP.

From the beginning to the end of the game.

By the way, that bad ending was stupid as much as it was fucked up.

I loved it :D.

*Looks at the husks*

"Nice design choice :D."

Jokes aside, I had a good time with the game.

I think its strongest aspects were its negative aesthetic and its foggy atmosphere.

These two were a really nice combo.

I was also surprised by both the Husk and Hex systems.

The idea of switching from body to body to recover life and reduce the hex was really a great touch, and I wish I could use it more during the game.

That's the only "negative" side of that system for me.

The Hex system managed to make me go from "Oh no, the usual time limit system I'm not a big fan of" to "Oh, it wasn't that bad after all."

But to be honest, savescumming was also my best friend from the beginning to the end, so I could prevent any annoyance from the system.

That was also useful to understand which enemy was worth fighting to get the items.

I only wish the max value of the Hex was specified during the tutorial.

That would have prevented any worries about the time limitation at the beginning, when in reality, the system was more generous than it sounded like (even without savescumming).

The only underwhelming aspects of the game were the story and the combat, personally.

I didn't hate them, but I wish there was more to it.

Np. It was a pleasure to play your game.

Np, I'm happy my feedback was helpful.

Ok, I tried to do some tests while also trying to go through that CG.

I managed to do that, but in a very odd way.

First of all, this bug got triggered from any point in the game.

You could even start from the beginning, and it would occur anyway.

How did I "fix" that?

When the CG was displayed, I did the following things:

1) Opened the main menu (Yes, you could still do that).

2) Selected and opened the item menu.

3) Exit from the item menu to the main menu.

4) Repeated points 2 and 3, but smashing my keybinds constantly until the game decided to trigger the cutscene.

Another odd thing about it was that when the cutscene ended, I was still in the menu with a black screen in the background.

When I exited from the menu to go back into the game, the black screen disappeared right after, and I was in that red room. 

When I completed the memory puzzle, and I said that the offering was done,  the game froze for a few seconds.

I thought it was about to crash, especially when the audio froze and messed up the game's window size for a few seconds.

Fortunately,  it didn't happen, and I was able to get the Sapphire Heart.

At that point, Miji's lines were triggered, and then, I ended up in a permanent black screen.

I couldn't even use that weird trick to trigger the game to move forward because I couldn't open the menu.

That's where I stopped playing, and I decided to write this little essay you're reading.

Personally, I think this hell of a problem might be due to my PC because some effects, like the lights or something like that, used in MZ and MV tend to make me drop frames.

The higher resolution might also impact that.

To give you an idea, the bedrooms, the main hall, and the red room (pre-Sapphire Heart) were the areas where I suffered the most, especially the red room.

This means that this might be caused by bugs related to frame-dropping.

That's probably why you didn't face any issues when you tested it yourself.

But to be honest, I have never experienced this kind of issue with a MZ/MV game this bad (if my theory is correct).

For example, I faced some frame drops while playing Where the Forest keeps the Hollow (another game jam entry), in an area with a cauldron, but I didn't face this issue at all in all the others in that game.

That said, let's start with the review.

The concept of the story was really cool, and I liked the dynamic between Miji and Billy.

I also liked how they both reacted to what was happening around them, and that's why I kept trying to complete the game until this point.

The art was also gorgeous.

The puzzles were a mixed bag.

Some were pretty intuitive, others confused me a little.

One thing I found absolutely annoying and redundant was the presence of the eyeballs, because I couldn't properly explore the areas, and they made me waste time.

Especially when I was wandering around without knowing what to do.

One last negative thing was the save points.

For some reason, I couldn't save at the saint's statue after completing the puzzle related to it, and I remember having this issue at the very beginning (but I might be disremembering on this last one).

This made me waste a lot of time while trying to get to the end and during the testing.

Np. There is a bigger issue now, though.

After you know who gets hung on the clock, the CG of a burning church appears.

The problem is that this CG never vanishes.

I could even activate the menu and go back to the title screen during that moment.

Another weird thing is that the CG persisted even in the title screen.

I can't proceed through the game because of that soft-lock. 

Where can I find the elevator key? I tried wandering around the town, but I didn't find it.

I'm stuck with the potion puzzle.

At first, I got the goo A and goo B from the toilets marked with X, and then I tried to make a potion.

But the game told me I didn't have the correct ingredients, so I took all the bottles from the sinks and did the same thing again.

That didn't work as well.

What am I doing wrong?

Np, I'm glad my feedback was useful.

This game is pretty ok, but it has some problems that impacted my experience negatively, unfortunately.

First of all, I think that this game would have benefited from more polishing.

Not only for the fact that there are a lot of typos, but also for the risk of soft-locking yourself because of a bug.

I had to reset some of the runs I did because of that.

The first happened when I did the following things: interacted with the acolytes at the entrance; succeeded on the WIS check, headed to the east; and then headed north, where the bedrooms are.

Here, an empty dialogue of an acolyte will be displayed permanently.

A similar issue happened after defeating a rose in the locked room next to the bedrooms I mentioned earlier.

The combat is also a mixed bag.

On one side, I absolutely love how distinct your party members are from each other, and some gimmicks like Bluestar's and Medium's were pretty neat.

On the other hand, the battles take a lot of time, especially when you fight groups of enemies.

It also gets pretty boring when you end up fighting the same group several times.

This felt pretty odd, considering I had a party of 4.

I also wished that some skills had their description, so that I wouldn't have wasted time in battle to see their effects.

Talking about skills, I would recommend making the Evil Orb die immediately after defeating the enemy group, because it gets recognized as a targetable enemy, and the battle doesn't end until it's dead as well.

At last, I wasn't a big fan of the limited saves and how this limitation impacts the time required to complete the game.

That's just me, but I don't like that kind of restriction.

That said, the art was really good, and it was my favorite aspect of the game.

I liked the designs of both the protagonists and the enemies as well.

Yeah... I hope everything is fine for him as well.

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Damn. I knew this was going to be a horror game, but I didn't expect to be that horrifying LOL.

But seriously, I was happy to see that the protagonist found some comfort in the end while spending time with his friend.

"But no. I just thought it would be a good story."

The mind of the artist.

This is why this line resonated with me in the context of this story.

Since I developed a passion for writing stories for my games, there have been moments in my life that made me go through similar thoughts after experiencing them.

Good. Bad. It didn't matter.

That's how hot my passion has been, if we want to see it as a burning flame.

Nice story. Very nice story.

I was surprised by how nice it was in its simplicity.

The art was absolutely gorgeous in this game, and I didn't expect such a good animated intro.

The tilesets were also the aspect that made me drop my jaw to the ground, especially when I went outside.

I only wish this demo had revealed more about the story, because by the end, it felt a bit underwhelming in that regard.

I was also dropping frames when I was in the kitchen for some reason.

Maybe the visual effect above the cauldron might be the cause, but I'm not sure 100%.

Thank you for playing the game! I really appreciate it!

I'm also glad you liked that one last line of dialogue. 

It was fun seeing your reaction to it on stream lol.

Thank you so much for playing it! I really appreciate it!

Yeah, it's a shame that the original game was taken down.

Lmao. Thank you so much for playing my game! Your commentary during the stream made me laugh a lot!

Thank you very much for playing my game! 

I'm happy you had a good time with it.

I loved how you narrated the story and voiced the characters, especially the antagonist.

The editing also made me laugh a lot during certain moments.

The well-placed BALLS sound, and the camera zooms were a very nice touch.

I also liked how you lined up the character sprites and the CGs in the thumbnail.  

It's a really cool-looking one because of that.

PS. That "gentle mutilation" at the beginning caught me off guard, lmao.

Thank you for playing it! I really appreciate it. It was fun to watch your reactions while you were playing it XD.

Pretty cool game.

It was nice to explore the place beneath the mine and learning its lore.

I especially liked how distinct the monsters were from each other.

Some of the chases were great, and I liked how these had their own gimmick.

I was also really surprised to see a familiar face, as someone who watched a playthrough of A House of Alesa 3 one year ago.

It was awesome to discover that she was from this game.

I also had a lot of fun with the puzzles.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

The only things that I found a bit disappointing were the chase sequences involving Helga and the Mimic.

The former was very slow in comparison to me, and the large maps of Floor 0 gave me some advantages over them (I played on the normal difficulty).

In retrospect, I think that the large maps in general weren't that bad outside of that.

I had to do some backtracking, but not that much.

Having the key items before reaching the places where I had to use them made my experience definitely better, though.

Saying that the art direction was good would be just reductive after what I experienced.

The abstract nature of the world around the protagonist was very well made, and there were points where I stared at the screen speechless at how gorgeous the visuals were.

Each area had its own charm, and out of the details that characterized those, my favorite was the eye of the sea creature underneath the protagonist.

The one in the area with the crabs.

At first, I didn't even notice it was an eye until I saw it getting closed in real time.

I liked how that area was so full of life and full of stuff like that.

That said, I was really confused for most of my experience while trying to understand the story.

The metaphorical narrative of the game definitely fit well with its abstract visuals, but I was like "What is this supposed to mean?" constantly.

My instinct tells me that all of this was related to a past trauma of the protagonist, but I don't think that I could be more specific than that if I had to explain what I understood about it.

PS. I noticed two oddities while playing. First, the description of the Blue Shade is wrong. It says that the Blue Jellyfishes are near the Blue Crab, but they're actually near the green one.

Second, the LEFT and RIGHT controls were inverted during the first area of the game.

This happened anytime the screen would fade to black, and when the screen faded to black, the controls would return to normal.

This happened several times until I ended up in the next area.

Judging all the cases was pretty fun.

Some of these were also hilarious because of how ridiculous they were. 

My favorite was the one where the little girl was accused of murder.

I liked how her backstory had the involvement of Mr. Bob.

Great game. Really a great game.

You did an excellent job by designing the atmosphere, the monsters, the bosses, and the levels.

Despite having some favorites, I had a balanced good time with all of them.

The new design of the Mother was also wonderful.

Her stage was pretty fun as also the third one with the elevator.

The victory dance and that scene where you get the last weapon were absolute cinema.

It has been a while since I laughed so hard.

I only wished that there was more variety in terms of functionality for the weapons because they all work in the same way.

I think that if each one of them had specific bonuses and/or maluses against certain enemies would have made the combat aspect more satisfying.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

I'm going to be honest.

The scene where Jesus Christ gives the blessed chainsaw to Alesa is excellent, but it would have been even better if she didn't use that weapon in a previous stage.

Obtaining that cool ass weapon only to kill the final boss would have been more epic.

Kinda how it was done in the first Resident Evil with the Rocket Launcher.

PS. I forgot to mention that I faced a minor but constant bug while playing the game. 

Basically, Alesa's sprite would appear at middle-top or left-top of the screen from time to time.

This happened while interacting with some events like picking up the weapons and jumping from a platform to another. 

Not always but sometimes when I interacted  with those for the first time as well.

This was pretty nice. The dress-up elements were neat and the story between the protagonist and the antagonist was really sad.

The only oddity I faced was a bug that would repeat a specific line of dialogue after any new one.

It did that for the rest of the game after it was triggered.

The line of dialogue in question is "No."

To be honest, I didn't even think that was a bug a first.

Considering how unpleasant the story was getting for the protagonist, I thought that constant "No" was a inner monologue of hers.

It's only when I reached the ending that I realized that wasn't an intentional thing or, at least, I don't think it was at that point of the game.

This game was really creepy and THAT horror scene near the end was really well done.

Navigating and customizing Lucy's Desktop was also a pretty nice touch, and I had a lot of fun because of that.

Interacting with the other users was also very heartbreaking and made me hate the antagonist a lot.

The only thing I didn't like was the ending because it felt out of place in this story.

Maybe if there was some build up through the blogs, the e-mails, and the social media posts, it could have been a bit better.

!!SPOILERS!!

I don't think that the virus segments were enough to build that, personally.

They felt too random and too vague to lead to the ending where Lucy comes back as a vengeful entity.

I can definitely see your CGs addiction from this project ha ha.

Jokes aside, this was a nice short story.

I liked how Lillian was written, especially when she gets put in contrast with Natalia's selflessness.

My only nitpick is that the final interaction.

I think that it would have been a lot better if Natalia had a character face portrait as well.

Not only to highlight her reaction from a visual perspective but because there is not visual distinction in the UI when the characters talk between each other.

So it felt a bit confusing at first.

The rest was perfect, though.

Thank you very much for playing our game!

I was really excited to experience this game after playing the demo.

And in the end, I got the satisfying experience I wished for.

The characters, the voice acting, and the story were pretty good, and kept me engaged until I finished it.

The voice actor for the Hatter did a phenomenal job, by the way.

His performance was my favorite out of all the others.

But I also  want to give  my compliments  on the atmosphere, the music, and the art (all of it, not just the character portraits).

Some of these helped me a lot to immerse in the world I was exploring, and I couldn't ask better treatment from that perspectice.

When it comes to the combat system, I had a really good time with that as well.

I didn't feel any weird difficulty spikes through the game, and most of the boss fights were really satisfying.

I also appreciated how forgiving it was at times, especially towards the late game.

Keep in mind that I played on normal mode, though.

If there is something that made me roll my eyes was the final dungeon.

Its lack of enemy variety really impacted it negatively after the first half.

To the point where I wished I could end it sooner or face a new boss instead.

!!!!SPOILERS ALERT!!!

I bet you laughed your ass off when you made sure that Alice would lose all her Sanity after using the Scalpel.

You left me one hell of a surprise when I used it against the third phase of the final boss.

It didn't hit me as hard as the "Return to the Surface" ending, though.

That depiction of Alice returning to reality was very brutal.

Putting serious stuff aside, I was surprised that the BOING BOING BOING attack wasn't one of the most powerful AOEs in the game.

I mean, imagine if a ridiculous attack like that was able to wipe the entire party.

It would have been hilarious.

The story was very heartwarming for me.

The concept of a dead person helping her friends to discover the proofs of ghosts was genial.

The gameplay confused me a little at first, but I managed to understand it pretty fast in a second.

The only other thing I can say about that is that it fits very well with the base concept.

My favorite aspect of the game was the locations because of the way they're presented visually (this includes the van).

Navigating through them while trying to get the attention of the other ghost hunters was satisfying.

This horror anthology was pretty good.

One aspect I appreciated a lot was the use of different art styles to make certain stories stand out from each other.

From a visual perspective, at least.

The stories themselves were a mixed bag, though.

I loved some, but I found others a bit underwhelming.

My favorites were the Girl by the Window, the Visitor, and the Happy Grotesque Family.

The atmosphere and horror aspects in these three were excellent.

I just wish there was the possibility to save, especially when you had to choose multiple choices.

!!SPOILERS!!!

At last, I have to say that I enjoyed the presence of choices that could end some stories in an anticlimactic way.

For example, the choice that made you ignore the Girl by the Window made me chuckle a little when the second story started right after.

You can't tell me that you didn't see this coming lol.

Experiencing the shenanigans of this blue little guy was really good.

One thing I loved particularly was the antagonist.

Their visual contrast with everything else helped a lot in conveying their hostile nature, and I liked how they attempted to influence the protagonist.

The only thing that annoyed me a bit was the absence of save points.

Considering that multiple choices lead to different endings, it would have been convenient to save at certain points of the story.

Fortunately, the game was relatively short, so that issue didn't significantly impact my experience.

!!!SPOILER!!!

I liked the choice to make the MC kill his friends in different ways.

From the moment he got the hammer, I thought he was going to go postal with that, but I'm glad I was proved wrong.

Variety is always a blessing.

No, I'm not sorry for that.

Jokes aside, I liked the presentation of the story through its visuals.

I'm not really into poetic stuff, but this representation of the cycle of life and death was still pretty nice.

I really liked the aesthetic that you chose for the art here.

Its greyish look fits very well with the melancholic tone of the story.

The role of the MC was also interesting, especially how it gets influenced by the acts of the Angel.

!!!SPOILERS!!!

I was caught off guard by the scene where that poor guy was hit by lightning.

I didn't expect that lol.

No problem, I'm glad that the situation was resolved in the end.

That's weird. 

I have just checked the file that you downloaded with my Norton anti-virus, and it says that there is no suspicious stuff in there.

But just to be sure, I have also substituted the previous downloadable file with a new one (I generated this one from the engine, as I did with the previous one).

I checked this new file with my anti-virus as well, and it seems to be fine.

Can you try downloading this new version to see if you have the same problem again?

Did you also have this problem while downloading any of my other games?

Well...I want to start by giving my sincere apologies because I cheated in the game.

I hope to find forgiveness one day...

That said, I really enjoyed writing down the orders of the customers, especially after I figured out the connection between the ingredients and the indications given by them.

The repetitiveness of the gameplay revolved around making the pizza bored me a little, though.

I think that having more variety would have helped to keep the experience fresher in general, like the introduction of new mechanics, for example.

I vibed to the song that played during those segments, though.

It was so gooooood.

Speaking of the story, I appreciated how grotesque and silly it was.

Seeing the customers gradually changing into horrific creatures was pretty neat, and some of the interactions were hilarious.

The dating sim aspect of the game also gave some charm to these, and I loved how it culminated in the grand finale.

I also liked how not everyone of the creeps wanted to eat some pizza.

That broke the monotony of the issue I mentioned earlier, and I appreciated it for that.

!! SPOILERS!!

I'm going to say this with all due respect.

There were two things I really loved during my experience with the game.

First of all, the bad ending.

Presenting the Earth as the final pizza of the game was just *chef's kiss*.

That was a cool way to end the story.

The second thing, though, is something I feared that I wouldn't have obtained.

Especially after it was mentioned that you couldn't date everyone near the end, and my favorite was one of the most dangerous ones.

But when I saw that the green-haired Creep was one of the possible dating choices, I was so happy.

Out of all the creeps, she was the one I liked the most.

From her trying to kill the MC...

...to growing affection towards him when he started farting non-stop (I didn't expect that would have worked when I chose to make him do that lol)...

...to then end wholesomely and seriously with that simple "I...LIKE...YOU."

What a rollercoaster of interactions with that character.

Out of all the bosses in the game, the final one was the boss that made me fail most of the time due to distraction and repetition of certain actions. 

For example, the yellow ray managed to kill me several times because I got used to avoiding the spikes so many times that I ended up tricking myself into their trajectory.

Despite being pretty difficult, I managed to beat its second phase on the first try, though.

Fortunately, I got used to timing the attack to the Green Guy gimmick, so I didn't have problems at that point.

I feel you, bro ;).