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At the beginning of the game, a disclaimer says that no AI was used to make it.

You can check any playthrough on YouTube to verify that.

Thank you very much!

I really appreciate that you enjoyed the GUI.

I wanted to try something different, and I'm glad that all the work I put into it was worth it in the end.

I'm also happy you liked the story segments related to art history; those gave a lot of personality to the endings.

Broodygaming did an excellent job both writing and doing some research about the topic.

Thank you very much!

It was fun watching you play it on stream!

Parents while being brought in jail by the cops:

"No! This is all a misunderstanding!

"The little girl was running around on mushrooms like a maniac for a reason!"

"She was trying to solve some PUZZLES!!!!"

I swear, from the moment she started taking mushrooms while also running like that, I couldn't stop laughing.

The game was really neat despite being very sad.

Seeing the MC grow back what she lost was heartbreaking.

The puzzles were also great.

Np, it was a pleasure.

I had a lot of fun with your game.

Me anytime Paulette was on screen.

First of all, welcome back! I hope you're feeling well.

Let's start with the review now!

I wanted to start by saying that I absolutely loved the variety of art styles you used in this anthology.

Each of them brought a lot of personality to their stories, and I think they worked pretty well.

Personally, I liked most of them, but the art style that stood out more to me was the one from the last story.

I liked that a lot in its presentation and simplicity.

I also really appreciated how each story was different from the others.

From the creepiest to the most ridiculous, they were entertaining and engaging.

Or at least, most of them.

The first two stories were the weakest, especially the first one.

From the third to the last, I had a blast, though.

I was also very impressed by how you used that navigation/exploration system in the third and fifth stories.

It worked very well alongside some of the most atmospheric stories in this anthology.

The Doll's story was also very intriguing.

It might be boring as hell for some, but I liked it for its particular concept.

But that ending, though!

That one was really cool, and I didn't expect it at all.

The third story was also my favorite when it comes to the presentation of atmosphere.

Exploring the Appalachian mountains and the house was eerie as hell, and I loved it from beginning to end.

But I appreciated a lot of the most ridiculous stories, like the one with the babysitter and the streamer.

Exploring the abandoned school while reading the stupid stuff chat was saying was fun.

I also loved how unapologetically fan service-y and ridiculous the babysitter story was.

And Paulette...

Paulette was...

My... my... 

Too bad Tolo Ratoney is in this game; otherwise she would have been the best character lol.

The only annoying issue I faced was the memory issue which decreased the FPS while playing the game.

But fortunately, I managed to get through the problem by closing and reopening the game anytime stuff was getting bad.

That said, congratulations for putting this anthology together.

Especially one that stands out in comparison with the previous anthologies you made.

I'm going to be honest.

At first, I thought this was an underwhelming work. 

 I thought that what the MC decided to do was cool, but I wished there was more to it (for the story).

But then I connected the dots, and I checked your profile on Discord.

That hit me with a "No fucking way" moment.

Nice idea to announce something so personal through the art you make.

And congratulations on this step, btw.

Thank you :D!

!!!Spoilers!!!

This was phenomenal.

The art was excellent, and the story was very engaging.

Marion was written very well, and seeing how her worries ended up impacting her and the others around her was horrifying.

The final day that led to the True Ending was definitely one of those moments that made me drop my jaw on the ground.

Seeing the customers reacting to her and vice versa was such an unpleasant, but really good story segment. 

The gameplay was also very well-done.

It was confusing at first, but I got used to it pretty fast.

My only complaint is that it got boring after a while, so I'm glad that story mode existed.

I especially liked the fact that you could switch to it in-game.

That was a great design choice, personally.

Another thing that surprised me a lot about the characters was that some of them were alternative versions of some from the Cardinal Park Case universe.

And I swear... this alternative Millie...

I wasn't ready for her shenanigans lmao.

I absolutely loved how this version of her was meaner and freaker.

The whole licking thing made me go "WTF?!!!" several times, and I had a lot of fun because of that.

Her jump scare also got me good.

I didn't expect that at all, and I liked how she sounded like a monster when she was excited to see Orrin.

Millie is truly the best character in all the universes you created.

And I can't thank you enough for that.

PS. I faced a bug at the beginning of the third day.

Basically, the cauldron with the red base disappeared while I was serving Adrian.

So I couldn't complete the recipe perfectly.

Before this happened, the CG of Isabella laughing while Marion looked worried appeared for a split second.

That happened before the CG with the cauldrons appeared, btw.

Thank you so much for playing my game!

I enjoyed your playthrough!

Thank you for playing our game!

Your playthrough was very enjoyable!

I liked how this story was a retake on a classic fairy tale, just like Awakened Beauty.

At this point, I'm looking forward to the next one of this kind.

That said, I enjoyed the interactions between Daniella and the Prince.

Daniella was pretty messed up, but she made the story engaging.

The fact that her weapon was a fractured crystal shoe was absolutely excellent. 

Even if I'm not a big fan of her design in general, that detail made her more memorable to my eyes.

I only wish there were more of it, though.

It would have been nice to see their first interaction at the ball.

Not only would it have built up the final climax, but it would also have been nice to see the contrast between the two before and after the ball.

Thank you very much for playing it!

I really enjoyed your playthrough, and your reactions to the "cutting scenes" were absolute cinema lol.

Thank you very much for playing the game! I had a lot of fun watching your playthrough!

Unfortunately, VX Ace doesn't have a native global in-game menu like MV or MZ, so achieving your suggestions might be tricky.

If I keep using this engine, I would need to implement some external plugins to achieve that.

I'm considering switching to MZ after the release of my next two games, though, so this issue might get resolved in the future.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'm glad you liked it, and I really appreciate that you played it on stream.

I'm also happy you enjoyed the story. 

Abra did an excellent job both creating and writing it, and it was an honor to work on its visual and auditory (as an audio editor) identity. 

I'm also sorry for leaving the stream early.

Unfortunately, I was sick, and I had trouble watching it from a certain point.

I'll re-watch what I missed.

Thank you again for playing it, btw. 

Thank you forplaying the game! I really appreciate that!

I absolutely agree about the verbosity, especially when we talk about the narration.

That's why I'm probably not going to rely on some narrated segments for a while.

Those ended up tiring me by the end while writing them.

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.