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Wow, Cherry took every opportunity to criticize and insult the others. We get it- you don't want to be here- but making everyone else miserable doesn't help your situation at all.

Celeste seems like a nice girl who is an overachiever. But then when she finally blew up on Cherry, it turned out it was an act. She has a superiority complex expecting praise and is subtly condescending towards people who don't accomplish as much as her.

Liam is... flaky? He tries to play peacemaker between them, agrees with Celeste to earn her favor. I'm not sure why he's considered the "favorite"? His personality didn't stand out compared to the other two. Being a "careful planner" and all that was more informed traits as we didn't see him do them. There should have been a situation to see his logical thinking happen. An escape segment with different options and outcomes, and you either listening to Liam's advice (or is it actually Liam you're speaking to...?), ignoring him, or even abandoning your friends to save just yourself.

Giving the dog a chocolate was certainly evil (but other than Celeste scolding you it's just brushed over; should have had the dog get revenge in the Trick route), and lying about your costume was dishonest but not harmful, but choosing a decor to buy (with no way to refuse) and picking candy or a spooky plastic toy felt like arbitrary morality checks. Oddly enough, while 'Take only one candy' did show up, it didn't matter at that point with all the events before it. There was also no vandalism prank option (could have tied in with Liam creating a break-in plan to show his "careful planner") to deal with a rude neighbor.

I did enjoy how you could go the wicked route and naturally face karmic retribution with a more horrifying experience. Just wish the (Trick) options were more consistently cruel to warrant it. I also liked how offscript the Treat route devolved into by being a weird freak.

The doppelgangers/alternate realities glitchiness/time skips and loops/mindscrew of hearing different dialogue than your friends, were well done. I do feel there was a missed opportunity for a doppelganger (ideally Liam) to attack Celeste or Cherry and you're presented with a choice of who to save from dying. Would make your choices have meaningful consequences and also see how the survivor reacts. You could have also upped the confusion and chaos by having two different versions of your friends insisting you to follow them, presenting another weighted decision where you question who are the imposters.

The "Nobody would care if I died" scene felt stilted to me since Liam wasn't developed as much as the others (also the 'Middle Aged Woman???' speaker name just took me out since it removes the mysteriousness of them transforming into your friends). We didn't see a memory of what he was like in the past, what insecurities he had currently, or what his life is like now (again, the focus is more on Cherry and Celeste) that would make him desperately want to appease his childhood friends so that they wouldn't leave him. Basically, to have an emotional impact you need to build-up and provide reasons to care. Cherry's attitude made you dislike her instead, with 'no deep down she really cares', no it's bitterness and "I'm more mature/cooler" to the very end. The constantly warping scenarios, while creepy, also essentially reset any progress they could make in bridging their friendships. Though with the overarching theme of "These aren't your friends anymore" and the plot twist, I suppose this was intentional.

All in all, this was a great experience. My favorite design is Liam's pirate costume.

Obsessed fan kidnapping streamer to obtain girlfriend gone wrong! The twist isn't simply that it was a mistake because Michelle is freakier than you. No, the true horror is how she dismantles you over a course of days with philosophical lectures; infinitely more terrifying than cutting us up like a sexy slasher killer! At first I found the premise off-putting but then the way Michelle ran circles around her captor (while chained up) had me captivated (and find her off-putting in a different, desirable way). Michelle isn't just another pretty face in the "yandere abduction" genre who will be forgotten once the game is finished and blend seamlessly in our fog of memories. She has imprinted herself in my mind (just like Elizabeth from Matryoshka from the same developer; go play that too! It's underrated!)

Any fictional character could threaten to kill you, tell you they love, or insult you. Michelle will make you do some self-reflection thinking. How nice of her to enrich our minds with her all-encompassing love~

After unlocking Root and Luna and reaching the two 100% progress final bosses, I can say that I enjoyed the different tactics of later bosses which made them distinct from each other.

Here are some ideas:

Pray To The Goddess: It's OP with Rosary since you can spam it every turn if not Cursed and only take 1 dmg from every attack. Only Poison, Bleed, and multi-hit counter it.

So maybe on higher difficulties, you can only Pray 3 times per battle and have to pay 10 Lunar Fragments for every subsequent Pray?

Challenge character:

• Starts with 6 temporary hearts.
• Starts with Knife
• Starts with Gun.
• Starts with Second-hand Smoke boon.
• All max hp gains/healing items/rest events grant temporary hearts instead (cap of 6 gained from percentage healing).

Two deals with Living Guts basically allow you to easily kill final bosses. Maybe reduce its effect to 1/4?

Doomed/Despair status effect: Increased by 1 by certain enemy attacks, such as charged attacks, and lowered via Pray/defeating a boss/certain events/items. If the counter hits 13 (carries over between battles), explodes and take damage equal to 1/3 max hp.

All bosses so far spend a turn to heal but what if later on, they had a life drain attack (dmg-based healing)?

A boss whose Charged attack immediately resolves all your poison stacks dmg at once, punishing you for ignoring and not curing it.

At least it was a skin-snatcher and not a skin-walker!

Ending 1: Free skin, no hospital bills

Ending 2: I don't think your insurance covers this (The real horror)

Ending 3: Damn bitch, you live like this?

How to survive an encounter without losing anything: have bad self-care, have a disease

I found the beginning where the protag retold the events to be a nice change of pace from how stories usually are winging it in the present. That you are effectively Schrodinger's hairy/less cat depending on what you said your actions were also allows a variety of conclusions (than just dying and it ending there) since you clearly survived if you were telling someone about it (...or did you? DUN DUN DUUUNN!).

Perfect mystifying atmosphere that a killer couldn't cut through (your skin on the other hand...) and morbid humor reminding me of Good Idea! and Good Job! (both also phenomenal games).

Initially I felt Bow build was unreliable compared to Knives or multiplying, supplements any deck build, Golems but that's only with the Training Bow and Wonky Arrow. Once you get Double Shot, Tethered Shot, Blight Snake, or the almighty Arrow Cannon  you will start ripping enemies apart. Defense shredding, burn, blight (which counters healing enemies like Bats and the 3 Racoon boss), are incredible when fired multiple times. It also helps to have draw engines (Bonus Cards/Mitosis/Card Forge), Hidden Truth (to search anything), Third Hand/Move Dispenser to continue your combo, and Reanimator and Deck Swap for reusing discard cards.

I don't really see the use of Mechanical Bow creating more bows. I guess to help with Ethereal Quiver creating more arrows? Except if you have Arrow Cannon, you don't need more bows. Only time having a higher bow than arrow ratio is if you have those 30% chance reusable arrows but that's a niche scenario.

Swords are pretty basic with pure damage. The Fire one can Burn and the Vampire is decent for healing (if enemy is not shielded). Angry Sword seems very mediocre in this game where builds have multi-attacking in a single action, though it's still better than Shy Dagger (+2 dmg if your Shield is >50?). Corpse Sword would typically be like 5-7 dmg but I suppose if you kill a boosted Mega Shark you can turn the Seagull boss into chicken nuggets.

Wands seem to be the hardest to play with their high risk-low return playstyle. There doesn't seem to be many of them so they're also rare to find unless you reroll rewards. Maybe instead of picking 5 random cards (which can sometimes give you bows or arrows but not the other), you can choose a "class" and the game will then give them better odds appearing in the reward/shop/sacrificial altar?

Being able to sell 3 cards or shred them with the altar is a nice way to get rid of undesirable cards.

Shields seem to fall off once you get into late game and enemies start hitting harder (especially against Mega Shark). Practice Dummies are much better damage absorbers (and also draw aggro away from your fragile devices/golems), when they're on the field (like other summons) they also won't clog up your draw/deck until destroyed, and they are also an option to Duplicate. Shield Golems are just unparalleled for mass action-less shielding. Healing Golems likewise are better than those 3/5 HP food. Shields with effects (like Thorns) or Food with effects would make them better.

I looked up the game on Youtube and saw an original demo playthrough with Punky: all my moves have recoil, Jeldritch, Rover, Glarp, Voodude, Leafy, Frump, Mantex, Sprout, and Mush.

Jeldritch and Mush look really cool. And that Suspicious Goo makes me think some Xenos will have branching evolution: one by level-up and another by item.

Enemy AI will use Heal moves even if they're at full/barely damaged. You can see with how Voodude kept using Cauterize.

I think the way healing is balanced is pretty good. Just that Nap needs to cost more since it's leagues better than the rest. Full heal + curing status (for just 6 MP) means it invalidates multiple actions' worth of MP.

Regeneration is 25% HP per turn, 1-4 turns, for 6 MP. Incredibly efficient considering Heal is 25% for 4 MP. You "lose" if it's only 1 turn, but win if it's longer by a mile (up to 16 MP worth).

Gaia Burst is technically a healing move... if you survive. Though it's only a finisher move and even for enemy use it would fall off after early game. A boss with Gaia Burst would just heal you after you have defenses to survive.

I do think bosses with stall/debuff/DoT strategies would make sure your team isn't just brute force. Life drain attacks would fall off against high defenses or blind/accuracy reduction.

The issue that Poison/Burn to beat bosses is you just need to inflict them once and just survive because it ticks off 10% their HP every turn. Immunity just removes options, resistance makes it harder to stick. The best solution would be options to cure status without cure-all like Nap.

Psychic Screech: 6 MP. Deals medium energy damage. Cures Loony status; inflict Loony on enemy.

Shocking Grasp: 8 MP. Deals medium energy damage. Cures Paralysis status; inflict Paralysis on enemy.

Noxious Gift: 6 MP. Deals medium energy damage. Cures Poison status; inflict Poison on enemy.

Tranquil Mind: 6 MP. Heal 25% HP, cure Blind/Loony status.

Holy Water: 6 MP. Heal 25% HP, cure Poison/Delayed status.

Nature's Blessing: 6 MP. Heal 25% HP, cure Burn/Paralysis status.

Purification Ritual: 8 MP. Due to your body feeling weak from expelling all maladies within it, permanently increase damage taken by user by +10% (+10% for each additional use) until the end of the battle (Brittle status; cannot be cured). Cure all status.

Burning Spirit: 6 MP. For 4 turns, gain a Shield that absorbs 5% max HP damage per turn (refreshes each turn). Gain 1 stack of Burn resistance; cure yourself immediately if Burned, then remove 1 stack. Cannot be used if already Shielded.

Assassinate: 7 MP. Deal high physical damage. Ignore enemy's positive defense buffs and shield.

Bug: Entering the house in the top west with the two cats will freeze the game.

Runt: the starter you get from your mom. Save before talking to her and reload until you get only blue/green stats and VampiricBite. Red in MP and EN ATK is fine. It evolves early on into Alpha. Piercing Howl is a nice priority atk debuff.

Slink: Fast and fragile, these snakes can poison/paralyze and possibly even burn your enemies. They naturally learn life drain moves and all sorts of debuffs. Another fast evolver which becomes Slither.

Spark: Spark is Slink but more sturdy and trading poison for electric attacks (super-effective against aquatic enemies; Hermes). Evolves at level 15 into Scorch.

If you catch a Hex variant of Slink or Spark with Sacrificial Shot, you can sweep the whole demo spamming that move. 50% healing based on damage dealt is crazy good, especially since you heal more than you pay.

Hermes: Has high def, status/debuff moves, and can stall enemies with Huddle/Healing combo. There's a Berserk variant. Watch out for enemy Scorch and Flora that have electric attacks. At level 14 becomes Shelldon.

Darner: Fast and fragile dragonflies. Their attacks tend to be priority moves, recoil moves, or moves that grant offensive boosts/healing in exchange for crippled defenses. There's a Berserk variant.

Bloom: Slow but tanky plant. Try to get one that has Gaia Burst. Otherwise you have to rely on Bad Apple, Chip Shot defense reduction and poison to kill enemies. Paladin Punch oddly enough heals based on 100% of dmg dealt rather than 50% like other life drain moves.

Bulb: Another slow and tanky plant that you should catch one with Gaia Burst. Evolves into Doubloom at level 10. The only Xenos that has Toxic variant so far.

Flora: The offensive plant in the game. Still gets Bad Apple, Chip Shot, and poison but also gets elemental spells, Comiserate, Dazzle, and Shadow Siphon for life drain. Celebrate and Malady are unreliable and can easily be replaced.

Kem: One of the few sources of burn in the game right now via the Singe attack (the other is Searing Venom from Slink). Kem are bulky and have strong energy attacks, poison moves, and other status effects too. You should avoid fighting wild Kems for exp because you risk taking a lot of DoT dmg for little payout in comparison.

The Stasis skill (level 19) is missing its description.

Plank: A unique Xenos you can obtain from the abandoned Taco Truck. Make sure to save beforehand so you can reload for better stats. Plank is a self-made tank with moves like Poison Barb/Huddle/Regeneration to stall physical enemies.

• Suggestions: Add a speed setting so you don't have to mash the E button for every battle.
  
• Add a dash setting.
  
• Increase the EXP reward for defeating Variant Xenos to make grinding easier.
  
• Create a stat indicator during battle to keep track of boosts/reductions.
• Allow checking moves of Xenos in storage without needing to withdraw them into your party.
  
• When learning a new move but all 6 slots are full, add description of new move so we know what we're trying to replace.
  
• Create a Sick status effect that halves healing to counter Hex Variants and heal spamming. Or make it so they can't drain more than the enemy's actual remaining HP value.
  

• Create Stun Resistance for boss/elite Xenos. If a Xenos is unable to act due to paralysis/stasis/etc (but not confusion), gain 1 stack of Stun Resistance. At 3 stacks, transforms into Stun Immunity.
  
• Create Slowed status. Reduces speed by 1 stage while active. Can be applied up to 3 times. At 3 stacks, removes Slowed status and transforms into Stasis status. So basically a countdown stun effect that is fair since you have time to deal with it. Some electric/wind/ice/dark skills can apply Slowed.
  

• Add a Shield mechanic where some moves let you absorb a certain amount of dmg per turn (say 5% of your max HP) but the Shield has a limited duration and burn/poison/confusion dmg and some moves will ignore/pierce through it.
• Create a move that ignores defense boosts to stop you from completely walling your enemies after a few Huddle boosts.
• Create a move that can reset [Stat] boost/decreases to 0. Or a move that flips them around. e.g. Opposite Day: Self-buff. All positive stat modifiers become negative and all negative stat modifiers become positive. So +2 Atk and -2 Speed become: -2 Atk and +2 Speed.
• Buff perfect accuracy moves a little so they're worth using even against non-Blinding enemies. Basically equivalent to Priority moves like Whiplash/Quick Shot/etc.
  
• Create moves that deal extra dmg/effects if enemy has a specific [Status] effect. e.g. Pestilence: deal extra damage to Poisoned target.
  
• Create moves that deal extra dmg if target has >50% of their Mana bar filled, or can deduct Mana (might be too broken though if the player can consistently prevent enemies from using high MP skills).
  
• Make moves have limited amount of uses so that you have to carefully use them? Mostly thinking of healing moves like Nap since that cures all status effects and trivializes battles with heal/poison stall.

I've downloaded it. Thank you again for your help!

Yes, that would appreciated, thank you.

Not sure what you mean by choices? Like Archie dialogue choices (be nice to him) and not poking the skull? I have 12 medals.

I'm not a Mac user so I chose the PC version.

I'm enjoying this game so far! Leon and Archie's dynamics and conversations in the Hideout are fun.

Only problem is I keep getting an error. In the Honeycomb room confrontation scene I pick the [Question Him] option during the 3 sec countdown. Afterwards, we get sent to the Hideout. BUT if I leave the Hideout, I get a black screen that says: TypeError Cannot read properly 'resolution' of undefined