itch.io

⚠ YOU HAVE ALERTED THE BNUYS

love the idea of exploring whatever bullshit yuyuko got up to in ssib. i was a big fan of the manga, but that whole plotline was REALLY glossed over, so it’s nice to see an interpretation of it. sadly, the gameplay and balance issues here prevented me from really getting into it. main problem is the slow movement on yuyuko - this makes getting around the large maps quite a chore, makes the additional slowdown from resurrection butterfly really annoying, and makes it WAY more demotivating when you die. the levels are long and slow-paced, which is fine and fitting for a stealth game, but when you get sent all the way back to the beginning every time you die it becomes more frustrating than anything else. after losing 15 minutes on stage 3 due to the udonge trees’ effects wearing off with no indication for when (another problem), i couldn’t even bring myself to get back into it. this sucks even more because i was quite enjoying the story and dialogue, and really wanted to see where it went. definitely hope to see a rework, i feel like there’s some solid potential here!

(review based on jam build)

snakes go pnbbnpbppbtphphbthh thank you for coming to my ted talk

second game this jam that’s been based on a game i have no familiary with whatsoever but still ended up being fun (first being nitori’s ultimate puppets). this is probably thanks to the core mechanics being extremely simple but extremely versatile, which is a GREAT combo! picked up how to play fast, even though the execution was quite tough at times. on that topic, the difficulty curve was nice until the last two levels, which were respectively weirdly hard and weirdly easy compared to previous ones. still fun, though. writing was fun too, which was a nice surprise given i had no prior knowledge about the setting or characters featured here. do wish the dash was a little bit faster to start up, but i really don’t have any more real complaints. music was great, the levels were well-designed and provided unique challenges, and the art was very pleasing! would rotate again

(review based on 1.0.0 jam version)

maybe the real tailor was the made we made (tailored) along the way

(seriously why do they say “tailor made” every other line its insane)

jokes aside, i LOVE THIS. feels like proper touhou danmaku action. it doesn’t fuck around either, so i was NOT prepared for the first bullets coming in so fast, but once i got my bearings the patterns were insanely fun! my biggest gripe was a clarity issue at the start of the second area, i’m not sure what even happened but i just couldn’t see what was killing me at all. besides that, all i have are a few nitpicks about grammar and spellcards (namely the fact that you can easily cheese hidden backstitch by just staying on the bottom). beyond that, the bullet patterns were pretty tough but fair and enjoyable. also loved the dialogue, definitely gave me that old touhou writing feeling in a good way. loved the junko and reisen dynamic too, not something i’ve ever really considered but i much prefer it to the ship. music was also great, wish there was more than one track but at least it was a fantastic pick for the only track.

might try replaying sometime once more stuff gets implemented, but i’m still a huge fan of this in its current state!

(review based on 0.1.0 jam version)

Every copy of NITORI QUEST is personalized.

REALLY good concept on this one, and one of the best fits for the theme i’ve seen so far! the execution is fantastic too, both in terms of gameplay and presentation. it was a little unclear what to do starting out, but i got my bearings pretty fast just by messing around, and it was fun trying to keep things fresh for sanae. i do wish the scoring was clearer, would add some replayability if i could go for a high score. the art is PHENOMENAL here, it adds a lot to the vibe! think it’s what those newfangled kids call “so retro” nowadays. sanae’s reactions were also great, the dialogue felt natural and in-character. definitely could’ve benefitted from some extra players and/or enemies, but it was still really fun as is. definitely gonna check out post-jam when i get the chance!

some kind of RAT? some kind of CREATURE?

never really been into dress-up games (despite growing up with flash games which were dress-up games like 20% of the time), but this works quite well for what it is! obviously the art is the most important part of a game based entirely around its art assets, and it came out very appealing. the music is also a great touch, very well-done and makes the game feel much more alive. can’t get much more “tailor-made” than this, either.

not really much more to say since there’s not much depth to a game like this, but that’s not a bad thing at all. it was fun to play around with for a bit, and a nice change of pace from the more challenging submissions!

cryo runner 2049 when

some REALLY fun potential for this idea, i can see the different interactions you can get with the ice being used in lots of unique ways. their hitboxes need some work, and i wish you had more precision for the tailor-made sizes, but the core concept is really good. that being said, the flaws REALLY start to show with level 3. it’s a massive difficulty spike, which isn’t a terrible thing in and of itself, but the issues with the mechanics come into full view because of it. i had several ideas for how to get past the big wall, but none of them worked out because of the weird hitboxes and mechanical issues. throwing seems to default to the right, which makes it nearly impossible to throw an icicle to the left in a tight space even though it could fit safely, and jumping just barely high enough to get on top of a regular icicle thrown from the same vertical position means that you can’t use extra-long icicles to jump on, since them being even the slightest bit taller than the default size makes them unreachable. making a mistake also meant i had to start all over, since the ice block removal goes from oldest first instead of newest first. worst of all was how you froze for a few seconds every time you spawned an icicle inside yourself, which was charming at first but quickly got incredibly annoying and demoralizing, especially since i had to work with such little space in stage 3.

really wanted to enjoy this one more than i did, and the concept is AMAZING here, but the execution unfortunately just doesn’t cut it for me. a bit more control over the ice block sizes, a slightly higher jump, the icicle deletion working in the opposite direction, and the removal of the freezing mechanic, i can see a massive improvement being made with just those simple changes. would also be nice to have a visual indicator for when i can let go of J to select my ice block size, but that’s a bit more complex.

really hoping for a post-jam update on this one!

little did i knows, it was a creature feature. featuring: the creature

not much to say that hasn’t already been said given it’s such a short and simple game, but i enjoyed it. the bullet patterns were actually surprisingly fun to dodge for having such simple movement (except for that one part where they go really really fast), and i fucking LOVE the soundtrack here. shoutout to toby we love you

(review based on jam version)

why must god give his hardest battles to his frailest lesbians

didn’t really find this one as hard to get into as people have been saying. definitely took a bit, but eventually i got into a nice flow of keeping my energy up and getting at least one interview in each day. sadly, there wasn’t much i could improve upon there with the unfinished outside exploration and the very quick loss of energy. this also meant i had to rely on the frustratingly luck-based interviews for all my writing, and it didn’t help that there’s no indication of how options will affect popularity among different groups. that being said, i do think there’s a lot of potential in a loop like this, there just weren’t enough options to really take advantage of said potential.

writing was fun and rather gay, although there were a few grammar issues throughout. definitely got absorbed into the story, though. plot was very well-done. music was also great, as evident by the fact that it didn’t get old after an hour straight. all in all, i can see this game being a REALLY fun time with some more polish, but it’s definitely not bad as is!

candy crush if it was fucking awesome

not sure if this makes sense to anyone else, but this feels like a game that could’ve focused on being a time trial challenge even though it really shouldn’t have. very glad it went in the slow-paced puzzle direction, it’s a lot more fun that way. though it’s been said already a few times, the lack of direction is the biggest hurdle to getting into the game. took me a while to really get my bearings, but it was clear how to play after i did. once you really do get into it, though, the biggest problem becomes the luck-based aspects. this is ALMOST rectified in a fun way by the different thread and stitch options letting you control it to a degree, but when they’re associated with different colored tiles that might appear much less than you need, it becomes a lot more frustrating. this becomes especially clear when you try going for the full 200% score on every level, though it’s not a big deal if you just want to pass it with 100%. on a more positive note, the art was really nice, and the visuals were never part of the confusion. big fan of the inexplicably 3D shinmy. prefixes and suffixes confused me for a bit, but i think they work as subversions of expectations. do kinda wish they actually added prefixes and suffixes to the title of the item, though. last thing of note is that, although it also may not make sense to anyone else, i absolutely LOVE how moving the pieces around for a long time kinda feels like you’re actually sewing into the board. really drills the jam theme in in a unique way. it was definitely a great time overall!

(review based on jam version)

hollow inchling: silksong

big fan of the mechanics in this one! only took me a second to get my bearings even after forgetting to read the controls in the description, which is always a good sign of intuitive gameplay. by far my biggest issue (insufficient i-frames) was apparently fixed in the post-jam build, which is great, so no need to hammer that one in too much. my only significant nitpicks beyond that are the infinite range of the needle throw, which really throws me off sometimes and leaves the player defenseless for a pretty long time, and the annoying nature of the yukari enemy. took me a bit to even figure out i was meant to hit the hat instead of the gaps, but it’s extremely frustrating trying to do so and avoid the gaps at the same time (particularly when they can appear just about anywhere). however, beyond my nebulous complaint of “it’s too slippery”, that’s as far as the negatives go. besides the fun mechanics, i also liked the artstyle. unsurprisingly, it reminds me of a much more refined version of the original legend of zelda graphics. the bossfight was also fun, i like the way it used established mechanics in new ways without turning them completely on their heads. gonna check out post-jam when i get some time, hope to see more from the devs soon!

WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE BULLETS STORE!!!

honestly one of the best graphical experiences in this entire jam so far! it goes beyond well-drawn assets (which it also has to be fair), the visual effects on the shots are beautiful and the clarity is great. also love the camera, it’s hard to notice but it’s incredibly smooth and well-done when you look out for it.

sadly, as others have said, there’s not much going for the gameplay. i see a lot of potential here, but it seems like most of the jam time had to be spent just getting it into a functional state. the game gets too easy after reaching 2 power, there’s no scaling or ending of any kind, and there’s only one type of enemy coming from one exact position. REALLY looking forward to post-jam updates though, because if executed well (which it seems like it has been so far) i could genuinely see this concept becoming one of my favorite games literally ever, no exaggeration.

(review based on jam version)

Tengu Reporter Slanders Judge Of Hell, Instantly Regrets It

this bird is terrible, i love her. all the articles are so fucking funny and i loved reading them, and the headlines were equally great and not too bad to guess. insanely good artstyle too, really drives in that old-timey newspaper feel in a unique way! plus it allows aya to doodle over the pictures to make them more accurate, that was always fun to see. i’d imagine the headlines are a bit easier to figure out with the sound cues in the post-jam version, but simply thinking like aya and horribly slandering everyone makes it simple enough. as for the secret ending, i definitely thought you were just supposed to write every single article with a positive spin instead of vile slander, so it took a frustratingly long time to actually figure out how to get it. once i actually found out about the sound cues, it was pretty straightforward, but it really didn’t help my confidence when two of the first words on friday became unselectable for reasons i can only imagine. overall, though, it was really fun! gave me a few laughs and a new perspective on how evil and slanderous everyone except aya is.

in my dream i am the tailor it’s me

simple gameplay loop helped tremendously by the sheer amount of fun outfits. seriously, this is an UNREAL amount for a 3 day jam. makes it a little sad that there’s such a clear path to win, it’s hard to fully appreciate the cool outfits when it’s so often just worse with no upside to use them - maybe having each competition favor certain outfit types in addition to their normal character-specific scores could add some depth? either way, a short but sweet experience. wish i had more to say about it, but it’s straightforward in a refreshing and enjoyable way.

can i go to hell pleaseee

honestly this game PUMMELED me when i first tried playing it, but after actually taking a while to mentally recover i had a great time figuring out the puzzles! the game is completely overflowing with charm like any other woah_maaan submission in past jams, and even though these types of open-ended logic puzzles aren’t my favorite, said charm really dragged me in. the whole thing became a lot more enjoyable once it hit me that the ghosts were always split into groups of 3/2 or 5 based on their likes and dislikes, so i knew ahead of time what each box would need to focus on and could work on getting it there. actually, that’s probably what made me enjoy it, since it was something concrete to hold on to. not much on the negative side, but it was a bit annoying how you didn’t have to use every doll near the end despite the previous pattern, and the music was servicable and not at all bad but didn’t stand out among the rest of the content. ended up finding solutions to get the full 4200 points in the end, and it was worth it for all the fun cutscenes! and also just because it was fun. nice use of the theme, too, just as the cherry on top. thanks maaan!

starring shion “gave her the rock” yorigami

surprisingly captivating for such a simple gameplay loop. it really does just boil down to looking at the touhous and pressing the right button, but somehow that manages to be genuinely engaging. spent way longer than i needed to trying to get high scores (gave up after 77). the only issue i think i really had was that my fingers kept slipping when i tried to go fast, but that’s a finger problem, not a game problem. also the molly art is peak as par usual, the costumes were fun and the unique parts of each character to look out for were clear but not totally effortless to find. soundtrack was an absolute banger too, i have no idea why it goes so hard but i’m glad it does. would candy again!

^ the giant rat that makes all of the rules

short game as advertised, but a fun one. although it’s weirdly easy to start out with, the patterns are generally fun to dodge once it gets into the swing of things. they’re tough enough that adding a visible hitbox was a much-needed addition, although i really wish there was a proper focus mode. particularly when you’re getting aimed shots while also having to run through the big circles of bullets, i feel like nazrin’s speed was too high for the level of precision needed to dodge. also never really got how the enemy spawning worked beyond it being more frequent as you damaged the main boss more. even so, not much to complain about a bullet hell game’s gameplay when dodging the bullets is fun! art is also nice and visuals on the bullets were great, the only times i didn’t see something were when i wasn’t paying enough attention. overall a very good time, i love the mous!

https://tenor.com/view/say-that-again-gif-968943876633031890

very short in practice, but neat idea. it’s a pretty straightforward execution of the jam theme, but a solid one with lots of room for potential expansion. unfortunately, as many have said, spamming w & s is outright diabolical, and not much was done with the core gameplay. i think it could’ve been improved quite a lot with the simple addition of randomized inputs, turning it into more of a qte game than a button-masher, but that’s just me. nice art and writing, definitely adds to the mood and setting. sadly not too inclined to replay for better time since i don’t want carpal tunnel, but it’s a fun concept for sure!

green flag spotted. sleeper agent awoken.

although the gameplay may boil down to wandering around and talking to funny touhous, holy shit do i love talking to funny touhous. ESPECIALLY when the dialogue is this good! definitely needed a pass for spelling and grammar, but it’s still perfectly coherent and really really funny. then again i might be slightly biased since the artstyle and writing reminds me of my own work.

refreshingly, my biggest issue with the game is that it’s TOO easy. provided you have any sense of direction whatsoever, you can easily win just by going around and talking to everyone. i already had the item for probably more than half of the quest npcs i talked to. the direction for said quests wasn’t great either, most of the locations you get items from are pretty arbitrary. this means the only way to solve them is to walk around until you happen to find the item, which is only a non-issue because the game is largely based on walking around anyway.

thankfully all of these issues are minor and massively outweighed by the sheer charm this game has. REALLY looking forward to seeing more from you in the future!

Grievous Hecatia Harm!

short, cute, and fun little game! difficulty curve was a little weird, wasn’t too fun dodging just aimed bullets for most of the stage. this gets rectified once you’re upgraded, but maybe a bit too much considering the solution is killing all the fairies before they do anything. the boss patterns are SUPER well done though, even after getting shot and losing 2/3 of my firepower it was fun to dodge and i didnt mind having to spend so long doing it. the music and art props the game up even more, gives it a good vibe. also a pretty fun use of theme. not much more to say given it’s a short and simple game, but sometimes the simple games are just what i need.

(review based on 1.0 jam release)

well i for one think the sukusuku is delightful and not at all a burden

very charming game with good art and cute presentation. but for a while, a frustrating game. the slippery movement and annoying enemies definitely caused a lot of issues, and the time limit was the unsung villain of the story. frustrating mechanics that you HAVE to take fast don’t make for a fun time.

and then i found out about aiming down with the oni killer upgrade.

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.

from a game design perspective, it’s probably not a good thing if your platformer becomes far more enjoyable when you give the player an insanely powerful jetpack, but my god i can’t stress enough how fun the game becomes once you realize the potential. not only do you get to shred through all the enemies and fling yourself past obstacles, it makes the slippery movement feel less like an obstacle and more like the price to pay for having an awesome bullet jetpack. honestly, it’s so good i genuinely wish the game was built around it. it’s so much more fun going around collecting stuff when you fling yourself around like that, and it pretty much saved the game for me. most gameplay issues i had were totally negated. praise be to the oni killer jetpack.

claims to be a hattery, yet has no sign of famed tengu hattery himekaidou… curious…

there’s some REALLY fun potential here, but i think it’s held back by a couple issues. for one thing, the days are just barely too short. i could comfortably fit in two orders in every day, but the only time i could fit in a third was when two of them were just a plain white hat with nothing on it. this isn’t inherently a problem, but it leaves me with an uncomfortably long time at the end of each day where i don’t have time to do a third order. having two orders per day also makes it much easier to spiral into bankruptcy, although constantly being one mistake from crippling debt seems pretty accurate if you’re working for the yorigamis, so fair enough. the physics are also pretty annoying, makes for a unique change of pace in theory but a frustrating obstacle in practice. one time i managed to clip my new box of hats through the floor and it exploded.

thankfully, there’s also a lot i liked! the art is very charming, both for characters and hat assets. i liked how there were several elements to consider for production, like stock and timing, rather than just making sure you click on everything that’s required. music also helped give it a nice mood, ended up reminding me of that old flash game factory balls (which isn’t terribly far off in terms of gameply either). it’s also probably hard to get a more perfect use of theme lol

might try again sometime and see if i can’t figure out how to progress better. overall a great time!

ok but can she beat goku

way more difficult than i’m usually ready for when it comes to jam games, but that’s not at all a bad thing! incredible presentation, really fits for cirno’s big adventure. and given that it’s meant to be kinda jank and executes that perfectly, i guess that’s points for story/writing. the main theme-related part of the game seems to be the build creation, but i feel like there’s a lot of nuance to it that i just wasn’t getting. it took me a while just to figure out how to add multiple upgrades, and i had to resort to itch comments to learn about the 10-upgrade limit. and i STILL don’t know how charging works in the slightest.

as others have mentioned, visual clarity is the game’s biggest issue (at least in the jam build). projectiles are extremely fast and downright spammy at their worst, which is made significantly worse with the fact that the player shoots a huge amount of bullets as well. hitboxes were clear though, so it’s not all bad in that department! seriously that’s a MAJOR positive i hate bad hitboxes lol

fortunately, the bullet patterns were mostly fun to dodge. for the most part, the hard ones made me think “damn that’s hard i gotta lock in for this” rather than “literally what the fuck do i do here”, which tends to be a sign of well-balanced patterns. it’s also possible that some of the more baffling attacks just need better visual clarity to be learnable. as it stands, normal seems to be the most enjoyable difficulty, since lunatic (and presumably ultra which i didn’t want to try because that’s scary) turns the number of attacks that make me go “literally what the fuck do i do here” WAY up.

definitely going to revisit this one and try to practice more, and it’s a VERY good sign if i want to do that!

alice scary……..

writing here is phenomenal, really sets a properly horrifying mood. concept is also fun and a good use of the theme. an unexpected one too, BEING the tailor-made thing (especially in such a terrifying situation) really caught me off-guard. in a way i liked, though!

unfortunately, i couldn’t really get into it with the gameplay issues i had. clicking anything seems to do nothing, then highlight an unrelated object i didn’t click on when i go to the next slide, then play an ending that seems unrelated to either choice. most likely not on my end since i used the direct google slides link, but i guess it could be my browser or computer somehow. this issue might be due to the visual clarity issues, i literally didn’t know what i was clicking on besides the mirror and doll. which is a shame, since the story really piqued my interest. (but fortunately i was able to get it anyway by breaking into the presentation and reading it directly and it was awesome)

(review based on 1.03 jam release)

THE JIANGSHIS ATE YOUR DONATIONS!

still think it’s really funny that multiple people made pvz style games for this jam in particular, but it’s fine because they’re super good. art was PHENOMENAL on this one, felt like it captured a bit of the original pvz charm while still being unique. gameplay was mostly smooth, although the final stage is quite a difficulty spike. music was ALMOST perfect, but those off-key high notes in the main stage theme kinda murdered me ngl. thankfully, the entire soundtrack is nothing but bangers aside from that one specific part.

the story wasn’t a big focus, but it was neat and added some fun context to the setting. that being said, the dialogue kinda makes me feel like i was supposed to unlock each doll sequentially rather than having them all available on stage 1. this also would’ve made the difficulty a lot more consistent, so it’d make sense if it was meant to work that way.

but regardless of if it worked 100% correctly or not, i had a good time with this one! managed to be fun to strategize even with just a few factors to consider. and good thing i like pvz to begin with cuz theres more where this came from lmao

Sun. Moon. Star. Using these, you were able to win at “Ball Game”. (You are awarded 50G.)

it’s difficult to not let my inherent bias towards anything involving the three fairies show here, but i swear it’s just a good game besides that. REALLY fun for how simple the gameplay loop is. as other people have mentioned, it’s pretty easily cheesed by spamming all the buttons (which i think could be rectified by simply giving bonus points for using less inputs), but you can’t underestimate the power of simply Not using cheese. and when i didn’t, it was really fun!

the difficulty ramps up quite fast after a while, which is mostly noticeable in subsequent playthroughs since the first levels feel much slower when you aren’t also trying to learn how the game works. not really a problem, though. said curve seems to be based on automatically scaling speed, so i’d imagine it gets COMPLETELY unfair at some point, but that’s also not a bad thing when the game has an arcadey feel to begin with. not really the kind of loop that lends itself to a defined ending. phenomenal music choice, really helps make it more exciting, and the spritework on star is super nice. having to switch between rps-style elements wasn’t really something i’d think of for the theme, but it fits nicely.

ended up playing a few times to try and get a high score of at least 1000, and the replayability is fantastic here. overall a great time, hope to see more from you in the next jam!

ok so first of all what the fuck how did you do that

creating an authentic 8-bit rom for touhou game jam is completely unhinged and i love it so much. conveniently, i also love the game itself! movement feels incredibly smooth, which is impressive for a game with 8-bit limitations and even more impressive when said limitations give it a choppy framerate. i know that sounds inherently antithetical to smooth gameplay but i swear to you it honestly doesn’t make it feel any worse. bullet patterns also help, they're generally very well-done and predictable without being too easy. i REALLY wish i could see the hitbox, but it was never too much of a concern. trying to hit the bosses with the doll attack is also a bit annoying at times but never too bad. the difficulty curve is good for a while, but it goes completely batshit insane at stage 7 out of nowhere. admittedly i never made it past, the gameplay is pretty slow and methodical which isn’t a bad thing by any means but makes going through it all again to learn the next stage VERY daunting. kind of a big fan of the story too, despite it only being mentioned for a few lines in the description (which once again is a fair concession given the limitations that were being worked with here). even managed to get the theme in in a unique way!

perhaps i’d have had an even better time if my broke ass could afford that gametank thingy but as it stands that was hella cool

(review based on 1.0 jam release)

solve my riddlse

to preface this review i have to admit that i’m not in the target audience of “people who know what the fuck current touhou lore is because they actually read the manga” but somehow i don’t think that really factored into my judgements lol

at its core, the gameplay is just answering riddles and trivia. you’d hope and expect that these questions would be good in that case, and my god are they ever. like i said, most of my incorrect answers were lore-related trivia, but the explanations offered after every question lead me to believe that they were perfectly reasonable questions that i just literally didn’t know. as for the more generic riddles (four legs two legs three legs or what have you), those ALSO had really fair answers! and as much as i want to kill nareko for the mount everest question, i can’t even argue with it in any way cuz it’s just a fair trick question. she got me good.

mollyco art is always a treat, so i’m glad the honor went to the character graphics you’ll see the most throughout the entire game. other random artist cameos in the different rooms were neat, but in general the art isn’t as big of a focus as the core gameplay itself. same goes for the music, they both add some nice flavor in support of the main questions. which is based! only real thing i can actually knock it for is use of theme since the deal seems to be that nareko is asking the same pool of questions to everyone rather than giving tailor-made:tm: riddles to each visitor. literally everything else ranges from damn solid to absolute peak.

now if you’ll excuse me i have to go suffer from curse of ra for having nearly as many incorrect answers as questions asked

you can update your game during the jam if you keep the original jam build separate and make it very clear that the current version is the new updated one

also you're welcome lol it was a great time

do i look like i know hwat an ultimate chicken horse is

despite the fact that i have NO idea what the inspiration for this game is like, holy shit it is so fun. kinda hard to get into at first since there’s no real tutorial, but it feels really smooth once you do. might actually be one of those games where having TOO much of a tutorial is a bad thing, i like how you’re forced to experiment with the dolls to figure out what they do and how they interact. platforming is also very solid, which is generally a good thing for games focused entirely on platforming. kinda reminds me of IWBTG (this is a VERY good thing) with all the insane bullshit going on once you’re late into each stage.

in terms of negatives, there aren’t really many besides the lack of a tutorial! it’s not super hard to cheese, but something something cheaters only cheat themselves. obv not anything in terms of story, but it doesn’t really need one. absolutely LOVE the art by the way, such a charming style!

anyway endless mode when

(review based on 1.0 jam release)

he he… tail or… maide……..

big fan of this one. the difficulty is harsh but fair, there’s a lot of variety in strategies thanks to the helpers and their modifiers, and the art and music are an absolute treat.

my biggest issue with the game was the lack of direction you get at the beginning - the fundamentals are clear enough, but the importance of prioritizing buying supplies and batering over manual crafting is really unintuitive. this also snowballs into a bigger problem, since the first two days are perfectly doable with mostly manual crafting and no bartering, but the third day becomes a total brick wall without the extra money. i only managed to get back on my feet for the last day, and only figured out what to do in the first place by reading medal’s older review in the comments here.

(also as people have mentioned i really wish you could see the list of ingredients better so that you know what’s missing or low)

that being said, once i DID figure out how to properly play the game, it was honestly really fun! the ingredient list was a little frustrating at times, but the last couple days (when i had my strategies set up) struck the perfect balance of smooth and hectic. it always felt like i had something to do, but it rarely felt like i didn't have the time to do it. strategizing the upgrades was particularly fun. the story wasn’t a huge focus, but the dialogue was enjoyable and gave me that slightly dreamlike feeling old touhou dialogue always gives me. i honestly don’t know how else to describe the feeling, but i swear it’s good.

overall a great time and a great submission, especially considering nearly everything (except the art) was made by one person!

da hole!

like others have said, the biggest issue with the game is the inconsistent click detection. even when the holes aren’t visually overlapping, the hitboxes can, which makes it very frustrating at times. also pretty rough to start out with, the how to play section only covered the absolute basics and it took me a bit to even figure out what was happening in the main gameplay.

that being said, despite the simple gameplay, i was REALLY captivated when i finally got into it! this is probably thanks to the phenomenal atmosphere, which is very uncomfortable (in an enjoyable way). i’ve never read the enigma of amigara fault, but as far as i’m aware, it’s a horror work, so that matches up very nicely.

also jesus fucking christ that ending was. Yeah (not in a bad way it’s a natural and well-executed conclusion to the tension but Yeah)

overall good start to my review period, hope to see more from you next jam

lord almighty i didnt realize you couldnt go back after the dialogue skips thats my bad i was still learning renpy lol

thanks for the support though (and sorry for the jarring sprites my artist ran out of time)

he called upon the demon lord ba'al the soul eater

this game will be comparable to pizza tower

why is it unironically good in every way

misinformation there's only amoeba

gud