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For your first question the mysterious key has no use in the demo.  It's simply a teaser item.

As for JoiPlay, anything related to it is completely out of my control so I can't really speak to any performance issues encountered through using it.  On my PC the game runs at a pretty consistent 60 fps.  My 12-year-old Mac laptop is closer to 20 but I've personally never even tried it on a phone, nor did I build it with that really in mind.

The three logs can all be found if you head to the Right of the merchant camp.  There's a forest hub zone there with multiple branching paths.  The logs can be found if you follow the paths that lead specifically down (There are two of these, where you find a house, and a Hunter respectively) as well as Right (Where you can find the sick man.).  If you need the tools those are directly Up from Rest Spot area and will require you to complete a boss fight.  Hope that helps!

I really think Tinman ended up being a hi-light of the game..  Of course, I might just be horribly biased haha.  But for someone who wasn't even set to appear in the original concept he ended up playing a very pivotal role in the final product.

As for how he interacts with the games mechanics, well, he wont "follow the rules" so to speak.  The perks of being a machine is that you don't have to deal with stamina.  He doesn't need food either but that'll  be where he gets a bit tricky.  The items that work on Red won't be compatible with him.  You'll instead need to find oil to keep him running.  And of course he'll interact with statuses in unique ways as well, being immune to things like Bleed and Burns.  In theory he's a very powerful character but his health will be a lot more finite than any other playable character.

Oh that's awesome.  The more things like this that pop up the better for everyone.

I wish I had something a little more concrete but this situation has been incredibly sudden.  For now all I can really say for sure is that I will be adding the demo to my Patreon completely for free like it is here.  I'll also being making a devlog later today talking about all this and providing links to my currently active accounts.
I appreciate you reaching out.

Hahaha,, I will absolutely NOT.  I think the highest I'd be comfortable going is $20.  So there's no chance of it being close to those numbers.

It has been a minute hasn't it?  Development has been going really good I would say.  I'll probably be posting a new devlog here in a few days or so covering this months progress.  But as I approach the games final chapters there really isn't too much I can share without giving away major spoilers unfortunately.  I can share however that this month has had a lot of music producing.  2 new tracks were completed and a third one is currently in progress.

I appreciate your continued interest and hope your'e doing well!  Please look forward to the next devlog for some more proper looks at progress!

1. In regards to the endings yes there will absolutely be a hint system.  The goofier ones will more or less tell you what to do but the more major ones will be vague enough that you'll still have to work out the finer details.  Though currently I'm unsure if the hints should be unlocked upon achieving ANY ending or only after getting one of the main 5 endings (A-E).

2. As for the games price the only real answer I can currently say is, I don't know.  It's something I seem to keep putting off coming to a decision on and likely wont until I firmly know just how long the game ends up being.  $13 is a price I think about often simply because 13 is a fairly crucial number to the game as a whole but it's a bit of an odd price and I'm not sure it'll be appealing to people haha.  I definitely don't see a world where the game ever exceeds $20 however.  Somewhere around $10--15 is probably where it  will land unless the average playtime comes out MUCH longer than I'm expecting.

3. When it comes to the costumes I always intended to either A) Reflect them in lewd scenes or B) make certain scenes locked to certain outfits.  As my focus shifted however to the guaranteed release I felt it would be better to simply make one standard set for launch that everyone can view.  And then post launch updates can be done to make the CG's reflect different outfits as well as add even more.  I really appreciated the way Stellar Blade continued to give free costume updates after launch and would like to do something similar if I can manage it.

I wouldn't say crazy haha.  I've never seen/read One Punch Man but I absolutely thought of Genos when I was trying to figure out how to approach my version of the Tinman.  The black sclera in particular was a good way to set him apart from the rest of the human based cast.  But yeah I used a lot of different inspirations, even going back to Cell from dbz lol.

I can understand where concerns like that would come from, and especially since these new systems still can't be experienced for the players yet.  But I believe everything has been thoughtfully designed to avoid such issues.

Each Arcana has it's own strengths and weaknesses and I imagine most players will be changing up their loadout to suit whatever point of the story they are currently at, especially in new game plus when they have the full roster open to them right from the start.  But of course there's only so much I can ever really get across with words alone.  For now all I can ask is that you trust me and wait for the demo to experience it yourself.  Though even then the demo will likely only include the first 2 classes.  Still it should be enough to sell the idea I think.

As in like yuri scenes?  There are a couple of optional scenes.  I believe only one such sequence is in the demo.

Yeah absolutely!  As long as you're interested I'll definitely reach out after the initial launch.

I wouldn't say there's any language in particular I'm thinking of haha.  As long as there's interest from players and I can find a suitable translator I'm open to anything really.

So in light of your offer I took some time to look into how the process would actually work.  Since the game was not being developed with language options in mind, there is a lot of manual work that I will have to do before anything is in a state that can be reasonably translated into any language.

I definitely think updating the games text to this format would be invaluable going forward, as once I do it, translations into any language will be as simple as having someone who CAN translate do just that.  But with how late into development it already is I've made a mountain of extra work for myself.

And as I am committed to releasing the full game this year I'm not sure I'll have the time to do that work.  However post launch I absolutely think it will be worth it for me to do.  I very much appreciate your offer but as it stands there's simply nothing that can be reasonably done until I put in at least a few weeks worth of effort into exporting the entire english dialogue.  So I can't say when anything will be in a place that is translation ready sadly.

Hey nothing wrong with doing it that way haha.

Soul is definitely a deliberate word choice.  I'm glad to see you've even looked into the inscription!  You're already on track for the true ending haha.

Shhhhhhhhh!

No spoiling the addition of short cut keys!  That's for another update later! :P 

Jokes (or not?) aside yeah it really clicked with me when I considered the way other "solo" protagonist games work.  Like the original digital devil story games or even pokemon.  Sure you are one person, but you get to recruit monsters that add variety and thats what makes it fun.    It was pretty much when thinking about Persona that I had that thought of "it would be nice if Red could change her class like in those games, but I don't really have anything she could symbolically switch between."  And then I had the galaxy brain realization that the tarot cards were right there in front of me haha.

And after that it really felt like all those disjointed ideas and mechanics naturally fell into place.  I wish I could put out a demo for people to try but, at this stage it's just not ready for that yet.

Haha yep.  Fear and Hunger was almost a happy accident of stumbling upon it as I began the transition to 1.0 so some of those ideas seeped in.  As another RPG Maker game it was really cool to see how far things could be pushed and definitely helped me to redouble my own efforts.  As much as other games have been invaluable for inspiration, I think Fear and Hunger holds a special place as being something that actually encouraged me to keep going down the path I had decided on.

The tools will require you to defeat the Slime King boss.  You can find him by going back to the map with the Goddess Statue and heading up.

I would love to have the game translated into other languages.  However currently I have no real means to do so unfortunately.  Hopefully options will become available once the game is completed.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a lengthy review! I really appreciate the feedback.  I'll do my best to respond to as much as I can.

First of all thanks so much for your kind words! I'm flattered by your praise and comparisons.

1. In regards to the combat system, let me assure you that the actual mechanics of combat will not be changing.  For example exploiting weaknesses will still allow Red to perform extra actions.  However the core system will be restructured to allow for many new opportunities.  A detailed dev log discussing everything about the new system and why I changed the old one will be posted later this month.

2. In regards to clothing, there are absolutely hidden values attached to them, but there are also over sights and errors at the moment that have not been addressed leaving some of them with unintentional side effects.  This will be cleared up by the time of the next update hopefully.

3. Continuing from that, the next update will also finally include optional tutorial prompts.  Currently I've omitted these as the game has been in a pretty unstable state as far as mechanics, but as it nears completion and things reach a stable and finalized place, it will finally make sense to actually include in game information explaining to the player the ins and outs of the various systems and mechanics.  From the various uses of Tarot Cards, to the Heart and Blood meters displayed on screen.

4. About the key you can find in the cemetery.  This has no use in the demo, however it is the first clue to the bigger mystery and plot that the player can uncover in the full game.  You will need it to access the hidden final Chapter 13 in the full release.

5. Side activities will be receiving a UI update (As is the entire game actually, I've already shown a lot of this on Patreon but a free devlog here on Itchio will be showcasing all of this months progress in late June.) So things like where to access events, or what NPC's are shops will be clear at a glance.  I also aim to improve the fishing mechanic, and intend to have more optional bosses from the depths that can be fished up.

Again thank you so much for taking the time to write out your thoughts!  I unfortunately couldn't quite follow all of it due to the translation at times distorting your meaning but I really appreciate it regardless.  If you don't mind me asking I'd be curious to know what your native language is as well.

The full game is intended to release here on Itchio before the end of the year.  A steam version is then planned but will not be available until 2026 due to the extra work of setting all that up and my commitment to meeting a 2025 release for the base game.

I'm so glad you enjoyed your time with Project Red and hope the final game will be to your liking!

The game is currently only available on windows and mac os.  These are the only two formats I can output without external software and sufficient time invested in compressing all files. So I won't be considering a mobile/android version until the game is done and I can judge if it'll actually be feasible or not.

From what I can gather this issue seems to be related to where the game has been stored on your pc.  Is it possible you've placed it in a folder that doesn't allow you to write new data?  

Haha thank you!  They're definitely all different from each other though each of them struggles with an issue that their Wonderland journey will force them to confront.  The gameplay itself will hopefully reflect the differences in them as well with unique gimmicks and framing to their story.  Alice for example is currently planned to have a bit of a life sim aspect to her early chapters before she gets dragged down the rabbit hole.

Happy to hear that!

I appreciate that. The other two girls are Dotty and Alice.  My overall plan is to produce at least three games in this "Lost Girls Fables" universe.  Alice will properly appear in Project Red and already has her dialogue recorded, and Dotty will make a brief cameo in one of the gag endings.  Then instead of making a Project Red 2, the next game would be focused on Alice as the heroine, with Red and Dotty being part of her supporting cast and you could pry guess Cheshire taking a more prominent role.  And the third game then being Wizard of Oz focused with Dotty, Scarecrow, Tinman and the Cowardly Lion as a proper adventure party all of whom will have been introduced in the previous games.

But well, that's the basic plan anyway.  Assuming Project Red does well enough to justify me following through haha.  But so far it's done more than enough to make me confident in at least the next game being highly likely.

You're fine dude.  Comments and feedback are plenty of support already.

是的。游戏开发完成后，我们会推出 Steam 版本。

It's something that I think will make sense once the full game is in your hands. 

It's a bit too late in development for an idea like that to be introduced, however, I'll be clear in that I never considered including such a system in this game to begin with.  I don't think it would have a place in the experience I'm trying to create.

No worries! I appreciate your interest and kind words!

Unfortunately no demos are currently planned until the game is in a more stable and complete form. I'm currently working on a complete overhaul of the games UI as well as reworking the battle system so the current build of the game is essentially unplayable until these systems are more fully formed.

The bad news is that the changes will be so drastic that existing save data will be completely useless.  The good news is that the next demo will be compatible with the full release.  So when the demo DOES come out you won't have to worry about losing saves/progress anymore.  And the sections you will have to replay will be substantially different on the gameplay front, along with having a skip button to quickly get out of scenes you've already seen.

As for the graveyard it's a hidden map so I don't want to post explicit spoilers here.  But I'll say it's hidden in the stretch of forest next to the merchant camp.

Thanks so much for your continued interest!

Yeah it's been a pain I know!  Currently however I am not planning to have any more updates until right before the full release later this year.  The bad news is save data between 1.0 and the 2.0 launch will absolutely not work.  But the good news is that save data from the 2.0 demo and full release (plus any future updates at that time of course.) will be compatible.  And of course the game will be quite a bit different to justify one more restart I think!

This page will continue to get monthly devlogs showcasing what's being worked on as well so you can still get an idea of what stuff occurs in the later chapters.  Thanks for you interest and kind words!

There's currently no official walkthroughs since content is still subject to change.  But I can give you some direction in case you didn't finish yet. The main ingredients are just drops from the Slime and Shroom enemy.  The specific flower you need though is located past the broken bridge.  So if you haven't cleared the slime boss you just need to progress the main story.  If you have then the flower is located to the right of Cheshire's shop.  You might want to save as there's an optional lewd scene that can occur depending on how you pick the flower.

But after you make the medicine the quest will stall out and you won't be able to progress as the remaining parts of it take place in later chapters that the demo doesn't cover.  Hope that helped!  And glad you're enjoying the game despite the issues.

You aren't the first to report issues with the Mac version being laggy.  I've never experienced issues outside of running OBS alongside the game but I just downloaded the demo to my 2016 laptop to be thorough and it ran pretty smooth so I can't really understand where the issues are coming from. I've never been able to replicate this for myself so I'm uncertain what the issue could be unfortunately.

Oh wow, thanks so much for the in depth feedback!  It's much appreciated! I'll look into fixing those bugs but I'll try to respond to the rest of your thoughts here for now.

1.  Using the basket in particular is actually going to be necessary for unlocking a gag ending in the full game.  

2. This is a bug! Or maybe a quirk.  It's supposed to have unique art like the other Evocation but since I never made it the event is unfinished and doesn't trigger properly in combat.  Once the games story content is completed this will get cleaned up as well.

3. Hmmm, And you're playing the most recent version correct?  I just double checked the game files and the Intel option is listed alongside talk and ask for work.  I'm not sure how it would have happened but it's possible the demo was exported with an older version of his event? I no longer have that build on hand but that'd be my bad if that's indeed the case!  Sorry about that!

4. Crafting was pretty last minute so yeah it's lacking in some quality of life features.  I expect the full game to have a much more user friendly experience.  In regards to bullets though...I must confess somehow the idea of converting existing bullets to silver ones just didn't cross my mind haha.  Maybe I WILL add that.

5. Sold items are indeed lost forever, though I try to make it impossible to soft lock yourself by making important items impossible to sell.

6. Yes I completely agree with you.  I won't go into much detail here but a major overhaul to combat and related mechanics is already being worked on.  The new systems that are planned will greatly shake up the way every encounter is approached along with adding tons of new variables to consider.  Please look forward to it!

7. If you sold them all and also used harvest on the corpses then yeah you're kind of cooked lol.  However that quest line doesn't really conclude in the demo so you're not really missing anything.  Maybe just one scene with two more lines from Red?  I definitely don't think it's something you need to reload to see haha.

Again thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts! I'm glad you're enjoying Project Red and hope you'll look forward to future updates!

So the section in chapter 2 where you make a variety of choices will effectively alter the starting items Red has as well as her affinities and skill points (This part you won't really be able to tell of course.).  Every question, including the optional ones with the other butterflies will have at least one answer that "rewards" you in some way.  Of these the soul color is the most unique as each color correlates to a piece of Armor Red will start the game with, and these armors have a variety of different but useful effects.

As for time, I'm aware that it's unfortunately lead to some negative reactions from players.  All I can really say is that you most definitely have enough time to safely see all the content in the demo and still take advantage of saving or bathing or other activities that can cost time.  I encourage you to try and do everything!

Thanks for the feedback and compliments.  I hope you continue to enjoy your time with my game!

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts! Yeah combat seems to be a bit of a mixed bag.  I've seen a lot of people struggle with it but I also totally agree with you in the sense that, once you know what to do, there no longer is any real challenge to standard encounters.

In truth I've been working on a major overhaul behind the scenes that I think will be the secret ingredient to bringing together the various systems in a more cohesive way and bring a lot more strategy and complexity to combat.

In regards to the money however the demo is absolutely skewed in your favor compared to the plans for the final game.  Especially since human enemies that drop gold didn't exist for  quite a while so you didn't have many options.

I'm glad you've been enjoying the game and I hope you look forward to future updates!

Feedback is always appreciated so thank you for taking the time to right up your thoughts.

1. I hope you aren't resetting your run over locked treasures!  Just to be perfectly clear tarot card chests are entirely randomized loot.  You will never miss a unique magic ring or story item from them.  They are simply chances to get some more expensive items, like bullets, for free.

2. In regards to the Firespitter, and all enemies in general really, escaping from battle is pretty hit or miss at the moment.  Some enemies are properly programmed to stand still and allow you to walk through them and some are not.  This is simply because enemy behaviors are not fully fleshed out and it is kind of a luck of the draw as to if I copy and pasted a default enemy with those settings properly set up or not.  This is also why many enemies reuse tarot cards or show the incorrect death sprite.  This will absolutely be fixed by the time of the full release, but has not been a high priority yet unfortunately.

3. In regards to Mac I myself do all my play testing and development on a mac.  I can't say I typically experience any performance errors when running the game however. The only times I can recall the entire game becoming laggy was when I was trying to capture footage and running OBS or other such applications.  Wish I could offer more help than that!

Thank you for playing and I hope you enjoy your time with Red!

1.  If you're referring to the monument outside, then yes it can not be activated in the demo.

2.  I'm not entirely  sure what exactly you're referring to with this one.  If you mean the special items that Red can wake up with then yes, you will wake up with one of the 3 special items depending on the answer you give in chapter 2 to a particular question.

3. The medicine quest can not be fully completed until chapter 7.  So in the demo you can only get as far as making it and then finding the man has vanished.

Gotcha.  Yeah a lot has changed from version to version but this is the demo that's gonna stick around for the next few months at least.

Doesn't bother me at all, I'm always open to feedback.

In regards to time I understand that it's more or less the most contested mechanic when it comes to Project Red.  The 1.8 demo nearly did launch with an easy mode that had the clock starting at 6pm instead of 9 however since I didn't have time to throughly test it I left it out rather than have people potentially have a rough buggy first run.  

That being said, there ARE other ways to save beyond resting at camp fires. Ritual Candles can be used at Goddess Statues to save without moving time forward at all.  Reaching new chapters will also prompt you if you'd like to save your progress, again with no time cost.  And in Chapter 5 you'll have the option to make a permanent free use save point. 

The more you play and explore your options in the game the more you'll likely realize that time is barely a factor to consider, especially in this demo.  I can tell you for a fact that there's enough time to do every lewd event and save at camp fires a few times while still reaching the end of the demo with time to spare, so try not to worry about it so much.  The idea for time is simply to be another type of currency that you can choose to spend as you need it.  Do you want an easy way to heal and save?  Spend time at a camp fire.  Do you want to fast track your relationship with the Goddess Eros or make money quickly?  Spend time on lewd requests.  Do you want to wash blood off yourself and get some buffs? Spend time on a bath.  But all of these things can be done without spending time. Healing items and spells as well as level ups restoring your HP and MP to full.  Side Quests can give you money without having you spend in game time. Blood can be washed off by items or having wholesome experiences in the story.  That is a long winded way to say that, time is a currency that you are encouraged to spend on whatever you feel you need, when you need it.  While failing to reach the end by 6am nets you a unique ending, there is literally no advantage to reaching the end with several in game hours left on the table.  So do spend your time.

Thanks for your feedback, and I hope this helps!