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I took a look at your game pages. Your demo page claims no AI, but your main pages says "AI Disclosure AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Sounds". Can you clarify how the demo does not use AI, but the main game uses it for most things?

This jam is all about community and helping each other out. It would be great if everyone could play and comment on every other game, but we understand that not everyone has the time, resources, or plenty of other reasons, to do so. 

If you are willing to play and give feedback to those who play your game, comment here, or feel free to start your own thread. Mention if you are willing to reciprocate for every comment, or are just looking to setup an exchange with a certain number of people. 

This was not meant to be "intimidating". It was simply restating the rules of the jam, while offering you a warning and a second chance to take part in a future jam, so long as you follow the rules. 

You said "I clearly underestimated the importance of the interactive aspect of this specific jam", but our jam is very clear about the importance of this aspect. We do what what we can to make sure anyone considering our jam knows what is expected before submitting. The top of the jam very clearly states in bold that commenting is a requirement of submitting to this jam. It is at the top, and bolded, so it will be among the first things seen, so anyone not willing to commit to the requirement, doesn't have to look any further. We are looking to build a community of like-minded people who want to help each other out. There are plenty of other jams out there covering various other aspects, but we wanted one for mutual feedback, and that is the cornerstone of this jam. We fully accept that this is not for everyone. Some people don't have the time or interest. Whatever the reason, everyone is free to do what works for them. We just ask that those joining our jam, follow the rules of the jam.

From the top of the jam page:

"Anyone submitting to this jam is expected to take part in playing the other submissions and leaving a comment with feedback. You don't have to play every submission, or give a detailed full page report, just be part of the community and help others as they are helping you. Those who do not give any feedback will not be welcome in future jams."

The form to submit your game also has that friendly reminder you asked for on it:

"Reminder: This jam is about helping each other out. By submitting to the jam you are agreeing to play and comment on other submissions. You do not have to play them all, nor do we have a minimum. We just ask that you help others, preferably reciprocating to those who comment on yours. Your comments can be just a few sentences. Mention what you like, or don't like. What you think worked well, or think could be improved. Mention any bugs you found. Just try to give some feedback that will help make the game better."

We appreciate that you say you will pay more attention in the future.

This jam is about giving feedback as well as receiving it. It is about helping each other out. I've looked over the interactions for this jam, and see that you did not rate or comment on any other submissions. If you take part in a future jam you must play and comment on other submissions or you will be banned from any of our future jams.

I like the UI update showing when durability is used. I've mostly learned when it is used for the axe, but having that visual cue will also remind me to check the current durability before using it.

Thanks for clarifying. This is helpful.

I've gone over the Inventory tutorial and cleaned it up a bit for our next release. The main change was to put the info on moving items at the start, and adding some spacing, bold, and italics to help draw attention to some details. We plan to go over it again to see if we can trim it down, or break it up more. I also added back a button that allows you to restart that tutorial. The place it was got removed during a restructuring and adding it back seems to have been overlooked.

The tutorials are set to show as you reach the places they are relevant to. The Key Items don't currently have a tutorial of their own. If they did, it would start only when you open that tab. If you go to the Inventory before the Quest Log, then you are actually seeing 2 tutorials in a row. The first is short and just mentions the outer UI elements, mainly listing what each tab is and how to exit. If the Inventory is showing, then it rolls into the Inventory tutorial. The Quest Log doesn't have it's own tutorial, so going there first would get just the UI tutorial, and then when you switch to the Inventory you will get that one.

I'm thinking that adding a ToC may help, especially for going back through if you are looking for something specific. I'll have to see how well that will fit into the current system.

I agree that people learn best by doing. Our first tutorial was for combat, and it was interactive. It walked you through several turns of combat adding new buttons each turn and having you use them. Some people liked it, but most felt it was too long and overwhelming. The core system is still there, but the tutorial needs to be significantly updated for the recent combat overhaul. I'm also looking at trying to tie it into the Training Hall, so that you can start a mini combat from a specific topic, to try out just that piece. Unfortunately, that is not something that can be done easily with the current system. As we go forward I will be looking to see where I can add a bit more interactivity to the tutorials, preferably with an option for the player to decide if they want it.

Thanks.

This is just the latest study I came across. I've seen others. Most often they are on students and how they become dependent on AI instead of learning to think for themselves.

Knowing how to use tools to find facts is often more important than remembering every little detail, but critical thinking and problem solving are vital skills on their own that go beyond knowing specific facts. The problem with comparing AI to using a search engine to find facts, is that Generative AI/LLM is not a tool for finding facts. It is a tool that makes up answers based on how it was trained. Sometimes it will give you facts. Sometimes it makes up completely random answers and you have to know enough of the topic to be able to know the difference, in which case you probably could have solved the problem yourself.

In cases of programming, many people are asking it to create new things, be it art or code. That is no longer working with simple facts but having it do the work of solving the problem for you. If people, especially students learning new things, rely on AI to do the creative thinking and problem solving for them, then they will not develop the neural pathways to do it themselves. Their brains will become wired to always go to the AI tools for the answer. It will be a self-feeding cycle of dependence. 

We live in stressful times, and people are often looking for shortcuts. It is easy to start by only using something occasionally for certain situations. When you start to feel that it works well enough and is convenient , you may start to decide to use it more and more. Soon, it may be the first place you look whenever you run into something you don't have the immediate answer for. People will do a lot for convenience. The more you use it, then more you become dependent on it. That is the trend that I see being reported as the big problem with the way Gen AI is being used these days. People stop being able to think for themselves because having the AI do all the thinking when they run into a challenge is quicker and easier, and life is stressful enough that having it take care of these things is so convenient. The more you use it, the more you are likely to trust it. You may start by using it as one of many sources, and even validating everything. The more it works, the more confidence you will have in it. Over time, as your confidence grows, you are more likely to do less validating and comparing to other sources. That is a very common thing for people to do with repetition of things that work for them. That kind of complacency is how many mistakes and accidents happen, not just specific to AI. One problem here is that Gen AI is constantly changing, and something that works today may not tomorrow, but you may not know what changed or when.

In addition to all of the other problems with using Gen AI, it is absolutely not at the point where it should simply be trusted to give you the right answer all the time. It should at best be seen as giving you a starting point that must be validated by someone familiar with the topic. It is the kind of thing that is good at taking a huge set of data and reducing it down to the most likely candidates, which can then be handled by people, but should not be deciding on the final answer. Far too many people try it a few times and think it has all the answers and simply trust whatever it says. I've heard people in business environment praise how amazing it is and talk about putting it everywhere, without any need for validation, because it worked so well for them in the few personal things they tried. Someday AI may be able to do more, but in its current state it is being marketed as more than it is, and people are relying on it too much.

I know it has been a while, but I came across a study in my news feed today and remembered this conversation, so I'm sharing the link.

ChatGPT as a cognitive crutch: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial on knowledge retention
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590291125010186

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

You start out in a Slime town, and the nearby one is also a Slime town, but as you continue you will reach towns with Slimes, Humans, and other races, with Slimes becoming less common the further you go. It is only a new group of Humans that has recently come to the region that are a problem. The final "boss fight" of the current version is in a town where Humans and "Monsters" live together.

Each of the party do have their own personality, and we are working on refining the story to show more of it. Some of that will come out as you progress further, but we clearly need to take another look at the intro sequence to show more of it, as you are not the only one to say that it is not coming through well.

While I like the idea of different races that are often considered "Monsters" being in the party, for our story it is your specific clan of Slimes that has the ability to consume items to gain power from them. Our combat system for the player is based around this concept. We would need to come up with a reason all these different races had that ability, or create additional combat mechanics and UI to allow for the different party members. That would be a lot of extra work, so wouldn't fit in our current game. You will see and interact with various other "monster" races as you travel. We are currently doing a lot of work on art. As we complete the art for them, you will be seeing additional races appear.

For the tutorial, are you referring to the Training Hall, and/or the popup tutorials when you first get to a new screen, such as the inventory? There is a lot to the game, and we previously did have a dedicated tutorial for combat that was interactive, but most players felt was overwhelming. We added the popup tutorials to show the basic UI elements and give a brief summary of what each is for, though they do need some reworking. As features have been added those have largely gotten only quick updates, instead of a full redo, and are currently a bit bloated.

The Training Hall was then added so that players can go at their own pace. You can read up on the topics that are of interest to you. We have Training Halls in every town, so that if you don't retain things and want to read more later, or reread something, you can do so whenever you are at a town. Storywise we were only going to put them in larger towns, but for gameplay they are at every town so far. We are also debating changing them from being tied to the towns, to something you can access while travelling as well. They are also the first place you get to interact with the various races, as they get added to the game.

The inventory system has several ways to move things around, partly to support a wide range of input methods. Part of the reason the inventory popup tutorial is so long is to accommodate explaining the many options. It seems that the quick transfer system is getting lost in there as most people seem to miss it. We will try to make it more prominent. Since you mention drag & drop, I'm assuming you are primarily using keyboard & mouse. For that input method, the fastest way to distribute loot is you use the right-click quick transfer, which is also what we primarily use. Just using right-click transfers the entire stack. You can also use modifier keys when right-clicking. Shift moves half the stack. Ctrl is a quarter. Alt evenly distributes the stack to each member of your party. We plan to add more options in the future. The next will be a bulk transfer that will move all visible items, and is meant to be used with the Filters.

The item distribution is meant to be part of the strategy layer of the game. It is meant for you to learn the strengths of each character and decide how best to spread out your loot to be prepared for combat. This will matter more in the future as more of the personalized abilities are implemented, but already you can influence the difficulty by how you distribute your items. We have had people say that they find distributing the loot repetitive or otherwise more annoying than fun, so the next release will include a setting that allows you to ignore it by giving the Slime abilities access to the Party Bag when choosing an item.

Glad to hear the combat UI is intuitive. Those systems were overhauled not too long ago, and there are a few more planned features yet to be included. There are also some options for speeding up combat using the modifier keys (Shift, Ctl, Alt) when initially clicking on the button for an ability that can allow you to skip steps by using defaults.

We have plans for some updates to the story already, but will take another look to try and make the earliest parts more engaging. The tutorials/Training Hall will be getting many updates in the future as we add more features with initial descriptions, and then go back over and refine that initial version.

Thanks again for the great feedback.

After the dialog cleared I clicked on the shaking icon at the bottom left, which brought up the "Deck". There were 2 places, top left corner and right side about 1/3 of the way down, that showed an icon for a missing character in the font being used. This often happens when you use a system font and do not include the font with the game. Based on the locations, and that they appear to be buttons, I'm guessing you used a symbolic font, such as Wingdings, which is Windows only. I am playing on Linux, so do not have native Windows only fonts. I would suggest using actual icons for buttons and symbols, or finding one of the many free symbol fonts that you can include with the game.

Nothing happened when I clicked on the static icon above it that showed what looked to be a quantity of 3, nor the other animated icon at the bottom right.

On the "Deck" screen most cards said "Read 2 pages". There was an effect when I hovered some, like there was a card being shown underneath, but it was hard to see much through the top card. Clicking did not seem to do anything.

In my second fight there was a bat with Evasion. Hovering on the word or the HP bat after they did an Evasion boost showed a popup/tooltip with info on Evasion. There was another missing character here. It also looked like it was trying to use BBCode for Bold, but the BBCode option was not enabled.

I got a card that dealt damage to all enemies. It also had a missing character drawn over it, with what looked like it might have been a countdown, though it was fast and I'm not certain.

I got to a boss? fight. There was an eye overhead that was counting down from 3, but hover text said it would flee in 9 turns. Based on the 9 turns I used 2 strength boosts before an attack. It fled after the attack.

I then gained a second person. It looks like I can now click on the bottom-right deck button to see "Discards". Maybe that was unlocked after an earlier fight, but I did not try it, and nothing indicated there was a change. I would suggest hiding icons/buttons you can't use until they become available. If not fully hiding, then the bottom right one should be static when not usable, and become animated once you can do something with it.

After my next fight I ended it with only 1 card in my hand. It popped up info about getting a refill when out. After that I was able to click on the signs to move to the next area, but there was no hover text about what to expect or distances.

In my next fight my hand was almost all "Gain 3 Strength" cards with 1 attack card.

I'm not familiar with Gravity Falls, so don't know any of the references, characters, or story. The basic gameplay is simple enough to pick up, but it would be nice to have a tutorial teach you how things work. There are certainly things I'm not sure on. What are the additional icons on the left side for? Can I do anything more in the Deck/Discards popups? Is there a way to discard/replace your hand when you start with a bad one?

I got to the boss 3 times. Each time the boss was at full health, and there was no way I would be able to do 50 damage in 3 turns. After the first fight I had a bit of distance for another fight, but then was close enough that each path lead to the boss. I'm guessing that maybe you need to do other fights and using the hook collect additional cards to build up, or perhaps there is story involved and you do the fight several times to advance it. My last fight also finally got one of the "Read 2 pages", which looked to go over to one of the left side icons changing the number on it, but I still could not interact with it. Right now it is a lot of repeating the same fights and no real direction. Perhaps if I knew the story I'd have a better idea of things. I'd suggest adding a bit more info for players to guide them how to progress and work with the UI.

I pulled it back up to see what I had missed. I think the issue for me was the blue to the left of the ship looked like a wall/barrier. I should have thought to check that way, but got too focused on the darkness being the challenge. I would definitely add something to indicate to players to head that way. I'd also suggest altering the area to the left of the ship to not be a straight line going up, so it looks less like a stopping point, and more inviting of exploration. The text to the right also draws the eye and encourages players to move that way to learn how to play, reducing the likelihood of looking left.

I got the light and redid the area. I think that the light is positioned a bit high when pointing to the side. I'd drop it down closer to chest level instead of around head level. I found that i was still largely using a similar strategy of inching forward, but with an added step of pointing the light down. In some ways it made the spikes a bit harder. You could see them ahead at a distance, but as you got closer, it was harder to judge when you were near the start for timing the jump due to the bright spot being above the spike and making the darker area right in front of your feet harder to see. Similarly, looking down the edge was harder to see, but the light did let me know when there was a ledge below. It might not hurt to widen the narrow part of the light a bit as well, though I think just lowering it so you can better see what is right in front of you would be the most helpful.

The greys can work to give the feel of the environment, though then the colored slopes feel a bit odd. However, I did like the contrast of the colors, as they made the ground easier to see. Personally, I'd like to see the top layer of all the ground tiles having a bit more color to help them stand out.

I kept playing and reached the end. I got multiple boot, suit, and torch upgrades. The first suit upgrade was really the most valuable for vision. That made everything so much nicer. Getting everything actually made the upper areas harder as it was too bright. Is there a way to turn off the lights? I don't recall seeing it, though I'm a bit tired and may have missed it. You may want to just turn the light off automatically once the player reaches the surface, or even fade it as they get to brighter areas. Another thing to consider is experimenting with the various options and mixing modes for lights. Some settings work better to not over-brighten already bright areas.

I read through the most recent devlogs before playing. I can agree that the font can be hard to read. You may want to look at adding a setting to allow using an alternative font. You can leave your chosen one in place as the default, but for those who still have trouble, swap it out for a more readable one.

The tutorial feels incomplete. I suppose it expects you to right click on everything to proceed through it, but it felt like there should be more. After playing the required card, I would add a message to right-click on cards to learn the rest of the rules, giving a clear sense that the tutorial ends there. I started clicking and dragging things around to see what would happen, and managed to make it through the fight with only 1 card left on the board, with only its rune left. I had left clicked on the crystal early, which then felt like a waste as I figured things out and found it could only be used once. I really should have done more right-clicking sooner, but was initially looking to trigger the next tutorial step as it just felt like there would be more. Right-clicking on the cards, they do a good job of explaining things.

The game was challenging, and certainly had a bit of luck involved, but was overall enjoyable. I made it to the last fight before the boss of the second chapter, dying to the last few cards I had not been able to defeat. I'd had several bad streaks of many low number cards coming out early when the enemy cards were all high, and my HP was low enough I had no expectation of surviving the boss fight, even if I made it there. Reaching the new chapter and then getting a new deck was a bit unpleasant, especially when it felt like the enemies were getting more powerful and your deck was weaker than it had been. I also questioned from the description if your special ability was 3 times per fight, or in total for the chapter, as it sounded like there were only 3 in total.

I think that once you learn the symbols, the cards are fairly clear and easy to understand. The overall mechanics are pretty simple to understand, once you play a bit. The strategy, though, can take practice. This feels like a good core.

While I have played before, and do know the basics, the core strategy for the game is not one that works well in my brain. It takes me a bit to really get my brain to think in terms of how the game works, and the need to largely rely on reactions. On the default difficulty it is certainly still very hard, and likely too hard for players who are not fans of this style of game. For the target audience, it is probably fine. I think that adding the easier difficulty was a good choice and will help with jam players who aren't as good. That easier difficulty may need additional tweaking, but I wouldn't go too far on the hard difficulty. In the future you may want even want to have 3 difficulty levels with your ideal being the hardest, but starting at a midway point so the average player doesn't get too frustrated with the default, while those it is meant for can choose to step up.

I'm going to say that my issue with "Get Ready" was likely distance. They were a bit away and I missed the range limit on it. Adding a notification as to why it isn't usable, though, would be helpful.

There is a lot to learn to be good at the game. Each version is making it easier to learn and get into the game. Finding the right balance of informing players, but not overwhelming them can be tough, but it feels like things are heading in the right direction.

When we added remapping to our game most tutorials only showed how to replace all current inputs with a single option per Input Action. If you just go with only one input per Action, then it is pretty easy. You can just clear all current inputs, then add your new one. If you want to allow the player to set multiple, then it needs a bit more work. You can't just swap one out, but need to erase all current ones for an Action,  and then add each input you want it to have. You can look at the docs for InputMap to see the functions for remapping. We used a Window and the window_input Signal to get the new input.

Shortly after starting nearly everything faded to black, giving just a small glimpse of the dangers ahead. Without that initial glimpse, I'd have had no clue what was there to deal with and likely would have stopped sooner out of frustration. After that, only a very tiny area around the character was visible. I lost a bunch, until I started to tap the right arrow to move very slowly forward, looking for an edge or the start of spikes, and jumping over them. Eventually I got to a ledge beyond the area I had glimpsed. I jumped and hit a wall. I tried to jump off it, but did not see anything to land on, and instead started to fall. At this point I was going down, but could not see what was a safe path down, and what was an endless drop. I jumped, holding right, and kept tapping jump to climb any walls I found, though mostly ended up continuing downward. I used this method to get through to the point where I saw 2 large bubbles with text, one saying something about gaining an air jump, but I seem to have paid too much attention to it as I then fell down a hole and had to restart.

I'm not really a fan of the gameplay. The area of light around the character is far too small. It feels like you have to inch your way through slowly, and then rely on luck, and repeated tries, memorizing the dangers you can't see. If there is a way to enlarge the light, or other mechanic to get through other than what I did, then I missed it. Personally, I'd like a larger radius of light, even if it was an ability, or had limits, such as a power meter that you use up. Another option could be a flashlight that you can point around you (maybe with the mouse). It can still be short range, but enough to give the player some clue as to what is ahead.

The music is overall decent for the game, except for the part where it beeps like you are getting closer to danger. When you are in the dark, having something audible to warn you of danger like that could be useful, and with little visual to work with, sound becomes more important. I would use a different track without that approaching danger warning sound.

This does have a retro inspired feel to it. The sound and graphics feel appropriate to the retro feel. The player response to the controls is decent. Not great, but it does fit the feel of the game.

I'm not really a fan of using Z and X for hand positioning. I found that space worked for jump, so I used that, though key remapping, or just some alternative input options, would be nice. I also found that R restarts the level, and P pauses the game, though without any notification. I was testing buttons when there was nothing else on the screen and after pressing a bunch suddenly nothing was working. P made the most sense, so I pressed it again and moved to see an enemy before trying it again to confirm it paused. I recommend adding these to your controls list on the web page, as well as adding something to indicate when the game is paused. Since you are listing controls, it would be good to include mention that arrows are used to move. I'd also add something to the start screen saying to press one of the buttons to continue. It could be a loading screen, so I waited a bit to see if anything happened before clicking and pressing buttons.

I made it to the end, but did not figure out how to get some of the items, or to the door above your entry to the second area. I didn't spend too much time on them, but did try bombing everything nearby. 

The level design felt fine. The difficulty was reasonable throughout. The ceiling enemies were annoying, but in a way that works for the game. For the ones shooting out your path I just ran through the area, rather than trying to take them out.

There was a spot where it looked like an enemy just appearing on screen fell onto the spikes and died immediately. This was in the second zone.

Overall, this feels like a good start.

The gameplay was pretty good. It had the feel of your basic twin-stick shooter. There was a decent variety to the enemies. The controls worked well. I liked the different colors warning you of what type of enemy was going to appear next. It was a shock the first time and upgraded version of one of the stationary enemies spawned and then started to move and shoot towards you. The score info was a bit small and I really didn't pay attention to it during play, so had to get a feel for when that change happened, rather than looking at score or wave. It could use with some upgrades or other ways to add variety. This feels like a good start, but would get repetitive after a bit, at least for me. This is not my normal type of game, though I have been playing more of them due to jams, so for those who do play this style regularly it may be just what they want without being distracted by upgrades. 

When I first tried to play I had issues getting it to accept any input. It did not seem to want to react to the mouse, even after clicking around the screen. Eventually it responded. Maybe it showed the menu, but was still loading something. After that when I refreshed it worked fine. I also found that trying to use Itch's fullscreen button caused the display to be shifted down. This left a large black strip at the top, and an equal amount of the bottom off the screen. Using Escape to exit resulted in the normal view also being  offset. I refreshed and tried again from the main screen, as I had been on the combat screen the first time, but it still did so. I used the browsers zoom instead. While writing this up I tried again to make sure my comments were accurate, and found that when I am at 140% browser zoom, the fullscreen is positioning things properly. I had tried 100%-120% in my initial testing, but didn't go up to 140% until I decided to just play with the zoom.

The first thing I noticed is that when the game starts it switches to fill the browser window, but the game itself does not scale with the window. Instead it locks to the top left of the window. I can resize and move the window, but it would be nice if it was centered, rather than at the top left. Not a huge issue, but a nice-to-have.

We appreciate being mentioned in the playtesting credits.

The font is much more readable now. While I do like the pixel aesthetic, I think the UI changes will help a lot with conveying information to players. There is so much to learn to be able to enjoy the game, that this should really help with getting people ready to start playing.

I like the popups giving tips spread out over the fight, with more advice the longer it takes. The tips also feel more clear than I remember them being in the past.

I think that I got notified of both winning and losing the first phase of the first fight. I was next to the enemy and both of us were low on health. They moved, taking enough damage to be at 0 HP. Then I took damage. I got a popup at the center saying I lost, but also see that everyone is healed to full HP, and the second character is being added, along with some dialog. I'll add a screenshot below.

I think that when you gain the second person it would be good to mention how polearms work, specifically how clicking on a diagonal turns them to aim their reaction area.

It took me a few tries to beat the first fight. When I did, it took 9 turns.

I would make the Mechanics Reference panel taller to allow more of the longer sections to be visible at the same time. I'd also suggest making the "close" button be in with the other buttons on the Pause menu, and possibly rename it to "Resume". When I first exited the Mechanics Reference it took me a bit to see it due to be so much smaller than the other buttons. I went through the big ones twice to see if I had missed it before noticing it. I think part of that was size, and part due to the color being close enough to the ground behind it. Personally, I'd also give the Pause menu's panel a content margin of 1-2 pixels all around. Right now it looks like there is a margin on the left, with the right and bottom having the shadow look a bit like a margin.

It would also be nice if you put all the mechanics in there. Things like Doubt do have popup help, but as I'm learning things I may think of something while a mechanic is not on screen and want to double check how it works.

It looks like "Get Ready" cannot be used on someone who has "Trip". I don't recall seeing that mentioned, so not sure if it is intentional or not. I can see it making sense to work this way.

I used an attack on my turn to finish off the last of the enemy's phase three health. They went back to full with no indication of why. At the start of my next turn I got the Endgame text and popup with info on it. It was my last move, so I can't say what else may happen from this, but I could see using it in a strategy to try taking them to the transition at the start of your turn and doing extra damage to their phase 4 state before the limits are in place.

I did not do well on the last phase. The enemy seemed to able to avoid taking damage from my team, either gaining enough block, or having good moves to evade those who could do damage. I had several hurt people and was playing more defensive. I clearly was not positioning people well. The limits added certainly make it extra difficult. Personally, I'm not that good at the game, so after going through 3 other phases, the extra boosts to the boss and limits on your available options made it less fun for me. For those who like this style more it probably works well. I know it is classic in RPGs to have the final boss go through multiple stages and get more powerful, so it does fit. It is just my own skill that makes an already tough fight go just far enough beyond where I my skill allows it to be fun. I did play on the default difficulty. In the future I will try the easier one.

It has been a long time since I played FF8. I don't recall much about the game, as it was not a favorite. I prefer the SNES era Square games, along with NES-PSX Dragon Quest. I'll look it up and see if it sparks any memories, or see if I can find the time to dust off my copy, and if it might inspire ways to improve our game. Thanks for the suggestion.

Keep in mind that during my playthroughs I missed the new tutorial due to the soft-lock, so if you mentioned anything about the reclaimed lots there, it should be enough. When I went to build I did still learn about it, so I'd say you probably don't need to do much, as long as it is mentioned in the tutorial already. I plan to watch when my partner plays to see what the tutorial says.

I first noticed the null issue after protesting and reclaiming some lots. I missed the tutorial, and had not realized that you could build for free on them, so stumbled on it when that was simply the next lot I went to build on. By that time I had 2 or 3 of them, so this was after the second campaign day. I don't think it was only at those locations, but it felt like those things might be related. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw it was on a reclaimed lot, but also that at least one of the locations was not a reclaimed lot. My partner will be playing as well once we get through some more games neither of us have played yet, and will keep an eye out to see if we can get more details.

I think part of the issue with the Rating area is that it is all just called Rating, and clicking on any part of a given type/category gives the same text. It really does give the feeling that the number and bar are related. The way you have them separated by the amount you are gaining can help to divide them, but even then, which does that number apply to, and is it both? I think there needs to be a bit more detail on how the ratings work, and how to boost them compared to the currency. It feels like each category has different needs and it is not clear how they compare. One suggestion I have is to change the title to "Ratings & Points". Then mention the points (currency) can be spent on upgraded buildings, while the rating is the overall state of that category. The core thing to me is to use an additional term to tell players that there is more than 1 type of thing in there. The single title of "Rating" implies that everything in there is all connected.

Glad our feedback is helpful.

We are planning to have several difficulty options, including a "Story Mode" that is very easy. We have had others also suggest auto-distributing the loot as well. I've been thinking on it for a while and came up with a system that was pretty easy to implement in a couple hours, so have added it for the next version. It is off by default, but players who want to can enable it. The current approach will append all of the items from the Party Bag after the items from the Slime's Personal Bag, when selecting an item for use with an ability. This can result in the same item showing up twice if it is in both places. For now there is no separation between the items from different Bags, though we may add that later. This feels like a good quick fix solution for those who want to play that way, but we will see how people feel when they try it out.

We will continue to put the strategy as a core feature we want, and continue to refine it, but we also want to be accessible. After all, how players will enjoy the game is what matters to making a game that will sell. At some point we will try to add a system where players can setup some rules for auto-distributing the loot, but we want it to be player defined, or at least giving several options for how it can be done, and any options I see for that will be several days, or maybe a week or more, to implement.

We plan to make each Slime become more distinctive in part by their abilities. They will have some similar ones, like the basic Spit, but we want the others to have more variety. We are not planning as much difference in the shape of the art. They will likely each get some accessories or other defining traits, but the core shapes and animations will be the same for now. Part of that is simply the time needed to create so much art and the associated animations. Later on, as time permits, we will continue to review everything, and the player party will get more attention to make them stand out.

Thanks again. This kind of feedback helps a lot with seeing other viewpoints and accommodating a wider audience.

Thanks for the great feedback!

We are working on art alongside coding. Currently we are working on the human art, and will then to expand to other humanoids. The current Goblin and Brownie art art from one of our other games. As the story progresses we will be adding more races to interact with. For now you will mainly see them in the Training Hall or Taverns. We are also planning to expand the towns to make them feel a bit more alive.  Being able to hide the town's UI is to let you see more of the town. For now it doesn't show much more, as the towns were designed for the regular zoom level. As we update them we will be expanding them vertically to make it look like there is more. We also want to add an option for your party to move around town and go to the locations you pick from the menu, rather than staying in one place. The toggle for this feature would be in the list so you can quickly switch between modes if you want to more quickly do things, or relax and check out the town.

Our inventory has had several options for moving items around for a while, but we did not do a good job of explaining them all to the player. Drag and drop was actually one of the last ones added, and done due to requests in jam feedback . The original was selecting an item and then selecting the slot to swap with. This method remains, but only for keyboard/joypad. The right-click quick-transfer options, especially using the modifier keys with it, are how we generally do our inventory management. I'm also looking at adding back the bulk transfer buttons that will transfer everything visible in one panel to the other, along with adding a Split option for it. These are meant to be used with the filters, and the old filters were poorly implemented, so it seemed that no one used these. We removed them to regain space for other things. With the new filters being easier to work with, we will see how the bulk options feel. Inventory management is an area that we know still needs work.

Before Next Fest we plan to restore the ability to save and load the game. The default will be auto-saving. The old way auto-saved after each battle, though we may change it to be at key points, such as each town. This would not allow simply redoing a specific fight right away, but would allow making changes at the town before restarting the section you lost on. We are not planning for this to be a roguelike, it is just that we kept breaking the save system as we added new features and decided our time was better spent elsewhere for now.

We did want the selection of loot and planning for combat to be one of the strategic elements of the game. We have had other feedback saying that it takes too long and some people would prefer the loot be auto-distributed. There are many ways to distribute loot based on play style, which makes auto-distributing a bit more complex to implement. Instead, I just finished implementing an option that will allow the player to have access to the shared Party Bag when selecting items to use with abilities, bypassing the need to distribute items. This won't allow changing things at the start of combat, but would make it unneeded if you just leave most things in the Party Bag.

The interactive tutorial has not been updated for the combat changes. Most of the feedback we had on it was that it was overwhelming, which is why we created the Training Hall. For a while it was an option, but to much changed. We still have more combat changes coming up, so are leaving it disabled until the combat is more polished. We are thinking of also breaking it out so the player can select to do the whole thing, or just individual parts.

Marketing is not one of my strengths. We threw together some basic art to get through the initial process of getting a page up to be sure we did not miss any deadlines, but agree that all the art needs work. I've done some updating for our demo page, which is still in review. Once our current support tickets for reviews are done we will be updating the main listing's assets as well, though even the demo ones will still need work before the event starts.

Thanks again for helping us improve our game!

After clicking on the computer and starting the Deploy step, the left side UI changed width based on the text for "Minerals Left". I'd suggest giving the parent container a Custom Minimum Size that fits the largest width. It is not a big thing, but the shape changing does draw the eye a bit. Personally, I'd also like the font size for the details to go up a size or two. It feels much smaller than all the other text. If you are trying to keep the size of the panel down, then maybe reduce the extra left and right margin on the details. It looks like they may have a bit of extra margin compared to the buttons, such that the border of the buttons extends beyond where the text goes. None of this is all that vital, but little things that may help it look a bit better, at least in my opinion.

Clicking on Manage Droids, I only saw one, with the other being covered by the Customize details. The WASD controls remain from the previous screen, so I wasn't sure if they still applied or if there were additional droid. The first thing I did was to try them, and did see that there is another, but I think it would be good to have some UI element to show there are more Droids. Maybe add something at the top showing which # of Droid you are on out of how many, such as "Droid 1 / 2", or even a simple display of "Total Droids". Other view angles, or zooming out so there is at least a hint of the other could work, or even starting on the one at the right, as the one on the left is visible.

I hope I don't seem too nit-picky with my UI suggestions. These are all just little things I'm noticing or thinking of. This next is quite minor, but I feel like it may be the effect you were going for. On the Customize panel, each component slot has the slot name at the bottom, overlapping the border, with bits of the border showing through. You may want to add a Panel Container behind the Labels, using the same background color as the rest of that area, and give it a couple of pixels of Content Margin on the sides. This should cover up the border of the parent Panel Container and give that cutout look you often see when having text overlap a border.

I still ran into some of the bugs on customizing the Droids that I had last time, such as the popups not all closing depending on what I clicked that closed some of it. I also had a hard time selecting the Right Module for editing, and initially thought I could not do so. It looks like you have to click on the lower part of it to select it.

It looks like the 2 starting droids are the same. I customized the second one to have the Construction Arm, so I could try it out. I also added a third that was like the original design, but with the Advanced Body.

For the first deployment I got 505/500 Biomass, 6658/1000 Minerals, and 28/10 Enemies destroyed. It would be nice if there was a popup when you complete the goals, or for the Cancel Mission button to change to End Mission/Mission Complete or similar. Since nothing seemed to be happening to end things, I clicked on Cancel Mission to see if it would popup any info. It told me Mission Failed. There should really be a confirmation on cancelling the mission. After clicking Return, it shows that I can now deploy to the neighboring areas. The original section gives the same message as locked areas about needing to conquer adjacent land to unlock it, and shows the original details about minerals left (which did not match what I collected, and I did not build any houses), though State has changed to Contained.

While on the surface I built my second Droid with the Construction arm, but did not see what it did. I did clear most things with the first and then went back later to build it and experiment, so maybe I should have done so earlier.

On Mission 2 it did pop up a Mission Complete screen, though the game did keep going in the background, and I was right next to a spawn point.

On that mission I made a new Droid with a Laser in the Top Module slot. It did not seem to do anything. I could not manually fire it, and the automated shooting seemed to only use the side Modules.

Mission 3 also completed fine. Maybe if I had just added more Root nodes and claimed more land it would have triggered the completion. So far it seems that all the areas are the same. Maybe the Aggression rating is affecting how close you need to get to a nest for them to spawn, but I'm not sure on that. I mostly snipe them from far away so they don't spawn.

For this one I modified my Advanced Droid to put a Mining Arm on the Top. It worked just fine. In the future I'd probably go with one of the originals, assuming you must have at least one Droid with the Tower Gun to be able to build Towers, and then once collecting enough minerals, upgrading to the dual Laser plus Mining to serve as the away unit. Of course, the current game is easy enough that just the original is more than you need.

When I started this playthrough I just looked at things to see what had changed, and tested out shooting. Then the night swarm came and I started dealing with them using just the first unit. After I cleared the ones nearby I added a single Tower and finished off the wave. Then I got some more minerals and started adding some Root nodes and a few more Towers. I found that one Tower is generally enough per side, but built 2 on each side just to be sure. Then I went off to destroy all the nests and collect the minerals. After that I came back and experimented with things a bit before expanding towards the night spawn points and building 2-3 Towers near them. Then I'd build any remaining Root nodes needed to claim more land.

The new view being zoomed out and more overhead does give a feel of overseeing things and giving orders. I think it works for the game. The Laser feels like its range is too long. For a jam and making it easy for testers it can work, but it really makes things too easy. When you start you can just blast away at nearly everything from the start point. The minerals get in the way of some, and just the outer most are out of range. This really contrasts with how close the enemies get before automated shooting kicks in. The auto-shooting feels a bit short ranged, especially compared to the weapon capabilities. I'd increase the automated a bit, and cut the overall range down. I'd suggest starting with reducing it by 1/4 to 1/3, and see how it feels. The biggest thing for me is that you shouldn't be able to snipe the nests from out outside of their spawn range. If you are shooting at them, then they should be spawning to defend themselves. Perhaps you could even make it so that one spawns every time the nest is hit. Obviously you are not at the point of balancing difficulty yet, so don't need to put too much time into difficulty, but some minor tweaks to give a bit of a challenge would make th playtesting more fun. I do enjoy trying out the new features and seeing how it has changed, but wouldn't mind a bit more challenge.

I like the grid with different areas to claim. It gives more of the feel you've been describing about claiming a planet. It also adds more to do with the potential for different areas to have different challenges and difficulties. Having said that, there will need to be differences and new challenges to make the new areas not feel repetitive. I don't want to just start over and do the same thing repeatedly. Sure, a bunch of droids would be fine doing that, but the human gamers will need new things to keep them interested.

The game seems to be coming along well.

The scrolling text on Credits screen is very flickery.

The Tutorial is empty for me, except for the Back button.

When I first tried to play I got an overlay saying "WASD or Arrow Keys to move", but the game did not load. I opened a Private Window and it worked. Not sure what the issue was without the Private Window. This only happened in my main browser, where I had started with the other buttons, so it may be connected to the other things I did and the way things are saved.

After getting the game to load I collected a bunch of coins, instead of going up right away. The tutorial then went away. Even after restarting it did not show up. I had no idea what button to press to use the bomb. I had to close the window and open a new Private Window to restart the tutorial. I then stepped on the enemy just after placing a bomb and the game locked up. The error was:

Uncaught TypeError: bomb.play is not a function

at game9 (game.js:1976:41)

I am regularly getting lockups with the above error. It seems like I can get the first bomb to work, but the second one gets the error. I tried in Vivaldi, Chrome, and Firefox, all had the same error. I'm guessing that some part of the bomb function is clearing something you need so it is no longer available for future bombs.

It seems that the game saves part of your state when you refresh and when you die. I can get the chest, then restart to keep getting more loot. My first time I got a yellow bomb, which the tutorial does not mention. While trying to place a bomb I had pressed space, and noticed the bomb icon at the top cycle through others, so figured that was what I'd need to place this new type.

FYI, If you remove a submission, then the submission page and all of its comments are also removed. I got a notification that you had replied to my comment on Dualspace, but by the time I clicked on it, you had removed it, so I was not able to read the comment.

It's been several months since I last played. I remember I wasn't very good at it, but let's see how I do this time.

Going to the settings I still see that the text is cut off for Control Preference. It started on "WASD TY", with the Y being more than half cut off. "OFF: also overlaps the text on the other 2 options. I am playing on Linux, so if you are using Windows only fonts, and not bundling them with the game, then that is likely the issue. I don't know Scratch, so don't know if it has an option to bundle your chosen font with the game.

I went into the Tutorial to see what the other controls were, but it looks like the WASD TY controls are hard coded there, as choosing any other did not alter what is shown. I'm guessing WASD O would be followed by "P", to match T & Y being side by side.

Holding W & S together feels odd to me. I have to rotate my wrist in a way I'm not used to for gaming. You aren't using Space, "Q", or "E", and I think any of these would work better than the WS combo.

On the Tutorial "Try It Out" screen I was able to go off the screen at the top, though bounced off the other 3 edges.

Why does the equip screen require using numbers, instead of clickable buttons? It feels odd to be switching from a mostly mouse based UI, to having to type letters and numbers for equipping.

Having a Tutorial is helpful, but ideally the game controls should be clear while playing. If you don't read the tutorial, you may get to the combat start screen and be confused as to what to do. I would add text, or an icon, informing the player to press enter to continue. Adding Space as an alternative would also be nice, as that feels more natural, to me, with WASD or arrow key controls.

It would be nice if there was more info on the things you can buy. When looking at the Jouster and Kujang, both say "Average damage". Does either have an advantage over the other? Maybe the Jouster would be longer? The image makes it look that way, so that is what I went with.

I took a look at the 1v1 screen. When scrolling to look at the weapons it also scrolled my browser window. It may not be an issue in fullscreen, but I like to keep it in a non-fullscreened window so I can type notes while I play.

I did a bit better than I remember doing last time. I'm not sure that my skill has improved. I feel like the enemies are more balanced so they don't jump in difficulty so fast, especially when I lose. I was able to win a few fights, but never enough to get more than basic equipment, and no abilities. I got a 10 HP helm, then a 30 HP one, and the Jouster. I mostly got some luck blows to win, and never thought I was all that good at the controls. I felt the need to spend on whatever I could afford as I know my skill was not high and I could lose money by losing the next fight, so spend it when I had it on whatever was affordable. I know you have the 1v1 mode, but I didn't want to go through every item trying them out. I'm not really a fan of the rag-doll spinning controls, so am not motivated to try out all the combos. This is amplified by the fact that when playing through I rarely get enough money to buy more than basic gear. If I liked the style more, then I could spend the time to get better and get further. Everyone has their own preferences, and for this style of game the combat seems fine, it is just not my personal preference.

The biggest thing I think the game needs is better UI. The UI is all over. A more consistent UI would help the feel and flow of the game. Since your combat controls are purely keyboard based, I would make the entire UI work with the keyboard. Every screen should grab focus on a control and allow using the arrow keys and tab to navigate between them, using Space or Enter to select. Even with the mouse, some UI elements were annoying. The biggest was browsing the items to purchase. Thin items could be a pain to click on. For the UI it would be nice if all items had a preset rectangular area you could click on, rather than needing to match up to the shape of the item. Also, the selected item's info pops up over the middle item, which generally means I had to click off to make it go away before I could select the center item. And, the above mentioned oddity of using letters and numbers to equip things really felt out of place with everything else.

It would also be nice if you broke out the control settings. Have one option for movement controls, and another for the buttons for special attacks. This will give players more options. You could also add more options for the specials without needing to have combos with both WASD and arrows. This could also allow for adding additional control options, such as how to face an enemy.

I am writing this as I play through.

Note: We run Linux, so this is being played using Wine.

The first thing I noticed was the requirement for a name, and that it appears to require being at least 3 characters long. I will often just use a single letter when testing. The button to continue is gray, but doesn't look like your faded out disabled buttons. When active it also doesn't change all that much. When you mouse over it it changes the cursor to a finger as if you should be able to interact and when you click it shows an animation, but nothing else happens. If you are going to require at least 3 characters, then you should mention that somewhere. At a minimum, there should be something explaining that requirement when pressing the button with fewer, so the player knows why nothing happened. I expect most people will be able to figure it out, but there will always be those who don't. If there isn't a technical reason, then why not allow a single character name? Informing the payer of the limit is the thing that matters here, and allowing only 1 character names is just personal preference.

I'm assuming this is for some sort of online connected system such as a leaderboard. I'm a big fan of single player games not needing any kind of internet connection, including not trying to connect at all, so being able to turn off any connected services would be nice. I see in a past devlog that you do mention a bug about not being able to run the game without an internet connection. I would very much appreciate if you list any connected services your game uses on the game page, and include an option to disable them from the settings. Clicking on the Ranking from the menu it loads fairly quickly, and there are only 2 entries, so I'm not sure if it is using a connected leaderboard or not.

The first area was a bit confusing. I was not able to fire the bow or do much of anything, other than the roll. I found a shop, but had no gold. In the end all I could do was go through the portal. Even if there is nothing to shoot, it would be nice if your attacks worked so new players can experiment and see how things work. More importantly, so new players don't spend too much time trying things to see how to play, while little is happening.

During play I saw that there were other paths than archery, but only having a bow, and several levels in the archery skill, it made sense to continue down that path. I eventually got a sword, but the bow was much safer to use at that point. From my experimenting with the sword I got hit a couple times by enemies that poisoned me (or is it "decay"?), and took out a significant amount of my health. I cleared the first combat area and entered the portal. I was surrounded, and with my low HP, quickly died. I acknowledge that having been using the bow I wasn't really using the roll much, and it may have helped with the closer combat and being surrounded.

I was thinking that it would be nice to be able to pick your starting class. I had also noticed that when being offered a choice between different equipment, I did not get any money for the one discarded. Upon death I saw that these were "Legacy" upgrades you could purchase after death. I had exactly 50 gold and was able to get both.

One of the upgrades, Eternal Growth, says "Increases 10% Exp Gained by Monsters." Should this be "from Monsters"? I assume that you, the player, get a bonus to Exp gained from killing monsters, but some games do offer increased difficulty by leveling up the monsters, and this could be doing that.

I see now that the shop at the start is meant for after you reincarnate. The other statue is now also active allowing you to purchase the legacy upgrades. That is nice so that you can see what the shop offers and decide how to spend your gold between them. It would be nice to know a bit more about the items offered at the shop. Do they stay with you for each future run, or are they only for the current run?

It would be nice if there was a close button, or right click could close some menus, rather than needing to use Escape.

I got some statues that I could "Siphon". I saw little icons appear at the top left, but was not sure what they meant. The shield is obviously some form of defense boost, but what kind? It would be nice to see details on hover, at least a name.

The Cryomancer upgrade "Shattered" says "When Ice Staff basic attacks hit a Chilled target, they split and can chain 1 time". From what I see, my attacks split when hitting a non-chilled target, but do not for a chilled one.

I found that hitting boxes, skulls, and similar objects was not consistent. Sometimes I'd fire multiple shots at the same spot and only one would hit. Then I'd need to move, possibly several times, and try until it worked. In general, I was never quite sure where would work to hit them, and has to try different spots.

I'm not a fan of the forest zones, starting with level 2. The path is not very clear, nor where you can and cannot shoot past. The trees overhead limiting your vision are annoying, but can fit the wish to show that your character's vision would be limited by the trees in a dense forest. The inability to find your path due to the dark ground sometimes being walkable, and sometimes being able to shoot over it, but not always for either, is problematic.

Eventually I got some spawns on level 2 that were not completely surrounded and swarming me on start. My first I still wasn't prepared for the new enemies and did not get far. That got me enough to pick the bonus of enemies dropping healing orbs. Using those, with the archer, I was able to beat level 2. I found the red portal and went through. I assumed it would be a challenge level. Above the mini-map it says "Dark Path". Initially things seemed pretty similar to the previous. Then I went down a side path and found some normal looking enemies, but with a greyish circle around their feet that took less damage and much higher HP. They also exploded into ice shards on death. That was a significant jump in difficulty. I often had to pick at them all the way back to my starting location before they were finished off. I did manage to make it to the end of that path and found a blue portal.

I went down another path, and was doing OK until I got rushed by 4 Minotaurs while off to the side of the path and did not react to get back to the path in time. I had 629 Gold by the time I died.

I unlocked a number of Legacy upgrades. "Path of Shadows" has a typo "andand".

I was planning to be done after this. There was no option to return to the menu, so I continued with Reincarnate, and then picking a class to start. It shortly showed the place where I had died, then switched to the starting area, but all I could see was the UI & mini-map. The character and world was black. Pressing Escape brought up the pause menu just fine. I tried using the mini-map to get to the portal and pressing E. According to the mini-map I was there, but nothing happened. I tried constantly pressing E while moving around that area, but still did not manage to warp. Returning to the Main Menu and selecting Continue, worked fine.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. The forest area issues with not knowing where the path was is the biggest problem for me. There was a good amount of variety in upgrades with items, leveling up, and Legacy. It did feel like your best option was to stay with the leveling up a single perk path based on your starting class, but part of that comes from the fact that I only ever got a second weapon once, which was my first play. There could be a bit more overlap and incentive for multi-classing, though only if new weapons were more common.

I think that difficulty progression could use some work. The difficulty jumped a lot going to level 2. I can see that part of it may be to encourage the use of the Legacy tree, but I think it would be more enjoyable if you didn't complete a fairly easy first dungeon and then dumped in the middle of a dozen enemies all swarming you the moment you move. My last 2 plays I was lucky enough to spawn in a dead end with a narrow path out that allowed me to pull and deal with them in more manageable numbers. I'd suggest maybe having some additional dungeon levels before switching to the forest, and add some logic to make the spawn point limit how many enemies are in range to swarm the player. Maybe on later levels or higher difficulties it could be removed, but for starting out it would be nice.

Some info on available controls would be nice. I stumbles onto pressing C for viewing your character stats by accident. I don't recall seeing it mentioned anywhere. A list of all controls somewhere, even if just on the web page for now, would help.

While double checking that they were not listed in the Settings, I noticed that the Resolution is set to my monitor resolution, even if I am in Windowed mode at a smaller resolution.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

We do want to improve the inventory flow. We have had other comments about automating the inventory process, but the problem there is that there are many ways to distribute the loot, depending on play style. We are trying to figure out a way we could implement such a system that would give the player freedom to play how they like, but also not be too complex, both for us to create and for the player to use. The best option we've come up with so far is going to be a difficulty setting that will remove the need for distributing items to the Personal Bags, as each Slime will also be able to use items from the Party Bag for their abilities. We like the strategy layer of needing to decide an optimal split of items, but also can appreciate the wish for a faster flow in the gameplay.

We used to have a combat tutorial in the big open area right after your initial dialog, which is why we have that big area there. People found it overwhelming, so we replaced it with the Training Hall. The tutorial has not been updated for the changes to combat, but may return as an option in the future. Still, while it is combat, it is a scripted tutorial combat, so may not quite be what you are wanting, if you want to get into the action. With this being a story heavy RPG, the opening does give players a feel for what to expect. 

We appreciate you taking the time to play and comment, even though its not your style of game.

Thanks for playing and the feedback.

We are not planning to allow free movement around the world in this game, as that would require a lot more content, and thus time to implement. We do enjoy classic JRPGs with a huge world to explore, but we are a small team and for our first big game realized that would be too much. We are planning to add a bit more to exploring the towns, including some automated ability to move around them, and a world map to see more places and learn about them. We may incorporate some optional paths where you can choose which way to go, or go off on a side path for a quest, but they will still use the current movement system.

I took a quick look at your game page. While we normally play and comment on every game that plays ours, we are very strongly opposed to the use of Generative AI, and yours lists that it uses AI.

Seeing your note on versions, I downloaded the game. We run Linux, so this was played using Wine.

The full screen text scrawls could use with a background to help with readability, especially with how busy (lots of details and lines) the floor is.

In the first room, part of a message is cut off. This is what I see: "Cafeteria is closed. Please head to your cla"

Some Typos:

Kyle Status: "exstention" should be "extension".

Lilly Status: timeline is usually one word.

Henry Status: The text is cut off. The last I see is "Good friend of l".

There are a fair number of typos and grammatical errors, so I'm going to end taking notes on them here.

It is possible that the text getting cut off issues could be due to the font you are using. If you are using a font on your system that is not being included with your export/build, and is not one I have on my system, then the replacement font may be a different size, causing these issues. I have not used RPG Maker, so maybe it is just a setting related to word wrapping.

The story is a bit hard to follow due to the writing. Perhaps you are trying to play on the dream state and make things not be as clear, or perhaps this was just a rough draft. Whatever the situation, the writing could use with some work to improve the readability. I get the general idea, but feel like I am missing some of the details, especially on the scrolling text.

In the Washroom off the Cafeteria there are several tiles that look like random junk meant to be on the floor, but your party passes under them.

I did a bit of exploring, and collected several potions. I made it to the movie theater. I fought some Slimes and Rats. This feels like it is in a very early state. The characters are very similar, and I ended up just using Spark for everyone. Really, many things are the same, and I assume they are probably placeholders. The sparkling path is good for the early state to guide testers to where the next available content is. I enjoy RPGs, and like to get everything when I play them. If the story was easier to follow, or there was more to draw me in, I'd have played more. As it is, the start is mostly story, and it needs work to draw players in. Otherwise, try adding a bit more to do. Obviously this is in an early state, and you can only do so much. Still, if you want players to get further into the game to test later content, you will need to make the early parts grab and hold them. Having said that, maybe what you have does resonate with other people and it is just my personal preferences that had me not being drawn in.

I also never got to the later phases, even having read the devlog and knowing they were there. The game does not have enough engagement to keep me playing that long, and I'd not be surprised if many others felt the same. I don't always mention reading the devlogs in my comments, so maybe they did read it, but also didn't feel like playing longer. By the time I stopped I felt like I had a good feel for the game. Yes, I knew other things came later, but it was too far away and the core gameplay was clear. If you want people to play longer, then you need to make it more fun and engaging so people want to reach those later points. That requires listening to the feedback people give on what they think will make it better.

Getting comments like the one you mentioned is valuable feedback. In fact, I'd say that was pretty good feedback compared to some comments that would have just been the first sentence alone. You need to remember that you are not paying people to review your game. This is free labor. Nobody has to play or comment on your game, and are volunteerily doing so. Those who play are going to be different and offer different perspectives, as well as different amounts of detail. The comment you are saying is bad gave you both some things they liked and didn't like. If that is not good enough for your needs, then you may want to look at paying people for reviews.

If you get a lot of comments saying the same thing, then it tells you how people are viewing your game. You saying it is not the thing it looks like is not going to change people's minds. Everything about this game feels like an Asteroids clone. You seem to be taking this as a negative. I suggest taking a step back and looking at what you want out of this. If you are strongly against being seen as an Asteroids clone, then you need to make changes. I'd start with the graphics. Those scream classic Asteroids, right down to the shape of the ship, and will put players in that mindset from the start. The gameplay would also need to change to be less like Asteroids, but the look is the first thing that has to change if you want to distance yourself from Asteroids. If your only issue is that you feel the feedback is not what you want, then you may need to read back through what people are saying with an open mind. If a lot of people say the same thing, but it is not what you want, you may need to make changes to get your message across. The key is to listen to what people are saying and accept that they are different and will see things differently than you. You can't force them to see or do anything. If you don't like how your game is viewed, then you have to make changes to your game so others can see what you want them to see. Only by changing your game can you do this. If you don't want to make those changes, that is absolutely fine. It is your game, and you can make it how you want to. You will, however, have to accept that not everyone will view it as you do. If you put your game out there for others to play, and especially if you put it in jams asking for feedback, then people are going to give you their view on it, and those may not match your views or expectations.

I see that you mention your previous page for the game was deleted. That also removed our comments from last month. Normally I'd check the previous to compare my comments and adjust them to build off the old, but with that not there, some of what I say may be similar.

The web page could use a bit more contrast between the font color and background. It is readable for me, but not pleasant, and I know people who would not be able to read it. As it is, I am highlighting the text with the mouse as I go along, to make it easier to read.

I played up to a score of 16,550. In that time I got a bonus that turned the ship red several times. I'm guessing maybe it was immunity/armor, but did not get hit, nor change my rotating strategy with it, so not sure. I also got a weapon upgrade that made the weapon split/spread/fan out with a multiple projectiles. I liked the spread ability, but the upgrades were not needed up to the point I stopped.

I found the game to be very easy. I stayed in the middle rotating around and clicking as fast as I could. Occasionally I'd stop for a few seconds and deal with a large group, before resuming the spin. I'd also move slightly to get the bonuses, but as time passed I felt less inclined to get them. I stopped playing when it felt like I could just go on forever with nothing changing. As I recall, in the previous version I played all asteroids split, even the small ones, which made it very hard. I like that you have switched to a more standard approach of the bigger ones split into smaller ones, and the smallest do not split.

I'm not sure what the best way to balance the game is. Maybe make the smallest asteroids be a bit smaller, and therefore harder to hit. Perhaps the smallest, or those that split out, move a bit faster. Right now it feels a bit like a clicker game, where clicking fast (while rotating) is all you need to do. It feels like it needs more to make it fun. I see in your big devlog comments about reaching 50,000 and 75,000 to unlock new phases. I think that you need to add better difficulty scaling much earlier on. There just wasn't enough keep keep me engaged. Add some additional enemies or enemy logic in the earlier game, and ramp up the difficulty gradually over time.

What do you mean by your comment for reviewers "NOT an asteroids clone"? This feels very much inspired by classic Asteroids, but with pixel art graphics. You would need a massive change for people to not immediately think "Asteroids" when seeing/playing the game. There is nothing wrong with being a clone of a type of game. Most games are based on/inspired by others.

I went through the tutorial. After resting there was an empty lot across the street that was highlighted with a pulsing circle, and hovering showed the tooltip, but I was unable to interact with it. During the tutorial it would be good if there was some logic to prevent the highlighting drawing your focus to a location your can't interact with. Preventing a spawn at that location, or directly across from any other tutorial locations, could also help.

I soft-locked my playthrough by choosing to do the tutorial on campaign day when I did not have enough energy. I'd finished up some things on the far side and pushed too far, running out of energy. Since I saw it was campaign day I didn't want to go back to rest and lose time, so I had planned to stop at the cafe to purchase an energy boost when it opened, but that is when the tutorial popup showed. I had a feeling this would happen, but wanted to test it. Since you can only do what the tutorial tells you while it is active, other than moving around. I am unable to get enough energy to complete even the first thing. I can see making rest always available in the later tutorials, though that could mess with things as time passes. Similarly, being able to purchase an energy boost could be an option, but would require money. There is always the option of giving a free energy boost to make sure the tasks can be completed, or allowing them to be completed even without enough energy, but that could encourage players to take advantage of such a bonus. You could add a warning as time approaches to get some rest, possibly checking on the players current energy and adjusting the popup time based on how much they have so they will have enough. Though that could be tough if they start to do something that pushes them past where they should have started, plus calculating travel time/energy. It would need a buffer. Another option might be to end the tutorial early if the player runs out of energy. They'd lose the rest of the tutorial, but could keep playing. Or switch to a purely text based description of the steps, without requiring they go do them.

On my replay I was resting when campaign day started. I got the message about campaign day, but no prompt for the tutorial. That may be due to it starting the first run and then I returned to the menu to restart, rather than exiting the game fully.

I'm continuing to play without the Campaign Day tutorial. In the previous version I did multiple gathers, which seems to no longer be an option. I had gathered around 30 people. There was a corp building right across from my base. I assigned 20 protesters there, then went to another where I assigned my remaining people, plus joined. The first was almost, but not quite, taken out. The one I joined was taken out. Clicking on the crowd I did not see the option for barricade from previous versions. I see it listed in the Crowd Commands, so maybe I did something wrong. I'm now out of protesters and don't seem to be able to gather more right now, so It will need to wait till the next time to try it out. I'm wondering if I was too close to the protest, or perhaps it unlocked between me trying and when I started looking around for details. I did get a popup for the crowd commands, but it was empty.

Later I was able to rally and gather. I've not fully figured out the timing on this. I also built new homes during campaign day, and was not able to rally or gather from them, at least not right away.

I rarely got to higher tier buildings before due to things ending so fast in past versions. This time I set out to expand and build some that had rating requirements. I got over 20 LO and wanted to see how the new bus logic worked, so built a bus stop. It looks like it is not just needing to reach a certain rating, but that the rating went down when I built the stop, as if it cost rating points. I'll need to pay better attention in the future to see if this is mentioned somewhere, as I had not expected it. Part of this may be from playing multiple times and only skimming some things, so may have missed it being mentioned, along with not having done much higher tier before.

Later I accumulated 24 LO, but was unable to build another bus stop. The Required "20 LO" was red, and the "LO 24" in the Rating section flashed. Eventually I was able to build more, but failed to check how much LO I had, or it cost, when building it.

I had an empty lot that I was able to Rally for 0 RP. Part of the popup said "null". It also offered the option to Establish. I found more of these as the game progressed.

I managed to achieve 18 of th 20 goals. I did not move in any Singles Households, nor Achieve Adequate Health. My HE, EN, and LO were poor at 88, 132, and 521. EC was Marginal at 535. ED and SA were Good at 144 and 187. These numbers are all over the place, so it might be good to have a bit of guidance on what numbers to aim for.

I unlocked the Crowd Commands of Protest, Barricade, Lane Protest, Area Protest, and Disruption. I used Barricade near my base, and Protest at the corp buildings. I did not try the others this time through.

I think your changes are good. The Campaign Day feels much better now. It was not so easy to just win right away. I did play a bit differently this time to explore more of the content, especially wanting to see how the bus and car worked. If I had done a focus on winning, it is possible I still could have done it on the first campaign day. This time it took me until the third, but by then I was able to take out all of their building and their HQ.

The bus and car are a nice touch. I like that they work differently. The car being available 24 hours is convenient, as I will often do things at night after the bus has stopped. I only used the sleep until morning option when needing it for campaign day, other wise get enough energy to do things and keep going. In the future I will need to think more carefully on where I place each of them.

This could use with some instructions, such as the controls, and that you move the ball by rotating the outer box.

The gameplay is decent. It has a good core mechanic. The ball bounces in a fairly predictable manner, though sometimes it did not go where I expected. The addition of other things during gameplay adds more variety. The first thing I saw was a present box. I tried to collect it by hitting it several times, but nothing happened. It would be nice to know if that is meant to just be an obstacle, or if it is a bonus of some sort for the player. If it is not for the player, then being a present box would not be my choice, unless your plan is to mislead players and make them try to go after it thinking it will offer a reward. I also got the bumpers. They work well with the core mechanic, adding more places to bounce off of.

Individual inventory mainly came from what we are used to with the games we've played. It is also meant to add some strategy. The player has to learn the strengths of their party and make decisions on how to distribute their loot among the party, and sending it back for quests. As we expand the game we will be working to optimize the flow, but also don't want to simplify the game too much that it is boring. Maybe we will add an option in the difficulty settings that will allow use of any items the group has, or at least allow accessing the Party Bag in addition to their Personal Bag.

The problem with auto distribution is that there is no one best distribution. We would need to create a system for players to decide the rules for how to distribute things.

Thanks for more great feedback!

Glad the debug mode is working well for you. There are still some issues depending on the combo of options you choose, though we tried to make sure the options we exposed would be less likely to cause issues. We may add more in the future as we resolve some conflicts.

For the abilities update we replicated the abilities we had previously created, including some that were meant for later on, and gave them to the player to show off the core mechanics for those who only play a small amount. We are trying to get the core features into place, and then will be rebalancing.  In the future multi-target abilities will require use of higher level items, and will be gained later. Some will be gained as you level up, and others through events.  The more powerful abilities will  also have an additional cost to use, so you won't be able to use them as your only attack. The plan is to add Affinity Points (AP), which will be accumulated as you eat items. When you have enough, you can spend them on Special Abilities. We are still fine tuning the details, but want to have a bit more variety in combat so the player doesn't get bored and feel like they have 1 "best" option to just use every time, and the rest are ignored.

For the inventory management, are you using any of the current quick transfer shortcuts? Instead of double-click, we are using right-click. You can also use Shift, Ctrl, and Alt with right-click, for Half, Quarter, and Split, quick transfers. For mobile we need to work on how best to implement these, and double-tap is an option for the basic quick transfer, but mobile extras are lower on our priorities right now. We are also planning to add additional keyboard and joypad hotkeys. Before we do so we want to redo the remapping to break it out into groups based on where the inputs would be used, as it is already long, and all the options can be confusing or overwhelming. 

We prefer right-click over double-click for our quick transfer, as it take less clicks and is faster when doing a lot. Double-click also has the issue of getting the right timing. You don't want it to be too short that some might not be fast enough, but also don't want it to be too long that a second click not meant to be part of double-click is treated as one. Inventory management is an area where there can be a lot to do, so we want to make it as quick and painless as possible. At some point we may add back the Bulk Transfer (transfer everything visible in the selected Bag to the target Bag) controls as well. Now that the Filters have improved and become more focal, perhaps people will find them useful.

Good to hear that the new animations are working. Our oldest has been working on the Slimes, and my partner has spent a lot of time on the humanoid art. There are still details we want to improve, but the base is much better than before. Additional animations was the main reason we switched to doing our own art, so yes, you can expect more to be added in the future. We are starting with Idle, Walk, and Run, then moving on to per action animations. We will likely start with some generic ones so every character gets an animation, and then create specific ones for different actions, or action types. We also want to add in more races for you to encounter on your journey.

Thanks again for your continued feedback!

Thanks for your thoughts! The English was fine.

We have a lot of ideas for things to try to make it more fun, and more RPG-like. Right now we are trying to get as many of them in before Next Fest as we can, to get a feel for how everything will work, and what needs to change. We have acknowledged that the original loot concept has been lost as we switched to the item stacks and newer abilities, so have been thinking on how best to add back some dopamine boost inspiring items. There is currently the issue of some people feeling overwhelmed by a cluttered inventory, so we don't want to add them yet, but the Traders' Depot is up next and will let you unload excess loot. After that is in place we want to look at adding rarity to items, and having a chance of getting a smaller number of rare, or even unique, items in fights. With things being single use, this will need to be balanced to feel rewarding and not unpleasant to get a cool unique item that is used once and lost.

We did think about letting the player have free roam controls in towns. The main reason we decided not to was to keep the controls simple for cross-platform and mouse/touch only UI. We could do a click to move system, but that feels like a lot of extra work implementing and maintaining  an extra system. Instead, we plan to add an option in the towns where you can watch as your party moves between locations. This is just a toggle at the bottom of the menu, so you can quickly change it as you are in town, depending on what you want at the moment. We have also updated the button that hides the Town UI so that it also zooms out to show you more of the town. With the ongoing art update we are also expanding the towns to have more going on to make them feel more alive. We are looking at options for your in town interactions to be able to add more to do, such as after talking with someone it will add a new person to talk to, or possibly a new location to visit in the town.

We are not sure on the grid movement. It is an interesting idea, but we like the feel of the party travelling with the current side-scrolling. We will keep it in mind as we work to see if it feels right for any parts. We are also planning to introduce a "world" map soon. It will initially just be showing info, and then used for some quests. We have thoughts about using it for selecting your next destination, though may also just add forks in the road where the party stops and you can decide which way to go. We do want to add some forks and letting the player have a bit more freedom, while limiting feature creep and having too many possible paths to deal with in balancing things.

At this point we are not so much looking for a cool idea to make the game stand out, as we are trying to find where we are and how to best optimize what we have in the time available. We know that we need to have something to draw attention and get people to play the game, and some of the current design choices do offer that. If something doesn't work, then we are going to change it. Part of this dev-log and our current thoughts are on the marketing end. We have been looking at the side-scrolling over free-roam as a limitation that we were not fully happy with. Now we are questioning if we should change our mindset and promote it as a benefit for people with time constraints. If we go into it seeing it as a negative, that will show in our presentation. If we can see it as a benefit, at least for some people, then we can try to optimize it and promote it for that audience. The key is if there is enough of an audience who will appreciate it, and if so, how to best adjust the feature for them.

This is where things like the grid-based movement could be considered. Our current system does have some longer segments where the player is just moving. We are reducing the time between things as we redo the map, but maybe we add an option to reduce it further so that you go directly from fight to fight to whatever is next without the extra walking time. This wouldn't exactly be that grid-based movement, but would have a similar effect on time between things. This is something we would want to set as an option, instead of the default, for those who want to speed things up. We already have the options for speeding up movement, but also updating the maps themselves to be shorter is an option as we try to optimize.

We know not to try to make the best game as your first release, and that most people fail to make a living doing indie game dev. We were lucky enough to be in a position where we had a chance to try this, and still have some time left to see if this can work before I need to look at going back to a day job. Even if this isn't enough to make a living, it can at least be an example project for trying to get a job in game dev, rather than going back to web dev that I had done previously.

We had initially intended to do something much simpler, but the game just kept growing. We are trying to balance making it good enough for us to feel good about releasing it (my partner and I are both perfectionists), but also not letting feature creep take over. Many of the games we love to play are grander, and that played into how the game grew. We are struggling to find the best balance of how to finish this game. We are far enough in that starting over on something new, even a simpler game, would take too long. We need to find where to take this game to make it good enough to release and find enough of an audience. We are hoping that we will have enough in place by Next Fest that we can roll into Early Access, to start making at least a little money to continue development. There is a lot to do in a short time, but we are making progress. How to make the current systems feel better is on our minds a lot right now, which is what prompted the dev-log and seeing what others think. We really appreciate your comments. This kind of feedback helps us look at it from other viewpoints.

We are already setup as an Android developer and do plan to release on Google Play once it is finished. The UI is not optimized for mobile yet, but we do keep mobile in mind as we work on the game so that it can be polished up for a mobile release.

Thanks again for your comments. Thinking on things as we read through and responded has helped to give some new ideas for places we can improve and refine.