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- The treatment plant doesn't have a puzzle. It's just get in, get the key, get out. It'll probably make more sense when I replace the flounderer with the key with a party member recruit. Like "Oh. So this was the end of that."

- Flounderer is Level 0 cause it can't attack. Only alternative to my mind would be "Lv. ?"

- Yeah, Ninetails is definitely a character I wanted to get right. The burning stuff is his doing, effectively "If you weren't here, he would've resolved things. You're both wolves killing other wolves. Aside from your chosen LARP, you are functionally the same guy." It's something I try to lean into, and will do earlier with the afforementioned Norman-replacement recruit that goes "Hey isn't it weird that you kill wolves? Don't you see them differently as one of their kind?"

- I'll keep the AoE thing in mind. Moth Man is "the AoE guy," but one more wouldn't hurt. Also yeah, the Freeze obsession is a thing I've been fighting against. A problem of my own making, deciding the first area to be "the water area."

- Party members are Amy, Norman, Boyle (standard most people find), Laura (wolf, resident of the house that burnt down), Moth Man (wolf), Buddy Rabbit (another sewer encounter), and Herbert (the guy with the bike lock around his neck who you freed while he was brainwashed)

- I want to thank you a lot for taking the time out to do this. This isn't just me blowing smoke. The fact you really did care to be blunt with your criticisms is gonna do me infinitely better in the long-run than the people too afraid or uncaring to share their honest thoughts.

If I had to ask one thing: what was your experience with the Devour mechanic? It was meant to sorta be like "If you're struggling, here's your out."

1. It's the whole predators/aggressors thing, yeah. Lot of overt metaphors regarding sheep, shepherds, the oxymoron of "lone wolf" because wolves are pack animals.

2. I didn't think of the animal embryo bit. That's actually genius. I'm gonna steal that idea.

3. Recruitable Mothman real, yeah. In playtesting, I only got 1/4 people to recruit him. Which I'd like to raise to at least "half the playerbase will find him."

1. There's an ongoing theme. All the weird creatures are called "wolves" in-universe. Partially as a joke, but it gets paid off later. The party member Norman replaced for the alpha demo explicitly goes like "I hunt feral wolves. These Fish Men wolves are an invasive species." Which is actually good information, and it makes me sad I used Norman there instead bc of all that behind the scenes nonsense. They'll be included in the Kickstarter demo though.

2. Animal-inspired monsters, and theology-inspired monster hunters. Moth Man is a cryptid, Papa Beer is a pun, Fish Men are Lovecraft. But they're all animals. Head Doctor and Premature Burial are outliers, and were made before I had the idea down. In addition to the party member guy above, I might wanna replace Premature Burial with like, a zombie groundhog or something to codify the animal theme.

3. Moth Man has more to it and gets paid off later. Or not. It's sort of a "hidden quest" throughout Area 1 with various triggers. I might add 1-2 more triggers to make it all flow more nicely.

4. No need to apologize. The fact you took the time to play my game and critique it is a gesture I appreciate.

5. I don't really read all that often, but I recently finished Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Very interesting autopsy on the 1960's. I like when art is a time capsule like that.

Feature. And yeah, it's a shifting dungeon. I'm considering expanding it a little for the Kickstarter demo and putting a party member inside to really sell the whole thing and what it all means.

I'll put making the vending machine damage more obvious on my list. I thought I fixed that already, but I guess I forgot to save the change.

The beach is meant to be this high-level area that makes the player wanna retreat to the woods or the abandoned building.

There are ways I can definitely clue the player in more to that. Like, LISA The Painful had a big sign that said "TURN BACK" for its equivalent.

Did you ever get to see the woods? The middle path down the road. I designed it with the intention of being *the* place to do easy encounters if the other locations were giving players trouble.

The enemy "levels" are weird cause I added it last minute. The way they work is that everyone is statted to die in 5~ standard hits from a same level attacker.

This doesn't factor in weaknesses of course. Like, the Papa Beers are weak to Psy (Firm Shake and whatnot), making them easy targets to stunlock to death with Jagan's only skill, which is then in turn supposed to teach players about weaknesses and stuns. But calling them "Level 5," while honest, has the potential to scare players off trying to fight them.

I put levels in the name so the player would go "These Fish Men are insanely high-levelled, and so is this boss. Maybe I should go somewhere else instead."

One of the fixes I put in per your advice was changing a bit in the self-help manual to say "If you're having trouble: try something else." Which isn't a crazy change, but I hope it'll be enough of a push to make players consider taking on other locations if they're struggling with one.

There are flashbacks that come in later areas to explain that stuff. But so far my fixes are
- A party member who's recruitment interrogates Abe's opinion on wolves (already implemented, but Norman replaced them in the demo version for various behind the scenes reasons)

- Various optional slice of life bits in the intro, like you suggested. Like talking to the clinic doctors, or returning the library book and having Penn chime in more. Just letting the player peel back the curtain a liiitttle bit more while getting them attached to Penn before he disappears. I already had this as an idea, but your feedback helped me further refine how I'm gonna go about it more specifically.

These are things that I will 100% sort out before I do the Kickstarter demo. Thank you so much for your feedback.

Yeah, some of the stuff like Jagan being worthless is intentional. Him and Head Doctor are meant to teach the player "This isn't Undertale. Feel free to do bad things."

The general approach I took to the game's difficulty is "If you can't do it as you are now, try something else." Which is why you get that and also the ability to fight over-leveled enemies.

I'm taking note of everything else though. Especially in regards to making Abe's motivations/goals more explicit. Thank you for your time and patience.

Face the chicken instead of standing on top of it to interact.
It's such a bizarre bug that I could not fix despite months of testing. Remembering that it exists is quite humbling haha.

At this point I consider it a canonical story feature