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Again: I thought about that, but what about when she says "I'd forgotten how it feels"? That line implies that she has felt sexual pleasure while lucid before (because the player hadn't hypnotized her a millennia ago), so what changed between when she last had sex and when the game takes place?

I've finally 100%ed the latest version (0.49), so THIS should be my last comment (at least for a while). Aside from some more sneaky typos and the fact that Elkantar's pole-dance CG (sprite-2702-0) wasn't updated, the only new issue I noticed is that the text's backing bubble disappears for several pearl-summoned girls' lapdance cutscenes (and Amber's 3rd CG cutscene), making the text harder to read. Oh, and Dr. Love is mistakenly called Dominya in her pole-dance cutscene.

I also have one more story question: in Terra's barn sex scene, the narration says that she "seems to experience nothing but compassion," and that it was as if she "was having an altogether different experience," but in her final CG cutscene--which also involves her having sex with the player--she keeps going "Aaah!" and even refers to it as "this pleasure," suggesting that she DOESN'T experience sex much differently. EDIT: I considered that she was faking those orgasms or had been hypnotized into feeling sexual pleasure for the first time, but she also says that she had "forgotten how it feels," meaning THIS is what normally happens, and the barn scene is...what am I missing here?

...or is this another thing I wasn't supposed to be prompted to put thought into?

Thanks for responding. Small clarification: I meant, when Helen explains how to find/see those cutscenes, she would clarify that all three types of scenes (auditorium/mall/barn) take place at different, varying points in their individual arcs instead of all happening after their final CG or at a specific point in the timeline--or even sequentially among themselves (since Nichole's barn scene has to take place before almost all her other cutscenes). She could follow up by saying something like "so don't worry if it seems like your control over them has waned; that's just a natural side-effect of pearl resets!" The only hard firm point is when the explanation itself shows up: once the player levels up any character enough to unlock that person's auditorium scene. Does it sound like something you'd be willing to implement now?

I did initially assume those were abstracted/player-convenient/cost-convenient choices, but was confused why said convenience didn't extend to the dance/barn scenes, hence my first comment. I think the best compromise would be to have Helen explain it (and how to see them) in an interrupt-cutscene the first time you get a character to level 300 (or whenever their pole-dance scenes unlock); that way, not only is their place in the timeline explicit, but it also rectifies an earlier issue I brought up about how those cutscenes are too well hidden to begin with.

By the way, is the rain in Raine's 4th CG also an art convenience and she just thinks it's raining sometimes? My main question about that was the weather being the same, after all. And how does Susan's uniform get unburned? If she just straight-up has a second set, maybe you could add it to the background of her 2nd CG as an Easter egg.

Wait, do pearl resets send the player back in time, or is the lone remaining hypnosis level so the harem doesn't notice how much time passed? I feel like either way, it just introduces more plot-holes: Could the mayor end up interviewing for the position Nichole still actively fulfills? Is it just a massive coincidence that it always rains (with the exact same traffic) when Raine reaches her 4th CG again? How does Clara's brainwashing work if she's leveled up before Mia or Candice (or Katelyn)? What does the non-hypnotized goddess think when the war suddenly starts up again? How do none of the elves think to use this time-travel power against Helen/the player? 

P.S. Olivia's lap-dance has the same issue as Susan's, by the way: it's in the folder as sprite-4538-0,  but the cutscene just shows the default mall background.

Is it just me, or do the barn scenes take place BEFORE the characters' final (5th/6th) CG cutscenes? Some of the narration seems to conflict every now and then (like Cathrine objecting to her new job despite earlier having claimed to be fully loyal and desperate to please you), but I'm especially curious about Nichole's: her narration explicitly mentions that the mayor "must have still been working her rather hard" and how "you would be free to teach her boss a lesson" "once you had her quit," but...she already resigned back in her second CG cutscene (which is only 2nd because her first CG appears as soon as you unlock her) and the player-character takes up that job early in the mayor's arc to hypnotize her as well--both of which happen before the barn is ever accessible since the city has to be completed to unlock the countryside. Am I missing something? What's the timeline, here?

EDIT: Susan's lapdance cutscene doesn't display sprite-4534-0 as it's supposed to, but instead just shows the standard empty club background.

Just got done reading the new cutscenes (and Anne's now-fixed cutscene!), and as always, they're pretty good. I especially like that Iris and Darlene are brainwashed into thinking they achieved their goals (especially since that *didn't* happen with Dianne, Elkantar, or Xyren). 

That said, Iris's 3rd CG cutscene has all of its dialogue duplicated for the cutscene afterward, with the latter's original text missing. I tested this again on your latest build (21 hours ago) and it still happens. Please fix this.

I did notice some other, smaller issues with them: some cutscenes look like they're about to have another line of text, but the game fades out before it can be read (this is especially true for when Darlene says "I've always been submiss--uh," and the scene ends right afterward). In contrast, there are also times where the "null" line appears as text and the player has to click again to end the cutscene (and one of Holi's cutscenes has TWO "null"s in a row!). Lastly, some cutscenes--when they finish--won't return the characters' outfits back to what they were before, instead leaving them on whatever the characters were wearing in those scenes. This won't matter on first viewing, but it becomes annoying when rewatching cutscenes after unlocking their final outfits.

Oh, and there's a couple words missing ("have signal" instead of "have a signal"; "to growing" instead of "to be growing"). It might be a good idea to proofread everyone else's cutscenes, too, if you ever get the chance.

EDIT: I'm also kinda disappointed we don't learn more about Azile's motivations (what does she plan on doing with all her newfound strength and freedom?), but maybe that's something else that got cut off prematurely.

EDIT 2: Whoops, almost missed Raven's cutscenes. Hers are fine for the most part, but the 5th CG dialogue still says things like "shaft" and how she slides it "into" her mouth, even when playing as a female character. It just needs some tweaking for the other gender, is all.

It's fixed now. Changer is more active on the Steam forum and must've forgotten to tell us over here on itch, so I'm letting you know instead.

It's fixed now. Changer is more active on the Steam forum and must've forgotten to tell us over here on itch, so I'm letting you know instead.

Thanks for responding. Any plans to reduce grinding for pearls and loyalty? I looked through previous comments and saw that I wasn't the only one who felt it was way too time-consuming and tedious.

P.S. I'm also encountering the bug a few Steam users mentioned where the game keeps looping the Spiral Clicker 2 promo. Closing and reopening the game didn't help. I guess let me know when version 0.491 is out. EDIT: Okay, I see you fixed it already.

(Also, Helen mentions that she has a new look but is still using her Spiral Clicker 1 outfit; oversight? EDIT: it seemed like you planned on using sprite-174-34 instead.)

Sorry for leaving so many comments, but I do have another question: why does the game go out of its way to cover Crystal's naked crotch at every opportunity...if she's NOT trans (pre-reassignment surgery)? That artistic decision confused me from the moment I first saw her final outfit (no other harem member gets the same treatment), and just when I thought I finally figured it out, I read her barn scene and saw that it's canon she has a pussy. I'm not angry, just wondering what's so special about her vagina to warrant being hidden away like the Arc from Indiana Jones.

One last visual mistake I noticed: sprite-4824-1 has the female-player-character's top, which is accurate, but it has the male-player-character's bottom. Once again, this is what's used in-game (no other female variant exists in the gfx folder), and it would be a very easy fix.

Agreed. For now, the only way to rewatch dialogue scenes is to do a pearl reset and go through them sequentially again, but even that doesn't include character introductions or story intermissions. Plus, loyalty cutscenes require you to painstakingly-grind back to the required amount before they can be seen again. I'm definitely gonna make a back-up of my save so I can rewatch them without having to go through all that each time.

Yeah, it definitely comes across that way. Still, figured I should jot my thoughts down on the off-chance *this* project will ever leave Early Access. Worst case scenario: I only lost a few minutes leaving some comments, but there's always the possibility that the dev will come back here after a few months/years and be like "oh, I wouldn't've thought to check for that" and it gets fixed for future players.

Small correction: apparently, it can be any day in the holiday's month instead of having to be on the specific day. It's just that Easter's month is April, so even though Easter technically falls on March 31st this year, we won't get the scene until tomorrow.

Okay, THIS should be my last comment. I mentioned earlier about how Sonia's female-player variant (sprite-4708-0) doesn't display in-game even when a female player is chosen, but I looked in the graphics folder and noticed a few other variants missing:

- Mika's barn scene doesn't have a female-player variant at all. Sprite-4864-1 is an exact 1:1 copy of sprite-4864-0, both of which are male variants. It's not even like the female-variant's file is just misnamed or something; I checked every image, and it's just not there. The cutscene dialogue still correctly says strap on, though.

- Also, while sprite-377-1 and sprite-629-1 have -0 versions, their female variants (sprite-381-1 and sprite-627-1, respectively) do not. As long as the artist still has the source, it shouldn't be hard to fix (just copy the -0's extra layer over to the -1 variant and save as png). Heck, I actually made one myself just now, which I can upload here for you if you give me permission. EDIT: and no one say that's exclusively male ejaculate because sprite-1133-0 has all the same effects, which happen to be placed identically in sprite-1131-0.

One last suggestion: please add a way for the player to pause the game during real-time segments like the SHMUP level and the Night Trap level. I know they're only a few minutes long, but it's still annoying to lose that much progress due to an emergency in real life.

If you're still looking for a walkthrough, there's a pretty thorough one on the game's Steam forum: 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1995010230

And any info not there has likely already been answered in other threads: https://steamcommunity.com/app/950860/discussions/0/3948028800075049581/

If you haven't figured it out yet, the first character is the only one you unlock that way (besides Helen). For everyone else, you have to click on the college button on the center-right, then click the girl icon in the lower-left to increase loyalty. Once one of the buildings gets its bar full, you can click on it to unlock another character (or sometimes a single CG). Just keep in mind there's a bug where, sometimes, a building will say it's "ready" at the wrong time (it could be either you need more loyalty or that it's just completely done).

If you still don't know: I looked up a walkthrough, and it turns out you can only unlock those scenes by playing the game during certain holidays (Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc.). It's not a new character, but Helen in various holiday-themed outfits.

When you update the game next, please tweak the Elf Kingdom so it shows a recommended pearl amount for the next character, preferably before you take them on. At least have Helen tell you that your strength is based on current pearl count BEFORE losing to the gatekeeper and getting a sore arm in real life from clicking so much. I'd also like some sort of in-game hint as to how to unlock the Elf Kingdom because the current method is kinda unintuitive (no one needed to be over level 180 for anything except to unlock their bonus CGs).

There should also be clearer hints for how to defeat them. For example, "keep moving up the stairs" doesn't translate to "keep moving the mouse around the screen," especially since there's no visual for whether or not you're doing the right thing like there is for the gatekeeper (the stair animation keeps happening regardless). Plus, mouse movement was never needed before this point (only clicking was needed), making it extra unintuitive that this is the opposite.

P.S. A few summons don't have female-player variants for their CGs (such as Kass and Sonia), or if they do, they don't display in place of the male-player variants. If it's the former, I can wait. EDIT: Okay, I checked the graphics folder, and Sonia's 5th CG's female variant is there, so it not displaying is a game-side issue. Kass's 5th CG doesn't appear to have a female-variant yet, though, so I'll just have to wait for that one.

I encountered both of these bugs myself. Between them and the other bugs I encountered (and the fact that the Windows version is 0.47 despite 0.48 being released), I'm worried that it was deprecated in favor of the Android version (though it could just as easily be that the dev is juggling too many projects to keep on top of them all). 

I will say: for the fire station, the bug is just that the meter is mislabeled. If you get enough Country Loyalty (somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000), clicking the fire station will unlock a new character: Susan, head of the fire station. As for Anne, I'm guessing there's a problem in her mbs/scn file, but there's no easy way for us to figure out which one is for that specific cutscene, or what the problem is.

Two more Windows bugs: unlike every most other characters, the "time traveler" doesn't have *any* dialogue after the initial summon; increasing her level only unlocked the CGs by themselves, even when I got the fifth one. EDIT: same goes for several other summons, and the space pirate stops having dialogue after her 3rd CG (even her 4th/5th CGs don't unlock, even after unlocking her 6th CG--even after reaching level 600!) until reaching a certain point in the game, so maybe have the summons themselves progression-locked instead? It would help with other summons as well, like preventing getting the Noir detective before reaching the countryside.

Also, this cutscene for DH has the "Null" line superimposed on each sentence, making them hard to read. I also suspect it's missing lines since this sentence comes right after "Hey there," and then it's over. Bug persists on replay after pearl reset.

EDIT: A few other summons also have overlapping dialogue, with the second extra line being almost the same sentence, making both hard to read.

Just encountered a game-breaking bug in the latest Windows build: after unlocking the fifth CG for Leena, I got the city loyalty large enough for the police station to be "ready" again, but clicking on it does nothing. I even tried closing and reopening the game, but the bug persists. EDIT: Okay, turns out the bug is simply that the meter's indicator is too low and I just needed more loyalty than what it said. Here's a screenshot:

P.S. Another, comparatively minor bug I encountered is that the game never showed the private investigator's likes or dislikes. At first, I thought the game just wasn't gonna do that after the college, but then I unlocked the Nurse, whose final dislike is also blank (which, on its own, I would've assumed was intentional).

A few bugs with the current Windows version (which, again, is still 0.47): sound effects stopped playing after the second time I opened the game, and both volume sliders were all the way to the right (moving them didn't help). Also, several girls in the college have CGs unlock at different moments compared to when you get the cutscene. For example, I unlocked Crystal's fifth CG cutscene, but the window preview of it on her profile was still blank; others had the preview unlock *before* I got the cutscene. Plus, one of the college girls (I forgot who) has a bugged outfit counter: it said 3 but I could only swap between the first two; the third finally unlocked when it said 4, the 4th when it said 5, and the 5th when I unlocked its corresponding CG cutscene.

EDIT: Oh, and in the cutscene for the dean's 4th CG, the auditorium owner is mistakenly fully-clothed in preceding dialogue (in the actual CG, she's properly fully nude). 

P.S. Would you be willing to add a mechanic where brainwashing Hellen enough lets you generate pearls by only resetting *one* girl's progress at a time? (at the cost of getting fewer pearls, obviously). Maybe going even further would convince her to brainwash herself to generate pearls at regular intervals without losing net progress. EDIT: Nevermind, just saw Leena's CG cutscenes. EDIT 2: I would still like for there to be an option to get pearls without losing location loyalty because of how long it can take to build up, though. EDIT 3: Actually, now that I've beaten the game, I think this automated pearl generation could still work.

P.P.S. I'd also appreciate if the characters' post-full-nude CGs had cutscene dialogue like the main ones do. The hardest part (the drawing) is already done; all I'm asking for is a few lines of text added to them. Okay, I finally figured out how to see those cutscenes; would you be willing to make it a bit more clear how to do so? Maybe a cutscene when you first level up a character enough where Hellen says where to assign them and to look for the eye icon. 

Can you add an option to replay unlocked cutscenes? My mouse will occasionally register two clicks at once, and this caused me to miss a line of dialogue. EDIT: Okay, resetting progress to get pearls lets you see the cutscenes again, though I do think you missed an opportunity to have them be slightly different, like they still have vague memories of previously being hypnotized. Also, the Windows download is still v0.47. EDIT: I looked at earlier comments, and this appears to be a known issue and simply a typo. Apologies for harping on about it; I thought there were bug fixes I was missing.

EDIT 2: Actually, now that I think about it some more, introductory cutscenes can't be rewatched, even after reobtaining the same amount of loyalty that unlocked said characters, so at least having a way to view those specific cutscenes again would be nice. EDIT 3: On third thought, in the Elf Kingdom, it's easy to skip the first line of dialogue by accident since there's no clear victory/defeat demarcation; the game just instantly fades from the clicking segment to the cutscene, so it'd be nice if those could be rewatched at will as well. Maybe just do it for all cutscenes to be on the safe side.

EDIT: One of Tammy(the tennis player)'s lines is literally just the word "null", which I think is a mistake since her previous line is "I'm up for anything," which seems like a better way to end the cutscene. EDIT 2: Also, when I reset progress for pearls, this particular cutscene played twice: once where it ended when it was supposed to, and the other with the extra "null" that doesn't get auto-skipped like everyone else's visible "null" lines.

Also, the turn limit in level 9 makes it too big of a difficulty spike considering what came before. It would've been challenging enough without it, but as is, the mission is too long to have to replay the entire thing solely due to the turn limit. You should at least add the ability to save a checkpoint manually mid-battle like in Advance Wars.

Can you make it more clear as to what triggers a counterattack? I think it has something to do with AP, but there's no way to see how much AP the enemy has, nor is this mechanic ever explicitly pointed out in-game like unit costs are (and the tooltips reset after each battle, so if it's explained there, people won't notice because they'll turn it off after three battles of seeing the exact same tutorials over and over).

Okay, I see where you're coming from. To explain myself, I've noticed people tend to make games "inspired" by those old-school classics without fully understanding WHY something worked in those games. It's less "work horse/you never played them" and more pointing out minutiae you seem to have missed or forgotten. Also, keep in mind that your game only has one simple area right now; your friends most likely didn't bring the issue up because it isn't a huge issue YET. 

Sorry if it feels like I keep harping on the same thing, but your response seems to ignore the other point I tried to make in my last post: if you're gonna keep the physics, you should change the level design to make that section less annoying.

Think of it this way: how often do Mario 3 and Super Metroid make the player jump on multiple single-tile-wide platforms in a row, if ever? How much time does it take for the player to reach those segments from starting a new game (without sequence-breaking)? How long are the segments themselves? What total percentage of the game do these segments make up? Are these segments mandatory, or is there an obvious branching path the player can take instead? How do your answers compare when the same questions are applied to your game? 

To be fair, there IS an old-school game franchise that has single-tile-wide platforms early on like your game does, but that franchise is Mega Man: a series where your momentum dies completely upon letting go of forward in midair--the very thing you're trying to avoid (so you should avoid the early single-tile-wide platforms, too).

I understand why you made the game like this--no need for more insight--but do you understand why having so many single-tile-wide platforms in a momentum-platformer isn't a good idea? Do you understand why your inspirations rarely did this and never did it so early?

I can respect that, but you should know that it's equally unnatural to have your entire momentum ricochet in the opposite direction upon pushing the other direction button, which is how your game works right now. My original suggestion was twofold: 1) ground movement already responsively stops your momentum completely upon letting go of forward (even though both characters are running and would realistically slide forward a bit upon abruptly stopping), so duplicating that for midair movement would add congruency to the controls, and 2) you make the player jump on several one-tile-wide platforms in a row, thus making the player quickly push left/right alternating to avoid overshooting/slipping back instead of simply letting go of the button. This is annoying, not challenging. 

You reference Mario 3, but that game merely slows you down at first upon holding backwards, thus eliminating the back/forth issue since you can just hold back for a bit to stop all momentum. Plus, Mario 3's ground movement also has momentum, meaning the player doesn't have to learn and instantly flip between two different movement physics within the same game. Even Super Metroid doesn't quite work the same as your game, because if you tap backwards quick enough, you kill your momentum and fall straight down (and even holding backwards, it takes a split second for you to actually move in the other direction).

By the way, both of your examples have run buttons, giving the player even more control over movement/momentum. Your game doesn't have a run button.

You want physics? You want momentum? Then COMMIT, because right now, your game's controls are much closer to all those indie games you take umbrage with than either of the two games you brought up to defend yourself.

Extra feedback: the optional(?) area in the bottom-left corner of the map is blocked by an ice floor, even though the player can't shoot down. That would be fine if said ice floor wasn't also placed right after a spike corridor that's tricky to get past. Progression-roadblocks should never be placed after linear obstacles as a dead-end like this, so I recommend adding another destructible-block-floor just before the spike corridor.

By the way, TOWER ATTACK is a very misleading name for your Bennet-Foddy-clone (because what tower attack *actually* means is reverse tower defense), but if you're dead-set on making the mode's entire challenge based around that clunky jump mechanic, at least show the trajectory beforehand while the player is charging the jump, because right now, I don't see how it's possible to get past the second screen.

I've got some feedback in case you pick this project back up: the first boss is annoying. It's completely invulnerable for a while, forcing the player to sit there and wait for a long time. Worse, during the brief moment the eyes are open, the invulnerable bees can easily get in the way, blocking attacks completely and not giving enough time to reach the other vantage point before the eyes close again. EDIT: and the eyes are so transparent while open, players might not even realize they animated; please add some white to those scleras. Also, the falling hazards should have some warning of where they'll fall since some of the waves don't give enough time to reach safety should the player end up in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

Other misc. issues: the moving platform just to the right of the large tree moves too far away, once again forcing players to sit there and wait should they just barely miss it. Lastly, I'd appreciate if the movement physics were tweaked so that letting go of left/right in midair instantly stops forward movement. This would make the controls more responsive and allow for more tricky platforming in later levels.

P.S. The tutorial text seemed to say that I'd lose my double-jump on death, but that never happened. If this was a mistake, I think it should be kept this way (redoing the tutorial text) since the game didn't seem completely designed around not having double jumps. If this was because I played on Casual difficulty, I'd like the difficulty selection to explain what the differences are between said difficulties. I also don't think this game should have a lives system given how much content is already between each checkpoint.

I mean, of course the Gamecube port would have lower-poly models and lower-quality textures; that's a given. I'm also aware that, even beyond graphics, it would likely require building a new engine since obviously UE5 has no "export to Gamecube ISO" option, but I guess that's your way of saying it's not worth it, which is understandable. Oh well; thanks for responding.

Are there any plans to port the game to Gamecube for those of us with the bongos but not the adapter? Even just an ISO file to run on a modded Wii would be enough.

Still no way to play this game.

>I understand that [the hitbox] wasn’t made super clear

It's more than just that, though (if I didn't make myself clear last time). Graphics need to represent the hitbox if you're going to make a game requiring precision; that way, the player can literally *see* what to do, like in Rocket Bits. Once the required opening is smaller than your sprite, however, you as a player can never be sure HOW close you can get without trial-and-error (and then it's something you have to remember instead of something intuitive). It's the same problem a lot of bullet-hell games have.

EDIT: also, in regards to the Halloween levels, you shouldn't overlay the required white fuel cells over the white decorative background tiles because that makes them easy to miss.

>not having time

What do you mean? The game is self-published, right? What's stopping you from delaying the release for a bit to make sure everything works as intended?

I played using the SDK, which gave me a popup warning that it runs faster than a normal Playdate, and I think that explains others' issue with the gravity being too strong. Even with that in consideration, I felt the difficulty curve wasn't completely smooth, with hard levels being followed by easy levels (an issue that Rocket Bits also has). Notably, the ability to keep energy cells after death means you don't have to worry about backtracking in the final level since you can just die to get back faster. Maybe a good compromise would be to have them work like standard checkpoints and respawn you where they were, then have all levels utilize them to some extent? There were a few non-energy-cell levels I felt went on a bit too long, particularly the ones that had the Y-formation saws that required very precise moving around despite the player's hitbox not being all that clear-cut (it was better in the first game).

Apparently, Minecraft Forge won't work with Game Pass. Whenever I try double-clicking the 1.7.10 installer, it does nothing except produce a log file showing a bunch of errors, even though I already launched Minecraft: Java Edition through Game Pass and even created a new world.

I meant gameplay-wise.