itch.io

Man, it was only clicking on this postmortem and going “hm, what else have you made?” that made me realise you also did Beatbox to Eat Box in Strawberry Jam! The improvement between that entry and this one really shows.
Also your workflow for animation is fascinating - I’d be super curious what porting the sketches over to Aseprite gave you over keeping the full workflow in Clip Studio.

Congrats on the successful jam entry and placing second overall! Hopefully I’ll see you in another jam going forward.

I’m so glad you had that much fun with it! It feels well balanced makes me really happy; the math theoretically worked out, but you never know how it’ll be in practice. And I’m glad the personality of everything came through!

It being challenging to figure out what to do without instructions is definitely the biggest piece of feedback I’ve gotten. A pop up for round changes is a great idea - I always wanted to make that a bit more offical than what it is currently.
The dice is also 100% an issue - thankfully one I’ve solved since/will push through in the post jam update, but it definitely is the only part of the current experience I think feels truly unfair to the players.

I also have no earthly idea how you managed that with the cleric, hah! Then again, I’m delighted to hear you got all the way to the end without corrupting her - I thought for sure she needed to be to complete the game in its current state.

The boss being stunnable wasn’t supposed to be possible either - if you ever come back to the game post-ratings, I’m very curious how you’ll fare against a boss who you can’t keep down indefinitely! ;)

Thanks again for the in depth comment!

I’m so glad the prologue had you rolling - it really seems to have been a highlight of everybody who played, hah!
Super happy to hear you enjoyed your time with the game overall :D I went into this jam really wanting to put forward a complete product, so hearing that the whole package (art/music/gameplay) seemed to all click really delights me.

You’re right, the dice viewing angle is a bit bizarre - never could figure out during the jam time frame what caused it to be so fish-eyed - it works well enough but I’m still not quite sure the cause. Also 100% aware of the “unstuck” abuse that’s possible - not sure there’s a more elegant solution that doesn’t potentially run the risk of abuse in a different way; I think it comes with the territory a bit of it being an inperfect physics based system. At the end of the day though, I’d much rather people abuse it to get infinite re-rolls than the alternative early players ran into (restarting viable runs because the dice froze and “unstuck” wasn’t visible.)

Definitely not against exploring this more after the game get unlocked if the right ideas come to me - thanks so much for the comment!

Yep, that all checks out with the bug reports I’ve gotten so far - I can’t update the game right now, but fixes for that are all ready to go once I can.

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for playing, glad you could figure it out! Yeah, some impact sound effects definitely wouldn’t go amiss. :)

Glad you found the game mechanics so interesting! It seems from what I’ve seen that a completely “pure” run isn’t quite possible with the current power setup - the game was definitely balanced assuming that you’d lose at least one or two characters. A shop could be a really interesting idea to play with - I was toying with being able to choose two level up options per level, or having random events that could give you better odds of extra die faces. There’s definitely room for experimentation!

Glad you could find the unstuck button too - ideally I wouldn’t need it at all, but alas, 3D physics are a bit janky.

Delighted you enjoyed it!

The “are you sure” popup is definitely needed, I’ve noticed that in my own run-throughs - I just couldn’t figure out a way to do it in the jam. Glad you still found some stuff in this cool!

(Going to discuss the game completely spoiled in the reply below!)

Firstly: Thank you so much for the in-depth comment! Between this and the bug report comment I can 100% tell that the critique is coming from a place of enjoyment - getting to the black minotaur uncorrupted tells me as much, god damn - and it really means a lot you’ve put the time into the dissection. A lot of the issues you’ve described (and the bugs from your previous comment) are a result of the time constraints of the jam I was participating in, amplified by it being a solo project, so fair warning that’s going to come up a bit!

The dice is definitely a prime example of that - I definitely noticed early on the fact that sometimes they dont re-roll properly, but it ended up being a “better done than perfect” situation. Now I’m out of the jam’s crunch I have a much better idea of how to make that feel more random, and it’s definitely something I want to implement to make things feel more fair going forward. Different sprites for monster/player attacks also falls in there, as well as matching sound effects.

I’m glad the battle felt as close to the wire as they do! The difficulty balance was something I didn’t have a lot of time to perfect, but riding the line of using health as a resource was absolutely where I wanted it to land. The black minotaur level was where I suspected it might get dicey, since it was intended as a damage check that ended up a bit overpowered - that lines up with how far you got uncorrupted.

Definitely understand that the corruption mechanic feels like an inta-win. That’s honestly intentional: rogue-like gameplay is notoriously unapproachable to people who don’t play it, and with the jam not centered around roguelike behaviour I wanted something that auto balanced for people who aren’t as good/familiar with the genre. It’s a big reason why the cleric has the lowest health - if she goes down first, players have access to the “Heal All” mechanic early, which is handy coming up against the Unearthly/Spirit battles (which is a level that stumped a good few other people, especially with the unintended difficulty hike).

There are punishments for corruption - there’s a 50/50 shot of corrupted members leaving for good if they go down again, and you get a unique bad ending with a fully corrupted party - but they’re honestly pretty small penalties for the power even one corrupted memeber bring to the table. Knowing that power jump is there does also incentivise players to funnel towards seeing the smut content, since the transformations are the only place that features NSFW content besides the sprites in the current game.

Re: not losing to see the smut - 100% agree! So many games require you to game over completely to see anything good. I was trying to aim for a “fail forward” mechanic where players are incentivised to corrupt one or two members as part of the gameplay but not lose entirely (see why the game over screen is bare bones) with a virgin run being the hard mode. Definitely can see how it feels like you’re punished for not “giving into” that content though.
Typing this out now, I think there might be a sweet spot in making the corrupted members powerful early on, but weakening them in high levels as players get towards the final boss - a lot of their power comes from being able to tank hits, and making them more glass cannon-y and dangerously low health in the boss could be a good way to go. Pairing that with smut/worldbuilding passages between levels only accesiable uncorrupted also could help make a uncorrupted run feel more rewarding. 🤔 Options, for sure.

Re: the battles, since you mentioned it not feeling like a roguelike: The battles were absolutely intended to be more randomised than they are. You might of seen the number of enemies in some of the battles shifts a bit - 1-2 gargoyles in the second level, sometimes a tentacle in level 6. With the deadline looming I figured that a solid 10 levels + boss would be better for player experience than full randomisation with the fights, especially when I was worried that the game wasn’t beatable at points!

100% agree with the lack of detail in the epilogue as well - I really wanted to include an adaptive ending that shows how the four different party members end up post game. To say I ran out of time is an understatement though - everything from the pre-boss passage through to that final “you win!” screen, art included, was created in the last 12 hours before submission. Frankly I was more worried about being able to even get to the final screen at that point!

Definitely intending on doing a post-jam update - currently the game is locked while the submissions are rated - but at the very least I want to address the bugs that people have come across since its release. So happy that you enjoyed playing this and you’re interested to see what comes next! :D

Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed the game. :D The intro really does seem to be a winner!
Definitely planning to include some better in-game instructions, and make the boss immune to being stunned by the Druid! Thanks for catching the fact the boss music doesn’t loop either - added to the current known bugs list.

Thanks so much for the bug reports! SUPER helpful for cleaning things up post jam.

The shield bash not shielding on the corrupted warrior specifically (weird!) and the Thyraxias gore attack are 100% bugs.

The spirits/ghostly ones being attackable with the flying enemies is intentional (their tool tip calling them “flighty” is supposed to reference that) - I figured with them being depicted as hovering that them not flying would be more confusing, but without the status icon it definitely looks unintentional!

Ack yeah - that’s a bug that was 100% unintended (I was playing with them being resistant to physical, thought that was too unfair… And made it worse instead, whoops.) Sorry about that - I’m hoping to fix it after the jam voting period!

Thank you so much for the in-depth comment! Really means a lot to get a glimpse into the player side of things, especially when our entries were so different.

You’ve definitely touched on the main things I’m taking away from the jam - a good tutorial I think would have been super helpful to ease people into the game, rather than relying on just the tool tips. I did include some instructions for the monsters that have weird mechanics - both the armored monsters and the winged ones before it have a status icon you can mouse over - but it seems like those have been either real easily missed or not informative enough.

The armored enemies seem to have been a wall for a lot of people, so you’re not alone in that! Their armor does intentionally increase much more rapidly than you can get through it, which is supposed to guide you to try other ways to damage it - I definitely could have made that path more obvious though. The action sticking from the previous round is also unintentional, but considering it helps the player I’m not mad it’s there.

So glad you enjoyed the art, and especially the writing passages! I didn’t realise until now it gives that text-adventure flair in the way it appears to the player, but I’m delighted that’s the takeaway - I’ve always been a writer first, so it was nice to flex those muscles even in a small way - and while the intro wasn’t the original plan it’s gotten a bunch of laughs, so I’ll take the win. :D

Definitely enjoyed messing around with it! I’m really curious how any post jam iterations are going to look; what you’re planning looks super fun. :D

Lol yeah, I definitely had the thought of “I’ve seen this animation a bunch already, it’s a good thing its cute as hell” while playing, lmfao. There’s definitely room to expand if you feel drawn to it!

Also aw shucks, thanks! Super glad you enjoyed it. :D

So delighted to hear that you’d consider coming back to this! I always feel like the hallmark of a good rogue-like is repeatability, so it hitting that for you means I’ve done something right. :D Like I mentioned to you on Discord, there’s an unstuck button if you press escape - definitely going to make the pause button visible in-game in the future, but hopefully that should stop you getting stuck in the middle of runs in the future!

Oh yes, that bug! I discovered that bug after the submission deadline - not the end of the world honestly, since it works in the player’s favour. As for the third fight, there’s a tool tip on the unearthly spirits that mention they don’t like life magic. If you end up playing again, try healing the spirits instead of trying to damage through the shields they keep replenishing. It’s a much easier fight that way. :D

The starting loadouts are intentionally bad to push the player to see the kink content/transformations, since that setup is the specific kink and vibe I was going for. It’s supposed to be balanced out by the fact the corrupted girls are very powerful early on, but I can understand it may not be intuitive.

Thanks for playing - I totally get the critique comes from a place of interest/care and I really appreciate the feedback!

Didn’t expect to play a GBA game for the jam! The animation on catching the fish is super cute, and the aesthetics are charming and work wonderfully together. The hook controls are nice and tight as well - may or may not have delved for several minutes to see if there was anything past the fish, and then took a looooong time coming back up lmao.

The animation when you successfully “hack” is really cute, especially the leg wiggles and jerks. The design for the girl herself is also super charming - it would of been cool to see what that scrapped story actually was, or what that boss battle you planned looked like. The slower terminal showing you that you can tap multiple times during the minigame was a really nice teaching moment!

Gameplay wise it felt like you could have packed the same experience down into a smaller package - it was a bit difficult to know where to go at times, and one of the double jumps early on is impossible if you don’t get the timing exactly right. I also had issues with it opening exclusively on my second monitor unless I physically unplugged it. Going 3D always ups the complexity, so knowing you did all the models and things yourself is super commendable!

This is one of the best uses of the theme in the jam, honestly - it gives a really believable credence to the events of the game. It all feels so very human, especially the relationship between Lilian and Tripp; you can buy into the fact they’re friends, and no matter what ending you get it feels understandable that they get to that point.

It’s honestly wild how different the tone can be between endings - going from cosy T4T to the events of ending A was a wild ride (though one I was entirely here for). My biggest “gripe” was that I was left wanting to know more about the entity, but with their stance in the game I can see why not having all the answers for them makes sense.

Great craftmanship on display as well - I loved the line “To lie and be consumed on your pyre of ice”, and the art is expressive and gorgeous. The music choices were great too - atmospheric without being invasive.
I really enjoyed my time with this!

Super happy you could submit something after pivoting off your original idea! I really loved how the mechanics built on themselves, and the main character’s art/model is THE cutest. Her expression changing as the bar gets closer to full is a subtle but super cute touch, and the menu/scene transitions give it a lovely bit of polish.

Didn’t realise at first how to finish each level - a prompt over the computer when you got near it would of been great - but I definitely wish there were more levels - it felt like the game had only just gotten going by the time I finished level 3!

It was always really exciting seeing your animation updates in the server, and its so cool to see the game fully realized here! The main character’s art is really the biggest upside to the game; her buttshake on the panels, the “Quit” art on the main screen? Super charming.

Definitely agree with other comments that some extra challenge and/or a way to Game Over would of been good - the tentacles weren’t really a threat, and once I realised I didn’t need to change terminals it was super easy to beat.

Super cute interpretation of the theme, and the fact its purely your effort though the entire game is super commendable.

Oh this was delightful. Surprisingly tight platforming, some wonderful animation work and a good message to boot. I ended up playing this with my partner and we both laughed out loud several times. I was surprised there was never really a fail state you could get into, and it would of been cool to have some hints as to how to get the achievements (the only one I managed was “A-hee-hee!” and that was entirely by accident) - but honestly this is a really complete feeling and fun product, especially for the timeframe!

Definitely was overwhelmed by the interface, and wish there was some sort of audio feedback to help guide things. Once I got the hang of it though it was quite fun to peck at the different controls like some sort of horny old timey telephone operator, and the animations are lovely. Also - insane result for two days work?? That’s worth commendation on its own.

This feels really special - the building music and transformation is done wonderfully, and it has this intimate, erotic vibe that few games are able to capture. Any sort of intensive animation work is always super commendable in a time frame as short as a jam as well. The ending was a little heartbreaking even if a good use of jam theming - I was super invested by then! I always enjoyed seeing your updates on Discord; hopefully you are able to develop this like you’re planning to.

Thanks for playing! It’s very much a game with erotic theming rather than a sex game (in that kink doesn’t need to be about sex way), but definitely planning to make the pause menu with the music mute more accessible in future.

Well shit, lmao - managed to get all the files up properly now, so hopefully you can play and enjoy!

Thank you so much! Yeah, the endless falling is unintentional, but also a bit Portal-esque - its part of why the respawn button was added to the main menu! Yeah, the mention of Lorelai is purely because I ran out of time - the pink character next to him was originally supposed to have at least an intro ready, but it just missed the submission window. Such a pain you ran into that upgrade bug too - you’re not the only one who has, and I definitely want to fix that up in a post jam update.

So glad you like the writing though! The game really is trying to be a platform for that, so it means a lot all the interactions feel that good.

And of course, its always a wonderful compliment when somebody wants to keep playing - thank you so much!

Thank you! It’s definitely got places I can improve, but it’s come together in a way I’m pretty pleased with. The unusual combination of genres was what inspired me in the first place, so I’m delighted that it seems to have been received as well as it has!

(Also the fish puns are terrible - that’s what makes them so great :3)

[…] I’m not convinced that there is anything in the game past what i’ve seen, but the game is going out of its way to make it seem like there is […]

The short answer to this is - the upgrade button did work on my testing, and somewhere along the line to release (whether that being because of no time to test the web version, a mid jam update breaking the game, or otherwise) it stopped. The implication is there because all the content is actually there, and did work at time of submission - I appreciate your attempts to see it, even if the game didn’t!

Really glad that the use of the 3D elements, both the platforming and the hook, felt good while using it! I’m glad the vibes sing through as well, both on a music/sound and narrative front. The low stakes platforming was a happy accident, but one I’m happy carried though to this product - it’s something I’ve heard a lot of good things about, which has been really nice.

Thank you for the in-depth analysis! If nothing else this has really driven home that finding a tester for my next endeavor would be really beneficial.

The fact that the “Game” in “Rate this “”“Game”””” in in several quotation marks is killing me, honestly.

Hey! I’ve been looking at setting myself up with a virtual machine, even more so since I saw you post this topic. I’m curious why you chose to go with Windows Sandbox over other options, to the point you’ve written up a whole guide on it - is it just the convenience of it being bundled in with Windows Pro, or are there other advantages/reasons you like it?

There’s some really great writing in this! When I realized what losing intelligence and will corresponded with I got that lovely swoop in my stomach, which few other games in the game have managed for me. The game over scenes are excellent, and the tailspin you can get into after losing a few rounds is very thematic, and super thrilling the first time it happened!

It took me a good few tries to beat the game, which made the inability to skip the opening text grate a little. Similarly, the ability to save your last bet and potentially an in-game restart button would also not go amiss while chasing the ending. I was a little surprised there wasn’t more to the ending than “you did it? well, didn’t expect that”, but I can imagine a few different reasons for that.

I think I put this game down and swore I was done with it three separate times before I finally managed to get out with 17 will and 13 int (which I’m pretty pleased with!). The game play loop really draws you back!

This is so cute! I love that the entire premise of the dungeon is explicitly consensual, and that you get to experience such a wide range of partners. The way the branches split and merge is really fun - I also enjoyed the things that more explicitly play with the stamina meter, like the spring, the chest and the encounters you’re better off sneaking by.

I think my biggest wish is that we got to spend more time with some of the creatures - it felt like some creatures you’d meet and then pass in the blink of an eye; the werewolf in particular I wish had a choice associated with him. The dragon feels like should have some alternate text depending on how much stamina you show up to him with since he almost feels like this game’s ““boss””. An alternate ending where you have to have a little snooze with him because you’re too tired would be cute too. The hidden stamina mechanic is fun and I wanted more ways to mess with it!

This is a solid little game, and I hope you’re proud of what you managed in the month. :D

The fact this is built from scratch is mind boggling, holy shit. There’s a charm around the game that really drew me in and made me want to understand the mechanics.

I struggled to figure out how to remove blocks (and agree with your musings in another post that audio feedback on that ala Minecraft mining would go a long way to educate the player). I also can tell there is strategy to be used here, but can’t quite out the logic behind it.

It’s the little details that I come back to the most - the different characters all have great personalities and I wanted to find them all. Also the effect on the walls as you move through the level is really unique. It’s a fascinating piece!

The last time I played Freecell, I had no idea what was going on - I actually kind of know how to play now, which is a significant improvement from where I was.

The sizing of the game is a bit difficult to read - especially since the cards don’t have their spots on them, squinting to find out where the different cards were got difficult after a while - easily improved upon I imagine alongside the other advice in here to make it easier to see the jester’s animations. Also while I like the music, the loop is noticeably short after playing for a while.

On the flipside, VERY much appreciate the fact that you can carry your progress across games - I would only of seen the first animation if not. Most importantly, the sheer amount of animation work in this is baffling - you should be proud of getting all that alone done in the month!

Definitely echoing that an in-game tutorial would take this to the next level - the camera movements feel super dynamic and fitting of the vibe you’re going for, though the way it swoops from place to place makes tracking who my team is verses the enemy a bit difficult. Also agree that you probably don’t need both the chance to hit and the channel system, especially since 30 percent is pretty low! Love the mechanic of hypnotising people to take off their clothes being a way to lower AC, and the character designs are super cute.

That’d do it - I had approximately 0 time to troubleshoot the web version, so no doubt it contains unique bugs like this. You’re right that the end result isn’t bad though - definitely worth exploring the idea of it!

So pleased that the bones of it feel that good! Controls and feedback go such a long way in making a game fun to play and I really tried to focus on that (especially when it became apparant that I’d bitten off more than I could chew).

Funny you should mention the unique ish - there was actually plans for the areas on the far sides of the map to contain special ones only found in that area; the devil cove was supposed to contain the Vampire Squid, for example. Another thing that got deprecated in favor of making deadline, but it was definitely already on the mind.

Thank you! I really pride myself on my writing, so it makes me happy that aspect of it has come off as so strong!

Good to know that bug is still in play; it came up pretty early in development and I couldn’t quite figure out how to fix it. Since you can fix it by refishing like you’ve noticed it ended up pushed down to the priority list, but it would be great to fix sometime!

Thank you for the in depth comment! Definitely agree on the fact fishing could be more varied - the original scope had both a mini game between catching the fish and reeling it (similar in vibe to Webfishing, if you’ve come across it) and was going to have a bait system as well. That had to be cut pretty early on, but was on the mind!

Re: certain characters not buying certain fish - that’s not apparent because that’s a bug, and one I have never come across throughout my time developing! Were you playing the web version, or the download?

The escape key not working seems to be a common issue, though one I’d hoped to of fixed @_@. I’ll have to take another look and see if I can figure out the issue - the dialogue is something I’m particularly proud of, and it’s a shame the code is currently cock blocking people a bit!

I definitely spent a lot of time banging my head against this to get to this point, but I’m glad the ambition shows through and the fishing mechanic felt good.