itch.io

So it seems like your guess about stripe is correct.

I have also heard about Itch being forced to be more restrictive with developers of NSFW content. Al it does is just making things harder for indie developers, as far as I can tell

Thank you both for your replies.
I contacted the developer about it, and this is their reply:

"Thanks for your comment!

Unfortunately, itch.io currently only allows PayPal payments for adult-rated titles. If PayPal doesn’t work for you, you can also find the same game on BOOTH:"

Hi.
I´ve been trying to buy the game, but I have to do it through paypal, which does not work.
Can you give us the option of paying through Itch? That is how I have usually paid for games on itch

I have a credit-card connected to Itch, and I have been able to pay for games on this site in the past without a problem.

The last time I tried to pay for something, however, I had to do it through paypal, which I hate. Have anyone else experienced this frustrating change? The last time I was able to pay directly, was before the witch-hunt for NSFW-content begun, so could that be the reason?

I´ve found some bugs

When you lock yourself out, after the snake encounter, you are still able to get back inside by simple walking in. When leading into a new scene (a game over scene I assume). It would just give me a dark screen. I can still go back into the options menu, but I can´t see more of the scene. Happens in: During the “trapped in Roleplay between Janitor and Nurse” and being caught in the “dark alley trial”.

Fair enough. As long as it has been found and fixed then all is well. Btw, are you planning on making a one-time-fee available in the future, like a pre-order/early access when completion is getting closer? I want to support the game, but too many monthly payments are too messy for me and my economy for the time being 

While the elevator was moving down, I fell though the floor as I was  crouching. Free version V 0.1.2  

Is it because you want to escape while wearing the blindfold? Because I was able to get rid of it by struggling, since the eye part gets few "bound counters" in that scenario.

It says so in the description: "The free-to-play Alpha version is updated at the end of every month. For more release-specific details, please consult the devlogs."

Oh, I thought I had discovered something new :P I was also able to go back eventually, so it was not a big issue, as you said.

Great game btw. I am very excited to see its´ development and what the final product will become.

Understandable. I know what it´s like to have RL get in the way of creative pursuits. Well, one can always hope :)

Glad you like my review :) I read from the other comments that you will work on some balance-issues and such. Do you know how much you will work on the game after the Jam? Will it be some small fixes and then call it quits, or do you have plans on developing this into a big game?

I loved it. Really ambitious. I like the take on a wizardry-style gameplay.

Impressive what you made within a week. I would love to see what this could be with more time for development in terms of polish, story more variety etc. 

An example of polish would be letting the player see what the skill does before using it during combat.

Short and sweet. I like the short tying up sequence.

Since it is real time and not turn based, it would had been nice if the other characters did not start moving until you made your first move. 

I think there is something to work with and expand upon. 

I really like the choose of being able to free or locking your rival away. If the game was developed further there could be consequences or rewards/risks for choosing to help your rival instead of locking her away, which would give the choice more impact 

Nice. I be looking forward to it.
I have played through most of the game and what I´ve seen so far is: The bite-gag which is the only type I´ve seen that can be worn on the player-character. I guess you could count the hoodie as well, but that goes over the whole face.
The other is the cleave-gag when interrogating Marin, loved that scene btw, and when getting revenge on her. But, that gag is only seen on her. 

You can buy it at the Mall of Upper Arch City

Fun game. Will the bondage-kinks be expanded, like more variety in gags?
So far, I have only found a bite-gag

That´s right. 

Ever since I got the itch client, I download all itch games through that, instead of a browser. I thought that method would be the least troublesome one, but I might be wrong about that. "In that case maybe it’s deleting the save folder after each update?" I think you are right, since that seems to be what have happened. That have just not happened with other Itch games.

Sorry if I am being difficult. I actually have a lot of positive things to say about the game, I just wanted to report a (potential) bug first. 

I never had to unzip the game before. I thought that the save.zip was only meant to let you skip the prologue. When I downloaded v. 0.1.0 and started plying I had a save folder when I checked the game file, no unzipping required. When I came back after the update(s) the save folder was gone

I played during version 0.1.0 (alpha demo), made some progress and made some save files. When I started the game after the bugfixes (0.1.1 & 0.1.2), I found that all my save files were gone. Has anyone else experienced this?

according to the homepage there are going to be 10 bosses total: "The plan for the 'final' version of the game is to have at least 20 tilesets and 10 bosses." Because of that I think, and hope, we will run into bosses more often, as the game approaches completion. Remember that: "This game is in early access". This can also be read on KD´s homepage.     

I thought I could use this spell to remove the runes you see when magical sight is activated, like the summoning runes.

But when I cast it on those runes, it does nothing but take away 5mana. Since they activate when you step on them and the creatures/constructs that appear are hostile, I thought they would also fit under "enemy rune" and restore 10 man. Is it only meant to work on runes, that an enemy caster has just casted?

It also says "remove" which I would interpret as getting rid of harmlessly without activating . I have only had the chance to test on my own runs, but when I do the rune activates, regardless if I cast the spell on the rune or myself.

Is this how the spell is supposed to work, or is it a bug? If this is not a bug, I think the description is misleading. 

Good to know

Can somebody explain to me what purpose Character Palette have and how to use it?

I´ve been trying to figure out how to use it by double clicking, seeing if the colour will transfer to a outfit piece by having one selected and then using paste, or if I could add them to the quick colour palette. I have also tried to see if I could find any info about on KD discord, but I had no such luck.  

I see. It is only recently I begun trying to engage with itch socially, so I had no idea it was a new thing.  And good point.

I do want to follow the rules, but since there was no examples to follow (and it seemed like a lot of text put into a post) I was a bit uncertain about what to do.

And thank you. Both for the compliment and the help :) There are some things I wanted to do differently with her, but I have no experience with mod-making so I made do with what the game gave me

Thank you.  I always knew how to save outfits locally. I was wondering how to put it in the "outfits" forum, since it was completely empty. Am I just supposed to just paste the code text like this? 

Here it is:

<div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">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</div>

I know it says outfit codes, but I could not find the option to do that, so I just put in a picture. Hope that is okay, since I am quite happy about how this turned out

thx for clarifying. I think the quest should be worded differently then. I am a little disappointed by that however, since I thought there would be other kinds of quest than just "get rid of X". The way the quest was worded, made me think there would be a little variety in the quests  

I´ve gotten a quest where I had to solve a dispute between cats and elves, by tying them all up. I have done just that, and they are all fully bound, but the quest won´t complete. Is this a bug, or am I supposed to capture/defeat them all?

I have the same problem as well. You were also supposed to be able to report bugs, but I see channel for that either

Thanks for replying.

I hope I did not come across as too negative, but if I listed al the things I liked then my feedback would have been too long.

Regarding variety, maybe you could let the story help inspire you? Whoever captured Eliza seem to want something from her, and the dungeon/facility Eliza is in is a big mystery, so there are a lot of unknowns to elaborate on. The same goes for the world in which the game takes place in. I do not know how much or little it deviates from our own. So, there is a lot of creative freedom for you to make up stuff, like making bondage themed things and events a more normal part of the world, that could fit the setting for whatever direction you want to steer the game towards.

For instance: Do the captives have other tasks for Eliza? Maybe Eliza has to capture other captives, who have gone out of control or is trying to flee. There could be challenges which Eliza had to complete with certain restrains, like jumping over wires with her ankles tied together (I would not mind more bindings however),  and that could be implemented into a minigame.  Maybe they want certain “other services” they want her to perform. How clean or dirty you want to be with this game is up to you of course. I personally prefer the more light-hearted approach to bondage in games, like DID-napper do, but I am not the developer.

An important thing for me, when I play games that align with my kink (bondage), is when the game “rewards” the player with bondage content, like pictures, scenes etc., for playing well, for making progress in the game. Right now, we only get the bondage part of the game by messing up, whether intentionally or by mistake, and if we do well, we get little to none. I find it much more rewarding to play these sorts of games, when I know that by completing the challenges and making progress, more options will open up (also more kinky options), compared to bondage-themed games, were the only way to get to bondage content, is by messing up and going for game over, or going for a game over like status.

The player does get something after a run, like outfits and restraining gear obtained, but I think it needs more. The “save area” have 4 rooms, and more could be implemented, so they could be used for more after each run. Maybe a place where you can get quests, exchange excess loot, and maybe get upgrades or a room for playing around, maybe the woman you can talk to, could get into the fun, after enough successful runs. I would like for scripted events, like a cutscene, to appear while you make progress in the game.

I do not know how much time and effort you want to spend on the story part of the game, but I do like the humorous dialog and commentary you have provide so far, and I would like to see more of that. And it might help inspire new gameplay, and give ideas to what to do with the game in the future. 

I like the cleaning game. The head you control seems to match the hitbox which is very important in any bullethell inspired game, and it´s great that you have arrows guiding you to the goals, else it would had been a nightmare.

But, I do not like it enough that I want to do it as much and  often as the game encourage. Even with the rewards, and my equipment dragging my character towards the ditch + the possible punishment you get for not cleaning. After doing it 10 times I got really sick of the minigame, and only did 1 or 2 per level, sometimes skipping it entirely. I think there should be fewer ditches per level. Either replace them with something else for variety, or make the fewer ditches matter more. The cleaning game becomes even more monotonous, after you cleared the dungeon, and you go for your second, identical(except for other layout) run. 

I do like that the maid gear assists with the minigame in various forms. I hope you will use that idea with other aspects in the game in the future by implementing other outfits. I do not know if it is a bug, but after I got the full set, none of the melee enemies, except robots, wants to get near Eliza and apply bondage gear. I do miss an option to remove the gear, or some of it.

I understand that this is a very early version of the game, so maybe you already have these changes in mind, but I do think it would improve the game.

I also feel the same with about the untying minigame. I thought it was okay for a short while, but quickly got sick of it, and turned it off.

TL;DR version: Charming and nostalgic RPG with great music and expressive main characters. No random encounters is a big plus. But the low HP/MP pools and reliance on potions make boss fights feel tedious rather than strategic, especially since there’s no leveling system to ease the grind. If fixed-power progression is the goal, the resource economy needs better tuning to keep combat fun instead of exhausting

Detailed version:

There were many things I liked: The music, the expressive art for the main characters, and the nostalgic feel all give the game a charming foundation. I especially appreciated that you avoided random encounters, a great modern touch that I think works well.

That said, I had some trouble with the balance. Managing HP and MP felt like a bit of a slog during the demo due to how small the current pools are. If leveling isn’t part of the system, I hope there’ll be other meaningful ways to increase base stats, otherwise, long fights start to wear thin.

The boss fight against the slime was the main sticking point for me. I eventually figured out how to stop its regeneration — I think it was Reinie’s multi-hit skill — but it wasn’t clearly signposted, so I wasn’t sure if that was the reason or if the regen just ended on its own. A simple feedback line in the battle text would’ve gone a long way. Also, a text speed option could help during boss fights, where reading combat clues is more important than in regular battles.

Even after cracking the boss’s gimmick, the fight dragged on, mostly because of how often I had to use potions due to low mana. The repetition of drinking potions every few turns made the fight feel like a boring loop. If that’s the intended flow, I’d really suggest acquiring resources feel less restrictive. Otherwise, it risks replacing level grinding with item grinding, which hurts the pacing just as much.

I actually like the idea of a fixed-power system where progress comes from strategy, not grinding. But if that's your approach, then grinding for potions shouldn’t become the new bottleneck. That could be addressed by letting enemies drop potions, increasing gold rewards, lowering potion prices, making potions more effective, or simply raising base MP. I’m sharing this because I want to enjoy the combat. The foundation is there, and with a few adjustments, I think it could really shine

Hopefully.

As far as I know, this is a one-person-project, so it is expected, and reasonable, that it is going to take many months before there have been enough development, that it warrants a new update. It is also likely that the developer is not getting their bills paid with the game as it is now, which means they will not have time to work on the game 24/7, likely much less time, since money needs to come from somewhere else.

Therefore, I don’t think that just because months have passed without any new updates is a reason to question whether the game will be finished.

I really like what I´ve seen so far and think that it will be worth both the wait, and money, when the full game is ready. I would prefer it well done over half-baked.