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This game has a lot of potential, it's like resident evil 4 meets bloodborne and any horror game that has a parrying mechanic absolutely wins a place on my wishlist. Though, there are a lot of oddities within the demo that really held it back. The indicator for example feels way off for things like parrying and critical hits. As well, I feel like this game would work best in more closed in spaces because of how close up the combat is. I feel like the level design for dead space is a good example of this, many of the arenas are closed in allowing for not only making the player feel claustrophobic, but also letting them get into the combat more

This game has potential to be one of my favorite survival horror games of all time. I really hope that development on The Unholy Smoke is still ongoing, because I really loved this demo and the way it incorporated its mechanics.

Alrighty, so the first time I played Coven it was... Kind of bad. Ammo was STUPIDLY scarce, magic felt pointless and overall the feel of the game was very lacking. However, with the 2024 demo a lot has changed. I am really glad that you have addressed these issues. Ammo is still scarce, but not to a ridiculous degree, kind of in a way that encourages you to experiment more. Magic system is far easier to use, I actually don't mind the fact that we don't get alt fires anymore because they weren't very useful in the first place. The atmosphere has been improved DRASTICALLY, I love how more gloomy it looks. But, I do have my fair share of issues that I would like to be addressed in the early access (or hell, even in another demo).

Firstly, please let us rebind keys and as well invert mouse scrolling. Not a huge issue because really the binds aren't that bad except for one being the magic switching. I disabled caps lock key because I don't care for it, but that also means I can't switch magic abilities.

Going off the magic issue, the system just doesn't work for me. For example, the book where you can view the magic abilities is bugged, as pressing right click doesn't do anything. And also, even though I bought the hanging spell, it didn't equip in the next level.

And lastly, this is perhaps the biggest current issue with coven: The movement. It sucks. I'm sorry, but this game feels terrible to move around in. I mean okay, walking around isn't too bad but literally everything else is just awful. Crouching and jumping for example. I'm going to be honest, I have no idea why my acid meter doesn't go up to 100 when I do these moves because the bobbing is... Remove it. Just remove it, don't even give us an option to keep it because I can guarantee you that every player will turn it off and for good reason. It is incredibly disorienting, and I don't think you'll lose much if you just axed it. Sliding and dashing have a fairly unique problem, and that's that I don't think the coding considers strafing. Sure, if you move directly in a straight line then it works fine, but this is an oldschool shooter so you'll rarely do that. I think you need to check up on that, just to make it feel a tad nicer.

But overall, I'm glad that Coven is heading in a far better direction, and I'm sure it'll be great. I have nothing but good luck to bestow upon you for this project.