itch.io

I really enjoyed the character art, but the game needs a lot more player direction because I had no idea where to go or who to talk to, especially since the next NPC only spawns when you talk to the previous one and they're hard to find. I think the map design could also be worked on because it currently really promotes spinning the camera to find NPCs and that makes me a little motion-sick.

Played this in multiplayer with a friend and was pretty impressed by how well it runs. Thought the pacing was a bit slow for a jam game but it was pretty fulfilling to watch dragons grow up and be able to ride them. The only thing that I think the game really needs is a bit more player direction, but aside from that, it's an all-around great game.

The game was actually pretty fun and I really liked the card art with the little pixel characters as well as the mechanics with the special abilities. I think the card UI design could use some work though in terms of readability because the color of the text was hard to read. Aside from that, the only issue besides maybe the pacing being a little too slow is that the game at one point seemed to stop on the enemy's turn after their side filled up with enemies, although maybe I just didn't wait long enough.

The gothic style for the artwork and picture collage style for the game backgrounds really add to the overall atmosphere of the game, although I felt like the message behind the gameplay was unclear and could've used cutscenes between each location- I understand that the player character is going through these locations in search of her beloved, but it feels like a missed opportunity to not tie these locations back to their relationship for a bigger impact in the story. The butterfly in the level was also a little misleading because I shot at it a couple of times because of how much it stood out due to the movement and different art style. Overall, the game is great- I just think the gameplay could've been expanded on.

The pixel art work is phenomenal, from the character designs to all the backgrounds. If your team decides to expand on it, it'd be nice if it was possible to interact more with the environment as well as speed up the battle gameplay a little- misses and zero damage attacks dragged some of the battles out more than I personally enjoyed, but overall, it's a really impressive game.

Glad you enjoyed it! About the bad ending... you gotta get past the second white line and then end the round- it'll be pretty obvious once you're past the second white line. Something that might also help is remembering that the number of missed passive anomalies equals the number of active anomalies next round, so if you're getting a lot of active anomalies, you might want to slow down a bit and look around a little more carefully.

That's really weird then, because I assume you've checked that right-clicking on your mouse or peripheral of choice works, but I can only think of it either being an engine bug or you were aiming before right-clicking, since right-click is also used for cancelling out of right-clicking. Do you happen to have a nonstandard configuration (older hardware, third monitor, trackpad)?

The attack mechanic is set up in a way so that only right-clicking an enemy while your power gauge is not at 0 allows you to attack.
This means right-clicking outside of an enemy does nothing, and right-clicking an enemy with power at 0 does nothing. The former was an intentional design choice to force people to have to manage the number of anomalies missed because otherwise you could deplete your gauge to a safe amount (~3) at the end of each round and that dampens the management aspect quite a bit.
Enemies do move fast, and there is a tiny bit of delay to the attack in order to sync up with the clap animation, so try to aim with the delay in mind. You can exploit the delay to deplete your gauge faster by spam-clicking if you want (this is intentional). I hope this information helps.

it only works when you use it on an actual enemy (these are usually animated and make sound)
otherwise all you do is clap

edit: by the way, you should make sure that you've taken some pictures of anomalies to increase your power level first
attacking does not work with 0 power

The art is great, just wish that the bosses were more balanced- the only boss I could beat was Death and then I got a black screen. Some of the UI elements could also use some explanation, like the top right move indicator or the two card counters, which I assume are remaining cards and discarded cards. The status effect durations are also unclear, since the UI shows the stack number, mousing over it shows the effect, and I just don't really know whether the stack number and duration are related or not. This was especially confusing with the Sun and Moon boss, since that boss is built around debuffs.

Pretty fun, and PSX visuals are always great. The mobs felt a bit out of place for a boss rush jam submission, since they spawned outside of the presence of any bosses. The final boss was somewhat confusing because of its high rate of fire and no obvious way to avoid it, so I ended up running circles around it and shooting it until it died. Also not too sure if the last gun had a special effect or if it just does more damage.

Thought it was a bit hard, since I got to see the counter reset to 00:00:00 before I finally beat the game. Noticed you could stand right up against the second boss in the gap between the base and the boss and not get hit by boss attacks aside from projectiles, although it makes dealing with purple projectiles a lot harder. Not quite sure if that's intentional or not. Took me a while to figure it out, but I did like how shooting a projectile causes other projectiles to explode as well. The projectiles look really out of place compared to the overall PSX style, though, since they're untextured shiny transparent spheres. Maybe adding a faint texture to match everything else would help.

Thanks- I actually did consider particle effects, but decided not to for performance reasons, and also because I was worried it'd be distracting. I'm interested in knowing what quality of life changes would be nice.

I recently read the itch.io content creator quality guidelines and it has an item that states "Do not create paid content to enter a contest, anything that resembles real money gambling, or content that resembles pyramid-schemes" and I thought to myself "is this considered resembling real money gambling...?", and so, I put the disclaimer there just in case. Granted, I checked the details of the page and it basically said not to sell people things that allow them to make literal money but "anything that resembles real money gambling" is kind of vague wording?

Honestly, I put a fair amount of detail into the tutorial but it seems that some people are still a bit confused about some of the less obvious mechanics, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.

The player skills are more or less for people to have an easier time if they don't have too good of a reaction speed. It turns out that everyone just gambles regardless and restarts if they lose, so that was unexpected. The main usage for the A and S skills is to change the spin speed, and D and F are for flipping the board (only really useful for making black slices accessible in the latter half of boss 2). I had a playtester complain that normal mode was too hard (I too was surprised at this information), so I'd rather keep it on the easy side for accessibility purposes because it's a jam submission.

Minimum spin speed increases over time while spinning. If you leave it spinning for too long, the speed will be very fast. If the current speed is too fast for you to stop the spinner accurately, you can lower it as long as long as the minimum is not equal to the maximum by using the ability with the arrow that points in the opposite direction, so if the spinner spins in the direction indicated on skill [A], use skill [S] to lower it and vice-versa.

Minimum spin speed is based on the current number of chips: if there are no chips, the minimum spin speed is 1 light. If there are 3 chips, the minimum spin speed is 4 lights (equal to the max). So, if you've left it long enough that your multiplier is 7x and you have 3 chips on the board, stop it first and lower it while you're stopped. Skills don't recharge while you're stopped, so you'll still have to spin and stop and spin for a bit before you can lower it back to 1 light.

I considered just recording a video tutorial, but I feel like players wouldn't bother to watch it anyway, and at that point, I might as well give up.

I actually have a Macbook Pro in addition to my Windows laptop, which is why I usually export for MacOS in addition to Windows. Would definitely agree on the MacOS thing, it'd be nice if more people exported for Mac... I'm glad you enjoyed the game!

I really like the music and the mechanical, rusted feel of the 3D models, which contributed to the overall moody atmosphere of the game. The second boss in particular was especially well-animated, with the jerkiness of the movement and how it would slowly creep on screen, and it was a nice design element to include the sawblades on it. However, it felt a little unfair to fight because it could trap you with no way out, so I was stuck on it for a while before I realized the movement pattern was always the same. The fourth boss seems a bit glitchy at times, and I saw the HP jump from 0 to 81 or something like that when it changed forms, so it might be a good idea to add some indication that it's a second phase. I thought the orbiting mechanic could also use some work, since it was usually easier to fire the dianthus and focus on dodging, instead of positioning the crystal to overlap the orbit with the boss. Maybe it might be more effective if the orbiting speed was increased or you could hold the mouse button to draw them in closer. Overall, it's a solid experience and I genuinely enjoyed it. Good job.

I'd suggest putting a warning for flashing lights because the boss sprite flashes a little heavily. It has a really strong and consistent style to it, but could use some indicators as to what's happening. I like how the moving parts of the bosses are animated, and how the spaceship and powerups are 3D modeled.

If you were playing on normal, the first boss actually gets buffed with 3 more skills after you die to a later boss, so that's probably why it seemed like the coins didn't show up. I actually balanced the game with the goal of there almost always being a black slice on the board because I actually hate waiting too long for openings in games (lol). Technically it wouldn't be unfair to make the player wait, since there's no consequences to waiting, but I decided to retain the current speed after stopping and guaranteeing board changes in the player's favor to minimize wait times to keep the fast pace of the game.

The ASDF abilities are more geared towards playing not on max speed and going more for consistency, where it's useful to drop the speed back down after resetting the minimum speed if you accidentally wait too long, and flipping the board for better openings on the second boss, so it's for accommodating different playstyles... and also I didn't know what to put there so bam, skill panel. I think it's a somewhat different experience to go for consistency instead of going all in, so maybe give it a try if you want.

I'm pretty glad to hear you enjoyed the game! It's my first time doing so many animations in the actual game engine- usually I'd just go for frame-by-frame animation, so it's good to hear that people like it.

The art is clean and vibrant and the animation is impressively smooth. It's nice to see 2d animation in a 3d environment because it's just a really nice aesthetic.

The grappling tends to break at times and there's not much momentum to it, which feels a little weird. Coupled with the bottomless holes, I ended up trying to minimize my usage of it. It just gets stuck whenever there's any solid ground between the grapple target and the player character and then you have to slowly wiggle your way out of it, so I'd definitely say it needs some work.

I think part of the tradeoff of using 2d sprites is that hitboxes aren't as clear and it looks like there isn't any feedback when attacks land on enemies. It would be helpful to know whether something is going to die or not even though there's infinite ammo, probably through just modulating the color of the sprite or adding particle effects whenever an enemy is hit.

It's also hard to figure out the timing for the snake and bat enemies, since the snake gives up easily and the bat projectiles are small enough that the only indication of it attacking are based on the attack animation. I would suggest differentiating the snake's idle and chase state somehow and increasing the size of the bat projectiles. It would also help if there was directional sound attached to each enemy instance because it's a little hard to keep track of enemies, especially when they just spawn in (which could also benefit from a sound cue and/or visual effect).

The map design could use some work, since the lighting is pretty dark and it's not very clear where to go without taking a moment to look around. There could be graffiti arrows or some kind of set design to differentiate entrances from exits and naturally lead the player to the correct passageway. On the first large room, I didn't really think about looking up the random cubbyhole with a health pack because it was very dark and I assumed wrongly that maybe the random floating platforms would lead somewhere.

Lastly, you should probably reset the player state to idle (if you're using a state machine) or at least reset the direction and speed after a cutscene. Not a game-breaking bug but I assume you probably don't want that.

Overall, it's very nice visually, but could use some work for a better player experience. Good luck with the full game (I hope my suggestions weren't too harsh).

I'm kind of impressed and horrified at the same time that inventory bug could happen...  I ended up googling it and apparently it's an engine bug that's hardware related and changing the renderer should probably bypass it. so I did that. but if it doesn't fix it... well... not much I can do about that. in short... your computer is in fact haunted. sorry for the news. anyway, thank you very much for playing once again... even if you've broken things once again.

It's a great game all around, from the likeable characters to all of the visuals. I particularly liked Jack's section (and not just for the Project Moon reference) because he's such a dork and that bad ending sequence, as painful as it was to click that button, was incredible. Only suggestion I'd have is to make some of the BGMs a minute or two longer before they loop because it got a little annoying to listen to it constantly looping after a while.

take my upvote out of anger D:<

The story seems pretty interesting so far, especially with those last CGs. The 3D backgrounds with the 2D sprites also really added to the overall atmosphere of the game. Some suggestions I have would be making escape open up the phone and also adding an inventory to keep track of items (if there was one, I didn't notice). Just one other minor note, I think you may have accidentally left a save in the game.

I really enjoyed this game! I sat down and got all the endings because of how well-written they are where each ending leads you wanting more information and it was definitely worth it. Also gotta love the banter between the MC and all the other characters and even just him thinking to himself-I had a great time reading through every piece of the dialogue.  Words cannot describe how much I think more people should play this D:

I like the clean art and the stylistic choice of the background being cropped, as well as the design of the textboxes being tilted. I thought the pop noise that plays sometimes for important character dialogue felt a little out of place though. As for the story, Dr. Hibiki's characterization feels fairly rushed. Initially, I thought there could've been a supernatural element to his sudden personality change, but the endings seem to imply otherwise. I think the story would've benefitted if it had taken place throughout the month of October rather than just 5 days before Halloween, so that it could've at least been implied that he had interactions with the daughters off-screen. Also, the subplot with the dog feels forced in for the shock factor, since they all seem to quickly forget that even happened. Overall, I did like the twist in the story, but everything up to it could've used some work.

I like the overall presentation of the game as well as the music, but I feel like Ashina transforming to scare the protag could've had a little more impact via a screen shake effect and/or a sound effect. It would've also been nice if there was some kind of indicator when the auto option was selected (I had it on to listen to the voice acting at the beginning).

pest control technicians hate this one trick!

(cough cough i'm totally not responsible if the amount of bugs in your house suddenly increases)

Thank you very much for playing! I'm very happy that someone likes my weird sense of humor.

I'd suggest just grabbing it out of the game folder (it's in images under the name "cg turned_marie.png") and throwing it into any photo editor and turning up the brightness. If you want, I can also just upload the no background version of it in a reply since other people will probably also miss it. Depending on reception, maybe I'll do a sequel, but it'd be far off because I have a couple of things already lined up.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad to see that you enjoyed the dialogue as much as I enjoyed writing it :D
(that first empty was completely unintentional lol)

As for your theories and questions, here's some answers:
- there is in fact an actual CG displayed in the second fade to black during Marie's first ending, you'll have to turn up your screen brightness to see it :)
- Each scenario happens in a different timeline, selecting the scenario determines who gets infected... as for the actual time period this takes place in, I have no idea because I just wanted to put in an old TV for aesthetic purposes lol
- I can confirm you're correct on the first question, but I won't confirm anything on the other two, although I do think your theories are pretty interesting.

If you're wondering about progress on the update for Catching a Date, unfortunately it'll probably be done some time next year, partially because I burned out on drawing too many fish waifus and partially because (and don't quote me on this) the update should at least double the available content in the game in addition to the visual overhaul. I'm also planning to work on a different game while I work on the update to try and reduce the burnout, so that's another reason why it'll take longer.

As thanks for last time, I've attached a drawing. Hope you like it!

After the cutscene in Y's route, I got this black screen. The filter still loops but there's no music. I can't tell if it's intentional or a bug? There were no credits.

After checking my previous footage and considering the other conditions that might've caused it, I think I misidentified the cause and it's actually an issue with how the front door is handled. If you walk up to the door, leave, and then hit the enter key anywhere, it takes you to the next level even without checking if you're in range of the door. For context, I happened to be at low health at the time because I was trying to see if I could kill all the monsters before trying the door (I was really desperate at the time) so I had walked into range of the front doors, left to clear out other sections, and then decided to double-check a room to see if it was clear, and the only reason it appeared to reset was because the door was broken at the time. I tried reproducing the bug with the new build and it takes me to the next level. Sorry about the misidentification.

The door in section 8's nighttime part (the branch if you pick "Trust Y") keeps taking me back to the beginning of the section. Also, the retry button if you die to monsters in that section doesn't work. I've also encountered some erratic behavior where sometimes, at low health, it just automatically kicks me back to the start of the section.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F6KJCx5iANXLFwXsJ-K1FelxyI3GLKJW/view?usp=shari...

I love the writing in this game- it hits hard exactly when it needs to and the comedic parts really make for a good contrast with the later half of the visual novel. The art is also super pretty. The only suggestion I'd make is to maybe improve the music or use copyright-free tracks (I think a lot of people use DOVA-SYNDROME?) instead. It's a good attempt, but I think it lacks some structure. Here's some fanart I made (I can also send the PSD if you want it for any reason).
Anyway, good luck on whatever you work on next!

Played it for a bit, but the game crashed on me twice so that's nice. Possibly because I got impatient and spammed the interact button in hopes that things will happen faster, so probably my fault. I wouldn't worry about it too much because anything I touch has a tendency to break somehow. Some notes on what I did see in the tutorial and the main game (btw i haven't played VOTV or among us for that matter):
- The black text for printed player input in the terminal is barely readable.
- could add up arrow to autofill with last command in terminal
- I wish the options menu was selectable using WASD because my mouse scrolls too fast
- It was kind of annoying to move my hand off my mouse just to hit enter
- controlling the jet ski gets really weird once it turns around too much, but maybe that's intentional
- it would be nice to be able to grab things before getting on the ladder instead of dropping items on the floor, getting on the ladder, and hoping you don't fall off the ladder before you grab the item
-I lost my jet ski after getting off of it, watching it flip over, having the terrible idea to get back on it, getting a good look at the inside of it, and then getting off and having no idea where i was. Granted, the average player probably wouldn't make such choices, but it would be nice to have a recall button or be able to ping it for some hope?
I was hoping to see more fish but it's still pretty cool. Good luck with development.

This was pretty cool. The background was somewhat blinding, since it was a bright saturated blue, but other than that, I thought the visuals were pretty charming. Bright, saturated background colors have a tendency to cause visual fatigue, and when you factor in the playtime of the player, it's more likely than not that it'll have an effect. The hitboxes for the chest and bubbles could've also been closer to their sprites. The game could've used a level progress indicator to motivate the player. Overall, it was a satisfying game to beat, despite the difficulty. I played it in a call with my friend, and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed watching me suffer... lol.

The platforming was very slippery. You might want to spend more time looking for assets that look similar to each other. Good luck with your next game.