Awesome!

Thanks for the replies! Concerning the ranged goblins, when there are four of them spread out, spewing poison breath and projectiles (and many other enemies attacking), hitting to interrupt isn't practical. I guess one possibility I haven't tried is to lure some of the enemies away from the group, to fight a smaller subgroup.

The "More Information" section says "Game Maker: Studio".

It's very pretty. Is there a way to hide the UI/text (to just see the background and characters) during dialog scenes? I'd love to get a full view of the lovely art.

The story looks to have good potential though it's fairly generic so far. I like how the dialog choices allow the player to project some of their feelings into the MC's personality a bit.

Games with this level of visual quality usually perform better on my laptop and don't heat it up as much as this one did, but it's fine as it is.

Some criticisms:

• I feel like there's too much talking in places, which is made worse by all the redundant dialog from talking to everybody until their indicator changes. I don't want to skip the story, but I also don't want to feel like it's a big wall between me and being able to move around and do stuff in the game.
• It's too easy to accidentally select dialog choices (though this is how most VNs function). One solution is to make no option selected by default, so if the player is clicking or pressing enter a lot, they don't end up automatically selecting the first option. Another is to disable selection for a fraction of a second after the choices appear.
• The combat feels kind of "impactless", probably because the way the character effortlessly pushes enemies around and is pulled forward by their own attacks. The pull forward also makes me miss attacks, especially combos. Maybe it shouldn't pull you past whatever you are hitting.
• I find the guard counter and speed roll timings very difficult to pull off. Enemies have a long tell, but then they attack so quickly that there is still very little reaction time.
• I feel like mage goblin poison breath might be overtuned. It's a high damage long-lasting ranged unblockable field, and when you have several mage goblins in the area (as well as a bunch of other enemies), it just feels unfair.
• I also feel like enemies in general dish out too much damage - which would be more acceptable and fun to me if I had a heal spell to help occasionally counter it some.

I'm only average at combat like this, so I don't know how much weight my opinions have, hehe.

I love it. The graphics and sounds are pleasant, and the motion and combat feel good. My favorite part is the sleeping animation after loading/continuing. I've seen it a lot because I still haven't beaten the boss. ;)

Three complaints:

• The game runs very well on my old laptop if I set the settings to Low. However, I think the UI is made more blurry than necessary for low settings.
• Getting to the bag expansion chest feels glitchy and frustrating because railings have weird collision on top. (Or is there an easier way than jumping from the railing to the pillar, then across?)
• One of the hints says that concentration can be charged faster by attacking enemies. Whenever I use melee or magic attack, charge is interrupted, so it doesn't seem to be true.

You could try one of these:

• Build Mac versions on a Mac and Linux versions on Linux. Ugh.
• Use .NET Core (template here) to build self-contained releases that run on Windows, Mac, or Linux without requiring .NET Framework. This is pretty cool, but was honestly a nightmare for me to setup and I cannot describe it all here.
• Port your game from MonoGame to FNA. (Shouldn't be difficult.)
• Use MonoKickstart to package Mac and Linux runtimes with your game.

Higan is the far shore of the Sanzu River, where souls of the dead pass through to be judged.

The hyperspeed ones mostly just move horizontal, and really need some sort of visual to make that clear. They are best dealt with by dashing past their line-of-sight.

Thanks for your review!

Thank you. We're working on a better version of the game. :)

Thank you!

I'm glad the atmosphere and player control felt good! Yes, we didn't manage to get the palette swaps into the game in time.

To be clear, there are two dashing enemy types (once again a fault of no visual distinction), and how you deal with them is very different. The long dash ones mostly just travel horizontal. Maybe we'll put a clear visual indicator of their behavior.

Yep, the two ideas I had for direction (one being "GO THIS WAY" and the other being "DON'T GO THAT WAY") never made it into the game. ;^_^

Thanks!

I'm glad!

My favorite game of the jam, and a good way to relax after playing certain of the other entries, hehe. Best opening story ever! And the many different mechanics were very well designed and intuitive.

I had fun with each puzzle, and am ready to proceed to the more challenging zones that you just haven't gotten around to creating yet, right??

Bug: The reset button timer doesn't reset when you release the button early.

Bug: Occasionally when I reset a stage, the background music would change to some different one.

Though I adore this game, I did get sick of the music.

This is the most "oh my god will you please" game of the jam. The fair but bloody difficulty, Komachi knocking us out of the park, then her smug death remarks, oh my god. X'D More than just gameplay, this game was a complete package of fun, and I applaud that.

Beautifully done art and motion. Fun dialog.

I personally found the black/white gimmick too confusing to keep up with, but I doubt everyone else feels that way.

This is an extremely basic game that compares to some things I used to play on my TI calculator. It's quite a test of reflexes, and doesn't really need gimmicks to be fun, though I would have liked to see a bit more creativity go into the gameplay.

But that's fine, because the graphics and music are amazing.

I love this concept and how it inspires lateral thinking. And possessing someone else to use your own corpse as a weapon is the sort of thing I live for. For now it may be rough, but I'm sure there's a great game to be had in it.

Nice sprite work, btw.

Neat puzzle, tho it felt kinda glitchy in places. And it could use some quality-of-life, like automatic respawn after death (instead of requiring two separate key presses).

Weird Reimu sound effects. o_o

The music is nice, and the graphic mix, though an odd blend, is actually kind of neat to me.

This game is sadistic and I don't want to play it. o)_(o Props to every single person who beats it. I could make my complaints, but maybe all of the annoying things were intended, maybe it's supposed to make me go on a rage destroying things in my room.

The tiny font was hard to read.

I only ever saw one enemy, then nothing else ever appeared. But good steps forward in making your first game!

Beautiful drawings and nice music. I felt like I was playing an Orisnal / Ferry Halim game. It might have been too easy, though. Especially the boss patterns.

Neat! Though I feel like many of the challenges were too linear and straightforward.

The sound effects killed me tho. (I have misophonia.)

I haven't actually played far into it yet, but it seems like a well-made danmaku game. And destructible background objects (and powerup containers) FTW!

I kinda want to see you step into a different genre for the next jam, though.

Not much of a game, but it made me chuckle a bit. I was hoping it would, like, make me play a mini game with the lovecraftian horror I had made.

Well-delivered product. I suck at this game, but it seems well balanced and a good test of skill. And, most importantly, this game makes me laugh at the ways I fail. I can't even imagine how hilarious it would be to play this with friends.

Sweet itch.io page!

Probably the most polished-feeling game of the jam to me, and one that knows how to tell its story. And one of the few games I was able to actually finish. \o/

Some gripes:

• Having to repeat cutscenes.
• Attack does not hit close enemies.
• The monk assault feels more like I'm trying to get lucky than surviving with skill.

Hilarious! Quality assets, and every bit of text was a joy to read. Please make a full polished version of this game. :D

I do think the corpse mechanic (and some enemy attack patterns) could use some tweaking so it's not so potentially overpowered but also not so easy to completely lose.

Top notch itch.io page design.

Short and sweet. Love the visuals. The lack of music didn't feel wrong, especially with the sound effects working to set the mood.

I only wonder why there were two binaries ("LifeDeath.exe" and "Return of the Shamei Maru.exe").

I'm not sure if this is a really hard game or if I'm just really bad at it. It's quite cool either way. The graphics are very lovey and the music is nice.

The intro cutscene really gave the game that "polished game incoming" feel.

It seemed like some hits weren't registering (or maybe some stuff takes multiple hits to burn?)

I only wish there was an indicator for how long you had left as a ghost.

The hand drawn Mima art (and sprite) is super cute. The intro went too fast for me to read it all, but I caught something about ghost butt ;_;

Sweet music!

I appreciate how fast and well-controlled the movement is, and the variety of hazards. It lacks a lot of polish but is still quite fun and, uh, makes me smile with its charm.

I do wish there was some indicator of taking damage (sound effect, visual animation, maybe even affecting the player's momentum).

I think the scream part was questionable. Some people get really sick from stuff like that.

No VR in this house, so imma downvote u right across the sanzu.

Scythe control looks fun and really makes me wish I had VR gear.

I applaud your work.

Nice graphics!

I often died from a spirit appearing unfairly right in front of me.

On the flip side, aside from the unfair ones, I feel immortal due to being able to just constantly push everything away.

I like how the pull speed of each spirit type changed as the game progressed.

10/10 graphics and music, fancy/10 itch.io page. But I'll have to dock a few thousand points for not having purring and meow sound effects. (But Kaguya's hair makes up for that penalty.)

Maybe the gameplay is a bit too slow for my tastes, but makes sense. Trolling the NPCs is fun.

My chief complaint is camera angle changes screwing up my perfect getaways. Maybe I'd be happier if the camera adjusted more slowly, though that might look weird.

Nice feeling game graphics.

Involving a PDF with clever tricks was pretty neat, though for some reason the PDF lagged very badly for me when scrolling.

Good non-combat RPG gameplay. The figuring-things-out was cumbersome at times, but could be pretty great with a bit of polish.

I liked glum Arisu's dialog.

Flan has the same matter-of-fact line whether she's talking about food or 'food'. I love that. :D

Neat music! Flan's destructive sound effect was super loud and hurt my ears, tho.

Key mapping is awkward.

I got to Patchoulli and couldn't tell if that was the end of the game or if I failed.

No effort on that itch.io page tho. ;^^

Cute graphics, though there was a mismatch of pixel resolutions as well as some being blurry while others were sharp.

I enjoyed having to dance around the enemy attacks as I attacked back when I could.

I didn't really understand the appeal of having to switch reaping modes. It felt like busywork since there was never any clever or challenging need to, at least as far as I got into the game.

The souls usually immediately wandered out of reach or into the ceiling, then I had to wait for each and every one to come back down so I could reap it.

The jump and double jump don't behave as expected. You may want to add gravity instead of having the character rise and fall at a steady rate. Something like this in generic code:

if (jump) { y_velocity = -jump_strength; }
y_velocity = y_velocity + gravity;
y = y + y_velocity;

A clever gameplay experience somewhat dampened by poor platform physics (buggy wall friction, slow falling) and sometimes I could pull off something like a double jump. Music was fun but way too loud by default (compared to the sound effects).

A very polished-feeling experience with simple gameplay and amusing concepts. I would have enjoyed it more with a clearer light, though. I wandered around the whole first level several times with a YuyuNO in tow, and never did find the second cake.

I thought, "What if Youmu jumped from fear and was momentarily immobile each time a YuyuNO appeared?" That might strengthen the player's panic while also being in-character for our poor ghost-fearing half-dead gardener.

Cute art, great music, funny writing (even if the character roles are rather random), and I love the game concept.

The mismatch of art styles was a putoff.

Issues:

• When the boss dialog started, the boss would start attacking immediately, eventually killing me while I was still stuck in the dialog.
• The mini hakkero shoots above the cursor when aiming left, and below the cursor when aiming right. (Proof that planet earth is being skewed!)

I'm very charmed by the graphics.

The no-jump gameplay was good in concept, but made awkward by:

• a very long dash cooldown (even on v1.3) (it only needs a tiny cooldown)
• dash distance seeming to depend on framerate (could not beat third level, even on v1.3)
• platform edges being glitchy
• and slow moving platforms forcing a lot of waiting.

Regardless, great work!