itch.io

Didn't notice the help section tbh so my bad. I only used the menu to restart when I erased my starter piston(3 different times) then promptly forgot it existed at all. For the hints, I'd say to redesign the menu button(placement, size, color), I think I was subconsciously assuming it was a button for save files, map gens, and what not. After using the menu to reset the map/game, I subconsciously mixed up with a window minimizer for the right side, not a normal response tbh but that's all I remembered, I was actually surprised I forgot there was a menu button until your reminder haha.

If the later versions are planned to be expanded a ton to accommodate multiplayer, I'd recommend to have a customizable map size. I actually prefer the small size simply because my potato pc almost always gets over-ran by games that keep developing and adding to the base games. Keeping maps small is my only stopgap for managing any chaos. I still remember a 'don't starve' world where a griefer lit up the entire forest plus the base, I had to abandon the server entirely because I kept dying without being able to help much, all my gear and valuables burnt up and even my backups.

Creative mode...not really what I'm looking for personally, half the fun in building complex machines is having to gather all the resources for the different components myself. It gives the machine an extra layer of meaning that keeps me engaged in the process. Without that sentimentality(?), I tend to drift away from the game as a whole. Happened on Terraria when someone gifted me the endgame mining ufo when I was just barely entering late game. Because I was gathering tons of resources(even ones I didn't have the right level tool for) using it, they lost enough inherent value that I just played the game less and less. I actually had an imaginary divide in my base of stuff I really liked and not so much, which just so happens to be the additions before and after I got the ufo.

Left it at 'renewable' to keep it open-ended, but the greatest examples would be like those found in the sky block mod. Creating resource chain loops that slowly generates more than you put in. Upgrading the chain so that it incrementally creates more.

Another way would be like villager trading, though that's...the most boring way as it incentivizes farming the currency instead of gathering the resources(y'know playing the actual game). Trading is best left for the real end game, where you already have all the resource farms, but want a way to gather specifics en masse for those megabuild projects, at that point in the game building more/bigger farms is the last thing you want to be doing.

I mentioned putting it all inside a unit, because it'd be a way to clean up clutter in the overworld. Putting resource farms inside units like 'Sandship: Crafting Factory' helps keep the performance up because you don't need to render the farms, just the recorded input/output rates.

Kinda hate to keep doing it but Minecraft mods have the most obvious solutions! For the visual aids, I'd recommend something like the Foundry or Create mods approach to multi-block structures. Essentially a step by step guide to block placement for the absolute basic version of each machine. Expanding/upscaling it to your needs would still require you to do the rest.

Moving a unit...should've been obvious to me, but then again I guess I was too focused on using Minecraft as the analog for all this. I was just assuming 'flying machines' and those like them to be the 'walker' mentioned in the synopsis. Up to that point in the mission chain, I figured the only interact-able thing units could do was output power and mine/piston, with the moving being done by another piston. 

This problem is basically what I was meaning for the 'tutorial' zone to solve. I just plain didn't know that units could interact with the world. The piston animations reaching outside a unit should've been a clue, but looking at the videos in the help section I was genuinely surprised when wires and generators were popping out the block too! 

Ah, as a clue of how 'potato' my pc is, it was struggling with some of the embedded videos because it tends to buffer the first few seconds...which some for some the videos was all they had or where the mechanically most interesting bits occurred. Hence why I prefer more diegetic versions like Minecraft's ancient city redstone room, or the modpacks with a guidebook. Thaumcraft's book that expands as you learn is even greater, it gives out info and explains things plus visual aids where it helps.

Finally would recommend that you check out Introversion software's fail masterclass series. I only checked out the spacebot one as it was the one I was personally interested in their thoughts on as of yet, but it was an overall very informative video about the thought/design process that even an established team goes through. 

Spacebot had a fundamental flaw that none of them could point out, until this video of them dissecting it which was that the game eventually abandons the main draw of programming bots and shifts into a 4x style before ultimately turning into a terraforming idler. Though tbh, I think it was mainly because the rest of the team weren't engaged enough to even play it to at all and ever find out that flaw for the guy.

I think a simple built-in help section or an item descriptor plus visual examples of uses would go a long ways. 

It'd also be a decent game if the missions followed the nandgame path but with a focus on utilizing the different in/output for varying scenarios. A more tactile approach to the rather stale ones out. Given each map has large open spaces, there's enough room to hard-code in a sort of tutorial zone like a mechanics display where the player completes each step as a mission. At the end they have a line of contraptions that show what each component is does at a glance.

Resource management would be the biggest limiter on building anything of actual interest instead of just cleaning the map. There's not really much reason to build a whole suite of logic gates just to mine more of the finite blocks. The main draw of such a complex system is the hopes of building something complicated. Such an undertaking would take hundreds of units with their own nested/recursive units all with varying costs, I just can't see the current map sizes actually managing that. Rather than upscaling the world gen you can just make a renewable resource and crafting as the last bits of mission rewards. If you put them inside a unit then you would also save on clientside performance, staying loyal to the minimalist design.

*The first miner mission broke on me but I just assumed it was meant to put a piston on each output and hit complete afterwards. Miner 2 wasn't really a jump and more of a time consuming affair. Don't know what mover does and there weren't any new missions to skim hints from. Couldn't find any info on it, it also wasn't intuitive enough to figure out. Given the name I figured it synergizes with pistons somehow but for the life of me can't work out how.*

Great work, don't know exactly how much 'more' was added to the base idea of InflationRPG, but seems like a solid attempt overall. Lots of little QoL things, like instant encounter and easy resets, straight from the get go. 

Not too big fan of the story, mainly because the MC was constantly whining about escaping back to reality or something. I skipped it all after the 3rd or 4th paraphrasing and the sporadic reminder when I didn't skip fast enough, that they're still searching for an escape despite the obvious deflections and sarcasm, didn't help either.

A few negatives though, that might make or break what should be relatively simple game-play loop.

Something that seems a little worrying is...the speed of game itself. The original was so great because it was snappy and quick to play/load all the different stuff, even way deep into late game. Now admittedly I'm running a practically ancient setup(I could still run an emulator of InflationRPG faster than this version though), however I've noticed the game gradually slow even more over time. My best guess is that maps/assets aren't being unloaded properly, thus the built up cache is struggling more and more. This happens in A LOT of games since creators assume players have enough g/cpu to simultaneously load hundreds of objects at once, even the ones no longer in use.

I'd also recommend reworking/merging the ui to lower the entity/object count. From the fact that if you don't close menus properly between runs leaves a faint echo of said menu, I'd assume menus aren't being unloaded but shifted offscreen and lowered opacity instead. That probably speeds up bringing it out, but that means it's all simultaneously loaded, further diminishing performance. I think I remember seeing a tip/trick of entity swapping, where you keep an invisible version of a small/low load entity on screen following the character sprite but swap it with the proper display/images as they're needed.

Could also lower the complexity of animations, where instead of 10 unique frames, you have 5 and reverse+flip it. Can go even lower for most like having 2 pngs of lightning moving back and forth to simulate the movements in super low loads without sacrificing too much quality as it's a blink and you miss it animation anyways.

I also don't know how you draw/render the borders of zones, but I'd imagine there's a few optimization options there too.

Whilst typing out this comment the game overloaded the memory cap. So...there was definitely something wrong in the code if it was constantly adding stuff despite it being at the run end screen.

I think if you add a flat 1 extra turn to each day, it'd be so much easier. There's just not enough spins per day to really get any build rolling.

My best guess is that the heart spawns are part of the entity count. Any lag spike and there's a surplus of 'objects' which is the easiest source of errors, especially if the cache doesn't fix itself afterwards. It might confuse the backend into thinking that the new object it's meant to spawn already exists and thus skips it. Lowers efficiency in lust gains, and in my case might be why the Nail didn't spawn until the hard reset of placing a new one.

Ah..you're meant to cheat...that way. I just grabbed a pink pin and dropped it in the nail hole, and it transformed it into a nail. 

Tbh though...my nail was apparently bugged because the second didn't drop until after I cheated this way. Instantly had 3 nails. From then on the nails dropped regularly again, but I already started the spamming.

When I first unlocked the lv 3 difficulty after much luck, I did a test run but was failing miserably I wanted to try a full mystic build but because the game quits completely I lost all progress back to lv 0-1. 

Later I regained it and made a couple lv 3 files, but it seems to never stick around after leaving the game.  I even tried running a build up to the boss and quiting there but it won't let me keep the option for lv 3.

Idk why my luck is so terrible though, as the first event I get in a map almost always determines the rest of them. Worst of all is I get the same results each time I try them. Which is nice for a win streak of events, but it's scary for lost streaks.

Enemy spikes are ok since they either have boss lv health or have teammates. Your own spikes though tend to run out before they do anything near as effective as just attacking them even once. Would be nice to be able to run them in the deck outside super late game when you already have everything else needed to stay alive. I don't think they need more spikes though maybe multipurpose them, like something where it also gives you a little bit of block to supplement your strats instead of being the leftover card you use when there's nothing else.

Heals...are rather weak tbh. Unless you're stacking them at every opportunity you just never have enough to keep up since there'll be times you just have to soak up 20+ dmg a turn. That kind of damage would need 3-5 cards to heal back, but that'd ruin deck rng early-mid game. 

An antidote would be...ok-ish, but way too situational since only a low percentage of enemies use it, I'd recommend a remedy card or something like that which cleans up debuffs instead. It'd be useful against most enemies since they tend to spam weak, vulnerable, and fragile. There's also the new dragons that use burn. It's better to not pigeon hole cards so that more players can experiment with them in the deck.

A counter move for the beast deck is almost necessary if you go beyond lv 1 difficulty. I find that the enemies just put out way too much damage beyond lv 2 so you're forced to play too defensively, but I really like the beast auras early game. 

Event wise I'd say to hardcode a non-repeat, I just had 2 runs in a row where all the events were the mirror. It was nice to find out those auras stack...though also unfortunately in one I then went through a gauntlet of full teams so they all got buffed, haha!

If you're open to suggestions on events you could have an investment aura, where it takes a portion of your reward each time but then gives it back 2x after beating the stage. Another is a vampire event where you feed them hp, and the more you give the stronger a card(s) you get back. There's also the idea of bartering with goblins where you hand over 2 cards or 75 gold and get a random card.

As a side note, it'd be great to have an 'exit to main menu' button somewhere instead of exiting the game outright. I lost quite a bit of progress and still can't quite get it back because that's what I thought the exit button would do.

I'm sooo looking forward to cursed gamemodes! I think the best one would be one for starting with a reduced deck: half the attacks and blocks, no buffs, etc. You start on hardmode but don't have to waste money on culling your deck for a while! 

OOH a cursed deck! Where each card comes with a debuff, like attacks give you fragile and blocks weak, but then! You have a card that does something equal to your total debuffs! Cursed decks would be an amazing mechanic of it's own!

Love the game, funny thing being I just played the undead set all day and came to post a comment only to find the dragon set out already.

Game's really fun already, though a few balancing issues to be had. 

Spikes need to be buffed, and poison needs to be nerfed. Tried to make a spike build but I could never survive long enough to bring it to fruition. Spikes are just too inefficient since they deplete so quickly compared to how much they cost. You're better off just attacking instead of using them.

Healing also needs a rework, something like 2 uses before it's banished from play that fight but it also individually heals for more. I forget the name but there's that demon card that brings back all 0 cost cards, and I would use that to farm heals every battle. I still ended up losing to a frog girl that stacked 30 poison on me...

The beast set needs more defensive moves, something like a parry move that when used on an attacking opponent it reduces their dmg whilst dealing dmg. Pierce defense would also work nicely with the theme. A reflexive parry would also work amazingly, where for each attack you reduce the dmg and deal dmg.

Would also be nice to have prestige cards or something. Cheap/weak cards that you can bring into your next runs by removing others. Something like a 0 cost 5 dmg quickswipe attack. The starter deck is just too bloated with cards you want to remove quickly to keep the rng from filling your hand with inefficient cards.

Would also be nice if the mystery events are set to not repeat each other each map. I had a map filled with the pits and lost in them all. Ended up with 3 tentacles in my deck and lost against the boss.

You could also have achievement systems to unlock cursed auras on start that make the game harder but gives some unique bonus. Like enemies regen 1 hp per round, but you heal after each win: 10 for normal/ambush or 25 for elite. Another being you start each fight with 2 strength but also with 5 weak. Similarly 2 shield but 5 fragile. Another is you lose 1 gold each turn but gain 20% more rewards from fights. 

So...can't figure out if I've installed it wrong somehow or not, but after clicking "I've read the disclaimer" I get a "Error: the passage "Introduction 1" does not exist".

With the only instructions being to extract the zip file I don't know how I could've got that wrong. 

Is there something I'm missing? 

I wish you all the luck!

 The troubleshooting was mostly just sifting through useless guides/Q&As. Also because every source on my pc's spec was vague about the graphics name/spec/gen, I still don't actually know since it's 1 of 3 very different ones and I just used the archived manufacturer files that encompassed the whole pc build. Though thank the heavens for some random guy who gave succinct cmd prompt lines which fixed dism/cbs before attempting to fix the pc.
 
The launch bug...not much since that's just potato intel graphics, but maybe add a persistent and more thorough settings menu. The game always opens at max resolution, and it'd be nice to be able to tone down the particle effects and animations like bubbles, spirals, and such. The reduced particle effect could just be a singular bubble that expands briefly before popping, lots of entities spawning and erasing is a breeding ground for some to become permanent if the process gets interrupted. The wavy text is probably the easiest to turn off, which I'm sure is why hover descriptions add so much strain. Don't know why hovering on the refresh does, maybe because of the little animation it does? Holding potions is more a physics problem which is...a huge ask to optimize to say it lightly! A more specific ask would be a 'clear effects' button in the pause menu, since sometimes a transformation is applied poorly and the game really struggles from after that. Which gets cleaned a bit after clearing the level, but there's a subtle change in the minimum strain from then on. The spirals only really become a problem because...they're kind of op and you're more likely to have at least half your pot filled with a dozen or more of them before you clear the level. So the shear quantity of spirals become a problem when they all individually spin.
 
Another optimization is to put all the transformations into a buffer zone. Like a 'combo' counter or something where it'll hold all the effects until after the potions settle down, then applies it either sequentially or at once depending on how the coding handles transformation. Though if you go that route, you'd also have to include an after battle break so that we can actually admire the sprite's transformations since it currently skips straight to the 'shop' menu upon winning. The shop is also a great point in time to clear up the cache a bit and should overall keep the performance in peak condition throughout a run. Stuff like double checking if all the potions and transformation have been cleared, as well as freeing up prior sprites from remaining cached since it'd be rare to get identical sprites. It'll add a loading time, but it'd also speed up the game.
 
I'm also going out on a limb and guessing that the honey block has extra/redundant checks since the other slime blocks don't crash my game. Honey will crash my game if it collides with something at heavy strain moments, even if it's not the honey block being dropped in.  Probably not much of a difference for others, but when you're already throttling the line even slight spikes become more obvious.

Super addicted to what little I can manage to play. Even if it takes me 30mins to get a handful in the polycule, I can't stop going back to try again! Sadly 70% of my runs end thanks to a crash. 

I particularly enjoyed the 'send to opponent' type effects. I'm a little iffy on the slime ones as they merge very easily and they don't tend to have any effect at the 6* potency since...they're supposed to take up cauldron space not sit in the infinite liquid state! Would recommend that they 'revert' to solid on cast, so that they go back into the cauldron instead of disappearing. At least for the ones that are meant to be thrown at the opponent. Would be a great way to make use of the opponent's liquid mechanic if you filled it up and the moment they cast they're hit with a wall of slime! Maybe a slime that cleans the opponent's slime on infusion but deals allure based on their slime potency at cast.
 

edit:Wow this ended up as a wall of text and a half! TLDR; Lots of troubleshooting to find out my pc is officially potato and to fix that would require gambling on bsod, and that's just to fix whatever the debugger wants not what the game demands.
 
I can only guess that my gpu is barely strong enough to play the game but only marginally and any performance humps means a crash. So essentially, I can only ask for better optimization if I want to actually play.

I've found the honey block and sprials to be particularly heavy on my pc. There's also the milk transformation, but that depends on the sprite being effected for some reason. Some sprites really don't like the milk, like instant crash even on the first step of milkers. On that note some sprites improve my performance quite a bit so sometimes I reroll just for my witch to be one of them. Weirdly they can tank the effects well enough that would slow or even crash other ones.

The faceless shtick only works for semi-serious rp, anyone more serious about it can rp as anyone they want regardless of the differences in physique or whatever. Those not into rp, really only appreciate the idea that whatever feature being hidden is done so because it'd be more time consuming, and although a low effort  placeholder could go distances it can also rub people the wrong way when there's an obvious dip in quality(annoyingly all I see are complaints of an 'unfinnished game...even if it was a demo or alpha).
 
I was thinking along the lines of those tv head characters, just a box with all expressions being emoticons/ascii. Though...for a game like this you can get away with a singular 'hypnotized' look that's been taped/stickered on haha!
 
The point isn't the realism or whatever, but that it shows you thought of it for a bit yet wasn't where your heart lay so you put something whimsical that further nails home the intent. Not super polished AAA game; just an indie/hobbyist project never meant to shake the world or anything, just an idea was born and thus it was carried out and then created in a form that we can also experience should we want to.
 
Wishing you luck in whatever patch you came up with works out as intended. I'll check again...hopefully. I'm quite forgetful, I didn't even remember half the stuff I commented. I will say what little I got to experience was great, it's not often I can find any sort of 3d rendering to work without stutters or wonky controls(1 fps slide show turned slip and slide). As a baseline, my pc can play on some gmod lobbies on the lowest settings, and if I'm feeling fancy a step up...when alone on said server haha. A full server is a nightmare. Once tried vrchat...it was 1 fpm(generous estimate) and the audio delayed by dozens of seconds haha.

I run an old pc so maybe it's a potato issue, not many games are made optimized enough for it to play smoothly. It plays lots of games...on the lowest settings...barely.
 
An 'easy' fix is to just widen the margin for error that recognizes a fit. Also remove the variable speed that accelerates and decelerates as frame drops will break it. A real doozy when one of the icons just keeps flying around superspeed with no input.
 
Also would be nice QoL to have some indicator of how well you did. I'd imagine there's some math involved for determining what gets enhancements and by how much, so you can just stick that on the the little monitor next to the door. You could also just stick the current value instead of the score and players can do the math themself. I couldn't figure out the gameplay loop because...there was no changes visually, and I'd randomly get told by the alien that we're onto the next phase after a dozen or so attempts. I didn't even know there was a shrink mechanic until they said it was shrinking something and eventually the player model started getting shy shortly before the became a ken doll.
 
I really would like to experience the game as intended. Though...the headless thing is a bit creepy, you could put a helmet on them if you don't want to deal with faces and whatnot. A cute helmet would do wonders. Doesn't even need to be intricate/animated, just stick a box with googly/sticker eyes on it. Could even become the mascot of the game. Good luck with the developing~! Seems like a great jam submission overall, regardless of my personal experience!

So...that was frustratingly disappointing. Demanding pixel perfect alignment when they can move at variable speeds thanks to frame drops...that's just cruel. Even when I perfectly align it, they go out of sync within seconds enough that the target part shrinks more than it grows.
 
I had a freak stroke of luck once and managed to get A cup breasts...too bad everything else shrank into nothingness. Don't even know what stream correlates to what part because I swear that was the god run where I managed to get them all aligned as much as possible, yet the only noticeable change was the chest...and the missing groin.

Man, that puzzle was seriously annoying, especially since I stumbled into the right one once only to click win instead of lose to get the time right.

I'm just going to spoil the answer for others because it was beyond frustrating to play 'balance the books' type thing using irregular components.

Tongue x3,  Poke(x1),  Peek, Cheek x2, Shirt UP, Play, Lick, BJ, Skirt, Intentionally Lose ~x2?

It legitimately took me several hours...admittedly it was only ~30 min after I started writing stuff down instead of winging it, but omg did it feel super underwhelming when the last ending was broken anyways thanks to cache filling up! The girl was missing and I had to go through the recollection to see what the ending kind of looks like. I was honestly hoping for the main girl in more animations for the special ending but that's probs because by the time I reached it was completely desensitized to the game.

Yeah, a bit sad about my pc being too old for most games except the rare ones that took optimization seriously. The audio thing is because I have zero audio devices plugged in, just using headphones fixed it. I just found it weird that the game crashes immediately if you don't have sound enabled.

If you open the game without any audio devices plugged in, it boots up straight into the error message "unable to open requested audio format with sdl_mixer.wasapi can't find requested audio endpoint: element not found" followed by a list of all the audio that it couldn't load(all the audio in the game). Essentially game can't run without outputting audio on start. It's also not ok to unplug it afterward, though I don't know if it further crashes the game or just kills the audio.

Reason being I can't even get the visuals to work, it's just a white screen. Might have something to do with my "Intel(R) HD Graphics display driver" crashing and recovering everytime I open the game. I'm admittedly running an old pc so I get it if it's just not compatible, but I'm hoping it's a bug and not a problem of outdated hardware. I know it's actually running since the audio is coming out, and it's a pretty banger theme song but beyond that no inputs or anything does something with noticeable auditory feedback.

Here's to hoping it's only a bug on start up that just needs a refresh rather than my pc being completely unable to render the game. Can't help more with the audio bug, since I can't actually check if it crashes the game or cuts out audio permanently, but it stopping the game from launching at all is a bit much for a nsfw game.

The problem at it's core(pun unintended) was that when, after turning in the "Ancient Beings" quest, I went to put my left over "golem cores" into the item bank the game freaked out. Using a save editor I realized the problem, for some reason my drag and drop was rejected and accepted at the same time(which I thought I mistook as forgetting I had more, but now know better). What this meant is a ghost item in my inventory that shouldn't be there since I should've had zero golem cores but still had the item. I'm guessing since it was 'rejected' it was put back in 'slot 3' but the paradox of it being a ghost item made it go from 'slot 3' in inventory to 'slot 33' in inventory yet still display as 'slot 3'. I just used the save editor to zero out the quantity and slot number of any item with a "maxQuantity 5" since I forgot how much it had (RIP soul pearl drops I was about to sell). I only figured out the 'issue' when I went back into the game and found the golem cores in slot 3 again, but this time with a quantity of "0", (same with the pearls). I just dropped all of them on the floor to despawn. So problem fixed, if a little overkill on my end thanks to being so forgetful.

I forgot to save the index log or whatever error message that popped up, was a bit too panicky that my main profile suddenly couldn't be played anymore haha. Funny enough the item bank was fine since my second profile could log in just ok, but my main was stuck in the warp animation with an error code. Unless it's stored somewhere and I'm just too dumb to find it...anyways it's just my word as it stands right now.

Not going to abuse the fact a save editor worked at all though, this game's more fun via the grind so it'd be pointless to do so especially with not that much content so far, so the bulk of the content is grind. Having a blast so far, I'mma try 'beat' the game with all my profiles later. Really looking forward to the warrior since I 'luckily' got a decent purple drop for it...on my mystic main. My fave part of this game has to be the 'raid' event when you've been farming a zone, only found a couple outside the boss fight, but it's fun trying to find them all.

EDIT: After some further testing, I can all but confirm the source is actually the "Ancient Beings" quest, whether that's the turn in or just having it idk for sure, because it somehow messes with the item count in the inventory. The game breaks if you sell or even drop the golem cores. I'm leaning towards "turn in at all this session" because I distinctly remember storing most of my gems and cores before turning it in, since I wasn't sure if I was going to keep leveling just yet. Luckily the store one sorts itself out when it autocleans and wasn't all that game breaking if you consider not being able to attack for that time to too bad, but dropping(even if it despawns) blocks any teleportation until you relog. Don't feel like testing the limit though, I only found the other bits because I hoped it'd skirt the issue since you always ending up with left over cores.

I really can't complain too much except for adding a couple features, at the title screen it'd be nice if you could type instead of clicking to choose a mode. Another small feature would be to have a failure screen that shows what you missed, and the romanji for it in case you forgot, that way you don't have to go through the chart to remind yourself. If you could add these 2 things I would play this non-stop til I have mastered all difficulties.