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Damn this was awesome!! Played it over several days and had so much fun :DD I saw the game mentioned as inspiration for several other games so I had to come try it and I'm very glad I did! Also appreciate the honesty of using ai art and hiring an actual artist to redo it, as an artist it means a lot <3

But yeah great story and excellent mystery, did get stuck a few times so the optional magnifying glass hints was appreciated :D Also love the general physical setup and layout of the game, with the family tree including pictures and jobs, and the 3-part search on the computer (and of course the notes feature, my god I ended up writing so much on some pages that the text is tiny sjdkfhkdjg), great game I had a lotta fun!!

9/10 yippee :DD love the art!!

Loved this!!!

cool concept and execution! the snake guy is a really fun design

Super fun! :D

No problem at all, I look forward to seeing it! 

If I may add one last note, having finally prestiged I will say the mutation costs are a lot higher than I expected for how long it took to get the points, I would suggest making it a bit easier to get mutation points!

Just letting you know I've encountered this same issue when respawning at Zone 8!

Ok first of all the visuals and aesthetic are incredible, the black and white and the filter making it look like an old horror movie?? Perfection.

The gameplay is pretty decent, I'm enjoying it and so far the progression feels mosty well balanced! 

I have noticed an issue with the runners in that they oftentimes aren't actually any faster than the shamblers? I thought they were entirely bugged until I had one actually running ahead, while simultaneously having another that couldn't overtake the main shambler hoard. This also makes the Runner Rush sigil unreliable as I have no way of knowing if it'll spawn useful runners, or if I'll be wasting my contagion points.

Speaking of contagion, I really like that mechanic, it's great to have a resource that is only for that run, meaning I can spend as much as I like! With the brains and flesh I need to weigh up spending it now or saving it for the next run (Which is also good! Having both types of currency is good for variety :D)

There is some confusion in the wording, namely upgrades saying "X per level", and I wasn't sure if that meant per zone? Like if passing each zone in a run levelled up my zombies, then I realised it probably meant per level of the upgrade? I think it'd be clearer to just say e.g. "+10% health (+30% currently added)" or something along those lines! 

It'd also be useful to have a graphic of each human character when talking about the types, as it leaves me guessing which one is which :0 It'd also be great to have a little notebook or bestiary of the human types to more easily reference them, as currently their pages are buried in all the other tips and new upgrade popups. Perhaps a notebook with the human image on one page and their information on the other? Just an idea! 

I also wasn't entirely sure if the "total health" for each zombie type meant all the current units added together, or the health for a single unit. I'm leaning more towards the latter but that is another thing that could benefit from clearer wording! 

It'd also be nice to have a slower scroll for the upgrades, as currently scrolling goes far too fast to comfortably navigate the list! There's the same issue with the sigil list, but with that one you also can't even click and drag making it even harder.

Also "Best Zone" made me think the highest zone I'd reached, making me think it'd bugged when it didn't update when I hit Zone 5! Turns out it means best zone completed :p

For one last quick suggestion, it could benefit from a dedicated pause button! Thankfully it is possible to pause by going to the glossary, but that is a few clicks, so a specific pause button would be a bit more fluid, but it isn't exactly a big deal if not!

But yes I really am enjoying this and again I adore the aesthetic and visuals, the characters all being black with a pixel outline really fits the vibe as well as being visually simple to avoid being too visually busy when there's lots of characters on-screen! I also really like that all the silhouettes merge together with just the single outline rather than overlapping outlines, it's a small detail but it does a lot!! Overall this is a very neat game with enjoyable gameplay, great job!! :DD

Honestly this is a neat idea! I will say the photorealistic images may be difficult for people afraid of the bugs in question, I know I was uncomfortable with the image of the centipede as I have a phobia of them- it might be good to do it in stages! Like start out with the fun fact and a cute cartoony drawing of the bug, and then once you've been primed with the cute and endearing information, you can click to reveal the (edited to be crunchy like these images) original image the drawing was based on! Might make it a bit less in-your-face :0 Could also maybe like scribble hearts around them (the realistic images), or a silly hat and monocle over their head, to make it more fun! :D

But yes I do like this and I think it could work!! The fact about the centipedes did help a little bit, I'm still very uncomfortable with them but maybe a little bit less so now! 

Also I discovered you can edit the text on the pages lol

Edit: Forgot to say but I love the voicelines when navigating to the diff pages it's so fun!!! :DDD So whimsical and silly 

Cute!

Took a moment to understand how some things worked, but was pretty fun and definitely an intertesting concept :D

Ooooh this was cool!! Love the catfish that made me laugh, and great music choice!

I love this!!!! Perfect artstyle for the feeling of the game, great sound design and music, and a fun gameplay loop! I kept thinking I'd reached the end of the demo only to unlock several more upgrades!!!!! This was a lotta fun :DDD

Honestly pretty fun :D

I love this!! The whole concept is awesome and the graphics are really nice, and the gameplay loop is very fun! I love the details of lots of types of ores, such as tin, rather than the typical copper/iron/gold/etc, I imagine once the game is done there'll be a whole bunch and it'll help give it a lot of depth!! 

I do have some feedback, mainly about the rails! 

1. It'd be way easier to be able to move in the minecart using wasd rather than holding down left click, it'd be more intuitive and help give your finger a break lol

2. Ideally you wouldn't be able to pick up rails while it's not selected in your hotbar, I misclicked a couple of times and ended up picking up rail pieces and having to replace them, imo you should only be able to edit them while you've got them selected!

3. It'd be neat if there was a way to auto-stop at rail crossways, as currently you just zip past any other routes connected, meaning if you want multiple directions connected to the same rail, you have to slow right down and awkwardly get perfectly positioned to turn, or make separate railways which wastes time in getting out of the old cart and into the new one
Ideally you wouldn't lose the speed momentum, it'd just stop, you tap a direction with wasd/arrowkeys, and then you continue at full speed! 

But yeah, I really like this!! Very fun gameplay and a super nice take on minesweeper, I like that we keep a level of progress post-death in terms of upgrades (unsure if that's intentional tbh- could always be a toggle in settings for the full game!) as it means losing isn't quite as crushing as it is in base minesweeper :p There's also the absolutely incredible feature that mining takes a short while, it's actually an excellent way to prevent misclicks!! The number of times I've lost a minesweeper game cuz I clicked wrong is incredible (detogatory), so it's sosososo appreciated to have a function to prevent that!! And! It works super well in the setting too, as it makes perfect sense for our lil guy to take a moment to mine through a block!

Speaking of said lil guy, I love them!!!!! They're so cute what a creature <3<3

Gah this was already so much fun, looking at the description and seeing mentions of things like smithing ingots just makes me so excited to play the full game!!!!! :DD

Love this!! Great artstyle and the controls are really nice :3 

I have had a bug when trying to exit the conversation from the science mole, it won't change the screen away from him. It happened when I visited both before getting the party invite quest, and after getting the quest. If I continue pressing W to move forwards, it zooms out to the island view, but clicking to exit the island does not exit it, I can see my position changing in the compass bar background at the top of my screen as I move left or right, but I cannot actually move forwards it seems (I was going to try get to another island to trigger that interaction to try and break free from the bug, alas)

Regardless it's a very neat little game and I've enjoyed what I've played so far!! 

Cool game! Love the concept of us being a brain and customisable upgrades that act differently depending on how we use/order them! 

I will say the controls were a bit finicky, changable keybinds would help with that! I also found the tutorial area very confusing, I've replayed it but I still cannot figure out how I'm opening the first gate or why, and the ones after that were just trial and error figuring out which weapon type worked on them- I'm not sure if there's a trick or order to it, if there is I couldn't understand it D: Same with the enemies, I assumed e.g. the green enemies would be weak to the green weapons but they all seemed to damage them equally? So not entirely sure how that worked there lol

But I did have fun!! And I really like the setting, it's very strange and intriguing with the living brains and the chunks of inert brain matter scattered around- and the visible stars and galaxies though the gap!! It really makes me wonder just where exactly we are and what is going on! Very cool :DD

OHH!!! Nysects being cats makes so much sense I think you must be right!! 

I loved this, gorgeous art and I love how there's glimpses of scenes when you haven't got all the elements, and all you can see is specifically the pieces of what you put in, like an individual character! Also love how the backgrounds are colour-coded based on which party that scene involves, it's a helpful little hint without ruining the difficulty! :D 

This is so freaking cute!! And I love the music track, it fits the vibes perfectly <3

Oh my god this is was so much freaking fun!!!! I was unsure how to begin but as soon as I got into the groove I was done for, I don't even know how long I've been sitting here working it all out, it was genuinely so much fun :DD I adore games styled on translation and figuring out foreign/alien words via context, piecing the things together, and the fantastical aspect with the strange creatures gave it extra flavour :D

Spoilers!!

Throughout the game, as I shaved down on my list on unknown words, one just kept confusing me with all the different ways they were described - the Solaam, and it was right at the end when I was re-reading The Signal that it suddenly hit me that it was addressed to us, that we were the Solaam! And that we were figuring out this family tree and history because they asked us to! They're the ones that sent everything! At first I presumed it was uncovered via archaeology or something, and we were historians going through ancient texts to understand the past, so it was such a cool twist :DDD

Also I gotta say, we sound so strange with giant tunnels and being big enough to step on these people, yet they trust us and our omens, considering our final word as law. There's so much in this setting I wanna know more about, are the Solaam humans, and the people are tiny? Or are the people humans, and we the Solaam are bizarre giant creatures? It's all so interesting!! :D

I had a lotta fun with this, 10/10 (and I really liked the art too! Very clean and easy on the eyes, and I enjoyed how you could get glimpses of their personality through their expression and how they held themselves! I also enjoyed the visual variation in how they all look)

Edit: Also I love that there were some gender neutral characters, idk if it was intentional but it surprised me and made me smile, I wasn't expecting it given the more medieval-style setting (visually at least), but as an enby it always makes me happy to see us around <3

Just letting you know I’ve made a recipe list in the comments! It’s the comment right above this one :3

Love this!! Super fun and of course absolutely lovely pixel art <3  Also loved the humour!

I made a recipe guide for those who wanted it! Please keep in mind that the game seems to be designed to encourage trial and error in finding recipes! The colour of the flame is a hint as to the next item type if you're stuck :P 

So please, to not ruin the discovery:

Only click each recipe once you've unlocked it!

I love this! Super creative and interesting mechanics, I really like how they built on each other to become more complex :D I will say the battery replacing is pretty fiddly, it's hard to get it to rotate how you want so it'll fit, and also it was hard to understand the person speaking sometimes, but I still had a lot of fun playing :DD

I love the mood of this, and the pixel art is very very nice :DD (Sidenote: t's so good to see actual pixel art in a game, I've seen so many lately with ai generated 'pixel' assets, so good god is it refreshing <3) Great audio too, love the little squeaks <3 Also like the audio cue of the ~danger music~ when things start to get real bad, it was fun to realise and learn, I love it when progression in a game is a mixture of in-game upgrades and the player actually learning and getting better, it's so much fun!! :D

Did get frustrated a couple times when losing all my fish cuz I died, but in all honestly that's probably on me for being too risky >:] 

It also took me a hot minute to realise I could let go to give the fishing line some slack- in hindsight it makes sense with the colour of the bar turning to red, but it hadn't clicked! I thought I had to keep holding it cuz the instructions just said 'hold' with no mention of letting go (despite me having played other fishing games/minigames where you let go...once again that may just be on me ._.)

But yeah! I enjoyed the variety of mechanics for the fish, really made you think about the best time to call it, e.g. with the dark trickster making it beneficial to stop sooner rather than later! It was also fun that some adjacent fish bonuses were per-tile-in-contact, and others (like same-species bonus) just needed a single point of contact, it helped limit any repetitiveness in the bonuses, having those different rulesets which of course also affects layout! I also loved the variety of shapes the fish had, and how especially the eely ones had such strange shapes, it makes fitting them together pretty fun :D Also neat how the ourobourus is a perfect circle with a little gap for fitting a little fish in! (I was delighted when I got the ourobourus + goldfish in the middle, just like the background art :D). I just love all the shapes and the ways they fit together!! Not just up against each other but also working around the edges of empty spaces for the empty cell bonus! I also of course like the way the fish increased in strangeness as the game went on, it may be a common fishing game trope but by god it's a good one! 

I also really appreciated the fact that you can left-click and let go to pick up a fish rather than having to hold it down- it meant it was actually possible to right-click rotate using a trackpad, it makes all the difference and I always notice when games have that so thank you! :D Also means less finger strain :3

Overall very fun, visually wonderful, sweet and succinct story/premise, and the end animation was really cute :D (Also appreciated that it repeats in case you miss some of it, which I did the first time!) It could honestly be extended if you ever so felt like it, with higher prices for the locks and maybe an extra page of inventory, hooks on the side of the boat for holding spare fish while sorting, maybe a weather machine to check the likelihood % of each weather event next session, etc! But of course only if you want, it definitely feels complete like this, no sense of anything missing! 

Edit:!! Oh and also before I forget, I encountered a bug where I frantically was sorting just before the fish sold, and I tossed a snail shell for an empty slot bonus, and the money calculation stopped and the fish weren't removed from my inventory. I went out, came back, and it counted everything and yoinked the fish as normal (probably giving me a duplicate score on a fish or two that were counted before I chucked the snail overboard). Far from gamebreaking, just thought I should mention it!
((Also-
It'd be neat if there was a 'sell' button so you could sort fish before they're totalled up and removed, since it's often a scramble to finish sorting as you're being extracted! Unless, of course, that's entirely intentional, in which case I respect that you conniving little bastard >:P /silly))

I just realised the carpenter is not a chicken, but rather a ginger-haired man with a moustache. 

He's still a chicken in my heart

(Great game!)

gorgeous artstyle <3

loveeeeeeeed this <3<3<3<3<3

I absolutely ADORE this, the visuals are gorgeous the controls are perfectly smooth and intuitive, I had to think for a couple puzzles but it wasn't frustrating, the singing was charming, at the end I got worried it'd be a timed level but it wasn't! :D Loved the detail that all the frogs crushed the weight platform- that was hilarious :D Love the details of the different types of frogs, absolutely loved adored and cherished the singing stage and wished I could've listened to it longer- lo and behold it's the end credits!! And a lovely sweet ending to the game too <3 100/10

Cute game, especially the art in the description c:

Super cute!!

Cute! :D

Art style is adorable, love the colour palette it's very clean and warm :D Reloaded to start again and absolutely BLITZED through the races, those poor hampers didn't know what hit them, my guy finished his second lap before they even did their first, 100/10

Love this! Took me a minute to realise there were specific recipes to follow with the recipe button, but once I did realise that it made a lot more sense and I had fun :D Love the art

Oh I LOVE the surreal addition to this sequel!!!! It makes it that much more whimsical, and it's such a sweet ending, watching planty dance with the photograph <3 Can't put into words how much I love thsi

Oh this is incredibly charming!!! The art style is lovely and the game just left me smiling the whole time c: I adore that we make friends with wasps, bees get a lot of love already, it's so nice to see people being nice to wasps and making an effort to befriend them, it's so sweet!! Such a delightfully whimsical game I adore this <3

First of all I do love the graphics, everything is very pleasing to look at and the audio is nice and relaxing :3 I will say though that it makes it hard to spot items that can be picked up or interacted with, not impossible but I have ended up missing several things, it also means I don't know what's a hint for puzzles and what's just background filler

Also I'm finding the game quite hard >.< Honestly that could just be me, but I see several people stuck in the comments too :0 I feel as though it needs more in-built hints, e.g. I couldn't figure out the numbers on the fridge (once I realised I could click that anyway sdjkfhdkj) and assumed I had yet to unlock something to help me- I only realised it was solvable already from the comments! Perhaps a downwards arrow on the sheet could give the player a nudge to say hey! You can do this right now, just look closely! (Honestly with that one I was worried it was prime numbers or something lmafo)

Some of the cables are a bit unclear about what they activate, the computer needing two things to be turned on is a bit confusing, some kind of visual indicator, perhaps on the screen with two symbols and one crossed out when you've got one, indicating you still need to do a second thing?

Another thing is I seem to be solving things very out of order- I figured out the fish puzzle, got stuck again and checked the comments and saw mentions of stars?? I haven't found a single one, but apparently the fish puzzle is supposed to come after? 
Adding onto solving things out of order I accidentally(?) solved the morse code(?) puzzle above the sink, by copying a couple of lights and then just completely guessing, I genuinely have no idea how that puzzle was supposed to work it was very confusing and that also means I have no idea if I was supposed to solve that yet, or if there was a hint waiting to be unlocked- but then back to the numbers of the fridge with that there was no further hint to be unlocked >.< 

I'm just very confused about the order of things ^^; However!! I do still like this game and I've enjoyed what I've been able to complete!! As I said the visuals are nice, I especially love the way you did the lighting, it really feels like an airy, shady apartment with a nice breeze coming in the windows <3 The glow effects are also quite well done, through the windows and the way the fishtank looks lit up! Definitely deserves the atmospheric tag!!

Loved this!! Had a lotta fun, and nice graphics! Small 'bug' I found (spoilers):

If you click behind the chest of drawers in the right spot you can get the hint about using the right pin- even before you've moved the drawers to the side to reveal it! I discovered it by clicking at the base of the globe while stuck at one point, used the pin on 'each side' of the base of the globe (which did something, but didn't help me progress). Of course once I moved the drawers later on in the game I realised it was a hint to a puzzle I wasn't supposed to find yet, which explains why it wasn't doing anything to help! Just thought I'd mention it :p

I like the game but I will say it's a little difficult to visually tell the different ant classes apart without zooming in quite a lot. The ai art cards also feels very incongruous to the style, I honestly feel like a 5min scribble of e.g. an ant with speed lines behind it for haste would fit the style and feel of the game better and give less tonal whiplash lol

Cute game tho!