itch.io

unfortunately, this lost me pretty quick...

I haven't done any hypnosis stuff before this. still figuring out if it's real, etc. I wanted to try a basic hypnosis thing as training wheels for the stuff I'm more interested in. after doing some browsing, this looked safe, chill, and basic (which it is), so I downloaded it! and it was interesting. but the other comments had me expecting miracles, and I didn't get one

with the body-awareness-related stuff, it made me feel a little weird, which got me hopeful! but once it started asserting what my mind was doing, which is pretty early on, I disagreed with its assertions, which seemed to break the intended experience. "You are thinking this," it said, and I knew I wasn't thinking that, so it broke. the game goes on assuming that its tricks worked, and it never looks back. I got left behind...!

[mild spoiler section]
it kinda just felt like a porn game after that, especially when it started talking about "more, deeper, filling" and "bursting" and "pleasure" and how it goes on and on about being controlled. it makes me feel like I'm not the target audience for this at all, considering I'm not already into hypno. which is fine! I probably should've gotten the idea that it's meant for hypno enthusiasts from the page description being full of terms I don't know. 
[/mild spoiler section]

so, it lost me. I dunno if there's some way I could've gotten back into it, but the game also didn't really provide for the idea that it could've lost me. I was completely lucid and that wasn't changing, so I tried restarting the game from the beginning, which did nothing. I'm not sure if I did something wrong during my playthrough, and I dunno how to find out... My current theories are just "this isn't the hypnosis for me" or "hypnosis isn't for me in general".

I'm leaving this comment because all the other comments really got my hopes up! I'm sure this is well-made, but it is always true: nothing is for everyone. big respect to the creator for this experimental format and all the support they've given the game. I hope this comment encourages realistic expectations in players! I wish a comment like mine was on the page when I tried it.

this really could be your miracle, but it's not guaranteed!

Somehow I've softlocked it! I was changing some controls as I fell into a spike pit, and Kit didn't die. I can't jump (I assume spikes aren't technically "ground"), so I can't get out, and there's no "reset the player character" button anywhere, so I'm stuck. Even turning on Double Jumps wouldn't get me out.

It was fun while it lasted.

Interestingly, the camera seems to think I'm grounded, but that the ground is on a nonexistent platform above me.

bummer!

what did it tell you the word was? o.o

100%ed it - the third boss was brutal! fun game, shopkeep is best kobold <3

your art style and the theming are very strong! I'm a big fan of kobolds, this does kobolds justice. the hud is very charming, with the way green's face changes based on what you're doing. the pencil-y style is dear to my heart
green, a kobold with a shotty, is a very fun concept that's a key reason I was interested in the game in the first place. I can confirm: the kobolds are cute.
I also liked how meaningful the upgrades are; the gun upgrades make a big difference, for example, and parrying projectiles (and then enemies) is fun. every upgrade bought made a notable difference

I did get stuck for a while on The Imp, though!
the chain on the teapot in the middle of The Imp's arena kept getting in the way of my shots, it took me countless tries to beat him... but I also hadn't delivered any of the eggs, so I was fighting him at 3 hp and didn't know I could have more. whoops!
(the rest of the game was a good level of challenge, though!)
when you're standing on the furthest part of the top platforms your bullets disappear just before they hit The Imp. it can be tough to jump up from the lower platforms to avoid The Imp when he jumps up in your face. unskippable cutscene. I spent a lot of time in that boss room...
besides that, green walks a little slow, the mercy invincibility is kinda short, and maybe some sort of fast travel might've reduced some of the travel times.

it was good fun to breeze through the final gauntlet after I'd acquired all the upgrades and eggs! once you have all the components, between double-jump and tabasco and parrying, green has great aerial movement that makes me wish this game had a secret brutal bonus stage akin to Tower of Balue from Klonoa, that challenges your understanding of the movement

overall, a good game! I hope you keep making games, your art's lovely and I wanna see you tackle more game mechanics and genres

I personally really like being able to choose what I want to upgrade on my character, and the strategy that comes with it. Being able to choose to spend juice on, say, Damage instead of Max Health is something I think is valuable to the game, as it lets the player adjust how hard they want their fights to be and how quickly they want them to be over - like a player-chosen difficulty system. With a "stats level up as you use them" system, I'm not sure this depth would be kept.

I think one of the most satisfying elements of the game as-is is going to a fountain to spend all juice on upgrades, and immediately noticing the difference the upgrades make. With a "stats level up as you use them" replacement, I feel like that sense of a "boost" would be lost.

I think adding more endless content plays more to the game's weaknesses than to its strengths. I like the unique characters to meet and weapons to try, and finding and exploring new authored areas (like the big statues, beneath the trap door, or inside the toilet) is great. Getting a handle of the controls is another big fun factor. Flying around in the far reaches of the map defeating the same enemies over and over is repetitive and gets dull rather quickly, and so is re-fighting bosses for juice. I was compelled to grind to the level cap in both of my playthroughs of this game (once on the current version, once a few versions ago), and the process of doing so is inevitably the least fun part of it. When I finally reached the level cap, I felt relieved I'd officially "finished it" and done everything there was to do, and could stop playing. With the level cap reached, the grinding was officially over, and I was free to move on to other things.

It is currently too easy to max out your character and there is no incentive to continue playing after you've beaten the current bosses. I will solve this by creating infinite scaling for the player and monsters/bosses, and stuff like farmable crafting recipes from bosses/dungeons.

There's not an incentive to keep playing most games after having fought all their bosses. It's not a crime for a game to end when it has nothing left for the player to do. I think focusing on having more of the authored content in the game (i.e. more bosses and areas) would be more rewarding than tweaks that let the player stay in the least fun part of the game forever. (Though this is a pretty biased way of putting it.)

I hope this doesn't come across as mean or contrarian. I'm just concerned because Juice Galaxy has some interesting ideas that I really like, and the concerns in this discussion seem to value very different aspects of the game than what I enjoyed.

Thank you for making Juice Galaxy!

I'm really confused about how the health and weight gain systems work. I overeat every day and I still lose weight; I over-feed the friend character, she ends up cadaverically thin; and I eat fruit, drink water, and take walks and still end up in critical condition. What gives?

I'm definitely enjoying the writing, but I'm feeling really unfulfilled without being able to see any of the weight gain content. The game's just not very clear about how its systems work.

Fun game with great art, but the tiny enemies are really frustrating.

Fun game!

The gameplay of sorting friend from fake is satisfying. Getting better at it and sorting more e-mails more quickly feels rewarding.
The sound design gives a great, optimistic feeling, and the e-mails are uplifting. It's a cozy game that dips its chip in old computer nostalgia.

I wish there was a proper ending. I bought everything in the shop expecting that to do something, but nothing happened.

Telling authentic from spam feels a little off when I keep seeing the same personal letters over and over. It makes everything feel like spam.
The same events happen over and over, and the humor of each individual email drops off a lot. A formal ending would help the player not run the game's content dry.
As-is, it feels like it's saying
"Is there more content? I dunno. See for yourself ;)"
[15 minutes later]
"The answer is 'no'. Go away :)"

I feel like the player should have a little more control over what happens story-wise. For example, I'd be happy to get docked a little bit of money to prevent that kid from getting grounded.
This is the kind of control I was expecting from the send-or-spam premise. The questions of "do I let companies' spam go through?" and "should I let aliens take over the planet?" are asked, but the player doesn't get to answer them - it's left to "do what your job tells you, your individual impact doesn't matter."

That said, the writing of the individual e-mails is very charming the first time through, and it's fun to piece together the individual lives of each person. More e-mails, more characters, and more interconnected world moments would really make the game shine.

Moral of the story: make an ending! I feel so unfulfilled from this game petering off. Give us a solid 6-foot plank, not an 8-foot with 2 feet of shattered edge. Trim that 2 feet of rubbish off.

Fun little game! I found the conveyance/knowing-what-to-do-i-ness of the game a little frustrating in bits, so here's a little hint-based objective guide for any players coming across this:

Fun game! This has a lot of potential to improve.

The shooter section is pretty decent, but could use more bullet
patterns/enemies. It's very simple at the moment, and Stage 2 feels like purely a test of how much HP you got before you arrived.
A few new enemies could help alleviate this. If you're feeling lazy, find some patterns from one of those danmaku games (e.g. Touhou) and put them in. They'd work fine.
Oh, and the difficulty's just fine too.

The stuffing content is alright, but having to watch the same progression over and over while doing the repetitive task of eating is tedious. It's good content, but accessing it isn't fun.

I really like the mechanic of controlling Yuri's arm and being able to throw items. I think this should be expanded upon.
When the mouse cursor is over the Back button, Yuri looks like she's stretching. It's pretty cute. Some kind of face change when the player hovers over the Back button to properly show that she's stretching would be a nice addition.
Leaning far forward at high fullness levels leads to Yuri's stomach appearing to phase through the chair below her. I think a neat (and appreciated) touch would be to have it squash against the chair, making it so she can't lean over as far. It would add to the physicality of the belly.
I know this is a stuffing game, but some weight gain seems appropriate. One doesn't eat constantly every day and spend most of their time in a cockpit and not gain a few pounds. A way to lose pounds and still stuff to high capacities could be a best-of-both-worlds situation, although that would mean creating a lot more art assets.

Really, what I think this game needs is more. More mechanics for shooting, more mechanics for eating, more options than just "pick who to feed" with your crewmates. I hope you revisit this game and add more to it someday.

Is there a solution to -2 (The Power of Cheerfulness)?

If anyone else wants to see: get at least 5 lives, then go to level 1 and feed them to the plant.

Grab the extra life in -1, kill all the enemies, have the music off, and die on the spikes until you'd game over; it'll transport you to -2 on your last death.

From there, I have no clue what to do.

Edit: To clarify, you can grind lives by cycling through the levels (earn points, replace the level with a point value, pick up any lives you find around; you'll eventually get to 5. Keep in mind resets lower score by 1.)

Edit II: To beat -2, get to the end of the level without harming an enemy. This was very obscure.
If the dev sees this: I see what you meant by "cheerfulness" and the enemies smiling, but it's a bit of a logical leap. Something like "the power of pacifism" or "the power of little snowman dudes" could be a bit clearer. As it is now, I tried things like jumping in place a bunch, making the enemies dance around, etc. as I didn't have anything to go on. I would have given up if I hadn't happened to try pacifism.
You are the creator: do with what I said however you want to. I'm just telling my experience.

edit III: soft lock on -4, aaaaand I give up. too tedious and I ceased to care