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Ai being overloaded makes sense lol.

Also is the only achievement from the AI the argument? Cause I already have that one, so I guess there's no need for me to worry too much.

*WALL OF TEXT WARNING* (There is no TLDR)

I don't know how much Arc pays attention to the comments here anymore, but I might as well give something a try. Keep in mind this will be a logical post based off of what I have found as a member of the AVN community, a few of my own opinions, as well as me using a few of my skills that I have gained by writing uncountable amounts of TDAs during High School (I had a very annoying English teacher and these are now etched into my brain whether I like it or not).

First I would like to make my purpose for writing this clear. This is supposed to bring attention to the graphics in particular as well as hopefully make you, and members of the community (but mostly you), think about a few things. 

I've been around the AVN scene for ~4 to 5 years at this point, despite only having an account for about 3 of those years, and I've noticed a few distinct "starts" or "categories" that these game devs tend to fit into. Those categories are as follows:

1. The dev makes a mediocre (to good) game and their skills stagnate for a while. Until they eventually start improving and release an absolute banger or two. I will not be referencing any of these devs by name as I think that'd be at least a little rude to them.

2. The dev makes a mediocre (to good) game but rapidly improves over the course of the game's development. Just about every update showcases a drastic improvement in their techniques, skills, graphics, storytelling, and whatever else. And by their second or third game (if any have been made), or the end of their first game's development, they can usually be considered a master at their work in all, or almost all, aspects.

3. The dev instantly makes a 10/10 game. Right off the bat everything, including the writing, graphics, character design, and sound is top quality. Whether they've had past experience/training, or not is usually unknown. But no matter what, their first game they upload is instantly popular and can be considered one of the best, depending on what the player is looking for.

I can confidently say that you would fit in to the 2nd category. This is because in the 0.2.1 post you referenced how CK's early graphics were "really rough and the programming itself is a mess of spaghetti code and tech debt..." Some of which I got to experience myself. This showcases a rough start as well as growth and development on your part as a developer. You are able to recognize the mistakes you've made in the past as well as make efforts to correct and learn from them. Skills that are invaluable to have.

The graphics (and code) were rough in the beginning because you were new and had only "...two weeks' worth of experience with Ren'Py and Koikatsu..." This is something everyone goes through no matter what it is they're doing. Whether they're actors, writers, painters, comedians, or... Game developers. No matter what, their beginnings will always be rough. Their early works will always be bad and sometimes mediocre. This does not mean that they weren't enjoyable though, as is obvious by your current position and popularity. There are thousands of us here, eagerly awaiting your next move as a result of your early work enrapturing us. Now, your reasoning for the "rework" were exactly as follows in the previous paragraph. Rough graphics, spaghetti code, and tech debt. But things have changed since then. You have grown as a developer and so have the skills and equipment at your disposal.

I do believe the rework/remake was necessary. The scope of the game increased exponentially. Far past what the original foundation could handle, a remake of that foundation was made essential due to this. The story changes are unfortunately unavoidable due to bureaucratic corporate bullshit. However, I believe none of this required the graphics to change so drastically as well. 

I sincerely believe there was no need to change from the original Koikatsu graphics that you used. Take a look at the 2nd, 4th, and 5th to last images on this page. All of which are of a substantial quality. You could have remade the beginning in that style and have been perfectly fine. If you still consider the graphics of those images and the later game to be subpar, then allow me to point out a few games that use the same Koikatsu style that you moved away from. These games are, for the sake of this comment, not posted as recommendations and are instead used as evidence/possible sources of inspiration. These games include, but are not limited to, Goddesses' Whim by Ncrow, Crimson High by VertigoAVN, Goth Gasp by FrostMist, and Out of Touch by Story Anon and his team.

Each game I am pointing out for specific reasons. They are as follows:

Goddesses' Whim - I am highlighting this game for the fluidity, expressiveness, and details of the animations; the extra gameplay features, as well as the overall graphics quality. All of which made in Koikatsu with the exact same style you moved away from. As well as using Ren'Py as an engine.

Crimson High - Highlighted for its unique and very detailed facial expressions that the characters have at various points in the game. Pointing out how such a thing is possible without drastically overhauling Koikatsu's graphics.

Goth Gasp - Highlighted specifically for it's unique outfits and character design. A great portion of the outfits were custom made by the dev specifically for his game, using a program I currently do not know about, and imported into Koikatsu. Showcasing how you can use third party applications, such as photoshop to name a common example, in order to create customized assets for Koikatsu to use.

Out of Touch - Highlighted for it's graphical quality, special effects, and attention to detail. It is similar to Goddesses' Whim in this way. Renders made using a heavily modded version of Koikatsu and the devs used Unity to create a sort of "mimic" to Ren'Py. Showcases how far Koikatsu can be pushed and what exactly you can do with it. Despite the models being made in Koikatsu, they all have an incredible amount of detail.

I am pointing out all of these games for my final point in regards to the graphics. You don't necessarily need the noses to make your game stand out in particular. If you are looking for your game to stand out, this can be done in a near infinite amount of ways as I have just demonstrated. And word of mouth travels very far. The shading and lighting of the "nose" style can be applied to the default "no nose" Koikatsu style to a similar effect. Koikatsu itself can also be bent and conformed to various shapes to get it to do whatever you want/need it to do. Third party applications can also aid greatly in improving the overall quality of the game, thus making it stand out even more.

And the final point overall is that you shouldn't forget where you came from and you shouldn't forget who you are. From 2 measly weeks to actual years of experience. You've come a long way from the beginning of your journey and our presence and the discourse here proves it. We were all entertained by your game, so much so, that many of us considered it one of our absolute favorites. That, is why we are so vocal in regards to recent news, especially the AI rumors. I am not one to completely act on accusations alone, but the longer things go unsaid the more I shift towards their side. I already recommended a few things you could do to rectify the rumors and maybe you've already done some of them, as I've yet to check the Discord, and the devlog on the 28th isn't out yet. Anyways, you are someone the AVN community seemingly looks up to, a very stressful and difficult position to be in. And I don't envy you for it. But you should try and stay true to yourself. True to all of the work and effort you've put into the game. And true to your fans.

Hopefully you read this. If you do, then I wish you luck and hope you succeed with whatever it is that you choose to do. Have a great day.

I seem to have broken the AI by just replaying the game and trying to guide the conversation a different way. All it does is repeat "what do you mean?" no matter what I say, even if I leave it blank and don't type anything, instead of getting the argument ending, it just continues normally and I get the meal, then the classic ending.

I managed to get every achievement that doesn't need the AI but I can no longer get achievements/endings 11, 15, 16, or 17 as I'm assuming they require the AI to be functioning and for the player to say different things.

I tried reinstalling the game but that didn't work. Not even deleting my saves worked, so the only thing I can think of is the AI history or something. Is the AI data stored locally somewhere or no? If so where can I find that and would deleting it fix it?

In case it helps the log says the specific error is a

"[Cloudflare AI ERROR]: HTTP Error 500: Internal Server Error" Which sounds like something I might not be able to fix myself. And my internet connection is stable too so I don't know if that was it or not.

Anyways, the game was pretty good when it actually worked. I just wanna know how to fix it and how I broke it so I can avoid doing that again. That way I can get the rest of the endings.

I know I know. It's a degenerate request, even worse than... h*ndh*lding... lmao.

Also I love what you did with the page. Looks fancy!

I might as well suggest that you go play Goth Gasp since I already referenced the dev and a character in it. Not too bad, I found it entertaining.

I've also got a bunch of other recommendations if you're looking for something else to play while Corrupted Kingdoms gets remade.

I just saw that progress report on Patreon and I'm glad you kept Yumi's cuteness and I'm also pretty glad she doesn't look super goth like the others (at least according to my very limited knowledge of goths) Helps make her even more unique. Everyone else has dyed hair, tattoos, more extreme clothing, and meanwhile Yumi and Noemi both look more like a classic goth with simpler/black clothes, less (or no) tattoos, and normal hair. Though I am curious if she'll wear her glasses again cause I really liked the look of those.

Also if we can't headpat her, I will cast a curse on you that will make you stub your toe sometime in the next 3 months. (This is a joke)

Welp the accusations started so I might as well stop dancing around it.

He should know that if that IS AI-generated and he's claiming its not, then it'd be significantly better for him to own up to it being AI than continuing to pretend it isn't.

The game's already in a shaky spot. And if he did in fact use AI to generate a reference sheet and proceeded to claim he "drew over the resulting outline" of a "remove everything but the outline filter." Is just not it and will only result in more people losing faith in him. I mean sure, I guess there IS the chance he drew it himself, buuuuuuut, it does look like some AI anime images I've seen a million times by now, doesn't it?

The way I see it, Arc pretty much has only 2 options here: 

Option 1 - Continue to deny that it's AI and find a way to prove, definitively, that it is in fact hand-drawn. A surefire way would've been to record himself drawing it. If he AI generates a video of him "drawing it," then that too will come with inconsistencies that can and WILL be pointed out.

Option 2 - Admit that it's AI generated and deal with the fallout.

Either way, it's not looking good for him.

Also the 2nd image of "Gwen that isn't Gwen from Corrupted Kingdoms" looks closer to what a rework would've been. Moderate model changes, hair changes, and outfit changes. Like what FrostMist did to Noemi in his game.

Soon apparently. According to dev log #43 (available for a free membership on patreon, same as following him on Itch basically), the update is now in the final stages. 

Currently, LopaPhi is just polishing a few things up while his editors edit. Then it will be sent out for translations, proofreading, and whatever else needs doing.

So uhh, the end of next month at the latest? That's my prediction at least it so could be wrong.

I'll agree that he does seem to care about it and that he's definitely made mistakes. Him caring is evident because of how he's still trying to make THIS game. He could've EASILY just given up and went "the game's dead, here's a new one I'm making" but instead he's fighting this uphill battle to try and make THIS. EXACT. GAME. (with a few slight changes to get around the "no mind control" restrictions). Which I'm honestly fine with as I did the "good" route anyways which didn't have much of that.

He definitely doesn't deserve any of this shit either. Hell, almost none of these indie AVN devs really do. But life still fucks them over with illness, deaths, restrictions, jobs deciding to quadruple mandatory overtime, politics, and whatever the hell else it can pull out anyways.

That being said, he definitely could've communicated better. His "rework" looked more like a remake right off rip for instance. Reworks usually just make something function similarly without changing it too much. But he completely changed the graphics, character designs, and planned on changing the story too which could've had clearer communication. Him reworking it due to code was valid tho.

It's just sad what happened to this game as it's what I would consider one of the Legendary AVN's of Years Past. Hell, I think it was one of the ones that brought me in to the whole AVN scene to begin with. I don't really want to wait ~2 to 3 years for the game to reach the same place it used to be in. And right now, I also kind of just want to not think about this game for a little while. Especially since this page is just a reminder of how good the past was.

The downgraded remake is only if the people vote for it. Which is looking more and more likely as time goes on. It's looking like its gonna be the ugly ass noses and faces, that just straight up look weird and unnerving, that gets selected. Though it's only been an hour or two since the poll was posted so *shrug* no clue really.

To be honest, I'd rather see the game remade in DAZ or something else if people/the dev wants it to go to Steam. Not that suspicious "hand-drawn" style or the "nose" style.

But yeah, I'm kinda done with it. I don't really want to suffer through the uncanny faces if/when the remake comes out. The game was good but I've played Koikatsu games with those noses before and they weren't something I could get used to or ignore. Unlike the DAZ faces which I actually COULD get used to. And then the "hand-drawn" style that causes feelings of suspicion is a "no" for an obvious reason.

I still wish Arc luck in his future endeavors though. Even if I myself might not be there for them as I'd instead be playing different games.

Well it actually turns out he's giving the players the option of the game MAYBE going to Steam.

At the cost of a hand-drawn style that I'm incredibly skeptical about for certain reasons. Reasons, which if I'm wrong about, make me a massive asshole but if I'm right about them, then it will probably trigger a huge debate.

But judging from the current results of the poll, it's either going to be ugly noses or the hand-drawn style I find suspicious.

The dev mentioned he's increasing the early access window (the time the game remains in early access). His reasons for it is that he needs money if he wants to develop the game full-time and by incentivizing more people to subscribe he gets exactly that.

He originally tried to do an early access release on Itchio as well but that wasn't exactly possible due to how buying games on Itchio works. He believed it was unfair for people to get infinite early access for about $20 on Itch while people on Patreon needed a constant subscription for the same benefit. He wanted to try and emulate that subscription on Itch but that didn't work because Itchio just doesn't work that way. So the increased early access time is basically his way to incentivize more people to subscribe so he can make more money and thus put more time and effort into the game, instead of whether or not he can pay the next bill.

I have two complaints about it. One is because I'm selfish and want it now but now I have to wait longer before getting it >:(

And the other is an ACTUAL, REAL complaint and not me being a selfish asshole. And that is that it isn't 4 weeks/28 days. It's instead 4 weeks + 3 days (so a FULL 31 days until the public release) Which feels a little extra annoying tbh. That essentially means it no longer releases on a Saturday like it would have before and it now releases on a Tuesday instead. Most people that I know of seem to have Saturdays and Sundays off which would give them plenty of time to play that update but almost nobody has Tuesday off of work. And since the game has decently inconsistent release times that means most people won't get to play the latest update until after they get out of work. I mean, I'd at least be a little disappointed if I checked Itchio, saw a new update was out, and then it was time for me to go to work or class or school or whatever. But that could also just be me.

I just barely started this game, but I can say that you are doing some really unique things with the animations and transitions. MC jumping off a building, Iris pulling up the intro scene, the camera following the car and transitioning to 6 years later. All of them have piqued my interest because you don't normally see this many animations.

Powerful women as in they all are very skilled in magic as well as high up in a political hierarchy. 

So far no femdom at all (other comment says there's one scene that kind of is, woops). Though I wouldn't doubt the possibility of there being some femdom in the game in the future, preferably optional. As it AND its maledom counterpart are surprisingly common fetishes in these games as I've discovered.

I do believe that there IS setup for maledom in the future though with a specific character named "Anwen" who has some fantasies about it. Oh and the game also includes a harem route. Also took a look at your comments and saw that you dislike lesbian content, so I should mention the game has setups for some of that too. When it reaches that point, I believe you can discourage and most likely prevent a "lesbian-yet-still-in-the-harem" style relationship between two of the characters. Where they are both with each other AND you/the MC.

Putting this in markdown mode cause I don’t really want to spoil it for people who haven’t reached it yet.

Maybe you could eventually do what Story Anon did with Out of Touch and just add them later? Or commission/find someone to do them for you? Though that has its own problems like the cost and you have to hope whoever you pay can make them on time. Or just have them made and throw them in at a later date...

Ehh, I don't really care all too much about the animations. I just like some movement every now and then as it makes the game feel more alive. (Which admittedly you already do quite a bit of that with some of the stuff that goes on in the background as well as a lot of the conversations and expressions the character's have.)

And thank you for fixing it so quickly.

It works now. Thank you.

I even took the time to check EVERY character and they all worked.

I went into AppData and deleted all my old saves before playing the new update and I started playing from the very beginning. I got those errors whenever I tried interacting with those characters.

Just now, I started another new game and still got the same errors, so I don't really know what the cause is. In case it somehow matters and might be breaking things I choose the default name, pounds, and then centimeters.

That's the error I get for Venom, Whatever Mei's new name is, Scarlet, and Gwendolyn.

A bunch of the characters seem bugged. Whenever you click on the "check" button for any character in the east side it gives you an error saying that the label "Scarlet" (Or whatever the character's name is) cannot be found.

So I'm just gonna try and erase this game from my memory because I'm finding absolutely zero ways to reliably deal with some of the shit this game throws at you. 

Catzilla has to be the worst boss I've ever faced in any game I've ever played. The wandering/random bosses (sometimes) annihilate you unless you're prepared specifically for them, The Hunter was the only one I found actually manageable. And the most recent one I encountered, The Factory, seems like it matches Catzilla in it's bullshittery.

If you grind early game enemies for money and xp, Catzilla comes up when you hit level 50 and takes HALF of whatever you gave to Hizi if it wins (It WILL win and you WILL lose 300K+ xp). So you try to keep yourself below level 50 until you have enough items and throw whatever xp puts you over level 50 into Hizi, but surprise! The Factory (which IS an optional fight) levels itself up to MATCH Hizi's level... Cause why not... And the items are completely random and require absurd amounts of grinding in order to choose what rarity you get. 95% of the common items are either jokes or completely worthless, the rare items kind of help, and the legendary items are actually game changing but good luck getting them if you have real shitty luck.

If I EVER come back (highly unlikely), it'll be because I grabbed the cheat codes from the discord and only wanted to see what they did. As well as what the rest of the game is like. I originally wanted to play it legitimately this time around but... just read the like 10 comments I posted recently on this game and you'll find out why I'm actually giving up on this game. 

TLDR for those comments: Balancing's pretty bad. Difficulty spike is vertical and NEVER stops going up. The enemies get more resources and tools than you EVER do. Dev's response was basically him completely ignoring all talks about difficulty with what is basically a "git gud" Lord Farquad meme.

Edit: Replaced/removed unnecessary swears. I'll admit, this was uncharacteristic of me. Yet what I said still holds true. What I said were still valid criticisms, they were just hidden underneath a small cloud of rage from me writing them immediately after playing the game and getting screwed over by it. And I will not be taking them back. If you enjoy this game, then good for you. But I genuinely do not and every response I've gotten has been ignoring that fact. The fact that I find everything that this game does to you, a detriment to the player's enjoyment. That is all.

Hang on a minute. You thought losing HALF OF YOUR META PROGRESSION (Hizi's levels) and Catzilla returning "Stronger" was "recoverable?!" 

Level 55 -> 27 is  OVER THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND (300,000) XP LOST TO A RANDOM BOSS. A boss which you CAN BARELY PREPARE FOR. I mean, you know its coming but your prep time is completely rng dependent. 

I say this with the most amount of respect I can muster. You HAVE to be a masochist... There is no other explanation as to how you find something like THAT "recoverable." Because in ANY other game THAT is game ending. Better off starting from scratch. THAT is equivalent to your 4 best soldiers dying in XCOM and you losing everything they had equipped to them (your best gear).

I mean, it's not entirely "random" as it shows up when you hit level ~50, so when you hit level ~50 you KNOW it's going to pop up. But whatever fight it takes over IS completely random. 3 tanks? You're fucked because everyone's bleeding now. 3 drainers? Manageable. 3 Healers? Manageable. God forbid you get ANY fight with a tank or tinkerer in it because starting the Catzilla fight with bleeding AND a 50% heal reduction is a guaranteed loss. Not to mention in its second stance the Head removes one of your characters until the stance ends IN ADDITION to draining A PERCENTAGE of their xp. You can technically free whatever character it steals if you damage it, but oh wait. You can't! Because BOTH of the Hands are taunting and have about 2K health... My Red was level 62 and she was losing over 8000 xp a round. Enough to level up ALL of Catzilla's parts INSTANTLY. Not to mention IT FUCKING HEALS ALL THE PARTS FROM IT TOO. The fuck am I supposed to do to that? I can kill the tail the next time it cycles back to the first stance, but by then each part is over level 60, and all of my characters are bleeding, crippled, burning, and half health. Meaning I have to choose between mending, defending, or taunting. All of which are almost guaranteed to do nothing to help fend off my impending demise.

You SHOULD be mad at this fight by the way. In my opinion this is the epitome of bad design. It's not difficult in any way that actually matters. Nor does it have any unique mechanics other than the dual stances. It's just "difficult" for the sake of being difficult. The tail and hands all have about 2K health, the head has roughly 3K AND drains AND applies the stolen xp to EVERY SINGLE PART (meanwhile your drain doesn't do the same, despite it making sense for it to do so. I mean it's technically a SINGLE entity. If it copies the stolen xp and gives it to each part, then each part should LOSE any xp drained by me. I shouldn't GAIN that xp as it'd mean quadrupling the xp I get from draining it and making it the best farmable enemy in the game, but the parts should still lose it.) AND heals every single part for HUNDREDS of health EACH TIME IT DRAINS YOU, the tail also applies AOE burns to your whole party, and heavy hitting single target burns as well, one hand applies burn (because there isn't enough in the fight as is), and the other applies bleed (yippee), the legs have roughly 3 - 4K hp as well and deals about 350 damage a hit. 

It's a fight basically meant to fuck you and put you back to the start of the game. If the dev's intentions were a "Mr. X" type of impossible fight it could've been done WAY better than this. As it stands, the Catzilla fight isn't "recoverable" because that would imply it doesn't click the "reset timeline" button FOR you. Taking away HALF of Hizi's levels is way too harsh of a punishment for losing what might be a quite literally impossible fight. Not to mention its horrible balancing.

Running or reloading every fight until you get one that's actually manageable ISN'T FUN. It's not really all too upsetting it's just NOT FUN. Every fight shouldn't require you to retreat, refresh, or trudge through it to squeeze out a win. You also shouldn't have to min-max a standard fight either. Almost every single average player is being pushed away from the game because you NEED to min-max fights just to win.

I mean, how am I supposed to deal with 3 Tipsy Ghosts (all with a 35% chance to dodge physical attacks) at the same time? It's doable, sure, but it's just NOT FUN TO DO. That fight requires constantly taunting with Vix and Sam, draining them as close as you can get to level 1 with Red, and then either killing all 3 at the same time or killing 2 of them 3 times so they can't be revived anymore.  Items make that SIGNIFICANTLY easier to deal with but in order to get them, you gotta win fights and grind for money, then gamble on lootboxes for one of the very few items that actually help you. 

It's just not a good gameplay loop imo. It's an infinite uphill battle where the enemies constantly have the advantage over you. Even if YOU somehow gain the advantage they just take it back through some random bullshit. You can and will eventually win the war of attrition but dear god is it painful, not fun, and just straight up bad design. There's very few fights that actually FEEL like fair fights, the rest are just you punching a brick wall until your hands shatter, waiting months for them to heal, returning to punch the wall again, and it EVENTUALLY breaking down after years of punching the same wall. Or (after punching a few walls down) walking into Home-Depot, buying a random toolbox, and HOPING it comes with a sledgehammer in it.

If you enjoy min-maxing every single fight. Making sure that EVERY SINGLE action is used to the BEST of its ability then sure, have fun. But the majority of people don't. Especially if it's quite literally fight #3 that requires min-maxing. You're supposed to be slowly lead INTO that. Library of Ruina for instance starts getting complicated as all hell past Urban Plague and it SLOWLY leads you into upgrading and perfecting your decks before that point. Every fight in that game gives you MORE resources and tools at your disposal. Meanwhile this game actively gives them to the ENEMIES instead and just hopes you can figure out how to deal with it. 

The dev's recent response makes it even worse. A meme that can basically be summed up as "git good," ONE actual balance change (big rat spawnrate), 3 tutorial prompts, and then text pretty much saying "Instead of voicing your concerns on Itchio (AKA a public space), go to the Discord, that I own, full of people who will (probably) vehemently defend me, so I can (maybe) kick you out if I don't like what you say." I've probably taken too many embellishments with this paragraph so far but that's just how it reads to me. That post really drove it home, it wasn't the dev saying something along the lines of "yeah, ok sure, I GUESS I can add some stuff to make it easier for you all." Instead he basically said to just deal with it. He can add/change things to make the game easier without ruining the overall experience. Hell it doesn't even need to be forced on you, just make it all optional. Summons were optional in Elden Ring. The Scadutree Fragments are technically optional too in its DLC. They are there to make the game easier for those that want to use them. They don't compromise the vision of the game at all, they're just there for players to use if they want to.

Meanwhile the closest you get in this game is Gaze, where it feels like you'll get screwed over and locked into a bad ending for using its mechanics to get stronger. That's not the same as the ones in Elden Ring. There should be an opposite to Gaze where you get substantially weaker buffs for sparing enemies instead. Hizi technically works for that but she requires so much XP for any meaningful benefits and half of them are just random chances anyways whereas Gaze's buffs are actual flat stat increases. Significantly more reliable than Hizi's as they don't trigger off of random chances.

I promise I have not been thinking about them in singular terms. It's just incredibly annoying when every enemy has about 3 to 5 counters to anything I do. Whether its to them or someone else. 

The fights shouldn't be a constant back and forth and the enemies shouldn't have infinite loops that can only be broken by completely rng stuns. Multiple enemy comps can only be defeated with extra turns or powerful items which require you to defeat enemies to get. And the random boss encounters are sometimes instant losses because you just straight up aren't prepared to fight them. 

Every enemy type has their weaknesses that you can exploit but every enemy type shores up the weaknesses of another and sometimes multiples of the same type completely negates their own weaknesses. Tinkerers are the biggest offenders because they literally fill all roles at once. Drain totems are immediately your #1 priority as they drain from everyone and funnel it into a singular enemy which powerlevels them, barricades next as they completely gimp anything you want to do, and mending totems are actually worthless and I usually ignore them as I can easily out DPS the healing they do. The overhealth cap helps a little with infinite healing loops, and the revival cap helps a shit ton as it means you can permanently remove enemies without breaking them. 

Every single fight I've done so far in this update, I've won by focusing them down one at a time until they literally can't be revived anymore. I stun whatever enemies would screw me over the most in the moment, divert attention to my characters with the most health, drain the most annoying enemies as close to level 1 as possible, then one or two-shot them as many times as I can as it distracts every enemy in the process. I save-scum the hell out of the game every single time I encounter a composition that is actual torture to fight or a boss I just don't want to deal with. If it's 2 healers (or mages/drainers) and a tinkerer and the first thing the tinkerer does (assuming both of my stuns failed to land) is shit out a 1K health barricade, I refresh the page because its genuinely faster and more rewarding than retreating or trudging through that fight. The enemies are too widespread in their skills, this wouldn't be a problem if there were more ways that the player could use early on to get stronger. But there aren't. Magic attackers are ALSO healers. Buffers/Supports are ALSO drainers. Tanks are ALSO damage dealers. And Tinkerers are the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen and I hate them with every fiber of my being. Every single enemy can counter roughly 3 of the actions you can take with each character each turn and the only way to do what they do to you is with items. 

I think its mainly that the early game is just too much of a pain in the ass to deal with and it just doesn't feel fun. It gets better as you go through and get the ball rolling but it takes considerable effort to actually GET that ball rolling.

It was the only way I didn't have to slog through hours of fights just to experience a miniscule amount of the game. Basically what I did in version 1.1 was get Red to level 100 as quickly as possible by mass draining everything. Then I swept through every fight getting Sam and Vix to level 100 as well, drained every boss as close to level 1 as I could get them, killed them all normally, and THEN broke them just to see what would happened. The result was the fight against Darkness. A level 100 superboss that drains the fuck out of your whole team every turn and by like turn 10 or something you're either dead or level 1 again.

No clue if that whole thing was changed in version 1.2 though.

Anyways I just don't think that's how the fights should be. A constant back and forth of

->Drain ->get drained ->repeat

->Damage enemy ->enemy is healed to full ->repeat

->Do anything ->thing is countered by enemy ->repeat

Is just not very fun. I mean I've played games where the odds are as stacked against you as they could possibly be (Evil West on Evil difficulty for instance) and that was WAY more fun than this because no matter how hard the enemies hit me, no matter how many times I got my ass whooped, I still felt like I had a chance against them. Sure the enemies were tanky, sure they could heal to full in seconds, but I had the tools I needed to counter them and it DIDN'T feel like a never-ending pointless battle, every kill, every action I took made ACTUAL progress in the fight. The fights were actually tense and thrilling (which is admittedly hard to do in a text based RPG so that's a moot point) and not a boring back and forth.

This isn't a bad game per se, but it needs balancing imo, it needs some more stuff to give the player some extra OOMPH. And I think that every enemy shouldn't have a counter to every ability/strategy that YOU have. Each enemy needs a more PRECISE specialization and YOU need to figure out what abilities YOU have that counters THEIR'S. NOT the other way around. It's like it's trench warfare and I'm fighting for hours, sometimes DAYS, just to gain a single foot of ground at the cost of thousands of soldiers. It isn't fun. Plain and simple.

Still, it's more balanced than Tales of Mystra though. Once again, those who know, know. And I will not elaborate.

Add Catzilla to my list of grievances. A boss (seemingly encountered at level 50) that TAKES OVER the current encounter with little to no time to prep for it, burns the fuck out of you, and has a consume move that drains THOUSANDS of xp per turn and gives it to all of its parts is really fun. It should give you a full round to buff and prep for it as it "walks" up to you, the head shouldn't be able to attack AND have someone "consumed" at the same time, and the burn attack needs a cooldown as the only way to cure it is to wait for it to wear off or defend which wastes a precious turn that could be used for DPS or stuns instead...

Also, another good point for this game. The Hunter's Flashbang DOESN'T create a blinding white light, it instead makes the screen completely black for a bit instead. Thank you for that, it's actually really kind of you. This part is not sarcasm even if it sounds like it due to the previous paragraph.

Ok after playing 1.2 for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that none of the strategies work because every enemy has the ability to undo ANY progress made in the fight in a single turn.

Every fight's basically a puzzle instead of a fight but they're all REALLY annoying puzzles that take actual years to complete. Complete, not solve. You can get the solution in a few seconds, but it requires a trillion turns to successfully do. The enemies ARE predictable... until they aren't. Taunt enemies most likely taunt once someone reaches 50%, mage enemies barrier with the same trigger, healers heal on it too. Healers seem to prioritize reviving over everything else but that'll never happen because the second someone reaches half health, a taunt gets put up, a barrier gets applied, the guy gets healed to 150% of their max HP, and the rat builds a fucking barricade with almost a THOUSAND HEALTH at level 16. (I think there can only be 4 enemies at once so that technically can't happen, but barricades taunt and there's enemy compositions with a healer imp, a slime mage, and a rat so the point still stands) 

The ONLY way to deal with half of this shit are with items. Items that you only get from winning fights and buying them from the shop. Which usually take 50 bajillion turns to win because every enemy can do 5 different things to counteract anything that you can do. 

It's not really a good feeling at all. I mean, I just had a fight that I THOUGHT I could win until the rat shat out a 950HP Lvl 16 Barricade which gave the mage enough time to drain the fuck out of my team... How is that even fair? I need money to counter this shit, but in order to get money I need to win fights, but winning fights requires countering this shit, and in order to counter this shit I need items OR to gamble and hope I hit a 25% stun 80 times in a row (statistically impossible btw) before the rat/tinkerer completely removes any and all strategy with a SINGLE barricade or structure. I can no longer decide what to do because I HAVE to attack and kill the barricade before I am allowed to do anything else or I NEED to kill the drain totem or else everyone hits lvl 1 and I die.

The game's unique in it's concept but I can't say that the execution is good at all. It needs some heavy balancing or something. I mean you've put effort into it and it looks good and all, but dear god is it painful sometimes. I find myself refreshing the page every time I get a wandering boss because it's a guaranteed loss without the proper items. Like the tutorial pretty much says something along the lines of "prioritize your targets" but that's completely irrelevant when EVERY enemy is top priority. When EVERY enemy on the field is level 20, and EVERY enemy has 10 different ways to screw you over, how do you decide which one to kill first? There are NO weak links, no weaknesses to exploit. And the ones that are there take a long time to actually exploit them. And increasing you level barely helps at all because the levels of the enemies you fight is the AVERAGE of yours. I feel like a complicated math equation is probably required to determine the level of the enemies.

However, I do have to give this game props on a few things. This game's balancing is STILL better than Tales of Mystra's balancing (Those who know know). And no I will not elaborate on that. The idea is also very cool and I DO like that about it. I also need to mention that it's probably not a very good feeling seeing someone write all of... this. About a game you made, but at the same time it's necessary. It's a necessary evil because you, as a game dev, need to know what went right and what went wrong so you can improve. User feedback is incredibly important even if you don't always look forward to getting it. I'm sorry.

Gonna be honest. I wish there was a gallery of some kind. I remember in the first version you could open the images into new tabs and that made it super easy to see all the difference between stages and make comparisons, now you kinda just have to give and take xp from your team and there's not an easy way to do it once you reach the extreme xp totals later on.

Your comments helped me here. I was literally about to ask if the dev rebalanced the game or added some form of difficulty options to give the player a fighting chance. But after reading your comment it sounds like they didn't.

The game's neat and all, and it's honestly the only one of its kind that I know of, but dear god did it take forever to do anything the last time I gave the game an honest try. 

In the 1.0 update the healers were the biggest issue because they'd infinitely heal both their friends and themselves. In addition to that they'd sometimes decide that 80% HP was enough to heal an ally and give them something like 35 overhealth depending on the level of the healer. You literally could not kill them without breaking them. At the time there was no punishment for it so it was the ONLY way to kill 3-stacked healers without bashing your head off of your desk for two hours per fight because with my luck EVERY fight was against 3 healers.

Then 1.1 came around which rebalanced a lot of the game. I think in 1.1 when you drain and stun I think the chances/power goes up each time you target the same target. But the enemies get that buff too so each time they drain you it goes up by like 5% which just results in a back and forth until you accidentally break an enemy. Which is bad now and you actively get punished for it with an ultra nightmare difficulty superboss if you do it to the bosses of the game and some other stuff if you do it to the basic enemies.

I barely even played 1.1 because it just felt like more of the same where you HAD to break enemies to win fights but now you got your balls crushed for it as punishment. Stuns were also super unreliable as it was a 50% chance that'd decrease if the enemy was higher level and increase if you were a higher level. There's some gear in the shop that is pretty much REQUIRED to win any fight, specifically the item that gives your character TWO TURNS as that means double stun, heal, or drain which is absolutely necessary to outscale the enemies. The problem is, it's legendary and you pretty much need 3 of them.

I'm still gonna try 1.2 but this does not give me high hopes that I'll enjoy it. So far it DOES seem like overhealth was mostly solved as everyone has a cap of 3x their max health.

I thought she was a boar? Though when she explains her origins, Tanuki definitely fits that better than a boar.

Mid to late August or early to mid September is my estimate. The update was sitting around 70 to 75% complete around June 17th. So it might be around 80% complete by now.

Tales of Mystra is by Orachi. Similar stuff to Nick Sav. It's balancing's a bit of a mess (or I'm just a dumbass, no clue tbh) and some of the stuff in this game reminded me of it. It's rare to get a proper RPGMaker Growth game so I was just trying to throw out a warning or word of advice or something is all.

Also both the artist and you get 3 pats on the back, maybe 4, then. Cause I'm imagining the base looked good and all your edits do look pretty good.

Honestly after playing Tales of Mystra, I can understand why you'd want to save game balancing for last. The balancing in that game is pretty bad and it's almost impossible to get strong enough to do anything. Too many enemies that 1-shot, too many enemies who are practically immortal, the world level being hard to compete against, etc.

HOWEVER, I don't recommend saving it for last. When the full game's out it's gonna be pretty boring when every enemy gets 1-2 tapped. So I'd say try to do it as you go, but include a few items/settings that lower difficulty and makes fights substantially easier. AND a warning that makes it abundantly clear that the fights may or may not be balanced.

Also as another suggestion please make the menu sounds separate from the actual sounds in the options menu so I can lower their volume. Selecting something in the menus is sometimes really loud compared to combat, walking, the intro cutscenes, and growth scenes.

Anyways, good stuff so far. I'm decently intrigued by it and I very much enjoy the character designs. Whoever did the pixel art for the characters did a good job btw. Unless it was an Ai in which case it only gets 1 pat on the back instead of 3.

I actually think it’s just returning to its normal pacing. Looking at 0.38, 0.39, 0.40, 0.41, and 0.42​ they average at about 13 to 16 thousand words and 200 to 300 renders.

0.43 didn’t have too much going on but it did have some lore, worldbuilding, and some chatter with the girls.

0.44 and 0.45 however were both completely filled with lots of seemingly important worldbuilding and lore.

0.46’s beginning felt like it could’ve been cut off from 0.45, especially since that had multiple cliffhanger opportunities itself.

0.47 most likely includes something similar (haven’t played it yet) and is probably just a bunch of chattin/hangin out with the girls. With some lore/minor/medium reveal at the end.

Oh trust me, I know how it all works. I've been in the AVN scene long enough to know that quality takes time. And judging from the ones I play (Eternum, Nature of Magic, Wild Cats), I much prefer quality over quantity and I'm sure a great deal of others think the same.

So take your time to make something you're proud of and people will notice. That I can almost guarantee.

Surprisingly 2 months was my first guess but I changed it cause that felt like a bit of a rush for peak.

1.2 part 2 JUST came out so it'll be at least 3 months.

Enemies kill each other and level up off of it. They used to level up WAY too fast but now it's kind of on the slower side.

What used to happen is that by the time day 2 or 3 rolled around almost every enemy would be level 8 or 9 and instakill you and it left you very few opportunities to level up yourself. The dev changed it in one of the recent updates but made it a bit too slow imo. Now it seems like enemies take way longer to reach even level 5 unless there's a trillion bases next to one another. 

It feels like the world gets populated WAY too fast which results in the enemies just beating the shit out of each other and powerleveling. By the time day 2 rolls around you start seeing way too many level 8s and 9s and if you touch one of them you just explode and get sent back to 100cm. 

And I'm pretty sure the level 8s and 9s are like 1000 meters tall because only their feet are in view and 95% of their body is offscreen so there's absolutely no way for the player to win at all considering all of their glyphs are about 1000+ in strength.

Also Amiya only has 1 item in stock and I don't know if it's supposed to be that way until she gets bigger. (Turns out finishing her quests allows her to grow larger AND get more items in stock, HOWEVER her second quest wants "some basic glyph scrolls" which is quite vague as it doesn't specify a number or specific type like attack, shield, split, etc. in the quest log.)

Edit: Loading a save bugs out the save slot, whenever you try to save to the bugged slot it fails and keeps the old save that was already there. Loading ANY slot, deletes the old save in the bugged slot, and then successfully overwrites it with the new one you tried to make previously.

I believe the free room only heals up to 50% of your max HP. If you want to heal back up to 100% you've gotta pay for the premium one.