itch.io

Thanks again for the help! I'm sorry to say I haven't been able to reach the end (I'm having a really hard time with the navigation, haha), but I think I've seen most of the game now!

I enjoyed the dual-character concept, controlling them with a keyboard felt pretty smooth! It's been great discovering their different personalities, too, and seeing them interact.

The tea party scene is probably my favourite so far. It was adorable! (Though I think I accidentally picked one of the animals back up and couldn't drop it?)

A detail I really liked how the music all came from in-universe devices. And the rear-view mirror on the car. (The hand-drawn map is an awesome idea too, though sadly I struggled to get around in spite of it!)
Lots of cool/mysterious sights to see overall, it creates a lot of atmosphere and intrigue! 

I really love the concept for this game, and the art/writing/audio came together super nicely!! Great work! 👏❤

There's just one thing I was wondering about: what does the empty speech bubble at the end represent? (At first I thought it was a bug, but I tried replaying and hit it again in the same spot!)

Yeah, I think you must be right (I was playing in the browser). Like someone else mentioned, I did enjoy the art and some of the interactions, before getting stuck!

I think there might be a problem with the dragging mechanic! I got all the flowers into Figure 1, but then most of them became unresponsive (and I think they might be blocking something, since it won't let me select the "fig. 1" text at all anymore)

Oh, thanks for the response, I'll try that! I had attempted to get out of the car a few times and it was refused, but maybe I wasn't parked in quite the right spots!

I'm enjoying the game so far, but I can't seem to figure out how to find people (after the alarm section)!

Ha, that's interesting! Mission accomplished, then (?)!
I remember the clock in particular feeling uncanny compared to the rest, but that was just perfect for its role in the story and added nicely to the mood. 👌

The game just popped up in the "New From Those You Follow" section on my front page and I got curious, haha.

Very cool concept and execution! It was great exploring the different endings and the story's themes (I thought the assets came together really well too).

Hi! I really love the concept for this game (and the art looks so lovely), but I had trouble playing it because it was very slow on my end! A few of my friends told me they had the same problem.

I just tested it on Firefox and it seems to behave really differently there (much smoother/faster) than it does on Chrome, so I wonder if there's a browser issue that could be fixed somehow?

Hey, it worked (I sent the message)!
Fun concept, and it was neat seeing the little variations in responses/options!

Thanks for sharing the code, I enjoyed having a peek at it! (I was motivated to snoop because I was curious to see if anything more was going to happen, haha—but it did feel like a fairly complete experience despite being a prototype, considering the subject matter!)

Lovely graphics and interesting concept! The pace and tone of the conversation felt very true to life, too. The topics gave me a lot to think about.

At first I was surprised by the shift in available choices, but I loved the insight it gave into the character's inner world and development, especially the last couple of them.

P.S.: mint chocolate chip is my favourite!

I forgot there was a 2nd ending until I read your comment! I was confused about it for a while too, but I eventually found it. (It's linked to exploration rather than skills, and it was interesting to see, though it's ultimately a very similar outcome to the 1st ending.)

Just finished my playthroughs, I took a few notes and wrote down a couple of suggestions in case it can be helpful:

Favourite points

• The gameplay loop felt satisfying and well-balanced (and pretty fair despite the perma-death)!
  
  
• The visuals and audio were nice and came together well to create atmosphere!
  
  
• The premise was cool and intriguing, and really made me wonder about the backstory!
  
  
• I appreciated that the recharge was instant!
  
  
• The mechanics for item collection worked well! I loved how easy they were to pick up, without too much fiddling to step in just the right spot.

Suggestions & bug report

• I would have liked to see some kind of distance indicator for the “navigation” upgrades, maybe indicated by transparency? It might also be nice to make the dot for the machine just a little more visually distinct from the valuables dots!
  
  
• The upgrade system seemed well thought-out overall; the one exception, IMO, is the Idle upgrade path, since in the current version of the game there’s never any reason to stand still. I expected that upgrade path to either lead to an actual “Recovery” skill (energy regen) as implied by the name, or else to have some kind of effect on the ending?
  
  
• Related to the previous point, the “destroy the machine” ending drained my energy almost instantly, which seemed to conflict with my Idle upgrade; I feel like it might be more logical and impactful to just let the player do stuff normally after destroying the machine, but then eventually die from lack of recharging (except with the special ending screen instead of the normal death screen)? Unless the intention was to show that all of our abilities (even while unplugged) rely on the machine in order to work—that would be valid, though it’s not the impression I got during gameplay.
  
  
• I didn’t have any particular thoughts on the 2nd ending, but I would love to see an expanded version of the game someday with a little more to do and maybe a possibility of getting more information and “closure”, since both of the endings so far leave a lot of unanswered questions! (I wouldn’t expect a fully happy ending or anything, but it could be great if there were some nuances based on how much we manage to achieve or discover)
  
  
• It would also be cool if we could eventually enter the houses, or at least try to!
  
  
• I noticed a small layering issue for the houses: when I stepped where the roof was, I appeared in front of it instead of behind.

Final thoughts

I thought this was a very enjoyable game overall, well done! I’d be curious to hear if you have any plans to develop it further (or explore a similar concept/gameplay in other games).

Thanks for sharing all that behind-the-scenes info, it was a super interesting read (and your reasoning makes a lot of sense)!! I'm so glad my feedback could be helpful! Looking forward to the next releases even more now that I know what's in store. 🙂

I just finished my playthrough—it was fun! Here's my score so far:

I took notes as I was playing and tried to organize them into a list below. Some of my points are similar to the first commenter's thoughts (and you've already addressed those in your reply),  but I included them anyway just in case!

Issues or points of confusion

- During the first conversation of the game, I was clicking to speed up the text, and when the choice appeared it automatically chose for me! It felt like that might be a bug (on a related note, I would have liked to see an option to have all the text appear instantly). 

- I gather that equipment from the humans (whether it's weapons or armor) is all used the same (eating it to attack)?  I was confused because the description of some of the armor seems to imply that you can equip it,  but I couldn't figure out how to interact with the equipment slots on the slime character screen! (Unless those are there as a joke? I did notice it had things like "legs" and "feet" hahaha)

- I had some trouble understanding or remembering the relative strength of different items. For example, the potion's description seems to imply that it heals less than the seed ("tiny amount of health" vs. just "heals you"), but it seemed to be the other way around when I used them? Some items also felt like they should be a different level than they are (in particular I was surprised that the Elven dagger was the same level as the basic knives).

- I had some confusion around the eating concept; I think they eat the items during combat, but the text after the first battle (I think that's where it was?) seemed to imply that they ate the loot as they were collecting it? Then there's the "we need to get food for the village" plot, which seems to indicate we should save the items for eating and not use them too much in combat if possible (is that going to be a mechanic later on?)

- I was surprised that the cooldown for special moves doesn't reset between battles! Was that an intentional choice? I don't think it's necessarily a bad one, but it was different from what I'm used to (and it made me wonder if I should try to "stall" battles in order to decrease my cooldowns before the next fight)

-  Playing on Chrome with a keyboard and mouse, the drag-and-drop gave me some trouble (especially between belt and bag); the item would very often slip out of my "hand" and jump back to its previous position. But I did appreciate being able to just click on an item and then click in a different spot to move/swap, once I figured out how to make that work (and that mode worked really well for me)!

- I had a bit of trouble understanding affinities. It seems like the word is used both for "strengths" and "weaknesses" (and maybe also "resistances", unless I misunderstood)? I started out mostly ignoring them in the first few battles, then eventually started experimenting and had fun trying to optimize them offensively—at least for matching weapon to slime, since I didn't fully figure out the rest of the system. But I struggled with equipping Tanko and Helen! I loved the existence of the scrolls for healing the whole party, those were nice to have as a backup on Helen (though I couldn't tell if they would be able to revive KO'd slimes or not, and they seemed so rare that I never ended up using them). But Tanko in particular was a bit problematic for me despite being my favourite, because he can't really do much while his ability is on cooldown (no support options other than his special ability) and his weapon strengths are so limited (with lots of overlap with other slimes who are better attackers).

- I would have loved a way to access the settings in the pause menu! (Or else just an easy and clear way to save my game, so that I can quickly visit the menu and then hop back in without losing progress)

- I started out just using the keyboard, and it felt confusing at first! It got much better once I switched to mouse (and I enjoyed playing through the rest of the game using the mouse), but I realized later that the option to have information appear when selecting something with the keyboard was off (which explained why I was so confused at first). I wonder if it could be a good idea to have it on by default?

- Very minor note but it took me a while to notice that the enchanted silver arrow had water damage; it might be nice if it had a slightly more magical or water-y appearance? The other enchanted weapons all looked great to me, it was just the water arrow!

A few small typos

- "it will reduce damage the damage I take" (in the tutorial fight)

- "affective" instead of "effective" (I think in the inventory tutorial?)

- "little more then a stick" (in an item description, I think the small club)

Various things I enjoyed

- It was fun seeing the slime towns (the little baby slimes running around and playing were especially cute!)

- The dev dragon

- The slimes' names (fighter, tank, mage, healer??)

- I like that the healing spell shows you who it's going to be targeting (though it took me a while to notice!)

- I also really like that we can see enemy intents! The battle system felt satisfyingly fun and strategic overall despite my earlier points (I'd love to see it developed even further).

- There seems to be a great variety of settings!

- The bag and belt system was interesting! I'm not 100% sure how I feel about having random items pulled from the pool (and refreshing them taking up a whole action), but once I got the hang of it, it did seem to work fairly well.

- I liked the way the game took me from battle to battle automatically! I would have also enjoyed more freedom to walk around, but with some control setups that can sometimes feel tedious (e.g. if I have to constantly switch my hands around between roaming sections and battle sections), so it was nice to have a more streamlined experience. A good in-between could also be to just give the player a few more options regarding where to go or what to do (even if they don't walk there manually)?

- Despite the slight confusion mentioned earlier, I really like the concept of the slimes eating loot!

- I looked at the list of planned updates and they all look really good to me (being able to sell items will be especially great)!

Final thoughts

I loved the premise and I'm curious to see where the story goes! Will they ever make peace with the humans (at least some of them)? I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for future releases! 

So cute and creative, I love it! (And it's very reassuring to know the foxes are not harmed, haha 🦊💕)

I was trying to aim for that hahaha

Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to play and for the thoughtful feedback, that's really lovely! 

It's a relief to hear that the story makes sense even without knowledge of the Poirot stories, haha (I was a little worried about that!)

And yes, that's an excellent point about the descriptions—I haven't had time to write every interaction yet (the "I heard nothing unexpected" line is a default from the parser), but my main focus for the upcoming releases is to fill out those remaining gaps with small but character-ful responses.
I don't think I had "Listen to Poirot" on my to-do list for the kitchen interactions though, that's a great idea (thanks again)!

It's awesome to hear that it's still being developed, and those ideas all sound good! I'll definitely keep an eye out for future updates (though I totally understand things going slower than intended, hahaha). Great job once again!

That's a good question about the cards! I couldn't remember if I'd already drawn them or not, but doing some very quick testing (with just a single "-3 heat for nuts" upgrade), it seems so far that:

- When cards are already in hand before buying the upgrade, it has no effect on the heat meter

- When cards are drawn after buying the upgrade, it does affect the heat meter as expected

- But in both cases, the 🔥 number on the card doesn't appear to change

As a side note, it's a very minor thing,  but when I started a "skip tutorial" run just now, I noticed that enemies sometimes have the wrong sprite during the slide-in animation—specifically, they seem to often show up as a Large raccoon when they're actually a Medium or a Nurse (I'm not sure if this happens in other battles too)!

I really really liked this, and I'd love to play more of it in the future!! Great little deckbuilder with a fun premise, and everything from the art to the audio felt very nice. The tutorial was great too (though I wish it could have explained just a little more of the battle system, e.g. when enemies take their turns, and it wasn't intuitive to me at first that I could actually use the shop mid-battle since I'm used to deckbuilders where you buy in-between fights).

My only real issue is that the shop quickly ran out of things to buy, which was a shame since it left me stuck with a somewhat bad deck and a bunch of coins I couldn't spend! Before that point I was having lots of fun with the deck-building system, especially the combo of heat/flavour management and the blackjack angle.

(I think I also found a bug where heat-adjusting upgrades didn't update the visuals properly, screenshot below) 

Awesome, I love all the changes! Nicely done!

I haven't had a chance to really use the Cloud option yet, but with the Save/Load I think my main issues were:

- At first I thought the Save button would save to my browser cookies or something similar (I didn't realize I had to save the text somewhere), and I didn't understand the text at the top & bottom of the Save page. It seems like the Save page also disappears automatically after a few seconds, instead of closing via an X or something similar?

- The Load button seemed to get "stuck" for me: after I clicked it, the text-input field stayed on the screen and wouldn't go away. I think this actually caused some confusion for me regarding the Cloud feature, since the text-input for Load blocked the one for Cloud (which made it seem like Cloud wasn't working).

I'm not sure I explained it well but I'd be happy to answer more questions if it can help!

I'm looking forward to playing a bit more when I have the time!

It's cool seeing so many different Simon variants! I was really impressed with all the customization options—being able to mix and match any pictures/sounds, adjust difficulty, adjust speed, test sound volume while changing it, etc. I think my only point of confusion was the difference between things like "input time", "delay", and "countdown" (I might have liked to have slightly more descriptive labels for those, to reduce trial-and-error!)
Nicely done! 🐉

I really love the game concept and I had a lot of fun playing through to the end! A good variety of levels and some nice quality-of-life options. Just as a suggestion, maybe it would be nice to have a visual indicator that a level is complete, in addition to the sound? It might be cool to also have a couple more sounds for things like restarting or pushing a piece!

I agree with the discussion about making the pieces more visually distinct—for me it was mostly the black pieces that were hard to identify, I wonder if one solution could be to make some of the details on the black pieces light-coloured so they're more visible (e.g. the cross on the rook)?

I enjoyed the graphics overall though, and some of the piece designs look really good (the knight was my favourite)! It was a great idea to have a halo to identify the kings.

I love clicker games and I enjoyed playing around with this! 

There are a couple of things I had issues with:
- The buttons in the store didn't seem to move when I clicked them, and I couldn't find a way to see how many coins I had (though the main button and the "shop" in the < menu were nicely responsive)
- The achievements page seemed difficult to scroll, and the X's in the corner of pages were sometimes hard to click
- I would have liked maybe a bit more explanation of how to afford different worlds or what to do with the star track
- The save system is giving me trouble, I haven't managed to get it to work!

But overall I liked the concept of having multiple worlds, and also 2 different currencies. The progression felt satisfying in the parts I got through so far!

Haha, I love that! 🤝 I've definitely been enjoying your stuff so far, I bookmarked several games for later :) Osage Orange was a cool and interesting experience (also surprisingly educational)!

What a lovely little scene! I really enjoyed the writing and the atmosphere! I'm not usually a huge fan of sound in IF, but I thought it fit very nicely here. (I also liked the "graphics", hahaha)

Well done! I had small issues with some of the interactions (and I would have loved for things like the lamp or plants to be mentioned in the general room description). But I loved the premise and I enjoyed the game! The writing has some really funny (sometimes interesting and/or adorable) moments, and the characters have great personality.

My game was already pretty much done before I found the Annual Jam—it was made for this year's IFComp, an interactive fiction competition. But the jam themes (Beyond the Surface / Hidden in Plain Sight / Everything Changes) are such a perfect fit that I was inspired to make a submission!
I'm working on improved releases for 2026, to fill out the interactions a little more and fix some stray bugs.

Ah, nice! Game jams are definitely great for that kind of thing. And yeah, a bunch of us are going through to start checking out the games and confirm they're eligible 🙂 (good luck with the showcase once it opens!)

Neat little jam game, I especially enjoyed all the fun references in the achievements!

Adorable illustrations! I loved the thoughtful (and fun) take on the curse concept 🐸 the choice of symbol at the start was a really nice touch, too!

Beautiful and very sweet, well done!

Haha, thank you!! I love all your mouse games and pictures, I'm looking forward to trying them soon 🐭

I'm a bit late to the party (got here from Narrascope) but I just wanted to say: this is great! Super intriguing horror premise, and the graphics were perfect. It's cool to know there are so many more endings to discover too.

I found the characterization and themes especially interesting – expectations of masculine appearance and behaviour, tensions between sexes, unhealthy mindsets and influences, community (or lack thereof), insecurities and self-image, etc... I'd love to hear about your thoughts/approach/inspirations, if you have anything to share! The link to real-life issues felt really impactful and I thought it raised some important questions.

Oh thank you so much for the kind comment, that really made my day!! :)
To be honest I'm a little embarrassed about my past games since I can't help noticing all the mistakes I made, but knowing that it can still resonate with people is the best feeling ever 🤍

(By the way I haven't had a chance to play your game yet but I've bookmarked it for later, it looks super cute!)

This is so cool! I absolutely love the concept and your writing is superb!

I'm not sure if I finished the game or just hit a dead-end, as I became stuck on this screen:

But regardless, I had a lot of fun trying out all the different combinations!

Thank you so much for the kind comment, it means a lot and seriously made my week!! Beyond the experimental aspect I was really just hoping to make something fun that would bring players a bit of joy, so I'm very happy to know that it managed to hit the mark 😊

I like the way that the player's helplessness is leveraged here — very thematic! A relatable and somewhat thought-provoking little game. Well done! 😊

Agreed!! Unfortunately 😅
After lots of trial and error I've found that those little advance preparations and improved habits can actually be effective for me, but it's still a huge struggle!
It's good to remember we're not alone in this! 🤝