itch.io

Is there a way to advance time without taking a nap? 

I had mixed feelings about the demo, but decided to pay for the game.  Combat is completely different from the Demo, and much more unsatisfying.  The story also starts differently than the demo.  I want the demo to be an accurate but abridged version of the game, not this bait and switch.

Magic Acadamy is a great game, I wish this had the same kind of balance between mechanics that that did

Some minor issues: Hit boxes on the customers can be finicky sometimes, especially the three tops.  Often I can't drop anything on them, or click to cash them out.  It can happen with any client, but it is worst with the groups of three

If Rai is against the wall I can click on her feet and put her somewhere else, but not her upper body.

Sometimes the panels (like the maid select, or food and drink) will start flickering or open and closing rapidly

The game has a lot of potential, but the sound effects are like the humor of a 12 year old boy.  The quacks, the use of "Gay", etc that is where you lost me

It looks like you didn't export your images with a proper alpha layer.  The hair on most characters looks wrong because the alpha channel seems to be missing. This is present on multiple characters.   Perhaps it is something else, I am just describing how it looks to me

Thats all I ask.  It sounds like a weird one, so I will understand if you can't find the cause.  I just wanted you to be aware

Good thought, but I was not.  I was playing the game just as downloaded.  If it is relevant I am on an m1 mac mini 16GB RAM, running off an external SSD.  At first I suspected some kind of rollover bug, but even if you were using a signed 8 bit int (for some season) 119 still wouldn't roll over into negative.

I don't know if this is relevant but I also had to defeat two different bosses twice.  I would get the quest to do it, go defeat them, come back deliver the item, and then a few steps later I would be told to defeat that boss again.  I honestly don't remember if the dialog supported that, but it felt odd so I wanted to mention it

Sorry for not being clear, I was saying that button was probably disabled.  I find the enabled effect fairly subtle and don't think it was enabled when I clicked it.

I did try leaving the venue and returning, I also tried progressing to another day.  I tried going on an adventure and returning.  I tried talking to all characters and then returning.  I tried visiting all locations and returning. It was only after gathering more resources and returning that I was able to progress.

Sadly I didn't think to try to gather one type of resource and check, I just went ahead and gathered everything.

I have run into what I think is a bug: In the quest The Cards are on the Table I need to give Audrey 10 iron and 15 Magic dust, and I have  201 iron and 119 magic dust... and I can't give it to her.  The game acts like I haven't enough to give (i.e. clicking on the button does nothing)

I have tried saving and reloading, saving and quitting and reloading and neither helped.

PS: I found a workaround, I had to mine more iron, and grind for more magic dust, and when I came back and tried again that time workd

It is up to you to decide if this is a done game that didn't finish all their wishlist features, or a dead game because it didn't implement what you perceive as a promise.  I take the 100%s on the progress table, and the 1.0 version number to say they achieved what they wanted to.  Your interpretation is up to you

Well it is currently listed as 1.0 and the status page at the top says everything is 100%. My guess is that it is not so much dead as don

So just how much did you use AI image generation and LLMs on this project?

Please understand I am not making a negative comment towards you, and generally prefer it when the name of the MC is selectable by the user, but what is wrong with the name Luke?

As a mac user and developer, and someone who is looking to get some experience with visual novels, I might be interested in helping you out on this.  What is the best way to get in touch with you?

How do I turn down music volume? There doesn't seem to be a settings screen as far as I can see

That is wonderful, thank you very much.  I downloaded 0.6.3 and it doesn't seem to have a skip button in the upper right corner of the screen.  Is it not in that version? Perhaps I have made some other error?

Visual Novel games like Deep Vault 69 have this bad habit of cruising along with puzzles that all seem logical and clear, then suddenly comes lockpicking.  I don't really understand what I am supposed to do there but I can fake my way thought it.  Then we get to the minesweeper game which is annoying but solvable.  Then we get to the radiation sorting game and it all seems very vauge, I have arthritis and its hard to do anything with speed, and I have more or less rage quit at that point.

These puzzles don't feel like they fit the overall feel of the game, but the radiation one especially feels like it is coming out of the blue and doesn't deserve to be as tight as it is.  I wish games like this had a skip option.  I play games like this for the plot, the "plot", and because they are turn based.  Make the puzzles turn based too please

And for the love of god no fishing minigames.  

what was the specific error? If it was about not being signed or security then open settings, go to security, scroll down, and click open anyway

You do know that your games would be better if you didn't get defensive about criticism.  You chose to publish this, and even harsh criticism  is given in the hopes of making things better.  Telling people they are wrong, or dismissing them is just missing the point

Thank you so much for this!

Between Life and Death is coming to Steam end of Aug iirc

Thank you very much for that.  I have a macro pad, and could easily do that.  It would only help with he arm wrestling though.  The fishing game is a very different story.

I was really trying to provide a critique to the developers, who spent all this time and effort developing a turn based game, putting effort into making most of the puzzles skippable, and then made the out of character decision to make these two mini games inaccessible to many, for what seems to be an in joke about the ubiquity of fishing games.

As creative people we can get too attached to our ideas, and jokes, and lose sight of what we were trying to do.  Sometimes you have to kill your darlings if they don't actually fit what you are trying to do, and I would argue the fishing game is one of those.

All that being said, I don't want to sound ungrateful.  I really appreciate you making the suggestion and will look into it for the arm wrestling

I love this game and I am about 75-80% done and I may never finish this game.  As a disabled person with arthritis, I love that most of the minigames can be skipped.  Some of us just can't do rapid button presses without a lot of pain.  That is a big part of why I picked a turn based game (well not just that ;), but I can't catch fish with any consistency and can't win at arm wrestling, and neither can be skipped... unlike almost everything else.

I wish there were some setting for people like me, or some way to skip these things, or some alternate mode or quest... or something.  I don't want to walk away, but it is too painful to continue.

And it is annoying because these things feel so out of place to the primary mechanics of this game.  

All the sex actions work, but when the meter gets full there is no option to cum or otherwise end the scene.  Is there anything I can do?

I had this problem with the first part as well.  The actual binary in the app bundle isn't marked executable.  You have open a command line (aka terminal), in the same directory as the app and then issue this command:

chmod +x EC2\ 1.0.1\ \(mac\).app/Contents/MacOS/EC2\ 1.0.1\ \(mac\)

This has nothing to do with the other security setting issue.

If you want I am happy to send you a fixed binary

There were a lot of idioms I noticed, but I really don't feel like going back over the game to make a list (sorry), my comment was more about the feedback that you should have more native english speakers as testers to get that feedback in the future.  If I ever do replay I will make that list.

But I can bring up one, and it feeds into my comment about homophobia.  "Fudge Packer" is an insult towards gay people.  Aside from gay people jokingly saying it to each other (with consent), it doesn't have any other context that I am aware of.

So you have a character repeatedly using it as a taunt, but that taunt is homophobic.  There are any number of insults you could have used instead that wouldn't have changed the intent.

But saying this is fiction, therefor implying it is ok to use that idiom is bad argument.  It had no point, there was no arc for the character using the term.  And throughout the game you conflate liking anal sex with being gay, which is at times painted as being negative.

Just because it isn't your intent, it doesn't mean that isn't the effect.  Things like racism, homophobia, etc etc should have a point to them, illustrate a point, have the character have an arc and change, spur some other character into action, etc.  If you simply include it without commentary, it comes off as authorial intent.

I did not say he marries both characters, I am saying you both marry a teenager, who you have authority over as a teacher, AND you play a minigame to impregnate her.  I am talking about the same person the whole time.  

I was saying those things were problematic AND there is content that comes off as homophobic.  It was a list of issues I had

To be clear you don't have to play it twice.  I got lucky on my first attempt

Then could you remove the mac icon from this page which implies it is supported

I have very mixed feelings about this game. At it's core there is something interesting and fun, and think there is a lot of potential; but that you also needed more feedback from native speakers before publishing.

As someone in the US I find the idioms used a bit odd, and sometimes hard to understand.  It's one thing that there is an age gap relationship, but it's another that both marrying a teacher and that there is a minigame about impregnating her.  I don't think homophobia was intended (at least I hope it's not), but it is definately implied. 

Also the minigames are sometimes confusing, its very hard to understand what the criteria for success is at times.  That I couldn't go to the public bath in the beginning felt confusing, and then I suddenly could.

The use of pay and fees feels incomplete.  Money is only truly used in one place, and yet you make enough that it isn't really an issue.  So I am confused why it is there.

Normally with a short game like this I would want to play multiple times to see different outcomes or explore the other quests, but the issues I mentioned get in the way enough that I have no desire to.

Additionally this page says the game is playable on Mac, but that isn't true.  There is no mac executable, and your can't simply run the python executable.

Please understand I bring all this up because I want your future works to be better and learn from this.  

Yeah it isn't a permissions issue, it simply says the file cannot be opened.  The executable bundle wasn't made correctly.  You have to open a terminal, navagate to "[download directory/Elven\ Conquest\ 1.0.3\ \(mac\).app/Contents/MacOS" and then do a "chmod +x Elven\ Conquest\ 1.0.3\ \(mac\)".  This means the developer never actually tested the mac version, which is frankly sad