Spent over an hour typing out a bunch of my thoughts and suggestions for the game, then stupidly hit quote on a previous comment to add a quote to the end and had it all deleted. Yay for stupid forum formatting. Not gonna spend all that time again, but still want my thoughts out, so here are the cliff notes:
Great game, had a lot of fun with it, hot stuff. Main issues I had were in animations, clarity, and balance.
Animations: I know they are unfinished, and I did check the trello, but not sure exactly what is going to be improved with some of them. My biggest issue is that a lot of them cut out too soon without a good close up on whatever orifice is consuming you. Outside of Petra's secret attack animation and the witch's animations I felt all of them had this problem to a greater or lesser degree. On that note, Petra's secret attack animation is by far my favorite, there's a lot of personality to it, and it puts the camera fully in her mouth before fading away (though I, and I suspect many people, wouldn't have minded it lingering even a tiny bit more). It also doesn't have the issue the witch's animations have of being a bit too slow. Some of the animations are clearly more finished than others but for a specific one that seems a bit more complete but needs a touchup: petra's attack animation. I don't inherently mind the lack of a visual component, honestly I think it could be pretty good, but for that to work the sound effects need to do a lot of lifting. As it is it isn't even clear how she is voring you since there's only a brief moment of a wet noise and then the heartbeat. Either more detailed sound effects or a bit more visuals would make this animation great.
Oh, and you are probably already aware but just in case, the witch's oral vore death scene in the game is just her ub death scene, and in the gallery the one marked as her oral death scene just plays the oral attack. Also petra's, supposedly, UB death scene in the gallery is marked with the sword for an attack scene instead of the skulls (obviously not a big deal with that one though).
Smooth transition into the topic of things being unclear, a lack of clarity is my biggest issue by far with this game. I'd even say a lot of the difficulty people are having with it is caused by this, as the game is relatively straightforward once you understand it, and honestly even kinda easy up until night 4. So for a rapid fire round for clarity issues:
*The layout of the house is pretty unclear and even now I'm not sure I fully grasp it. This makes figuring out mizu's routes, especially her alternate route, more difficult. This combined with the way the girls tend to teleport about the house adds an extra layer of intial confusion and makes it hard to figure out where they are going to attack from.
*Even without above issue it can be hard to figure out where some of the girls attack from. Ruby is the biggest offender as her indication that she is about to attack isn't especially clear and on top of that she gives almost no hints as to where her attack comes from. Without kurohane's guide I'm not sure I would have figured her out before rage quitting. However the witch also has this issue. Pretty much the only way to even figure out which door she is going to come from is through experience (which likely means death), and even after dying to her many times it's still hard to keep track. This is made worse by the fact she has two different spells she can use, the shield damaging one and the shrink, which I only even got a solid idea of how to distinguish between by playing around with just her in a custom night. This is then made even worse by....
*Animation bugs with sylph and, I believe, the witch. The witch I'm less sure of, because it's possible I just missed seeing her, but I've had numerous times where I got hit by her without ever seeing her in any of the windows. With slyph though, I'm completely certain. I've had multiple instances where I had one of the two doors she can go through blocked, and was watching the other door like a hawk, only to get the game over scene from the door I was watching without her ever showing her face in it. For sylph at least this only really means bullshit cheap deaths, but for the witch this makes it incredibly hard to figure out which room lead to which door.
*Speaking of bugs, I was one of the people without a clock. Was not a fan of this at all, made the game notably harder and more stressful. Not sure what caused it, and I understand it's far from priority number one, but still something it would at least be nice to see addressed.
*The lack of anything concrete in the game linking the names of the elementals with their appearances. Though their behaviors and appearances gave some clues, it still would make it vastly easier for new players if they knew immediately who melodiana's note was referencing, and would help even out the game's learning curve.
*The fact that it's yuki's mom (and I only know its her mom for sure because of your patreon, the vague reference melodiana's note makes is not sufficient) is the star of yuki's vore animation is incredibly confusing at the start. That on top of the fact a few of my first deaths to yuki happened when I wasn't looking at her (possibly a bug? when this happened it came either a few seconds after turning away from her after a bit of a staring contest or immediately upon turning to the front to find her there after having stared at her a bit earlier, so could be a mechanic) made me think there was another elemental that was getting me instead of yuki, and it wasn't until I purposefully tried losing to yuki a couple times that I was confident it was her animation. Also it's a bit sad that she only gets a bit part in her own animation, might be nice to give her one of just her, possibly as an additional secret.
Balance: you already know sylph in later nights is too op and attacks too frequently, but I honestly had more trouble with the witch. Her unpredictability was a big factor, as spending the time to try and find her with the cameras is incredibly risky by night 4 on top of all her other issues, and she sometimes attacked much too frequently herself. There's a bug I encountered with her a few times where, seemingly after blocking one of her attacks, she disappeared for the rest of the night. If this could some way be made into a feature, maybe by not blocking her shield break or something, then that would help immensely in balancing her. Ruby, meanwhile is honestly too weak. Her intercepting mizu isn't too much of an issue, especially in the last night where sustained tablet use isn't even viable, and she only has one avenue of attack that she rarely even bothers with. It was a bit annoying when she'd linger in her attack ready position for super long periods, forcing me to burn my shields, but otherwise she was barely more threatening than yuki, which doesn't fit her apparent personality. If the rest of the game gets tuned down a few notches it might be ok to give her another angle of attack (and hopefully another vore animation). There's also a balance issue in the later nights where sustained tablet use gets replaced by spinning in circles checking doors, which is a lot less engaging, but hopefully tuning down sylph and the witch will fix that. Only other major issue I had with balance is that the witches spells feel too fast to react to without being super on top of door checking.
Misc criticism: I'm not a fan of the current gallery system. Personally I would prefer having scenes unlocked immediately upon experiencing them, though I do think there is something to be said for having a character's gallery unlock be a reward for completing a night. However, if you do keep the current system, please at least let each character be unlocked upon completing the night they first become a threat. I don't think petra, for instance, should be locked behind completing night 3 when she first becomes a threat in night 2. Same with the witch.
A cheese strat for people struggling: after the third death in a row your shield regen becomes equal to the degen of having a single shield up which means you can maintain one shield indefinitely. Shield up the front door and just leave it there, this will completely block out ruby and yuki (assuming you don't keep facing the shielded door, which you shouldn't) and limit sylph and the witch's avenues of approach. With ruby gone you effectively don't need your tablet, though you can make use of it to try and keep better tabs on sylph and the witch if you are fast and remember to keep checking on petra. However you can honestly just spin between the two remaining doors and throw the shield up if you see anyone at either one. This gets somewhat undermined if you encounter the same bugs I did of getting a game over without anyone showing up at the door, but renders the night significantly easier.
Wollffett wrote:Anyone have the full gallery and can explained how to get some of them cause I can't seem to get a few
iepie122 wrote:quick question, is it normal to have two blank spaces in the gallery? if not could somebody tell me how you can unlock the two spaces after the witch?
The two spaces after the witch are scenes that require a character not yet added to the game, so yes its normal to have those 2. The rest can be filled in.
Here's how to get the full gallery (ill put the secret's locations in spoilers at the end):
Sylph is unlocked upon beating night 1. Her first 2 are gotten by losing to her coming through the front door, her third and fourth from losing to her coming through the side door, her 5th one is one of the secrets, and her 6th and 7th are obtain through losing to a rare scene that happens when ruby and sylph get together in sylph's room (bit odd its in sylph's gallery though when its based on ruby, you can still get it even if sylph is inactive)
Ruby is unlocked after beating night 2, and her only 2 scenes are gotten from losing to her one avenue of attack (the front).
Petra is unlocked after beating night 3. Her first two come from losing to her retribution for not watching her enough, and the third and fourth are one of the secrets.
The witch is unlocked after beating night 4. Her first two are unlocked by losing to her ub attack, which comes from either the front or the side (she'll do these when casting from the pool or the barren area with her cauldron). The third and fourth are from losing to her oral vore attack which comes from behind (she casts this from the downstairs hallway by the stairs or from game room). Directions and starting locations of attack are based on what i discovered testing in a custom night btw, there might be more to it than that.
The ones in the angel section I think are unlocked upon beating night 1. The first two you obtain by losing to yuki from staring at her too long. The second two are one of the secrets.
How to find the secrets (note, secrets will show up randomly when checking the room they spawn in. If you are looking for one just keep checking the room, going off it, then checking again).:
One is found in sylph's room, its a pink dildo on the stand to the right of her bed. One is found in petra's room, its a flower pot to the right of the door to the shower. The other is found in the downstairs hallway by the stairs, its the girl looking out of the door on the left (this is the easiest to spot by far).