Thanks for the info, but I am done with this game. Because of the stupid bus mechanic, I ended up losing The Show item. I didn't know those weird weapons could be lost!
Oh cool... By the way, is there any way to regain the lost level from the manor boss? Kyrise was a few battles away from reaching level 11, but that darn thing set her back to level 9. Its mainly just irritating me to see that not all of my party members are the same level.
I can't seem to find the place to buy ma shi back, got da password now tho. All I managed to find was the cult, the company man, the lighthouse and the faunshalts storage
Hi once again. I was wondering if u could give me any hints to where to find the key and photo for Trish's illusionary realm. btw just got Jasper, love the representation. (sry if I'm bothersome, I seem to come here quite often askin for advice/hints)
I can't seem to find the place, got da password now tho. All I managed to find was the cult, the company man, the lighthouse and the faunshalts storage
I'm now playing the complete version and just went to HER grave to get cursed and as soon as the inner dialoge is over. Ramona auto moves left. I kinda can't leave the room cuz of it. N since the interaction w the grave auto saves i can't avoid it either. Wut I do?
I'm really confused? The code for the event does not force you to move after that, and none of the other events in the same room ever moves you left. I have no idea how this could happen, and you're the only one that's reported this happening (and based off steam achievements, I know people played through the route unlocked through her). Can you bring up menus? You can actually fast travel from within the forest.
Now that I actually did finish the game, comments time. There are some spoilers here, although nothing severe. Still, I'm glad I went into this game without much foreknowledge, so if that's your approach, you might want to not read this.
This game was honestly kind of a masterpiece. Excellent characters and story of course, and with a really good combat (which was nice). However, the thing that really first drew me into the game was how the game was deliberately frustrating in a fascinating way. The start of the game is quite difficult, and in no small part that's just because you don't know how it works yet (I died a lot of times before I realized that resting after I got through the beginning part was, in fact, worth raising the rent). Even beyond that, there's also the little things. Every single way to save "costs" in some sense (even just sleeping, since it raises the rent), traveling around the city costs at least 1$ (and quite a bit more if you don't want to lose things randomly, so until you have more money, you probably can't afford to be using it constantly), and no matter what you do, there's always a chance that you'll just lose a piece of equipment. In my game, I lost the Strength Scarf that was literally my strongest piece of equipment to an overnight theft, and I was never able to find another one. However, as I got into it, I just learned to roll with it. Lost the scarf, so I used something else. Carried some extra gear just in case, got used to spending a bit, etc. It complements the story the game tells so well, so it was really a fantastic experience.
Beyond that, the story was phenomenal (although I won't get into it too much since Spoilers), and the ending I got was very satisfying (for which one it is: I had to go through the full Tower to get it). I really liked all four party members, but I also liked all of the background characters (the ones who were intended to be likeable anyways, I can't say I liked Ramona's landlord, but that just made something in the ending all the more satisfying). I made sure to use the Small Talk option several times (and to do so after getting more characters) just because there was interesting dialogue for the characters.
The combat is also really fun. I ended up with three of the characters' Tarot card gear, which was extremely helpful (regen is really good in this game), but just the set of skills available to each character were interesting and fun to use. I didn't get all of the Spiritual Healing skills (except for Kyrie's), but the ones I did get were all useful and interesting (Dodge Roll is great).
Tragically, I played the majority of the game with the sound off because of the times of day I had available to play it, but late game I ended up listening to some of the music, and it's fantastic (seriously, I was missing out). I need to replay it at some point just to listen to the music some more (plus to see some of the content I missed, like a certain arcade machine).
Also, as much as the art for the game is described as not great (literally in the description of this game), it works with the tone of the game, and I actually liked it just fine. Also, Kyrie's walk cycle is great. No other comment on that necessary.
I did not end up beating a certain bonus boss against the (non-canonical) "ruler" of Engel, although now that I've done everything else, I'll probably take another try. The problem for me wasn't even the boss's damage (which was honestly not that high, although I also had a lot of defense on all my characters other than Kyrie, who just dodged things that vast majority of the time), but the fact that I literally could not outdamage the boss's regen + the one draining skill. I'll have to give it another try now that I'm about as powerful as I can get without just grinding Model Employees for stat-up items (which I sort of did, but that was just because I was enjoying the fights while doing the things I needed to do to get into the final floor of the Tower). I did beat most of the bounties that I didn't accidentally lock myself out of (although I think I forgot one of the four Heavenly Rat Kings, so I should really do that too). Combat in the late game got pretty easy, but I did make a lot of use of stat-up items and had very good gear.
Edit: Fight done. Huh, that was a lot easier this time. I guess all those stat-ups really did help, given that I was able to just do overwhelming damage and end the fight quickly. I don't seem to be able to leave though, as the looping hallways occur in both directions?
I did run into one bug worth reporting, but thankfully it did not break my game or anything:
For the Rank 3 quests, I did Lighthouse Reclamation, then Lonely Hearts, and after finishing Lonely Hearts, it sort of never stopped. I turned it in, but now all of the characters have kept their dialogue associated with it. This is mostly notable with Sheya, who always refers to me doing it. Some of the other characters sort of refer to it, but most of them are more in reference to it being finished, so that was fine. The core bug part was that when I picked up the Casino Investigation quest later and left the building, I ended up with both quests at once in my reminders, and, if I talked to Uzbek again, I could go and turn in Lonely Hearts again, getting the short scene and reward. I did not attempt to do Casino Investigation (partially in fear of breaking my save and partially just because it seemed unlikely that turning it in would work at all). It didn't stop me from completing The Tower stuff, so I can still normally end the game that way, thankfully though (that would have hurt a bit).
Edit: I did go on to finish that quest, I was able to turn it in (... alongside Lonely Hearts, both of them turned in at the same time) and have everything get a bit more back on track. Some of the dialogue in Casino Investigation was off since I did things in what seems to have been an unintended order and characters didn't know about things they probably should have, but everything worked fine so I'm just glad I could see everything in that.
Edit: Oh, right, additional minor bug: Kyrie's Cool Down does not end the "Killing Harmony" Assassin stance, so you just get a full heal and the CDs trigger, but your stance does not change.
Anywho, that's the longest response I've written to a game in a while, but I had a lot to say about this one. I'm still not really sure whether it's Itch standard to leave reviews in the comments or reviews, so I'm just going to copy the review-y portion of this over to that too.
Thank you for the review! I think some of those problems were addressed in the Steam build, but dang it reminds me that I should update the itch one on my day off.
But now, you gotta fight that last rat king and head to the graveyard for one last reward that I say is worth chasing.
But of course, there’s also that alternate route to chase…
Oh, makes sense. I'll pick it up on Steam then (especially since I got it from a bundle this time), and then when I get to playing it again I'll know I have the latest version.
I did defeat the graveyard fight, although unfortunately, it seems like I can't use the Bleeding Heart because I can't access the apartment anymore (after a certain boss fight). When I get to replaying it, I'll make sure to do that first instead.
I'll have to consider the alternate route. I saw the statue with the start of it after beating the bonus boss, and I think perhaps I would not want to see it through after seeing everything through on a good ending, but also it seems interesting so... shrug. Time will tell I suppose. Can always do it, then do a normal route replay.
Just as I expected based on slimes, great combat design n equipment design. Feel like the starting bit is way harder than how the game is after you get the first party member (wasps are probs the most dangerous enemy in the game), also i am not sure if its a glitch but maybe enemy drops are too generous (currently am packing way too many healing items for free 17 granolas, and like 35 party heals).
Also I get the quest being vague is a design choice but maybe Ive been too softened by modern handholding but god damn the cementery quest is busting my ass. And help line aint helping.
It's truly outstanding that this game strikes a balance between the spitefulness and still being an "enjoyable" to play in the sense of not feeling like a burden while not sacrificing the message.
wrote a review on steam but i felt like i should comment here too, really good stuff and I'll be sure to buy the complete edition when it comes around.
i've really been enjoying this game!! especially the ost, my mind is just full of "i dooon't beeeeelieeeve youuu", but, where do cowboy hat guy go??? i feel that if i don't go right now he's gonna fucking die
God I love this game. Perfect amount of content for a good RPG, and the perfect amount of story for the characters to feel well put together. I've already completed all the main quests and all the side quests available, so I'm stuck at a high level with nothing to do with it. Can't wait for the next updates!
sry my dumb ass is here again. I'm struggleing with the monster egg quest and i called the tip hotline where the oracle says "closer to home than one thinks" and the descriptionv says that the culprit lives 2406 somewhere. So I went to ramonas apartment building and checked on her floor room 406 but got no result so i tried the input on the elevator put that thing is basically out of order. So... I'm wondering wut todo now?
So I've been playing on steam for the past days and I gotta say I really love this game, the core mechanics could be better explained and makes for a rough start but after that is really fun and creative, overall I love the characters and the dialogue, it's written pretty naturally and its almost always either pretty interesting or pretty funny, I'm kinda stuck with the graveyard quest but I'm gonna keep going until I finish it, last thing I really love Ramona she's literally me.
I’m glad you’re liking it! For a free hint: you have to stand on top of something and press the interact button. Giving this hint since this seems to be the one most people are having trouble with.
I feel like an idiot but I'm a bit stuck. So I kind of forgot what Kyrie told me to do to help her. I'm at the point where I'm now able to take on quests from rank 2 for reference. I don't want to take on a quest in case that means I miss the opportunity to add Kyrie to my team, but I can't find her and I can't remember what I was supposed to help her with. Also can't use the hotline because it's not technically a quest :/
im planning to buy ¨Slimes¨ and was wondering if it's a distant place in the same universe as ¨I Hate You, Please Suffer¨ due to in one of the images the guy mentions how he wants his scales gone from his face, so i was wondering if its scales due to the same herald and him awakening his power in a traumatic situation
I've been playing the Steam version, and it's interesting and engaging, but I've also managed to get myself apparently permanently stuck. If you try to quit while playing the roulette in the casino (and not just when the game is actually running,) when you start the game up again, the wisps won't be flashing, but the host won't let you leave, and the button won't do anything if you press it. As far as I can tell, there's no way to progress from here, so the only way I can get out would be to start a new game and abandon my save file, which I'm pretty reluctant to do by this point.
Alright, a quick bug fix for that should be up on Steam now! If it works, the illumina keeping you from leaving should now give you an option to quit the slots game.
i'm loving the game so far and as a trans girl i'm loving the trans representation of ramona. I'm really enjoying my time so far and wondering when approximatly the ¨Complete¨ is gonna be released and if the data from the free version is gonna be transfered to the full game. Is there gonna be more than one file in the ¨Complete¨ so dat u for example could play two separate runs one with quinnith dead and one with the siren getting exorcised .Also if theres a insta id love to support dat
See, I have no idea when Complete will be done, mainly due to the fact that this is mainly a solo project. I wish I knew too miss.
Unfortunately, I'm too committed to the rude bit of everyone having one save file. That said.... you could just copy the file before the event split and paste it back in with the original "meow.dat" name to cheat. That's how my playtester does it.
hi I’m loving the game so far. I’m stuck on the necromancy quest and I’m wondering where to go I’ve just been walking around in the grave yard for 2 hours now after reading the note from jasper
The tip hotline exists for a reason, but if you need the help that badly…. Notice that some of the graves have hearts on them, take that as a step in the right direction.
im sry for being dumb but wut now, ive called the hotline n i can still not figure it out, ive tried to interact with every grave stone in the available
Currently playing through. I have been going through a ton of bullshit and fuckery in my life recently, and playing a game that is just so blatantly "fuck you" from the moment you open it up is really, really refreshing. Feels very honest and real. Will keep on playing it. Really like it!
it's hard to tell if various events are broken or what. it's very unclear about what's possible and what i'm supposed to be doing, and it seems unreasonably difficult and grindy without getting a 2nd party member
the "depressed ex-adventurer" NPC at the docks changes sprites depending on the direction from which you talk to them. itch isn't letting me upload screenshots in the comments though
It seems like in the left room in the warehouse dungeon (where you get the razor dirk) the north exit leads back to the entrance room. Ran into that in 1.2, upgraded, confirmed it's still like that in 1.3.
Also I think the cost of the Bribe skill isn't being correctly reflected in the menu? I'll check next time I use it but I could swear it said $10 and charged me $15. I genuinely didn't make much use of it before the warehouse but I'm trying to be a little more pragmatic about fighting every single enemy since I learned that they're scaling with my level.
I just got the Rummage skill so I'm pretty excited for longer fights to hinge less on a turn-1 diceroll of Spray. I'm vaguely concerned by the image of Ramona scrambling around the battlefield scraping together residues for the world's nastiest perpetual stew.
Minor, but you get a line about "the two of them are still looking for Kyrie" if you investigate the women's restroom after recruiting her but you get the cutscene and encounter if you investigate the men's.
Also the "Pills" conversation shows up in both the bar parking lot and right outside the apartment after recruiting Kyrie.
I'm enjoying how the combat has opened up with three party members and I appreciate the different skill cost systems they all work with. I also ran into the street to avoid a wrath slime and got kyrie pasted by a car before ending up in combat anyway. It's nice that that isn't an instant game over anymore but the game's essential quality of spitting on you while you're down seems undiminished.
I realized that part of why I was getting my ass kicked so often is because I had been amassing a hoard of stat ups and forgetting to use them or putting it off. I used them, got the level-down potion from the illusory bartender, and opted in at the shrine all in short order and things seem to be a touch easier. Nobody even died during the room 2406 quest although I imagine that was balanced to accommodate a possible 2-character party. It was refreshing to be able to deal with things like the Double Wrath Slime and the Prankster Rat King where before they were inescapable game-overs. A hard mode in which the pills have a 0% chance to drop could be an option for masochists, though I can't speak to how mathematically doable that would be, past the rank-1 missions.
On the shrine: I visited the church after - I don't know if that "traded off" the big stat up and I didn't do a before/after comparison to check. The creepy statuses in combat went away though. I didn't keep it around long enough to see if it was going anywhere, I figured anything with that much foreshadowing had a good chance of getting me killed and with my newfound stat-boosted overconfidence I didn't want to leave that risk on the table while save rationing.
Some little issues I ran into:
Couple of lines where Ramona's dialogue starts with "Ramona>" and Kyrie's with "Kyrie>" in the downtown sewer Faunshalt Family conversation.
In Patrick's bounty office there's a bounty on the Butcher. When you read it, there's no opt in or out prompt and you automatically lose $50 and get a complimentary hint token. The dialogue (and trade) was totally repeatable, I don't think I signed up for anything.
I also killed the rat guy before even meeting Patrick so when it prompted me to go see him I was despairing that I had forgotten an NPC's name.
I like how the "normal" areas are getting more and more hazardous as you complete quests - I definitely feel more able to handle the onslaught than when the wrath slimes first started showing up, but the slog means that you don't really reach a point where you feel like can take it easy. The one exception is the sniper attacks - I don't think it's off-theme for the party to get shot at at random, but what usually ends up happening is that one starts looming when I'm talking to an NPC and I end up paying an HP tax for the conversation. I have no idea how complicated it would be to freeze wandering enemies during conversation, but getting shot at inescapably is more obnoxious (to me) than getting jumped by one of the KKK-looking white-robe roaming enemies or getting run over by a car, even if I end up losing more health or using more resources in the latter case - I'd rather get fucked over in the battle system than an arbitrary -150 hp/all. I'd honestly just pay the mob back what I found in the sewers plus interest if it'd get them to lay off.
Without paying that much attention I managed to amass enough money and saleable resources to pay off the rent. I didn't expect the game to end when I did that so I'm glad I saved first. I think this is mostly due to a combination of being stat-pilled to the gills (I fight most battles instead of running and every so often rummage through my inventory to use up 5-10 of each pill) and decent drop rates on most resources, including souls. Plus, now that I'm struggling less, I think I'm getting more from the tier 2 quests than the partial credit I got for the tier 1s. I didn't even need to sell the cursed scale.
I think I'm stuck as far as Uzbek's quests go, so I'm seeing how far I can get in the tower now. I tried dropping a Total Silence on the Messenger boss in the hopes of preventing him from summoning the two other health bars that Spray revealed but ended up with everyone muted EXCEPT those assholes.
I've been playing 1.3, or at least I installed 1.3 over 1.2 over 1.1 (I mentioned that the itch client doesn't let me install properly on Windows 10?) If reloading my save on a fresh install might fix some of this, I'm happy to try.
Major bugs: I don't seem to be able to close out the graveyard quest for good. I completed it once (and fought the cultist with the lightning rod, not the one with the gun, if that makes a difference) as the last quest in the Tier 2s. That didn't open Tier 3, and when I investigated the board the same quest could still be accepted. I accepted it again and ran into the cowboy adventurer with the hint to the location of the cultists' lair, but there was a blue NPC talking about how they were still cleaning it up blocking the entrance. I was able to turn the quest in to Uzbek again (for another $1000), and I found that it still wasn't removed from the board. A less scrupulous player than me could probably just generate infinite money 1 grand at a time.
In the manor library, there are some roaming big flower enemies that spawn after you read the clue. I don't know if this is true for all of them, but the leftmost one (which was closest to me on triggering their spawn) didn't despawn after I beat it, and in fact triggered the same fight twice over before I was able to get away.
Minor bugs:
I used Shank on Stanley at the docks but I don't think he bled. I could have missed it, truthfully.
Several of the puzzle clues in the manor disappear visually on inspection, but can still be interacted with.
The bounty for the Death Pugilist just ends the interaction if selected.
Dialogue issues: Several lines appear cut off by the dialogue border, probably because they're just long enough to fill it without a linebreak. I documented a few I noticed:
Thrifty Adventurer conversation outside the manor: "something my friend dropped last time we were here"
Drinking Adventurer in the bar: "seems like everyone's going out on this big job, huh"
Confrontation under the graveyard: "the hearts promised me..."
Fishing adventurer in the parking lot: "I love to fish..."
The music app instructions say that "0" is the default themes, remarks that 00 is an old classic if you select it, then tells you that you don't own the record (although it still assigns the default).
The dialogue for the Shield Adventurer outside the graveyard switches sides on the screen for no apparent reason. She also doesn't have a portrait in the bar after the quest.
The right bookmaker at the casino doesn't have a text box for the first line of dialogue. Like the background is missing.
Typo in the paying-off-your-landlord scene - "neccessarily"
Grammatical typo in Swing for the Fences skill description
Minor Sequence Breaks:
I inspected the fake bookshelf in the Manor before walking into the Library at all.
Lacking a reason to revisit after recruiting Devon, I didn't return to the Tower until I had already taken down the Restroom Killer in round 2. I encountered him for the first time in the bathrooms next to where I recruited Kyrie, right after I recruited her, so it seems pretty likely that the conversation about serial killers will happen out of sequence for other players besides me.
Misc:
The rules at the arena say you will only be healed if you win, but I didn't get healed after a 2-round of the toxic vibes fight. It's unclear if you only get healed for staying in 4 rounds or if you just don't get healed period.
Why can only Kyrie open artifact gachas? Not that it matters but it's odd to select the item and then select her (with no other party member selectable).
Eating at the restaurant downtown promised +15 max health but gave +20 and a stomachache. It could be random to some extent, I only used it once and only because I'm rich now.
When choosing a battle theme, it's odd to have to check your inventory for the record numbers and then switch to your phone instead of just using the record in your inventory. I have no idea what the limitations of RPG Maker are with regards to item usage scripting and soundtrack swapping but this UX seems a little out-of-the-way.
It was a shame to miss out on the manor safe puzzle. I found clues for the first, second, and last digits but didn't run into the third and now, even after turning in the job and Uzbek saying that someone will go clean up, nobody wants to go back into the safe room. Which makes sense, nobody wanted to see that, but the safe is behind the boss fight and if it wasn't for my insistence on checking side paths first I wouldn't have known what the clues were even for.
Heya, I really appreciate your in-depth look through the game! I've been putting all your bug reports on a list of things to tackle and I'll get around to working on that soon!
On the random shooters thing, that's actually a problem I've come to agree on, especially since the next update will have a mob affiliated cahser character. I'm actually thinking of either phasing those out in favor of a different chaser character, or something else inconvenient. Right now, I'm thinking of putting a toll on the path leading to the Tower that scales based on how much you've inconvenienced the mob.
And god, yeah, I want to figure out a more practical way of changing the battle soundtrack. The way I see it, I'd have to make a custom menu (like the computer menus from Yume 2kki) to come up with something more practical.
(Also, speaking of menus "only Kyrie being able to open gachas" thing is more of a quirk of the engine. An item that's set to only by a "user" just kinda defaults to whoever is furthest down the party list.)
Also, as you're going up the Tower, I recommend going to the Docks first, assuming that you've talked to Jasper at all points.
Still playing through this. Even if level scaling is making the Sewer Wrath Slime a tougher fight than intended, I found it managable by alternating between Lunge and Bribe to stall for another Lunge. I was able to get Devon but didn't realize that the Wrath Slime vendetta meant an inescapable unbribeable boss fight would be appearing on basically every map. I think that means I should stop rationing saves - they're not even $10 yet.
Couple of little bugs I ran into:
The conversation markers on the map started appearing when Devon joined, which made me remember the marker I triggered before recruiting any party members, I think in the room north of the woods bus stop with the attacking flowers? I wasn't sure if that was a bug or a very contextless flashback/flash forward at the time.
You can see a lot of health bars for the empty slots in the Stanley fight if you use Spray. Also you get a Broken Flute even if you win without trying to grab it before the fight? I'd understand if it was intentional, and maybe I missed a line at the end of the fight, but nobody seemed to say anything about it being broken until I turned it in at the Bar.
It would be convenient if the shop interface showed a comparison against what you already have equipped, instead of against baseline stats and a net stat delta. If that's an RPG Maker limitation it's not a big deal.
Still plenty of stuff left to dive into here. I'm really only inching my way through and things like Wrath Slime and Stanley revenge attacks tend to make me regret my frugal approach to saving.
Oh, this was all on 1.1 I think? So if anything changed in 1.2 I haven't checked it out yet. Nothing shows up in the itch client install options on Windows 10 so I downloaded it and forgot to keep it updated
Okay, adding all this to the fix list. I might have messed up on the phone call variables when I was adding new ones.
And yeah, unfortunately the lack of shop comparison is an engine thing. I’ll try to see if there’s a script that I could use because I do find this inconvenient for Devon’s equipment and really any that changes anything but the principle stat. As for the health bar thing, I’m actually not sure how to fix that yet, but that’s definitely something I want to fix.
Actually, were you in the forest when the phone calls happened? I added two set phone calls there (one upon arriving and one after getting Ramona’s license), so both of them got set off when you came back with a third one playing by coincidence.
I can keep posting these as I run into them or I can dump a handful at once. whichever is less annoying.
I went to both the clinic and the church with a downed party member, but neither seemed to be able to do anything about it. The way it was phrased, I thought the church might be about curing the stat-downs from being KOd, but I didn't even get that much out of them. I could be misunderstanding the point of both buildings.
I entered combat with Ramona down (specifically, I confronted the prankster rat guy after giving him 5 stingers) and combat opened with the "Ramona is down... -1 something or other" message. Is that supposed to compound like that? (the combat did not go well)
Oh, yeah, I didn’t communicate the purpose of the church well enough. When a character is downed enough times, you can visit the church for a ritual that gives you the chance to increase stats and improve their skills. As for the clinic, it currently doesn’t have a purpose besides being a place to visit a character after a point. Originally, the church’s role would have belonged to the clinic but I wanted to expand on the apartment area. With that in mind, I want the clinic to have a purpose, and I should make the church’s more clear.
Also, yeah, that is an oversight I’m aware of. I have an alternate way of setting up the death system in mind where it only triggers upon death, but it would mean that it’d be possible to lose stats multiple times in one battle due to being downed immediately on revive. I’m honestly not sure if I should keep the current system (which would punish players that doesn’t keep lemonade on hand) or switch to that (where players could potentially lose multiple stats in one battle).
Why can I use a lockpick on room 2406 even though I supposedly need to learn how to use them first? Why do I keep getting party dialogue with people I've never met (after the apartment quest and in front of whatever's north of the forest)??? I took the 2406 quest first and ran in circles and slept a couple days trying to progress the person in front of the bar, and I was really worried I'd somehow gotten stuck until I realized I could...just buy a lockpick and use it. And then I got dialogue with Devon after that and got worried it was still bugged. For the record, I only really went to places as they were introduced as "here's a place to go next" so I didn't go to the Tower or anything because I had no particular reason to. Also I accidentally slept right at the beginning of the game and got concerned that broke something.
I don't know whether or not I've "screwed myself out" of getting the second party member - I can see him outside the Tower but I don't know how to give him a means of communication. In lieu of that, I'm struggling with just a level 4 Ramona to take on the Raccoon Flute guy with or without the flute. I don't know if I have to complete a specific mission (or any mission) to recruit him but I do feel that grinding my way to a comfortable level at which to face him is a bit of a steep trek. Without any other party members or reliable abilities (except for Bribe, I suppose?) I'm reluctant to explore any place with enemies tough enough to speed up the grinding. I did enjoy discovering the small sewer dungeon outside the apartment and finding that the green slimes were easy enough pickings to mow down. I barely minded the treasure-jacking punchline, the real prize was easy loot. The purple slimes that replaced them were less generous. I also abused going to bed for the night for the free heal until I realized that that was adding to the rent. I'm halfway tempted to fish my way to housing security, an impulse mostly tempered by the suspicion that there's a system in place that depletes the fishing if you do enough of it in one day. Or maybe the big fish were just hiding for that third trip.
In attempting to find other places advance the "recruit someone else so I stop dying alone in the woods" sideplot I encountered a few small issues.
In the clinic, the second door on the right locks the game after the narration.
There's a seam in the tree tiles on the left edge of the docks.
You can run freely in the downtown sewer-dungeon, despite the rule about only running in "safe" places, although the effect on the encounter rate is... dramatic.
I think that other people have mentioned them but the random calls cycle pretty often. They're a nice touch and add to the stressed-out gig worker vibe, but maybe when the pace of the game is more defined it might make sense to make some of them one-time only scattered throughout the plot (and replace the rest with terrible spam callers. is Ramona aware her car insurance is expiring? it's not a bug if its annoying on purpose)
Lastly, I like the "DO YOUR BEST/DO YOUR WORST" splash on entering battle, but it's often half-legible due to the overworld background not contrasting against the black. The first few times I saw it I didn't get a chance to read it. If it plays for every battle in the entire game it's not that big of a problem, but it diminishes the impact of the first couple of appearances if it's half cut off.
I enjoyed Slimes a lot and I'm enjoying revisiting the setting premises that were mostly only alluded to or flashbacked about there. This seems like a much more sprawling project with a very different vibe - an intentional throwback to much meaner early console RPGs with some additional negative feedback loops strewn about as a reminder that capitalism. The screenshots (more than my own stymied progress) seem to indicate you've made some decent headway on that sprawl - best of luck with the rest!
Heya, I appreciate the feedback you're giving me. As you say, this is a much larger scale project compared to Slimes, so it's easy for me to miss out on stuff like this.
So, on the second party member, you're almost there. In the sewer dungeon you're talking about, there's a path to the south that leads to the missing phone. The way is locked, but you can buy the lockpicking guide from the adventurer in front of the Waking Stones after the treasure-jacking scene and buy a lockpick off Sheya. Now, my main fear is that you might not be able to fight the boss, due to enemy scaling and the fact that you couldn't buy equipment to keep up. Honestly, you bringing this up may be the most valuable piece of criticism here, so I appreciate you bringing this up. I'm planning a much smaller update to fix a bunch of problems and now I'm going to add a more explicit hint to check there besides having players rely on to Tip Hotline (don't be scared of consulting it!).
No worries, big projects make it easy to miss the little things. None of that stuff ruined the experience at all but it seemed like the kind of thing you're looking to clean up in a demo version.
Completely forgot about the tip hotline but it turns out pinging the dev on itch with a small bug report gets you the same info for free.
I didn't realize that enemies were always scaling - I thought the purple slimes were the result of me triggering the treasure jacking event. I also assumed that knowing how to pick locks was a skill that another party member was supposed to bring to the table and figured that all of that was gated off for later. Looking forward to diving back in!
Oh I just posted but I was wondering if there's any chance to be able to acquire/listen to the ost separately? I enjoy the battle and forest themes a lot.
The music is entirely public domain. Most of the stuff in the demo is from Fuzzy Trip in Remix Land, though the next version of the game will have some more variety with the rest of Rose's work. Please check out the rest of their stuff and throw them a dollar or two!
I'm enjoying this game so far but I'm a bit stuck. I'm still trying to get an adventure's license but nothing at the shrine in the forest helps me to that end. I call the tip hotline and it tells me to do a quest that requires I kill hornets. I've done the quest where you sell hornet parts to the npc at the town dungeon and I don't know if there are any more hornet related quests. Other things I've done are team up with devon and completed the sewer section. Any help/tips would be appreciated.
Have you met Trish? You should already have it of you fought her. If you haven’t, go into the shrine, walk all the way down the staircase (make sure to touch the last tile) then walk back out. You should be in a new room that will lead to you getting it.
EDIT: If you have met Trish, have you gone into the hallway in the shrine? If you do, remember to step out for the next part. :3c
I get to the room you are talking about, my options are talking to the cat (has dialogue about knowing devon), walking thru the top right door (character in a different art style asks me to not ignore, prevented from going through), exiting thru the bottom left, or re-entering hallfway in the bottom right (which is just the entrance to the shrine). Nothing I find leads me to a fight.
Oh jeez, I just realized, did you get Devon before attempting to to here? I just realized that I might have messed up the event flags because usually on all my play tests I went to the shrine before getting Devon. This might be why it’s messing up for you.
maybe related to flags, but the phone calls you get tend to repeat a lot for me. devon has gotten their "sorry" calls at least 5 times now, which seemed strange. Ramona has gotten a lot of the same call from the landlord as well, which seemed normal, but I think the mom call may have happened multiple times too.
Yeah about that, I put a 1 out of 15 chance to get a phone call anywhere you go because I thought it’d be annoying and make dodging certain encounters harder. The phone calls you get are supposed to be randomized, but I only made three for the demo because I honestly didn’t expect other people to trigger it that often.
a very fun satire of RPGs and capitalism. the lore and dialogue is very well written, and the game scratches a similar itch to something like LISA: The Painful, the dark sense of humor complimenting a particularly dismal view of reality. music choice is great. the jankiness of the art is really charming. i started talking to devon in the entrance of the dungeon despite him not knowing me or being in my party, but issues like that are excusable in a demo, especially for a game this small.
overall, really good, can't wait to play the full version.
Aww, come on, don't be like that. We are the players, so that means we're the one who's cursing at the npc... well... it's the title so there's nothing we can do about it.
I had fun playing this, liked the character interactions. The setting and mechanics do a good job of making you feel like you're getting screwed no matter what you do. Especially if you sell a certain item.
I like this game. Just five minutes in and I'm into it. Love the choice of music, I was jamming to it. My most favourite thing was when the landlord ambushed Ramona and the way he was introduced like a boss. I like the bus mechanic and transport mechanic, you can't just immediately walk to the next city after all. Liked the interactions too. A must play game. (Landlord I'll pay my rent, don't call my parents!) I like how this game really does want you to suffer. (Paying 1 dollar to save, making Ramona do the extermination instead, tip hotline is 35 dollars, etc.) Too many encounters in the forest though. And sewer event triggers more than once. Had trouble with the sage boss at a lower level. I made a playthrough, sorry about the audio, will correct it next time.
Ah, thank you so much! Oh, and I appreciate your critcism of the forest. It was tough trying to figure out the ideal encounter rate for that place, especially as the person making it, so I really value the perspective of an outsider on it!
Nice! Will wait for the full game to be released, I reached as far as getting the AL card, the combat for that was tough, took me a while to beat! Also, the mother's call event in the sewers triggers everytime I go in the sewers
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Should I try getting my characters killed mainly for the spiritual healing? If so then is there an easy way to do that?
can go play in the street, but the hangman's necklace artifact tarot is great for it
Thanks for the info, but I am done with this game. Because of the stupid bus mechanic, I ended up losing The Show item. I didn't know those weird weapons could be lost!
There's a lost and found in the harbor area where stuff like that can be bought back
Oh. I'm guessing it's in the black market cause I can't seem to find it anywhere else.
So does anyone know how to get into the tower? I was told I had to enter the tower to recruit the cowboy, but I have been unable to get access.
There is a side entrance, head for top right.
Oh cool... By the way, is there any way to regain the lost level from the manor boss? Kyrise was a few battles away from reaching level 11, but that darn thing set her back to level 9. Its mainly just irritating me to see that not all of my party members are the same level.
I can't seem to find the place to buy ma shi back, got da password now tho. All I managed to find was the cult, the company man, the lighthouse and the faunshalts storage
There’s a suspicious blank wall in between the lighthouse area and the safe beach area with tufts of grass in front of it.
Hi once again. I was wondering if u could give me any hints to where to find the key and photo for Trish's illusionary realm. btw just got Jasper, love the representation. (sry if I'm bothersome, I seem to come here quite often askin for advice/hints)
One is found in the Tower’s first stratum and the other is around the tower.
thx
hi, were do i go to buy my stuff back, ive been lookin around but cant manage to figure it out
There’s a place past the beach that needs a password. There’s a guy in front of the tower that has a sidequest and he gives the password for it.
HOWEVER! The place will only have unique equipment. If normal equipment got stolen, welp, sorry.
I can't seem to find the place, got da password now tho. All I managed to find was the cult, the company man, the lighthouse and the faunshalts storage
I'm now playing the complete version and just went to HER grave to get cursed and as soon as the inner dialoge is over. Ramona auto moves left. I kinda can't leave the room cuz of it. N since the interaction w the grave auto saves i can't avoid it either. Wut I do?
I'm really confused? The code for the event does not force you to move after that, and none of the other events in the same room ever moves you left. I have no idea how this could happen, and you're the only one that's reported this happening (and based off steam achievements, I know people played through the route unlocked through her). Can you bring up menus? You can actually fast travel from within the forest.
Just went back in, problem isn't there no more, still don't know what caused it, could be sum wrong w ma keyboard. Thanks for offerin advice tho
Now that I actually did finish the game, comments time. There are some spoilers here, although nothing severe. Still, I'm glad I went into this game without much foreknowledge, so if that's your approach, you might want to not read this.
This game was honestly kind of a masterpiece. Excellent characters and story of course, and with a really good combat (which was nice). However, the thing that really first drew me into the game was how the game was deliberately frustrating in a fascinating way. The start of the game is quite difficult, and in no small part that's just because you don't know how it works yet (I died a lot of times before I realized that resting after I got through the beginning part was, in fact, worth raising the rent). Even beyond that, there's also the little things. Every single way to save "costs" in some sense (even just sleeping, since it raises the rent), traveling around the city costs at least 1$ (and quite a bit more if you don't want to lose things randomly, so until you have more money, you probably can't afford to be using it constantly), and no matter what you do, there's always a chance that you'll just lose a piece of equipment. In my game, I lost the Strength Scarf that was literally my strongest piece of equipment to an overnight theft, and I was never able to find another one. However, as I got into it, I just learned to roll with it. Lost the scarf, so I used something else. Carried some extra gear just in case, got used to spending a bit, etc. It complements the story the game tells so well, so it was really a fantastic experience.
Beyond that, the story was phenomenal (although I won't get into it too much since Spoilers), and the ending I got was very satisfying (for which one it is: I had to go through the full Tower to get it). I really liked all four party members, but I also liked all of the background characters (the ones who were intended to be likeable anyways, I can't say I liked Ramona's landlord, but that just made something in the ending all the more satisfying). I made sure to use the Small Talk option several times (and to do so after getting more characters) just because there was interesting dialogue for the characters.
The combat is also really fun. I ended up with three of the characters' Tarot card gear, which was extremely helpful (regen is really good in this game), but just the set of skills available to each character were interesting and fun to use. I didn't get all of the Spiritual Healing skills (except for Kyrie's), but the ones I did get were all useful and interesting (Dodge Roll is great).
Tragically, I played the majority of the game with the sound off because of the times of day I had available to play it, but late game I ended up listening to some of the music, and it's fantastic (seriously, I was missing out). I need to replay it at some point just to listen to the music some more (plus to see some of the content I missed, like a certain arcade machine).
Also, as much as the art for the game is described as not great (literally in the description of this game), it works with the tone of the game, and I actually liked it just fine. Also, Kyrie's walk cycle is great. No other comment on that necessary.
I did not end up beating a certain bonus boss against the (non-canonical) "ruler" of Engel, although now that I've done everything else, I'll probably take another try. The problem for me wasn't even the boss's damage (which was honestly not that high, although I also had a lot of defense on all my characters other than Kyrie, who just dodged things that vast majority of the time), but the fact that I literally could not outdamage the boss's regen + the one draining skill. I'll have to give it another try now that I'm about as powerful as I can get without just grinding Model Employees for stat-up items (which I sort of did, but that was just because I was enjoying the fights while doing the things I needed to do to get into the final floor of the Tower). I did beat most of the bounties that I didn't accidentally lock myself out of (although I think I forgot one of the four Heavenly Rat Kings, so I should really do that too). Combat in the late game got pretty easy, but I did make a lot of use of stat-up items and had very good gear.
Edit: Fight done. Huh, that was a lot easier this time. I guess all those stat-ups really did help, given that I was able to just do overwhelming damage and end the fight quickly. I don't seem to be able to leave though, as the looping hallways occur in both directions?
I did run into one bug worth reporting, but thankfully it did not break my game or anything:
For the Rank 3 quests, I did Lighthouse Reclamation, then Lonely Hearts, and after finishing Lonely Hearts, it sort of never stopped. I turned it in, but now all of the characters have kept their dialogue associated with it. This is mostly notable with Sheya, who always refers to me doing it. Some of the other characters sort of refer to it, but most of them are more in reference to it being finished, so that was fine. The core bug part was that when I picked up the Casino Investigation quest later and left the building, I ended up with both quests at once in my reminders, and, if I talked to Uzbek again, I could go and turn in Lonely Hearts again, getting the short scene and reward. I did not attempt to do Casino Investigation (partially in fear of breaking my save and partially just because it seemed unlikely that turning it in would work at all). It didn't stop me from completing The Tower stuff, so I can still normally end the game that way, thankfully though (that would have hurt a bit).
Edit: I did go on to finish that quest, I was able to turn it in (... alongside Lonely Hearts, both of them turned in at the same time) and have everything get a bit more back on track. Some of the dialogue in Casino Investigation was off since I did things in what seems to have been an unintended order and characters didn't know about things they probably should have, but everything worked fine so I'm just glad I could see everything in that.
Edit: Oh, right, additional minor bug: Kyrie's Cool Down does not end the "Killing Harmony" Assassin stance, so you just get a full heal and the CDs trigger, but your stance does not change.
Anywho, that's the longest response I've written to a game in a while, but I had a lot to say about this one. I'm still not really sure whether it's Itch standard to leave reviews in the comments or reviews, so I'm just going to copy the review-y portion of this over to that too.
Thank you for the review! I think some of those problems were addressed in the Steam build, but dang it reminds me that I should update the itch one on my day off.
But now, you gotta fight that last rat king and head to the graveyard for one last reward that I say is worth chasing.
But of course, there’s also that alternate route to chase…
Oh, makes sense. I'll pick it up on Steam then (especially since I got it from a bundle this time), and then when I get to playing it again I'll know I have the latest version.
I did defeat the graveyard fight, although unfortunately, it seems like I can't use the Bleeding Heart because I can't access the apartment anymore (after a certain boss fight). When I get to replaying it, I'll make sure to do that first instead.
I'll have to consider the alternate route. I saw the statue with the start of it after beating the bonus boss, and I think perhaps I would not want to see it through after seeing everything through on a good ending, but also it seems interesting so... shrug. Time will tell I suppose. Can always do it, then do a normal route replay.
Hello! I can translate this game into Spanish if you'd like :)
Just as I expected based on slimes, great combat design n equipment design. Feel like the starting bit is way harder than how the game is after you get the first party member (wasps are probs the most dangerous enemy in the game), also i am not sure if its a glitch but maybe enemy drops are too generous (currently am packing way too many healing items for free 17 granolas, and like 35 party heals).
Also I get the quest being vague is a design choice but maybe Ive been too softened by modern handholding but god damn the cementery quest is busting my ass. And help line aint helping.
Great writting too, character dynamics are top.
Looking forward to the full vrs.
It's truly outstanding that this game strikes a balance between the spitefulness and still being an "enjoyable" to play in the sense of not feeling like a burden while not sacrificing the message.
wrote a review on steam but i felt like i should comment here too, really good stuff and I'll be sure to buy the complete edition when it comes around.
godspeed :]
i've really been enjoying this game!! especially the ost, my mind is just full of "i dooon't beeeeelieeeve youuu", but, where do cowboy hat guy go??? i feel that if i don't go right now he's gonna fucking die
Gotta go up the Tower. Also thank you, please check out Rose’s stuff if you like their music.
God I love this game. Perfect amount of content for a good RPG, and the perfect amount of story for the characters to feel well put together. I've already completed all the main quests and all the side quests available, so I'm stuck at a high level with nothing to do with it. Can't wait for the next updates!
sry my dumb ass is here again. I'm struggleing with the monster egg quest and i called the tip hotline where the oracle says "closer to home than one thinks" and the descriptionv says that the culprit lives 2406 somewhere. So I went to ramonas apartment building and checked on her floor room 406 but got no result so i tried the input on the elevator put that thing is basically out of order. So... I'm wondering wut todo now?
The first two digits are the floor number and the last two are the specific room, so work from there
So I've been playing on steam for the past days and I gotta say I really love this game, the core mechanics could be better explained and makes for a rough start but after that is really fun and creative, overall I love the characters and the dialogue, it's written pretty naturally and its almost always either pretty interesting or pretty funny, I'm kinda stuck with the graveyard quest but I'm gonna keep going until I finish it, last thing I really love Ramona she's literally me.
I’m glad you’re liking it! For a free hint: you have to stand on top of something and press the interact button. Giving this hint since this seems to be the one most people are having trouble with.
I feel like an idiot but I'm a bit stuck. So I kind of forgot what Kyrie told me to do to help her. I'm at the point where I'm now able to take on quests from rank 2 for reference. I don't want to take on a quest in case that means I miss the opportunity to add Kyrie to my team, but I can't find her and I can't remember what I was supposed to help her with. Also can't use the hotline because it's not technically a quest :/
omg im so dense, i figured it out. I could use the hotline after all !!!! nevermind the comment lol.
#relatable #BeenThereDoneThat
im planning to buy ¨Slimes¨ and was wondering if it's a distant place in the same universe as ¨I Hate You, Please Suffer¨ due to in one of the images the guy mentions how he wants his scales gone from his face, so i was wondering if its scales due to the same herald and him awakening his power in a traumatic situation
-Chara
Yep! It’s the same universe, though IHYPS is far enough in the future that events in Slimes don’t directly affect it besides background stuff
epic, thx
-Chara
I've been playing the Steam version, and it's interesting and engaging, but I've also managed to get myself apparently permanently stuck. If you try to quit while playing the roulette in the casino (and not just when the game is actually running,) when you start the game up again, the wisps won't be flashing, but the host won't let you leave, and the button won't do anything if you press it. As far as I can tell, there's no way to progress from here, so the only way I can get out would be to start a new game and abandon my save file, which I'm pretty reluctant to do by this point.
Ohhhhhhh, okay, that's a weird thing but glad you caught it. I'm going to update it real quick so that this doesn't ruin anyone else's time.
Alright, a quick bug fix for that should be up on Steam now! If it works, the illumina keeping you from leaving should now give you an option to quit the slots game.
i'm loving the game so far and as a trans girl i'm loving the trans representation of ramona. I'm really enjoying my time so far and wondering when approximatly the ¨Complete¨ is gonna be released and if the data from the free version is gonna be transfered to the full game. Is there gonna be more than one file in the ¨Complete¨ so dat u for example could play two separate runs one with quinnith dead and one with the siren getting exorcised .Also if theres a insta id love to support dat
-Chara o_o-b
See, I have no idea when Complete will be done, mainly due to the fact that this is mainly a solo project. I wish I knew too miss.
Unfortunately, I'm too committed to the rude bit of everyone having one save file. That said.... you could just copy the file before the event split and paste it back in with the original "meow.dat" name to cheat. That's how my playtester does it.
hi I’m loving the game so far. I’m stuck on the necromancy quest and I’m wondering where to go I’ve just been walking around in the grave yard for 2 hours now after reading the note from jasper
-Chara
The tip hotline exists for a reason, but if you need the help that badly…. Notice that some of the graves have hearts on them, take that as a step in the right direction.
-Chara
Interact with the piece of ground you’re standing on in the screenshot
Currently playing through. I have been going through a ton of bullshit and fuckery in my life recently, and playing a game that is just so blatantly "fuck you" from the moment you open it up is really, really refreshing. Feels very honest and real. Will keep on playing it. Really like it!
it's hard to tell if various events are broken or what. it's very unclear about what's possible and what i'm supposed to be doing, and it seems unreasonably difficult and grindy without getting a 2nd party member
There is a Tip Hotline in the game to call for a reason.
I see.
There were various dialogues with other party members, though I didn't recruit them yet. So I wasn't sure if I broke the game or what.
Yeah, those parts are actually broken. I have trouble keeping up with event flags, but hopefully I’ll get them all sorted out in the next update.
the "depressed ex-adventurer" NPC at the docks changes sprites depending on the direction from which you talk to them. itch isn't letting me upload screenshots in the comments though
Ah, don't worry, I caught that glitch while working on the upcoming update!
minor spoilers
It seems like in the left room in the warehouse dungeon (where you get the razor dirk) the north exit leads back to the entrance room. Ran into that in 1.2, upgraded, confirmed it's still like that in 1.3.
Also I think the cost of the Bribe skill isn't being correctly reflected in the menu? I'll check next time I use it but I could swear it said $10 and charged me $15. I genuinely didn't make much use of it before the warehouse but I'm trying to be a little more pragmatic about fighting every single enemy since I learned that they're scaling with my level.
I just got the Rummage skill so I'm pretty excited for longer fights to hinge less on a turn-1 diceroll of Spray. I'm vaguely concerned by the image of Ramona scrambling around the battlefield scraping together residues for the world's nastiest perpetual stew.
Minor, but you get a line about "the two of them are still looking for Kyrie" if you investigate the women's restroom after recruiting her but you get the cutscene and encounter if you investigate the men's.
Also the "Pills" conversation shows up in both the bar parking lot and right outside the apartment after recruiting Kyrie.
I'm enjoying how the combat has opened up with three party members and I appreciate the different skill cost systems they all work with. I also ran into the street to avoid a wrath slime and got kyrie pasted by a car before ending up in combat anyway. It's nice that that isn't an instant game over anymore but the game's essential quality of spitting on you while you're down seems undiminished.
moderate-major spoilers
I realized that part of why I was getting my ass kicked so often is because I had been amassing a hoard of stat ups and forgetting to use them or putting it off. I used them, got the level-down potion from the illusory bartender, and opted in at the shrine all in short order and things seem to be a touch easier. Nobody even died during the room 2406 quest although I imagine that was balanced to accommodate a possible 2-character party. It was refreshing to be able to deal with things like the Double Wrath Slime and the Prankster Rat King where before they were inescapable game-overs. A hard mode in which the pills have a 0% chance to drop could be an option for masochists, though I can't speak to how mathematically doable that would be, past the rank-1 missions.
On the shrine: I visited the church after - I don't know if that "traded off" the big stat up and I didn't do a before/after comparison to check. The creepy statuses in combat went away though. I didn't keep it around long enough to see if it was going anywhere, I figured anything with that much foreshadowing had a good chance of getting me killed and with my newfound stat-boosted overconfidence I didn't want to leave that risk on the table while save rationing.
Some little issues I ran into:
Couple of lines where Ramona's dialogue starts with "Ramona>" and Kyrie's with "Kyrie>" in the downtown sewer Faunshalt Family conversation.
In Patrick's bounty office there's a bounty on the Butcher. When you read it, there's no opt in or out prompt and you automatically lose $50 and get a complimentary hint token. The dialogue (and trade) was totally repeatable, I don't think I signed up for anything.I also killed the rat guy before even meeting Patrick so when it prompted me to go see him I was despairing that I had forgotten an NPC's name.
major spoilers
I like how the "normal" areas are getting more and more hazardous as you complete quests - I definitely feel more able to handle the onslaught than when the wrath slimes first started showing up, but the slog means that you don't really reach a point where you feel like can take it easy. The one exception is the sniper attacks - I don't think it's off-theme for the party to get shot at at random, but what usually ends up happening is that one starts looming when I'm talking to an NPC and I end up paying an HP tax for the conversation. I have no idea how complicated it would be to freeze wandering enemies during conversation, but getting shot at inescapably is more obnoxious (to me) than getting jumped by one of the KKK-looking white-robe roaming enemies or getting run over by a car, even if I end up losing more health or using more resources in the latter case - I'd rather get fucked over in the battle system than an arbitrary -150 hp/all. I'd honestly just pay the mob back what I found in the sewers plus interest if it'd get them to lay off.
Without paying that much attention I managed to amass enough money and saleable resources to pay off the rent. I didn't expect the game to end when I did that so I'm glad I saved first. I think this is mostly due to a combination of being stat-pilled to the gills (I fight most battles instead of running and every so often rummage through my inventory to use up 5-10 of each pill) and decent drop rates on most resources, including souls. Plus, now that I'm struggling less, I think I'm getting more from the tier 2 quests than the partial credit I got for the tier 1s. I didn't even need to sell the cursed scale.
I think I'm stuck as far as Uzbek's quests go, so I'm seeing how far I can get in the tower now. I tried dropping a Total Silence on the Messenger boss in the hopes of preventing him from summoning the two other health bars that Spray revealed but ended up with everyone muted EXCEPT those assholes.
I've been playing 1.3, or at least I installed 1.3 over 1.2 over 1.1 (I mentioned that the itch client doesn't let me install properly on Windows 10?) If reloading my save on a fresh install might fix some of this, I'm happy to try.
Major bugs:
I don't seem to be able to close out the graveyard quest for good. I completed it once (and fought the cultist with the lightning rod, not the one with the gun, if that makes a difference) as the last quest in the Tier 2s. That didn't open Tier 3, and when I investigated the board the same quest could still be accepted. I accepted it again and ran into the cowboy adventurer with the hint to the location of the cultists' lair, but there was a blue NPC talking about how they were still cleaning it up blocking the entrance. I was able to turn the quest in to Uzbek again (for another $1000), and I found that it still wasn't removed from the board. A less scrupulous player than me could probably just generate infinite money 1 grand at a time.
In the manor library, there are some roaming big flower enemies that spawn after you read the clue. I don't know if this is true for all of them, but the leftmost one (which was closest to me on triggering their spawn) didn't despawn after I beat it, and in fact triggered the same fight twice over before I was able to get away.
Minor bugs:
I used Shank on Stanley at the docks but I don't think he bled. I could have missed it, truthfully.
Several of the puzzle clues in the manor disappear visually on inspection, but can still be interacted with.
The bounty for the Death Pugilist just ends the interaction if selected.
Dialogue issues:
Several lines appear cut off by the dialogue border, probably because they're just long enough to fill it without a linebreak. I documented a few I noticed:
The music app instructions say that "0" is the default themes, remarks that 00 is an old classic if you select it, then tells you that you don't own the record (although it still assigns the default).
The dialogue for the Shield Adventurer outside the graveyard switches sides on the screen for no apparent reason. She also doesn't have a portrait in the bar after the quest.
The right bookmaker at the casino doesn't have a text box for the first line of dialogue. Like the background is missing.
Typo in the paying-off-your-landlord scene - "neccessarily"
Grammatical typo in Swing for the Fences skill description
Minor Sequence Breaks:
I inspected the fake bookshelf in the Manor before walking into the Library at all.
Lacking a reason to revisit after recruiting Devon, I didn't return to the Tower until I had already taken down the Restroom Killer in round 2. I encountered him for the first time in the bathrooms next to where I recruited Kyrie, right after I recruited her, so it seems pretty likely that the conversation about serial killers will happen out of sequence for other players besides me.
Misc:
The rules at the arena say you will only be healed if you win, but I didn't get healed after a 2-round of the toxic vibes fight. It's unclear if you only get healed for staying in 4 rounds or if you just don't get healed period.
Why can only Kyrie open artifact gachas? Not that it matters but it's odd to select the item and then select her (with no other party member selectable).
Eating at the restaurant downtown promised +15 max health but gave +20 and a stomachache. It could be random to some extent, I only used it once and only because I'm rich now.
When choosing a battle theme, it's odd to have to check your inventory for the record numbers and then switch to your phone instead of just using the record in your inventory. I have no idea what the limitations of RPG Maker are with regards to item usage scripting and soundtrack swapping but this UX seems a little out-of-the-way.
It was a shame to miss out on the manor safe puzzle. I found clues for the first, second, and last digits but didn't run into the third and now, even after turning in the job and Uzbek saying that someone will go clean up, nobody wants to go back into the safe room. Which makes sense, nobody wanted to see that, but the safe is behind the boss fight and if it wasn't for my insistence on checking side paths first I wouldn't have known what the clues were even for.
Heya, I really appreciate your in-depth look through the game! I've been putting all your bug reports on a list of things to tackle and I'll get around to working on that soon!
On the random shooters thing, that's actually a problem I've come to agree on, especially since the next update will have a mob affiliated cahser character. I'm actually thinking of either phasing those out in favor of a different chaser character, or something else inconvenient. Right now, I'm thinking of putting a toll on the path leading to the Tower that scales based on how much you've inconvenienced the mob.
And god, yeah, I want to figure out a more practical way of changing the battle soundtrack. The way I see it, I'd have to make a custom menu (like the computer menus from Yume 2kki) to come up with something more practical.
(Also, speaking of menus "only Kyrie being able to open gachas" thing is more of a quirk of the engine. An item that's set to only by a "user" just kinda defaults to whoever is furthest down the party list.)
Also, as you're going up the Tower, I recommend going to the Docks first, assuming that you've talked to Jasper at all points.
minor spoilers
Still playing through this. Even if level scaling is making the Sewer Wrath Slime a tougher fight than intended, I found it managable by alternating between Lunge and Bribe to stall for another Lunge. I was able to get Devon but didn't realize that the Wrath Slime vendetta meant an inescapable unbribeable boss fight would be appearing on basically every map. I think that means I should stop rationing saves - they're not even $10 yet.
Couple of little bugs I ran into:
The conversation markers on the map started appearing when Devon joined, which made me remember the marker I triggered before recruiting any party members, I think in the room north of the woods bus stop with the attacking flowers? I wasn't sure if that was a bug or a very contextless flashback/flash forward at the time.
You can see a lot of health bars for the empty slots in the Stanley fight if you use Spray. Also you get a Broken Flute even if you win without trying to grab it before the fight? I'd understand if it was intentional, and maybe I missed a line at the end of the fight, but nobody seemed to say anything about it being broken until I turned it in at the Bar.
It would be convenient if the shop interface showed a comparison against what you already have equipped, instead of against baseline stats and a net stat delta. If that's an RPG Maker limitation it's not a big deal.
Still plenty of stuff left to dive into here. I'm really only inching my way through and things like Wrath Slime and Stanley revenge attacks tend to make me regret my frugal approach to saving.
Oh, this was all on 1.1 I think? So if anything changed in 1.2 I haven't checked it out yet. Nothing shows up in the itch client install options on Windows 10 so I downloaded it and forgot to keep it updated
I opened my 1.1 save in 1.2 and got 3 distinct phone calls in a row as soon as it loaded
Oh?? On god??
Okay, adding all this to the fix list. I might have messed up on the phone call variables when I was adding new ones.
And yeah, unfortunately the lack of shop comparison is an engine thing. I’ll try to see if there’s a script that I could use because I do find this inconvenient for Devon’s equipment and really any that changes anything but the principle stat. As for the health bar thing, I’m actually not sure how to fix that yet, but that’s definitely something I want to fix.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Actually, were you in the forest when the phone calls happened? I added two set phone calls there (one upon arriving and one after getting Ramona’s license), so both of them got set off when you came back with a third one playing by coincidence.
I was! Sounds like it could just be a bug that shows up when you reload a save from before 1.2.
Love the new battle open splash!
I can keep posting these as I run into them or I can dump a handful at once. whichever is less annoying.
I went to both the clinic and the church with a downed party member, but neither seemed to be able to do anything about it. The way it was phrased, I thought the church might be about curing the stat-downs from being KOd, but I didn't even get that much out of them. I could be misunderstanding the point of both buildings.
I entered combat with Ramona down (specifically, I confronted the prankster rat guy after giving him 5 stingers) and combat opened with the "Ramona is down... -1 something or other" message. Is that supposed to compound like that? (the combat did not go well)
Oh, yeah, I didn’t communicate the purpose of the church well enough. When a character is downed enough times, you can visit the church for a ritual that gives you the chance to increase stats and improve their skills. As for the clinic, it currently doesn’t have a purpose besides being a place to visit a character after a point. Originally, the church’s role would have belonged to the clinic but I wanted to expand on the apartment area. With that in mind, I want the clinic to have a purpose, and I should make the church’s more clear.
Also, yeah, that is an oversight I’m aware of. I have an alternate way of setting up the death system in mind where it only triggers upon death, but it would mean that it’d be possible to lose stats multiple times in one battle due to being downed immediately on revive. I’m honestly not sure if I should keep the current system (which would punish players that doesn’t keep lemonade on hand) or switch to that (where players could potentially lose multiple stats in one battle).
Why can I use a lockpick on room 2406 even though I supposedly need to learn how to use them first? Why do I keep getting party dialogue with people I've never met (after the apartment quest and in front of whatever's north of the forest)??? I took the 2406 quest first and ran in circles and slept a couple days trying to progress the person in front of the bar, and I was really worried I'd somehow gotten stuck until I realized I could...just buy a lockpick and use it. And then I got dialogue with Devon after that and got worried it was still bugged. For the record, I only really went to places as they were introduced as "here's a place to go next" so I didn't go to the Tower or anything because I had no particular reason to. Also I accidentally slept right at the beginning of the game and got concerned that broke something.
Ah, thanks for catching all this! That’s more stuff to fix for 1.2 I guess, haha.
Happy to help! Uhh, sorry if this came off as weird, I was vaguely stressed from being confused and the game being difficult as it is...
Anyway, I suppose I definitely did not do things in the order you imagined lol
minor spoilers
I don't know whether or not I've "screwed myself out" of getting the second party member - I can see him outside the Tower but I don't know how to give him a means of communication. In lieu of that, I'm struggling with just a level 4 Ramona to take on the Raccoon Flute guy with or without the flute. I don't know if I have to complete a specific mission (or any mission) to recruit him but I do feel that grinding my way to a comfortable level at which to face him is a bit of a steep trek. Without any other party members or reliable abilities (except for Bribe, I suppose?) I'm reluctant to explore any place with enemies tough enough to speed up the grinding. I did enjoy discovering the small sewer dungeon outside the apartment and finding that the green slimes were easy enough pickings to mow down. I barely minded the treasure-jacking punchline, the real prize was easy loot. The purple slimes that replaced them were less generous. I also abused going to bed for the night for the free heal until I realized that that was adding to the rent. I'm halfway tempted to fish my way to housing security, an impulse mostly tempered by the suspicion that there's a system in place that depletes the fishing if you do enough of it in one day. Or maybe the big fish were just hiding for that third trip.
In attempting to find other places advance the "recruit someone else so I stop dying alone in the woods" sideplot I encountered a few small issues.
In the clinic, the second door on the right locks the game after the narration.
There's a seam in the tree tiles on the left edge of the docks.
You can run freely in the downtown sewer-dungeon, despite the rule about only running in "safe" places, although the effect on the encounter rate is... dramatic.
I think that other people have mentioned them but the random calls cycle pretty often. They're a nice touch and add to the stressed-out gig worker vibe, but maybe when the pace of the game is more defined it might make sense to make some of them one-time only scattered throughout the plot (and replace the rest with terrible spam callers. is Ramona aware her car insurance is expiring? it's not a bug if its annoying on purpose)
Lastly, I like the "DO YOUR BEST/DO YOUR WORST" splash on entering battle, but it's often half-legible due to the overworld background not contrasting against the black. The first few times I saw it I didn't get a chance to read it. If it plays for every battle in the entire game it's not that big of a problem, but it diminishes the impact of the first couple of appearances if it's half cut off.
I enjoyed Slimes a lot and I'm enjoying revisiting the setting premises that were mostly only alluded to or flashbacked about there. This seems like a much more sprawling project with a very different vibe - an intentional throwback to much meaner early console RPGs with some additional negative feedback loops strewn about as a reminder that capitalism. The screenshots (more than my own stymied progress) seem to indicate you've made some decent headway on that sprawl - best of luck with the rest!
Heya, I appreciate the feedback you're giving me. As you say, this is a much larger scale project compared to Slimes, so it's easy for me to miss out on stuff like this.
So, on the second party member, you're almost there. In the sewer dungeon you're talking about, there's a path to the south that leads to the missing phone. The way is locked, but you can buy the lockpicking guide from the adventurer in front of the Waking Stones after the treasure-jacking scene and buy a lockpick off Sheya. Now, my main fear is that you might not be able to fight the boss, due to enemy scaling and the fact that you couldn't buy equipment to keep up. Honestly, you bringing this up may be the most valuable piece of criticism here, so I appreciate you bringing this up. I'm planning a much smaller update to fix a bunch of problems and now I'm going to add a more explicit hint to check there besides having players rely on to Tip Hotline (don't be scared of consulting it!).
No worries, big projects make it easy to miss the little things. None of that stuff ruined the experience at all but it seemed like the kind of thing you're looking to clean up in a demo version.
Completely forgot about the tip hotline but it turns out pinging the dev on itch with a small bug report gets you the same info for free.
I didn't realize that enemies were always scaling - I thought the purple slimes were the result of me triggering the treasure jacking event. I also assumed that knowing how to pick locks was a skill that another party member was supposed to bring to the table and figured that all of that was gated off for later. Looking forward to diving back in!
This is already an amazing experience :)
the vibes of this game are impeccable . looking forward to the full game
Oh I just posted but I was wondering if there's any chance to be able to acquire/listen to the ost separately? I enjoy the battle and forest themes a lot.
The music is entirely public domain. Most of the stuff in the demo is from Fuzzy Trip in Remix Land, though the next version of the game will have some more variety with the rest of Rose's work. Please check out the rest of their stuff and throw them a dollar or two!
I'm enjoying this game so far but I'm a bit stuck. I'm still trying to get an adventure's license but nothing at the shrine in the forest helps me to that end. I call the tip hotline and it tells me to do a quest that requires I kill hornets. I've done the quest where you sell hornet parts to the npc at the town dungeon and I don't know if there are any more hornet related quests. Other things I've done are team up with devon and completed the sewer section. Any help/tips would be appreciated.
Have you met Trish? You should already have it of you fought her. If you haven’t, go into the shrine, walk all the way down the staircase (make sure to touch the last tile) then walk back out. You should be in a new room that will lead to you getting it.
EDIT: If you have met Trish, have you gone into the hallway in the shrine? If you do, remember to step out for the next part. :3c
I get to the room you are talking about, my options are talking to the cat (has dialogue about knowing devon), walking thru the top right door (character in a different art style asks me to not ignore, prevented from going through), exiting thru the bottom left, or re-entering hallfway in the bottom right (which is just the entrance to the shrine). Nothing I find leads me to a fight.
Oh jeez, I just realized, did you get Devon before attempting to to here? I just realized that I might have messed up the event flags because usually on all my play tests I went to the shrine before getting Devon. This might be why it’s messing up for you.
yeah I got devon a good bit before the shrine.
maybe related to flags, but the phone calls you get tend to repeat a lot for me. devon has gotten their "sorry" calls at least 5 times now, which seemed strange. Ramona has gotten a lot of the same call from the landlord as well, which seemed normal, but I think the mom call may have happened multiple times too.
Yeah about that, I put a 1 out of 15 chance to get a phone call anywhere you go because I thought it’d be annoying and make dodging certain encounters harder. The phone calls you get are supposed to be randomized, but I only made three for the demo because I honestly didn’t expect other people to trigger it that often.
a very fun satire of RPGs and capitalism. the lore and dialogue is very well written, and the game scratches a similar itch to something like LISA: The Painful, the dark sense of humor complimenting a particularly dismal view of reality. music choice is great. the jankiness of the art is really charming. i started talking to devon in the entrance of the dungeon despite him not knowing me or being in my party, but issues like that are excusable in a demo, especially for a game this small.
overall, really good, can't wait to play the full version.
I lost 45 minutes of progress because I didn't save but I liked what I played.
I didnt even play the game and I hate you already
Aww, come on, don't be like that. We are the players, so that means we're the one who's cursing at the npc... well... it's the title so there's nothing we can do about it.
I had fun playing this, liked the character interactions. The setting and mechanics do a good job of making you feel like you're getting screwed no matter what you do. Especially if you sell a certain item.
no u suffer
I like this game. Just five minutes in and I'm into it. Love the choice of music, I was jamming to it. My most favourite thing was when the landlord ambushed Ramona and the way he was introduced like a boss. I like the bus mechanic and transport mechanic, you can't just immediately walk to the next city after all. Liked the interactions too. A must play game. (Landlord I'll pay my rent, don't call my parents!) I like how this game really does want you to suffer. (Paying 1 dollar to save, making Ramona do the extermination instead, tip hotline is 35 dollars, etc.) Too many encounters in the forest though. And sewer event triggers more than once. Had trouble with the sage boss at a lower level.
I made a playthrough, sorry about the audio, will correct it next time.
Ah, thank you so much! Oh, and I appreciate your critcism of the forest. It was tough trying to figure out the ideal encounter rate for that place, especially as the person making it, so I really value the perspective of an outsider on it!
Nice! Will wait for the full game to be released, I reached as far as getting the AL card, the combat for that was tough, took me a while to beat! Also, the mother's call event in the sewers triggers everytime I go in the sewers