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Minor graphical bug: when I unlocked Dahlia, she was invisible in the character select and her info page (but not in cut-scenes). She also didn't show up in the level 10 mind break segment, and unlocking her second outfit at level 15 didn't help, either. However, starting with the level 20 mind break segment, she reappeared and the bug never happened again.

P.S. The female player's barn scene with Mika (sprite-4864-1) still shows the male player instead, and the one with the succubus (sprite-4824-1) only has the top half female, with the bottom half still being male. v0.5 also has a brand new problem that wasn't in 0.49: when a female player is selected, Raven's 5th CG shows the male player character instead, and vice versa. This is on top of the dialogue for those scenes still being swapped like they were before, so although the narration now matches the CG, they don't match the player's chosen gender.

How do I beat B4? There's no way to get the lower blocks up because there's always at least one rune blocking the 2X2-sized mouse wheel, the ceiling blocks can't be moved at all for the same reason, and the player can't jump high enough to reach the gold/goal from where the blocks are. What else can I do? The mouse wheel can't be shrunk to move the blocks between the runes, and none of the tiles can be moved out of bounds from the building, either. What am I missing?

EDIT: Oh, never mind, you just chose to introduce the thin wood planks in a very unintuitive way, making them look like part of the unmovable tile.

No offense, but I don't like the beat 'em up genre (I thought this game was gonna be a metroidvania), so I won't test the game again. That said, I'd imagine you can reproduce the screen limit bug by trying to go past each cat wave, then trying to go back once you hit the right side of the screen, and you'll eventually hit the part I got stuck in. You can also use my score in the screenshot as a guide for where it happened.

Finally 100%ed the game. As I said before, it's really good, but there's one more issue that should be fixed: some vertical sections make the player bounce upward on rocks/spikeballs into another row of rocks/spikeballs (like the tree-trunk level in world 2 or the wrap-around segment in world 5), but since they don't start moving until coming into the screen, there's a chance they'll spawn on top of each other, meaning the player can't get up without taking damage. There's an extra problem in the world 2 level, since waiting for them to come back around after missing one jump causes them to go offscreen and stop moving, so when going over to see what happened, all the spikeballs end up on top of each other:

EDIT: An easy fix for this issue is to shorten the horizontal halls the spikeballs are in, so that said halls are too short to go off-screen.

I also recommend a couple changes to the Wild House (world 3 bonus level): have the doors drop players directly on the sign so they can read the rules BEFORE doing trial-and-error to figure out what they are, and add a sentence to the sign in the first room to let players know they can still bounce by attacking instead of having to rely solely on dashing (because attack-bouncing is still required despite the sign saying players can "only dash").

EDIT: Also, please move the wall at the end of the final dash-only room one unit left so that players can't dash past the door and get stuck.

I've been playing the game on Steam, and it's pretty good so far, but can you PLEASE make the wall-jump walls a more distinct color from non-wall-jump walls? EDIT: Maybe also make them striped for extra visibility? They blend in too well as-is. In the second level of world 3, one of the coins is up a shaft, and I kept thinking I needed to get the balloons past the on/off electric barriers, but they'd keep popping no matter how empty the space was. It wasn't until after a couple deaths where I noticed the wall suddenly became wall-jumpable at that point, and I didn't need the balloons at all. EDIT 2: Same is true for the on/off blocks in Emmy's level: wall-jumping off of them is required right BEFORE the vertical shaft that would've made it intuitive!

EDIT: While I'm at it, is the dialogue supposed to be grammatically awkward, or do you need to proofread the script?

Oh, almost forgot: you should include a description of what's different between the difficulties, because there's no standard: they mean different things in different games.

Some feedback: the tutorial room doesn't work; you just get thrown in an empty room with a non-functional door until you exit via the pause menu. Also, there should be subtitles during the intro cutscene, and I'd like an anti-aliasing option if possible. By the way, is it just me, or does the camera move at a lower framerate than what's set in the options? The first boss arena especially felt low-framerate no matter how much I lowered the settings, and when the boss killed me, I wasn't able to pause the game anymore until I beat the boss.

As for gameplay, there's too much forward momentum, which makes precise platforming unnecessarily difficult (especially this early in the game). 3D Sonic gets away with it because of the homing attack (which instantly kills momentum upon hitting an enemy), and 2D Sonic gets away with it due to there being fewer ways to miss a platform or lose track of yourself in 2D space. Maybe you could add a ground-pound move to get around this issue? Also, the jetpack and forward-dash should switch buttons; there were several times where I'd go to jump, only to dash off the platform instead. Swapping the buttons would fix this while also letting the X button do something while on the ground.

On a different subject, it would be beneficial if similar-looking objects that act differently from each other get recolored (such as ordinary wood vs. collapsing wood or normal sand vs. death sand). Plus, the death sand should kill the player faster than it does. Also, I'd appreciate if pushing the red button in the sand level had the camera cut to what it changed, like the Zelda games do.

Lastly, how do I attack/kill the tower turrets in the sand level without getting hit myself? 

This game has potential, but one thing that definitely needs to be changed is dropping down through thin platforms: it should be immediate, because as-is, the final shaft has fake paths that get you killed before the drop-down finally registers. It's bad design to make it look like the player can go a certain way without actually making that route possible, especially when the player only has a split second to make a decision before being instakilled by vines. 

It's also unintuitive that jumping on enemies will hurt them, especially since there are a couple you CAN'T jump on and have to shoot, which makes the ammo limit more frustrating than anything. I also recommend removing the forward-momentum.

Thanks!

How do I give the grandmother a clam? I'm carrying one, but no combination of up, down, left, right, <, or > will drop it, and she doesn't take it automatically. I thought maybe I needed to bring her enough at once, but I was only able to carry more than one clam one time, so I think that might've been a glitch. Also, there seems to be another glitch where the game won't let you punch anymore, but holding < still lets you run.

Why do the cats randomly go dormant and STAY dormant? There's no reliable way to get them back up, meaning some can stay invulnerable forever. This got me stuck less than two minutes into the game, unable to kill them, go past them, or even go backward past an invisible wall in the middle of the screen (I'm guessing one of your screen limits glitched), so I'm stuck on the right-hand side:

Also, what about this is a Metroidvania?

You should have Club explain herself BEFORE making the player choose whether or not to trust her, because as it is right now, the player is given nothing to trust: you get attacked, then when you win, you're abruptly told it was a test and asked to decide. Even just a sentence or two explaining her side would be enough to make it a more balanced choice, and if you think that'd tip the scales too far in her favor, you could always remind the player that Bloks can alter people's memories and that Club's backstory could've been fabricated by them whole-cloth.

Also, it'd be nice if each ending let you go back and pick the other option so you could see both routes without having to replay the whole game up to that point.

P.S. Some of the dialogue has the wrong characters speaking the lines.

EDIT: Also, is the soundtrack available anywhere?

If you're still planning on finishing this game, I recommend increasing the player's default walk speed. Not only is it sluggish on its own, but it doesn't give you enough time to react to enemy projectiles, resulting in unavoidable damage. In fact, maybe also slow down enemy projectile speed while you're at it.

I also recommend reducing the transformation time. I get that you want a risk/reward system where you can still get attacked, but the wait-time is currently way overboard and should be reduced to 2 seconds or less. To counterbalance this, you could make it so that enemies have an actual pattern and don't just move in random directions like NES Zelda.

When you remake the game, can you please add checkpoints? I don't mind one-hit-deaths, but it's annoying having to replay several rooms you made it past just because you fell on an enemy you couldn't see or because you didn't realize frozen enemies still deal contact damage--especially because half the rooms are empty (except for carrots) and the in-game tutorial text is hard to read. The controls could also use some work; jumping physics feel off and shooting locks the player in place for a bit. 

EDIT: By the way, where's the soundtrack from?

The game shows promise, but please make the player's projectile attack instant, or at the very least, much faster. It's tedious having to wait on it to go from the gap in the bullets where you are, all the way to the enemies that shot them AND wait for it to come back, only to have to do that 3+ times for nearly every enemy after level 1. Even when you're right next to enemies and repeatedly clicking on them, it still takes them longer to die than normal bullet hells let you kill enemies on the opposite side of the screen from you (in fact, maybe you should lower enemy HP across the board as well). It's worse if you're trying to do combos, because then you ALSO have to spend time dragging the mouse around to connect each enemy (and in the right order sometimes), all while they're moving around and shooting at you, requiring you to stop aiming and move around tightly-woven projectiles as well. 

You say you're not good at bullet hells, but your game's core aiming & combo mechanics demand more skill and multitasking than any bullet hell I've played, continue systems notwithstanding...so maybe just make the full game a normal SHMUP instead (á la Gradius, Hydorah, etc.), with normal-sized hitboxes and with the current level 3 difficulty being the final game's final level difficulty. 

I also think it should be made clearer as to when invulnerable bosses can be hit. For the start of June's boss fight, my attacks kept making the "immune" sound effect, but I also couldn't interact with the unique flashing bullets in any way (they just hurt me like normal bullets). It wasn't until after my first game over when I tried attacking the boss again and was suddenly able to deal damage, and I'm still not sure what I was expected to do. Likewise, the stasis tank boss should have a clear visual to show that the laser only disables its shield instead of dealing damage itself like you'd expect, and only while the laser itself is active (though I think it'd be better to have the laser disable the shield permanently so the player doesn't have to hover around the top corner of the arena the whole time). 

Oh, and you should have a warning for when enemies are going to come up from the bottom of the screen, since that rarely happens in vertical SHMUPs.

P.S. Will the composer put the soundtrack up for download anywhere?

Echoing that Hand of Fate's forward charge is a cheap hit that should be MUCH slower (especially since it isn't made clear that the player moves faster when not shooting), but the boss should also have at least 25% less HP since it spends half the battle on the side you can't shoot at. 

You might also want to make it clear that players CAN continue from the level they died at by pushing enter on the title screen after game over. Or, better yet, just have the game over screen say "continue" instead of "press start" and have it go straight from there back to the level instead of stopping by the title screen each time.

By the way, is the game's soundtrack available for download anywhere?

Enemies take too many hits to die given how close to the bottom they can spawn and considering the player can only have three shots on screen at once. If any one of those three problems were fixed, this would be a much better game, but as is, they compound on each other and make things more frustrating than fun, especially given how far back you're sent on game over.

The level design is good, but I don't like how I have to start over from the very beginning of the game each time I lose; it becomes tedious to redo what I've already beaten just for another chance at what killed me. I'd appreciate the option to restart from checkpoints, even if it means taking fewer hits (or even just one hit) before being sent back. Would you be willing to add that option to your game?

Yeah, strange that the download would pretend to be pay-what-you-want, only to lock the actual download behind a $2 paywall. I guess we'll just have to settle for playing the game in the browser.

Yeah, the in-game track is Storm Eagle's theme with the main melody removed. I don't recognize the title theme, though.

Why does shooting while standing/running lock the controls for a moment? That is a level of unresponsiveness that actual NES games like Contra and Mega Man don't have, which singlehandedly takes your game from okay to unfair (and that's not even getting into the fact that you can't shoot while ducking)! If you're still willing to update the game, please make it so shooting doesn't prevent moving or jumping (and maybe make it so moving backwards in midair also instantly aims in that direction as well). 

By the way, the exploding ceiling barrels near the start of 1-3 should be stationary because they always moved away when the enemy-spam showed up, meaning the only way to survive that part is to get lucky and hope the enemies don't shoot a ceiling of bullets + grenades when the barrels finally move back into position.

EDIT: The final boss is also badly designed because the gunfire forces the player to duck, preventing the player from being able to avoid the randomly-thrown grenades. It's also unintuitive how to kill the rocket launchers because the player's knife doesn't have its own button and only replaces the gun when close enough to an enemy.

Thanks again. I guess my final question is...what determines which of the player-character's orders stick after control is released and which don't? Terra says "why did I ever abandon this pleasure" and "I'll never doubt you again" in her 5th CG--which has to take place first due to her mentioning she hasn't had sex in millennia--then she promptly abandons that pleasure again in the barn scene by purposely stopping the finger snap, possibly also doubting the player-character in the process (edit: because otherwise she'd just let it happen, right?). However, despite this lucidity...she still works in the barn as commanded and still has sex.

I get that the player-character still has some influence after "control" is released, but the dividing line seems kinda arbitrary, especially when it appears to regress: there's not just the above example, but also some characters (Leanne, Karen, Sophia, etc.) who are suddenly no longer okay with sex at the end of their barn scenes. Shouldn't it be more like what happened with the lifeguard's ice cream stand or Cathrine's/Branda's barn scene, where they're like "oh, I did want to do this, actually!" Why do they instead regain freedom for that specific thing when they don't regain other freedoms? How does Crystal have the freedom to resist her barn order by pretending to work, but she doesn't have the freedom to resist by just leaving the barn? How does Crystal have the freedom to resist her pole-dance order entirely (no "must follow in some way" like with Naomi's lap-dance, but straight-up refusal), requiring trickery with the VR headset to get any kind of show from her? Why can't the player-character simply do another finger snap and go "no, you WILL pole-dance/do actual barn work instead of pretending"?

Oh, speaking of no work getting done in the barn, I've also been getting the bug where the game always says barn income is $0, no matter who is chosen:

I think it still generates income; it just never says so.

P.S. Almost forgot: when purchased items reach max level, their name and flavor text are replaced with "Max Level" and "Click an item to select it." Not sure if this specific detail is a bug or not, but I think it would be better for their name and flavor text to remain after reaching max level, with the "Max Level" text itself instead going where "Next Level" used to be. 

Again: I thought about that, but what about when she says "I'd forgotten how it feels"? That line implies that she has felt sexual pleasure while lucid before (because the player hadn't hypnotized her a millennia ago), so what changed between when she last had sex and when the game takes place?

I've finally 100%ed the latest version (0.49), so THIS should be my last comment (at least for a while). Aside from some more sneaky typos and the fact that Elkantar's pole-dance CG (sprite-2702-0) wasn't updated, the only new issue I noticed is that the text's backing bubble disappears for several pearl-summoned girls' lapdance cutscenes (and Amber's 3rd CG cutscene), making the text harder to read. Oh, and Dr. Love is mistakenly called Dominya in her pole-dance cutscene.

I also have one more story question: in Terra's barn sex scene, the narration says that she "seems to experience nothing but compassion," and that it was as if she "was having an altogether different experience," but in her final CG cutscene--which also involves her having sex with the player--she keeps going "Aaah!" and even refers to it as "this pleasure," suggesting that she DOESN'T experience sex much differently. EDIT: I considered that she was faking those orgasms or had been hypnotized into feeling sexual pleasure for the first time, but she also says that she had "forgotten how it feels," meaning THIS is what normally happens, and the barn scene is...what am I missing here?

...or is this another thing I wasn't supposed to be prompted to put thought into?

Thanks for responding. Small clarification: I meant, when Helen explains how to find/see those cutscenes, she would clarify that all three types of scenes (auditorium/mall/barn) take place at different, varying points in their individual arcs instead of all happening after their final CG or at a specific point in the timeline--or even sequentially among themselves (since Nichole's barn scene has to take place before almost all her other cutscenes). She could follow up by saying something like "so don't worry if it seems like your control over them has waned; that's just a natural side-effect of pearl resets!" The only hard firm point is when the explanation itself shows up: once the player levels up any character enough to unlock that person's auditorium scene. Does it sound like something you'd be willing to implement now?

I did initially assume those were abstracted/player-convenient/cost-convenient choices, but was confused why said convenience didn't extend to the dance/barn scenes, hence my first comment. I think the best compromise would be to have Helen explain it (and how to see them) in an interrupt-cutscene the first time you get a character to level 300 (or whenever their pole-dance scenes unlock); that way, not only is their place in the timeline explicit, but it also rectifies an earlier issue I brought up about how those cutscenes are too well hidden to begin with.

By the way, is the rain in Raine's 4th CG also an art convenience and she just thinks it's raining sometimes? My main question about that was the weather being the same, after all. And how does Susan's uniform get unburned? If she just straight-up has a second set, maybe you could add it to the background of her 2nd CG as an Easter egg.

Wait, do pearl resets send the player back in time, or is the lone remaining hypnosis level so the harem doesn't notice how much time passed? I feel like either way, it just introduces more plot-holes: Could the mayor end up interviewing for the position Nichole still actively fulfills? Is it just a massive coincidence that it always rains (with the exact same traffic) when Raine reaches her 4th CG again? How does Clara's brainwashing work if she's leveled up before Mia or Candice (or Katelyn)? What does the non-hypnotized goddess think when the war suddenly starts up again? How do none of the elves think to use this time-travel power against Helen/the player? 

P.S. Olivia's lap-dance has the same issue as Susan's, by the way: it's in the folder as sprite-4538-0,  but the cutscene just shows the default mall background.

Is it just me, or do the barn scenes take place BEFORE the characters' final (5th/6th) CG cutscenes? Some of the narration seems to conflict every now and then (like Cathrine objecting to her new job despite earlier having claimed to be fully loyal and desperate to please you), but I'm especially curious about Nichole's: her narration explicitly mentions that the mayor "must have still been working her rather hard" and how "you would be free to teach her boss a lesson" "once you had her quit," but...she already resigned back in her second CG cutscene (which is only 2nd because her first CG appears as soon as you unlock her) and the player-character takes up that job early in the mayor's arc to hypnotize her as well--both of which happen before the barn is ever accessible since the city has to be completed to unlock the countryside. Am I missing something? What's the timeline, here?

EDIT: Susan's lapdance cutscene doesn't display sprite-4534-0 as it's supposed to, but instead just shows the standard empty club background.

Just got done reading the new cutscenes (and Anne's now-fixed cutscene!), and as always, they're pretty good. I especially like that Iris and Darlene are brainwashed into thinking they achieved their goals (especially since that *didn't* happen with Dianne, Elkantar, or Xyren). 

That said, Iris's 3rd CG cutscene has all of its dialogue duplicated for the cutscene afterward, with the latter's original text missing. I tested this again on your latest build (21 hours ago) and it still happens. Please fix this.

I did notice some other, smaller issues with them: some cutscenes look like they're about to have another line of text, but the game fades out before it can be read (this is especially true for when Darlene says "I've always been submiss--uh," and the scene ends right afterward). In contrast, there are also times where the "null" line appears as text and the player has to click again to end the cutscene (and one of Holi's cutscenes has TWO "null"s in a row!). Lastly, some cutscenes--when they finish--won't return the characters' outfits back to what they were before, instead leaving them on whatever the characters were wearing in those scenes. This won't matter on first viewing, but it becomes annoying when rewatching cutscenes after unlocking their final outfits.

Oh, and there's a couple words missing ("have signal" instead of "have a signal"; "to growing" instead of "to be growing"). It might be a good idea to proofread everyone else's cutscenes, too, if you ever get the chance.

EDIT: I'm also kinda disappointed we don't learn more about Azile's motivations (what does she plan on doing with all her newfound strength and freedom?), but maybe that's something else that got cut off prematurely.

EDIT 2: Whoops, almost missed Raven's cutscenes. Hers are fine for the most part, but the 5th CG dialogue still says things like "shaft" and how she slides it "into" her mouth, even when playing as a female character. It just needs some tweaking for the other gender, is all.

It's fixed now. Changer is more active on the Steam forum and must've forgotten to tell us over here on itch, so I'm letting you know instead.

It's fixed now. Changer is more active on the Steam forum and must've forgotten to tell us over here on itch, so I'm letting you know instead.

Thanks for responding. Any plans to reduce grinding for pearls and loyalty? I looked through previous comments and saw that I wasn't the only one who felt it was way too time-consuming and tedious.

P.S. I'm also encountering the bug a few Steam users mentioned where the game keeps looping the Spiral Clicker 2 promo. Closing and reopening the game didn't help. I guess let me know when version 0.491 is out. EDIT: Okay, I see you fixed it already.

(Also, Helen mentions that she has a new look but is still using her Spiral Clicker 1 outfit; oversight? EDIT: it seemed like you planned on using sprite-174-34 instead.)

Sorry for leaving so many comments, but I do have another question: why does the game go out of its way to cover Crystal's naked crotch at every opportunity...if she's NOT trans (pre-reassignment surgery)? That artistic decision confused me from the moment I first saw her final outfit (no other harem member gets the same treatment), and just when I thought I finally figured it out, I read her barn scene and saw that it's canon she has a pussy. I'm not angry, just wondering what's so special about her vagina to warrant being hidden away like the Arc from Indiana Jones.

One last visual mistake I noticed: sprite-4824-1 has the female-player-character's top, which is accurate, but it has the male-player-character's bottom. Once again, this is what's used in-game (no other female variant exists in the gfx folder), and it would be a very easy fix.

Agreed. For now, the only way to rewatch dialogue scenes is to do a pearl reset and go through them sequentially again, but even that doesn't include character introductions or story intermissions. Plus, loyalty cutscenes require you to painstakingly-grind back to the required amount before they can be seen again. I'm definitely gonna make a back-up of my save so I can rewatch them without having to go through all that each time.

Yeah, it definitely comes across that way. Still, figured I should jot my thoughts down on the off-chance *this* project will ever leave Early Access. Worst case scenario: I only lost a few minutes leaving some comments, but there's always the possibility that the dev will come back here after a few months/years and be like "oh, I wouldn't've thought to check for that" and it gets fixed for future players.

Small correction: apparently, it can be any day in the holiday's month instead of having to be on the specific day. It's just that Easter's month is April, so even though Easter technically falls on March 31st this year, we won't get the scene until tomorrow.

Okay, THIS should be my last comment. I mentioned earlier about how Sonia's female-player variant (sprite-4708-0) doesn't display in-game even when a female player is chosen, but I looked in the graphics folder and noticed a few other variants missing:

- Mika's barn scene doesn't have a female-player variant at all. Sprite-4864-1 is an exact 1:1 copy of sprite-4864-0, both of which are male variants. It's not even like the female-variant's file is just misnamed or something; I checked every image, and it's just not there. The cutscene dialogue still correctly says strap on, though.

- Also, while sprite-377-1 and sprite-629-1 have -0 versions, their female variants (sprite-381-1 and sprite-627-1, respectively) do not. As long as the artist still has the source, it shouldn't be hard to fix (just copy the -0's extra layer over to the -1 variant and save as png). Heck, I actually made one myself just now, which I can upload here for you if you give me permission. EDIT: and no one say that's exclusively male ejaculate because sprite-1133-0 has all the same effects, which happen to be placed identically in sprite-1131-0.

One last suggestion: please add a way for the player to pause the game during real-time segments like the SHMUP level and the Night Trap level. I know they're only a few minutes long, but it's still annoying to lose that much progress due to an emergency in real life.