itch.io

IMO, if the minigame is inspired by Mastermind, then the rules are going to be much too complex for the type of interaction comfortable in an RPG or VN. Games either draw players because of emotional involvement (caring about the characters and their story) or intellectual involvement (trying to solve a hard problem). Those two motivations tend to be antagonistic, and attempting do do both in the same game tends to push back both categories of players, and turn the game into work rather than pleasure.

Let's not forget that the level of combat complexity of most acclaimed RPGs or even action and FPS games is at the level of multiple rounds of rock-paper-scissors. And you can in fact get to very interesting game dynamic using such a simple [ A < B, B < C, ... Z < A ] set of rules (like rogue vs warrior vs mage builds, or elemental magic combos).

In the end, the minigame *is not* the game :D It's not why people are going to play this, its only role is to add to the immersion in the game itself.

I actually think that indicating the outcome directly in the option / choice is immersion breaking, as you seem to fear. So the exercise is more to try to telegraph (without directly telling) the consequences of the choice in the writing and language. It definitely is more difficult, and it's a balance between too little and too much information. If it feels you do have to be more explicit, then giving insight into the character's thoughts as to what could be the consequence of the decision is a way to allow yourself to say more without too much immersion-breaking.

I did try the combat. It was... honestly very confusing, I had no idea what I was doing, nor what the outcome was predicated on. But it was short enough in the overall story that it didn't feel game-breaking. This is probably not the outcome you were going for, though. My advice would be to simplify the mechanics drastically, if you want the game to remain story-oriented. If on the other hand you want combat to be an important element, then... this will need some rework.

Very elaborate and well-written for a v0.0.1.

I was both surprised and disappointed when I reached the end of this chapter, as everything up to that point had been at the level of polish and quality of a much more mature game. If this level of quality can be maintained, this will be an excellent game.

That said, I have some gripes. TBH, I had similar misgivings about Animus non Grata, and it may be because I am not a fan of linear stories.

I would prefer for that the character to be given more agency, choices that offer the illusion of choosing their destiny, even if it is pretend-agency that fortuitous "circumstances" force back to the same outcome after a few pages.

And I feel that the consequences, or character personality / status changes, that result from the few decisions that can be meaningfully taken (i.e. aren't an immediate game-over), should be more clear, or at least hinted at.

It works fine even on later versions. The only issue is the saves...

Any thoughts on Violet QoL features? Would this have a chance to make it to the roadmap, particularly in sight of the 2nd place Violet got in the last polls?

A couple of observations (non-game breaking bugs -- or at least missing QoL features).

There should be a function to export save games to a file. While this there is a workaround to transfer saves between PCs (by just copying from the game's save dir), there is none on Android, where it is impossible to access the saves (access to an app's files is protected on A9 and above. Renpy sync does not work so can't be relied on.

I really love the way the Violet character and interactions are written. TBH I would love to see more of her and less of Nel. It's really a shame that letting Violet take control is so cumbersome: unlike with Nel where you can run through a whole day at speed, the game falls out of autoskip after each battle, and her "self exploration" animations can't be skipped and run very slow. Why do I care? Because I want to increase her body proficiency to the max. Also, it would be nice if Violet knew how to use potions like Nel does, and adding the possibility to sleep when Violet brings you back home after a session without having to ask to be released would help too.

About body proficiency, it would be nice to have some indications in the wiki (or the Library!) on how it works and what effects it has...

The good:

This game has a very high quality of technical and art execution, and robust and intuitive UI design. Everything runs smoothly, the art and the animations are always perfect, and the writing linguistically very good.

More suprisingly, it does so flawlessly, even on linux, without being a resource hog.

A couple of things, though, make this game less than the sum of its parts.

The bad:

 - it *really* is a VN. There is no agency, the story path is almost entirely linear with no real options to develop characters in different ways

- kink-wise, what I have only been able to discover is limited to vanilla lesbian sex and a bit of straight sex, with *very* light levels of bondage

The ugly:

- the lore and character development are *extremely* verbose, there is pages and pages of text to read through, but I feel that this content is so generic that none of it really make a difference as to how the player relates to the character

- the plot is just your run-of-the-mill fantasy "big evil menace is spawning monsters everywhere while manipulating the nobility to betray the king".... 1995 called: Slayers want their plot back...