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Thank you so much! And I appreciate the feedback too ^^

1. I guess it couldn't hurt! I'd need to be careful and make it so it won't cause issues if you press M while typing a note for example, but yeah, can do, I'm taking note
2. Aah, that's been brought up a few times before. It's fair especially given this is a BE game, but essentially while I'm not against it, my focus is somewhere else currently! If I do end up doing this, it'll be closer to the end of development ^^

Again, thank you!

You get various fight bonuses for these!

1 bar: random minor power up
2 bars: health (half a heart or a full heart if you're lucky)
3 bars: +1 drop after the fight
4 bars: random major power up

decisionmaking is shifted from perfection to reaction and everything feels more like a fight. As soon as I got my mind away from "solving a puzzle" to "a battle with shapes and fei" it became immediately more fun. 

That's a really good way to put it actually. This has always seemed obvious to me, so I never even considered that some might still see the fights as a puzzle where you need to figure out the perfect solution, which would cause frustration. Thank you, I might actually use that in a tuto page in the game!

Clarity during the fights has always been an issue, and yeah as you said being aware of what spell your enemy is going to cast next is currently one of the main problems with the fights I have to solve. Since a big announcement in the middle of the screen would get in the way, I've been thinking about adding an SFX that would change depending on the spell category (attack, heal, buff, debuff, special), which would trigger when the spell starts being cast and when it's close to being launched. Maybe change the board's background color could help too... That'll be among the changes I work on for the next version, along with a bunch of QoL more generally ^^

I'm glad you weren't afraid to experiment with the various Heartpowers as well! Each has strengths and weaknesses as you said. Most people have some trouble with the Yoyo and the Mines actually ^^
The Swatter though, that one got improved some time ago but I agree that it still needs more. Actually, just right now, I realized that making the Swatter and Fly follow the Heart might help a lot! It would be a lot easier to track their movement and trigger the splat at the right time if you know to do it when they reach the Heart, which you'll already be looking at, rather than having to keep an eye somewhere else on the screen. Definitely worth experimenting with! Thank ye :B

Aw man thank you so much! I'm glad ^^

There will be better ways to get XP in the final release, so no worries there! :B

Sorry, having to click the spells is an integral part of the gameplay, so I won't add shortcuts...!

I do plan on reworking he encounter rate / system a bit though, possibly by making it so fights can be skipped if you've already beaten that enemy enough times. There is currently a way to insta destroy lower lvl fights by using the ability obtained in the second town if said enemy is 10 lvl or more below your highest lvl party member (I might lower this to 5 lvl in the future). There are also consumable items with that effect ^^

Oh shoot, you're right! Thank you, I'll work on fixing this soon!

Aw damn, well, i'll keep an eye out for it!

Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it! The composers put a lot of effort into the OST, so this means a lot ^^

I see what you mean about the star radar. I'll consider it, or alternatives, but no promises...!
I do have plans for fast travel between save rooms, this will become available later in the story ^^
And I also have plans for fast XP grinding to catch up low level Witches! Their level currently depends on your highest level Witch at the time they're revived, but that will probably change later in development. But yeah, no worries there! ^^

Thank you again!

First of all thank you very much! ^^

- About the fights, I suppose that's subjective! I could smplify the match 3 part, but it would lose a lot of what makes them interesting. I love the feeling of being overwhelmed and having to figure out the best course of action as fast as possible, as well as buttons having multiple uses. So these will stay as they are, though I do plan on adding some difficulties option, including potentially one that would make the whole thing somewhat more of a turn based system!

- Having the combo spells trigger automatically would be too strong, and potentially a negative in some cases. For ther same reasons as above and because it's also more tactical, I want them to be triggered by the player! It's not impossible that some spells would be combo only, but no promises there

- The forest boss (and the forest in general) are definitely too tough this early in the game, I agree! The difficulty will be rebalanced in the next major update ^^

- Aw shoot, I've been having reports of mysterious crashes for some people, which might either be a memory issue or because of Game Maker itself. These have been very difficult to identify, I'll do my best to figure these out...! The segfault issue is very strange, that one I hadn't heard of... I'll keep an eye out but I'm not sure I'll be able to do anything about it for the time being. In any case, thank you very much for reporting these!

- And yes, there will be a fast travel option later which will work exactly as you described! It will be unlocked later in the story ^^

Again, thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts, it means a lot!

I'm assuming you saw the README! Good to know it worked

It's a strange Game Maker issue yeah, nothing I can do about it... I hope it gets fixed soon

Aw shoot, was worth a shot I suppose... Thanks for letting me know, and sorry...!

Hi!

This is an incompatibility issue that will occur when loading a save from the previous demo with the new demo! You'll need to start a new save with the new demo to avoid this.

Alternatively, you might be able to load that save by launching the old demo (also available in itchio), loading this save there and doing this alchemy in it, saving and turning it off, then loading that save again in the newer build once you're done. It's not ideal but I believe this should work if you don't want to start from the beginning!

If you mean after falling in the pit, you'll need to find the stairs to climb back up, then press the button in the room with a closed door! ^^

You can find a walkthrough here if needed: https://www.patreon.com/posts/119207938

No, it's accurate! ^^
It's just that every other witch you fight (in this demo at least) is in fact rank 1. I do actually have a lore explanation for that too, especially for the more powerful ones, but the main reason I wanted it to be that way is that I prefer to have the player discovering the higher ranks through their efforts of amplifying the characters after they join your party

Aah, sadly the tab in freeze isn't something I can fix, this is on Game Maker's side, I can only wait. Thankfully there is a temporary fix shared in the README if it does trigger, pressing F6 will toggle fullscreen on/off, which should fix the freeze!

I've never heard of something like that happening with the cursor... Is there any chance this could have been because of a hitstun after destroying a Shape maybe? Would you happen to have a video of it?

It depends! Generally, reviving after dying of unnatural causes will preserve the rank (and size), but a natural death will reset both on revival. There's a bit more to it I'm keeping to myself for now, but that's the gist of it ^^

You're very welcome! ^^

Thank you!
I'm aware of this issue (though I didn't know it could trigger that way)  but sadly this isn't something I can fix currently, this is an issue with the engine itself so I've no choice but to wait for a fix...
I do have some workaround solutions listed in the README though! Not ideal, but it's something...!

Fixed!

A new build has been uploaded, you can download it and keep playing on your save ^^
Thanks again for reporting this!

Aw shoot, thank you! I'll look into this asap!

Thank you for reporting this!

It turns out this crash occurred when dying in this fight, but only if a mini brain is present!
I actually fixed this error just yesterday, if you redownload the game, you should be good ^^
You'll be able to keep playing on your save too!

Hi! That purple totem is only a part of the puzzle, the one in the north east part of Sablee is the one you can put items in ^^
You should be able to spin the heart by scrolling the mouse wheel, does that not work?

There are 2 possible fixes! You can try:

- Changing your display's refresh rate (both increasing it and decreasing it work depending on your machine... The logic behind why is beyond me!)

- Pressing F1 in game. This should fix it, but it will also unlock the mouse from the game window. Not really an issue if you're playing in fullscreen on a single screen setup, though it might make certain sequences where the cyrsor is meant to be locked in a certain spot act a bit weird, but still playable.

Hope that helps...! These are temporary fixes, this is a Game Maker issue and I've no choice but to wait for the engine to receive a definitive fix.

Thank you! ^^

Aw thank you so much!!! I'm glad ^^

Turns out I lied...!

This was occurring on Windows too, and was due to a mistake of mine. It's fixed now, but you'll need to redownload the game! You'll be able to keep playing on your save file so no worries there ^^

Thanks again for reporting this!

Thank you ^^
Damn, the music volume is only supposed to lower when getting closer to the sea. I'll look into it but I can't promise a fix for this too soon since I'm not currently able to test the Linux version directly. But I'm taking note of it and I'll take a look at the code!

Thanks again!

I see it now! Good job with the art ^^

Best of luck!

No worries ^^

Although, where is it available exactly? I was able to see it by clicking your profile last time, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore

This is a known issue, you can find the fix in the readme! ^^
This version of Gamemaker relies on older drivers, you'll find the link in there.

Or alternatively, I'm going to release the optimization update on December 1st, which is a port of the game to Gamemaker 2. That one doesn't have that issue anymore, so you could just wait for it if you prefer! ^^

That's the plan yes! ^^

Did you mean enemies being able to heal out of the moribund status? If so no, that's just how I want it! Same goes for the player ^^

Coding can be tough yeah!
Generally speaking if you're interested in game dev, it's completely fine to start with very small projects at first. It's a great way to learn even ^^
And being able to draw is a huge plus.

Just gotta take things one step at a time! No worries, and best of luck ^^

Sadly Game Maker is far from perfect when it comes to mouse management...
You could try going to open settings.ini in "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\BE_Witches", where XXX is your username. Set mouseYCalibration and mouseXCalibration to 0, hopefully that will help but I can't guarantee it!

I'll be posting a new build on December 1st which fixes that issue, but it also introduces a different cursor bug for some people... Kind of a whole story but basically I have imperfect workarounds for that new one, and I'm waiting for the Game Maker engine itself to receive an actual permanent fix.

But yeah, in short if settings.ini doesn't work you might simply want to wait for the new December 1st version! ^^

lol no worries, thank you very much! ^^

Thank you, I'll check it out later today! ^^

edit: Interesting, it's fun to see someone else's interpretation of the setting! I also didn't expect you'd have gameplay sequences planned out, but you did mention coding it potentially, that tracks. Thank you! ^^

Aw thank you very much! I'm glad you're enjoying the lore, I've got a bunch more planned ^^
And I certainly don't mind, feel free to post it, I'm curious to see! ^^

Thank you very much! ^^

There actually is an indirect lore reason for this believe it or not, but it's still a secret currently :B
The short of it is that it's just how Cowgirls' bodies (and some individuals') work. Sorry I can't give you more right now! ^^

Huh, haven't heard of that before, this sounds like some sort of GameMaker issue / relatively specific to your machine issue where the game got insta minimized which in turned messed with the mouse calibration.
This shouldn't be a problem in the next version, but for now you might need to access settings.ini, which is located in "C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\BE_Witches", where XXX is your username.
You should see mouseYCalibration and mouseXCalibration in there, I assume they might have some ridiculous number associated with them, try setting these to 0 then launch the game again!
If the cursor drifts a bit after that, try to access the in game settings (inventory > settings) change anything then hit apply to force the game to recalibrate the mouse again.

Sorry about that...!

Next is the Night dome! You'll find it if you fully explore the Rietti plains now that you have the SMASH ability ^^

Thank you very much! ^^

They're more of an exception, but various other characters do get extra changes! For example, Rose, Lamia and Dragon. There are (and will be) more of them, it just won't be too common ^^