This was fun! I was surprised to find that I almost always had an option I related to for the questions.
(I think the only one that really stumped me was the one about a loved one deliberately saying something hurtful about a sensitive point—I've had that happen before, and all I usually do is stand there feeling hurt because I'm trying to process they just did that to me and stop talking, but don't actually...exit the conversation.)
That's covered in the game's description!
> Every Portrait generated with this tool falls under the CC BY 4.0 license. That means that you can distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format with credit, even for commercial purposes. If you want to have a closer look at the license, check here. Have fun!
I know this is quite belated, but I'm also finding it really frustrating to not have full character portraits and I'm sad to hear that was a design decision and not just part of the demo. I can't get invested in a story where I can't even see the characters speaking half the time; it's incredibly jarring to have a black outline introduce a son with an actual face.
I like to buy on Itch just because I like their management more (letting creators choose what percentage of sales to give, promoting interesting free games pretty actively, etc.). Steam is always tempting because of cloud saves, though...
ETA: Which is why I'd like to say thank you for including the Steam key, so we don't really have to choose in this case!
Devs can add Steam keys, but they have to choose to. It's always worth asking either way, but if you want to check in advance, games that come with keys will always say so in the information under the "purchase" button at the bottom of the page.
I would also like to see more devs adding keys here! It's nice to get to review games on the larger platform where it actually makes a difference, and yeah, Steam Cloud and updates.
Huh, the copy-paste saving doesn't seem to have worked for me. In the app version it says "get an app to open this itch-cave link," and then just completely resets all my progress, except for a handful of the trophies for some reason. But I'm back at Level 1 with only skeletons unlocked and no gold.
Hi, thanks for getting back to me! I'll try the Steam version, although I think it would be nice to also update the version on Itch when you have the chance to!
Good to hear that you're working on a visual indicator for when scenes finish. Actually, I might wait for an update on that, at which point hopefully the input detection will be working as well. :)
I also want to add that what I did play of the game seemed really charming and heartfelt, even though I was having these issues. I'm looking forward to trying it again without the frustration.
Hello! This game seems really charming, but I'm having trouble playing it. For some reason, it doesn't really respond to my mouse—I have to click on the speech bubbles and anything I'm interacting with six or seven times before it does anything, if it does. There also seems to be a long wait time for anything to happen (e.g. making the dorayaki was taking several minutes to make just one.)
It makes it frustrating rather than relaxing. I can't tell when there's more dialogue that's supposed to be playing or more writing that's supposed to appear, or if something on the screen is supposed to be interactive but is just not responding. Because of the way the scenes are set up, I also can't tell when each scene is done, or if I'm missing story content by accident. I realized early on that I'd missed their entire conversation about being sent rice cakes for New Year's because it had taken so long for the dialogue bubble to show up. There isn't really any clear visual indication (as far as I can tell) to say when you're supposed to move to the next part, so I end up waiting on each page a long time just in case.
I appreciate that that means it was different from a regular demo for you, and that you submitted it to a charity bundle you didn't profit off of.
I would still—personally!—prefer not to have demos in bundles in general, especially as the Itch megabundles add things permanently to your library if you download them.
On another topic, I'll add my voice here to the people who would be excited by a full Itch release. Valve gets more than enough of my money, and I rather prefer to pay to keep the lights on at the Itch headquarters instead.
Just bought this! It's really cute, but it seems to be glitching for me. It won't let me rename my dinosaur (I can click the button, but nothing happens), and I can't move any of the plants, either. Luckily I can still pet my dinosaur and make her eat etc., but that's it.
ETA: In overlay mode, my dinosaur also sits all the way at the bottom of my screen, instead of on top of the task bar like in the trailer video. It's causing problems, since trying to click on it (even if I click on the game in the taskbar first) makes me accidentally click on my apps instead. It also crashes whenever I try to apply evolutions to my dinosaurs, like expanding their lives or happiness meter. I'm using Windows 11, BTW!
Instead of lowering the price of the game, is there any chance we could just get a Steam key with our purchase so we can access the version that updates itself?
(I'm assuming this already occurred to the devs, but it seemed worth a suggestion. I much prefer buying on Itch to support devs and the site if I can, but it's nice when it's not the less convenient option as well as the less affordable one.)
This was interesting. I played for a few hours but never quite felt like I was getting the hang of what I was supposed to be doing. It feels ambitious for the game's size (I was surprised when I realized I could essentially do quests in entirely different locations!), but I always felt I was meant be doing something more—exploring? Killing more monsters? More research? Figuring out how to use all those random robot arms the spacedog wanted me to build for some reason? Using my repaired space shuttle and actually going to the temporary locations it suggested and somehow not dying once I was there?
Not to argue with Marc's very valid experience, but I personally liked the wall of text because it instantly told me I was getting a story campaign along with my casual gameplay; it was part of what drew me in. (I also play games like this on mute a lot of the time, so audio wouldn't do much for me personally without a visual signal/text.)
Maybe you could look into options to change the font so it's larger and easier to read if necessary for people with vision impairment? And/or have it so just one paragraph at a time appears on the screen in larger font and you click to continue.
Hey, thank you for the thoughtful response! It does actually make me feel way better knowing that that was your intention, and it wasn't just done thoughtlessly.
I think in the future, any sort of wink and nudge that shows that the game knows what it's doing helps a lot. Even something small, like if when you first looked at the book your friend said something like, "Oh yeah, my uncle was obsessed with that thing. It's kind of embarrassing. We're not Inuit and I don't think he's ever even met an Inuit person? He was just obsessed with that one story with no other context..." That shows that the character himself is appropriating the story, rather than making it feel like the game is. I'm not sure in this case if it would fix the finger-chopping pages being hidden in the basement to ratchet up the tension or the assumption that no one playing would be Inuit or familiar with Inuit religion, but it would help a lot. And I believe you when you say that going forward you're going to continue making the effort to be mindful of how cultural stories are integrated in your work.
Just want to emphasize again that I enjoyed the game. It was creative and well-designed, and I'm definitely going to check out The Third Shift and your other work. I hope you keep making games! Thank you for listening and staying humble.
