itch.io

Greetings to you as well, I wrote a lot of feedback because I am genuinely interested in seeing this game reach final and paying for it. However, I’ve long since learned my lesson about betas and am not in a rush to get burned again. I’m not expecting your team you say “This is 100% right, do everything he said!” but rather wanted to explain what it was I would like to see addressed if I’m going to spend money on it.

Regarding your response points:

1. All of my information about your project comes from Itch. I’m too old to be messing with pirated software anymore.

2. I have no metrics beyond my own impression so I have to take your word that Itch isn’t representative of your community’s feelings as a whole.

3. VN’s are generally “over-clicky”, I had more of an issue with the overall loop’ed systems than the clicking any loop required.

4. I liked the interactive-ness of the Minerva scene. Not everyone likes [insert-sex-act] and maybe they’d rather see [insert-other-sex-act]; the interaction providing some variation sprinkled throughout the entire story focused on major characters is an excellent changeup, I think. What I thought was strange is why in the HP Universe with so many choices you decided to use a 70-year-old (granted the artist tried to make her not look that old but that character is at least 70) for the only H-Scene. I definitely don’t want 5-minute challenges, there’s H-sites with plenty of images for that, this is a VN; besides Daphne is much hotter than Hermione.  :)

5. The Waifu problem is a small part of the bigger problem of leaving in the content that occurs after what you removed, without filling that hole first.

6. Sonya comes off as a “nice to have” add-on to a completed project and shouldn’t detract from work on the core material but it seems your team has already put her aside for later so hey, cool.

7. Earnings system revision would be welcomed, thanks. Any plans on enhancing how stats are presented and used so people have an idea on where they should be?

8. Daphne’s Halloween scene was literally the only time the game encountered an error for me, other than that it ran great.

To answer your questions:

1. Can you give an example of a bad dialogue or a plot twist in the game?

There were three types of plot/dialog issues in my opinion:

A) Conversations with no guiding context, an example would be Xandria. It would seem there’s no getting past her and the conversation is just be able to have some fun with her. That’s cool but the problem is there’s a lot of discussion branches and no indication of progress leaving me to just try them all many many times which I found out by chance is what you have to do. Dead-end branches should just be removed or possibly use colored text to indicate the other character is reacting positively/negatively to that branch. In the last 24 hours I’ve seen Lord Rattlesnake get kicked in the groin way more times than I needed to.

B) Filler conversations that are needlessly long, examples would definitely be the insane amount of dialog with Snape and Little Sally. The first part of the story is spent basically locked in the Headmaster’s Office which when you realize it takes several real hours to progress beyond that point you spent the majority of it in very long conversations with those two about things that matter little to none to anything in the story and is basically background information.

C) Over-arch/subplot balance. In the first portion there’s a decent balance between the bigger story in the prison about delving into the greater mystery (could use more in my opinion though) and the various subplots in the past that are being explored. By the time you reach the content you left in after the part that was removed it’s pretty much non-existent. I really had no connection anymore as to what this whole thing was about, there was no reason to go back to the prison (got tired of trying to figure out the Xandria dialog sequence) and I was just running around doing small fetch quests to just check off the list in the journal.

2. Explaining more: At this time there appear to be 3 content sections; [Section 1] Content up to where you help the prefects with their problems, [Section 2] Missing, seems is being rewritten, and [Section 3] from where you pick a Waifu and end up reaching the end of 8.5b. If you’re going to remove section 2 you should also remove section 3 until 2 is ready to be reinserted. Leaving section 3 in is very disorienting and presents poorly overall. I feel you didn’t want to also remove section 3 because it would appear as though development was going backwards and there being less tangible content to see would hurt.

3. I saved the game prior to enabling the cheats but have found out that doesn’t help. However, I know exactly which scenes were unlocked for the main 4:

Daphne: None. I chose her as the Waifu so she was gone. 0 scenes for the one I wanted to see the most scenes of… see the issue?

Hermione: 1, the Halloween Event.

Luna: 2, Drinking Surprise & Halloween Event.

Susan: 3, Drinking Surprise, Inner Rod Punishment, & Halloween event.

My guess is that a lot of the scenes are triggered in section 2 (the missing one) or are a result of buying gifts that I had no intention of grinding coins to afford.

Thanks for replying, hopefully this provides you some helpful insight and I wish you success in the project. Would really like to check back and see a final release to buy.

I had the wallet out ready to toss some cheddar at what looked to be a solid project. Then after reading about the current state of it going on 3+ years and the repeated longstanding issues that reviewers are saying are major negative aspects and the failure to address these I had to put it back in my pocket.

Alas, I couldn't speak to what I haven't seen first-hand so I grabbed the latest public release and was going to try and play about half of it for an impression. Holy thunder of WTF?! I can sum this project up simply as 5 to 7 hours (real hours, not game hours) of sitting there reading uninteresting dialog with Prof. Snape and a magical painting of yourself and a major case of magical blue balls.

Before I hit on what was bad, let's hit the good. Artwork is "chef's kiss" reminds me of the original PlayStation P&C games from back the day. Theme is great, 18+ VN of the HP Universe is a good choice. Humor is funny at first, meh as you go along, and absent from the latter half of what you can play; what you have is sold to build upon and fill the gaps though. Music was ok enough to not mute and there wasn't much in the way of SFX that you have to scramble for the headphones but mainly because of, you know it, the pacing, nothing to silence. That aside, audio's done well. The writing has a glimmer of being salvaged but at this time... 

Now the bad...

We get it, you wanted to build up to better things as the reader gets further in but in order to substitute for the lack of what 95% of people are looking for you need a good story. The pacing you set requires a very, very good story and you're failing hard. The over-arching story is quickly buried and left forgotten under what come off as Visual Novel Fetch Quests. The restrictive linear design isn't complemented with appropriate feedback to let the reader know if there on the right track or a dead end. People don't like clicking and re-clicking through the same dialog trying to figure out what path you decided was the correct one and didn't bother to provide context as to why.

There's no way to ignore the fact that the only interactive H-Scene is with Professor McGonagall. Are you serious? It's so out of place that I'm left with the impression it was thrown in early on the in response to the reviewer feedback about your pacing as a "Here, you want an H-Scene? Here's your H-Scene!" and you even kind of nod to that in the name of the achievement awarded for playing the scene. I'm sure there's likely a niche community of Harry Potter GILF fans out there but WTH man really? Is the 2nd H-Scene going to be a bonus one with Dolores Umbridge?

Whatever prompted you to keep the chunk of content in after the part that was scrapped should never be listened to again. Having to pull a chunk for a rewrite is cool, shows you weren't going to push out something that for whatever reason wasn't working well but leaving in the content that comes later is a terrible idea. Worst of all you present the "Waifu Mechanic" only to immediately state "Yeah, she's your Waifu but she's gone during this part" and also don't mention that there is no next part so right now picking a Waifu is basically saying "Who do you NOT want to see for the rest of the game?"

I seriously just wanted to take a look at what I felt would've been about 50% of the game to get a feel for it but ended up dialog skipping all the way the the end of what's publicly released because 7+ hours in I felt like I was exposed to about 2% of what was in the game; which I found out was kind of the reality.

Soyna's a mess; I quickly realized you had to spam the match mini-game to make any real progress and that "leveling" her is just your restriction on what outfits can be purchased when. She's pretty much designed to be ignored.

The income system is a mess, you have it fighting for time with the stat building activities which are also a mess as I get no real feel for what the stat levels are expected to be until I'm presented with a 1-time chance to do something that requires a stat to be at a certain level that oh well, I don't have. No one wants to sit there training 2 stats and grading papers over and over to be able to afford 1 or 2 gifts that may or may not be worth buying. The train-grade loop is super boring.

Lastly and I'm not sure if this was a result of the dumped section of content but I did my play-though on normal settings and was very "clicky" on each screen trying to see what could be interacted with and when I got to the"end" I say that of the 4 main girls I only unlocked like 2 or 3 scenes! I thought maybe the others just weren't in but nope, after enabling cheats they're all in there. What happened here? I took my time and explored and only unlocked a couple?

On a side note, after enabling the cheats, the Halloween Event scene for Daphne crashes just as she goes to do what I'm assuming is a sex act. Crash said something about the Pixey Cage which isn't even in the room during that scene.

End of the day, I'd say bookmark this to check back on but not worth funding at this time. Until the development team stops with the "Sorry, not sorry." comments, comes up with a plan that addressed the massive pacing issue, and posts an in-depth article on the state of things and where it's going to go. I don't want to see this fade to vapor, truly do hope they unfuX0r this project with the quickness and I'll gladly throw the cheddar.