Thanks for your comments - this was the most detailed feedback on the game I got thus far. I agree there are a lot of things to be improved. Character customization, quick access to different areas, an alternative way to earn money are already on my list of things to do. I try to update the game at least once in two weeks, and hopefully at least some of things you mentioned will be implemented.
That looks different from earlier... I may have had a prerelease test copy or something, but there weren never any cutscenes like the one on top. I'll have to download this again.
Played the game for a while, here's my feedback/suggestions:
I would really appreciate it if you could add some sort of small tutorial/hintbox at the start because I wandered around for like 10 minutes before I knew what to do.
Or just put some girls closer to your starting point ecause the initial area is so empty you really have no idea where you should be headed. All the girls I found at the start were just selling me stuff and I had no clue what to do with it. I also spent my only 10 bucks on a crepe and I have no idea how to earn money. After some more minues minutes I finally found a girl, and even then I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with her since there's no hint, you just have to give them a gift and then they'll go on a date with you.
The dialogue is kind of awkward. And by kind of I mean almost always. I have never spoken to this girl and as soon as I give her a crepe she decides to go out on a date with me. Not only that, but when I pick a date spot and choose the date option, the first question she makes was "Did you miss me?" even though I had never met her before that day. The general pacing of the dialogue is also reallyyyy fast. It feels very unnatural to talk to the girls because things just move foward so quickly I don't even have a chance to know them.
The choices also seemed really strange at times. Maybe it was the girl I picked, but I had a choice between "let's go to karaoke" and "let's go get drunk", I picked the first because it sounds like a normal thing to do and it somehow turned out to be wrong. I mean, I'm not saying I'm a ladies man, but I figured on a first date you don't go "let's partaaaayyy!!1!", maybe I'm wrong though.
Like, really, what am I supposed to answer the question "What are you thinking about?" with when you only give me these 2 options?
I thought I would be a really insensitive prick if I said "about the girl behind you" so I said "global warming" even though I think that's just as terrible, but apparently even that was the wrong answer.
After some more awkward choices she says she had fun and then leaves me standing there.
I spent the next couple of minutes picking up squirrels despite not knowing what to do with them, but they're cute so who cares.
My AP goes down to zero, but I have no idea how to regain it because I've already eaten my crepe that I bought with all my money. There's tons of places that are locked and I have no idea how to unlock them either and there's only one other girl to talk to so I'm left with nothing to do in the game.
I tried the game you can play on a date but that wasn't particularly fun since the pieces were all jumbled in up and on top of one another so I have to spend time pulling them aside and assembling them again, but that initial process always makes me lose too much time to get a decent score.
Eventually I discovered you can sell the squirrels for money although I don't know where you sell them, but I felt really bad for them since they're cute and decided I'd rather not either way, so I'm now stuck in the game forever since I can't buy gifts.
Okay that last bit was a joke (except the fact I still don't know where to sell the squirrels), I just figured I'd stop there because I think I've seen enough to give some feedback.
Here's my suggestions to improve initial impressions and overall experience.
You should probably have some form of menu music.
Add an in-game menu that lets you quit to the title and save. I didn't know how to leave the game without closing the app and I thought if I did that I'd lose all my progress.
As I mentioned earlier, a hintbox that pops up when you click stuff or some form of early tutorial would REALLY help because I was stuck for a while not knowing what to do.
I don't know if it's randomized but you could really do with having the girls closer to you when you start isntead of literally the furthest area possible from you.
Also please tell me you didn't use royalty free ukulele music for the BGM of the game. It doesn't matter what else you use, just not royalty free ukulele music. Please.
A run button or some form of faster transportation would be really helpful considering you intend on having a big map with different areas to travel to.
It's nice that you can choose to be male or female, but could be even better if there was some form of character costumization.
Improve the dialogue/choices to make the girls sound more like humans because it felt really silly when I talked to one for the first time
Game kinda lagged whenever I switched areas, you might want to try and smooth that out. It might just be my tablet though.
Overall, BlewMyMoneyOnCrepesAndSpentMyTimeCatchingSquirrels/10.
I think you have a solid foundation to build on here, don't get me wrong, but my initial experience wasn't particularly positive because the game feels so empty and the characters are rather lifeless.
Edit:
Eventually I found out where you can sell the squirrels and unlock the rest of the map, you need to actually buy the master key.
Now I'm not going to sit here and lecture you on micro transactions, but I think locking so much of the game away behind a pay wall is kind of a poor decision because my earlier experience is already negative which makes me not want to spend 1€ to unlock the rest of the game.
If you can improve the earlier experience though I think I'd be fine with paying for it since it can turn out to be fun if you polish it.
Laika Karou got a reaction from Nosebleed in Shoujo City 3D (alpha release)
Laika Karou reacted to Arcadeotic in Shoujo City 3D (alpha release)