NO-SKIN

This game is AWESOME. I played it for hours on end last night (stayed up late rofl) and it has such cool art and aesthetics. Took me about six attempts to win for the first time and it was crazy fun. I could always make it to the end reliably, even on my first attempt, but then I'd die to the final boss or the one before it. I only won with an item that I got from the lunar shard upgrades.

Even havning won once, there's still so much going on that I feel like I've only scratched the surface of. There's so much that you can do in this game, so many secrets to uncover, and it's' great.

My favorite part is figuring out who drops what, which lets you strategize about who to fight and when. At the start it's all "what do these rooms mean, who do I fight" and then later you start developing strategies for what to do in what order. The lack of RNG when it comes to what enemies will do is great for learning how things work. If there was a wiki for this game it would go really hard.

That's not even getting into the weird backstories for all the characters and the puzzle of figuring out what's going on. A part of me wonders if it's all just metaphor for Noire being an apparently terrible person (based on the enemy dialogue). Noire and Mary bullied Ester, and maybe something bad happened to her. But the Moon/Goddess and False God stuff make me wonder if there's more to it and there really is an evil cult out there. If there is, how would Mary, Rugs, and the others play into that? The prologue makes it seem like they're all normal people who have some personal drama going on, but nothing too major. In short I have no clue what's going on, but it's amazing.

If I had one criticism it would be to make item management easier somehow, maybe through a way of sorting items or a way to divide the inventory into sections and jump to different sections when you have a lot of items, because it can get tiring paging through everything when you have a lot of stuff. That's just me though.

This game is surprisingly good.
At first glance, the game seems rather simple; the controls are easy to understand, and the mechanics are self explanatory enough that the first time you're dropped on the "overworld" (a.k.a. where you select where to go next) you intuitively know what is going on. What that simplicity hides, however, is an immense amount of depth, both in its content and its mechanics, all tied together by a wonderful aesthetic and soundtrack.
And by that I mean that the game really doesn't show you much unless you dig deeper. When I first played I thought I had a pretty good idea of how much content the game would have, but the game just kept expanding right before my eyes at every turn, again and again, and that feeling of finding things like new playable characters, the end of the world, the negative layers, HER, is simply incredible to experience, and it reached a point where I don't know how much there still is to see. Like, sure, I have three characters, but who's to say there's not a fourth somewhere? That uncertainty is something I absolutely adore. It's comparable to the feeling of just finding new layers and paths in The Binding of Isaac.
Mechanically too, in the sense that your success is entirely dependent on your strategy. Knowing which event is which is vital to survival, but not only that, as you play the game you start noticing some patterns emerging, things like noticing that the same enemy always drops the same things, until eventually picking your battles carefully based on the enemies' moves and rewards becomes a part of your strategy. There is always a risk to everything you do, and sure, there is randomness involved, but it's just enough rng to scratch the itch in both my gambling loving brain and my strategy loving brain. (Besides, what RPG *doesn't* have rng?)
The simple aesthetics makes this much more approachable than most strategy games, like I mentioned before you can usually tell what to do without a tutorial. This simplicity, however, is also a double edged sword, and this is where I'll have to be a little bit more negative in this review, but the early game doesn't have enough of a hook to really make people want to stick around. I mentioned before that at first I thought I had an idea of how much content this game had, and that's not good, because after I've beaten the no-skin man once it took me two days to pick up the game again, and the sole reason I did is because I was bored. I'm glad I did, as I love this game, but if I had something to do I probably wouldn't have.
The point I'm trying to make is, as much as I love how the game hides so much for you to discover, I don't think there is enough of an incentive for you to look for them, if that makes sense. What *really* got me into it was finding root for the first time and triggering the end of the world, which made me realize that maybe this game isn't as linear as I thought. I also really don't like the unexpected events. Like, at all. Sure, it's fun the first two times but after that it just becomes annoying, if there were a lunar upgrade to remove those that would be great.
There are a few things that are noticeably placeholder too, like Trish's memory on the recollection screen, but that's more of a beta thing that I'm expecting to not be in the final release, it's quite jarring going from the genuinely pretty damn good puzzle battles of mary and rugs to "girl why you crying" "DREAMS :sob:". You got me really interested in these suicidal clowns and I wanna learn more about them.
Overall, tho, this game is worth playing, I'll give it a 7/10 on the right track to being a 10/10, keep up the good work!

I've played about 6 hours for the new beta (.6). Continuing to enjoy it.
However, I'm not sure if there's a bug for Root's mutation ability, since post Zone 1 I've repeatedly not been able to activate it even when killing the enemies correctly in the same way as Zone 1.  In the previous version, Root's ability worked throughout the entire run.

i wish characters didnt say the same things and talked more in each battle

I had completed the whole game on the 0.4 version. And when I downloaded the newest version (0.6) none of my data was saved. Is there any way that I can have the same stuff that I had in older versions?

Root's damage mutation still shows -2 max hp despite it being -3 now...
Heart glasses say that they "reduce the next 9 damage you would take" when the actual effect is "reduce the next damage you would take by 9"... Also applies to cult's robe...
The new dream diary page for Rugs is missing a few apostrophes in the text... Sunset: "I think its your fault", "You really dont know how to pace yourself"... Midnight: "You cant understand me anymore"...

I made sure to reference and link this game on several reedits on game mechanics and rpg design...

In my post i compared how modern horror games with advanced graphics all reach a point where they start looking like each other (The more realistic the graphics the less variety you can put  in, after all, its designed to look REAL)

This was the horror game i referenced when stating that while big budget games can sometimes only hold interest if somebody actually paid a 50$ pricetag and quieting would lose that investment.

However games like this, virtually free, with no advertising or sunk cost, and under 200mb, I will gladly spend 2 - 3 straight days playing... 

Even when in early, or alpha release...

Ill do my part to spread the word. 

Again, Thank you.

im kinda worried when i download this everything is ok but then when i try to launch it it say that this software might change something in your computer (I think it said that im kinda bad translator :^*  ) so if someone could say me something about this then i would be happy because i could like play this cuz this looks GOOOD :D

amazing game. An incredible game. There's so much too it, and even though it have got to 100% (and died) there is still is much left to discover. I feel like I know nothing, and I love it

Fantastic game, unsettling and perfect level of difficulty. I started playing with the newer art style and LOVED it, maybe if you could add a toggle for the art styles that'd be cool!!

Honestly an awesome idea would be if you kept your distance unlocks with Luna so you could talk to act 1 enemies before the first boss and get unique lore and interactions! I tried it and was disappointed to see my memory had reverted ;(

After unlocking Root and Luna and reaching the two 100% progress final bosses, I can say that I enjoyed the different tactics of later bosses which made them distinct from each other.

Here are some ideas:

Pray To The Goddess: It's OP with Rosary since you can spam it every turn if not Cursed and only take 1 dmg from every attack. Only Poison, Bleed, and multi-hit counter it.

So maybe on higher difficulties, you can only Pray 3 times per battle and have to pay 10 Lunar Fragments for every subsequent Pray?

Challenge character:

• Starts with 6 temporary hearts.
• Starts with Knife
• Starts with Gun.
• Starts with Second-hand Smoke boon.
• All max hp gains/healing items/rest events grant temporary hearts instead (cap of 6 gained from percentage healing).

Two deals with Living Guts basically allow you to easily kill final bosses. Maybe reduce its effect to 1/4?

Doomed/Despair status effect: Increased by 1 by certain enemy attacks, such as charged attacks, and lowered via Pray/defeating a boss/certain events/items. If the counter hits 13 (carries over between battles), explodes and take damage equal to 1/3 max hp.

All bosses so far spend a turn to heal but what if later on, they had a life drain attack (dmg-based healing)?

A boss whose Charged attack immediately resolves all your poison stacks dmg at once, punishing you for ignoring and not curing it.

Don't know if this is the right place to say, but I think the concept of switching weapons every time you get a new one is really irritating and unfun. Sure, it makes the game slightly more strategic, but mainly it just takes the enjoyment out of getting stronger and progressing. I really wish they were upgrades instead of complete weapon changes or you could switch weapons in the item bag

i got 4 random events in a row i just wanted ammo 

I got this game on Steam! :) Saw Markiplier play but wasn't too enthused about the gameplay (I did watch the entire video), then got the demo for myself and it's much more fun playing it on my own. I have lost sleep over this game 😅so it definitely has lots of replayability and intrigue to make me go back for more. 

The biggest complaint I have is the moon showing you the list of options every single run, even if you've already bought everything and are lunar shard capped. I am not sure if there will be more items added soon; regardless, I think I would prefer the moon store to be less intrusive (if that's the right word) by putting it as a separate option in the title menu, like the dream diary is (after the first or couple times the moon shows itself to you). Or, as something you can choose to select while you're choosing characters (so like a small icon you can arrow key move to or have a note that says "press m" to spend lunar shards or something.

The reason for this suggestion is that the dialogue repetition gets stale and there are a lot of screens to tap z for, which takes time. The frequency of screen changes in this game doesn't affect my visual sensitivity bad enough, but minimizing them when unnecessary would be very helpful.

Other than that I like that the game forces you to manage your resources efficiently because of the random outcomes. I'm familiar with roguelites enough to know that poor outcomes are not solely because of rng, even if a series of nothing events can get frustrating 😅I am curious and eager to learn more about the lore (rhyme!); definitely lots of open mysteries surrounding... well, everything, but especially Noire.

Hope you've been giving yourself enough rest!

I played through both V0.4 and now V0.5. I really enjoyed am excited play though each new major update to be released. I've wishlisted the game on Steam and am looking forward to what all comes next! With that said, I want to leave some feedback that may or may not be helpful with development.

- This is a little dated at this point, given the change you made a few days ago, but I agree that the previous art style is probably better, though still like the other sprites as well.

-Root was my favorite character to play as in V0.4, as her unique playstyle felt really engaging to me. In V0.5, she was more frustrating to play as than anything. Even in 0 faith mode,  my fight against Melody was still down to the wire, and I had even saved up a crucifix and two medkits for it! Maybe that's a skill issue, as I didn't have the grenade or either revival from the frog shop, which would have made things easier, but it was still pretty frustrating I couldn't get a good-enough run with normal difficulty settings. I usually had at least two mutations in each weapon category (accuracy, damage, ammo) and plenty more health, so I really don't know what I could have done differently. Unlike with Luna, Root's effective three-in-a-row boss fights after 60 percent felt hard to stretch my items through.

-My experience with Luna, contrary to my experience with Root, was really easy. Like. Really easy. My strategy was to get damage upgrades to melee damage (red room translator, goddess blessing anvil, etc.) whenever possible, accuracy be damned, and just get the first area's frog shop item where a missed melee attack is followed by another at 80 accuracy. Even without that, though, Luna was pretty hard to lose with for me, especially because I never had to worry about fleeing or ammo and could plan my item collection accordingly (no need for cigarettes or ammo). I don't really understand the razor blade from a gameplay perspective, though, as I never felt like I was moving too fast through a run, so I felt no need to kill myself to go back; If anything, it felt like it didn't move on from at least the first area fast enough.

-Noire felt pretty balanced, with the only regular challenge I had being damage output in the late game, but even that was easy enough to overcome with a little luck.

-The shops felt pretty balanced, and I actually found myself going to the long-gilled fish's shop a few times in V0.5, unlike in V0.4.

-The woman with snake eyes was an annoying fight, especially when it was one of my first few encounters of a game. I like the randomness of it, as with Noire from another timeline, but for the woman with snake eyes, snake scales aren't a very useful item, you can't get a mutation off killing her as Root,  and I always seemed to come out of the fight with more hearts lost than with most other encounters.

-Some playstyles and strategies were really unique and fun, like going for second-hand smoke blessings and getting a ton of cigarettes, and I wish I could make those sorts of things even more viable.

-I'm not sure how to feel about the golden bullet change in V0.5. It definitely feels different than it did inV0.4, but it didn't seem to help me with my Root runs, nor was it a game-changer with Noire or Luna.

-I found it very awkward and difficult to get item-specific encounter interactions to occur, like the hunter's knife with the hanged man or dagger 48 with the red mirror. I even did runs specifically to get them, but I couldn't get it after a fair few tries. They're definitely possible, but I never encountered any of them, let alone in my actual runs, and I wish I had.

-I also never figured out what the predator and prey blessing did. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I never encountered their effects after choosing that blessing in any of my playthroughs.

-I bought all the lunar fragment purchasables and then maxed out my lunar fragment counter pretty quickly -- way before I beat the game. I'm not sure what a sustainable way to spend them would look like, but at least it would keep me from having 99 of them forever.

-The game window was a bit buggy at times, turning into a borderless window when I got a notification to my desktop in fullscreen mode more than once.

Really enjoying the game so far! Best of luck with development!

I played the 0.5 and the visual changes are okay. But I personally prefer the old one. Also, it would be better if new damage indicator (hearts blinking) can be turned off in settings. Its amazing to see the creator actually hearing players suggestions. This game is one of my favourites all-time.