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RPG [mminit] Lewdest Labyrinth


tontoman

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Yeah, the X key thing to map side tiles is mentioned in the README file AND in the F1 HELP. And if folks didn't read that... only one person to blame.

And you'd hope that the "+1 to all stats" for 90%ing of the map would be enough of a hint to get folks to do the map. And there's also the potential for treasure as a reason to explore the map. Getting loot to deal with the next level monsters is stardard stuff.
There's a point where you have to assume the player will do the right thing.. I always start thinking of this...

(if Quake was done today).

Only design I'm iffy with is the save system and clothing. I guess it's done to have some more fear of dying, but can also be very frustrating for folks learning. I'd especially add one earlier before the first more dangerous creature (when you can lose clothing). Having to do tutorial sections over again can be extra annoying heh.

For the clothing, I found too hard to keep it on lol. The actual clothing itself and naked was cool. It didn't make me lose, the combat system works well in full lewd mode. But hard to get monster combat scenes that involves your clothing. Between the autostrip traps and the stripping monster attacks (regular monsters), and then the wandering stripping monsters, I'm usually naked.
 
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Cassy

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I have to say, I followed your game from the beginning and for me it was clear that this is a must buy. Thanks for the amazon pay-method, that made it very uncomplicated for me.
Great work - is all I can say to the game, thank you.
 

iamnuff

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opinion, pls proceed at your own risk
I'm gonna offer a contrary opinion and say the game was a bit too easy and too consistent (weird typing that out as a bad thing these days). While there were some aspects that could've been more clearly illustrated for the player's benefit, I didn't find that there was anything that couldn't be puzzled out easily with a bit of trial and error. If anything, the game felt a bit too 'safe,' in spite of its environment. You have a girl in a labyrinth full of monsters that want to have their way with her, and the only real danger is your HP hitting zero, which is thematically bad, but not really illustrated in gameplay.

Ever since I played your original demo, I hoped that once the game was finished it would have more mechanics revolving around the management of LP, and that some overworld mobs/traps would interact with you differently depending on LP. Even in battle, having too much LP felt like only a minor inconvenience, in spite of the Danger! warning. At worst, you miss a turn or get grabbed, both of which can be quickly compensated for, especially if you have an LP skill in the case of the former(since you don't get overcome by lust when using an LP skill).

For example, take the green tentacle/vine(?) trap you start seeing early on. It's one of the first overworld traps you encounter in the game, and it illustrates its purpose pretty clearly: walk next to me, and you're gonna lose your clothes, and then some. If you're unlucky enough to get caught by one without clothes on, you get a complimentary cumshower, too, which will end up maxing out your LP gauge pretty fast. All in all, pretty fair punishment (though as others have said, it is sometimes difficult to see overworld mobs around corners that do roughly the same thing) for the early stages.

But as you move through the rest of the game, you find that all the other traps and mobs, even the ones towards the final floors...do the exact same thing. Their behaviors don't change, other than the fact that some will not splooge all over you, and their patterns don't differ from those of their 1st floor siblings. So..they end up being little more than obstacles rather than dangers, which, strictly from a gameplay perspective, is kind of disappointing.

Same goes for battle: kill your opponent before they kill you. I very much enjoyed the level of detail you put in each enemy's splash-arts and their moves/grabs, but beyond their aesthetics, they didn't really seem to do all that much other than attack, LP, or grab. Granted there are some status effects, but they're pretty straightforward, and from what I remember the only really interesting one was the charmed status stopping me from changing stances, and only two enemies did that.

I would have liked to see some of the enemies focusing on maxing out your LP and having a grab that would drain all of that LP and deal a hefty chunk of damage. Or enemies that will end the battle if you can't keep your LP below a certain threshold. Same goes for traps and overworld mobs, too. Some traps could leave you alone entirely unless you have more than XX LP, at which point they'll start interacting with the spaces around them to try and grab you. Or have a wandering mob that ignores you completely unless you're naked (or vice versa). Maybe you could have one unique mob that will chase you around one of the later floors, trying to grab you and pull you to a nearby hole or crack in the wall. So on, so forth.

As someone who is unfamiliar with coding and game-making, I can only imagine this would've required a lot more effort from you, and given how much content you have put in this game in comparison to other h-game creators, maybe my suggestions/gripes would've made it much harder to finish the game within a reasonable time-frame and for the same pricetag. So take this with a mountain of salt.

In spite of everything I just wrote, I enjoyed the game immensely, and I absolutely do not regret paying the extra I did. I liked having such a wide variety of enemies to look out for, and I liked that each room and floor naturally transitioned from one set of mobs to another. The skills were fun to use, and while the battles did feel mostly the same throughout, they were still fun to go through, and I found myself fighting everything I met with the exception of a handful towards the end. I appreciated the mini-bosses hidden throughout the levels and the different benefits of the outfits. There was just enough variety in the traps and roaming mobs that I didn't get too bored of each one, and I have to really give you a shout-out for the artwork, which I found both incredibly endearing and hot.

If you put out another game like this, I will definitely buy it. Please take my money.
I agree with most of that. I've only played the demo, but if the game reveals basically all of it's mechanics in the first level, then that's pretty front-loaded.
The main point I was getting at was that the difficulty-spike shouldn't come so soon, not that it shouldn't come at all.
Ideally, you'd have a 'wake-up call' enemy in every other room. Something that forces you to learn a specific tactic to beat it.
Give the player a chance to get some exp and build momentum before challenging them, then continue to challenge them.

Also, while Game-Over scenes might be fun to look at, dying kills your progress and resets you.
If you could save at-will, it might not be such a progress, but dying shouldn't be commonplace unless it doesn't actually result in a game-over.
Getting knocked out and waking up at the last fountain/checkpoint would be fine, since your items would remain collected and your map would still be filled. Even if you've got three rooms to cross through to get back to where you 'died' you could just set the encounter-rate to low and sprint it.
Actually getting kicked to the main-menu means that you're actually losing progress.

On the topic of H-interactions, i agree that having it tie into LP would have been fun. Enemies that react diffrently based on clothing status or LP would be more intricate. The flirt stance could probably use some more love too, but then I haven't actually found a use for it yet.

Well when it comes to game design you can't make everyone happy. For every tutorial that's not long enough, it's too long for someone else (and so on). Probably one of the hardest things to do, which is why AAA titles just have a level or two and totally spoon feed players as if they were two and be done with it (spend all the tutorial dev time and money on marketing instead lol). Compared to something like Inside (or Limbo) where the tutorial is done without one 'Hit the X key to....' message.
The obvious solution is to make a brief tutorial that explains everything important.
'stances change your stats, mash the arrow keys to escape grabs, C heals and fixes clothes, you can only save at pools/fountains, press X to open the level-up menu. Filling the map gives you stat-boosts'
If it's more than a couple of screens long, then make it skippable for repeat players.

Honestly, all this one really needed was an explanation about what the C-heal is (and why it's different from healing items or the LP-heal) and the map-filling granting stat-points. Everything else is simply enough to work out via trial-and-error.
'Oh, BTW, you start with 80xp for some reason' would have been nice too.
 

iamnuff

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Who would actually do that, though? You know what kind of game it is: a dungeon crawler. Enemies get stronger as you go further. I really don't think it's unreasonable for the dev to assume you'd explore most of the first floor before moving on to the second. Maybe it's because of my years of playing similar games like Etrian Odyssey, but fully exploring each floor before moving on is nothing more than common sense to me. And by doing that, you naturally discover that mapping out floors gives you stat boosts. No need for someone to explain it.
The problem is that there's nothing to find in the first room. After you clear it once, you might as well skip everything in it since it's basically a straight line to the first door.
Even if you're on your first playthrough and you take the time to look around, why would you clear every floor-tiles when you can see that they don't lead anywhere? Checking the dead-ends is one thing, but circling around the starting square or the tutorial-lady is just balm for OCD.

TLDR is that the starting area just isn't big enough for exploring to be beneficial.

I don't really believe that's what the starting EXP is for. The reason grinding isn't required is that, by exploring each floor, you fight enough battles to generally be strong enough for the next floor. If a player decides to simply forge ahead and fight as few battles as possible, that's on them. That's just not how the game, and in fact the entire genre, works.
Except for the fact that you can leave the first room after having fought a single bat. Maybe two or three if you take the time to clear out the dead-end then backtrack.
That's not enough battles to gain enough xp to actually do anything with. Which is why you start with a large stockpile. Otherwise you WOULD have to grind.


I strongly disagree here. Most of the things you're mentioning are simply conventions of the genre. When you play a platformer,do you try to defeat enemies by running into them? Of course not, because you know you'll take damage. Similarly, you don't rush through floors in games like this, because you know the enemies on later floors will wipe the floor with you.
Looking around a small room then leaving without stopping to grind isn't really 'rushing'
Neglecting to step on every single tile in the room just to fill out the map isn't rushing. That's normal behaviour. If you can see that it doesn't lead anywhere, then you don't need to waste your time with it. Not unless you expect there to be illusionary walls or something.


Waiting (X key) will automatically map all squares surrounding yours. Not sure if this is mentioned anywhere, but it may not be too obvious.
Ah, that is helpful.
And no, I don't think it's mentioned.

And you'd hope that the "+1 to all stats" for 90%ing of the map would be enough of a hint to get folks to do the map.
So... you're saying that people will discover that mapping the area gives benefits, after they map the area?
And you don't see the issue with that logic?

And there's also the potential for treasure as a reason to explore the map. Getting loot to deal with the next level monsters is stardard stuff.
Again, we're talking about the very first area in the game. The place where you can clearly see there's nothing but the tutorial lady, a dead-end with an unresponsive crystal-ball and a door.
There's no need to map every tile in order to know that there's nothing to find here. Your character can see multiple tiles in front of herself, which is further than the mapping range.

As for ReadMes, maybe I've been tainted, but I play so many Japanese games that I fully expect every readme file to be filled with gibberish characters. I don't even bother looking at them.
I assume a lot of people who play H-games will have developed the same habit.

I will admit that this is totally not the developer's fault though.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit:
I want to be clear here, I'm not saying that the game is too hard or anything like that. Once you've got a couple of levels under your belt, getting past the first hurdle is simple, and then it's smooth sailing from there.

I'm saying that it gives a bad first impression when you run into an enemy like that, as your second random encounter.
It feels like artificial difficulty (forcing you to grind to pad the game's length, within 60-seconds of starting would be a bad sign.) or just poor game design.

If you're willing to dive back in and give the game two or three shots, then it's not a problem. You'll grind some and out-level it, then keep moving.

My first taste was more than a year back. I wasn't interacting with the dev or other people playing the game (which incentivises you to give the game more leeway) I just stumbled across it, and decided to try it out.
After running into something like that so earl on, I decided 'this seems kinda poorly balanced' and then I closed the game to go play something more fun.
First impressions are everything.
 
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Tenchi757

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I'll only add that when I first started playing the demo way back I also stumbled a bit against the first slime or w/e it was. I understood stances and had read all the tutorial information but it was still a hard fight. I believe I grinded an extra level or two and spent the XP points on another stance or some stats before I could get past it. I agree that hurdle was a bit of a jump and not the best way to get started.

With that said, I need to give this game a try again now that it's out. Thanks for working on it!
 

tontoman

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Well you'll be glad to know there's a help screen 'hit F1"with all the keys and what they do. Including the mention you get +1 to stats for mapping a level. Now we can wait for all the, "whadda mean I had to hit F1, who's gonna do that?" stuff heh.
 
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War1926

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i could buy the game but since i dont have credit card, only debit and paypal wont accept my card i cant buy the game, so thats why i pirate hentai games.
 

Laytruce

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The problem is that there's nothing to find in the first room. After you clear it once, you might as well skip everything in it since it's basically a straight line to the first door.
After you clear it once? Do you mean when you've died and need to start over? Because, otherwise, if you've cleared it once, you've fought plenty of battles already and should be strong enough for the next floor. In that case, your argument that you can reach the second floor after one battle isn't relevant. If you did die, though, you know you've lost a bunch of HP and EXP, so skipping to the next floor and expecting it to go smoothly is silly.

Except for the fact that you can leave the first room after having fought a single bat. Maybe two or three if you take the time to clear out the dead-end then backtrack.
That's not enough battles to gain enough xp to actually do anything with. Which is why you start with a large stockpile. Otherwise you WOULD have to grind.
I don't understand this argument. Skipping a floor is simply a really dumb thing to do, and the slime enemy is basically telling you that, hey, you might want to spend some time exploring the previous floor. If you need to get stronger anyway, might as well explore the place a bit. And even if you encounter the slime too early, you can always escape battles when things are going south.

Looking around a small room then leaving without stopping to grind isn't really 'rushing'
Going to the next floor after only one battle definitely is, though.

Neglecting to step on every single tile in the room just to fill out the map isn't rushing. That's normal behaviour. If you can see that it doesn't lead anywhere, then you don't need to waste your time with it. Not unless you expect there to be illusionary walls or something.
Again, this might just be my own experiences talking, but in a game with maps like this, it is NOT normal behaviour to skip tiles. Completing maps is part of the fun. You never know when a full map could come in handy (granted, in this game, they don't really). Maybe there's a particular dungeon mechanic or a way to find secrets you find out later, and having a full map allows you to find instances of said mechanic on previous floors more easily (again, not so here, but you don't know that when starting out).

You need to be willing to experiment a bit. Try things out. You can't just run face-first into every wall and expect to make steady progress.

So... you're saying that people will discover that mapping the area gives benefits, after they map the area?
And you don't see the issue with that logic?
I don't. It's perfectly fine to reward players who are willing to experiment and explore the game.

Or, you know, read the in-game help.

I just checked, and if you press F1 (like the game literally tells you to do the entire time you're on the first floor), it says "All stats +1 at 90% completion" and points at the map. It also says that pressing X maps all tiles next to you. If you had just bothered to read that, you wouldn't be having these issues.

First impressions are everything.
And they really shouldn't be.
I can't count the amount of times my opinion of a movie, game or book has swung around while watching/playing/reading it. If you're not willing to stick with something after a poor first impression, you're going to miss out on a lot.

After your first slime battle, going 'oh this game is poorly balanced' is a very premature conclusion. Think about it a bit. The game should hand you some way of dealing with the situation, right? Maybe you're missing something. Finding things out on your own is one of the best things about games like this. It's much more satisfying than when the game spoonfeeds you everything.


But enough of that. You can already tell I enjoyed this game a lot. I'll very much be looking forward to whatever you try next.
 

tontoman

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...
I can't count the amount of times my opinion of a movie, game or book has swung around while watching/playing/reading it. If you're not willing to stick with something after a poor first impression, you're going to miss out on a lot.

After your first slime battle, going 'oh this game is poorly balanced' is a very premature conclusion. Think about it a bit. The game should hand you some way of dealing with the situation, right? Maybe you're missing something. Finding things out on your own is one of the best things about games like this. It's much more satisfying than when the game spoonfeeds you everything.


But enough of that. You can already tell I enjoyed this game a lot. I'll very much be looking forward to whatever you try next.
I have that feeling if the starting interest is that small, it wouldn't have been a sale anyway. If someone can't spend a couple of minutes working out how to get past something to see the rest, they aren't going to be shelling out money to see the rest either. Look at how much time is spent on people getting past moonrunes in H-games.

More time was spent on talking about the 'issue' than working it. So to me, there's more interest in that case to talking on the forums than to seeing the game content.

 
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mminit

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The game offers the player a help screen and which I've also mentioned in my previous response to you. It's accessed by holding F1 and a notice stays up in the first floor.

It seems the other responses have already reiterated that though. I will add however that your description of the first floor indicates that you did not explore all of it (you missed a separate section with treasure). Combine this with your lack of understanding in the controls and mechanics, and it's not too hard to see why you had so much trouble starting out.

I do take some of the blame for that, and yes the tutorial could have been improved. But a bit of effort on the part of the player is not too much to ask for (or is it? maybe gamers have changed and need to be told everything explicitly today).

On the issues of mapping and finding your bearings before proceeding further - these are genre mainstays, ones that I particularly enjoy (in the case of mapping, if the dungeon crawler has a map). Call it OCD if you like.
There can be times when the player will be faced with a challenge they may not be ready to face, especially if one likes to move quickly. Fleeing a battle is an option when you need to reassess.
 
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iamnuff

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The game offers the player a help screen and which I've also mentioned in my previous response to you. It's accessed by holding F1 and a notice stays up in the first floor.

It seems the other responses have already reiterated that though. I will add however that your description of the first floor indicates that you did not explore all of it (you missed a separate section with treasure). Combine this with your lack of understanding in the controls and mechanics, and it's not too hard to see why you had so much trouble starting out.

I do take some of the blame for that, and yes the tutorial could have been improved. But a bit of effort on the part of the player is not too much to ask for (or is it? maybe gamers have changed and need to be told everything explicitly today).

On the issues of mapping and finding your bearings before proceeding further - these are genre mainstays, ones that I particularly enjoy (in the case of mapping, if the dungeon crawler has a map). Call it OCD if you like.
There can be times when the player will be faced with a challenge they may not be ready to face, especially if one likes to move quickly. Fleeing a battle is an option when you need to reassess.

No, I'm pretty sure I understand the controls fine. I didn't understand which of the three healing options puts your clothes back on, or why you'd start the game with enough exp to level up right out of the game,
As I've said multiple times.
None of that has anything to do with controls.

As for the map... like I said, differing play-styles.
Not everybody who plays dungeon-crawlers feels the need to fill out every square on the map. 100% completion isn't actually the standard.
Now, beelining towards the exit with 30% completion isn't standard either, but 60-70% is usally enough to ensure that you got most of the loot and a fair bit of exp before moving onto the next section.

If you expect people to get 90+% on every floor, and design the game with this in mind, you should probably have the tutorial-lady mention this, and more importantly, why this would be important.

But this is all secondary. The thing that I actually made my initial post about was the slime enemy. Having fought a few more, I'd deciding to simplify my feedback.

I feel that either he should be made slightly less murdery, or the initial bat/eyeball enemies should be made stronger. As-is, the spike in difficulty between the two is... well, it's a spike, rather than a curve.
Difficulty spikes aren't always bad, but it's usually done with a bossfight, not a random encounter right next to the start of the game.
 
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DudePerson

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I like the subtle belt similarity from the final boss ;).

I really think you did a good job with this game mminit. I think there's a bit more that I could have wanted from it (A final scene, perhaps her taking the throne and having the guards service her), but considering the development time and price point, this is a great little game. I hope your sales are a success, and I look forward to what you'll make in the future.


- QOL suggestion: I was totally finishing the maps to 100%. I think having a very subtle color border from unexplored paths would be nice. Sometimes, especially late at night, starting at the map trying to find the last missing tile while looking through bleary eyes can be a bit annoying (I did finish all the maps to 100% though).
- Another little easter egg should have been the tutorial girl from the beginning after you beat the game. I was really hoping for her to say something different after you won, heh.
 

Stranger

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- Another little easter egg should have been the tutorial girl from the beginning after you beat the game. I was really hoping for her to say something different after you won, heh.
^ this hahahahah. When I finished the game and came back to the first floor and she was like "you don't look like much" (and I had everything maxed at that point) I was hoping that she would be the secret true ending boss so I could kick her ass :D
 

DoggieDog52

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Very, very fun game. Really enjoyed the improvements to the combat from the previous demos I've played while you were developing it. Great sound direction (those punches are so satisfying), good variety of enemies, and solid length. Great art too, really enjoyed a lot of the scenes.

I think my only real gripe about the game is it gets a bit easy once you understand how the game works. Lust, for something that seems so bad based on the portrait of the character, is incredibly useful at all times and doesn't really have any drawbacks. Sure the defense penalty and grab attacks from enemies can do damage but not only can they be flat out negated later on but the amount of healing and statuses you can inflict on the enemy is still quite strong. Even if you couldn't use HP / Normal attacks while high lust, your other attacks still do good damage and being naked negates that entirely. It feels less viable to focus on keeping your clothes on because aside from the hammer late in the game you rarely actually need clothes to win. Though I will admit there are some good benefits to having clothes and I liked the extra effort to give visuals for sex scenes that we may not ever even see with those clothes on (like the Maid outfit for the starting eyeballs).

All in all, I don't think this affects my enjoyment of the game though. I still enjoyed the combat and sex scenes alot. But I believe should've either been a penalty for being overwhelmed with lust or some kind of visual that showed she was giving into the lust and didn't really mind it as opposed to her being wary anytime she was naked.

Still, very solid H-game. 8/10, will be playing again :cool:
 

Justicex88

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I've honestly never been a fan of Dungeon Crawlers, to be completely honest, but I actually loved the game myself. Happy I bought it.
I think all the things I liked have already been stated here, so I'll just keep it short.
Loved the design of the MC: very basic, but very cute (that's important). Loved the different outfits and how they changed combat/exploring as well. Thought it was balanced well on normal mode too. Help (F1) was all the info I needed to get through the game.
Consider me a fan. Will be buying your next game if you keep making more.
 

Haro

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I was interested in more sex scenes or them being built upon but it was really good overall.
will admit was also disappointed that tutorial lady didnt acknowledge me and that there isn't any post game but a great game with really good gameplay.
 

Manuel de Mush

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I don't know if this is something that you'd ever wanna go back and implement, but I wish the game had like a debug mode, where you could actually fight any of the enemies you want in one place or menu. The only gripe I have with the gallery mode is that for all the battle CG's that are just static images, they don't have the dynamic cuts and the sound effects that make them so much better when you're actually fighting enemies. Of course, all of the grapples don't have that issue, since you added the animations and sound effects into the gallery mode, but if anything, it would be great to do the same thing with the battle CG's themselves. Those CG's are great, but they are, like, waaaaaaay better in the actual fights themselves. This game is awesome, I'm honestly excited to see what you have in store for the future. Because I'm 100% supporting.
 

War1926

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anyone has a full save? Yeah the game is hard i have beaten 2 bosses a rock golen and a T rex.
 
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