There is more than one public demo in this thread. And as much as I would like I can't possibly be able to play every demo, read every post in this thread on F95 and then on twitter too. I do hope you understand that.
I don't expect people to play every demo, but the only public demo in this thread for the last year (and the one that's in the OP) is the public demo I'm talking about in regards to your review having inaccuracies. It's also the same public demo that's on Itch, Steam, and anywhere else the game's at (besides Newgrounds, since we're waiting for the final demo/final game release to update it there given how HTML5 is a massive bug-fixing spree to work with for games like this).
Right now the game is a number of demos in the OP. That is what I meant by upgrading the demo - so it better represents the final product that "is coming". I do understand that you don't want to do that since it is extra effort and, most likely, unneeded.
Each of the demos are a separate level; at this point in development though, all the levels have been linked together, so there's no real way to update them, because level 2 would be looking for multiple flags/events that would happen in level 1, and so on down the level list etc.
As for correcting inaccuracies - you are doing pretty well already - I had a first hand experience. But again, you can't argue that stuff is inaccurate about the final build because to most people here it doesn't exist. Until released.
Well, when I'm talking about inaccuracies in reviews, like in yours, I'm talking about inaccuracies that can be found by playing that Steam/Itch/demo listed in the OP.
You asked me to keep my answers short, but I'm not going to be able to do that for this one, so here's a breakdown of the inaccuracy stuff.
[Story] features are aspects of the game that are bad in my opinion since they don't add any new elements to core gameplay. They don't provide any value to a "sidescroller with lewd animations", but are quite costly and lengthy to implement as was pointed out in the progress reports. In my opinion it would have been better to focus on the core gameplay with new mechanics and actual gameplay elements.
We've said this in the thread before, but to clarify it again; if we completely abandoned all story elements, the other gameplay mechanics/content/amount would have remained the same.
Triangulate, Frouge and myself aren't on a commission basis; we split the Patreon money equally, and if we made $5,000,000 a month, we would still do the same content / same amount of it would be present in the final game, as we had a specific vision for the game that we wanted to make at the end of the day.
Many of the more modern side scrollers try to incorporate lewd elements into actual active gameplay. For example lewds having some form of impact on gameplay: impacting the player or the way the game is played through stats, new/different abilities, buffs or nerfs granted by lewds. In FF the lewd parts of the game have no impact on the character / world past deciding which CGs are shown. Those can be all seen in a gallery / gallery-video-by-third-parties when the game is finally released.
- Lewds do indeed affect your stats. If you reject sex, you get -1 point in Sexuality Points. If you let a sex animation play out, you get +2 points in Sexuality Points.
- There are multiple cutscenes that change depending on your amount of (or lack of) sexuality points.
- Which of the 21 endings you get at the end of the game, is directly impacted by your sexuality points.
- The game checks which of the other 7 personality values are highest, and then checks whether you have negative, neutral, or positive sexuality to give you 3 possible (very different) versions of that ending.
- There's also the stun meter which affects sex and ties into powerups as well, to give you buffs/nerfs depending on specific powerups equipped.
All four of these are noted on social media/this thread, and the fourth one is in the public demo right now to interact with/play with.
Furthermore, many current games have some kind of RPG mechanic / character development / progression which makes the player feel like they get progressively stronger, evolve to meet greater challenges of the game, fight new enemies with new abilities, etc. FF was conceived before this was the norm and never really adapted to the change. The game has a number of items hidden in levels that the player can find that slightly alter the way the game is played... as soon as you find the most powerful ones the rest will be collecting dust in your inventory.
I'd say all the powerups are all fairly different, for just a small sample;
- Some let you shoot entirely different (multiple bullets, shoot downwards to float in the air, create shockwaves on the ground, have magnetized bullets that stick to surfaces, instant travel shots, etc.)
- Some let you move very differently (floating jump, bounce on enemy heads, move faster the longer you move in one direction, lower gravity).
- Others have utility (stun enemies by running into them, extra life if you can get a health orb within a few seconds of hitting 0 HP, heal from doing damage to enemies).
Finally, there's powerups that interact with the Ideal Points, (your 8 "personality values": sexuality, justice, hatred, kindness, optimism, pessimism, pacifism, violence), as well as ones that shift how much or how little points you get for each of those in each interaction, inside and outside of cutscenes.
All 50 of these powerups are accessible in the public demo, and while it's RNG what ones you get on a given run, they are all in there. Additionally, IMO, there is no "best" or even "best set" of powerups; none of the powerups have universal "best" usage, so to speak.
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Then, there's the note you had about there not being character development/progression; there's literally over
1,500 cutscene variants in the game on our end, right now. Many of them shift your Ideal points (personality values) based on your choices.
Many others still will only trigger (or not trigger) based on those same Ideal points, all of which shapes Talia's personality over the course of the game, and of course, lead to your final ending.
A small chunk of those cutscenes (about 100 or so variations across about 30 cutscenes) can be found in the Public Demo for the game that's in the OP, Steam, Itch and so on.
FF does provide the player with one new ability per chapter of the game, but the player is so limited in their moveset at the start of the game that these new ones feel like they should be part of the base kit and there are only 4 of them
This is a small one, but again, just clarifying this; you get 2 new abilities per boss (one damage, one utility), and there are 3 bosses that give a set of like this, with a 4th giving increased stats in general for your mana regen. The 5th boss gives no extra abilities, per reasons that'll be obvious plot-wise when you're playing against them in-game/have defeated them.
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Hopefully that clarifies some of the info about the game, though.
In the case of larger projects such as games, I would see this system like this;
you pay $ 15 once and you have access to all published content.
The only issue with this system, is that it rewards late adopters, and punishes early adopters who get far less at the time of their pledging, than the late adopter does.
Sure, they don't get charged again, but as seen with this game, getting interested in it and then waiting for a long time until you get what you were looking for can be much more frustrating than just dropping in far later, getting it and going, even if the actual tangible reward value is the same between the two cases.
People would be getting a better deal in that sense if they waited to support someone, which is the antithesis of crowdfunding, in that people often need money most the earlier on in development they are, so that they can afford to fund making a solid demo to attract enough attention to make ends meet/continue working on the game.
