v0.36 demo
You know why Onigotchi was so well-received? Because it was intuitive and it had a simple but polished design. It had barely any pixels compared to this, but what was there was smooth and easy enough to understand.
This game heavily draws from Onigotchi and it shows, and some things it expands on and does better, but for the most part it comes across as a lesser clone of Oni.
Pros and Improvements compared to Oni:
- The minigames for training are expanded on, rather than just a "click at the right time" there is a match 3 falling things, a click rapidly game and a really bizarre at first cannon shooting game.
- There is equipment, more so than just simple relic choices. This could be considered a negative if you prefer streamlined design, but equipment choices is usually a good thing so it's going here.
- It's easier, because of having multiple dungeons to choose from rather than being locked into one, and training being simpler to access, you can actually bulk up and be quite okay without forcing yourself to lose again and again.
- Home design, can place and move furniture. To be honest with this and all the above systems it's pretty impressive what has been done here.
The Negatives compared to Oni:
- As I say, intuitive design. Oni you could see something and know what it does, or there would be a "highlighted thing here, better click it" no-words tutorial to guide you initially. That is sorely lacking here. Do you know how to rest? You need to go to furniture and scroll up (Yes you can scroll, it's just a barely visible scroll bar) and buy a bed then place it down. Do you know what any of those bottom icons mean? Well you might after 15-20 minutes but good luck figuring out that a 16 pixel symbol of a blue and grey chessboard means rain which means shower need. As I say, it's ok, but it's seriously harder than it needs to be.
- The symbols are indecipherable. I get the style going for, but as above you seriously cannot tell what half the symbols in the UI mean. I thought the rabbit symbol was a zombie at first! I thought the rain icon was a daytime thing. The furniture you cannot tell at all unless you click it and a tooltip shows up! Hold on a tooltip shows up?? Why wasn't there one placed for the needs and dungeon things then? Don't know!
- The "death" system. I had a few defeats on the way and just lost gold, then on some random non-boss turtle I die and it's game over. Why? What happened? Why is this different to any of my other deaths? It doesn't tell you. Just showed me game over (which wasn't even a H one) and that's it, start over again. No thanks, this is where I quit the game.
- The H isn't worth it. This is the saddest negative to state in a H game, but the lower resolution and more pixelated Onigotchi H was better than this here. The movements are stiff and robotic, the H itself is barely visible, and I think you even have to get lucky enough to go to 3x hearts in a dungeon just to see the "climax" animation, which doesn't look any different from the normal animation, just faster and maybe a bit of white? Too hard to tell. I genuinely wasn't sure the rabbit was titfucking here until I squinted and really focused on where those 2 pixels of dick were going.
3/5, it's ok and with a tutorial, tooltips or just helpful highlights it could be a good spiritua successor. But for now it's just too unintuitive to make me want to do a second attempt after a death I still don't understand.
