Unity Some Heroines Climb Up a Tower to Ask God Why the Game Has a Name That's So Long [v2.70] [Sinful Salad Games]

[nemo401]

Ok i give up i admit this game has defeated so me kudos to the developers

here are some tips for level 2 before i go:

-you can block missiles with mobs who has 100% damage negation
-if missile hits missiles they destroy each other
-mobs with mushroom debuff will turn into mushroom man with 40hp if left alone, you can use it that to your advantage if blockroaches go out of control.
-
-in claw minigame you can hit balls with the claw into the tube but robot shopkeeper calls you cheater and resets your stats to default and this can happen even if you do it unintentionally, so avoid claw game it's dangerous there :/ (it just a visual bug your stats don't change)

 

[DeynanDescafeinado]

Another bugs I found: -If one of the heroines is converted and gets fucked by an enemy that later dies with poison, it restores the Heroine, but it stays bugged when you try to attack. Your only choice left is restarting the run by closing the game with the task manager, for some reason because the Quit Game option doesn't work, neither Alt F4

 

[sammo905]

sale pitch for progressive game play

I understand that the game is made for masochists, however constantly banging your head against a wall isn't very fun and rather off putting

which is why meta progression is often in games like this to help deal with burnout, now i'm not saying you should flip the game upside down for it but instead in the spirit of the game and it difficulty you should add tiny minor upgrades that add up over a long time

doing this not only gives the player the satisfaction of getting stronger and consistently getting to new content but can also be controlled to adjust so the next level is still bullshit but fair. example for just the first five times you beat level one you get small stat increases or skill upgrades to make level one just a tiny bit easier and more consistent, doing it this way allows the player to get to new content and allows you the dev to make the next level even harder and more bullshit

you don't even have to touch the stats or skills and take a different path like knowledge as knowledge in games like this is power
you know like the hints you been dropping here or there put em in the game as rewards, now I get the whole figure it out for yourself approach but this way players will ether go so that works nice when finding it out themselves or that's really helpful and good to know when finding a hint, giving players a better sense of satisfaction or at least making them go I did that for something I already knew really fuck you game

now here's the biggest reason why you should add some meta progression JOKES
really they write themselves like making a big deal over only getting tiny stat increases
the game itself complaining on how its meta progression sucks
a useless but really hyped up reward for collecting all hints
and so on

 

[0nymous]

-in claw minigame you can hit balls with the claw into the tube but robot shopkeeper calls you cheater and resets your stats to default and this can happen even if you do it unintentionally, so avoid claw game it's dangerous there :/

He doesn't reset your stats, he just resets/removes the balls (so they don't stack up as high allowing you to knock them around with the claw).
The stats not registering properly between laves or when loading a saved seems to be a visual bug. My ninja kept her 20 attack despite it showing as 10 during the claw minigame.

 

[nemo401]

ah ok so it's a bug xD

also you can make him kick you out with interesting dialogue if you manage to do it 5 times xD

 

[mnonyhc]

My claw doesnt even move now...
All I did was talk to him, and try to pull claw down during


Still managed to beat 2nd stage without crane.

Thank to triple arrow being the most op skill and the trumpet actually being the best use for ninja.

Broke my claw again, swinging it made it keep going up to the point it closes before reaching the balls

 

[bucefala]

I just found out that slave costume gives you a buff, afterglow state last 4 turn instead of 2 with it... This is awesome and I just found out 20 hours into the game. It's actually worth it to try to lose a heroine or 2 in control and buy them back.

 

[RandomGuy32]

Very interesting to have a game here where after playing a good bit I have more to say on gameplay than porn. Overall a surprisingly fun game in itself, and a pretty difficult one too. Can stand decently on its own without the big titty girls getting fucked, but sure makes a nice bonus. I'm sure most of my points have been made elsewhere, but hey have another vote on the pile.

1. Difficulty

Starting skill RNG quickly feels a bit frustrating. Definitely a situation where some feel mediocre at best in their perfect niche situations, while others feel near mandatory to deal with the flood of enemies. The ninja girl is my favorite on design, but it feels like she has a surplus of mediocre skills then one absurdly strong one of 5 hits on enemies in the middle territory. Pushing a boss there and using that chunked far more health than any other strat, and relying on RNG for it to even be an option doesn't feel good. It rarely feels good to lose (although seeing them get captured/fucked does ease the pain ) but it feels much worse when you feel like you don't have control over it. Which leads into a second point:

2. Meta progression (or lack thereof)

As much as I genuinely appreciate the effort put into gameplay, a fair chunk of people are here largely for the porn. Banging your head against level 1 multiple times and being no steps closer to unlocking more levels for more porn might drive a lot of interest away. Especially since the grabs only come out when losing, the idea of having to throw a run more or less like half an hour in to see sex scenes is just going to get less and less appealing as content increases.

The simple solution is meta progression on stat upgrades. Maybe permanent experience gained from each finished run, maybe another currency you collect per run, but something where someone failing over and over feels like they're making progress to the next scenes. Could even be pretty picky with it, making the stat increases very minor (like singular additions to stamina or sexual health totals) per point, some degree of progress goes a long way.

The more complicated solution could be lateral upgrades in the form of equipment, akin to Darkest Dungeon curios or something similar. Purchased with some meta currency, could be alternative weapon, armor, and accessories which allow you more options before setting out on a mission. A mace for Swordswoman that makes her attack do half the damage but knocks back the enemy twice as far. Bow for the hunter girl that can't double damage but hits adjacent enemies for half damage. Armor for the ninja that increases her sexual stamina regen but makes her take more health damage, or vice versa. Accessories that grant the chance of some status on attacks, but suffer drawbacks for the wearer like letting sexual attacks have a high chance to crit. Stuff like that would probably easy some people's complaints, even if you fail you at least had more agency, and probably got more currency for this stuff so you feel like you aren't treading water.

3. Gallery

Alright, the most basic bitch complain possible, but would be nice to have a gallery to view animations. Tying it in to the last point, could see some potential in a Training Field at the beginning you unlock (perhaps with said meta currency stuff) where it's intended to test out the above different equipment against some dummies, but whoever's running it has some thresholds you can pass to allow the spawning of certain enemies too (maybe a kill count, currency, both probably) which the player can then of course not actually deal with to watch animations. Ain't exactly the most serious game out there, you can probably hand wave pervy mimic magic easily. Not sure why, but something gives me the vibe you don't want to seperate the gameplay mechanics from the sex scenes like a common gallery, so this should work for both worlds.

Wow, looking back that's a lot of writing for a porn game. Anyways, hope that something of it can be of use for maybe an idea if the dev checks this thread again sometime. Despite the paragraphs, I do want to reiterate that it is a very fun game and I love the art, hope you succeed! Genuinely keeping an eye on this to buy once it's out, especially if some of the minor complaints get smoothed out.

 

[Dinglederper]

I've been reading everybody's feedback, and I appreciate all of it. I can't respond to everything because I only have so much time, but know that i try to read every word of every post. I'm sure lots of you are new and seeing this project for possibly the first time, and you're probably surprised by the seemingly impossible difficulty of this game.
I'm sure you've noticed, but this game is NOT beginner friendly.
I'm sure you've noticed there is NO progression in this game.
maybe you're asking, "WHY!?"

Well, here's why.

I believe if you make a game for everyone then you make a game for no one.
Is that exclusionary? Yes, and I'm aware of that. But I think there's lots of artistic merit to it.
In the same way that filtering out scenes of a movie makes a movie more inclusive, so does altering difficulty in a video game. But in both cases it alters the artistic expression of the work, the intended experience has been altered.

My target audience is masochistic veterans of turn based strategy games. So I guess keep in mind when you give me feedback that every choice i'm going to make as a designer will be favoring maso-veterans above beginners. You're welcome to attempt this game though, and i still appreciate you being here.
If this design choice is just still absolutely baffling to you, I recommend checking out this video by ElectricUnderground:

You must be registered to see the links

Am I perfect at balancing this game? Heck no. Do I sometimes make terrible design choices? Yeah absolutely.
But I put a lot of thought into my design, and I know the type of game i want to make. The big final boss of erorpgs. Once you've played 200+ erotic rpgmaker games like me and many others have, that's when you'll understand why i'm creating this monster.

Thank you for your feedback, even if tend to disagree on a lot of things I appreciate you taking the time to play and write about your experience and frustrations. Thanks for being here, everyone.
Also before I go to bed.
Here's some memes I thought up based on the reactions to level 2, I hope you enjoy. (these aren't made to make fun of anybody, I just feel like the capture how this update is feeling to lots of people)
View attachment 3791328 View attachment 3791331 View attachment 3791340 View attachment 3791385 View attachment 3791424 View attachment 3791432

I will say that the video explaining beginner bias comes off as dismissive; I guarantee there are people here who have played this game more than long enough to understand it mechanically (myself included) who still think some things are just flat out poorly tuned in terms of effort for reward, and difficulty is just one part of that functional relationship. If you want the game to be that way, I would just cut everything else out: just be honest that this is your vision without the "it's justified by X design principle", and I wouldn't even dispute it.

There are plenty of absolutely insane games out there (just look at the schizocore genre, which has unironically become a thing) that pull unbelievably small demographics, and even though I don't like or care for most of them, I still appreciate them for what they are: a window into the mind of someone who sees things in a very unique way. That is something to be celebrated in its own right, but "weird and quirky" are their own types of enjoyment/entertainment, and should be respected as such without delusion. To me, a lot of this does just come off as "difficulty for the sake of difficulty", and that's perfectly fine, just so long as you continue to acknowledge it as such.

IWBTG and Kaizo Mario are big names in the space of ludicrous, repetitious difficulty, and they are undoubtedly a godsend to some people, but their creators wanted to intentionally crank the difficulty way beyond any reasonable level; when someone says "Kaizo Mario is unfair", that's the point of the game, but when someone says "X porn game is unfair" that's a very different ballgame because at least part of the reward cycle of the game is getting the smut.

The only real reason I'm pushing this point is because I think the art and gameplay integration are top notch bordering on totally unique, and from my personal perspective it seems a waste to focus a game with such an excellent integration of its porn content on being about Kaizo levels of difficulty where it's "lol learn the strats noob" as though it's perfectly reasonable to have to grind for hours on end to just collect a few extra pictures in the gallery.

Even if your target audience is the Kaizo community, there are still limits to how much frustration someone is willing to endure for a given reward. If the smut is the intended reward, then the difficulty should only be enough to justify a sense of reward when getting it; but if the difficulty itself is the goal in order to provide a challenge...then why add extra hoops in the form of having to do an entire extra mechanic that is often risky and even run-ending just to collect said smut? Why not just make gallery pages unlock on having an animation occur?

The bottom line is this: if I want a challenge from the gameplay, I could beat it by just rerolling run starts until I get some overpowered combination of skills and hoard gold to buy out an entire shopkeeper, but if I want the smut, I'm beholden to immense amounts of RNG and roadblocks that feel like they're trying to push me to do the former, which locks me out of the latter because risking getting a character enslaved or railed comes with a near-certainty of the run ending by attrition. There's a LOT of potential, but it feels unfocused because it's a porn game trying to be a kaizo game. If you were to reward gallery entries on just seeing a sex animation, I wouldn't even be arguing about the difficulty, but as it stands I can't enjoy one aspect of the game without missing out on the other, and that's what really messes with me.

 

[Trongle]

Let me attempt to clarify:

I also don't want the game "poorly tuned", and if you've been here long at all, you've hopefully noticed I've been slowly tweaking difficulty and QoL changes as we move forward. In our very first demo there was no sex buff, stat boosters were random, and items dealt less damage. Every single change I've made to the game has lowered the difficulty to make things more fair for the player. I want less bullshit in this game and erotic content to be more frequent too, and I hope the changelog is proof.

However, we've recieved LOTS of feedback from players asking for mechanics like permanent progression in the battle system, and my post was aimed SPECIFICALLY at that feedback. I don't think progression automatically makes the game more balanced, and to me it feels like a participation trophy. It would severly change the entire meta of the game. When we talk about game design aimed at beginners, that's more what I mean. The post is there to explain why my vision for a game doesn't include mechanics that hold your hand or create an inevitable victory.

The gallery mechanic is still brand new and I haven't added easier alternative methods of getting the pictures in it yet. I appreciate your feedback on that and I'll figure out something to make it more satisfying.

 

[raxnarokXx]

I kind of hate the fact that the gallery resets with each run, makes it hard to keep track of which scenes I've got so far (Well, aside from screenshooting) You get to see the images you got throughout that run and it is complicated to get the scenes you want, like the slaver's minions ganging on the heroines.

 

[Trongle]

I kind of hate the fact that the gallery resets with each run, makes it hard to keep track of which scenes I've got so far (Well, aside from screenshooting) You get to see the images you got throughout that run and it is complicated to get the scenes you want, like the slaver's minions ganging on the heroines.

That sounds like a bug, can you provide more details on this?

 

[raxnarokXx]

That sounds like a bug, can you provide more details on this?

Now that I think about it, the first time I downloaded the game, the gallery had a background but now it is black for some reason, not sure how it happened :I

 

[PapaScorch]

I've gotten about 6 runs into level 2 and beat 3 as of 2.40 If Level 1 is 60 percent zone control and 40 percent damage output, I'd say Level 2 is 80 percent zone control and 20 percent damage output. I cannot understate how much zone control matters on this level. Target prioritization is also extremely important. Denying or keeping mind of enemy abilities is very important (dont attack red while in counter, pull cutterflies out of their zone when they start charging. separating shield bug from each other and killing them before they reach blue with friends.)

General rule in my opinion is blue > green > red. Order can change based on the status of heroines but generally blue are always the most threatening.

If you don't understand that you can kill a missile with a missile, you're basically already dead. The mushroom stack piles on way too quick so I never leave more than 2 on the field if I can help it and always aim for 0.

Miniboss is doable, I've beaten the tumbleweed gunslinger but it can be hard to finish strong. I've been manhandled by the Level 2 slaver twice so I'm still learning things even now.

Trumpet spell reigns supreme for me. If I see I have maybe 7 semi injured enemies on the field and 3 are ready to spawn in, anything like that or less will make me use the trumpet.

After playing these runs, I actually like Level 2 as zone control is my favorite part of the game. If killing the enemies faster than them killing you was the main strategy, then it wouldnt be nearly as fun in my opinion. Even with the trumpet you can get swarmed and I feel the main reason that I feel frustrated sometimes was that my ability to zone was taken away by the sheer number of enemies on the board from the sometimes packed respawns.

These are just suggestions but I feel like some skills could move AND swap enemies, or just skills that swap enemies. Maybe move skills that "launch" enemies over other enemies either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Moving enemies gives you a sense of control, so if you fuck up, cant blame anyone but yourself.

If I see the assassin miniboss show up and a blue guy spawns behind her, there is little I can do to stop her from getting to the blue zone as I cant push her back. If she gets to the blue and gets her dodge tokens, Only hope is to focus the shit out of her and push her back to the green, but focusing her means I cant kill the guy behind her easily.

I really like this game and I hope you can find a balance between what we can do in terms of strategy vs what is thrown at you.

 

[Trongle]

I've gotten about 6 runs into level 2 and beat 3 as of 2.40 If Level 1 is 60 percent zone control and 40 percent damage output, I'd say Level 2 is 80 percent zone control and 20 percent damage output. I cannot understate how much zone control matters on this level. Target prioritization is also extremely important. Denying or keeping mind of enemy abilities is very important (dont attack red while in counter, pull cutterflies out of their zone when they start charging. separating shield bug from each other and killing them before they reach blue with friends.)

General rule in my opinion is blue > green > red. Order can change based on the status of heroines but generally blue are always the most threatening.

If you don't understand that you can kill a missile with a missile, you're basically already dead. The mushroom stack piles on way too quick so I never leave more than 2 on the field if I can help it and always aim for 0.

These are just suggestions but I feel like some skills could move AND swap enemies, or just skills that swap enemies. Maybe move skills that "launch" enemies over other enemies either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Moving enemies gives you a sense of control, so if you fuck up, cant blame anyone but yourself.

Those are very fun ideas.

 

[johnnygoodmeme]

Btw Trongle is their music access for casual listening?
Leaving game running in the background only works when at the privacy of home comp

 

[Trongle]

Btw Trongle is their music access for casual listening?
Leaving game running in the background only works when at the privacy of home comp

You must be registered to see the links

 

[lockedoutofthemainframe]

Cleared 2 a few times, will +1 the idea of zone control being important. I'd also add that identifying which of the three ladies is going to be your damage focus early on in a run is important. The doom mask is a run-saver and if you get one, keep it.

Other than that I'll say three things:

1) It's refreshing and I am constantly reminded of just how refreshing with every new art update or new scene that the characters are drawn enjoying sex in a way that I actually believe. This is one area H-game devs and artists often fail miserably at. There's a line of "she's into it because she's into it" and "she's into it because I want her to be into it because I'm into it" and this is well and truly up there with being on the right side of that.

2) with how many changes are happening I don't' see the point in talking too much about permanency between runs from a game balance pov. It's just adding a complexity layer on top of a game that's going through enoug reworks as is. Although I will freely admit I think the ingame dialogue would find a way to poke a good joke or two about it.

3) One QOL thing I'd like to see on the crane game is a "Shield" or way to gate off the "I just won, go down the tube" case I accidentally do "cheat". Like yeah the cheating's funny and I completely get punishing the player for trying to get one over the game: but sometimes you really are just trying to make the most of your last 70 gold to get that +1 attack goo gummie, and it's possible to end up unable to do it without risking being called a cheater. Having a button to press to be able to say "I didn't grab that one with the claw, it's not going in" would be appreciated.

Edit. With the gallery it seems like it is only keeping the state of gallery completion linked to the specific images you saw in your run only. So resetting to default each time.

 

[Trongle]

3) One QOL thing I'd like to see on the crane game is a "Shield" or way to gate off the "I just won, go down the tube" case I accidentally do "cheat". Like yeah the cheating's funny and I completely get punishing the player for trying to get one over the game: but sometimes you really are just trying to make the most of your last 70 gold to get that +1 attack goo gummie, and it's possible to end up unable to do it without risking being called a cheater. Having a button to press to be able to say "I didn't grab that one with the claw, it's not going in" would be appreeciated.

Wait so I'm confused, you want to NOT cheat at the claw game?

 

[lockedoutofthemainframe]

Less that and more "I wish there was a way to not cheat by accident" (sometimes the claw has got a bit wiggly pulling things up and made me cheat that way despite trying very hard not to), but eh. Explains why I'm already clearing the game asap either way I suppose :V.