Coolio. Constructive criticism:
-As a note, I have run through this game multiple times (though haven't beaten the secret boss. More on her later) and have at least a decent grasp of it.
While it is not extremely difficult to match, once you get into the rhythm, it does take a lot of time and effort to make any progress. When doing my level best to do the absolute minimum of moves, I counted 617 actions to get one match of three rainbow gems. This also left me in a terrible spot of having a board full of skulls and bombs, with 4 health.
Now, random chance does play into this, but that's still a heck of a lot of effort for very minor progress. Consider perhaps having a way to get more rainbow gems aside from matching our little hearts out. Maybe have an increasing bar, filling with every match made, that pops out a rainbow gem when it is full, or it damages the girl's health bar. The damage option would also help players see the differing states of the girls' undress. That also helps with the second point.
This game is frustrating, to a hefty degree. The amount of time spent cleaning up skulls and bombs as they populate the board is almost half of the playing time. And still, occasionally, I can lose out of no fault of my own when gems turn into skulls or bombs and complete a -6 health combo, or destroy something I was working towards (Lord forgive me for the curses I utter when that breaks a rainbow gem, or even two).
In all honesty, I think too many skulls/bombs are created at once, but reducing that too much might make the game much easier. Maybe differing girls could have increasing numbers of skulls/bombs? Maybe have the skulls show what color is going to be effected. Say, a green skull makes green gems into skulls. At least the player knows what is coming and can expect that. That actually is a life-safer that I enjoyed with the secret boss, since I KNEW hearts were going to be the death of me and I needed to clean them up.
Speaking of her, the secret boss is madness. She can regenerate health almost faster than I can take it away from her, and I have never gotten her under 14 health, and she was back up to 17 when I failed.
Heartbreaking? Fine. Taking away my progress? VERY frustrating, but survivable. Unavoidable damage would be manageable if hearts were not also dangerous. Maybe either have her not heal and just do damage, or have that ability be interruptible.
I was hoping that by matching 5 rainbow gems I would get some kind of boon, or at least some extra damage, but that didn't work. It got me thinking, maybe matching extra rainbow gems could have a tangible reward, like doing 5 damage for matching 4 and 7 damage for matching 5. Right now there is no use for matching 4 except for the final match of taking out a 10-health girl.
I also noticed that she can turn my rainbow gems into skulls and that is just not okay.
As for the girls, the ones we have right now are cute. Very nice pixel art! I know, since I do some animating, that making them move is an absolute behemoth of a task to undertake, but if they had some movement, especially if it was in time to the music, they'd really POP and feel like they're there, actively working against the player. It would make them seem more like a part of the game, instead of just waiting at the side.
Also, and this one is easy, having the thought bubble be on the left, closer to the puzzle-area is just a nice quality of life change. It's currently as far from the play area as it can be, and that information is useful to the player.
Other non-specific thoughts you might want to consider:
-Some kind of hierarchy for matching would be nice. Perhaps all Hearts match first, then Gems then Bombs, then Skulls. There does seem to be something about matching order happening behind the scenes, but I haven't figured it out.
-When all bars are filled, a rainbow rem could spawn immediately. Otherwise, I can get a massive combo that does nothing, since I haven't made a brand new match just for the rainbow gem.
-Matching gems of a color when that color's bar is full could cause the girl's attack timing to pause. If the player keeps up the pace, they can keep the girl's attacks at a standstill.
-Having each girl have a pre-battle one-liner, and maybe one on victory and loss instead of You Win! or You Lose! would help to give them more personality.
-You're pretty cool. There's nothing else to say on that one.
-Try making a second control scene with WASD and Enter. As is, my right wrist is sore from all the puzzling. Being able to switch might, literally, save people from getting tendonitis.
I look forward to seeing what comes of your game, Bandi/DanaCrystalis.
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