Art is great, and I like Vampires. The bonding and whatnot is rushed at the start, when you talk with the missing woman. From Vesper's point of view she seemed to just be empathising with the woman and growing to understand her, calling it an obsession and Helena seeming near in love is very sudden and kinda creepy.
Regardless, it hardly matters when it's purely the prologue.
As of now, the gameplay loop itself is massively, overly punishing.
You need to work at least twice a day to gain money reasonably, and after a day or two, one slot is mandatorily a rest slot which you can't unassign to take some fatigue in exchange for money - for some reason - meaning that you have to really just spam journalism twice a day every day.
You only get three slots a day.
There's no time to train up to get good at anything else, and there seems to be literally no point to the bartending, as its just a far worse way of making money. Journalism almost always gives $30, whereas Bartending gives an average of $10-15.
The very first random encounter on day 5 or so, the hobo in the alleyway, only unlocks an additional option at 150+speed.
You gain 5 per training. Even if you did nothing but train until you got this encounter, it's completely impossible to get close enough in the time you have.
Not because you can't reach 150 - although you can't - but rather because you'll get an unceremonious "You went insane" ending long before that, because it only takes a couple days of work for your blood bar to hit full, and a few days after that too until your mind fucking breaks apparently. When your blood gets full you then use most of if not all of the money you have buying $150 worth of blood, then the blood bar does not even fully reset, and you gotta do it over. If you get the hobo encounter, it takes so much money that you're basically doomed.
Way too much micromanaging and grind to get any semblance of balance, especially for a game with no save and load. Maybe give the character more time than "under a week" before she goes completely insane and the game ends if you make a mistake. She's set up as being basically the lowest tier of vampire, literally described as her body fighting to stay human, so it makes little sense that she can go full blood frenzy in a few days flat.
I hope to see this rectified highly in the future updates of the game, along with perhaps some helpful actual description and tutorial for exactly what improving your stats will even bother to do.
As I said, I like vampires.
Regardless, it hardly matters when it's purely the prologue.
As of now, the gameplay loop itself is massively, overly punishing.
You need to work at least twice a day to gain money reasonably, and after a day or two, one slot is mandatorily a rest slot which you can't unassign to take some fatigue in exchange for money - for some reason - meaning that you have to really just spam journalism twice a day every day.
You only get three slots a day.
There's no time to train up to get good at anything else, and there seems to be literally no point to the bartending, as its just a far worse way of making money. Journalism almost always gives $30, whereas Bartending gives an average of $10-15.
The very first random encounter on day 5 or so, the hobo in the alleyway, only unlocks an additional option at 150+speed.
You gain 5 per training. Even if you did nothing but train until you got this encounter, it's completely impossible to get close enough in the time you have.
Not because you can't reach 150 - although you can't - but rather because you'll get an unceremonious "You went insane" ending long before that, because it only takes a couple days of work for your blood bar to hit full, and a few days after that too until your mind fucking breaks apparently. When your blood gets full you then use most of if not all of the money you have buying $150 worth of blood, then the blood bar does not even fully reset, and you gotta do it over. If you get the hobo encounter, it takes so much money that you're basically doomed.
Way too much micromanaging and grind to get any semblance of balance, especially for a game with no save and load. Maybe give the character more time than "under a week" before she goes completely insane and the game ends if you make a mistake. She's set up as being basically the lowest tier of vampire, literally described as her body fighting to stay human, so it makes little sense that she can go full blood frenzy in a few days flat.
I hope to see this rectified highly in the future updates of the game, along with perhaps some helpful actual description and tutorial for exactly what improving your stats will even bother to do.
As I said, I like vampires.