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Thanks a lot, I'm gonna go **** myself now. How did i not try something so simple (my best guess is that i kept assuming shielded damage becomes 30 not 20).

Hey, I appreciate the prompt attention to feedback. I'll be sure to definitely make any friends play this who i think would be interested. Hopefully you find the optimum build for the game you dreamt of :D

Ok now that I'm done with this, is there anywhere i can find a walkthrough for harm charm, level 5? I've spent hours trying what i think is every possible combination, but i cant seem to get it. I'm at the point that i was starting to teach Bard the various components of this game and hopefully it might work out an answer, but that is taking wayyyy longer than i thought. So any walkthroughs or something?

Thanks for everything!

I wish my gf showed me as much as love as this dev has shown this game

@jjhonston I specifically made an itchio account for the first time just to thank you for making an absolute masterpiece. I wish there was a way to let devs know that there's a market for handcrafting such experiences. Do you have a youtube channel or something? I feel like you're super good at game design and charming storytelling. I'd love to hear your thoughts on a channel, something like razbuten or joseph anderson. Just use AI voice or whatever if you're worried about privacy.

But yeah, this is like a once in a lifetime game, those you can never play again.

Time for the Constructive criticism part:

1. I thought there'd also be a chance to guess who the person who hired me was. It'd be nice if i could like select 3 possible people who i think it was, and i can check if i got it right. 

2. It is absolutely not clear to me that the list of names i have is a resource that can be used. Even though you set up a tab for it, there doesn't seem to be a reason that the detective would have a list of random names. And that is the reason that i avoided using it until i got very stuck. And when i did use it, it felt like i was "gaming the system".  Only later on discord, i found out that it is necessary to find many of the wives. So i think it should at least be made very clear that your benefactor has given you this list (maybe it can be given to you mid game?) and it IS TO BE USED for solving. 

But honestly, it would be way better to pick up breadcrumbs and arrive at their names, instead of a magical list being at your footsteps. When i played without using it, the game felt so much more natural.

3. A similar issue exists with the structure of the tree being given to you. This i suppose probably isn't an intended mechanic, but can definitely be used to "game the system". I suppose there should be a difficulty checkbox in settings that can be added, which hides the connection between two people (so if someone got divorced in the story, it's easy to see it's one of the people in the tree that are divorced). And also there can be some extra "children" or "spouse" slots, that are supposed to be confirmed as empty and non existent. This way, a player can't use the tree structure to see that "oh X had 2 kids? well it can't be this this and this because they only have 1 kid". 

It wouldn't have to make the game difficult because it's a setting that you can turn off. But currently, i hated how I could basically guess who X spot person was, but didn't know if i was gaming the system and kept looking for further evidence to confirm what i find before filling it in.

4. I didn't find the periodical in the tutorial. I feel like, the player can be guided towards that more, though maybe i'm just dumb. (Also, i kept waiting to find the legal periodical, with how many legal cases i kept finding. That'd be a nice addition.)

5. A lot of the details are guesstimates, where you really just guess that particular detail, but i assume you already intend to make those more deducible facts over time.

6. The game needs more red herrings. Like making you think that X's husband is Y because an article says they were dating or engaged, but later turns out, they broke up and married someone else. That kinda bait stuff.

7. In the long future, or a sequel if you ever plan it, a timeline system would be nice. Either for the notes, or for the tree requirement, or something similar. 

(Also, for the love of god, please make Home and End key work per line in the notes)

Spoiler marked constructive criticism, so do not read beyond if you haven't finished:

1.  Example of not using the names list limiting the experience of the game- I didn't find EJ's past because i never found her full name when i saw the article.  When i read the article that mentions her checkered past, i thought i don't know her full name, so i didnt search her up. Later i forgot about it.  So i ended up never finding it. I think EJ should have at least 1 more mention somewhere else.

2. In fact, the whole MR part of the family felt so underexplored. It seemed super interesting to me, yet felt like there was so little stuff on it, compared to so much drama and stuff to read on the other parts of the family. 

3. N's mom being AQ was just annoying to find out. But maybe others enjoyed it ig. I found it antithetical to everything else being based on realistic deduction, and this one you're supposed to solve as a joke.

3. LR's brothers, the 2 for whom you have to guess which is which, that also felt like guesswork. I know that one is supposed to look younger, but i just thought he is short. And just guessing because he's shorter, felt like it cheapened the game.

4. There were other issues, but those were my fault. But these issues didn't feel fair like the others. These felt like i was not told what i'm supposed to do, so i kept high expectations,  and was then disappointed. I'd rather just be told to do some guesswork or use the list.

Regardless, an absolutely amazing game. Easily one of the best I've ever played. Thank you for this.