Saccharine Pale?

this is a game

update 2: this game is being delisted for a number of completely understandable reasons, i wish u luck in ur future endevours, and thank u for this nice experience while it lasted. <3 update: its since been replaced with a screen of text so this reviews only rly for the older version i played at the time i originally wrote this (which u can either download an old depot to see urself or as mentioned at the very end watch trog's playthrough of it 2 get the general vibe). still keeping this positive, id love to see what else the dev works on in the future, love their ideas here. i dont mind it at all personally if this is how this game is laid to rest, it feels fitting, however as it stands now you may be disappointed if youre missing all the past context and try to play now. the other branches mentioned further below are also missing, though u may be able to still download them through steam im not sure? if not, you can at least play the_seed by downloading the demo released ages ago on the dev's itch.io page instead. and no as i understand its not intended to be an arg. it is what it is, and ive enjoyed all of it tbh. again i hope the dev is enjoying themself and id love to see new work from them in the future, this entire saga rocked <3 original review: very interesting albeit unfinished game, would love to dig deeper if i could though i'm not the best at the combat. as it is currently, if anyone is curious and doesnt mind spoilers, the goal (in the current main branch) seems to be exploring and finding crates and bringing them to the anvil in the starting area, which will give you some lore and money. havent been able to figure out if theres anything you can do with the money just yet, the game seems to have restarted development with new ideas sometime after exiting early access. holding space crouches while tapping it jumps, and while you're airborne you can slash any stone or metallic surface to bounce higher. on the bottom right on your sword is the health-bar, indicated by the phase of the sun, you dont have very much health but it will regen by draining energy which changes the color of the sun from yellow to red, once its dark red your energy is empty and you can no longer regen health, you have to eat the lavender plants to replenish it. definitely lots of interesting and fun ideas in this game, would love to see more of it... the beta branch "the_seed" seems to be the original alpha release thats out on itch.io and early access reviews are talking about, it seems much more straightforward and video-gamey which tbh isn't really what i'm after, i definitely find the new direction much more interesting, plus theres many clear improvements in the new branch such as being much easier to block/parry. i wonder if maybe the dev was upset with the lack of players and decided to experiment with the game since its already out on steam? it used to cost money but as recently as jan 27th became free, right when it exited early access and started going in a different direction, seemingly. kind of a shame as i wouldnt have minded throwing the initial $10 at the dev to try this experience. theres definitely lots of secrets in here and the "im_sorry" branch though i havent been able to figure out much of it. just wish there was more documentation somewhere online on the game by people with a better handle on the navigation and combat. i saw a grey dead body near one of the crates in one dead-end room that i couldnt reach and interact with as i was already dying and couldnt take any more fall damage from sword pogo-ing to get over the metal grates it was behind... i havent been able to figure out where the apothecary referred to by item descriptions is, if its even in the game yet. the "im_sorry" branch has no combat, just a wide open map with a house with an anvil inside it and lots of enemies roaming around that you cant fight back against, with much more somber and dark text and imagery, opening the menu immediately kills you. i'll have to explore it some more to see if it holds anything important to the main branch. unfortunately runs kind of poorly on my linux machine but thats not really the developer's fault, gamemaker can just be like that when running in proton/wine sometimes. all the discord links are seemingly dead, btw. mightve either expired or the dev deleted the server. i'd love it if more eyes were on this game so do check it out. if by any chance the dev is curious where i saw this game, it was featured on trog's 3rd "gamestrange" stream