This is a cute little game about a guy who falls in love with a girl, a very, I mean a VERY small game. You could probably finish the entire game within 45 mins even if you choose to explore everything that the game has to offer. I really appreciate the effort and passion that went into the design and looks of various townships, but there is a lot to be desired. I am happy to see Indian indie devs try their hands at such cozy games but I also want fair and positive criticism to be put onto the devs so they can give an even more polished game for the players. I will change the "Do you recommend" tag into yes after atleast some of these stuff are taken care of.
The issue is that we don't even spend literally 5 mins with Geetha and Seenu to see their "childhood love" to even connect with these characters. It's running with the story so fast that there's a big time jump in which you don't feel literally anything for the characters meeting back again (has nothing to do with the atmosphere, the art direction is awesome). And even after that the way the story compels Seenu to get involved with the drug cartel is very mindless and straight up forcing him to take this typical "hero" thing we see in all movies. I feel this is a bad part in writing category. We should have atleast, a bare minimum of 15 to 20 mins of wandering around the town, getting to know people, form connections and see how life is like in Bellampakkam. If you want inspiration for this kinda township I think the town from stardew valley is a great starting point.
Now I'll move on from the story into critiquing the gameplay. I really don't think the voice-over matches with the vibe of the game. If there is a narrator, then make it sound like this cartoonish game character sounds that Saidulu makes near the railway station at the first encounter with Seenu's shenanigans. Or go full on into narrating everything. I personally think this kind of character sounds making narration is fun (something like undertale dialogue sounds or even stardew valley). Next there are number of scenes where there is literally no OST running in the background so it feels off. Particularly the first scene with Seenu and his mother in his own house and the other one after the time jump when Geetha arrives in the railway station, are the ones that I remember having no background sounds other than birds ig. The fun cozy vibe comes from just staring at the awesome art direction and music sometimes, not even playing the game. So i would really like the devs to improve this experience.
Another thing is for people who play lots of games we understand certain things easier than others. I'll give particular examples of things which were never explained in the game, which I understood instinctively, but others might not catch it. First, Mango's as a way of healing. Even tho we can see the D-pad symbol to use the mango at the right screen corner, some might not even try it for the entire game, thus play the entire game without healing at all. I understood the mechanic to use slingshot to shoot the mango trees to collect mangos and stockpile them before any encounters, some might not. Second thing, I think this is what most people might miss, which is, feeding chickens to the dogs to pull them away from certain locations. The thing is there is no indication by the game to tell you chickens can be killed, picked up and thrown to distract the dogs. Even I thought may be the bone sprites in the background were for that purpose. But no, its just background. I randomly kill these animals to see whether i can eat them to heal. And that's how I knew it can be used to distract since the way chicken is picked up is similar to grass, which can be thrown instead of how mango is picked up. These are few nitpicks, which if you can iron out will help with the player experience a lot.
And a whole lot of ways to cheese through the game without even trying. I have recordings of them if you need. Hammer brute fight doesn't even start if you stay 4 tiles away and just shoot him with your slingshot to death. Or if you trigger his fight, you can literally stand in the tile vertically below him and he can never hit you since he only hits the tiles directly to his left or right. Similarly the last goon fight before the climax can be cheesed if you stand at the entrance of the village after you trigger every single goon there. They literally cant reach you, so that fight is just button mashing to the end. Similarly saving Dhanujay can be cheesed by throwing a chicken to attract the dogs, stand near the stone with a stick thingy, attract the dogs again to you, stand at the corner and button smash. The dogs cant get you at that spot alone, IDK why. Also there is this weird thing that happens when u dash, the birds fly to the wrong side even tho they should eb moving from left to right. They suddenly change directions for the duration of the dash.
I would really like to see the addition of certain things which i will list out here. To be able to move freely in the town and explore stuff on your own before you get thrusted into the main story. Make number of side quests for Seenu to do like gardening, flower keeping, making sweets or something idk with. There's soooo much possibility to do fun stuff in the town, talk and interact with different people. I needed that, that's what I saw in all insta ads. Next is maybe add more variety of things that can help with healing other than mangos alone. We have a rich and diverse variety of foods, sweets, etc. Include them, heck maybe even make minigames out of that inside the game. It'll be fun. Make the town less linear and more semi-open world kinda town. Again atleast something like the town from stardew valley. It is bit of a stretch, but let us maybe make choices that impact how the story ends. Maybe different endings with Geetha depending on the relationship we develop throughout the game. The last thing would be make like a end of game loop, don't just lock us out of the game world. That's where the minigames would help a lot. I am not necessarily saying make the game 10 times longer, but make the gameplay enjoyable, something in the likes of "A short hike", in which the game can be finished within like 30 mins, but the mini games and side stuff made me play that game for well over 20 hours. That's what I hope someday this game might be. It has the potential. I hope the devs take in these constructive criticism.
