HELPPPP THIS WAS SO CUTE AND WHOLESOME AAAAA-

(SPOILERS)

the darker elements of a lot of your stories and worlds are always super intriguing, so a much lighter game like this feels really refreshing and unique! i kept waiting for a super dark twist to happen but nope haha, it's just a simple story about family members reconnecting and trying to protect their world, and i was all there for it. the plot isn't too complicated but it's really intriguing, and the pace at which you receive information is really well done. i also appreciated how (relative to your other games) long the game was, it really helps build the mystery and attachment you have for these characters (not saying that short games are bad ofc; just that the bigger length fits this story really well :>).

the visual design is really cool!! like a lot of other worlds in the laxyverse (patent pending), the backgrounds are simple but memorable, and the color palette brims with so much personality. i love how vibrant the mentha forest looks! the greens are so pleasant and nice to look at, i could almost taste the mint haha. it also makes for a nice contrast with how "dark" the characters look. and just when you feel like the over-encompasing green might start to get repetitive, there's always some small but really cool shakeup to the visuals (the antlers with yellow eyes at kareta's home, the river, the amber wall, the dead part of the forest, the flashes of yellow when someone uses a spell...) that keeps everything engaging. and the character design is great as well; i said this in my slumber comment but it feels like your designs evolve with each game, and here the way the elks look is really unique and memorable. love how everyone follows the same design "template" but have small differences, like their antlers or decorations on their heads, that makes them easy to tell apart. this game is just super pleasant to look at.

though i said the story was wholesome, and it is, i think here there's a really smart way that, at every point until the ending, there's always some sort of intrigue that keeps building up. just from learning at the start that there's a monster lurking in this forest, it makes the beginning part super tense. every time the screen went black and sai counted to ten i kept saying out loud "his sister is dead, his sister is dead, his sister is so dead-" lmao. and when she does go missing and you meet the curse of the forest, everything points to him being guilty... but he isn't, and chichi is fine (really clever subversion of expectations btw). and every day i met up with kareta, there was always a lingering sense of "something bad is gonna happen" right until the end. the combination of dialogue and the scenes that were shown managed to keep this sense of mystery alive, and that's really impressive! it would've been really easy to just deflate all tension the moment this monster is revealed to just be a normal person, but this game doesn't do that and i found that to be really clever. neat stuff!

and the plot itself? really simple but really effective. i'm a sucker for stories where the main character learns how to do magic from a wise old mentor haha. and this story wouldn't have worked if the characters weren't interesting, but these characters definitely are! sai is super charming; his love and worry for his family, his curiosity, his playfulness... i love the small moments he has that give him a lot of personality (him talking to himself at night, thinking about his family and his moss ball when trying to do his first spell...). when he didn't tell his sister why he always wins at hide and seek was really funny lol. chichi and the elk mom are really neat as well! chichi's eagerness and the things she says and does (the fact that sometimes she says things twice was adorable) were really endearing; love how much she wants to play with sai even if she always loses haha. and i like how the elk mom is super nice and sweet, but has an edge she only shows sometimes, like when she complains about having to go get water or in the final discussion. but the highlight is definitely kareta; the concept of a father abandoning his family out of fear of them getting harmed, trying to practice spells in secrecy so he can save this world, even if everyone seems him as a monster... well, it's really tragic. the way he speaks clearly lets on a lot of hidden pain and guilt, especially when he shows sai the dead part of the forest. and all of that makes the final scene and reconciliation all the sweeter (also i didn't guess at ALL that he was sai's father, you caught me 100% off guard with that haha. it's a nice bow at the end of the story that ties everything together!). overall the plot and characters were super compelling, and i couldn't take my eyes off the screen until it ended :>

if i had to nitpick anything, i think some parts where you have to walk all the way from/to the hidden part of the forest could've been shortened, since after a while it feels a bit repetitive to manually go through those paths over and over again; maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the game teleported you to your destination? and while the main music track is really pleasant, it also felt a bit repetitive past a certain point and i wished there was more variety in the music. and lastly, my biggest complaint... kareta says that 'pith' is a spell that teleports you next to a tree, but sometimes he teleports to places where there are no trees next to him!!! 0/10 how could you make a mistake like that (jk jk lmao). but srsly tho, that's about it, i can't think of any other big stuff i didn't like.

this was a super neat and well made experience!! i love super dark and tragic stories as much as the next guy haha, but it's nice to play games that, while definitely have their share of tragedy and thematic depth under the surface, feel simply pleasant and fun. great job! :D