Released The Last Nurse Joy

1. This is still an issue.
2. This event will repeat on loop if you go back to the room.
3. I can't interact with the fridge on this day.
4. There is no fade out when you leave the room.
5. Not a Pikachu.
6. I believe the wheat bag should have always on top turned on.
7. Collision
8. It is possible to repeat the sleeping transition.

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- Zweilous' overworld has had some fixes. (The timing of certain details, keeping direction fix on
-All Inspect Pokemon actions will transition back to the main image after looking at them.
-If your bag is full when you try to take a blood sample, Aida will hold onto it until using it in the machine. Additionally, the blood analysis machine will stop spinning when it's finished.
-Fixed some errors in the Notebook/Summary- the stats will be correctly displayed even after hitting the "max" for a case, and the Skill bar won't go outside of its boundary.
-There should now be a limit for using certain care items, like the food in the fridge or the blanket.
-Anatomy diagrams should be correct for all cases, and should be centered.
-Tile fixes involving priority and passability.
-Chansey now leaves the office after Case 2, and Aida won't go in, either.
-You can pet Pikachu without gloves and not be sent out of the room. (You'll still be sent back, just not too far)
-Aida now has dialogue referencing the X-Ray on the Notebook, the books, PokeDex, and Hint Chair.
-Sound effects timing was fixed with tissues and X-rays.
-There was probably an error if you had a negative score and checked the notebook? I haven't heard of any error reports but the way the code was set up there probably would have been one
-Screen tones for outside were updated for the fog.
-Delcatty now appears in Aida's Dorm for a Case 1 perfect.
-Cutscenes in the locker room and Tajiri's dorm had characters covered up by the name window, I put in a couple lines of black to let SnapEdges give me some room.
-You can now bring inequality to Zweilous' heads.
-Cutscenes that could be repeated in their location should now all be fixed. In the event that the Locker Room scene is still giving you trouble, interact with the Pokemon Center sign outside the Waiting Room, or begin Case 3 if you haven't already.
-The many branches of the Zweilous case should all be functional.
-While searching for a Heat Source, your bag can hold more objects. If it still gets full, the events can still be interacted with without losing your chance to obtain their item.
-Some final polishes on the End Cutscenes.

1. This event keeps repeating itself whenever I re-enter the room. (EDIT: I see in the 1.6 update notes that you have a hotfix for that.)
2. Blank NPC.
3. The Arcanine show the collision errors here.
4. Aida walks into the wall before going to sleep. (This is the Ditto night.)
5. Tajiri vanishes after this cutscene.
6. Blank NPC.
7. Is this supposed to be a Ditto?
8. Picking up the blanket sets you on a moveroute that gets you locked.
9. Priority.

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I really am tempted to say the aesthetic was excellent, and leave it at that. There was so much I loved about the game's visuals. The Pokémon icon/pictures to show their conditions was really immersive. I think some of my favourite animations had to be with Zwelious. It was so cute to see them cozy, and to see them snuggled up with Larvesta. Fuzzed-out Pikachu had my favourite design, though.

As for the overworlds, I quite liked the different character designs. Even though they're all scientists, you made the group look very distinct from each other. I think Garcia and Will were my two favs. (Is it deliberate that Aristarkhov's design resembles a Team Galactic member, and he likes space?)

The tilesets and mapping were also great. I thought the setting was fascinating, particularly as someone who already lives in a cold climate. (Right down to the common trees being Aspear berries, which cure freezing!) There were a few tiles I found stuck out. (Like the Re:Vive machine, and the beds.) It would also be nice if there was a custom battle back for the Chansey fight. But, beyond those tiny things, the visuals were fantastic.

This game has some really awesome mechanics, and a cool (yes, pun intended) premise. I love the different mechanics that were implemented. (The shelves, the textbooks, etc.) It was fun to putter around the office and puzzle out all the different ways to treat the patient. Pokémon games where you focus on a specific career always appeal to me, whether it's being an evil team grunt, a detective, etc. This game was no exception with that. I do feel that the gameplay is a little rough in some of its execution, though. (To disclaim, I went into the game blind, doing my best to get perfect with every ranking, so that probably affects my views.)

To start with, I feel like a lot gets thrown at the player, right from the get-go. You have food, different tests, different treatment options, etc. I think a better learning curve would have been to introduce these things gradually. Skitty, for example, doesn't need the vitamins, or any of the type tests. Why not keep those cabinets locked until future cases?

Next, I don't like how things are sometimes left up to guesswork/very distant threads. I did my best to be thorough in exploring the facility/speaking with NPCs as cases went on. But, some parts still came off as cryptic. The Ditto case had me scrambling for ideas at times - I used two different tests, but I didn't come across any clear way to distinguish the Arcanine from each other, for example. It was the same with picking Pikachu out of the trio. Very little about its behaviour set it apart from the others, because we didn't know much about its personality to begin with. And it took me a bit of wandering to remember that Garcia had a keystone, which I could then try to treat Chansey with.

A good way to guide the player might be to give the player some sort of clear indication when you have a stat raised/lowered. (You could probably do that through a common event.) That way, the player has a better sense of how well things are going in a case.

Now for the tiny things. I thought the fight with Chansey was needlessly stall-y. I understand that you want to make Chansey powerful, but pitting the player against it when all it does is spam Sing + Softboiled isn't very enjoyable. Maybe consider lowering its level range to the 50s, and swapping out Sing for something else.

Finally, I think the game could benefit from a few more QOL additions. Running shoes and a speedup button would be nice. The player will likely walk in and around the facility many times, so having the running shoes to speed that up would be good. I feel that the speedup option would be nice because some of the repeatable interactions are long. If you make a misclick, you wind up mashing for a fair bit. (It's pretty easy to disable/enable speedup so the player doesn't speed through important cutscenes.) My last suggestion is that you should look into creating some sort of common event for when a stat is lowered/raised

Keep working to get rid of those bugs as well. I know it's because of the short development time, but it was a bit frustrating to run into issues when trying to complete the game over and over again.

The writing, much like the graphics, was excellent. From the overarching plot to the little bits of flavour text, it was all great. The textbooks were an excellent way to immerse the player in the lore of the world, and Pokémon more generally. The detail was absolutely rich.

The cases felt tense, there was a definite sense of stakes as I treated each patient. I thought cases 4 and 5 were particularly strong. (Even if I struggled with 4 a lot.) The situation with Ditto had its creepy moments, as well as its funny ones. The Joltik bit in particular made me laugh. Gothitelle's predicament was also great. I love the realization and eventual conclusion of that case, it was an absolute suckerpunch to the gut.

Seeing the distinct personalities of the Pokémon was cool, too. I think Zweilous's was the most obvious, of the bunch, followed by Gothitelle's. I know it sounds like a strange point, but I also appreciate that not all the Pokémon love Aida. Some are indifferent, some are friendly, etc. (Although you'd think that some would want to avoid the office, given how much animals in real life tend to hate the vet.)

I wish there was more build-up to Chansey being the patient of the final case. I feel like there could have been a lot more oomph if the player knew more about Chansey's personality, and saw more interactions between her and Aida. Perhaps you could add an option to pat/have other interactions with Chansey while working? You could even implement it so that it affects dialogue in the final case in some ways. (Speaking of Chansey, I love the symbolism behind Chansey breaking the diagnosis table.)

That's only a tiny criticism, in an otherwise great story.

1. Collision.
2. Priority.
3. Joltik has elected to stick around.
4. Wrong details.
5. Typo.
6. Going back into Tajiri's room sent me into the shadow realm.
7. Missing an icon, here. (I had this happen with the Gothitelle and Chansey case.)

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"Some" is honestly an understatement because... holy shit, where do I start??? The Last Nurse Joy did not merely bring me joy, it cycled me through the whole human emotion spectrum in the best possible way.

A patchwork quilt
If I were to liken this game to something, it would probably be along the lines of a patchwork quilt -- so masterfully crafted, so deftly and intricately woven, so beautiful, and so, so warm. Yes, the Antaxius research lab in winter is warm... that's the impression I got from this game. The amount of thought, care and planning that went into developing every aspect of the game was apparent; the amount of love you have for your characters and the world you created really, really shone through in your final product. The themes, the foreshadowing, the symbolism, everything that makes a great story were conveyed so impeccably. There are truly, so many things to love about this game, not just in an objective, game design sense, but in an emotional (?) sense as well -- I fell in love with the entire research team as I was playing through the game, and by the end it ended, I only wished I could spend more time with them.

Because everything is so tightly connected, it's difficult (for me, at least) to isolate individual aspects of the game (e.g. story, aesthetics, gameplay) without touching on other aspects, so forgive me if these following subtopics are... arbitrary, rather than anything that resembles an actual review.

Aida
I never thought I'd say this about a seventy(?)-year-old lady, but... Aida is truly the best girl. As it should be, because this is her game, after all! It's a testament to your writing skills that "The Last Nurse Joy" isn't a title just for the sake of being a title/just because you're playing in her shoes. The fact that the entire story is crafted around her character rather than her being a mere participant of a bigger plot, the fact that the 6 medical cases and the manner in which they play out are written with the purpose of growing and developing her character first and foremost (as well as reinforcing certain story themes), the fact that you get to really, really know her as a person... everything just... falls into place so beautifully.

Antaxius research team
Something I really enjoy is the way the player gets introduced to the various characters bit by bit, not just Aida, but every single one of the members on the research team. I love how much nuance there is; how the player has to piece together crumbs of information scattered throughout the game to try and understand each character, while still leaving certain aspects open enough for their personal interpretation (like the relationship between Clementine and Garcia, for example!) The Gothitelle case stood out to me for embodying these aspects especially well -- the way the player was introduced to Gothitelle and her nature way, way before her case, the way they were made to infer Gothitelle's motives from the tasks she made Aida do, and the way I can't help but speculate about what's going to happen next... just makes the eventual payoff so damned satisfying. Things do, however, get a bit too on-the-nose for my liking during the Ditto case, but I understand if it's due to the nature of the case that information has to be presented that way.

Warmth and coziness
Like I mentioned before, there is a lot of warmth in this game, even despite its setting. Or maybe its precisely because of its setting that the warmth is made more prominent. A lot of it, I feel, can be attributed to the vast amount of detail that went into creating its atmosphere -- the way the safe haven of a lab is juxtaposed against the harsh blizzard outside, the way the closeness and camaraderie of the game's small cast is apparent in their interactions with each other -- and the way Aida feels so, so strongly about the things that are important to her. I don't know if it's intentional, but I love how her office is set up to be like -- the dim fog does give off the impression of an old, worn, 20-year-old office, as it should, but the upbeat music and the smiles on the patients' faces after each case makes it feel like a cozy place, makes it feel like home, instead of something that needs to be torn down. On the topic of the patients... they have honestly no right to be as cute as you made them to be. Literally every case had me grinning widely by the time it ended. The sheer amount of time and effort you took to draw out these extra animations, to bring the Pokémon (and the human characters as well!) to life must have been exhausting, but if it means anything, I can affirm that the end result is nothing short of incredible.

Some nitpicks: Bugs
I played the bulk of game on v1.5, so I'm not going to point out specifically which bugs I've run into, other than the fact that there are... well, quite a lot of them. In general, events still exist on the map even after they are over (Taijiri's room event keeps autoplaying), certain characters have no dialogue, events set to "through" during the course of a cutscene remain "through" after the cutscene's finished (like the thinking chair), and certain items pertinent to a quest's completion disappear for good after you choose to toss them away from the bag, creating a softlock. I think you'll have to anticipate there will be asshole players like me, who'll go in the opposite direction of where they're supposed to, and everything from the previous stage will have to be cleared out in response to that.

Other nitpicks: Gameplay, the Ditto case
Maybe its the researcher in me speaking, but I absolutely love the fact that the "puzzle solving" in this puzzle game -- the core gameplay loop -- is, essentially, an application of the scientific method: constructing hypotheses about the patients' issues, doing research by reading the books, conducting tests with the instruments available, and deriving conclusions from the results of said tests. A gripe, however, is the fact that the player wouldn't know what a particular instrument or a particular food item/vitamin does unless they pick it up and place it in the bag (with limited bag space) -- and then they'll probably have to toss it away to make space for other items because they don't actually need it, which makes things a bit cumbersome. Perhaps a description of the item when it's hovered can be added to the cabinet script? Fortunately, it is easy enough to get into the groove of things once they get past that hurdle.

And maybe I'm a teensy bit biased against the Ditto case because it's the only case I got gold on and not a perfect rank (though, the cuteness of the Arcanine sledding scene did mitigate a lot of my saltiness of not getting the true end ^^) but... it got extremely confusing trying to process a ton of dialogue to figure out which character is at which location during the interrogation portion, only to have the fake being way too obviously fake (I talked to him last), which was a bit anticlimactic (?), I feel. I would suggest making things a tad more concise and more easily digestible, but the problem might lie in my utter lack of spatial conceptualization skills rather than the design of the case itself. ^^

Extreme nitpicks: Science
I am aware that this is a fantasy game set in a fantasy universe, and that science in that world might not be the science that we know it as, so please take this segment with a pinch of salt, if you will. The thing that stood out to me the most was the fact that you referred to Zweilous's conditioning as "Pavlovian" (eliciting a response to what was a previously neutral stimulus), when I would argue that it's more along the lines of Skinner's "operant conditioning" (using positive/negative reinforcement) -- but Pavlov in that universe might be a whole different person altogether, for all I know. In addition, spinning the blood tubes in the way that was portrayed in the game is likely to mix it (as in the case of a shaker), rather than separate its components (as in the case of a high-speed centrifuge), but that might be a representation/metaphorical thing, and given that it's a "blood-analysis machine", I don't want to go too deep into that either.

Other aspects that got to me way more than they should are: 1) the fact that the "cone of shame" is referred to as such instead of say, a "buster collar", but then again, I am not at all familiar with the veterinarian industry and the terminologies they use; 2) Aida not using the Draconic Readout because she's "not feeling it", rather than something along the lines of "because it won't be useful in this situation"; 3) the description of Vitamin B (I know there are many different types of Vitamin Bs, all with different effects, so it's hard to come up with one, but still!) In essence, they seem kind of out-of-character to me, undermining Aida's expertise and professionalism as a medical practitioner in a certain sense, but I guess I can rationalize it in a "she's old, she's been going at it for many years, she's a little tired, cut her some slack!" kind of way.

A final thought
I feel that if it were a different team, composed of different members, this game wouldn't have existed in the way that it is. The way your strengths play upon one another and mesh together so well; the pixel art, the specially-created scripts, the custom music and the animations, all these are such unique and personal touches that makes this game exclusively... yours, a game that only your team can create, a "signature", so to speak. I hope I'm still making sense at this point ehehe. ><

-Aida now changes out of snowsuit in the ship port
-Arcanines are no longer passable
-Crew fully disappears from ship port
-Aida no longer claims her colleagues' Pokemon for herself
-Clementine now bundles up when outside
-Three new Pokemon can be borrowed- Scarlett's Castform (in her dorm), Tajiri's Volbeat (in the greenhouse), and Garcia's Espeon? (in his dorm)
-Aida's Pokemon are healed after a battle
-Animol has been renamed to Painkiller
-Gothitelle's legal name is no longer Ditto
-Various cutscenes have been touched up
-Fixed gloves being always on top
-Clementine fixed the fencing in his kennel
-Gothitelle will reluctantly accept a blanket instead of forcing you to walk into a counter for eternity
-A tree in the lounge was removed to allow the player access to Dr. Will in Case 4's interrogation scene
-For saves softlocked at the end of case three- speaking with Scarlett in the Waiting Room should now trigger the final cutscene. Any new saves will progress as intended.
-Running shoes have been added. To turn them on in an existing save, interact with the Groudon statue.

1. During 1st case (skitty), selecting the wrong treatment plan (send skitty home) prevented me from changing that plan afterwards. Tried overwriting by selecting "keep skitty in hospital," got confirmation, but then when I talked to chansey to summarize the plan, it still says to send skitty home. Had to restart and select "keep skitty in hospital" as first choice, in order to bypass this.
2. The observation notes seem to be updating, but sometimes when I check the notebook, the notes disappear? Happened during both the pikachu and Z cases.
3. During 3rd case (Z), I wrapped the blanket around Z and the game crashed.
4. During 3rd case (Z), after given task of finding something to warm Z, I left the main building to explore outside. When I went back into the main building, the game crashed.
5. After going outside, seeing the Empoleon/Ditto attack cutscene and being asked to return to the main house, I went back to the main house and immediately crashed.

Decided to stop here for now. I had much fun so far though! Aced the first 2 cases and absolutely failed the 3rd lol

As others have said, this game was visually stunning. I enjoyed the feeling of being part of a community when walking around the facility, yet the outdoor area evoked in me feelings of loneliness, isolationism and a bit of fear.

The custom animations were amazing. Seeing Aida hug Gothitelle and Chansey really brought those cutscenes to life. Animating the patients, rather than using their usual overworld sprites, was really well done and conveyed the idea that "these Pokémon are genuinely unwell". I particularly liked Zweilous shivering in its (their?) blanket. The X-rays, diagrams, textbooks and so many other neat features were genius. Amazing job with this!

The gameplay was SO unique. I am in awe of how a complicated series of events was achieved in such a small amount of time. I appreciated the problem-solving aspect to a point. However, and this is where the salt-pinching comes in, as someone with no medical background, I found all but the first case somewhat frustrating to navigate. I spent more time than I imagine was intended going through a process of trial and error, trying everything I could take from the cabinets, often to no avail. Looking back now, I can see that most, if not all, of the cases were fairly simple, but the clues were too cryptic for me. In fact, if not for Ekat's review, I don't think I would have ever worked out the last case. Speaking of cases, I only had 5, which might be linked to my overall terrible performance, but could also be a bug. I'll let you be the judge of that.

I'm so sorry I couldn't be more positive. I think having the thinking chair give a second, less cryptic, clue could be good for people like me who need their hands held more than others. That way, it's an optional "easy mode" for the, shall we say, less medically minded folk.

On a more light-hearted note, in the final battle, Chansey took itself out with Metronome -> Explosion, which I thought was pretty funny.

I'd echo what has already been said by others. The writing was brilliant and another personal highlight of mine. There are a few things I might have just completely missed. For example, why was Ditto borderline evil? Is that normal behaviour for a Ditto? Did something happen to make this Ditto naughty? I think the same thing applies to Chansey. Why did Chansey jump into the Re:Vive machine? What was its goal? I can understand that providing motivation for why Pokémon do certain things can be tricky as this would move down the path of whether Pokémon have morals/an understanding of what's right or wrong.

1. In the final case, you can recruit multiple Sigilyph and Roserade, maybe others too, if you leave/reenter the respective maps.
2. All of the red doormats have passability either side, allowing the player to step into the void.

Why did Chansey jump into the Re:Vive machine? As much as Aida wanted to believe she was taking the moral high ground and taking the arrival of the Re:Vive with good grace, the Chansey that had been with her for 20 years now could see past that. Pick up on her anxiety and such. Unfortunately, what it thought was that the Re:Vive was going to destroy their relationship and hurt Aida more than it could possibly help, and so it...decided to do what a Chansey always does.
Make the thing that's hurting a person go away.

Why was the Ditto borderline evil? ...The answer to this would spoil the Extra Mile ending of case 4, but let's just say - can any Pokemon be considered evil, if they're just following their trainer's orders?