Are there any guides or tips and tricks for this game? It's been out a bit but I haven't found any! I was hoping for some guidance regarding the gameplay and crafting, since it kind of tells you how to craft and item but doesn't give a lot of direction in terms of... What to expect?



Here are some tips I've observed, and a few questions I have if anyone else has tips:



-It is much more efficient to level your skills by crafting than by studying. However, studying can provide you with new recipes, so it's good to do that sometimes. (It gives better experience, too.) Enchanting, in my experience, is the one exception to this, since I at least didn't have any recipes for it and studying was the only way to get better.



-Do not gather materials any time except mornings. I went through several weeks thinking that the two kinda shitty gathering options were all there was-- in fact, you can gather higher level materials in the day, and many different kinds.



-Once you start crafting instead of studying, you will gain levels pretty fast and in "normal" mode it's pretty easy to hit Level 10 before the exam. I have no idea if your skill levels have any effect on which events trigger and what choices you are given in dialogue? It would be nice to know. Especially as an adult, after I passed the exam, do my skills and level really mean anything other than being able to do jobs and make money? I really like crafting, but if it's not integrated with the story I would probably play visual novel mode.



-I'm curious on whether "Light" and "Dark" are analogous to good/evil and good/bad endings? At first I thought it would be different, but playing it seems like "Light" answers give you better reactions from people, and most "Dark" answers are kind of douchey. Also wondering if affection is a stat separate from alignment? I don't see any affection bar, even as an adult.



-When you pass your exam, and the game skips from child to adult, you get a boost to all your stats. I found that my jewelcrafting (which was like 180) was in the 200s, and all other skills were at 140-- even though as a teen some had pretty big point differences. (Or I thought so at least, maybe I evened them out and didn't notice? But definitely not to the exact point...) Does it just flat out raise all of them to 140 or if there's some other calculation going on there?



-Even with extremely high skill level (think 200) it is very, very difficult to make quality 90 and above items. How high does your skill have to be to do this? Is it limited by your level instead of your skill? I gotta know!



-There seems to be no consequence to your reputation or otherwise for not being able to complete a job, so feel free to accept what you want. However, it can be a big time waste to accept a job you can't do when you could be making money/exp/rep/items on a job you can do. There seems to be no consequence for refusing a job, other than that a small amount of time passes. Feel free to refuse until you get a reasonable job.



Also, the randomness of jobs is a bit... weird. It is not uncommon to get 90 quality requests in the first week of the game! I didn't know how hard that was and would just accept them, then finding out there was no way I was going to be able to do it. The difficulty of quests really doesn't seem to scale in accordance with your level or skills, so really don't feel bad about refusing jobs. I did notice that especially as you get closer to the exam deadline, Horus' quests were more reasonable and with good experience gain, though.



Overall enjoying the game! Would love to hear other people's thoughts, tips, and tricks.

Regarding some of your questions:

- no the skills have no impact in the story, on the crafting only. On the other hand, many paths (except Lynn if I remember correctly) require you to craft a specific item to unlock the ending, so we could say in a way that is connected. Obviously playing in VN mode you don't need those skills. To unlock Manuel's secret miniroute you need to play in crafting mode though

- Light and Dark aren't good/evil but more like Selfless/Selfish, though not always. This is a problem I also had for Heileen series (in particular 2). People expect that if they pick the good choice, there's a good outcomes. In real life that doesn't necessarily happen though. But if I'll use such systems again in future I'll make them totally predictable since seems that otherwise people complain...(not talking about you, other people's comments)

- The skills impact the item quality but also the quality of raw/source items. If you try to craft a iron ingot with a starting iron ore of quality 55, will be hard to get the max. Also, the energy impacts the result, if you craft when you're very tired, you'll get worse results

Thanks for answering my questions! That helps, I think I'll be able to make better progress. Probably, I'll try to unlock Manuel's secret route and I guess my first ending (I can't decide between Ruby and Cosmina/Reed, I hear both are good!) then switch to visual novel mode. I think the problem I may be having, where I use extremely high materials and am getting not very good results, is caused by my energy level. I'll try to keep a better eye on that.



Was keeping crafting separate a design decision to help enable a visual novel only mode, if you don't mind my asking? And for endings that require you to craft an item to unlock the ending, are those endings only available in gameplay mode? Or does visual novel mode just assume you were able to craft them?

I kept crafting separate because the story was written independently from the gameplay, which now in hindsight I think was a mistake, for games with so much gameplay like this one or RPGs, it's better if I write the story myself (as explained in latest blog post).

I always had the plan to enable a VN Mode though, since it's a choice I want to allow in all future games (even my new RPGs).



For the endings that require a crafted item yes, in VN mode it just assumes you crafted the item

Thanks! I remember you'd mentioned writing and then having an editor/brainstormer. I really like when the gameplay and writing are integrated, I'm definitely looking forward to it!

I've found a few more tips n' tricks now that I'm further in the game:



-Upgrade the kitchen and storage rooms as soon as possible. Even just level 2 of the kitchen restores a huge amount of energy and makes it very worthwhile. Gathering, even in the mornings, is practically useless until you upgrade the storage room, because everything is so low quality. The storage room at the highest level guarantees 90 quality bags. (level 2 is 75 which is still a HUGE improvement.)



-Late game, I don't really gather except when I need to kill time. Instead, make sure you always keep several hundred gold on hand so you can purchase ingredients. If you notice some things get requested a lot, stock up on ingredients for those recipes. (Ex. for me, they always ask for seasoned wood planks, love potions, and regeneration potions. Who knows why, but I stay stocked on these things.)



-Early game you have no idea what you're aiming for. Max level in this game seems to be 30, and you want at least 300 in every skill. Saving up money to enhance your shop is super important, as you need to have maxed out every single craft-enhancing room. (Ex. divination room, jewelry shop, forge, woodshop, distillery.)



-Instead of picking who you want to romance, the game has you pick who to break up with, and forces you to break up with people every so often until there's only one left. It will make you break up with people who you didn't even know you were dating, lol. Anyway, my recommendation is, if you're playing in craft mode, it's not really worth saving and going back to other love interests on your file, because you'll have made much more progress on your skills and will just have to do it all over again. You might be fine with your last 2-3 picks, but not necessarily every love interest. Even if your skills are high enough, it takes a long time to grind enough money to max out your shop. I recommend not worrying too much about other romances, and just redo the game in story mode when you're ready to switch love interests.



-Also, for me at least, it was really, really worth it to buy multiple sets of each tool. I usually got up to 5 if I could, but only bought them if they were quality 95 or above. You have to check basically every day since the qualities available are random.



-If you need to make a quality deadline, but have a hard time getting enough quality ingredients there are two things you can do. 1) Keep your stamina at 99, which is the max. It makes an enormous quality difference. 2) Have multiple tools and make the item in bulk. If you have some high quality ingredients, just not enough, they will increase the quality of the whole batch. This is a good way to get your money's worth out of both good and bad quality ingredients. Plus, poor quality ingredients are cheaper to buy. Near the end of my game, I just kept my energy maxed and almost only bought poor quality ingredients, and could still consistently make quality 70-100 products.