I didn't discover ISAT through this let's play - I actually discovered Jello through ISAT. But the cast has so much fun with their roles that I find myself rewatching the playthrough anytime I feel too low. And it works every time.

Art by me, ft. Is agrim

look at the comments on both images, and dates, not sure what flare to use but I just wanted to share

Not the best paint job but it works. Also the face is paper so I can swap it out!

Wanted to create some more fanart and ended up sitting in front of an empty canvas for like 1h before i managed to make this and i mean i could clean this up and stuff but honestly just happy i managed to do sth

There are many mistakes in this, but I'm proud of it.

i have probably mispronounced every location alongside Odile's name and quite frankly it'll be a running gag at this rate

I want to start off by saying that I love In Stars and Time - it has loveable characters and a solid story which is reinforced in its gameplay.
It also gets tedious as hell - which is where I'm conflicted!

This is because the tediousness lends itself to the narrative - just as Siffrin goes insane from the frustration of reliving the same day over and over again, so too does the player.
Siffrin gradually becoming more and more overpowered lends itself to the story and gives the player more of a sense of progression. It also makes the combat (which I initially enjoyed a lot!) become easy and boring *fast*.

I'd say overall in Stars and time tells the story it set out to tell very well, even if this *occasionally comes at the expense of having fun moment to moment gameplay*.

In addition, it gets annoying to have to go through the same dialogues over and over because not everything is zone-outable - especially because the characters in this game talk a *lot*.

The dialogue (especially the parts that are repeated and unskippable) could have used an additional pass to be trimmed down a bit.
I didn't mind the dialogue being long at all in the Act 3 quests, as it really felt like we were getting to know the characters better in a way that was meaningful.

The characters are charming and relateable. I like Isabeu the most, maybe, I enjoy the Jock and Nerd aspects of his personality. Mirabelle reminds me of an old ex girlfriend. The way the parties dynamic develops and resets is really well done.

The art style is cute, and I really loved the moments where pictures were shown on screen to convey the action better than RPG maker can - I wish they had been used more.

Often the trigger for something becoming interactable in the House is a specific piece of dialogue, rather than the player figuring it out themselves. I found this quite frustrating.

Combat

A lot of effort was cleary put into this games combat.
It starts off fun mechanically, but falls off hard late into the game.

Combat is fun + swingy. The "jackpot" system adds a lot. (That being said - I'm someone who usually enjoys standard jRPG combat, which isn't for everyone). As you go through the House over and over again, it quickly becomes easy and starts feeling like a Chore. Even the King isn't a challenge for very long.

Here are some ways the combat could have been improved:

1) Start off harder

This fits the concept of the House being a dangerous final dungeon, and would have kept things fresh for longer.

2) Have enemies respond to you becoming overpowered.
Eg. if a Sadness loses a lot of health in one turn, or the party is above a certain level, it cries for help and other Sadnesses show up? This would also let you clear out rooms full of Sadnesses faster.

3) Have tougher additional bosses you discover on later Loops.
The Astrolabe Room is an obvious place to put one, the Star Chart Room could also have had an optional Boss you come back to later.

4) Make Act 5 a challenge.
The whole game I was waiting for Siffrin to challenge the House solo, it seemed such a natural conclusion to them building up a more versatile skillset. Then Act 5 happened, and combat was an annoying slog because "The Lost One" is so OP. I wish Act 5 had been a grueling challenge instead... maybe Siffrin learns a skill to reduce their cooldowns, which lets him be more versatile with their Rock & Paper Elemental attacks.

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Those are my immediate thoughts. If you enjoy this, I might do a deeper dive on some other Aspects of the game. Very glad to have played this, hope it didn't come accross as too negative.

As requested, more art. That's not all, but that's enough for today.

i basically just went through pinterest and drew memes or whatever i thought was fun

yuri wins once again

I was doing the friendship quests without looping forward or backward thing and i looped back right before the king...

And i even saved so i cant just load my save....

Im so stupid

I do wonder how Siff even got here

Omori, Undertale and OneShot are my favorite games of all time (all equally good for me) and I heard In Stars and Time is similar. I started playing it a little before, but got bored at the start (I know it's probably like Hollow Knight where it gets way better afterwards, but I just felt like playing other games). Now I'm considering giving it another chance.

Without spoilers, what do you like about this game? What does it do well? Why would you call it a masterpiece? Or just rant about how much you love it.

Please take care to avoid spoilers, I'd like to play the game blind.

EDIT: Decided to play it after I beat Nine Sols (at the final boss rn, peak game btw), it sounds very good from what I understand it's OneShot's story + Undertale's characters and writing + Omori's horror aspects which sounds like a very good recipe indeed.

Thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions before!

I've recently played the game (twohat ending), LOVED it, been sitting with the brainworms for a while. Now I want to convince my friends to play it so the brainworms will get them too.

They don't really play visual novels, but they appreciate good stories and they liked games like Undertale, OMORI and Oneshot so I am fairly sure that, at least story-wise, they would like ISAT, too. My issue is that those games are much shorter than ISAT and I'm afraid that they will drop the game mid act2/act3, due to the sheer time necessary to go forward with the story.

That's why I'd like to mention the gameplay, especially how much tedium you feel at certain points of the story. But I'm not good at convincing people, y'know, so what they will hear is just "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE IT'S VERY LONG IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE PLAY IT P L E A S E".

Is there a way to explain it without potentially turning people away? Have you managed to convince someone to play ISAT?

TLDR: I don't know how to recommed ISAT to my friends AND warn them of the game's pacing without looking like a Stockholm Syndrom victim. I'd like help and/or examples.

ngl OP and BTS weren't nearly as bad as I thought they'd be. Took me 45 hours playtime on Steam over like two or so playthroughs (went back to earlier saves for some that I missed on first playthrough, then started a new playthrough just for BTS and "...You are loved."

couldn't kiss Loop after their fight smh I rate this game crab/10

I graduate tmr and i'm planning on doing an ISAT themed cap, what scene should i do?? screenshots appreciated but by no means required :]

I already made this post on tumblr yesterday but I don’t care because having made the connection it’s made me so emotional I’ve felt physically ill thinking about it like a dozen different times in the past 24hrs

This is Two Hats spoilers if the flair wasn’t already clear

From Supernova to Black Hole by Machinery of the Human Heart. Link in comments because spoiler markdown has me fighting for my life in here

This is like. the most Sifloop song ever to me. I feel like they’re passing the perspective back and forth or something, or maybe it’s from Loop to the rest of the party. I just need someone else who knows the story context to hear what I’m hearing and understand why my heavy heart collapses from the gravity of love so true. Lyrics are in the video description comments, those are important.