New Pred in Town

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G4b4FjPmCqzv1ixye0muEBaI1LYC4zCu/view?usp=drive...

Hope that's OK. Thanks for your help, games awesome so far! :)

Does this mean the unbirth scenes would simply be endo?
With Liz or her prey remaining trapped?

Finally managed to track down another bug I had gotten a while ago but hadn't seen recently. It's a bug that causes attempts to save to instead load the file. First time I got it I thought maybe I was in the wrong tab, but no. Happened after getting a bug that prevented me from playing cards and reloading a previous save; subsequent save attempts just triggered a load. https://pastebin.com/hkafZvSY

Also managed to remember a couple cards that display bits of incorrect info: Let Two Loose shows the oxygen released number as scaling with grip, even though it's unaffected. And Critical Strike shows as a "strike" on the card despite acting as a "super strike" (and showing the description for super strike when mousing over the card). And Core Strength's stretch scaling also doesn't update the numbers on stretches so I'm not too sure, but it might also be bugged. It feels like subsequent stretches are getting a lot more than 1/4 of the previous one (had one 2 cost stretch nearly double in damage over the displayed value when being used after a 1 cost stretch and it was hitting into restraint so shouldn't have had anything to do with nausea multipliers or anything). Oh, and I noticed that Apex Tummy Rub is a super while Apex Hug isn't and wondered if that was intentional or not.

At some point a detailed combat log would be quite helpful, both for keeping track of battles and testing how niche stuff functions. For example, I've been wondering how stacking multiple copies of Tidal Lock functions, and whether it even does anything or not, and a combat log would make testing it way simpler. And of course would give a way to see what happened any time a number makes you go "huh?"

From just a curiosity standpoint, I'm also wondering about your philosophy towards balancing this game. Story mode especially seems tricky to balance when the number of encounters (and who is encountered) can vary wildly based on players choices, and you don't want it to be too easy for a player to get stuck in an encounter they have little to no chance of winning. My assumption from what is available so far is that there will usually be a way out of a situation, either through a yield or avoiding it all together, but that might come at some kind of narrative cost. Also wondering if there will ever be, and how likely you are to encounter, a situation where you absolutely have to win a fight against a difficult pred to advance. That might be too spoilery, though, so I don't mind if you don't want to answer.

I am also a bit curious about your take on card balance as well. Right now I'm getting the vibe that it's intended for some cards to be a bit weak and some to be pretty strong, and that some strategies are going to be extremely powerful if you can piece them together, and honestly I think it's fine that way. Finding an OP combo is a lot of fun, so long as you have to work to get it. Also, game is still in very early stages so it feels a little pointless to dig too deep into balancing. 

That being said, my current feeling is that burp cards in general might be a bit on the weak side. The risk of taking extra damage feels like it outweighs the benefits for a good chunk of the extra damage cards in general. For some I'm assuming that's intentional, like with default Burp and Squeeze 'n Burp, but it feels a bit weird for Rhythm Belch and Displace Air, which have boss preds on the card art and are used by those preds. Overall, preds with burp cards feel weaker because of their use of them (except maybe Madeleine, but she has to base her strategy around it and even then I sometimes feel like they make her weaker, especially Hiccup). Which for someone like Noriko feels completely fitting, but less so for someone like Molly (for endless mode anyways, fits story just fine). It especially doesn't fit Isabel, though, who feels a little too fraudulent on the pred side after getting rekt as the wave 0 boss because she made the mistake of playing Displace Air on a turn when a double powered punch and upgraded kick were incoming. The upcoming AI update might help with that a little, but no matter how good the AI gets I don't think the card is worth using unless you know how the turn is going to play out like a normal mode player. Even then, I feel like burp cards are generally not worth having in your deck unless you have a Madeleine-esque deck or are strong enough that you can afford to run them for funsies. 

The other main outlier for me is Controlled Panic, which is probably too good for how easy it is to obtain and play (at least in endless when in normal mode). The fact that its permanent buff stacks, but that panic doesn't stack, is also probably too good but....tbh, I like it being like that. It's hella fun to mad stack focus and see how hard you can overkill your pred. My current record is 32,772 nausea on Jess (tbh, I'm not entirely sure how that happened though. Crush got the tripling bug so she was taking 4x damage, and I had like 100 focus and some weak point and enrage plus numerous multi-hit cards, but even then the damage seems excessive). Would probably be fine to make the upgrade an apex, at least in endless mode, so that it's harder to obtain but we can keep the focus stacking shenanigans.

Overall I think you did a great job with the Cubs decks having a personality to them that in some ways compliments their character. But more than that, I really like it when their deck also in some way contradicts their character (at least on the surface). Lavender of course was a standout, but honestly everyone except Luna does that pretty well. 

Isabel has a deck that seems to be built around being hard hitting while also being a bit of a jack-of all trades that is effective in every scenario. It contrasts with her kinda vapid influencer persona, but more interesting to me was that she's notably stronger as prey than predator. 

Madeleine on the pred side has a deck that toys with the prey, similar to her persona, but on the prey side she's sheer brute force. 

Sophie on the pred side is......yeah. As an aside, the idea of her getting stronger is pretty scary (she's borderline boss difficulty as a pred), but I'm curious how you'll do it, especially since her cards have no upgrades and there's nothing atm that has a notable synergy with pleasure strats. Though I do think, outside of maybe having an unusual number of shakes that make her take extra damage, that prey side Sophie is kinda lackluster. There's something to be said for her prey side being so much weaker than her pred side as a character point, but the deck itself doesn't have as strong of an identity.

Jess talks a big game but her decks lowkey suck ass. On the pred side she has a number of unique cards with some solid potential synergy, but said synergy basically falls apart if her prey just doesn't play shakes or has no distracted. Meanwhile her cards are overall pretty weak and I don't think she has any massages, and isn't good at controlling prey direction. Really gives the impression that she might be all talk and is using aggression to hide her inexperience and insecurities. Meanwhile on the prey side her deck is a bit of a jumbled mess with a few medicore, but kinda mutually exclusive, synergies. I haven't seen all the library scenes yet, but wondering if maybe she was the lamb of the group. 

With Luna though most of what I got from her deck, on both sides really, was competence and a couple moon puns. I guess there is a bit of a contrast of her being a lot more aggressive on the pred side, with her high acid level/rapid digestion strats, compared to her easy going personality, but it didn't stand out to me as much. I think it's largely because she is very clearly shown to be a competent pred, and seemingly a strong paragon, so having a more brutal pred strategy doesn't feel out of place. Also the fact that she shares a pressure point strat with Lavender, and that her pred strat isn't as unique as one like Sophie's, doesn't help. She's not bad by any stretch, still has personality to her deck and upgrades, but just compared to the other Cubs I wasn't getting as much from her. Kinda feels like Mia, where there's something unique there but I just don't quite feel like I'm getting it.

A couple quick closing thoughts before I forget them again: 1) Your buffs, especially on pred side, can very easily wind up going behind other bits of the UI, making it impossible to see all the buffs/debuffs you have. Not a huge problem but a little annoying. 2) I'm currently thinking Molly could be demoted from a Dangerous Predator in endless mode to a normal one. I've yet to face her in wave 0, but she doesn't have any particularly scary synergies or overly powerful cards/stats, and her use of cards that increase her nausea damage taken make her kinda easy to deal with. 3) Idk if Allison is also considered a Dangerous Pred or not, but I feel like her appearance rate is similarly low alongside Molly and Sophie. If she is then honestly I think she deserves that status less than Molly. Edit: right after posting this, when I went into a new wave before closing the game, Allison was one of the choices for the first battle. Guess she was just shy, but that timing is wild.