"Crow is a thieving little rat with wings". Sounds like my kind of guy. I'll give this a go before voting ends.

Good Luck.

Oooh, I've been waiting for a new Housekeeping game, and this looks interesting! :D I'll definitely check this out! ^_^

However, after every battle, Bud will lose some of his max health

Oh, that sounds fascinating. I've heard the concept of an RPG where you lose power instead of gaining it after every battle, but I've yet to see it actually made manifest. Color me intrigued.

i like the unique characteristics, and hey, another girl hero? and she looks like a villain to me :D great battle systems so far, you just have to think first before you attack! never saw some good detailed drawings here!

Just started this, and I'm liking it so far. I'm going for a completist run, so I'll see how that goes! Haven't had too much trouble so far, but this is only the beginning after all. I'm sure by the final battle Bud will go down in one hit. :p

Battles are a bit repetitive, but fairly short. I think it'd be nice if you could start battles with an elemental shift already in place, since Mara's first turn almost always involves that anyway. Having the shifts take an entire turn does make things drag a little, especially in battles where elemental magic is the only way to damage enemies.

But yeah, this is nice. I'm liking the art style, music, and everything. It seems really polished, and characters look distinct, unlike in A Very Long Rope.

(Also, when the "Magnifico" enemy revives his puppets, they no longer have the "string" object so Crow can't instakill them. Intentional?)

Also, a minor graphical glitch: ability animations (most notably Phosphorescence) display underneath Scrum's sprite.

And... is the lich skull from that mimic permanently missable if you don't get it in that battle? Aaaaggh. I hate random steal chances.

aaaaa completist run was not a good idea aaaaaaaaaaaa

So I'm at the final boss and Bud's at 95 HP. I have no idea what to do. I tried turtling until I amassed an armory's worth of healing items and I still lost. Is the battle even possible at this point? Eeek.

I think the problem is the limited equipment slots. You said that Bud's deterioration was intended to be counterbalanced by empowering the other characters, but after you get 6 pieces of equipment that plateaus while Bud keeps getting weaker and weaker. I mean I currently have 8 pieces of equipment burning a hole in my inventory (and 3 tomes); that's 55 HP lost for nothing. I guess the idea is that you're supposed to take what you need, but without knowing what you're going to get in advance, it's impossible to make an informed decision on that front. The fact that some equipment is simply a better version of earlier equipment is also a problem, since it feels like a slap in the face if you got the earlier one. (If there were more slots stacking them might be interesting, but...) Czarina Must Die had a similar problem I believe.

Edit: Nevermind, I looked at the hints page and the strategy worked. I never considered using Mara as the tank, but that's obvious in hindsight. If you get enough stuff, she and Bud can switch roles, very clever. The ending was sad and great, good job. I loved how easy it was for the standard RPG hero party to fall apart. (I didn't realize that stealing the items actually altered their behavior, I thought it was just a one-off attack. That does make things much easier since you don't need to disable the healer every three turns...)