itch.io

I have a Ren'Py 8.5.2 web build (1920x1080, 16:9) uploaded as an HTML5 project.

On Android phones, roughly the bottom third of the game is cut off and

unreachable. It works fine for some testers and fails for others (3 out of 4

phones), which points at the browser/viewport rather than the game itself.

What I've narrowed it down to

-----------------------------

I tested the exact same build in three ways, on the same phone that shows the

bug:

1. Opening the game's direct URL (html.itch.zone/html/.../index.html), windowed

   -> displays correctly, nothing cut off.

2. Same direct URL, then using the game engine's OWN fullscreen option

   (Ren'Py's Preferences > Display > Fullscreen)

   -> displays correctly, nothing cut off.

3. Launching from my itch.io project page, which on mobile goes fullscreen

   -> bottom ~1/3 is cut off.

So the game renders correctly, and engine-level fullscreen works correctly.

The problem only appears with the fullscreen that itch.io applies on mobile.

This matches an open issue on the itch.io tracker:

https://github.com/itchio/itch.io/issues/881

("Wrong fullscreen orientation and size on HTML5 projects on Android browsers")

where the viewport isn't resized to the device's actual screen size, so the

bottom of the game gets cut.

Relevant detail: per the "More embed options for HTML5 games" post, on mobile

games always launch in fullscreen regardless of the embed settings. So I can't

avoid the broken path by turning the fullscreen button off — every mobile

visitor to my page hits it.

Current embed settings

----------------------

- Embed in page / Manually set size

- Viewport dimensions: 1920x1080 (also tried smaller values)

- Mobile friendly: ON, Orientation: Landscape

- Fullscreen button: ON

- Enable scrollbars: OFF

- SharedArrayBuffer: ON

What I've already tried (no change)

-----------------------------------

- Toggling Mobile friendly and the orientation setting

- Turning scrollbars off

- Reducing the viewport dimensions

- Patching the game's index.html: height:100dvh on the canvas (instead of

  height:100%), overflow:hidden on html/body, and

  user-scalable=no, viewport-fit=cover on the viewport meta tag.

  I expected the 100dvh change to fix it, since inside a fixed-height iframe

  the canvas can extend behind the browser UI — but it made no difference,

  which makes sense if the iframe itself is the wrong size to begin with.

My question

-----------

Has anyone found a workaround for this on the developer side? Specifically:

- Is there an embed configuration that avoids itch.io's mobile fullscreen

  behaviour, or makes it size the viewport correctly?

- Is there anything I can do from inside the iframe (JS/CSS in index.html) to

  detect and compensate for a viewport that's taller than the visible screen?

- Or is this simply not fixable from the developer side until #881 is resolved?

Any pointers appreciated. Right now my only workarounds are handing out the

direct html.itch.zone link for mobile players, or shipping a native build.

Hi everyone, there is a new, much more polished version of the game. I hope you can try it out and keep giving me feedback

Hello! Really great tool, I'm going to follow you to keep it in mind.

At the moment, I don't have a community built up or any dedicated testers; I'm just receiving feedback from random people who try it out. But I am definitely looking to build a community to help me with that part.

Thanks again for the suggestion!

Best regards,

No, I haven't put the name in the game yet. With so many things to do, that one slipped my mind

Sorry, but I don't understand your comment.

Thank you for the feedback. I am working on addressing all the points you mentioned. This week, I plan to release an update fixing some bugs and adding a few improvements

Added a web version
https://ahhgames.itch.io/japitown

I started checking out the game and it's much deeper than I expected. I'm going to wait until I have more time so I can give it the attention it deserves and provide proper feedback. I gave the project a follow so I can keep track of it!

I actually don't know anyone. In fact, I'm developing my project solo for that exact reason. I tried working with an artist and a programmer a few years ago, but it was impossible to find people who were truly committed, so I decided to just work on my own

Hi Cookie-Crumb, I tried your game! It looks good, and the idea of controlling something other than just the character is really interesting to me.

I'm personally terrible at platformers and couldn't get past the first section. I do feel like the character's movement speed makes it a bit hard to control, but then again, that might just be a 'me' problem since I'm not used to this genre

Hi Wanko, thanks for the offer! Honestly, just having someone consider me for work in this field makes me really happy.

Right now, I don't have the time to commit to anything else. I have my own business that pays the bills these days, and any free time I can manage goes straight into my game so I can keep making progress on it.

I hope you manage to build your studio and find the right people to move forward with your project. I'll give you a follow and support your projects!

Your game is great and an absolute blast to play. It feels like it's in an excellent state. I honestly don't have any negative criticism since I loved everything. The only thing it needs is more weapons and abilities, but that's just a matter of time

Hello everyone. Right after my last post, I noticed a big problem: the game lacked a bug reporting system. I took some time to work on adding that, along with fixing the bugs I could find on my own. I think this version is much more stable now. I hope you get a chance to play it and share your feedback with me, both the good and the bad

Hey everyone, how's it going? I hope you're all doing great.

I'm making this post to look for feedback on my game, Japitown, which is an NSFW visual novel / adventure game. It's been over two months since I uploaded my first version of the game, and the feedback I received helped me immensely to better guide the development and understand what the priorities are.

After a lot of hard work on that, I'm bringing you version 0.1.5 I feel this version is much closer to the foundation I want for my game, and I hope to keep receiving feedback so I can continue improving it.

Thank you so much in advance to everyone who took the time to read this post, and a special thanks to those who also dedicate a bit of their time to playtest it.

Cheers to everyone once again!

Edit: 
To make giving feedback a bit easier, I've created a web version of the project so you can try it out without needing to download anything.

https://ahhgames.itch.io/japitown

Thanks a lot for taking the time to leave this feedback!

You're totally right about the movement; it's on my to-do list to improve. I'm still trying to find the best way to fix it so that it feels dynamic but stays simple to handle.

It makes me really happy that you pointed out the art and sprites as a strong point. That was something I really wanted to stand out right from the start, and it’s definitely what took me the most hard work to pull off!

I hope you stick around and keep following the project because it's going to keep evolving constantly. Thanks for the support!

You've given me some great feedback!

I'm glad you liked it. The positive things you highlighted were exactly what I was aiming for, and I'm happy that it shows.

What you've said really helps me understand the areas I need to work on. I understand that a better introduction for the characters is very important since that's what the game revolves around. You're the first person to point this out to me, but I think it's one of the most important things to fix that I had completely overlooked.

Highlighting the interactable elements is also important and something that came up in several other pieces of feedback, which is why I want to introduce a tutorial and add more visual cues.

I will also cover the system for the days and the characters in the tutorial, explaining all the game mechanics.

The labels are important too. I need to figure out how to add them for some of the engine's built-in functions, but I'm adding it to my list of pending fixes.

The issues with the text are something I'm currently reviewing. I learned the hard way how the translation system works in the engine; I changed several texts in Spanish (the original language) and those changes end up breaking the translated text. I'm fixing them as I find them.

I'm going to start with the tutorial as the first new addition to the game. I think understanding the basics is a fundamental step, along with properly introducing the characters.

In addition to the tutorial, I have some changes planned for the routes so that the game itself guides you through what you can do, helping you understand what your options are during the downtime outside of quests.

I'm going to work more on the visual indicators for the player so the gameplay loop and interactables are easier to understand.

I have several tweaks to make that I've been noting down regarding character expressions, as well as expressions I feel are missing in certain situations.

Regarding the AI, I spent a lot of time dialing in the game's art style so it wouldn't feel generic and would have its own identity, while also staying consistent. I'm glad to know it comes across that way! I don't use AI for the script or the expressions, so those mistakes are entirely on me.

I'm going to get to work on your suggestions. Once again, thank you so much for the feedback; it is extremely thorough and of excellent quality.

I tested the game playing with a keyboard and using A and D to move. Now I've tried it with the mouse and the difference in difficulty is huge, it becomes much easier to control.

Here is the link to my feedback post:

I get what you're aiming for, and if that's your vision, you should stick with it while you gather feedback. If multiple players point out the same thing, then it's worth reviewing, but for now, it was just my opinion.

In most cases, when I hit the green bar, it still kept going all the way to the top in gray. It felt like the actual window for the perfect shot is much smaller than what is visually shown.

I just tried the warrior, and what I can tell you is that the enemies attack really fast and the knockback is pretty strong (my lack of skill plays a part here). But it brings me back to my previous point about the character feeling slow or stiff, whereas the enemies don't feel that way.

Sorry if my feedback comes off as super negative, I'm just giving my opinion hoping it helps improve things.

Hi Lordricker

I playtested the game and wanted to give you some feedback. The game is good, but the controls feel a bit hard, and I think it's mainly because you can't aim your shots.

I also didn't notice any difference between the two types of shots other than the speed of the charge bar (additionally, the 'L' key didn't seem to do anything). On top of that, many shots perfectly executed in the green "perfect shot" area aren't registering.

I think a great addition to the game would be allowing the player to aim and shoot with the mouse, where the arrow follows the cursor. Another alternative could be an auto-aim feature targeting the closest enemy in the direction you are facing.

I really like the game's art, and the animations are good. I think the multiplayer aspect is the game's strongest point; I can easily imagine playing this with a friend, and I believe it has a lot of potential.

Cheers!

Hello Synaut. The game has a fantastic aesthetic that I don't often see; that alone makes it very striking, and it has many great visual and sound design choices that fit perfectly.

The introduction is good. Just when I felt it was dragging on a bit, the game started. I placed all the tiles, but I couldn't find any way to progress. I started a second playthrough, but during that animation sequence, I died and the screen just went blank. On my third attempt, I placed the tiles hoping something would happen, but nothing did. I realized the only alternative was to click "New Game" (which feels weird to start a "new game" when you haven't even really played yet, plus it warns you that you'll lose your progress).

When I finally clicked "New Game," the tutorial started, and that helped a lot—I was able to understand the mechanics pretty well.

In the part where you choose the stone, I think players need to know what they are choosing. Even using the "investigate" action gives no information about it. I thought the idea was to keep it a mystery, but the game explains what the stone does as soon as the match starts. As a player, I don't see any benefit in making blind choices like that.

Later, I struggled to understand what to do when it told me to "close session" (or something similar). I think it would be better if it closed automatically or if it were indicated more clearly.

It would be nice to be able to remove a tile you just placed in an empty space.

During the second choice, I thought having the "identify" ability would let me see what I was picking, but no. It felt worse than the first time because it's still a blind choice. The same thing happens with the instruments you pick up.

Regarding the tools, I had to experiment to figure out how they worked, which leads to consequences like accidentally losing a tile, for example.

Then some orange circles appear, and there isn't any clear information on how they will affect you. The same goes for the bombs.

It's also hard to understand at first what the blue and purple colors on your indicator mean. Only after drawing do you get a rough idea of what they represent.

In the end, I lost because I couldn't understand how the abilities used to "attack" me actually worked.

In summary, the game is good. I understand that old-school games often don't explain things and expect you to learn by trial and error—if that's your intention, keep it as is. But if it's not the intention, I think the game could really use some more explanations, because it ended up being frustrating not understanding why I lost.

Hello Polyspice, first of all, congratulations on the game!

Regarding the feedback: The gameplay is good, but I would suggest starting with easier levels and increasing the difficulty progressively. I had a hard time beating the first level until my brain got used to the ship's controls. That being said, it looks fun and the movement is really well done.

Another detail I noticed is that when you complete a level, there is no option to go directly to the next one; you have to start over from the beginning.

I'm going to drop a follow so I can see when you update the game and give you more feedback then!

Hi Game Tec, thanks for the offer. If I ever need anything at some point, I know I can count on you.

I see you have several games, I'll check them out over the next few days.

Best regards

Hi Smurjo, thank you for your feedback! It's the first one I've received and it makes me really happy to get it.

You are right about that part—you stop just clicking and have to start interacting with the game. I think it's a good moment to explain the interaction mechanics to prevent other people from running into the same problem. I can definitely add the reflection; it's a detail I completely overlooked.

Regarding the second part, I also think I could add a short tutorial when you enter free mode to explain the features, and especially to show the hint menu where you can see how to progress with the quests (inside the phone, on the top right, there is an app where you can see what to do next).

The game does have an English version; I thought it was configured to start in English by default (you can find the language option inside the menu).

Regarding the room layout, it's just as you say: there is no realistic geometry to them. I simply made them functional so players could progress, but it is something I would like to redesign at some point.

Your point about the backgrounds being too clean is a great observation too; adding a bit of clutter will give them more life.

Thanks again for the feedback! I'll be working this week on putting together the mechanics tutorial, and I've taken note of the other observations you shared.

Best regards

P.S. Looking at the screenshots, I noticed that the quest name isn't translated. I'll fix that too!

Hi everyone!

I'm super excited (and a little bit nervous!) to share that I'm currently working on my very first game. It's a project called Japitown, and I'm developing it using Ren'Py.

At its core, the game is a Visual Novel, but I really wanted to step outside the standard formula and add more depth to the gameplay. To do that, I've been integrating life simulator elements and extra mechanics to make the world feel much more alive and give players more agency.

Since this is my first time taking on a project of this scale, I would absolutely love to get some feedback from this community. I want to make sure the project is heading in the right direction. Whether it's about the core gameplay loop, the UI, or how well the extra mechanics blend with the traditional visual novel style, any constructive criticism would be incredibly valuable to me.

https://ahhgames.itch.io/japitown

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this! If you have any general advice for a first-time indie dev, I'm all ears.

Cheers!