itch.io

I'm not responsible for any loss of limbs if you try :D

More seriously though, thanks for the comment it made my day. I'm actually working on a game at the moment (not up on itch at the moment) where I was convinced to add an option to try and pat a hound from the underworld if you want  try and befriend it, so hopefully there will be games with more pet-able otherworld not-dogs in the future from me :) 

I'm also working on a larger version of this game and will add some extra artwork like the one below. Have a great day!

This is really fun. Love all the little references in there. Also reminds me why I don't do opening day screenings!

Thanks so much! Glad the game gave you a laugh :D

I think this is my favorite of your games you entered here :)

This is quite impressive you've managed to make a game with only 500 words :)

Aww this is really cute.  Such a fun little micro world that the goldfish lives in.

Oh wow I posted this years ago but yeah the problem still stands. I entered a jam recently where the most popular entries were topping out at less than 30 votes (niche interest area running a friendly jam). I'm assuming in order for the lower half of the field not to get heavily penalised for having a few less votes than the top half, the people running it actually did their own manual calculations for the results release. It seemed unfair for an entry to slide a few places down in the rankings (and in one case affected who won a category) because of the difference of a few votes. Being a niche area means it is quite hard to get "lots of votes". More interaction can mean more votes which is a good thing, but when the difference can be in the single digits as to where the penalty line is, it's pretty disheartening for games that slide under that barrier. (and let's face it, about half the entries in a comp are going to go that way no matter how interactive everyone is or is not. My game was not one of those affected this time so that's not why I'm complaining, I just feel for some comp types it isn't very fair.)

In theory it's a good idea to stop an unpopular entry with a handful of perfect votes from the dev's friends winning over a more popular and better made one with 200 votes over a range of scores, but it just doesn't work for the smaller jams where if you get 20 votes your score might be unaffected, but if you get 19 you're penalised. An option like Igor suggested or to just work off raw scores rather than calculated ones would be good for those. I'm assuming not an option though considering it's been this way for at least the 3 years since I posted this thread.

I don't think we see very many real life type horror ecotocomp entries that could be pulled from a news reel. (Sadly plenty of nighmarish things there.) Kinda started hearing the Sky Hooks Horror Movie song, probably to try and lighten the gravity of the scenes playing out in the game. Are there only bad endings?

Oh dear it seems I'm not very good at guessing some of these! It's quite challenging (for me at least, I need more practice.) Thank you for the cheat sheet for when I get stuck :)

I liked the story and build up. Wish there was more!

Thanks for the hints. I had gotten totally stuck as well.

That's great to know. I missed that and was wondering if there was  a way to check what tasks you had completed during the game. Looks like a cute little game (or is it, I'm wondering if there's a twist there given what is in the library). I'll need to have a few more goes and see if I can complete all the tasks in time.

Well written and designed to instill anxiety in the situations it puts you in. (That scenario when someone from your childhood instantly recognises you while you're left squinting at them awkwardly trying to be sure who they might be.) The ending kind of seemed to jump out suddenly until I figured perhaps it was never a real  haunted house after all and a lot of this was in the reader's mind as the way they were perceiving things as they try to navigate the stressful situations they need to go through to their appointment?

Interesting short game. I had to brush up on some numerals I rarely use but cracked the code. I think I've completed the game. It seems like it restarts if you play again. (There's no end state is there? Is it meant to be a time loop?)

Impressive for a 4 hour game to design a program to be a dungeon creator. Haven't been able to work out how to stop the adventurers from trashing the library. (Philistines that they are!)

This is really fun with so much to explore. I'm so glad for the checkpoints!

Interesting little game :) I would have loved a help menu with a list of available commands if you plan to work on it any further after the comp. (It seemed to reject things like "talk" so I wasn't quite sure how to interact with the other players unless they interacted with me first.)

The graphics reminds me of those old school games (in a good way) I used to play when really young. I think it was a good move to keep the commands simple for a 4 hour parser game. Is there any way to beat it?

There's a lot here for a game made only in 4 hours. Nicely written and built the tension well at the end. I was left wanting to know more about what was going on which is a good thing :)

Thank you Passerine! :)

Love the choice of background and the little glowy lights. Very effective at setting the scene. Unfortunately for me, the really slow text scrawl took something away from the game. I had to leave it running while I left the room to do other things on two occasions because on my computer at least it seemed to be taking a long time to finish printing the text (slower than I could read it). It'd be great to have the option to skip it and have the text appear at once as there's some good stuff there.

This was sad and terrifying to read, even more so when I read the author's note. I'm so sorry you and your family had to go through that. I wish an effective treatment will one day be found. 

Thanks @BenyDanette. I didn't think to add a soundtrack to this game but it's a good idea. Choicescript (the coding used for this) is a not really optimised for adding audio, but I'll have to take a look at it to see if it'd be workable for this game after the comp.

It's ok. I'm not normally one for needing trigger warnings, but this one just kind of hit me for some reason which is why I was just advising players to actually read the warnings you have listed. I actually would have been more okay with it (if that can be applied here given this is not a comfortable game) if you didn't have to pull a child into the ending. But totally see your point given this was never meant to be a happy ending kinda game. Please don't take what I was saying as criticism (your game obviously worked at intended!) It was just my personal thoughts on the ending. 

I had to come back to write the review, pay attention to the warnings if any possible concerns. This game doesn't mess around at the end. (There's nothing graphic, but the implied events are enough for me given the psychological nature of the undertones coming up to it. ) 

I can tell that a lot of work has been put into this game. So many objects have text associated with them and there are multiple "levels". Good use of sound. Has that retro gaming feel with darker connotations. I did find the blind maze a bit frustrating, but did find my way through it eventually. (I'm not quite sure why it was so hard to find one of the turns as it was there but I seemed to miss it a number of times. Probably not a game bug but a "my end" issue. But did leave me wondering if the level was passable for a while given the initial statement that the game was "unfinished" by the person creating it). It needs another pass for spelling, but given this game is written by someone who doesn't speak English as a first language, the fact it has been translated at all is impressive. Also given the game isn't meant to be complete (in the game world) you could probably give it somewhat of a pass on that factor anyway. 

So the ending. This is the part of the game that is probably going to be a bit divisive. I can see why it went there given the obvious spiraling of the main character, but I wish there was a choice there not to involve others.

This interface looks worryingly legit *laughs*. It was interesting going down the rabbit hole and seeing what was going on with the software instead of just clicking the usual "Install" and "Agree" perhaps without always reading the clauses and instructions as well as we should.

This is a sweet, well written little story and I enjoyed reading it. My main comment otherwise is I wish it had a bit more interactivity.

Yes it seems to work now :)

Ok I'm impressed. Often I find character creation in text games quite dull, but for this one? I found myself mulling over what sort of choices I wanted and how it would allow me to best achieve that character's goals. It was a whole game of character creation and I was really invested. Nice work :)

No, not mobile. PC via firefox.

It's a shame, I don't seem to be able to play this one. It loads up ok, and the first few lines of text come up, but then it stays on the computer screen with the title on it?

I like the tone of this. Reminds me of when I try not to ramble when unexpectedly presented with an answering machine (although hopefully I don't go off in such odd tangents!) Also the nice touch of if you continue to be indecisive. I wish there were some follow up calls so you could learn more about what might be going on with the whole situation, but given this is a 4 hour project I can understand the need to keep it short :)

This is really interesting, great ending. Half a moon max for me too. Is it possible to go higher?

I'm extending one of my past petite mort games out into a much larger one at the moment. (I think it's currently sitting at ~70k words so much longer and with more images, saves, paths etc). The games are yours to do with as you wish after the comp is over. The no updates thing is I think to honor the speed writing idea of the 4 hour category. You're meant to try and design a game you can write in that time, then put down the keyboard and hope for the best :)

I thought there were 4? Or am I imagining things. Definitely got the two in the guide thanks. Edit just worked out the 4th ending

I enjoyed this game, I hope it does well in the jam :) I can't find one of the endings though?

Thank you so much for the nice comment! Hope you enjoyed it.

This is quite an unusual game. Trying to think about how to examine a strange piece of art and seeing what comes out of it. I like the detail that's been put into this including the changing artwork and focus points.

It's running ok for me in Chrome. Are you using an ad blocker/privacy app? It was blocking this app in firefox until I disabled mine. (Some of those don't seem to play well with some twine games in particular for some reason.)

Nice twist, had me going there. Not sure if it's fixable or a twine thing, but the retrace your steps option seems to stop working after the first time you use it.