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Subject Of Observation's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Emotional Engagement | #7 | 3.731 | 3.731 |
| Lasting Impression | #21 | 3.692 | 3.692 |
| Overall | #23 | 3.769 | 3.769 |
| Characterization | #24 | 3.808 | 3.808 |
| Overall | #25 | 3.641 | 3.641 |
| Atmosphere | #41 | 3.923 | 3.923 |
| Mental Engagement | #64 | 2.923 | 2.923 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I love the way this game flows as you interact, keeps you really engaged, and unfolds really nicely. Fantastic presentation all round. Great work :D
Thank you so much for the high praise. I understand the game might be riding the edge of the understanding of the "adventure" genre but I am happy you enjoyed it. It ended up way easier than I initially planned but I'm happy with the mood and emotions it conveys.
Creating scenes by clicking phrases in a file is an innovative idea that brought the story to life. The graphics were pleasant and the voice acting was top-notch. If I had to find some feedback, I think the font and color used in the dialogue were so different from rest of the game that they felt a bit out of place. Overall a fantastic entry for the jam!
Thank you for the feedback on the fonts, very helpful! And it's been noted a few times now. I'll see if I can find another way to handle it.
There's so much polish in this game, and it plays so well congrats! The setting reminds me of the movie "The lives of others" in a good way.
thank you, glad you enjoyed it! This was actually the pitch to my team: imagine The Life Of The Others meets Papers, Please ...
Very interesting game, pixel painting style is characteristic, excellent plot and dubbing greatly enhance the experience of the game, very enjoy the process of playing：）
Very unusual premise. I wouldn't say it's fun, but I don't think that's what you were going for. It really made me think about the kind of betrayal people must have felt.
Yes, I think fun as a concept for videogames is overrated! :)
I try to make meaningful experiences, if they end up fun or not is secondary. If it made you think it did everything I wanted it to do!
Very nice concept with a unique gameplay mechanic. There wasn’t much challenge in figuring things out, but the overall atmosphere, story, and excellent voice acting made up for that.
Thank you for your kind words, it ended up being less challenging than I had originally hoped but that's game-jamming for you, I guess! I'm happy that you enjoyed it all the same!
Great story game. I hope you would play mine too
A very interesting setting and form of presentation. Letting the reports come to life is a great idea and works very well to transport the story.
Thanks, I know it might be stretching the term "adventure" but I'm trying to explore new ways to make stories come to live. Glad that you enjoyed it!
That was really well done!
thank you for the nice reviea!
Very cool concept. It was fun deducing the culprit in each scenario. The way the notes unfolded the visual scenes was neat. Great voice acting & music as well, very appropriate for the vibes. The oppression of the country was felt quite strongly through subtle beats in the story, like the power of blue jeans. I liked how in the ending we were unable to change our suspect after the reveal, instead just blistered with the rough sound effect, powerful simple narrative design!
It felt like there were a few too many fonts in general. The font of the notes in the folder I found a little hard to read even at full screen. I supposed that's slightly appropriate for the files but overall it did just feel like there were one too many fonts present. Other than that, I have very little to critique. Great work! The clickable links in the credits was a nice touch :)
thank you for the nice words and the very important notes about the fonts! This will be of great help to me and is very valuable feedback!
I really enjoyed the story. The mechanisms, the voice acting and the overall aesthetic were just amazing. Great job!
I enjoyed it a lot! Voice acting is sublime and music takes you there, works so great. This is in my top 5 for this jam, definitely
Thank you so much! Wow, it's amazing that you put it in your top 5!
The retro art style and music are good and very effective in giving the game its fitting gloomy atmosphere. Great concept, I think you should really consider the idea of expanding it into something bigger!
Thank you, this means a lot to me. I am thinking about building on it, but we'll see how it will go with the jam first.
Designing an adventure around Stasi files is an unusual concept. An interesting topic, albeit a heartbreaking one for the victims of the state. The amount of Erika and Max Mustermann spied on by people close to them is simply staggering.
You've done a really good job with this difficult subject. The idea of bringing the past back to life directly from the IM reports is excellent. The pixel graphics are also really good. As is the music and the voice acting.
The direction in which it was heading was quite foreseeable. But that's not really a problem for a short visual novel kind of game. I would really love to play something longer (and more difficult) in this style. Great game!
Thank you for your kind words! Yes, when it all came together it was more predictable than I had initially planned but I am just happy that we could pull it all off in just 14 days.
I really enjoyed this! I liked how you used the art and visuals to add to the storyline, I liked the voice acting alot and it's really fun to play. Great work!
Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it! And I agree, Leonie's voice action brings SO MUCH to this game!
Very emotionally relevant interactive tale. Graphically and musically perfect, interesting story, beautiful voice acting. Touching.
Thank you very much for your kind words, I am glad you liked it so much!
really brilliant game,
i like the iron curtain themes of ex-sovietic union.
The way in wich you identify the spies and narrative behind is great!
Is my favourite game of the jam for now
Wow, thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you liked it!
This is an extremely cohesive game concept from top to bottom. I love how well the visuals serve the storyline and vice versa. Voice acting was also excellent. Considering the tactile feel, I'd love to see even more usage of photos and other aspects of surveillance documents. Maybe for example, if the images of the scenes you watch looked like surveillance photo/video? Or the images you can choose to identify the informants would be little thumbnail-sized images like you'd find in a file photo. Very evocative visual concept as it is though, and thank you for making it! It was very powerful storytelling, and a really novel way to use the adventure game medium.
I actually recorded my playthrough. If you want to see my impressions as I played, you can see it below (timestamp for your game in the description). Hope that can be useful!
Thank you for the kind words and helpful review. RN there are no specific plans to continue the development but if there ever are I will take your very good suggestions into consideration. Thank you for including the game in your video! I will post it on Twitter to see if this can generate more views. It will be very useful to see you play it for me for sure!
Interesting concept, I would say it's an easy game but that doesn't matter, because I found the story to be very engaging.
Interesting game! I thought the art looked really nice, and the sound design really helps elevate it!