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A jam submission

ZERO KNOTSView game page

A song fills the stagnant air of the dolrums.
Submitted by STRLIONGAMES (@StarlionGames) — 2 hours, 11 minutes before the deadline
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ZERO KNOTS's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#1753.9093.909
Game Design#4363.1823.182
Theme#4453.1823.182
Innovation#4703.0003.000
Overall#5193.0833.083
Fun#6692.8182.818
Audio#8502.4092.409

Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
Originally the game was supposed to have multiple phases, from clear skies to a heavy rain storm. However due to time constraints the only thing that is left is the mere mention that a storm is coming.

Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
Everything but the audio is made by myself. I did credit the stock audio library I got the audio from in the game's credits.

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Comments

Submitted

It's a very innovative text-based adventure game. Although I'm not very good at this type of game, I still had a particularly special experience.

Submitted

i really like the suspenseful vibe here, and i love the art as well. I'm not a huge fan of point and click games, but this might be the exception, it was pretty darn good. nicely done!

Submitted

Love the suspense on this. Wandering around the ship for awhile, seeing each object, wondering what significance they may hold later, and then backtracking a bit to see that they are interactable to unravel more information until the climax was really engrossing to experience. The grayscale tone also helps drastically, especially when it becomes darker the closer you get to the spooky bilge. 

The big issue is the automatic text scrolling, which is currently paced in a way where many text entries don't last long even though they were quite long to read. This is especially troublesome when the player can miss critical information from someone's dialogue and cannot talk again for a a repeat. Either proper generous timing is read, or a manual text continuing button is needed. Additionally, the white text from dialogue and inspections can sometimes blend into background filled with gray or white filling and strokes.

Submitted

Love the color palette, though the text is a little hard to read. Fun game though! :D

Submitted

Nice little game, I'm always up for a creepy visual adventure! (just look at my game haha)

It was an interesting visual adventure, even if short.

The limited color palette really gave it an old time feel, as well as the buttons. 

The graphic style is symple, but works well in context.

Tho I also have some critiques: firstly I found the text to be a little too fast, as seen in other comments it would be good to have to press a key instead of waiting a fixed time (maybe with an indicator on screen that you have to do so, maybe replacing the "speak" icon with "continue dialogue" icon?).

The initial and final text were also very fast, I didn't really get the story the first times because of this.

Also, the first time I played I was confused as I thought I did everything, but I then figured out I had to speak more to the same people. Maybe there could be an indicator to tell you have a possible interaction, or obscure the "talk" button after having all the possible interactions?

Also, does the game have music, or did it bug out while converting to web game? (I remember happening to me sometimes)

Overall a nice visual adventure with great potential, and a very fun and intuitive UI! :)

Submitted (2 edits)

It's amazing how you can create this weird vibe with limited palette of pixel art. It's an exciting game

Submitted

A very unique game i don't usually play this gender game but was interesting

Submitted

aesthetic are really on level with grim story. Good job

Submitted

Really unique approach, I really appreciate the time you put into the story, not a lot of games do. I usually don't enjoy these type of games that much I did manage to finish this one with a bit of time. Amazing job!

Submitted

I like the vibe and the limited use of color! The big buttons we use to control our character feels nostalgic. The story was interesting, but the ending was a bit abrupt. Could've had more ship and sea ambience.

Submitted

I like the aesthetic of the game. If there is more in the story in the middle it would be great.
The font is a bit hard to read and some dialogue is too fast.
since this game has a skip dialogue function maybe it's better to let the player choose when to skip.
btw I didn't hear any music in this game. Does it have one?

Submitted

I really liked the art! It gave a creepy vibe but was still very stylized. Also I'm not sure if there was supposed to be music, but I liked the atmosphere from the graphics. Also the dialogue went by a little fast for me, I think if you give the option to progress dialogue with space bar, maybe you should just keep the dialogue on screen, I had to reload and go back to read some things. Great work though!

Submitted

I couldn't figure out the game but the visuals are very nice

Submitted

Its a surprisingly good story-driven game (even if its short), its good, the ending is creepy af. Graphics were awesome, audio a bit simple but thats ok. Some issues with UI scaling.

9/10 :D

Submitted

Visuals and writing are unique and pleasing. I had some issues with web-version and misaligned buttons but it doesn't break the game. Atmosphere is decent. I would like to have like a separate keyboard buttons for moving around and interactions but it's just a quality of life feature I would like to have.

Overall, great job!

Submitted

I think to improve it, instead of each time you interact for it to be a fixed amount of time before the dialogue stops showing, it should instead be a button to press to continue. Those who want to stay and look at what it says longer can stay. Those who already saw it or want to continue can press it to continue faster. I noticed I often would want to continue in my case, and I think it slows down the gameplay. For others, it might actually feel too fast in some parts.

Other than that I really liked the visuals, the controls worked really well and the writing was good - nice job on this!

Submitted

I liked the writing. I rarely find games like this interesting, and I was irritated that nothing was happening as I was free to explore the entire ship without anything happening.

Then I realized, I didn't talk to the first person. And having context of where I was through the other rooms I went through context helped me understand the narrative even more. So despite my initial failure of paying attention, it made me enjoy the game more! hah - It did feel more like a comic book than a game, but sometimes that's all in its presentation.

Well done!

Submitted

The artstyle of the game is really unique, I loved it! I did struggle a lot with the auto-playing text, the writing is really cool but I ended up missing a lot of it because I couldn't read fast enough. I did get to the end regardless. Oh what a beautiful song

Submitted

I liked the sprites of the game, especially the ending ones! I also liked the atmosphere of all of it, great job!

Submitted

Really liked the artstyle and the atmosphere.
A bit confusing that you often have to talk to after you've just talked to them.
Unexpected ending, I enjoyed it.