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Differentiation game's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #83 | 3.688 | 3.688 |
| Game Design | #131 | 3.438 | 3.438 |
| Overall | #164 | 3.233 | 3.233 |
| Audio | #204 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
| Innovation | #213 | 3.042 | 3.042 |
| Graphics | #312 | 3.188 | 3.188 |
| Fun | #353 | 2.875 | 2.875 |
Ranked from 48 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
is there any way to go back through the levels you've alr been in or do i have to start over again bc i have bad memory (talking about the code)
nvm amazing game, had to search through the comments to complete the first code tho...
I loved this, good work! Although, I suggest that you make the notes a bit simpler to understand to begin with (I got stuck on the "What is the meaning of life?" part).
Feel free to check out our game, we need a few more votes!
Very interesting interpretation of the theme, I'm sure many people will familiarize with the style (cough -rtal). I enjoyed the puzzles, but that 13 got me, and I really wanted to see the ending, hearing it's a shocker. Hope you make more cool games like this, given more time, add more content, and you could even monetize it! ;)
Anyway. That's a really decent game :D It does keep similiar atmosphere to Portal series and that's a really good achievement. There are many ways to bug the game, but it's understandable as some mechanics (grabbing crate) are not that easy to program, so that's fine.
I really enjoy music and artstyle. Not sure if I can criticise it in any way.
Design and theme are really well caught, so it's also hard to get any problems. I would just suggest to make dialogs appear entirely after second click, as it's a bit frustrating when you have to go through all the dialogs again waiting for them to finish.
Great job ;)
Yeah crate bugs isnt new. There were just so many and I should've spent more time refining the code for them...
For the dialogue what we did is that only a part of it shows up again when you ask for the speaker again, but sometimes for the parts relevant to the lying statement are long so yeah...
Thanks for playing and commenting!
Cool game, Really enjoyed the puzzels.
I was hoping to play and rate, but I'm on a Mac and I didn't see a browser mode:(.
Yeah sorry it has file based saving so we only made a Windows Standalone build. Streaming Assets with Mac is werid and I didnt have time to figure it out.
Holy cow, the ending gave me goosebumps!
The story is awesome, the gameplay is functional, the graphics are ok and the sound is really atmospheric. This was an amazing experience. Congratulations!
Obs.: I don't know what was the "even meaning of life" of the first (or second) puzzle. I was going through the even numbers (I thought it was the number of chromosomes in our DNA, 46, I guess?) and I luckily get it right.
42 is a reference to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy where it is considered as the number that answers everything. If you look up the meaning of life it's the first thing that comes up.
Another awesome game, crazy how you managed to do so much in just a week!
Some parts were a bit tricky but it was a great experience nonetheless.
Rated! I really liked your game! Unique idea!
Don't forget to rate my game please: https://itch.io/jam/cgj/rate/476599
The game is vert vert cool, the pixel art was good, I likes the sounds and the music, the story is awesome and it represents the theme very well, also the puzzles were very fun and gas a Fair ammount of challenge. Great game
The puzzles were great. The music was good and the game was put together solidly. Good Job!
Environments lack props and game could use some ambience but I liked the idea ;)
Yeah, it is true we could have decorated the environment a bit more. We only had time to implement junk that looks like broken lasers as seen in the last 3 levels.
I really enjoyed the game! At first i thought it would be lot of talking to the AI but the puzzles kept me scratching my head.. The art was just amazing and the music was brilliant too.. Great job!
I enjoyed this entry in general. Highlight is the puzzle design coupled with the trivia. There was only one question that in my opinion lent itself to multiple interpretations, and that's the wall colour one. The fact that there is a Green paint receipt under a box, doesn't infer that the guy wanted to paint the walls green and then changed his mind. It just means he bought green paint. So I answered that incorrectly. It was my only incorrect answer. Anyway, puzzles were high quality and interesting. One could argue that the cultural puzzles are dangerous. Friday the 13th isn't necessarily a cursed day for some cultures. 42 isn't the meaning of life, unless you've seen the film or care about inane memes. Careful when you decide on these hints. You may want to go with self contained information instead.
I had trouble getting into the game, because of the initial narrative. The try hard humour ground my gears and I was really close to quitting. Generally speaking, it's very difficult to write compelling narrative and dialogue, especially in games, where interaction changes perspectives. For instance, I immediately pressed Shift on the comms, and the AI still said "haha, I've fooled you". Haha you haven't. You're missing a condition to check if Shift was my first input when interacting with you. The dialogue improves in quality as the game continues. When the AI acts more mature, arguably. My general suggestion in this area, reduce humour, remove smug / sarcastic character (very cheap form of humour), and focus on what you are trying to convey. Then decide the best possible character archetype to do so. If your choice is smug and sarcastic, fair enough, but I find it to be unoriginal as it's very common. My interpretation is that it's easier to write a smug character that reveals to have some depth, then a deep character that reveals to have more depth, if that makes sense.
Graphics are pretty decent, though rough in places. I think the decision to start with the character looking up is a bad idea, I thought I was faceless at first. I like to see my character's face to identify with him. Also, you have pixel density problems. For instance, there is a pressure plate that gigantic in the second to last room. That looks quite ugly.
The only blunder in the puzzle design was the last pressure plates in the second to last room. They break convention. This violates the sixth Nielsen's heuristic (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/). You should have designed different graphics for this type of pressure plate.
I don't dig the locomotion controls. Basically, the character moves by one unit where you go, but it's inconsistent. This created problems in the second to last room, where there is a box very close to a laser and you need to place yourself between laser and box to push it. I have no idea why you chose to move this way, but you did. Cost me 1 unnecessary death.
The music is strange. You have 2 tracks I believe, and they play whenever they feel like playing. So there are rooms that are devoid of music, rooms with it. Odd. I like the songs, I think they fit the mood, but the implementation is poor.
Overall, a very enjoyable entry. One of my favourites. I would put it in the hall of fame file I have, were it not for the amount of fluff in the dialogue. Good show.
Wow, thanks a lot for your in-depth criticism!
For the green paint, I hadnt had a comment about that until yesterday when my dad tried it so you're not the only one. The original statement could have been changed slightly.
For cultural based hints I know what you mean for 42 and 13 but they are two pieces of trivia that you could easily look up, and even though Friday the 13th isnt cursed in every culture I was more refering the movie than the actual superstition. As for 42 it definitely can be dangerous but it is the very first thing that appears when searching for the meaning of life. Then again, a short game like this one shouldnt require you to search things up.
Im interested by your view on smug humor because Ive never heard anyone say that before but I definitely see what you're getting at: it is overdone and an easy way to go for humor. I wouldnt say that we went for it for that reason though: Im sarcastic by nature (as are many people in this jam) and most of all I did take inspiration for this AI. Ive been recently reading The Dark Tower for the first time, and the AI's character (for all before the last room) was partially inspired by Blaine the Mono. You can see that in how he switches between slang and formal every so often. Probably too subtle but I definitely did not go for a cheap character. But interesting critic, Ive never looked at things this way.
For graphics quality, I personally am of the opinion that it fits the game but if you want to talk about it more you can contact the artist. For pixel perfectness it is definitely ugly in the last scene but I made that level design decision on the last day when I made that last puzzle level so we didnt have much time to make a dofferent graphic for a bigger switch.
Now, I am not familiar with sixth Nielsen heuristic but I can understand what you mean from context: I felt the same way when playtesting on the last day but some things were simply more urgent to fix and I never ended up talking about it with the artist.
I didn't notice the crappy movement because I was used to it until I saw people playtest it and complain, but that was after submission... It's my fault for using GetAxisRaw()...
Im glad you like the two music tracks. The playing randomness was done on purpose, under request of the artist that didnt want the music to be too important during levels and instead be kind of like Minecraft music (pccasionally playing). The effect would probably be more present if there were more levels, more tracks, and actual fade outs at the end of the tracks (and maybe fade ins).
Shame it didn't make it to your hall of fame, but Im glad you liked it anyways, and that you spent time writing this. Thanks a bunch! I have a long list of games to rate but Il going to add yours to it.
Brilliant response. I've linked you a short article about the heuristics in the previous response. It's usually applied to software outside of games, but it's a great short few commandments to go by when it comes to usability. Just give it a read, and remember it when you design interactions.
As for the smug humour, I may have come across as meaning to say that your game does it constantly. That's not the case. It's somewhat present. And I believe I mentioned that your character (the AI that is), grows over time. In the simplest of terms, the issue is this. Permanently sarcastic characters are very popular nowadays. I'm not sure why. They are frequently irritating. This tends to lead to a cast made primarily of smart-arses. This happens in films, sit coms, and games as well, by osmosis. I'm not a guy that digs narratives very much in general, so take this feedback with a pinch of salt, but, whenever I write characters, I like to give them distinct personality traits. I then observe if the traits are matched as I write their lines. Sarcasm is a very cheap and easy to reach form of comedy. I suspect this is why it's as popular as it is. Having every character sound the same is the issue. Now, in the environment of your game's this cannot happen. You only have one character. But every time your character behaves like Glados would, it's very in your face. Glados is in fact a great example of a character that the world loves, and I find rather irritating. Another excellent example of this phenomenon is the whole cast in Borderlands 2 (2 specifically).
I can bang on about this for a while, but I suspect you understand exactly what I mean. So... :)
Yeah I know what you mean. It was never a form of humor I found irritating but I see what you're getting at and I definitely agree with you. I dont make all my characters sarcastic but when it comes to narrator like entities (like L-13), I do tend to steer towards that direction which isnt best. And of course, considering the idea for this game was greatly inspired from portal, it is true that I copy Glados' behavior here and there. Im working on a bigger game where there'll be a lot lot more characters so that problem won't show up but yeah, I get you.
That was a very nice experience. I really like that you have to actualy think the answers! Awesome concept, mate!
I really liked solving the puzzles and the story was pretty good. Great work!
Nice effect and mechanics with the lasers. That was a fun experience
Good game great fun.
This one kinda caught me off guard. At first, I wasn't sure what to expect from this, but I found myself really enjoying it. The audio fits perfectly, the puzzles are just hard enough to make it challenging, but not so challenging that I want to pull my hair out. Awesome job!