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Frey Nel DEMO's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound/Music | #3 | 4.750 | 4.750 |
| Art / Graphics | #14 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Controls / UI | #35 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
| Overall Fun | #42 | 3.750 | 3.750 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
If you have competed before, how has your game changed?
Update notes:
All major bugs from previous version(s) fixed
New music! All the music for the prologue and chapter one have been completed
New gameplay! You can now access a proper inventory, and even combine items!
New tools! You can now access Rosemary's notebook to take notes of things you might want to remember
General visual, audio, and collision box improvements
Genre #1
Horror
Any Horror
Puzzle
Mystery | Advenure
Rating #2
For adults
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Comments
Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 7! My name's Hythrain and I'm one of the hosts and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!
I was looking forward to seeing a bit more of what Frey Nel had to offer. I was super excited when I saw the beginning of the game had been completely changed, giving us new characters and areas. I will say that at the end, though, I was saddened because I was hoping for a bit more to give me some spooks before the game ended, yet it held all the same horror parts as it originally had. Because of this, there's not much I can offer in terms of feedback. However, one thing I DID notice was that when you transition between areas with different music fast enough, it can cause the game to error.
Oh, also it felt a bit odd that Z and X did the same thing. Might I suggest making X be the cancel button instead of right shift?
For context, I'm not a big horror game player, I mostly experience them by watching streamers.
🧚What I liked about this game:
-The graphics
-The BGM
-The horror build-up
🧚What this game needs:
-Content! The game is currently too short, there is a nice build-up but instead of starting the horror party, the "end of the demo" is displayed.
-Better controls, or at least the possibility to remap them. I know RM horror dev don't like giving mouse control to the player (it would be chasing phases too easy, I guess?), but placing the cancel button on Esc is illegal. Anyone playing without a controller would really appreciate some better keyboard controls.
-Better polish (see the bug sections for some samples of things to improve upon)
-There are no fairies in this game :-(.
🧚Bugs:
-There are a lot of tiles I shouldn't be able to walk over, and cupboards who act as invisible walls
-Playing piano in the starting house ignore your volume options
-One of the main character's emotions is misaligned compared to the others
-There is something appearing for a short amount of time at the top left of the screen when closing a menu (may be the health bar?)
🧚Random thoughts (neither positive nor negative):
-The "command remember" and "auto run" options seem quite useless, they could be removed (by the way, the character is quite slow)
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game! Revamping the controls is definitely on my list of priority fixes, as is collision errors and the piano bug. I'm about to go through all the expressions in the prologue and chapter one, so I should be able to find the errant expression. I'll try and figure out the menu based visual bug, I haven't encountered that one myself. I'm not sure how to remove the command remember or auto run options, but I'll try and figure that out. I have been considering making Rosemary's walking speed a touch faster. Thank you so much for your feedback!
This is the menu bug I was talking about. This element appear briefly after closing the menu.
So I found the key in the well, what am I supposed to do with it?
No door in the house can be open by it, and I don't see anything else to do.
Hi! Have you found the lighter?
I crafted the lighter, yes.
head upstairs and interact with the bedside table in the child’s room
Link to VOD:
(live at 9pm EST tonight)As it stands now, I feel very neutral on this game. Some of that, I think, comes from not really feeling sure if this is a horror game... or just a story game? I found it in the horror genre, but what little I could experience in the demo didn't lead me to feel like this was a scary game. Perhaps that comes later as the story develops, but that genre didn't come across much in the demo.
I like the pixel art style for it, but I will say the buildings feel rather flat compared to the trees and such. Some of the objects too, like the soccer ball, feel a bit out-of-place design wise. It's oddly more detailed, somehow? If I were you, I might also change where I place the bottoms of walls as far as the walking grid system goes, so that the character doesn't appear to climb them.
The music is beautiful, I love where you're going with that.
Story could use a few clarifications and consistency to it. I think it's a really nice touch that our main character has two moms, but I was confused for a bit because of the way it was brought up in the story by saying "your mommy" instead of just "mommy". I'm also confused on the age of the character we're playing, because sometimes the character seems to be speaking with muddled consonants like a toddler, and sometimes not. And me personally, I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I feel about playing a horror game as a possibly toddler character, that feels a little morally weird.
Finally, we definitely need more guidance on what controls handle which action when, at least to start. I did a lot of guessing to get certain prompts. And with items that have a specific use, like the keys, having part of the description be something like "seems to go to a small lock, perhaps on a drawer?" would be helpful. If you aren't controlling how or when folks make certain discoveries (I certainly discovered the well before I discovered the lighter and thus the bedroom), then you'll want to give them an idea of what the item might be used for so they don't make an assumption and possibly get stuck/frustrated thinking the game broke.
Oh, and one nit-picky thing. The fourth-wall breakage where we seem to "speak" to the character we're controlling, not sure how I feel about that. Is that supposed to be us? Some sort of guiding voice? It just felt really odd, and almost out of place to me, but that might be an entirely me thing.
Wishing you all the best with this game, depending on where you take it I would consider trying it again in a completed state.
Thank you for your feedback! It is a horror game, but its a horror that builds as the story goes on. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a story or puzzle game, but I feel not categorizing it as a horror game would be misleading as to the type of content you'll encounter.
As for the "out of place" objects, thank you for noting that. All of the world assets are downloaded from various tilesets here on itch.io, and going through and style matching all the objects isn't high priority at the moment, but hearing that it is noticeable is good to know. If you remember where you found some collision errors (such as being able to walk on walls) it would be much appreciated if you could let me know where those occurred.
Mama referring to Rosemary's other mom as "Your mommy" is based on the language my parents used to refer to each other, but I will make note of your confusion to see if its a common note. Rosemary is 8 years old, but she has a lisp/speech impediment that is notable with certain consonants. Thank you for letting me know you were confused on her age, I will keep that in mind!
You're right about the controls not being communicated well. I will add a control prompt at the start of the game in the next update. I'm sorry you got frustrated with the items and where to use them, but as figuring out where to use things is an integral part of the game I do not see myself significantly changing the descriptions.
Similar to the item usage, the fourth wall breaking is intentional. It is interesting that you interpreted it as the player speaking to the character, thank you for sharing that observation.
Thank you so much for giving Frey Nel a try, and thank you for sharing your insights and feedback!
Yeah, the "your mommy" would work for sure if the relationship was already established. And the speech impediment did occur to me, but I never want to assume a disability. Somehow mentioning both ahead, or making note of it somewhere, would help.
As far as the horror genre, I trust you. It just doesn't come across in the demo. 🙂