Awesome 90s vibes! I did get stuck on the first level, and even the hints didn't help much. Love the graphics, colour palette, and website! You've even got some good stuff in your GitHub README. The trailer video is really cool!
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Squirveillance's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #6 | 4.308 | 4.308 |
| Overall | #8 | 4.115 | 4.115 |
| Audio | #12 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Graphics | #13 | 4.385 | 4.385 |
| Theme interpretation | #100 | 3.654 | 3.654 |
| Gameplay | #105 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/mgackowski/game-off-2023
Comments
this is really incredible!! reminds me of Orwell but i like the mechanics in this a lot better
my only notes are that sometimes i would click in the right place but at the wrong zoom amount and wouldn't get any prompt/dialogue which made me think i was just super lost until i checked the walkthrough. also, sometimes i wouldn't understand that i was supposed to enhance instead of scan or vice versa. maybe something letting you know enhance was unlocked could be useful?
Submitted
🐟 Scale the Fish 🐟Wow wow wow. Blown away by the overall quality and polish on this, it just feels good to play. Also, I haven’t played many things like it, in a jam or not, and to top it off the writing is solid and pretty funny.
Excellent work!
Submitted
The Little GiantWow, it's an amazing game!! Really great implementation of the theme. It's a little hard to understand how to play, maybe some tooltips, or some reminder of the assistant would be great. Congrats!
Submitted
Ethereal EvasionWow I really like the concept. It had fun pictures. But I couldn't get through the first image on my own. Fun concept but the scanning feature is a bit finicky making it kinda frustrating to use. I followed the guide you had posted for the first level and even with the guide it was a struggle to move through it just because of zoom levels.
It was difficult to know what level of zoom I was supposed to be at. Then I tried the second level without using the guide and I couldn't do it. I felt like I scanned the whole picture. But it turned more into a game of trying to figure out what zoom level and location I was supposed to click at rather than trying to find suspicious looking things.
Really cool concept though and with some adjusting of that mechanic, I think this could be a fun experience. Would've liked to go through more of the story but I couldn't get pass the second level :(
Submitted
The Fruit GameWow. This was impressive. Really feels like a bigger project. Really like your take on the enhacing images trope. Also love the fact it's 1984 with squirrels, and the "multiple endings". Sarah is also incredibly nice with her comments for what I've seen so far. I really hope yo go very far and even maybe win this jam. Amazing work you guys!
Submitted
ScaleroThis definitely feels way beyond a simple game jam game, congratulations on the accomplishment! The concept is really interesting and unique and well executed, especially with the art style. So good! I'm keeping it and plan to keep playing through it, I hope you plan to continue to develop it. I just went ahead and followed your whole dev team, I'm super impressed and interested to see what you guys do in the future!
Submitted
Scales & ScalesHi everyone, we've read through everyone's comments and although we can't change the game while the voting is happening, we've included a walkthrough video to help you experience more of it if you got stuck!
Yeah that helped a lot. The problem was I thought I did not need to scan an area again since it was already scanned and enhanced.
Game was gorgeous at every step and big reveal part was very very good. This can be a very well published game if you also pay attention what is going on and how to use the mechanics.
for example there was a guy(I mean squirrel) in the bar that was drugging a drink. I could not click at him at all but we were talking about if AI wants to dance or some mundane other things.
Or at the first picture we just found out something because a couple was arguing instead of looking for real clues like tire marks or checking out a shady guy with a briefcase.
I love everything else about the game and it was pretty well made.
Neat premise and cool artwork. I like the idea of the hidden object detective game, but the first level might need to be a bit more obvious for onboarding players like me.
I got stuck after the bench, so I tried switching to different cases, as instructed, but they didn't appear to be available until I finished the first picture. I'm not sure how linear your story is, but if it's possible, maybe let players work on multiple cases, so they don't feel blocked?
Feels weird to have to go to the walkthrough cheats straight away.
Still, great effort. Player onboarding is hard, especially with the wide disparity between lazy players and dedicated players.
Submitted
Manifest ViolenceAn amazing amount of work! Investigation-style games have always been my favorite and I think idea is fun and really well executed — with some cleaning up, more obvious discrepancies maybe, and more chapters this is totally a game I'd want in my collection. It's about time there were more fun and unique spins on the Observation Duty-style formula. Plus, it's cute and hilarious. Love it!
Submitted
Hook, Line, & StackerReally interesting game and the visuals were awesome. A little bit confusing at times it felt more like guess work then any obvious judgement call but really well made
Submitted
Scales of FateAwesome! like the innovative mechanic and puzzle-solving game flow :-D
Submitted
Scale ArenaAmazing game! Top notch quality. The overall theme is hilarious and very creative, and some of the dialogs were funny (Dr. A. Corn, come on!! alol).
The puzzles were a bit confusing ]though, as I was expecting to find really compromising stuff in the pictures (the tire tracks are a great example of what I went to check first, but a couple and a grafitti/poster weren't so obvious), so I had to look at the hints provided in the description.
Submitted
DragonSkaleOh my gosh this game is so polished and elaborate with everything... Full narrative, stylish art, brilliant audio, intriguing mechanic. It truly amazed me and drew me in for its entirity!!
Maybe consider adding a small hint system, or maybe make detection slightly more lenient? I had trouble figuring out what exactly to enhance or scan, and wouldn't be able to do it without the walkthrough steps you provided.
But it's such an amazing piece of art! Looking forward to seeing this game in a larger scale on other platforms!!
Submitted
Duck MasterThanks so much for your kind words, and for sticking with the game until the end! And yeah, the hint system / scan detection are all great ideas which we'd love to add (if it was allowed under the jam rules) - and you're definitely not alone in experiencing trouble with progression. Hopefully a 1.1 feature!
Really cool idea. Hard for me to figure out what to actually be looking for and clicking on but the idea and execution is really good. A cool take on point and click adventure games.
Submitted
Scales of Fate
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