I like the idea of calling and sending the dog. This feature has a good potential 🐕. Unfortunately, I could not understand where I should go. I hear grass when I walk on the left or the right and wood when I walk upper or down. It's good to put the controls in the game but it need voices for blind people. You should put them in your itch.io page in order for blind people to be aware (they can read it using screen reader).
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Turn Off The Song's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Setting, story, characters, and world | #22 | 1.890 | 2.250 |
| Blind-friendly and good use of audio | #24 | 1.960 | 2.333 |
| Fun gameplay | #25 | 1.890 | 2.250 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Honestly, a decent first effort. You have some good ideas and did some things right. It's a solid foundation to build on, and I really do hope you come back next year. :)
The dog mechanic was really quite cool, and the little puzzles were not bad either.
I liked the sound design even if it was sparse, and the controls and UI were quite logical.
The TTS voice gave off cool retro vibes, though I know that not everyone could understand it well.
Unfortunately, you didn't include the keystrokes list in the description or a readme file packaged with the game, nor enough of an explanation of the base mechanics. That really hurt your player interactions, which is a big shame.
For instance, I didn't know whether the game was using a 2d system where WASD would move you in a direction by one step, or if it was free rotation, or if it was limited rotation that snapped you to certain points on the compass. I didn't know whether I should hold the turning keys down or not, and it took me a bit of guesswork to figure out that I had to interact each time to play a note for the puzzles. I also couldn't tell what direction I was facing, or if I had been in that part of the area before, which may have been purposeful but it wasn't explained that way.
The maze was lacking in general ambience [possibly an esthetic choice] and the dog sounds didn't change in pitch to indicate in front and behind, so following it could be hard at times.
Openings weren't indicated in audio, leading to allot of wall bumping and guessing.
There was seemingly no way to sidestep, leading to allot of weird turning to try and line up with doorways.
Sadly, nothing in the options menu worked.
There was no way to learn which sounds meant what before the game started.
I didn't know if I was supposed to keep heading in a general direction, or if things were always randomly generated.
At one point the dog got stuck on the other side of a wall when I called it back while inside a room, and then after that point the dog sounds were doubled as if there were now two dogs, but one of them would never come back to me properly.
Despite my criticisms, I still think this has potential, and especially the keystrokes list and mechanics explanation issues are things that can still be solved quite easily even now just by editing the game description on the page.
Thank you for participating!
Hello. Thank you so much for the criticism provided.
I agree with you (although the two dogs part leaves me confused, thanks for pointing that out, we never got that) and you gave great pointers to becoming better at working with sound
Regardless of all the issues, we're both proud with what we achieved and we know it's another step to making better games in the future.
I'm really glad that you're proud of your work. I know how that feels as I've worked on the sound design/advising side of jams like this before. Even if you don't have the product you wanted, you still achieved many sub goals along the way, you met the deadline, and you now have more skill and more knowledge of what to do next time.
Hi! I'd love to play your game but I couldn't understand what to do: any of "e" & "p" seemed to do anything. The "o" button worked for a while (I hear a dog from left to right) but after sometimes I couldn't hear it anymore. The voice is also a bit difficult to understand.
l'd be glad to try again with some explanations!
Submitted
Fish in the DarkHi! I'm sorry you are having such trouble and thank you for the feedback. The "e" key is supposed to be used when near an interactable, like a door or a puzzle. The "p" key is used to call the dog back to you, in case you lost it's position. The "o" key is used to send the dog to find a clue, so it's normal you hear it in the beggining and then stop hearing it. As for the voice, we used text to speech so it's a bit hard to understand it but it asically says the objective of the game, that you need to solve puzzles and follow the sound of the music to reach the exit.
Hope you give us a second chance!
I am not really sure how should I do the puzzles in the game. [Spoiler] I found a door and behind that a room where one place plays a tone, but could not figure out what triggers it. I like how the dog is pacing around me but I could not figure out how the calling or finding works. Having a grid based movement is nice but the place feels huge. If you could give me any pointers I'd be happy to try it again.
Submitted
Doggy Daycare (jam version)Hi, thank you for the feedback! I am sorry you had trouble finding the controls for the mini games. To play the puzzles you can use WASD or the arrows if you are on keyboard or the right side buttons if you are using a controller (triangle square circle cross for playstation). To interact with the dog you can use O or L1 to send him on a search, and P and R1 to call him back. Hope you give us a second chance and enjoy the game!
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