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How does your game fit the Magical Girl genre?
June Mejos is a Basin Lake City Magical Girl. Her weapon is her enchanted hoodie, that boosts her strength and toughness. It also has other magical properties, such as magic pockets that allow her to carry a large amount of oversized objects.
Which theme(s) do you pick?
4. Under Pressure, 2. Identification: Friend or Foe
How does your game fit those theme(s)?
June is under pressure following a harrowing event, and is questioning her role as a Magical Girl. In her nightmares, she can't be sure if anyone is friend or foe. Perhaps even herself.
If you follow any of the optional challenges, elaborate as you like.
Horror: Though the game is not jump-scary, I was influenced by the horror challenge to make this one darker, atmospheric, and a little creepy.
Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
The grand majority of assets were made during the jam period. FaceMelting Solos created a brand new OST for the game during the jam. Some SFX assets were reused, and others were source from Freesound.org.
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Comments
This was a wonderfully polished work! I really loved the twist of the magical girl element, in that it was a part of the character, but not the main mechanic or point. I know a few of us on our team are fans of point and click puzzle solvers, so that feature was a delight here. We're also fans of moody pieces like this. The world built here is very captivating and immersive, and I was impressed with the amount of backstory and world-building that was put into this chapter. There was clearly a lot of attention to detail here, too, from the different fonts to the ease in which the player is given instructions for how to play and where to go.
My only (small) complaint was that I wish June had a sprint option. June's walking speed is fine in the beginning because the room is small, but once the walking areas grew, her walking speed immediately felt slow. I understand that a sprint feature would go against the point of the nightmare chase scene, but in an instance like that, I could completely accept that feature becoming unavailable for that section, especially since it's clear that the game adjusts the nightmare's speed toward the end to give the player a chance to hit the switch and get to the ladder.
Also, great soundtrack and overall sound design! They were great details to make this whole game a cohesive work.
Thanks so much for playing, and your feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :D
You aren't the first to mention the walking speed, and a sprint would be a fairly easy feature to add. (Famous last words lol...) The only section that does come to mind is the sewer chase, as you'd mentioned... I might be able to get away with simply making the area longer and requiring you to sprint to win... could even help add a little intensity to it. Thankfully that section is created with seamless tiles, so extending it is very doable.
Huge shout out to Facemelting Solos who created the full soundtrack for this game! We've worked together a number of times, and though this one was a completely different mood, he nailed it again! Couldn't do it with out him!
I've got at least 5 more chapters planned, I hope you'll check them out when they are ready! (Not setting a deadline though, I have a history of that, and still have 2 other games in need of finishing ^v^; )
My first thought on seeing this was wow, this is a bold step for the series. I think it has toyed with these themes before, but this is deeper, darker, more real, and more serious.
That line about not being able to go back in particular hits hard.
I love the setting of the ruined dream city. We barely got to explore it in this game, but I'm excited to see more of it.
The graphics, animations, and FacemeltingSolos soundtrack are, as usual, spot-on. I like the mirror effect on the water in particular (being vague, because spoilers).
The UX... it breaks from adventure game conventions and I'm not convinced.. Having to be close to objects to interact with them is annoying, and it isn't helped by June's glacial movement speed. Clicking and dragging items to use them just feels weird, and it's not helped by the pop-in inventory panel. None of it kills the game, but all together it makes it feel awkward and kinda janky.
The hinting on what can be interacted with and how is much appreciated, though, and it feels immediately intuitive without needing explanation.
For better or for worse, my biggest complaint about this game is its brevity. It's a demo, but feels short even for a demo. I'm definitely excited for future updates!
Thanks so much for playing, and your feedback! I really appreciate it!
I'm glad you enjoyed the different direction this one took. I was worried that it might turn players off a bit, but so far, so good. I'm also glad you liked the mirror effect! It started as a one-off detail in the first room, but became a little more important as I kept working on the game, building up to the end of chapter 1.
For the UX... I have to admit, I've played a few P&C adventure games, but not a ton... and it's been awhile. The last one I played had a fairly janky UX as I recall. (Though it was a very good story) Do you have any thoughts on what you'd prefer to drag-and-drop? More like, click once to pick up and hold an item? And then click again to use/drop it? I'm not promising I'll change it, but I might consider it. Same goes for the distance thing. I doubt I'll eliminate it, but I might loosen up some of the distance requirements.
As for your biggest complaint (the length) I assure you, I desperately wanted to add more. But I think there was brief thread on Discord about crunch and feelings around it. I made a target, ONE chapter. I mapped it out and planned it, and by sticking to those guns, this was one of my least crunchy jams in a long time. So while I wish I had been able to do more, I'm happy that I managed to do this much in a relatively healthy manner.
Still, I've got most of the story mapped out in my head, and intend to see it through! Just no promises on deadlines XD
Most of the adventure games I've played were built with Adventure Game Studio, which is loosely inspired by Sierra and LucasArts games mechanically. In those, you'd select an item in your inventory, it would become your cursor and you'd click on things with it to interact with them. Interacting with something "out of reach" would usually result in your character automatically walking to it, and then running the interaction as normal.
I definitely get why you decided to limit scope like this. While it feels a bit thin to play, what's there is quite polished, and setting a smaller goal is probably a lot healthier as a developer.
Wow, I was not expecting something like that. The atmosphere is really on point, the art, designs, dialogues and music, everything complement each other to immerse the player through Junes instable and emotionally charged journey. I feel like the game fit well "Life's but a walking shadows", as, even if June has magical power and feels great about helping people, she can't help herself and would like to go back to her previous life (+the reference at the end of the first nightmare...). The challenges facing June are very human and relatable, even more in nowadays world.
I am impressed that you did managed to pull out such a consistent experience: the story, code, art and music of the whole game in just a month. There is so much work and attention to details (I mean, even the font is changing based on the character talking).
I remembered I was playing a jam only after hitting the start of the second nightmare.
Can't wait for the story to be finished.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for playing, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I'm also happy you picked up on and appreciated some of the details, like the fonts. It was definitely a little bit of a crunch for one month... but by settling on and sticking to one chapter, I managed to make it work. My biggest disappointment was not being able to add more story content, but honestly I'm glad I didn't push it any further... because that would have gotten rough.
I'm glad you are looking forward to more, as I have the bulk of the story planned out, and intend to see it through! It just might take a little while XD
Wow great stuff. looking forward to more updates to the story!
Thanks so much for playing! It may be a little while before I can get back to working on it, but I more or less have the rest of the game planned out!
The art is cute!
Thanks so much, I'm glad you liked the art! That's where a huge portion of my dev-time went for this game... my drawing tablet got a workout!
There are so many subtle details to unpack in the graphics of this game, and the puzzles were just the right difficulty. Now I wonder if you had an idea for a story like this for a while, or if the 86 themes made the game turn darker...
Thanks so much for playing! You're the second to say the difficulty was just right... Point and click games often frustrate me, even the ones I like, so I'll wear those comments as a badge of honor!
This darker idea has been brewing in my mind for a couple of years now... but the 86 themes were a good opportunity to try it, and also influenced the direction it went. So it was a bit of both!
I think the only exposure to point and click games I had was the old flash I played like 2 years ago, it was also very dark and nightmarish, but I am still not very good at them.
The art is gorgeous and really clean. Music is sneaky and mysterious, writing is pretty good.
I like how it looks so clean and complete, maybe even confident. Good job!
Thanks so much for playing, and your kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed the artwork, as that was definitely the biggest workload for this one. And shout out to Facemelting Solos for his original soundtrack, he always does amazing work!
I've personally had a love/hate relationship with point-and-click games, so I figured it was time to try my hand at one XD
I was deadline fighting for my project so I only have time to play your game after the deadline.
It's a short but nice creation. The art is in great quality. The quiz for me is in perfect difficulty. It needs to think for a while but so far I don't need the hint. I also like the idea that game over is just waking up from a nightmare instead of a "Game Over" scene like games normally do. Can't wait another chapter, although I am not a fans of depression story. Hopes it get well in the later chapters, or at least offer player a chance to earn a good ending
Thanks so much for playing! I'm glad you found the difficulty balance to be good... one thing that's always driven me NUTS in point-and-click games are insane solutions that are impossible to figure out without trial-and-error. But at the same time, I didn't want it to be so easy that you'd instantly figure it out.
I don't want to spoil future chapters, but if you stick around, I think you'll be satisfied in the end. (Now I just have to find the time to make it all XD )