Hey there, thanks for joining our jam!
I almost can't believe this was the team's first game jam. Overall, I felt it was super well-polished, the gameplay was simple but clean, the world building was intriguing, the take on the theme felt very fresh, and I was easily invested into the characters.
The gameplay is overall smooth, the only nitpicks I have are that you have to pick from dialogue options with the arrow keys instead of WASD, and because the areas within a map tend to be similar, it can be easy for the directionally challenged (me) to get lost, especially since some of the areas are a little too long and empty.
The UI itself is intuitive, nice to look at, and easy to understand. My only nitpick here is that font can be slightly hard to read at times, and I could not for the life of me pull "Aveline" from her dialogue box, that "A" is just too fancy.
Visually, what can I say. The art is gorgeous. Absolutely stunning for a game done in a short amount of time, the world felt very alive, the maps were intriguing, the designs were great, and it was just so nice to look at. I loved the character designs, the parallax layers, everything felt great. The only things visually that felt slightly off were the character's walk, since it doesn't look like her legs cross at any point in time, and the platforming tiles felt somewhat out of place. There's only 2 instances where I thought the camera was wonky, which is at the very beginning, when you move over to the left guy (who, I think, shouldn't appear until after the old lady's request is done) the camera zooms in making you feel like there should be something there when there isn't. The other time is at the very long area of the forest, where if you come from the right side, the camera starts on the left and then zooms over to the right. Tiny nitpicks though.
Audio-wise, virtually no complaints here. The music was great, the audio feedback was good, nothing felt jarring or out of place - except, maybe, for the characters speaking. I immediately got Animal Crossing vibes out of it, which felt out of place in the extremely macabre setting. It might be that the audio was too high pitched, perhaps it could have benefited from being lower pitched, but without hearing it I can't be too sure so don't take my word for it. That, and if you sped through dialogue, the speed at which the dialogue sound came through was a little disconcerting. Perhaps skipping through should just stop the audio. Otherwise, it definitely sounded great.
Overall, I thought the game was, although simple, fun, extremely interesting to look at, and the characters and visuals really sold the world building. Super well done for a week's worth. Totally solid game guys, and congrats on making your first game!
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