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A jam submission

Red ZeroView game page

A sleep deprived student's anxious adventure to survive exams, Halloween and.. zombies?
Submitted by Nova SWARM (@NovaSWARM) — 1 day, 1 hour before the deadline
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Red Zero's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Halloween Themed#124.8504.850
Overall#174.7004.700
Log Line#204.5004.500
User Interface Design#204.6004.600
Game Page Design#294.5504.550
Story#294.6004.600
Sound Effects#314.2004.200
Music#414.3004.300
Accessibility#434.3004.300
Game Graphic & Logo Design#464.6004.600
Voice Acting#632.6002.600
Character Designs#744.4504.450

Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

The challenge of balancing life and responsibilities in college quickly give way to a life and death struggle in this extraordinary game.  Wonderful characters, heartwarming and thrilling moments, and I only got two of fourteen (14!) endings.  A high level of interactivity--it almost feels like a VN-Adventure game hybrid.

The central conceit is very well researched, and the story that unfolds is backed up by a seemingly huge amount of lore.  I'm excited to get back to it and see what else I can discover.

Submitted

Outstanding game! I didn't see all the endings but I really enjoyed what I read, the atmosphere is comfy or scary when it needs to be and I love the backgrounds and how you can see the items in the inventory. Special mention to the music which is also well made (loved the lofi piano approach).

Just a minor bug report now: it seems like you can't save on Mac, I've tried on two of my computers, I don't know if it's just me, but it says "no valid save locations", I hope it gets fixed soon!

Again, congrats on making this game!

Developer

Thank you so much for informing us! Can I get you to try downloading version 1.04 that we just released and see if it allows you to save?

Submitted

Yes, it works now! Thank you!

Submitted

Wow!

I was completely gripped with the story! Amazing writing, art, special effects... A truly wonderful experience. I am someone who gets easily scared, and I absolutely detest zombies, yet the horror was just about dialled right that I could fully enjoy and appreciate the game.

My brain is a little overwhelmed by searching through some of the endings, but I made a few notes while playing...

  • Cool main menu, adds feeling and atmosphere nicely, love how it changes
  • Lovely special additions such as the effects when Leon puts on his Red Rhino helmet, the newspaper with the subtle mention Vtubing, the IS IT PAID?? text (which also made me laugh)!
  • Lovely UI with the phone and the map
  • The maths achievement. (Also how dare you!)
  • The fact that this game is fully complete with multiple endings.

I felt the game page and the endings guide was a great bonus, and I used the guide for the true ending after managing to get 4 alternatives!

Full applause to the whole team responsible for making this very solid entry to the game jam!

I also feel it is worth commenting that that it has been great to see so many encouraging comments from NOVA Swarm on other entries, and the fabulous Twitch streams too which explore some of the submitted games. I think this support goes a long way in contributing to the vibe which makes the Spooktober game jam really great.

All the best,

Ocelot

Submitted

If it is possible, I do wonder how you were able to protect your files in Ren'py. I'm using Ren'py myself for my main game, but I am not too sure how to protect the individual assets so that they can't be so easily found? Do you have any recommendations on how I can further explore this?

Developer(+1)

I'll be honest with you I wasn't even aware that the our art files and such were protected until you mentioned it. Though I did a little digging and it's because we have files set to be classified upon building distribution! 
Here's the Ren'py documentation for it You can insert the lines of code that is shown in the documentation into your project's options.rpy.

Though honestly I really just learnt what this meant because I used https://feniksdev.itch.io/easy-renpy-gui as a starting point and built on top /modified everything. The easy ren'py gui's option file has all the classify lines already scripted out. Definitely recommend checking it out even to see as an example!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much!! This is our first time entering a game jam / VN jam so I wanted to make the most of it! I (Elly) have been having so much fun going through as many VNs on and off stream! Honestly the VNs are such a breath of fresh air for me to stream and it's amazing to see what everyone has accomplished in just a month! 

Submitted

Despite thoughtlessly clicking on one spoilery image on Discord, I still had no idea what sort of horror this game would contain. I was pleasantly surprised when the scary moments started popping up! 

I love, love, love the exploration, point-and-click, and inventory features. These aspects truly made me feel like I was playing a fleshed-out game.  All the visual effects, like the wobbly text and action lines (???), gave the experience that extra oomph. The sound effects were great as well. 

All the art was very clean and polished to look at. The sprites were super expressive and adorable, even during the darker moments of the story. The backgrounds turned creepy yet cool when the horror started settling in. 

I was able to get 12 of the endings and around half of the achievements by myself, then I checked the guide and got all the endings and achievements I was still missing. That's how invested I was. My favorite ending was probably S or M. 

Congrats to the team for creating such a thrilling and entertaining game! I had loads of fun! 

Submitted

I had a fun time with this title: especially with the point and click sections. I didn't get all of the endings, but I enjoyed the ones I did get - including the true ending. The character art is also nice and expressive.

Some of the visual effects you used here were really cool too: like the math-solving scene with the protagonist, and the flashback filter you used for certain spoilery parts of the game.

SPOILER STUFF BELOW:

Also... zombified Professor Fields is really something, isn't he? Love, love, love his glasses shine expression - I adore seeing mad scientist characters, and I'm glad I've met one extra this Spooktober. 

Developer(+1)

Thank you!! The professor's expressions were some of our character artists' favourite to work on~ Very hellsing inspired!

Submitted

So much fun! I enjoyed the exploration elements immensely, and the overall design is engaging and stylish. Very well done!

Submitted

Arson is the way, everytime.

The game was insane, from every point of view. I kept trying to save them all, and I'll refrain from spoiling what happens witth that lol

The dialogues, everyone was so well written, and then the multiple outcomes and posibitilies for every action? And all of this just in one month? Dude, you lot are incredible!

I got almost all endings, did check the guide to get the last one of the swarn ones and didn't mind about the zero ones I didn't had, but besides that? I just wanted every ending I could get lol

The art is gorgeous, and so well crafted. The designs so cool, and the amount is incredible as well.

Music wise? If you don't get best composer, it should still make it to the list. Damn, the ost is SO good! My most sincere congratulations on it!

I'd love to blast more about it, but I did so many endings my head is spinning lol

Submitted

Very cool, and really fun! I'm a big fan of the point and click elements; being able to bring stuff along that can open up new choices in other parts was really neat. Kept me checking every last room I was in! The character designs were very cute, and made for a good contrast with the creepy atmosphere. One moment actually made me gasp; when a character suddenly got tackled by one of the zombies when I thought I was safe, I actually jumped a bit!

One thing I want to mention that I thought was well done was the surreal. dream-like sequences that showed the protagonist's anxieties. It was a really effective way of cutting right to their core, to show the player something at the heart of their character without dialogue. 

Great presentation, great characters, and an interesting story really kept me coming back for more! I just had to get a bunch of the different endings... though I'm still missing a few! You can bet I'll be going back for more. It's so cool that you were able to finish this in a month! It's definitely something you should be proud of. Thanks so much for making this!

Submitted(+1)

This was super slick and stylish :3 The art is absolutely gorgeous! I normally don't like additional gameplay elements and exploration stuff in VNs cos I tend to play em in bed just to read and relax before going to sleep x3 but I did think they were really well done here! Actually, more than just well done, they were fun! Which isn't something I thought I'd ever say about point-and-click stuff cos usually it just frustrates the heck outta me, haha.

The lil animated bits here and there were brilliant, the difficulty level felt about just right for me (I played the jam version cos I already had that version downloaded on my PC), and I absolutely enjoyed the handful of endings that I got (S, W, and A - with W probably being my favourite!)

Admittedly, I am not exactly your target audience x3 I love VNs, and I love horror, so I play a lot of horror VNs + consume a lot of horror in general, but I'm a pretty picky player, haha. As I mentioned, I'm not a fan of additional gameplay elements most of the time, and I also can't stand school/student settings >.< BUT, I want you guys to know that despite all of that, I still had a blast playing through Red Zero :3 So I guess what I'm trying to say is, you won me over, haha :P

If you're wondering why on earth I would even play at all, it's partly cos I hope to check out some of everything from the jam cos I like to binge spooktober games throughout October and see what awesomeness everyone has created, buuuut mostly I found the art & character designs + mention of zombies too much to resist :D Also loving all the fungi stuff btw!! I've been trying to learn more about native fungi this year and even bought a lil identification book x3

You can tell a lot of love went into this!

Submitted(+1)

Great point and click adventure! Interesting story and puzzles. Fun & charming characters and fantastic designs yet it was also really creepy at moments. Loved the exploration and got about half of the endings and stickers! Loved this, great work everybody!

Submitted(+1)

This has been one of my favorites I've played so far. Fun story and I love the art and character designs! I would love an ending guide to help get the ones I missed. :)

Developer(+1)

Hiya! We're honoured that this is one of your favourites! We have an ending guide (and achievement guide) on our tumblr below. It's linked under fun extra stuff though I can understand it's easy to gloss over with how our store page is set up right now!
https://www.tumblr.com/novaswarm/730053033222963200/a-guide-for-our-visual-novel...

Submitted

Thank you for the link. I don't know how I missed it! lol 

Submitted(+1)

A fun scavenger hunt with some funny paths to go down. Good job on the effects and the music was very immersive.