As someone who studied mycology in grad school, doing a project collecting mushroom specimens from grasslands, I really appreciated this game =) I also appreciated that when trying to pick or take some things there was a note that it might disturb the ecosystem. Overall the game is really well executed: the art is beautiful, the variety of music/sfx fits nicely, the required verbs and nouns are clear. It was also fairly long, with lots of different puzzles, so that's quite impressive for a jam submission (especially since this was your second!).
A couple little things you might edit: After I got the power back on, I missed part of the message (seemed like it was missing a "press any key" to hold the message until after I read it). Also I would add "DEPOSIT" specimens as another synonym alternative to "DROP". In scientific writing I am used to seeing "the dried mushroom specimens were deposited at xyz herbarium".
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Sentient Beings (TALP)'s itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Tutorial | #1 | 4.357 | 4.357 |
Cheatsheet (optional) | #1 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
Overall | #1 | 4.367 | 4.367 |
Story | #1 | 4.357 | 4.357 |
Puzzles | #2 | 4.357 | 4.357 |
Enjoyment | #2 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
Graphics (optional) | #2 | 4.714 | 4.714 |
Characters | #2 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Story is very simple, but the concept of collecting new life is very fun. Took me a while to find the last specimen, but the cheat sheet was super helpful. The electrical panel puzzle was a little challenging (maybe too much so for a young kid), but I found it really enjoyable. I never felt like the puzzles were unfair - they always rewarded a little time and thought. Art is very cute as well
I absolutely LOVED the atmosphere in this game. No peril, no stress, just a lovely experience of wandering around a beautiful environment with gorgeous chilled music, collecting shiny things. Exactly my favourite kind of game.
A few quick comments (spoilers):
After getting the specimen out of the burrow, I couldn't pick it up until night had fallen - is this a bug?
If you fill the nocturnal enclosures before the diurnal ones, and examine the full nocturnal enclosures, it says 'All of the enclosures are full! Once the nocturnal enclosures are full, our mission will be complete!' when the nocturnal enclosures are already full. Should it say 'diurnal' there?
(After I subsequently filled the diurnal ones, it still said the same thing, even though the nocturnal ones were full.)
The only thing I was flummoxed by was the launch code. I hadn't noticed that there were numbers that corresponded to the map areas, and by the time I had to enter the code I had already secured the robot and couldn't go back outside to check the areas! Is it possible to un-secure the robot or to see the map from the launch manual at all?
Overall, a really great, polished game. A pleasure to play.
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