| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #4 | 4.417 | 4.417 |
| Overall | #6 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Story | #6 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Theme | #7 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Creativity | #7 | 4.083 | 4.083 |
| Horror | #10 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Gameplay | #18 | 3.167 | 3.167 |
Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Which Theme did you choose?
How did you implement your chosen Theme into your game?
The villain is an evil AI from a video game
Did you implement any of the Bonus Challenges and if so, which ones?
No
Really interesting with a lot of personality and thought put into it. Like the classic resident evil movement and camera system and character development.
Would of liked a little more action over text and collectibles but that's more of a personal preference and I'm rushing a little as I've still got 6 games to try.
Very solid entry which has lots polish and promise.
Notes from gameplay (contains spoilers):
- Nice splash logo for your team/company
- Nice inclusion of content warning
- Great font choice for main menu. Fun effect on mouseover
- "Continue" button is clickable even if I haven't played yet. I'm assuming it started me in the same place as if I had started a new game, but restarting to be safe (edit: it did not seem to, seemed to have started me inside a mansion, but new game starts me in a hallway with a much more pixelated overlay)
- Interesting art style. Heavily pixelated which leads to a distracting effect when the pixels move such as in character animation. Up close and when paused, the character art looks quite nice, especially details like the cat ear headphones
- Should the camera be fixed? My character is walking away from the camera. Looks like this is intentional, but the control scheme is a bit disorienting, especially as I have to rotate and then walk forwards to aim my movement
- I like the CONCEPT of this camera perspective, feels artistic and gives me the impression of a security camera watching me walk, but I think the need for navigating the character makes this difficult - if I could just press a single button to move and not have to worry about aiming where I'm going, I think this would be a lot more effective. Maybe making A and D strafe versus turn would help mitigate this. As is, it feels like it's adding unnecessary complexity which doesn't bring anything to the table, eg no engaging mechanics in the movement, just frustration in navigating
- Pixelated text is difficult to read, too pixelated
- Ah, great pull back to another level of gameplay. Awesome opening
- Nice ambient background sound
- Nice sound on dialog printout
- The knife doesn't seem to do anything - clicking within the dialog box seems to advance dialog without needing to click the knife?
- Love the "view log" option to review game text
- Room design is great, lots of details to create an interesting scene
- Character design is cool and quirky. Idle animation is a bit odd, feels like they are bouncing in place
- Would be nice to have a menu option to adjust text display speed (eg display all at once instead of having to repeatedly click, or slow down printout speed)
- Inventory is cute. I like the ability to read more about each item, gives the character instant personality
- Nice audio feedback when selecting options like backpack and options
- Navigation still is hard to manage. This might be nice mapped to a controller.
- Need a prompt telling me to use E to interact
- Annoying I have to go back for the phone, I had already tried exploring the dorm room and couldn't do anything
- Ahh, creepy cut back to video game!
- James looks way older than college-aged
- Narrative is interesting, but I think word choice could be punched up a bit to make it more compelling to read. Eg different speech patterns for different characters, more unique word choices, dialog feels a bit stiff/stilted
- Music would be nice to have in the background during this walking scene.
- Walking scene is a lot of info-dump, would be nice to have some interactive tutorial-style stuff here to keep the player engaged instead of just reading
- Great character designs, love how unique they all look. Ollie also looks a bit old with the tie and tie clip. Love Annie's tattoos and Victoria's freddy kreugar shirt
- Screen is black when Nick starts talking. Intended?
- The shift to handdrawn art is interesting. I like seeing the different characters in a less blocky way (also hadn't realized James was black, the lighting in the walking scene didn't make it clear enough), but it feels a bit jarring compared to the earlier art style we've seen a lot of. Maybe include some more handdrawn art earlier in the game or in places like the menu/options/pictures on the walls/etc to incorporate it in more and make the use of multiple art styles more cohesive
- Very cute character designs with the handdrawn art, I get a better sense of who they are through this. Love Nick's code shirt!
- Mansion scene design looks great! Love all the details I can immediately see, like the portratit on the wall, flowers, jukebox in the kitchen
- Victoria: "Guys this is the friends" - should be "the friend"
- Nick: "I've been working living here" - maybe "working and living"?
- Nice job giving the player a choice in what to do, feels like we needed something like this a bit sooner. Will there be a save point so I can come back and retry helping the other group?
- Nick: "I could definitely" should be "I could definitely use"
- Magazine is a great way to introduce lore in a more interactive, less lore-dumpy way. Nice work here.
- Music is nice, but doesn't quite match the vibe. Doesn't feel like party music, or quirky gamer music, or horror music. Being able to change it via the jukebox is nice!
- Found a journal entry in the bathroom (3/6) - Kinda gives away a bunch of the story here, I think. I probably wasn't meant to find this. I'm just wandering around and ended up here. Maybe guide me better towards the party setup tasks so I don't find this too soon
- Found the journal entry in the living room. I like this concept a lot, adds collection mechanics to lore backstory, but I think the journal writing could be improved a bit to feel more authentic and characterize Germain. Feels very on-the-nose - would someone writing a journal write this way, explaining out every detail like this?
- Part of the scenery is unskinned from some angles in the living room. There's a bright white section left of the flowers
- Still haven't figured out where I'm going. Would be useful to have something like an objective tracker on the left side of the screen with text like "Get beer from storage closet on east side of house" to help guide me
- Perspective in utility closet/laundry room is funky, can't really see what I'm interacting with nor can I see Victoria
- Lots of fun details in the closet with the fridge! Love the stuff on the shelves and the cute drawings on the fridge
- So are we drinking Germain's beer?
- Lol jumpscare from Ollie!
- Basement entrance highlight is on the ceiling, not around the door
- Beer name is confusing, Annie says they are called Pilsen Love? But backpack and zoom in shows them called Maguito Clasico. Cute kitty illustration on them!
- Wait, Annie's friend brews this beer? Why was it in Germain's fridge?
- Doorway to living room is missing texture and is bright white, after the scene where I get a beer
- Nick's "puzzle" objective feels very artificial. Text could be refined here to make this feel a bit more organic
- Love the cell phone lighting effect on 2nd floor!
- Ooh creepy phone call! Is it coming from inside the house? :P
- Phone call triggered again when I left the bedroom, but same dialog
- Should probably have some "too many tries" check for the password, could brute force it
- Phone rang again, but this time it's new dialog. I was ignoring it, thinking it was a bug after the repeated dialog earlier.
- ???: "Who won't you talk to me" - should be "Why won't..."
- Good use of the phone to give hints, but I have no idea where to go. It might be the camera perspective obscuring things to interact with, but I feel like I've tried interacting with everything I can on the 2nd floor. The frustrating navigation also makes it feel tedious to revisit places I've been.
- Oh, I was supposed to go downstairs? "Reach out for help" made me think I had to make a phone call or conduct an exorcism. There was no previous hint that Sam has a lockpicking hobby, so I only got the bobby pin by giving up and wandering around
- OMG I ONLY JUST NOW REALIZED I COULD USE THE MOUSE TO HELP NAVIGATE. I WAS SPINNING VIA WASD.
- Oh very glitchy when I use the mouse though. Resets camera a bunch, so I just keep walking back and forth
- Returning to 2nd floor, tried to unlock bathroom door. No popup when clicking E. Phone rang, repeat of the first phone call and THEN the "open the door" dialog appeared while inside the bedroom
- The Scream phone call repeated yet again. Then the 2nd call. Hitting the bedroom door seems to trigger a phone call and the sequence keeps resetting.
- Stuck unable to move after using right mouse to navigate. Alt tabbing seems to fix it
- Lol Nick jumpscare got me!
- Now....the phone is still ringing while Nick is right here....
- Lol, nice meta wink about the "budget to make a view"
- Right mouse isn't working anymore for turning while walking :( Seems unnecessary to send me to the top of the stairs and not just back to the party
- The handdrawn party scene lingers way too long, I can't seem to click past it?
- Nice detail to have jukebox music stop when lights go out
- Should the screen be black while Nick is telling me to turn on the breakers?
- Found another journal entry. The plot is fairly clear and not that mysterious, but I'm enjoying seeing the evolution.
- Cute animations in the video game cabinet. Wish I could play it as a minigame!
- Nice animation in the TV. Poor Nick :(
- Maybe it's another prank....THUMP. ROFL. Great timing!
- Aww James :(
- Stray animation of Victoria's hand is briefly shown when rewatching the TV after returning to the basement
- Why couldn't folks just go out the front door?
- In the studio now. Sam is following too closely, she's inside me
- Hot dog is gruesome!
- Nice tense music
- Hand holding the cell phone has become wonky, fingers in front of phone. Not as neatly animated as when visiting 2nd floor
- Unsure what to do. Camera angles and navigation make it really hard to easily explore and figure out where I have/haven't been. I think I've checked all the desks, also checked the lunchroom
- Who is Connie?
- Sam followed me and now I'm blocked in a cubicle. Had to rotate and make a ton of tiny movements to get her to move so I could escape
- I'm just walking in circles, clearly I'm missing something to make the game progress....
- How did I miss this entire hallway.... Was that door closed before?
- Lol monster statue jumpscare got me!
- Camera angles make it really easy to miss doors, almost missed a door in the eyeball hallway maze
- Hallway with blue eye needs another angle or more lighting or to be shorter, got stuck at the back and couldn't see which way I was walking, took a long time to navigate out
- Eye hallways is tedious, just lots of walking. Puzzle concept is cool, but getting the eyes is not very fun
- RIP dev team
- "The eyes I picked up..." text gets dull when it's repeated word for word so many times
- Upside down room is trippy! Nice and creative!
- Am I supposed to be able to get my keys?
- Game graphics become very pixelated and blurry when in the green eye room. I'm guessing this is intentional (entering the game from the intro?) due to the wall "breaking" which comes next
- Victoria: "I feel like I passed away..." - do you mean passed out? Passed away means dying
- Oh hai dere Germain
- Clicking through dialog experiences a brief freeze before Victoria finds the recorder
- This bit feels like lore-dump monologue. Writing could be punched up to be more dramatic and/or do something more dynamic like have the recording play over office speakers during a chase scene where the player flees from the entity
- Oh no, I'm next!
- Eww walking on Sam's body
- Oh, I guess I can't use E to interact with it, I'm ded :(
- Maybe have checkpoint be AFTER Sam's death
- Chase scene is really frustrating with how annoying navigation is, especially since I have to repeat the dialog every time
- Why can't I use the EMP right now?
- Ugh, I'm on like attempt 5 of this chase scene. Really frustrating and it's highlighting just how janky the movement controls are
- Seems I can run into the reception desk and entity won't follow, but as soon as I leave it gets me
- Guess if you fail enough the entity doesn't chase you?
- Entity's voice is cool
- lol MCE
- Ugh, not another chase sequence. Time to die a bunch more...
- Cool to be in the video game world. Music here could be punched up into something more thrilling
- Again, checkpoint should be at the start of the chase sequence, not before all the exposition
- Why can't I use the EMP yet...
- I'm guessing the white flash was me using the emp?
- 4th wall break at the end is very cool, but we're again getting into lore-dump monologue territory. The death of the author scene is cool, but overall the ending isn't hitting emotional beats because of how much we're just being TOLD
- Credits are PERFECT, as is the followup! Ends on a real high note! THIS is showing not telling! Try to harness that more through the story instead of dumping so much explanation on the reader
Overall, I think this was REALLY GOOD and I hope you guys continue work on this to expand it out into a commercial release. It's close!
Writing needs tweaking: first, punch up the dialog in a lot of places to make it more exciting to read. It comes across a bit stilted at times. Second, there's a lot of spots where we're just being TOLD stuff instead of shown it - part of the beauty of video game narrative is how much readers can be engaged into the storytelling, so a lot of the scenes feel flat because we're just reading without any input. Third, the plot itself is pretty predictable as the idea is a fairly well-trodden one. The overall story would benefit from a bit more mystery about what's going on, maybe through toning down the journal entries into more vague hints written from Germain's frustrated perspective - someone dealing with this wouldn't necessarily explain everything going on to himself. He'd already know, right? So the references could be more oblique. "Sheryl's upset. She doesn't get what we're trying to do here, how it will change the world" versus "Sheryl hates me using the military AI"
The camera angles and character navigation introduce tedious, frustrating elements which detract from overall gameplay, especially when some pivotal scenes rely upon using them deftly. IMHO, I think an overhaul of this system is really needed, because as-is, it undercuts the great core game you guys have made. The player should not feel like they are struggling with the game mechanics, especially when they end up having to replay parts because of that struggle.
Again, amazing work and I really hope you guys continue with this! It's a wonderful effort and with some more refinement and improvement it could make a great viral indie release!
Thank you SO MUCH for playing and for all the thoughtful feedback! I won't address all your observations because I agree with most of them, but some things that I'd like to add:
-We're still a small and new team so visually we're working with mostly pre-made assets modified to suit our purposes. Some examples: the model for Victoria didn't have a Freddy color pattern, the models for James and Sam didn't have blue and yellow colors, Nick didn't have a beard, etc. This also explains why Ollie looks more like an office worker than a college student, or why James looks older than the rest. Despite all this, I'm glad / relieved that the dissonance isn't larger and that it doesn't feel like an *blatant* asset flip.
-Design wise I really like the fixed camera angles for various reasons (mainly framing and blocking) but I do agree that the tank controls are janky and harder to parse than needed, and the camera system doesn't help a lot in that regard. Do you think that having cameras with fixed positions that follow you (like Silent Hill) would make navigation a bit easier? Ideally I'd like to figure out a way to keep the fixed angles in as many places as possible / where it makes sense, while adding and fixing the movement funcitonality in order to allow movement to be less frustrating.
-Also, do you think the mouse pointing would be an useful feature if it was better implemented? We kind of dropped that in the middle of development because it introduced a lot of extra jankiness and we preferred to use our time on content, but I made the prototype with that in mind so you could use your flashlight to point at specific things.
-A lot of things that might feel a bit extraneous to the plot are mostly references to our own previous work and/or other self referential stuff. For example: the al-juarisimi song in the jukebox is from a WIP game we're going to go back to at some point, which is also where the math drawings on the fridge are from. The beer actually exists irl, and it's homebrewed by some of my friends - I wanted to get them in there + poke fun on product placement in games (especially considering no one that doesn't live here can actually get their hands on a bottle). The arcade co-op game also exists, and is playable! We made it almost 10 years ago at a Global Game Jam with some of the team members, that was WAY before we started making games seriously so it's... not very good mechanically 😅 but we had a blast making it and playing it in front of the crowd back then. Also all the card game stuff is from another game I made this year in which I commissioned some of my pals, but we had such a great time working on it that we decided to just team up from here onwards, and here we are! There are some other references but I'm gonna be here all day if I point them all out haha
-The whole office area was a bit of a late implementation so it's a bit less content filled than the rest of the game but I've been thinking about how to make the whole eye fetch quest a bit more interesting - engaging. Do you think moving some diary entries there and / or adding more context about the fictional game company work (example: written notes from the employees) would be a good idea to make the exploring a bit more worthwhile? Also the long room with the single fixed camera was supposed to have something scary / funny at the end but again we prioritized other things above it. And yeah I definitely need to work on the AI following for Sam / James and the AI chasing for the killer.
As a final note I wanna say that I'm *really* into show-not-tell storytelling and I tried to apply that thought as much as possible (and I'm glad that the places where I did feel good!), but I'm still a bit new to writing dialogue and well, writing in general so again I'm very thankful for all your feedback. I'm very clear on where I want to get and how I'd like to tell stories, but I've got a lot to learn so I'm going to keep all this in mind for the future. I feel like I have a good idea on what things I want the player to know but how I get it across is the part where I need more practice in order to present it in an engaging way instead of just rambling on.
Once again: thanks so much for the detailed rundown, for playing so attentively and for taking time to leave all this feedback! Also I hope you'll stick around for when we eventually release an updated version 😁
Re the camera angles: I think it could work as-is if you do more extensive testing and tweaking to make sure the camera angles don't obscure important areas (like in the office section, it was really hard to find the eye hallway door), they don't flip around too dramatically/quickly when the player moves through a zone, and they don't result in clipping or losing the player character (sometimes I'd vanish from camera sight or the camera would look through my model). Also ensure they don't cause friction during the chase sequences. The concept of the security cameras is great and helps silently contribute to the story, so I think finding a way to make them feel seamless to the player experience could enhance the overall game.
I think the mouse pointing would definitely help. Maybe even try out something like click to move. Having to rotate the character before moving was probably the biggest downside of the game for me. It added a lot of frustration and made exploration feel more tedious - steering around wasn't really an important mechanic, if you think about it, as the gameplay is about the exploration and story. I got the feeling that it was meant for controller play, although the ending is obviously one meant for PC users. Adjusting the core movement mechanics will probably also remove most of the friction from the camera angles.
Re references: I didn't mind the extraneous stuff, and I'd suggest adding in more of it when you expand the game. It'll help obfuscate the main plot with red herrings - maybe add some more details which hint towards the demonic angle you teased with the exorcism book, for example. This will make it less obvious that it's just an AI gone rogue. Including more interactive elements with it, such as making the arcade cabinet playable (ala Stardew Valley tavern) will also help flesh out general gameplay runtime.
Re: the office, having some more interactive stuff there would definitely help. Maybe lockpick a filing cabinet (btw were we supposed to ever solve the keypad for Nick's room?) or some stuff like that to find more clues. Static details like a whiteboard or kanban board showing development timelines (maybe fallen over and player has to rearrange them into order based on swimlane tags to reveal the AI roadmap), known bugs (that one definitely has some fun clue potential!), hate mail from a crazy fan, etc could also help enhance the story. I think definitely keep some of the journal entries around the house, as well as add more things like the electricity magazine - these add intrigue, create story hooks and get the player invested in what's going to happen next.
Re: eye fetch, maybe consider brainstorming a whole rework to this entire part of the game. Why would a video game company have eyeballs chilling out in rooms in the first place? It doesn't make sense narratively, it doesn't move the story forward, and the mechanics are dull - maybe there's a way you could address all those issues at once. This is the penultimate part of the narrative, you should be ramping up towards the climax here, so whatever goes in this part should be tense and exciting and build towards that Germain reveal/chase scene.
Re: dialog - I think you were most effective when you incorporated slang and had the characters freaking out. It felt more natural in those parts. My advice would be to brainstorm up different personalities and voices for each character and try to write the dialog for each of them in their own unique voice. Maybe Sam is really sarcastic and James is a cuddly teddy bear always checking on how people are feeling. The way they talk and the things they talk about (maybe include some dialog trees during the party or walking scene) will help show us more about each character and make it feel more natural and engaging. It will also make their deaths more of a gut punch because the player will feel more invested in them.
Great first draft and excited to see where you guys go with it!
Thanks so much for all the suggestions!
The idea for the tank controls were primarily to avoid any movement dissonance between camera angles - since there is a button that explicitly makes you move forward, you always know in what direction you're moving even if the camera angle changes. I do agree that it could do with refinement and maybe an alternate control method (I think point and click could work but it would also generate friction during chases so that would beed a bit of a rework), so it's something we're definitely going to think about in the future.
The keypad for Nick's room was a nod to his favorite game (Deus Ex) or more specifically the whole pantheon of immersive sims where the first lock is a variation of 451 / 0451, and where problems often have various possible solutions to them - in this case, finding an adequate window to smoke in the second floor could be solved either at Nick's bathroom window or through the balcony itself, and the other bathroom's door had two possible methods for opening it. The mention of Nick's favorite game was in passsing and we planned for someone else to refer to that again when spoken to so we'd also implement that in a further update, but regardless we made sure to keep it 100% optional and also "equivalent" content-wise to the rest of the second floor.
I also agree that the office area needs a rework - the trek through the corridors was supposed to feel super weird, as if you stepped into a place that's not quite an office for a bit, and hint you on how the Entity is starting to reach out and impact the "real world". We did rush it a bit so we're definitely going to give it another pass and think about how to empasize that mood further.
And yeah I'm still having a bit of trouble finding the character's unique voices when writing - I have a clear idea on how the characters are supposed to act and think but I still have trouble keeping it all in mind when actually writing the dialogue, but I'm going to keep your tips in mind! And also I do feel like the only way I can get better at it is by practicing so I guess this is just another step in the road. But I hope I can get there soon!
Once again, thanks so much for your time and all the suggestions! We're going to work on a "full" release in the future (probably at some point next year, maybe near spooky season) and I'd be stoked if you could give it another shot once it's done!
Also don't let the ratings get to you, this jam clearly had bots or something. The top game had 3x the number of ratings as the rest of us. Weird jam, really unusual results. Your game is great and has potential for indie publishing.
Edit: Just learned the rating was open to everyone so basically we all got sandbagged by fans of the #1. Don't take it to heart, your game is great.
Thanks! We were reasonably satisfied with our ratings all things considered (I'm especially proud of the #4 in presentation), but it's still very rewarding to see how people that did actually play it had a good time and also saw the potential we have here - it's the main reason we decided to finish the game with a full version in the future instead of just fixing bugs and leaving it there.
Really well done :) Can see a lot of effort went into this! I think maybe the upside down room should of had a little more to it? I know it's purpose is to set up the twist a little but seems like it was meant to be a bit more in there game play wise! I also had issues where the camera wouldn't change for a while! But that's only little nitpick's it was really well done and your team should be super proud :)
Interesting game, the intro with the "You're Next" gameplay set up for a nice tutorial into the main game. I liked the "security cam footage" perspective and how it changes from room-to-room/various angles. Characters have nice designs and I liked the illustration of everyone entering the mansion. I'm a scaredy cat, I got jumpscared by Ollie when I opened the fridge lol. Props to everyone on the team!
Thanks for playing, glad you liked it!
Thanks for the feedback too - if you don't mind me asking, at what point did you feel the pacing started to slow down? We may put out another content update after the voting ends and it would be good to know what parts of the game we could focus on :D
I'm assuming around the office fetch quest but I might be wrong so I'd rather ask
You're next, final girl!
This was insanely fun to play! I booted it up expecting to play for a few minutes, but ended up finishing it in one go. The game was stylish, had phenomenal polish, and intrigued me at every step. There are a few places where I wish the cameras had slightly different angles or there was some varied gameplay, but it more than made up for it everywhere else.
Spoilers:
I really felt that the Entity's thesis about young adults having this unique type of fear was powerful and I wish more of the game built on that! The characters felt real and the game's witty tone was definitely enjoyable. I have so many thoughts about the writing and overall arc, but I won't bore y'all with that, ahah. I'm a big fan of horror movies and game development, so it was incredibly fun to see how y'all played with tropes and 4th wall breaks. (The ending scene really delighted me! Such a fun 4th wall break)
Thanks for playing, really glad you enjoyed it! We packed a ton of references and callbacks and little details and it's lovely to see that they manage to stand out :D
Also, no pressure but I would really appreciate thoughts about the writing and overall arc if you feel like sharing sometime!
I'm a novice writer and though I'm pretty confident about what I want to say and how I want to say it, I'm curious about how much of that I actually manage to get through, how it's interpreted, and what aspects of my writing could use more work. Only if you feel like it though, of course :)
Of course, oh my gosh sorry for not replying sooner! I think a lot of the strength of your writing here was in character voices and balancing humor and horror. There were some times when the characters' dialogue felt a little too cheeky/self-aware, but I feel like that helped with the game's meta-ness and overall theme. I was able to predict all the deaths because I'm a bit of a horror fanatic, but I never felt bored by the story. A lot of the main character's comments felt grounded yet hilariously self-aware.
I remember really being excited by the Entity's thought process about fear and feeding off of the electricity inside our brains. That's such a fun concept and the Entity's dialogue was also very enjoyable. Also, I picked up really early on about the spooky-living code stuff from the notes, so it wasn't a big surprise to me when the killer turned out to be the game's boss come to life. That being said, it was a fun spin to make it an AI that has sort of reached the singularity and is trying to become human in a sense. (Now that I'm typing this, maybe it feeds on fear/our brains because humans are the one thing it does not have infinite access to as AI...what does it mean to be human and is fear part of our universal experience...philosophy is fun)
I think my biggest point of feedback would be to narrow the focus of the Entity down a bit. You bring up ideas of it hunting down those who think they can beat it, the fact that it is living electricity (sort of), how it feeds on fear and/or electricity, and I feel like I remember supernatural elements, but it's been a hot second. While all of these are really interesting on their own, they feel a little disjointed and I wish I could see them all come together a bit more throughout the story or focus on one or two. For example, if it feeds on fear then perhaps it really likes the fear that happens when someone who thinks they can beat it finally loses hope. I feel like narrowing it down and building this central theme of either feasting on fear, living electricity, etc. etc. etc. could help give a cool central thesis/message to the whole thing! There's also a whole part at the end about the voyeuristic pleasure we as audience members get from watching pain and fear on our screens, maybe that's the central message of the game and you can pepper that in throughout the game leading up to the end.
Though all the above is really to say to punch up (basically amp up to 11) the themes while narrowing in on what message you want the writing to send! I'll need to replay it to think of more specifics, but that's certainly what I remember. When I was playing, my partner was watching and I remember rambling about my analysis of the Entity to them especially at the end, :D
Okay enough rambling, hopefully, there were some useful things in here! I'd love to chat more!
Thanks so much for the reply! I'm really glad to see that you engaged with the themes as much as you did, you picked up on all the important themes I wanted to convey. The concept, purpose and origin of the Entity shifted a lot during development because I was trying to make it fit in as best as I could with the actual ending. I'm pretty satisfied with the conclusion I reached with it (powered by fear, manifested physically by electricity) but there are some parts of the dialogue that could better reflect that direction so I'm definitely going to take your advice re: narrowing down the focus and setting up the actual ending a bit better thematically.
We're going to work on an updated version in the (relativaely near) future, taking all the great feedback we got into account, and it would be really cool if you could give it a spin whenever that happens! And again: thanks so much for taking the time to reply! If you have any other advice or feedback or anything else really then hit me up, I'd love to chat more as well!
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